In the anime, people are in everyday Tokyo, but they are playing the reincarnation game Chapter 067

Chapter 67: The Silent City.

“That’s good news.”

Hearing Asagiri’s affirmation, Iwanaga Kotoko couldn’t help but curl her lips, like a child showing off her achievements, slightly raising her chin, triumphantly saying.

“Not only that, I can feel that these zombies, due to their low intelligence, have mental resistance that isn’t even comparable to ordinary people, let alone evil spirits. So, my Curse of Gaze, which originally could only cause negative effects, can instantly kill them if used on them~ How about it, amazing, right?”

Asagiri smiled and nodded: “Amazing.”

Iwanaga Kotoko, with a hidden agenda, smiled and said.

“Then, Leader, will you reward me by carrying me? After all, my physical strength isn’t very good, plus I’m disabled, so moving around is very difficult. You wouldn’t be heartless enough to watch me suffer like this, right?”

“Moral blackmailing me?”

Asagiri returned the smile: “Fortunately, I have no morals, otherwise I would have really been blackmailed by you. Walk yourself.”

Seeing her scheme fail, Iwanaga Kotoko muttered softly.

“What an ungentle guy…”

“Anyway, regarding the answer to this dungeon’s puzzle…”

Asagiri took out his phone, looking at the detailed map of the city, his gaze fixed on the “Ren’ai Hospital” sign in the center of the city, and said lightly.

“Perhaps we’ll find it here.”

…

When the four left the apartment building and came to the street, they found that there was no trace of any zombies within sight. It wasn’t the kind of post-apocalyptic scene they imagined, with zombies rampant on the streets, putrid smells everywhere, like a living hell. Instead, it was a silent, lifeless dead city.

This strange sense of incongruity made Yuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi, who had already cleared two dungeons, feel that something was wrong.

“There isn’t even one zombie? This…”

Yuki Asuna frowned, gripping the exorcist’s longsword in her hand.

To be honest, if the four of them had encountered dozens, or even hundreds, of zombies as soon as they came out, she wouldn’t have been so nervous. But now, this situation where they knew there was danger but didn’t know where it came from was the most suffocating and heavy.

“Please always pay attention to your surroundings… Wait a minute, what is this?”

Just as Yuki Asuna was thinking this, she noticed some sticky yellowish-green liquid on the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle parked on the street. Although she had mild mysophobia, at this moment, they were in a dungeon, so she didn’t care much and immediately went closer to observe.

“This liquid… it’s disgusting, and it emits an extremely strong stench…”

While Yuki Asuna was observing, Asagiri also came over.

He squatted down, observing the sticky yellow liquid on the motorcycle’s exhaust pipe, and said thoughtfully.

“The color of this… it looks a bit like bile.”

“Bile?”

Yuki Asuna raised her hand and tucked her long hair, saying thoughtfully.

“Could it be that someone died here, and their body was torn apart in a tragic way, leaving bile behind?”

“Not likely.”

Asagiri shook his head, scanned the surrounding ground, and said softly.

“There are no bloodstains on the surrounding ground, nor are there any body parts or internal organs.”

At this point, Asagiri paused slightly, then stood up, looked at Yuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi in front of him, and put forward a reasonable hypothesis that the three of them had not thought of before.

“Although the keyword for this dungeon is ‘zombie’, and the name of the dungeon location also contains the words ‘apocalypse’, and there are indeed zombies, those slow-moving zombies that don’t spread viruses simply cannot pose a fatal threat to players. If there were many of them, that would be one thing, but there isn’t even a single zombie on the street, so I believe that the main test set for this dungeon is not zombies.”

“Indeed, the difficulty of this dungeon is strangely low.”

Iwanaga Kotoko, leaning on her cane, thought while analyzing.

“The so-called zombies are not only weak, but at the place where we entered the dungeon, there was just a book that told us that zombies move slowly and don’t spread viruses, and that the city’s water source is not contaminated. So much valuable information, the system’s arrangement must not be a coincidence. The only reasonable explanation is… the system wants players to go out and explore, which is why it provided so much information at the beginning, letting players know that even if they encounter ordinary zombies, as long as they deal with them carefully, it won’t be too dangerous.”

“Then…”

Kato Megumi asked cautiously.

“If there are players who, even knowing this information, still don’t want to face any danger, and just want to hide in the place where they entered the dungeon, and then wait until the time limit ends to clear it…”

“Then they’re dead.”

Asagiri shook his head, his tone flat.

“This isn’t a newbie dungeon, it won’t be that easy to clear. Giving two different clear objectives seems like the system is allowing players to choose freely, but in reality, it’s precisely because there’s a choice that there’s a (sense of). The first part of this dungeon’s test is the players’ initiative. To put it more bluntly, it’s to eliminate those who just want to muddle through the dungeon and don’t care about the clear rewards. Those kinds of players are worthless to this game.”

“So the second part of this test is this strange bile trace?”

Yuki Asuna seemed to have thought of something and said.

“Could it be that… this bile is the trace left by so-called ‘special infected’? The public hint is to pay attention to the surrounding environment, meaning to let players avoid those special infected during their actions, and then collect information like maps to find the route to ‘Ren’ai Hospital’?”

“Hmm, for ordinary players, this is the most reasonable plan to achieve a high-level clear rating, but I want to verify something. Violet can also gain strength by killing, so…”

At this point, Asagiri’s eyes showed an eager excitement.

“Let’s go find those special infected.”

…

Nearly an hour later, in an underground parking lot.

“More bile… and the amount has clearly increased…”

Yuki Asuna looked at the ground, walls, and surrounding vehicles, which were covered in a large amount of yellowish-green sticky liquid, and looked at Asagiri beside her, saying softly.

“It seems we’re very close.”

During the process of tracking the bile traces and searching for “special infected,” Asagiri and his group had already determined their location. The straight-line distance from the city center’s “Ren’ai Hospital” was about twenty kilometers. Even for ordinary people, if they walked faster, they could reach it in about three hours.

However, they had to constantly observe the surrounding environment and guard against special infected that could appear at any time. Ordinary players couldn’t act without fear or hesitation like Asagiri and his group, so it was unknown how much time it would take.

“Yes, and it just had to be a parking lot…”

Just as Asagiri said this, a sound like vomiting came from behind a van about twenty meters in front of them.

“Ugh…”

Along with the sound of vomiting, a large blob of yellowish-green sticky liquid fell to the ground.

The next second, from behind the van, walked out a bloated creature with an exaggeratedly bulging stomach, and tumor-like growths on its face, stomach, and two arms.

“Is that a special infected…?”

Seeing the special infected appear, Yuki Asuna tightened her grip on the exorcist’s longsword and was about to attack, but was stopped by Asagiri.

“Wait, step back.”

Asagiri led Yuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi silently backward, while raising his black gun-shaped summoner and aiming it at his temple.

“Persona…”

“Demi-fiend.”

The moment Demi-fiend appeared, the bloated special infected with the bulging stomach seemed to sense the commotion coming from their direction. It slowly turned around with sluggish movements, took a step, and slowly walked towards where Asagiri and his group were standing.

But before it could take two steps, Demi-fiend was already in front of it. Its huge right hand reached out and grabbed the special infected’s head like a ball, then, ignoring the creature’s two cystic arms flailing, directly dragged it back behind the van.

Immediately after, there was a loud bang.

“Bang!!!”

Yuki Asuna and Iwanaga Kotoko were both familiar with this sound. They had heard a similar sound during the last hotel dungeon when the two suicidal players’ bodies exploded.

“OK, problem solved.”

Asagiri canceled the Demi-fiend’s summon, and because the Persona was a power condensed from his mind, he could also feel the approximate destructive power generated when the bloated special infected exploded through the Demi-fiend.

Immediately after, Asagiri led Yuki Asuna, Iwanaga Kotoko, and Kato Megumi to the back of the van. What they saw was a mess: body parts, internal organ fragments, yellowish-green mucus, blood and flesh. These disgusting things were all mixed together, making Yuki Asuna and Kato Megumi instinctively turn their heads, unable to bear to look at the scene.

Iwanaga Kotoko, however, did not avert her gaze, as if this disgusting scene did not affect her at all. She just murmured.

“So that’s it, this guy’s ridiculously bloated belly is full of bile. Once hit by an external force, it will explode. It’s the kind that can’t be killed at close range, only with long-range attacks…”

After saying this, Iwanaga Kotoko looked at Asagiri, curious.

“You said earlier that you wanted to confirm something through the special infected. What was it?”

“It’s this.”

Asagiri pointed to the ground. The three girls, Iwanaga Kotoko, Yuki Asuna, and Kato Megumi, followed the direction of his finger. They saw a black object, about two centimeters long, that would be easily overlooked if not paying attention, lying quietly amidst the blood, flesh, and yellowish-green mucus.

“This is…”

Iwanaga Kotoko recognized the object at a glance, frowning.

“An implanted locator?”