Chapter 43: Chapter 43: Director’s Office
A mutated zebra brought Ye Fan nearly five hundred pounds of Mutant Beast Meat.
Upon collecting this Mutant Beast Meat, Ye Fan keenly realized that this was truly a valuable resource.
According to Nana, this was almost a side-effect-free superfood, capable of stimulating potential and strengthening the body; it might become a strategic resource in the future.
It seemed that collecting Mutant Beast Meat was an essential task during the rescue mission to save his sister at the school.
However, Ye Fan’s satisfaction did not last long.
After hunting another antelope in the herbivore open-range area, they moved on to the primate zone.
This area included many types of monkeys, as well as orangutans, baboons, mandrills, and silverback gorillas.
There were quite a few purple dots here, and though Ye Fan was careful, he encountered a deadly crisis.
There were as many as seven or eight mutated monkeys on Monkey Mountain!
Monkeys are naturally social animals, and after mutation, they became extremely bloodthirsty; the surrounding human and animal bones were clearly their handiwork.
When Ye Fan and his group arrived, monkeys lounging in a shady corner suddenly sprang out, monkey after monkey as large as gorillas, launched an attack on Ye Fan’s team!
Xiaotian and another military dog struggled to resist, but the number disparity was too great, and still, four or five monkeys charged at the troops.
The movements of these creatures were too quick, instantly injuring two soldiers, and even killing one No-Star Conscript on the spot!
Seeing the monkey’s claws slice through the Conscript’s throat, Ye Fan’s heart tightened.
This was the first fallen unit of the Red Alert System he had obtained.
Against zombies and survivors, these Red Alert Soldiers demonstrated immense combat strength, but facing these agile and ferocious Mutant Beasts, soldiers were not always effective, especially in the No-Star state.
Ye Fan couldn’t worry about attracting other Mutant Beasts and zombies; he immediately ordered to open fire.
However, firearms seemed to have little effect on these extremely agile monkeys.
As soon as the monkeys saw the guns raised, they darted up and down like lightning, making it extremely difficult to hit them accurately.
They climbed treetops, jumping from the air, grasping vines, darting like lightning; even if your eyes were slightly slower, you would lose track of them.
Every mutated monkey was even faster than Mutated Zombies with agility.
Only the Sniper killed one, and Xu Haoran injured another; the remaining monkeys continued chattering, attacking at any moment.
Moreover, the monkey calls and gunfire had already attracted other Mutant Beasts.
Ye Fan saw on his radar map, a swarm of purple dots approaching from other directions, along with a large cluster of red dots, which were zombies wandering nearby.
"No, in this open area, being besieged by Mutant Beasts and zombies will definitely lead to total annihilation; we should find a safe place to hide."
Ye Fan glanced at the map and noticed a nearby building.
Other places were filled with purple dots, but this building had only scattered red dots, indicating it was a residence.
"Let’s go, over there, quick, run with me!"
Two medics carried a stretcher with a severely injured Conscript, and two lightly injured were supported by two Three-star Conscripts.
The others provided covering fire, rapidly moving sideways towards the building.
Ye Fan saw behind them, a silverback gorilla standing over two meters high while running appeared.
This brute was simply a violent maniac, capable of snapping trees with a punch, angrily flipping over blocking cars, leaping towards the team with menace.
The soldiers’ bullets hit its body, raising blood splatters, but these were superficial wounds, not enough to be fatal, only making it more furious.
Seeing the gorilla closing in on the team, just as Ye Fan was worried, Flamethrower Warrior Wang Aiyu moved forward.
Sniper Chen Chuan immediately covered Wang Aiyu, firing three consecutive shots, all hitting the gorilla’s abdomen at the same spot. Only his bullets could penetrate the gorilla’s skin, leaving its abdomen bloodied, slowing its movements a bit.
Seizing this opportunity, Wang Aiyu opened fire.
When the blazing flames like a flaming jet erupted from the Flame Gun, a wave of painful screeches and howls echoed behind.
Within a forty-five-meter range, it instantly turned into hell on earth!
The pursuing gorilla, three mutated monkeys, two baboons, and even a mutated ostrich that appeared from nowhere were engulfed by the flames.
The gorilla, its body ablaze, fled in another direction, towards the zoo’s artificial lake.
Primates have higher intelligence, understanding how to use water to extinguish fire, but only the gorilla escaped. The other monkeys and baboons, due to their smaller size, couldn’t withstand the flames and after running around for a while, collapsed to the ground, turning into charred remains.
Even one monkey climbed up a tree, setting it ablaze.
The mutated ostrich charged out with a rumble, driven by inertia, but crashed headfirst into the roadside sandpit and couldn’t get back up.
This use of the flame gun consumed one oil tank’s worth of fuel for Wang Aiyu. The flame gun could be used twice more, and then it would need to refresh.
Although the flame gun was effective against mutant beasts, the commotion attracted more mutant beasts and zombies.
A large group of mutated birds flew out from the Hundred Birds Garden, darkening the sky like a mass of dark clouds approaching!
A one-star conscript at the back was immediately injured, and being attacked by mutant beasts would also turn them into zombies.
"Three-star soldiers hold the rear, and everyone below three-star provides covering fire!"
Three-star Army Soldier Luo Fei became the main force, leading several three-star conscripts in firing densely.
As three-star combat units, they wouldn’t be infected. These mutated birds weren’t particularly large in size, and without infection, it wasn’t easy to kill the soldiers.
Dozens of firearms formed an intersecting web of firepower, with bullets whizzing through the air, shredding the mutated birds in the sky and the mutant rabbits and raccoon-like beasts charging from the ground to bloody pieces.
However, there were still too few soldiers, and mutant beasts occasionally broke through the web of fire, with all the three-star soldiers in front already wounded.
There was even a mutant leopard, nearly as big as Xiaotian now, climbing the trees and lunging forward.
Xu Haoran and Luo Fei fired simultaneously, and the dense bullet barrage forced the mutant leopard to momentarily halt. Then Wang Aiyu unleashed another burst of flame, incinerating a flock of mutated birds and easing the pressure on the soldiers.
Fighting and retreating, they finally reached the building in front. Ye Fan led the people quickly into the building just as the zombies arrived. Wang Aiyu unleashed the last burst of flame at the horde of zombies coming from the left, consuming more than forty zombies in the inferno and giving Ye Fan and the others some retreat time.
After three consecutive blasts of flame, the wounded and the medic engineer hadn’t made it inside. Ye Fan thought the loss would be substantial, but unexpectedly, after the three flame bursts, Wang Aiyu leveled up, becoming a one-star Flamethrower Warrior.
The maximum flame burst reached four times. He used it three more times in different directions, covering the retreat of the wounded to inside the building with only one flame burst opportunity remaining.
Outside, the air was filled with scorched earth, and the scent of roasted meat wafted in the air.
Humans had entered the building, and the mutant beasts and zombies outside were feasting on their fallen comrades, beginning a large-scale consumption.
The scent attracted more and more zombies and mutant beasts, and although they didn’t usually interfere with each other, they all came to forage.
Soon, there were over a thousand zombies gathered outside, along with numerous mutant beasts of various sizes.
The building was now besieged.
Retreating to the safety of the stairwell, the medic urgently treated the wounded while the others cleared out the stray zombies inside the building.
The results of the trip weren’t much; after clearing the zombies inside the building, Ye Fan ended up with only 300 gold.
Ye Fan converted the gold, giving all the medicines from the medical box to the medic for use, and used up three vials of Antiviral Serum.
He glanced outside at the sounds of feasting and roaring downstairs, sighing inwardly.
He had been somewhat reckless, realizing in hindsight that they shouldn’t have come to Monkey Mountain. He underestimated the monkeys’ agility and ferocity. Not only did a No-Star conscript die, but many were injured, and they’re now trapped here.
The zombies weren’t too difficult to deal with; a few steady waves would clear them out, but mutant beasts were definitely not to be trifled with.
Ye Fan’s military dog count was insufficient, and there weren’t enough Flamethrower Warriors and Snipers, nor ordinary soldiers.
It was close to midnight, and once the ammunition refreshed, they might still struggle against these mutant beasts.
Unless his current strength drastically increased, escaping from this predicament would be unlikely, and it’d likely turn into a prolonged stalemate.
Unfortunately, Ye Fan had no money for production.
He walked around inside the building for a while and saw an office at the end of the fourth-floor hallway.
The Director’s Office!
He opened the door and entered, finding nobody inside, probably because the zoo director wasn’t there when the incident occurred.
He expected a lavishly decorated office, but it turned out to be quite simple in appearance.
Besides the standard office desks and chairs, there was only a large bookshelf with various books on specialized knowledge and some small ornaments.
There were also some words on the wall, like tranquility implies distance, and never forget carelessness.
Ye Fan knew that Lingshui Zoo had been contracted out years ago, and this director was a businessman from the south, presumably wealthy, but it didn’t look like it now.
Unwillingly checking around, his gaze fell on a row of ornaments.
Various small animal ornaments, not large, yellow-golden, placed on a rack that seemed somewhat shabby.
"Are these little animals gold? It shouldn’t be; this office is quite low-key, isn’t it?"
But Ye Fan was in a dire situation with money now, so he wouldn’t overlook any golden or white metals. He immediately went to the bookshelf to check what these items were made of.