Guided by Noir’s keen sense of smell, Yuna Bishop soon caught up to the group of players.
As it turned out, they were also headed to The Old District, which was convenient.
In this instance, trapping and killing other players was actually quite easy.
All you had to do was lure a horde of zombies over.
However, this method could easily backfire, as zombies were extremely dangerous.
But this tactic was an absolute no-go at night—the probability of it backfiring was as high as ninety-nine percent!
Unless Yuna Bishop had enough firepower to suppress the zombies.
The only reason that group of players had managed to escape was due to the “fearless sacrifice” of that one mentally unstable player.
Otherwise, they would have been zombie food long ago.
With Noir’s help, it wouldn’t be that difficult for Yuna Bishop to set a trap for them.
Yuna didn’t even need to get involved personally.
All she needed was an alarm clock.
She had found it in one of the houses she’d searched earlier.
Those residences had little in the way of proper food, drink, or supplies, but they were full of all sorts of junk that seemed useless at first glance.
Now that she had Noir’s storage space, Yuna could collect more of this miscellaneous stuff that could only be called junk.
‘Thank the system, and thank Noir.’
Yuna felt her greatest advantage might not be her Talent, but Noir.
After the players entered an apartment building, Yuna took note.
The Old District had quite a few of them, but the buildings weren’t very tall; the highest was the twelve-story one she had stayed in before.
Carrying several alarm clocks, Noir moved with light-footed stealth and crept into the apartment building.
As a dog raised by Yuna, Noir was extremely reliable.
Not only did it plant the clocks, but it also opened the doors to several rooms where it could hear movement.
Players killed by zombies didn’t drop any legacy items, nor did they drop their Talents.
But Yuna still chose to send these players to their deaths.
Her moral standards were about as high as the buildings in The Old District—which is to say, not very.
The zombie density in The Old District was incomparable to the city outskirts where Yuna had been before.
The streets were packed wall-to-wall with them.
Only some of the smaller alleys or the narrow gaps between buildings had fewer zombies.
Yuna’s Nail Gun wasn’t loud.
Although its Attack Damage was a bit low, its main advantage was that it didn’t attract the attention of the zombies.
While killing zombies in The Old District, Yuna discovered a problem.
The Tier 1 and Tier 2 zombies here seemed to have slightly higher Blood Volume than the ones outside. Find the original chapter at g.com.
‘Is it because they’re in a horde?’
Yuna pulled the trigger, killing a zombie in the apartment hallway before her.
She had cleared out all the zombies in the second-floor hallway, so she could now begin searching for supplies.
Finding The Watcher Organization was important, but gathering supplies was even more so.
Side quests were just a bonus.
Yuna knew how to prioritize, and she could keep her curiosity in check.
These apartments were all the same, a standard layout for a single person: one bedroom, one living room, one kitchen, and one bathroom.
This made searching convenient for Yuna.
With her Scavenger Trash Man Talent, she could easily tell which places had supplies and which didn’t.
However, just because her Talent didn’t react didn’t mean a room was completely empty of supplies.
Yuna’s Talent only reacted to system-recognized supplies—that is, resources with stat panels.
Things like bedsheets, duvet covers, tables, and chairs were judged as invalid supplies, but in reality, they were still useful.
Supplies in the apartment building were just as scarce, averaging one useful item for every three rooms.
Sue Carter, on the other hand, had an absurd amount of supplies.
It seemed as though the NPC Merchants had scoured the entire city clean, leaving nothing behind for those who came after.
Relying on her Talent bonus and her own scavenging, Yuna could barely manage to keep herself and Noir fed.
She also had a ranged weapon.
However, other players weren’t so lucky.
The larger the player team, the bigger the problem of staying fed became.
But if they acted alone, they were easily targeted by other player teams.
They’d barely finish scavenging some supplies before someone would show up and rob them.
In worse cases, they were killed outright, dropping their Talent and legacy items.
The fact that players dropped their Talents and legacy items upon death was no secret.
Most players hadn’t yet worked up the courage to kill another person.
Besides, killing was a short-sighted strategy that would deplete the player pool.
It was more profitable to play the long game.
If you wanted to be a lone wolf, you needed to have the strength to back it up.
The Simian Crew, the team that had tried to rob Yuna Bishop before, was one such group struggling just to get by.
In the real world, these people were the dregs of society who loved to stir up trouble.
They didn’t change their ways one bit after entering the game.
Like Noir, they had gotten very lucky.
They’d stumbled upon an NPC Merchant fighting zombies and stole his gun while he was distracted.
In the last room on the second floor of the apartment building, Noir returned to Yuna’s side.
A moment later, a loud alarm blared from the building not far away!
Worried the alarm wouldn’t be loud enough, Yuna had even fashioned a makeshift amplifier out of cardboard and sticky rice grains.
The sound of the alarm was clear and loud.
Yuna’s timing was perfect.
The players had just reached the upper floors, so even if they wanted to escape, they wouldn’t be able to get out in time.
The tremendous noise attracted a massive number of zombies.
Yuna stood on the top floor of her building, gazing at the terrifying scene in the distance.
The alarm continued to ring incessantly.
All the zombies on the street formed a frantic tide, surging in a single direction.
By the time the players realized what was happening, it was too late.
Yuna hadn’t given them enough time to react, and Noir had hidden the clocks so well that they couldn’t find them.
Escaping the building was even more impossible, as there were already a large number of zombies in the vicinity.
‘I really need to get some binoculars.’
From this far away, Yuna couldn’t see very clearly, but she could faintly hear human screams.
It wasn’t just binoculars.
She should also try to upgrade things like flashlights, lighters, tents, boats, and quilts.
After all, this was an apocalyptic survival game.
Any kind of environment was possible, so it was best to be prepared.
With this one move, Yuna not only doomed that player group but also cleared out the zombies for other players nearby.
Yuna noticed many players poking their heads out to observe the situation.
‘Leave it to Veridians to love a bit of gossip and drama, no matter the time or place,’ she thought.
Having sacrificed that group of scumbags for the benefit of other players, Yuna and Noir returned to the hallway and sped up their search.
Just as they were searching the sixth floor, Noir suddenly pricked up its ears.
Its gaze grew alert and serious as it stared intently in one direction.
Yuna immediately went to the window.
After getting a clear look at the figure outside, her expression became just as grim as Noir’s.
The human and dog exchanged a look, then immediately bolted downstairs!
This was a classic case of shooting herself in the foot.
The commotion from the alarm clock had attracted a Tier 6 Zombie!