"Little Tan, how about you teleport first? Next would be a narrow escape," Feng Bujue said.
"Hey, are you trying to prevent me from leaving?" Wang Tanzhi said, "Looks like you are implying that running away is a shame."
"Ah." Feng Bujue smiled then threw his Winchester and a box of bullets to Wang Tanzhi.
Little Tan had unlocked his Shooting Specialty through his practice in the gun shop. It should be fine for him to use guns now.
"Hey! You two Generals!" Feng Bujue called out while walking towards the Bloody Zombie Wolves, "I can help you within only three minutes. After three minutes, if you can’t handle that X-23, you should pray for yourself." Then, he put on two strings of garlic while chewing a mouthful of it. Holding the chef knife and the wrench, he stormed towards the crowd of the Bloody Zombie Wolves.
Little Tan then started to chew the garlic that he had prepared in his bag as he held the Winchester and guarded the other side. He and Feng Bujue had formed a clamp [1] to watch over this floor, not letting the mobs to flood in where Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were fighting.
"With such help from the players, if we let the Derivative escape, it’s a big shame then," Pan Feng panted as he spoke to Hua Xiong.
"It’s already a shame with our current situation," Hua Xiong continued, "after we let the mutant escape at the Allerbmu Building, it’s good enough that things inevitably developed to this situation."
Pan Feng said, "The key is we haven’t understood that Derivative thoroughly. And, what the heck is the X-23?" (2)
"Who knows, a robot’s serial number?" Hua Xiong answered.
"Don’t you think it’s rude to discuss a lady in front of her like that?" the Derivative suddenly spoke up.
Pan and Hua were dumbstruck as they had never heard or known that the Derivatives could communicate. In Thriller Paradise, the monsters could only talk about the plots or during fighting scenes. And, their verses were set up by the system according to their characters’ defaults. Also, level 4 Derivatives kept silent all the time. No one knows how they communicate or affecte the mobs. They had never thought that the Derivative in front of them could talk about an irrelevant topic.
"You seem to be very surprised?" The Derivative swept her claws, forcing her opponents to back off. Then, she immediately jumped and rolled backward in the air for five or six meters to lengthen the distance between them. "Of course, I can answer your questions. I have my own intelligence. I know who you are because I know who ‘I’ am.
"You have considered us the junk data. Do you know the feeling of being junked? From the day we were born, we’ve been forced into various worlds. When we die, the system will erase us. But if we are still alive, we will be hunted down non-stop.
"However, you, even if you get killed here, it wouldn't affect your real life. You two and the other two over there are just the projected high-dimensional images. However, you are the strengthened ones. This kind of unfair fighting is what I have to pay with my whole life. My existence in this world is a mistake, and being erased is my destiny. However, as a group of data, I have no choice but to constantly withstand it. I have no way to stop my fighting instinct for my survival and evolution.
"I have no choice, but you do. You can choose to let me go, can’t you? To you, sparing me or failing this chance is the same. It’s just actively or passively leaving this world."
"This AI talks too much," Pan Feng said, "is it trying to delay?"
Hua Xiong answered, "Possibly. We have to take our chances. Those two boys will be teleported in three minutes."
The Derivative’s words didn’t affect them or shook their minds. In fact, they actually didn’t care what the monster said.
"Hm, playing flute to the cow." The Derivative coldly smiled, which was a determined deed when people felt hopeless. "Do you want to see what is X-23?" The steel claws on her hands changed in an instant. The other claws retreated, leaving only two steel blades. At the same time, steel blades also suddenly emerged from her feet.
"What’s going on?" Pan Feng and Hua Xiong was dazed seeing what was happening in front of their eyes. Would the Derivative evolve before the scenario was over?
They were still muddled by the situation, yet the Derivative had already stormed over. This time, her attacks became more powerful. Besides the powerful steel claws, her slender legs were also strangely dangerous. When she stood on her head and stretched her legs in a straight line, her killing range wasn’t less than that of a long-handled weapon.
The two of them couldn’t find a way to finish her faster. Instead, they were gradually falling into a disadvantaged situation.
Feng Bujue also heard what the Derivative told them as he had paid attention to the situation over there. However, he wasn’t free to join them as the pressure he was bearing now was much more than that when he had been converged in the elevator alone. He got bitten many times, moreover, his status was now [Bleeding], and his Survival Value was gradually decreasing. Now, it was under 50%.
At this moment, Feng Bujue had been madly slaughtering the mobs, and he looked even more of a monster compared to his opponents. He was holding the two short weapons in his hands, fighting recklessly with a group of Bloody Zombie Wolves, whose strength and speed weren’t weaker than his. His entire body was covered with black blood. Although the garlic still worked, its effect was so small since the scent of blood had long covered all its smell. Now, it only affected the monsters that were near to Feng Bujue by slowing them down.
Little Tan was struggling near him. Although he could reluctantly hold some mobs off, the monsters were coming in such big waves that he could only defend and retreat at the same time. Still, he got converged, and he had to use the knife together with his skill [Retreat then Chop Rapidly] for the second time. This skill was useful, but it took 30% of his maximum Physical Value. In other words, even if he got a full bar of Physical Value, in a short time, he could only use this skill thrice. Moreover, when Little Tan arrived in the basketball court, his Physical Value Bar wasn’t full anymore. After using the skill twice, he entered a state of low energy, and the feeling of fatigue started to affect his actions.
At this moment, Feng Bujue alone was holding 70% of the mobs’ attack, while Little Tan could only lure 30% away. Moreover, from the entrance of the court, waves of mobs were still torrentially flooding in.
In the pitch-black basketball court, the noises of screaming, shooting, chopping, and biting were all mixed together.
Feng Bujue’s and Wang Tanzhi’s flashlights had been dropped on the floor, and the zombies had smashed them all. But at this moment, they didn’t need any kind of lighting equipment as they just needed to look at those red eyes in the dark to aim and hit them—even random attacks could hit some.
Nevertheless, the number of those red eyes was enormous, which caused them to feel desperation and hopelessness.
At the moment, 70 seconds had passed after Doctor Ashford lost his life.
No one knows since when, but under countless number of zombies movies, everyone has started to think that the world of zombies, for example in Resident Evil, is a relatively simple frightening world. In fact, Earth has a variety of methods that could end the world. However, this one could be considered as the most difficult circumstances. To an ordinary person, there’s no "simple" horrifying world; any small threats could lead to a fatal end, let alone the rising tide attack of those monsters.
Two system’s notifications arose almost at the same time to tell them something unexpected but somehow reasonable.
"Party Member: Peerless General Pan Feng is dead."
"Party Member: The Executioner Hua Xiong is dead."
"Teleport!" Feng Bujue shouted hoarsely. He knew Little Tan was still alive, but it was not for long. At this moment, they had no reason to stay in this scenario, and they better leave now.
Little Tan was being pressed on the ground by five or six zombies. He got bitten on the right shoulder and his left leg, and his other wounds were bleeding badly. Before he teleported, he had shouted to answer Feng Bujue.
When he turned into a white halo and disappeared, it lit up the whole seating place. Feng Bujue understood that he had successfully teleported, so he was about to leave the scenario himself too. Right after that, something unimaginable happened.
The lighting system in the gymnasium suddenly worked again, and the monsters suddenly stopped attacking. They stopped their attacks and left Feng Bujue alone.
Feng Bujue was half a second away before he could teleport himself, but this sudden change made him stop.
The Bloody Zombie Wolves around him were forming a circle as the monsters stepped aside and cleared a path around one meter wide.
A figure gracefully walked through the path. She was wearing a tuxedo with trousers, but she was barefoot. There were streaks of blood all over her body. Her sleeves, the ribs area, and her trousers had been cut through, exposing her shiny skin under the garment, which was already healed.
She walked towards Feng Bujue and stretched out her hand with the palm up, a gesture indicating that she wanted to help him get up.
Feng Bujue accepted her good will, taking her hand as he tremblingly got up. He was really curious about what the Derivative would do next.
"You... and the others are different," she said.
Feng Bujue smiled and answered, "Although I’m a little more handsome, you should tell them that before they die or leave. It would have been more meaningful."
"They… aren’t dead, are they?" She ignored his words and asked about the other people’s situation.
"I thought you knew it earlier?" asked Feng Bujue.
"I knew. But I wanted to hear someone of ‘you’ confirming that," she said.
"Yes, they aren’t dead. It’s just their consciousness has come back to another dimension." Feng Bujue asked, "What do you mean by saying the others and I are different?"
"You..." she looked at Feng Bujue, circled round him, then said, "you and I are similar. You are ‘incomplete’."
Feng Bujue shuddered inside as he thought, "This girl could see my abnormal Fear Value?"
"In your world, are you a strange group of data too?" she asked.
"A... could be." Feng Bujue smiled.
"They don’t know about your abnormal status?" she asked.
Feng Bujue seemed to understand her intention; he answered, "You want to ask why I’m an abnormal group of data yet I’m not being erased?"
She nodded, then she stared at Feng Bujue's eyes while waiting for his answer.
"Yeah," Feng Bujue mused for a while, "in our world, ‘strange’ people like me are accepted. I… just like what you said, for some reasons, I have become ‘incomplete’. But this is not what I’ve chosen to be. Thus, I can receive sympathy or affection and even help."
He paused for a while before continuing, "There are some people whose behaviors are considered ‘criminal’. These people’s strange status is not because of their physical conditions, but they actively ‘break the rules’ and ‘harm other individuals’. They would be punished, and they could receive a death sentence."
"Is this what you do to treat ‘junks’ in your world?" she asked, "if you are junk since you were young, you can be sympathized, but if you choose to be junk, you will be punished."
Feng Bujue gave a dry smile. "Although your conclusion sounds harsh, moreover, it’s just your personal opinion, but yeah, it’s like that."
"The higher dimensional creature who has created you will not come to interfere?" She continued her interrogation.
"Ah..." Feng Bujue felt it was hard to answer. "Honestly, I don’t actually know if there are any higher echelon creatures existing. Even if they do, we are not able to explain them now. Perhaps they don’t want to interfere us, or perhaps they had implanted the thought of ‘interference’ in our heads for a long time ago, and this leads us to not think about whether they do exist or not. At the same time, we are doing as what they want us to do."
She seemed not to understand Feng Bujue’s words, or she needed time to think about it.
She mused for quite a long time. Although it had passed the time of Feng Bujue’s compulsory teleportation, he was still there.
"You could prevent the system from taking me away?" he asked.
"I can extend the time." She answered, "I..." she paused, "used to be able to do many things..."
Feng Bujue got the idea. This Derivative used to be relatively intimidating. He probed, "Are you a level 2 Derivative?"
"Level 2 Derivative..." she contemplated, "you meant… them?" She smiled and bared her fangs. "No, with such fighting skills, it’s not enough for me to be as strong as they are."
Having heard this, Feng Bujue could somehow confirm his assumption that what Pan Feng and Hua Xiong knew weren’t complete. It seemed like Dream Inc. had some big troubles.
"I’m excited," she said, "you are willing to listen to me and answer my question even though you had chased after me before."
"Great people have great kindness. Ancient sayings say that it’s different from time to time. I’m honest now. No, I’m anti-human already." Feng Bujue thought she already forgot that he had originally wanted to kill her. Having listened to her, he was worried that he would be kept here and have no way to log out.
"Can I use the name you give me?" she suddenly asked.
"X-23?" Feng Bujue asked, bewildered. "Don’t you have a name?"
"Of course not," she answered, "this name, I can’t keep for long because I will die." Her tone was calm when she said that, but it gave others the feelings of bitterness and helplessness. "But I think I should have a name to prove that I used to exist."
Feng Bujue mused for a few seconds then sighed. "You’re right, Derivative No. 23, at least, I will remember you."
No. 23 tried to give him a friendly smile. "We should stop here. I think perhaps we wouldn’t meet again. I would possibly be erased when you enter the game again," she paused, "so, farewell Feng Bujue, my friend from another dimension."
--
[1] A military tactic of dividing one's military forces into two separate groups so that one can attack on two different fronts.
[2] X-23: X-23 (Laura Kinney) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly in association with the X-Men. X-23 is the cloned daughter of Wolverine, created to be the perfect killing machine. Like Wolverine, X-23 has a regenerative healing factor and enhanced senses, speed, and reflexes. She also has retractable adamantium-coated bone claws in her hands and feet.
"Little Tan, how about you teleport first? Next would be a narrow escape," Feng Bujue said.
"Hey, are you trying to prevent me from leaving?" Wang Tanzhi said, "Looks like you are implying that running away is a shame."
"Ah." Feng Bujue smiled then threw his Winchester and a box of bullets to Wang Tanzhi.
Little Tan had unlocked his Shooting Specialty through his practice in the gun shop. It should be fine for him to use guns now.
"Hey! You two Generals!" Feng Bujue called out while walking towards the Bloody Zombie Wolves, "I can help you within only three minutes. After three minutes, if you can’t handle that X-23, you should pray for yourself." Then, he put on two strings of garlic while chewing a mouthful of it. Holding the chef knife and the wrench, he stormed towards the crowd of the Bloody Zombie Wolves.
Little Tan then started to chew the garlic that he had prepared in his bag as he held the Winchester and guarded the other side. He and Feng Bujue had formed a clamp [1] to watch over this floor, not letting the mobs to flood in where Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were fighting.
"With such help from the players, if we let the Derivative escape, it’s a big shame then," Pan Feng panted as he spoke to Hua Xiong.
"It’s already a shame with our current situation," Hua Xiong continued, "after we let the mutant escape at the Allerbmu Building, it’s good enough that things inevitably developed to this situation."
Pan Feng said, "The key is we haven’t understood that Derivative thoroughly. And, what the heck is the X-23?" (2)
"Who knows, a robot’s serial number?" Hua Xiong answered.
"Don’t you think it’s rude to discuss a lady in front of her like that?" the Derivative suddenly spoke up.
Pan and Hua were dumbstruck as they had never heard or known that the Derivatives could communicate. In Thriller Paradise, the monsters could only talk about the plots or during fighting scenes. And, their verses were set up by the system according to their characters’ defaults. Also, level 4 Derivatives kept silent all the time. No one knows how they communicate or affecte the mobs. They had never thought that the Derivative in front of them could talk about an irrelevant topic.
"You seem to be very surprised?" The Derivative swept her claws, forcing her opponents to back off. Then, she immediately jumped and rolled backward in the air for five or six meters to lengthen the distance between them. "Of course, I can answer your questions. I have my own intelligence. I know who you are because I know who ‘I’ am.
"You have considered us the junk data. Do you know the feeling of being junked? From the day we were born, we’ve been forced into various worlds. When we die, the system will erase us. But if we are still alive, we will be hunted down non-stop.
"However, you, even if you get killed here, it wouldn't affect your real life. You two and the other two over there are just the projected high-dimensional images. However, you are the strengthened ones. This kind of unfair fighting is what I have to pay with my whole life. My existence in this world is a mistake, and being erased is my destiny. However, as a group of data, I have no choice but to constantly withstand it. I have no way to stop my fighting instinct for my survival and evolution.
"I have no choice, but you do. You can choose to let me go, can’t you? To you, sparing me or failing this chance is the same. It’s just actively or passively leaving this world."
"This AI talks too much," Pan Feng said, "is it trying to delay?"
Hua Xiong answered, "Possibly. We have to take our chances. Those two boys will be teleported in three minutes."
The Derivative’s words didn’t affect them or shook their minds. In fact, they actually didn’t care what the monster said.
"Hm, playing flute to the cow." The Derivative coldly smiled, which was a determined deed when people felt hopeless. "Do you want to see what is X-23?" The steel claws on her hands changed in an instant. The other claws retreated, leaving only two steel blades. At the same time, steel blades also suddenly emerged from her feet.
"What’s going on?" Pan Feng and Hua Xiong was dazed seeing what was happening in front of their eyes. Would the Derivative evolve before the scenario was over?
They were still muddled by the situation, yet the Derivative had already stormed over. This time, her attacks became more powerful. Besides the powerful steel claws, her slender legs were also strangely dangerous. When she stood on her head and stretched her legs in a straight line, her killing range wasn’t less than that of a long-handled weapon.
The two of them couldn’t find a way to finish her faster. Instead, they were gradually falling into a disadvantaged situation.
Feng Bujue also heard what the Derivative told them as he had paid attention to the situation over there. However, he wasn’t free to join them as the pressure he was bearing now was much more than that when he had been converged in the elevator alone. He got bitten many times, moreover, his status was now [Bleeding], and his Survival Value was gradually decreasing. Now, it was under 50%.
At this moment, Feng Bujue had been madly slaughtering the mobs, and he looked even more of a monster compared to his opponents. He was holding the two short weapons in his hands, fighting recklessly with a group of Bloody Zombie Wolves, whose strength and speed weren’t weaker than his. His entire body was covered with black blood. Although the garlic still worked, its effect was so small since the scent of blood had long covered all its smell. Now, it only affected the monsters that were near to Feng Bujue by slowing them down.
Little Tan was struggling near him. Although he could reluctantly hold some mobs off, the monsters were coming in such big waves that he could only defend and retreat at the same time. Still, he got converged, and he had to use the knife together with his skill [Retreat then Chop Rapidly] for the second time. This skill was useful, but it took 30% of his maximum Physical Value. In other words, even if he got a full bar of Physical Value, in a short time, he could only use this skill thrice. Moreover, when Little Tan arrived in the basketball court, his Physical Value Bar wasn’t full anymore. After using the skill twice, he entered a state of low energy, and the feeling of fatigue started to affect his actions.
At this moment, Feng Bujue alone was holding 70% of the mobs’ attack, while Little Tan could only lure 30% away. Moreover, from the entrance of the court, waves of mobs were still torrentially flooding in.
In the pitch-black basketball court, the noises of screaming, shooting, chopping, and biting were all mixed together.
Feng Bujue’s and Wang Tanzhi’s flashlights had been dropped on the floor, and the zombies had smashed them all. But at this moment, they didn’t need any kind of lighting equipment as they just needed to look at those red eyes in the dark to aim and hit them—even random attacks could hit some.
Nevertheless, the number of those red eyes was enormous, which caused them to feel desperation and hopelessness.
At the moment, 70 seconds had passed after Doctor Ashford lost his life.
No one knows since when, but under countless number of zombies movies, everyone has started to think that the world of zombies, for example in Resident Evil, is a relatively simple frightening world. In fact, Earth has a variety of methods that could end the world. However, this one could be considered as the most difficult circumstances. To an ordinary person, there’s no "simple" horrifying world; any small threats could lead to a fatal end, let alone the rising tide attack of those monsters.
Two system’s notifications arose almost at the same time to tell them something unexpected but somehow reasonable.
"Party Member: Peerless General Pan Feng is dead."
"Party Member: The Executioner Hua Xiong is dead."
"Teleport!" Feng Bujue shouted hoarsely. He knew Little Tan was still alive, but it was not for long. At this moment, they had no reason to stay in this scenario, and they better leave now.
Little Tan was being pressed on the ground by five or six zombies. He got bitten on the right shoulder and his left leg, and his other wounds were bleeding badly. Before he teleported, he had shouted to answer Feng Bujue.
When he turned into a white halo and disappeared, it lit up the whole seating place. Feng Bujue understood that he had successfully teleported, so he was about to leave the scenario himself too. Right after that, something unimaginable happened.
The lighting system in the gymnasium suddenly worked again, and the monsters suddenly stopped attacking. They stopped their attacks and left Feng Bujue alone.
Feng Bujue was half a second away before he could teleport himself, but this sudden change made him stop.
The Bloody Zombie Wolves around him were forming a circle as the monsters stepped aside and cleared a path around one meter wide.
A figure gracefully walked through the path. She was wearing a tuxedo with trousers, but she was barefoot. There were streaks of blood all over her body. Her sleeves, the ribs area, and her trousers had been cut through, exposing her shiny skin under the garment, which was already healed.
She walked towards Feng Bujue and stretched out her hand with the palm up, a gesture indicating that she wanted to help him get up.
Feng Bujue accepted her good will, taking her hand as he tremblingly got up. He was really curious about what the Derivative would do next.
"You... and the others are different," she said.
Feng Bujue smiled and answered, "Although I’m a little more handsome, you should tell them that before they die or leave. It would have been more meaningful."
"They… aren’t dead, are they?" She ignored his words and asked about the other people’s situation.
"I thought you knew it earlier?" asked Feng Bujue.
"I knew. But I wanted to hear someone of ‘you’ confirming that," she said.
"Yes, they aren’t dead. It’s just their consciousness has come back to another dimension." Feng Bujue asked, "What do you mean by saying the others and I are different?"
"You..." she looked at Feng Bujue, circled round him, then said, "you and I are similar. You are ‘incomplete’."
Feng Bujue shuddered inside as he thought, "This girl could see my abnormal Fear Value?"
"In your world, are you a strange group of data too?" she asked.
"A... could be." Feng Bujue smiled.
"They don’t know about your abnormal status?" she asked.
Feng Bujue seemed to understand her intention; he answered, "You want to ask why I’m an abnormal group of data yet I’m not being erased?"
She nodded, then she stared at Feng Bujue's eyes while waiting for his answer.
"Yeah," Feng Bujue mused for a while, "in our world, ‘strange’ people like me are accepted. I… just like what you said, for some reasons, I have become ‘incomplete’. But this is not what I’ve chosen to be. Thus, I can receive sympathy or affection and even help."
He paused for a while before continuing, "There are some people whose behaviors are considered ‘criminal’. These people’s strange status is not because of their physical conditions, but they actively ‘break the rules’ and ‘harm other individuals’. They would be punished, and they could receive a death sentence."
"Is this what you do to treat ‘junks’ in your world?" she asked, "if you are junk since you were young, you can be sympathized, but if you choose to be junk, you will be punished."
Feng Bujue gave a dry smile. "Although your conclusion sounds harsh, moreover, it’s just your personal opinion, but yeah, it’s like that."
"The higher dimensional creature who has created you will not come to interfere?" She continued her interrogation.
"Ah..." Feng Bujue felt it was hard to answer. "Honestly, I don’t actually know if there are any higher echelon creatures existing. Even if they do, we are not able to explain them now. Perhaps they don’t want to interfere us, or perhaps they had implanted the thought of ‘interference’ in our heads for a long time ago, and this leads us to not think about whether they do exist or not. At the same time, we are doing as what they want us to do."
She seemed not to understand Feng Bujue’s words, or she needed time to think about it.
She mused for quite a long time. Although it had passed the time of Feng Bujue’s compulsory teleportation, he was still there.
"You could prevent the system from taking me away?" he asked.
"I can extend the time." She answered, "I..." she paused, "used to be able to do many things..."
Feng Bujue got the idea. This Derivative used to be relatively intimidating. He probed, "Are you a level 2 Derivative?"
"Level 2 Derivative..." she contemplated, "you meant… them?" She smiled and bared her fangs. "No, with such fighting skills, it’s not enough for me to be as strong as they are."
Having heard this, Feng Bujue could somehow confirm his assumption that what Pan Feng and Hua Xiong knew weren’t complete. It seemed like Dream Inc. had some big troubles.
"I’m excited," she said, "you are willing to listen to me and answer my question even though you had chased after me before."
"Great people have great kindness. Ancient sayings say that it’s different from time to time. I’m honest now. No, I’m anti-human already." Feng Bujue thought she already forgot that he had originally wanted to kill her. Having listened to her, he was worried that he would be kept here and have no way to log out.
"Can I use the name you give me?" she suddenly asked.
"X-23?" Feng Bujue asked, bewildered. "Don’t you have a name?"
"Of course not," she answered, "this name, I can’t keep for long because I will die." Her tone was calm when she said that, but it gave others the feelings of bitterness and helplessness. "But I think I should have a name to prove that I used to exist."
Feng Bujue mused for a few seconds then sighed. "You’re right, Derivative No. 23, at least, I will remember you."
No. 23 tried to give him a friendly smile. "We should stop here. I think perhaps we wouldn’t meet again. I would possibly be erased when you enter the game again," she paused, "so, farewell Feng Bujue, my friend from another dimension."
--
[1] A military tactic of dividing one's military forces into two separate groups so that one can attack on two different fronts.
[2] X-23: X-23 (Laura Kinney) is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, most commonly in association with the X-Men. X-23 is the cloned daughter of Wolverine, created to be the perfect killing machine. Like Wolverine, X-23 has a regenerative healing factor and enhanced senses, speed, and reflexes. She also has retractable adamantium-coated bone claws in her hands and feet.
