The appearance of Talent Cards and player legacies sent a cold shiver down Yuna Bishop’s spine.
At the same time, an indescribable emotion began to spread through her.
‘This isn’t good at all.
With Talent Cards and player legacies in the mix, I can only imagine how brutal the conflict between players is going to get.’
Shaking off her shock, Yuna Bishop quickly used both Talent Cards.
Her previously garbage attributes immediately looked much more impressive.
The legacy from the two players consisted only of the items in their backpacks.
To be precise, only the items *inside* the Backpack Grids counted as a legacy, not the grids themselves.
They had both claimed their quest rewards before dying, which all went to Yuna Bishop now.
It wasn’t much, of course—just the rewards from a side quest.
Yuna Bishop claimed her own quest rewards as well.
She now had 4 Backpack Grids, 7 Disinfectant Bandages, 6 bottles of Antibiotics (+32 Health), a Crossbow with 6 bolts (+15 Attack Damage), a rusty dagger (+2 Attack Damage), and a Sharp Knife.
Although she had no food or water, Yuna Bishop was now strong enough to take on zombies.
She wrapped a Disinfectant Bandage around her leg.
The wound healed instantly, and her Blood Volume returned to full.
Yuna Bishop drew up a plan for her next move.
The top priorities were finding a shelter, food, and water.
Only a safe shelter would allow her to survive the dangerous nights.
This house definitely wouldn’t work; it was too close to the hospital.
A vehicle was also essential.
Without one, she wouldn’t be able to explore over long distances.
Yuna Bishop rested briefly and searched the house, finally finding a compressed biscuit (+30 Satiety, -20 Hydration) in the kitchen.
‘A house this big, and all it has is a single compressed biscuit.
How stingy.’
There were over twenty houses in this area.
Her earlier exertions at the hospital had nearly drained her Physical Strength, so she had to search and rest intermittently.
Some of the houses contained zombies, but they were mostly common Tier 1 Zombies.
Yuna Bishop had a Crossbow, and its bolts were reusable, making it easy to kill these zombies.
After searching all the houses in the area, Yuna Bishop had found three cups of instant noodles (+21 Satiety), three self-heating rice meals (+31 Satiety), an apple (+4 Satiety, +2 Hydration), and five bottles of mineral water (+30 Hydration).
She had only gotten two of those water bottles thanks to her Talent activating.
With so many new supplies, Yuna Bishop tried to exploit a bug with the Backpack Grids.
She tried to put all the supplies into a physical backpack and then place that backpack into one of the grids.
Unfortunately, she failed.
The system kept giving her a prompt: “Item error.
Cannot be stored.”
In addition to the supplies she’d scavenged, the zombies also dropped loot.
It wasn’t food or water, however, but vials of blood and a bicycle key.
[Key to an Old-fashioned Bicycle: Can quickly unlock the corresponding locked vehicle.]
[Mutated Blood LV.1: Blood mutated by the zombification process.]
[You have triggered a side quest: Tier 1 Mutated Blood Collection (6/100)]
[Hint: Collect zombie blood and exchange it for valuable supplies.
Reward: 10,000 RMB]
The Mutated Blood had unexpectedly triggered a side quest for Yuna Bishop.
She leaned against the bed in the room, munching on dry instant noodles as she planned her next move.
It was already noon.
She had to find a suitable shelter as soon as possible.
‘The city center is out of the question.
A more remote location with fewer zombies would be a better choice for a shelter.’
There ought to be residential areas near the hospital.
Yuna Bishop drank the last drop from a water bottle.
Aside from her Physical Strength, her stats had basically recovered to their maximum values.
As it turned out, the bicycle key that had just dropped from a zombie matched a bicycle inside the house.
She changed into a set of clothes she found in the house, shouldered her backpack, and set off on the bicycle.
After leaving the house, she found a fair number of zombies scattered along the road, almost all of them Tier 1.
In the distance, beyond the cluster of houses, Yuna Bishop saw many tall buildings.
Even in the daytime, that area looked gloomy and felt fraught with danger.
She didn’t head that way.
Instead, she chose the opposite direction, pedaling along unhurriedly on her bike.
The road was littered with abandoned vehicles, and the ground was covered in debris and trash.
The cars had already been picked clean of supplies.
“Huh?”
Yuna Bishop stopped beside an abandoned cargo truck.
This vehicle was clearly different from the cars around it.
It had a black body with a large red symbol on the side, which looked like the insignia of some organization.
‘I think…
I’ve found something major.’
She glanced left and right, and after confirming she was alone, she knocked lightly on the side of the truck.
There was no sound from within.
Yuna Bishop hesitated for a moment before opening the truck’s rear cargo doors.
The cargo bay was empty except for a single, solitary black case.
It was locked with a passcode that Yuna Bishop couldn’t crack.
[You have triggered a side quest: The Watcher Organization’s Lost Item]
[Hint: Return the case to The Watcher Organization.
They typically operate in The Old District of Salix.]
[Reward: Unknown]
Yuna Bishop had now triggered two side quests.
Neither of them looked easy.
The merchant who collected Mutated Blood was on the outskirts of the city, while The Watcher Organization was in The Old District.
She carefully searched the truck’s cab and found a map in the center console, along with a pack of 20 cigarettes (+27 Emotion Value, long-term use will cause nicotine addiction).
‘Now this is a pleasant surprise.’
Yuna Bishop quickly opened the map and was surprised to see that her current location was, in fact, on the outskirts of the city.
This meant she was likely not far from the merchant who collected Mutated Blood.
Yuna Bishop currently had 13 vials of it.
With the map, Yuna Bishop quickly planned out a suitable location for a shelter, one that was relatively far from most of the large buildings.
It wouldn’t be convenient for gathering supplies or killing zombies, but the trade-off was that it would be safer at night.
She would kill zombies and collect blood on her way to the shelter’s location.
The day was getting late; she had to find a place to spend the night soon.
Yuna Bishop stuffed the map into her backpack and set off again on her bike.
It was still afternoon, so there weren’t too many zombies around.
Most of the city’s zombies seemed to be hiding, just like the ones in the hospital.
On the way to the shelter, Yuna Bishop killed a good number of Tier 1 Zombies wandering the streets.
Occasionally, she’d run into a Tier 2 Zombie, and it took her considerable effort to kill it.
The Mutated Blood dropped by the Tier 2 Zombie was, naturally, also Tier 2.
Yuna Bishop discovered that a single vial of Tier 2 zombie blood was equivalent to 100 vials of Tier 1!
As if on cue, not long after Yuna Bishop completed the collection quest, a small camp suddenly appeared in an empty lot by the side of the road.
A person with the shimmering title [NPC — Mutated Blood Merchant Sue Carter] floating above their head was standing right in the middle of the camp!