QT: LAC Chapter 119: Eighth World (2)

Chapter 119: Eighth World (2)
Translated by Zombie Shiya of Exiled Rebels Scanlations
Editor: Sulo

Bai Duan was handsome and beautiful, and even more so with a smile. He was slim, white and had a pet monkey. He didn’t look like a strong man who could travel through the city alone, but rather like a well-off young master of a rich family protected by others.

“You were alone? Nearly a week’s journey?” The soldier who spoke to him frowned, and had an obvious tone of disbelief.

Bai Duan heard the suspicions of the other side, but he did not mind it. His appearance made it really suspicious after all, “I’m not alone, he’s my companion.” He pointed to the golden snub-nosed monkey, Bai Duan’s eyes were clean and calm, “And don’t judge by my thin and weak appearance. In fact, my physical strength is very good, my movements are very flexible, and I have the ability to control plants.” After a short pause, he continued looking a little shy, “Although I have powers, but in the city, it was not very practical, so most of the time I resorted to using weapons.” Then he showed off the golf club he had in his hand — it was already the third weapon he had to change to.

Along the way, Bai Duan also saw people with the same ability, and although the numbers of such people was not much, there was no need to hide anything.

Sure enough, when Bai Duan mentioned that he had esper powers, the frown on the soldiers soon eased. Espers could manipulate elements, and their physical fitness was also better than ordinary people. If he was an esper, it made sense how he was able to cross the city alone.

“If you keep going south, you will be under the military’s jurisdiction area. The military has cleared the zombies in the surrounding areas, so it’s still relatively safe. Since you managed to come here on your own, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to get to the base alone,” The soldier raised his finger and pointed to the south, “However, if you don’t want to go alone, you can join us for a while. We are going to search for survivors in the designated location. After the mission is completed, we will bring you back to the base together with the other survivors.”

Bai Duan thought for three seconds and made a decision, “Let me go with you. My strength is enough for me to not hold you back. Maybe I can help you. I want to do my best for the base as well.”

——It sounded so righteous, but Bai Duan said it just for show. It would be hard for him to stand on his feet if he got to the military base alone. But if he completed the task together with this group of soldiers and showed his strength, and became friends with them during the period, he would get better treatment when he finally arrived at the base.

Besides, working with the army had more benefits that obviously outweighed the risks.

Hearing Bai Duan’s choice, the soldiers who negotiated with him nodded and didn’t say anything more, so they arranged him into the rear troop carrier to sit with a group of soldiers.

These soldiers were not very old. They were in their twenties like Bai Duan. It was easy for young people to communicate with each other, and it was even easier because Bai Duan’s appearance was very pleasing

Bai Duan didn’t hide from any of the soldiers’ questions. Then he talked about the golden snub-nosed monkey on his shoulder — he could see that these soldiers were actually more interested in the golden snub-nosed monkey than in himself.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen a national first-class protected animal up close! When I went to the zoo in the past, those animals were all hidden very tightly. It would be very lucky to even see its shadow from outside the cage!” A soldier looked at the golden snub-nosed monkey with salivation and tentatively reached out for a touch.

It was a pity that the golden snub-nosed monkey couldn’t adapt to the environment full of strangers. He swerved away, stepped on Bai Duan’s shoulder with his hind paw and hid behind Bai Duan’s head by balancing itself with his front paw. His body was taut like a bow. He gave a warning scream to the soldier, turned his lips and showed his sharp canine teeth.

The soldier retreated his hand in embarrassment. Bai Duan pulled the restless monkey out from his back and held it in his arms. He didn’t care about his messy hair, but first smoothed out the monkey’s hair.

Huddled in Bai Duan’s arms, the golden snub-nosed monkey soon calmed down, wagged his tail, yawned, and turned his offensive stance down. Looking at the interaction between Bai Duan and the golden snub-nosed monkey, the soldiers were all envious, “Your relationship with it is very good. . .”

“Yes, I took care of it when I was working in the zoo. Then it escaped from the zoo somehow, and met me. Along the way, I have been taken good care of by him and took him in as an important companion,” Bai Duan smiled and looked at the golden snub-nosed monkey’s eyes which were full of softness and love.

With animals as the topic, Bai Duan and the soldiers soon became close. He guided the golden snub-nosed monkey to eliminate his fear and try to come in contact with other people. As a result, there was a lot of laughter in the car, which slightly scattered the gloomy atmosphere after the end of the day.

In order to ensure the safety of the soldiers and bring the survivors back to the base as safely as possible, the scope of each military search and rescue was not large.

In the search and rescue operation, Bai Duan’s attitude was particularly proactive, fully showing his strength that allowed him to cross the city alone. At the beginning, he fought bravely in the front with an iron bar in hand. After the soldiers trusted him more, Bai Duan got a gun as a weapon. Although Bai Duan had never used a gun before, under the guidance of the soldiers, he soon got the hang of it and became more and more skilled and precise.

In addition to Bai Duan, his golden snub-nosed monkey also impressed the soldiers. This little thing was not afraid of zombies at all. He climbed high to hit zombies. Zombies didn’t seem interested in animals either. Unless the zombies were completely enraged, they would ignore it most of the time.

Sometimes, soldiers would take advantage of this trait. Making the monkey explore the road ahead. Once the monkey encountered a large group of zombies, it would scream at the top of its lungs, the team had avoided many unnecessary battles because of that.

Due to his outstanding contributions, Bai Duan was soon appreciated by the soldiers and successfully achieved the purpose of his trip.

When the convoy returned to the base with more than forty survivors, Bai Duan was treated differently from other survivors. As the soldiers testified that Bai Duan had not been scratched by zombies, he entered the base directly with the soldiers without having to go through the 48 hours of quarantine, and the dormitory assigned to him was better than the other survivors. The military also rewarded him with some daily materials in recognition of his heroic performance in this operation.

Meanwhile, Bai Duan had successfully established his footing in the base and lived a more peaceful life.

Because he didn’t like the shackles of military discipline very much and didn’t have the thought of sacrificing for the people, Bai Duan politely refused the invitation to join the military and still maintained his status of being a free esper. But he often took part in the search and rescue operations of the military, and reached a kind of friendly and harmonious cooperation relationship with them. As a result, he met many soldiers, who were familiar with each other in the base. No matter who, everyone in the base knew that there was a handsome and powerful young man in the base, with a precious golden snub-nosed monkey on his shoulder.

Occasionally, Bai Duan would join other survivor teams and go out to search for supplies. On one hand, he was rewarded by the military, on the other hand, he was able to find materials for himself, so Bai Duan had a good life in the base. However, he didn’t have any great ambition. If he had enough materials to enjoy for more than ten days, he would be lazy and would not act. In his spare time, he often went to the dog training camp in the base to kill his time.

Because of the heavy task of searching and rescuing at present, most of the people from the military dog training camp had been transferred to the task. Only one or two soldiers stayed behind to take care of the daily training and breeding of the military dogs.

At the beginning of the outbreak, many soldiers in the military camp became zombies. It took the military a lot of effort to eliminate all the zombies. During this period, many military dogs also sacrificed themselves. Now there were less than thirty of them left.

However, it was still a very heavy task for one or two people to manage, and the arrival of Bai Duan had this urgent problem solved.

Bai Duan’s animal affinity was invincible, even the trained military dog had a high initial liking for him.

Even though Bai Duan did not systematically learn how to train military dogs, when he issued the command, the dogs would be very obedient, which greatly relieved the pressure of the soldiers in the training camp. Bai Duan’s relationship with the dogs was improving and growing closer, making the golden Snub-nosed monkey glare at the dogs, looking like he was angry that what was his was being invaded upon. Later, in order to thank Bai Duan for his help, the soldiers of the training camp specially reported his deeds to their superiors, so that Bai Duan got a ‘salary’ which was not too much but still sincere.

Human beings were very adaptable and lived comfortably in a safe military base. The survivors soon forgot their fear and struggles outside the base, and started a safe daily life. They even had a clear expectation for the army to gradually wipe out all the zombies.

But the apocalypse couldn’t be so easily ended. Soon, people found that the zombies had changed. Their movements were much more flexible, no longer as stiff and sluggish as they started; their skin and bones had become harder and were more defensive against human weapons; what’s more, just like the emergence of espers in human beings, some zombies also has esper powers, and their fighting power was getting stronger and stronger.

The change of zombies caused panic in the base. It was the so-called ‘disaster never comes singly’, because all of a sudden, some normal people who had passed the 48 hour quarantine suddenly turned into zombies as well.

Although the number of normal people who turned into zombies was not much and the strength of the new zombies were not strong, it still had a very serious impact on the people since they were unprepared. Many people were scratched by the new zombies and further transformed into zombies. In order to run away from the zombies, some people were in a panic and caused a stampede, which resulted in a lot of injuries.

The military urged people with abnormal physical conditions not to hide their own situation and to come out for treatment, but everyone understood that once there were signs of them turning into zombies, the change would be irreversible. It was not to receive treatment, but rather to surrender themselves and die.

Human beings had the instinct to protect themselves. It was hard for anyone to make a decision to kill themselves. Therefore, the military’s appeal did not achieve any good results, but made the atmosphere in the base more tense.

However, human beings were always smart, and their brains would help them solve all kinds of problems.

The military began to organize the army to wipe out zombies with espers in a planned way, killing them before they grew too powerful. Soon, they also found that these mutated zombies had different colored ‘crystal cores’ in their brains, each color corresponded to one element, and human espers could improve their abilities by consuming the same type of crystal cores as their own.

Knowing the way to improve their abilities, peoples’ spirits were high, and they were more active in killing zombies. In addition, another good news soon came from the military research institute, which determined that humans turned into zombies because of a virus. Although a drug to eliminate the virus had not been developed, they made a new instrument for scanning the Apocalypse Virus based on the characteristics of the virus they had extracted and isolated. As long as the person carried the Apocalypse Virus, it could be detected even in the incubation period when there were no clinical symptoms.

After the invention of the instrument, the military forced everyone to go through the scanner. Once they failed to pass the scan, they were taken away for treatment or expelled from the base.

Bai Duan passed the scan, but his companion, the golden snub-nosed monkey, was detected as a virus carrier——not only the golden snub-nosed monkey, but also the surviving dogs. Knowing this news, the people of the base grew angry and scared. They later realized that several people who had mutated into zombies, seemed to have been scratched or bitten by the military dogs before. The dogs were responsible for maintaining public security, and those people had violated the rules of the base earlier.

Although trained dogs wouldn’t attack people for no reason, people still couldn’t tolerate the notion of allowing the animals carrying the virus to stay in the base. After discussion, the top brass of the military quickly came to the decision to drive these animals with hidden dangers out of the base — after all, in most human eyes, animals will never be more important than the people of the same species as them.

The golden snub-nosed monkey understood human nature very well, and it was very sensitive to emotional changes.

He hugged Bai Duan’s neck tightly, and was unwilling to release his arms in any case. When some people with thick protective gloves tried to get him off of Bai Duan, the monkey gave out a fierce roar and reeled back to attack.

Looking at Bai Duan with the golden snub-nosed monkey hanging on his body, the soldiers were very worried and tried to persuade him to get rid of the golden snub-nosed monkey as soon as possible, “We know you have a good relationship with him, but it’s too dangerous.
In case it scratches you, you will be infected with the Apocalypse Virus! Get it off of you quickly, be careful not to be scratched by it!”

Bai Duan looked down at the golden snub-nosed monkey, who seemed to know what was going on. Then he looked at the dog who squatted at the soldiers’ feet. The dog didn’t understand what was going on. It was still happily shaking its tail and Bai Duan sighed gently.

“I… I am going to see them off,” Bai Duan hugged the golden snub-nosed monkey, stroked its soft hair as usual, trying to ease its panic.

The soldiers disagreed, “It’s too dangerous. Don’t be emotional.”

“It’s fine. It has been with me for so long. It has never scratched me before. It’s going to be OK this time as well,” Bai Duan’s tone was very determined.

If Bai Duan had an idea, he would never change his decision easily. In addition, he was not a member of the military, he was a free man. So he did not encounter too many obstacles as he easily left the base with the golden snub-nosed monkey and more than 20 military dogs, under the gazes of others, gazes as if they were looking at a crazy person.

——at the same time, Bai Duan took a military jeep and all the supplies he had saved beforehand with him.

The author has something to say:
——What do you have to say about the readers thinking that you have become a national level protected animal?

Guan Wu, “There are two words that could be abbreviated as ‘BS’, but maybe I should not say that.”

 

 

 

Ps: Rara finally finished her drawing of Bai Duan from Arc 4. 😀