Chapter 173: Chapter 173: You Survived Too?
An unknown location.
Lin Yi walked along the dark corridor, muttering to himself.
"These shoes are killing my big feet... How small are this guy’s feet?"
The zombie’s pants were too big, and the shoes were too small...
After walking for about two minutes.
"What kind of junk is this?"
Lin Yi saw a strange man standing in front of him, dressed in a gray cloak and wearing a large hat.
But that wasn’t important. What mattered was his position—he stood by the wall, next to something that could barely be described as a mini streetlamp.
Anyway, this strange man was illuminated by this weird little streetlamp.
The weirdo turned to face Lin Yi and said,
"Over here, stranger!"
"Are you talking to me? Heh, I was just thinking about skinning someone."
Lin Yi said truthfully, wanting no part in dealing with this thing.
Upon hearing this, the man’s face showed a peculiar, unsettling expression, and he replied,
"You can’t kill me, I’m a merchant."
"Oh, what a coincidence, I used to be one too!"
At this point, Lin Yi finally got a clear look at his face...
Or rather, he couldn’t see a face at all. Judging from the movement of the skin around his mouth, he had one, but it was covered...
An unknown voice sounded again:
[This is a merchant. He cannot attack you, and you cannot kill or rob him. The merchant is obliged to trade fairly with you. You can purchase items with coins from him!]
"Is that so?"
Lin Yi was overjoyed and ran up to the merchant. The merchant chuckled and opened his cloak...
Thankfully, he wasn’t naked under the cloak; otherwise, Lin Yi might really have tried to kill him.
...Or kick his vital parts.
Inside the cloak hung various items including food, tools, pills, and weapons.
"Beginner’s baseball bat! Ten coins... That’s a bit expensive. What do these pills do?"
"These are attribute pills. The first pill is one coin, and it increases an attribute by one point; the second pill costs two coins and also increases the same attribute by one point; the third pill costs three coins... You get what I mean, right?"
"So each time I buy a pill, the price will go up from the last one? That’s a rip-off... Is this for all pills or just one type of attribute pill?"
"The price for each type of attribute pill is calculated separately, stranger!"
"Alright then... Give me the baseball bat, one strength pill, and one agility pill."
The merchant nodded and handed the items to Lin Yi.
[You have spent 12 coins!]
[Your current balance: 0]
"Stranger, you can safely take both pills at once!" The merchant shrugged.
Lin Yi nodded as a customer would, then swallowed both pills... They were a bit sweet; one tasted like strawberry and the other like banana.
[Your power has increased from 10 to 11]
[Your agility has increased from 10 to 11]
"Not bad, but too bad I can’t carry the attribute bonuses when I wake up..." Lin Yi muttered to himself.
The merchant just smiled.
At least it seemed like a smile...
From here on, Lin Yi became more vigilant.
In video games, after visiting a shop, the difficulty always ramps up... but after wandering for a minute, he still hadn’t noticed anything unusual, which actually made him a bit nervous.
"What’s this? A locked door... Should I just walk over there? But now I have a baseball bat!"
Lin Yi finally opened the door and peeked inside.
He saw a room that looked like a locker room, with about thirty large lockers scattered with clothes everywhere, and lots of bloodstains...
"It would be great if I could find some clothes."
As soon as Lin Yi entered the room, he immediately took off his shoes; they hurt his feet so much.
"Ah, much better... Hope I can find some decent stuff, like a pair of boots. Smashing a zombie’s head wearing sneakers is quite a pain."
[Welcome to the bonus level!]
[Survive, and you’ll receive additional rewards!]
Lin Yi frowned, the door closed behind him, and he couldn’t open it...
One of the lockers opened, and an old man in a school uniform began to crawl out.
Uh... More precisely, he tried to crawl out, but as soon as the door opened, Lin Yi rushed over.
He ruthlessly smashed the head of this old schoolmate who was halfway out.
Crunch!
Another door started to open, and then another, and yet another...
Lin Yi ran back and forth between the doors, landing hits one after another, like playing whack-a-mole.
But the fifth old man managed to crawl out of the locker.
Lin Yi lost the initiative, more and more old men crawled out of the lockers...
He retreated to a corner of the room, toppled a few lockers to form a makeshift barrier, and then knocked down the most active zombie.
Making it part of the barrier!
"I really should boost... my endurance..."
After killing the fifteenth old man zombie, Lin Yi began to struggle for breath.
His arms grew weaker, but the enemies kept coming.
Even worse—a trio of giant old lady students suddenly emerged from three different lockers.
Lin Yi genuinely couldn’t fathom how they managed to fit inside the lockers initially.
He quickly climbed over the barrier piled with bodies, onto one of the lockers, and then leaped from one locker to another, reaching the other side of the room.
The zombies followed him one by one, forming a train-like line as they chased after him.
The ones in the back were blocked by those in the front, unable to move until the zombies ahead were out of the way.
Hehe, the show is about to begin!
Lin Yi started swinging his bat from above.
No matter how fat your head is, it can still be smashed!
The only problem is, when these three hefty old ladies fell, they triggered a small earthquake.
If just one of them pressed down on him, there’d be no way he’d be able to push it off, and he’d only be eaten by zombies...
Ten minutes passed,
[Congratulations, you successfully passed the reward level!]
[Do you want to claim your reward?]
"Is there any idiot who would say no? Better give me a good weapon with infinite ammunition."
[Rewards will be drawn randomly!]
[Congratulations! You have obtained an axe!]
"So, why did I buy this baseball bat? A sword would be nice too! I XXOO you!"
Lin Yi complained, as a one-handed axe appeared on the floor in front of him.
Apparently, this was an axe meant for chopping off limbs and heads, not chopping wood.
Because there were some runes on the axe.
But no one knew how to use it...
Five minutes later.
Lin Yi looked at himself in the mirror.
"Not bad, pretty good! I look way better in a school uniform than those old guys."
He was now wearing a school uniform, even the shoes fit perfectly!
"Now I need to find the merchant to boost my attributes!"
He walked out of the room and casually strolled back to where the merchant was, but no one was there anymore...
After wandering around in the hallway, Lin Yi finally found an open room.
Inside the room were several large shelves filled with all sorts of ancient equipment—
including vintage CRT televisions, dot-matrix printers, and some odd-looking, apparently cobbled-together gadgets.
Meanwhile, in a dark room, a wheel began to spin, the pointer was about to stop on a slot...
But at the last moment, it went past again!
Lin Yi was scrutinizing the shelves when he heard that annoying voice again.
[Welcome to the reward level!]
[Survive, and you will receive an additional reward!]
"What the hell?! Every door hides a reward level..."
He hadn’t finished talking when he heard a hissing sound.
It wasn’t a girl hissing at him, but an actual snake making the sound, and it was very loud...
"Please, anything but snakes..."
Lin Yi turned towards the source of the sound, first seeing a pair of yellow eyes, followed by a head as big as a giant crocodile’s.
Upon seeing the giant snake, he immediately sprinted towards the shelves at top speed.
Bang!
The snake, undeterred by the old electronics, easily flipped everything off one of the shelves.
Lin Yi saw the clearing and immediately leaped in that direction, chopping at the snake’s belly with the axe.
Just looking at that belly made him nauseous, imagining that this snake could swallow him whole in one bite...
The snake hissed in pain.
Its huge head knocked over more electronic devices, thrashing about toward Lin Yi.
But Lin Yi quickly flipped over another shelf.
The snake relentlessly pursued him.
"Why don’t they give me a chainsaw or a rocket launcher?! How on earth am I supposed to kill this monster, huh? Jump down its throat and choke it to death?"
Lin Yi shouted, while the snake hissed several times, seeming quite pleased with the idea.
The snake contracted its neck, swiftly lunging at Lin Yi.
He hadn’t anticipated this move, but managed to dodge it at the last moment.
He had no skills to use here, but his combat instincts had already sharpened his natural reaction speed significantly.
Unfortunately, the snake scratched his left arm, the wound wasn’t deep but it bled a lot...
If he didn’t bandage the wound soon, he might bleed out.
Lin Yi counterattacked, slicing through the snake’s outer skin before hopping around the shelves.
The snake kept pursuing him, but as he darted under its body, he made sure to slash its belly, then hid behind a shelf.
"...I’ve got an idea!"
Lin Yi deftly started circling around, jumping from one shelf to another, forcing the snake to chase its own tail while continually chopping at it.
Eventually, all the ten-meter-high shelves came crashing down, burying both man and snake...
Lin Yi scrambled to escape the collapsing shelves, but came up a few centimeters short from the edge of the danger zone.
"...I’m alive!"
He shouted, pushing the fridge off him.
Although he got smacked on the forehead and broke a couple of ribs, overall, he was pretty much okay.
"Hiss hiss hiss..."
"Ha, you’re alive too? Congratulations!"
The wounded Lin Yi, seeing the snake with its head full of debris, decided not to waste a good opportunity.
Using his last ounce of strength, he jumped onto the snake and began hacking at its neck with the axe.
The snake hissed, trying to break free.
It managed to free part of its tail, starting to slowly wriggle out from beneath the wreckage, but Lin Yi kept chopping its neck.
It was a race to see who would be faster, whether the man could chop off its head before the snake fully escaped.
In the end, Lin Yi once again proved why he stood at the top of the food chain.
The snake let out one final, hair-raising shriek before its body collapsed entirely on the floor...