Chapter 82 Virus Town 4

Chapter 82 Virus Town 4

With a mix of incentives and threats, the second customer (captive) was recruited.

The second person stared at the first captive in silence for a long time before letting out a sigh.

The first player, speaking from experience, comforted him, "Look on the bright side—going to the hospital is better than getting eliminated from the game."

However, the second person didn’t feel relieved at all. He pressed his lips together, his expression clearly displeased.

Soon, a third person arrived. This one, however, appeared calm and unhurried, as if being kidnapped was no concern at all.

The first player couldn’t help but ask curiously, "Aren’t you afraid?"

The third person arched an eyebrow, looking surprised. "What’s there to be afraid of? There’s no guaranteed safe place in an instance anyway. It’s better for all players to stick together and have each other’s backs. Besides, if something unexpected happens, we can just figure out a solution, right?"

"And their reasoning doesn’t sound like random bullshit—it actually makes sense. If you think about it calmly, why would the system force all players to attend that lecture? Other than exposing us to the source of infection, could there be another purpose? When you consider it that way, the professor’s mention of patients willingly submitting to quarantine is worth pondering."

"At the time, everything happened so suddenly that all I could think about was running away. But now that I think about it, there was no need to panic—the system wouldn’t give us an unsolvable problem."

The first player was totally speechless.

Seeing that the third captive was quite eloquent and persuasive—and, more importantly, fully supportive of the hospital plan—Su Han decided to hand off the job of convincing other players to him.

The fourth, the fifth… In no time, Su Han and Zhong Rui had gathered ten players around them. Most of them had been persuaded by the third captive and began to think that going to the hospital together was a good idea. Only a few still hoped to find a chance to slip away.

Soon, the eleventh person appeared before them—the young woman who had kept a low profile in the supermarket, barely registering on anyone's radar.

As usual, Su Han stopped her, and the third captive launched into his spiel, attempting to brainwash her.

The young woman seemed surprised to be intercepted but quickly adopted a cold expression. "No. Buzz off." Clearly, she was someone with strong opinions.

"Even if the choice is between going to the hospital for quarantine or dying—you still won’t go?" Zhong Rui pressed.

The young woman smiled faintly and calmly uttered two words: "Not going." She truly had a strong personality.

So Su Han gave her what she asked for. She approached with a dagger in hand and raked the blade across her arm.

Unexpectedly, the young woman refused to back down. She also drew a dagger and lunged forward.

Soon, the two went at each other.

After just a short while, the young woman’s eyes widened in shock. Her dagger attack had landed, but the other’s HP had dropped by less than 3%! How was she supposed to fight this?

Briefly thrown off, the young woman hesitated—but Su Han remained expressionless, laying into her with several more slashes.

"I have explosives on me! At worst, we’ll die together!" The young woman gritted her teeth, too stubborn to yield, and shouted loudly.

Hearing this, Zhong Rui couldn’t help but touch his nose. Just minutes ago, he had threatened to wipe out other players with high-energy explosives. Now, someone was threatening Su Han with explosives, vowing to take her down with them.

Talk about history repeating itself!

Su Han sighed softly, raised her hands, and began backing away.

The young woman relaxed slightly. At this point, her HP was down to less than a third. If she couldn’t intimidate her opponent, she’d have no choice but to surrender.

But the next second—*bang, bang, bang*—three consecutive gunshots rang out.

Looking up, she saw Su Han’s regretful expression. "Was trying to conserve ammo."

The young girl, "..."

Before vanishing into white light, she was filled with regret. If she had known she'd be eliminated, she might as well have gone with them from the start!

The kill was completed, yet Su Han didn't feel happy. Instead, she muttered, "Sending you to the hospital isn't sending you to your death. Why resist so fiercely?!"

The air suddenly went quiet. The captives all let out sighs of relief, trying to avoid drawing the attention of the deadly woman.

"Those three over there are probably players," Zhong Rui suddenly frowned and gestured vaguely. "They seem to have noticed the commotion here and are trying to leave through the staff passage."

Su Han said casually, "You stay here. I'll go have a 'chat' with them."

With that, she left on her own.

Seeing her leave, the captives all let out sighs of relief.

"Holy shit! In all my time playing this game, I've never seen such a fierce female player."

"Not just seen—never even heard of anyone like her!"

"In my lifetime, I actually saw two women going at each other with knives... Are all female players this hardcore now?"

"To be precise, only the hardcore ones make it this far."

Amid the chatter, one person quietly approached and murmured barely above a whisper, "My name is Jiang Yuan. I have no interest in sticking around with a crowd. How about letting me leave?"

Zhong Rui stared at him for a long time before suddenly remembering—this was the second player to join the team. His mind raced, but his expression remained indifferent. "Sorry, to be absolutely safe, all living players must go to the hospital."

Either comply or die—this wasn't just a threat but the simple truth.

"With high-energy explosives?" Jiang Yuan raised an eyebrow, putting on a careless act. "Funny thing is, I also have high-energy explosives in my Portable Storage. If we both set them off, we'd all go down together."

It wasn't until the young girl mentioned they'd all go down together that he suddenly realized—he didn't need to cave to threats at all! Would the other party really risk their life just to send him to the hospital? Impossible!

Yet Zhong Rui didn't even blink. "Mentioning high-energy explosives was just to control the situation. I never actually planned to use them."

Jiang Yuan froze for a second.

"With everyone else agreeing to go to the hospital, wouldn't it be simpler to just kill you? No need to drag others into it." Zhong Rui smirked challengingly. "So? Want to fight me?"

Jiang Yuan, "..."

That wasn't the agreement!!

Jiang Yuan struggled to find words but could only stalk off, fuming—the earlier example was right in front of him, and he had no interest in signing his own death warrant as the dumbass who tried his luck.

Soon after, Su Han returned alone, but her stamina had plummeted to 57%.

"What happened?" Zhong Rui asked.

Su Han replied expressionlessly, "When negotiations broke down, I wiped them all out in one go."

Everyone, "..."

So brutal! So terrifying!

After guarding the supermarket entrance for over an hour, Su Han and Zhong Rui had gathered a total of 27 players. Five of them adamantly refused to cooperate and were thus taken out permanently, while the remaining 22 were taken back to the hospital's isolation rooms.

However, upon returning, the environment had drastically changed. Each isolation room was now guarded by armed guards, and the atmosphere was tense as hell.

At that moment, some players couldn't resist trying to run out, but Professor Chen materialized and barred the door, preventing their escape.

Zhong Rui pulled the person back and calmly asked, "What's going on?"

Professor Chen grumbled, his face sour, "For some reason, three people suddenly tried to escape after entering the isolation room and even busted through the wall. Fortunately, the guards arrived in time and injected them with sedatives, putting an end to the ruckus."

"Preliminary research shows that the new virus is wildly infectious, so we absolutely cannot let the pathogen or possible carriers leave the isolation rooms! Otherwise, all hell will break loose!"

"After discussion, it was decided that guards will remain to watch over the isolation rooms. But don’t worry—they’re only here to prevent patients from escaping and won’t do anything else."

"Just settle in and relax. The hospital will provide three meals a day. As long as it’s confirmed that you aren’t carrying the virus, you’ll be released in five days." Professor Chen pledged earnestly.

Hearing this, many let out quiet sighs of relief. As long as they didn’t draw the short straw and become the pathogen, it was just a matter of staying in isolation for five days. With the hospital providing food and shelter, what's to complain about?

Once they understood, they immediately became cooperative.

Just as the 22 people were being situated into their respective rooms, Ye Qing happened to return with a group.

"Encountered nine, two died, brought back seven," Ye Qing volunteered the info.

"We found 27 here. Five died, 22 were brought back," Zhong Rui did the math. "So, a total of 36 have been found. Forty-five escaped, and nine are still missing."

Professor Chen led the way, getting the players situated.

At that moment, a nurse brought two players inside. "Hello, some people came looking and said they have nearly a hundred companions in the hospital. Is this the right place?"

Glancing up, Su Han saw two familiar faces—they were indeed players.

Without hesitation, Zhong Rui replied, "Yes, we’re companions."

"That’s good." The nurse seemed relieved as she left.

Su Han repeated her analysis.

The newcomers immediately had lightbulb moments.

One said, "I always felt this whole dungeon felt fishy from the start. So that’s how it is."

The other added, "We heard the broadcast, so we came to check the situation." At the same time, he counted his blessings that they had come.

The first one continued, "Need any help?"

Su Han pointed at the isolation rooms and said seriously, "Just hole up honestly for five days—that would be a huge help."

The two: "..."

Zhong Rui added, "There are still seven loose out there. Deal with them, and this will be over. But the players locked in the isolation rooms can’t be trusted to behave, so someone needs to keep watch."

Only then did the two fully understand and saluted mock-seriously, "No problem, we’ll keep watch."

"Mm." Zhong Rui nodded slightly.

Professor Chen came to take the new batch of residents away, leaving only Su Han and the other four once again.

"Didn’t expect you to bring back over twenty people," Ye Qing said with a poker face, though his eyes went slitty.

In truth, they hadn’t just encountered nine people at the pharmacy—the actual number was eleven. But considering that more people would make management harder, he had conveniently overlooked them.

He had thought he’d done well, only to get his ego checked upon returning.

Su Han shrugged it off. "Several dungeons went by without resupply, so players’ stashes were running on empty. Since we met them in the supermarket, we just brought them all back."

"Just brought them back..." Ye Qing kept a straight face but thought to himself, *She’s totally trolling us!*