After clearing out the dozens of zombies roaming the street below his apartment, Luo Jie once again retrieved the [USS Micro UAV Reconnaissance Drone] from his storage space and launched it into the night sky.
Through the drone's night-vision camera, the distribution of the dead within a radius of several hundred meters became crystal clear at a glance. When paired with the infrared thermal camera, he could even spot a few survivors hiding within the rooms.
"The number of the dead in this area seems a bit sparse..." Luo Jie frowned as he stared intently at the real-time feed projected before him.
By "sparse," he didn't mean the total count, but rather their distribution.
Several thousand of the dead wandered sporadically across the two dozen or so streets in the vicinity. Nearly forty to fifty percent of them were trapped inside buildings with complex terrain.
This kind of distribution was undoubtedly beneficial for the native survivors struggling to stay alive in the apocalypse, and even for the vast majority of players.
However, for Luo Jie, who planned to grind points under the cover of night, it was the worst-case scenario.
Time was limited, and he needed to return to the apartment before dawn. He couldn't afford to waste precious minutes playing hide-and-seek with the dead.
Luo Jie brought up the map of Bedtown that the Dancer had sent him. Using his current apartment as the center and the straight-line distance he could cover on foot within an hour as the radius, he drew a circle on the map.
He was looking for a public place—something with simple, flat terrain, minimal obstacles, and a high concentration of people.
As the 3D map continuously zoomed and rotated within Luo Jie's consciousness, his finger finally came to rest on a sprawling large structure two kilometers away.
Minami-Machi Shopping Mall.
Located beside the red-light district on the southern bank of the Bed River, it covered an area of approximately 25,000 square meters. Once Bedtown's largest comprehensive shopping center, it had gradually faded into secondary importance as the urban area expanded northeastward across the Bed River and the even larger Higashi-Machi Shopping Center was completed.
Just as Luo Jie had anticipated, since the outbreak of the death virus had occurred in the afternoon—a time when foot traffic was relatively heavy—the entire Minami-Machi Shopping Mall, from top to bottom, had been completely overrun by the dead. Their density was even greater than that of the "Fortune City" he'd encountered before; initial estimates put the number of the dead within the entire mall at close to thirty thousand.
If one also counted the nearby red-light district and commercial area, this area of less than five hundred meters radius likely housed as many as a hundred thousand of the dead—almost a tenth of Bedtown's total population.
If he had a nuke right now, Luo Jie would vaporize the place without hesitation. That would be a cool 1.5 million points.
But such thoughts were just idle fantasy. Even in the illusionary worlds, nuclear weapons weren't easy to come by. Every one that appeared was immediately snapped up by major guilds as strategic treasures, to be used only in existential crises, not for something as trivial as grinding points.
So, it was back to basics: relying on the blade in his hand to grind slowly.
Having had experience mowing down zombies at "Fortune City," Luo Jie was quite adept at farming points in such a large shopping mall.
While the "dead" in this "Highschool of the Dead" illusionary world were far more powerful overall than the zombies in "Dead Rising," in practice, farming them was actually easier.
The key difference was that the dead relied solely on hearing, unlike zombies which also possessed a keen sense of smell. This resulted in a significantly smaller detection radius for the dead compared to their zombie cousins.
As vividly demonstrated in the original work, the main characters, like Komuro Takashi and his group, could move quietly right past nearby dead.
Thus, unless one foolishly used loud firearms, the terrifying hordes of hundreds or thousands, so common in "Dead Rising," were rarely seen here.
"Alright, let's get started..."
A grid-like pattern flickered in Luo Jie's right hand, and the katana [Meito: Fugu Doku], radiating a chilling aura, materialized. In his left hand, he pulled out a music player with external speakers, a prize from a surprise box, and pressed play, directing it at the shadowy, shambling figures in the square ahead.
"You're my little, little apple; I can never love you enough..."
(°ー°〃)! ! !
Whoa, what the hell?
A dozen or so nearby dead, drawn by the sound, raised their bloodied hands and lurched forward. Luo Jie didn't have time to figure out what had gone wrong. He swung his katana, hacking down the ones already upon him, then glanced down at the player.
Ah, right. The music player had somehow switched from repeat to shuffle.
That was... awkward.
"Okay, let's try that again!"
As Luo Jie pressed play once more, an upbeat electronic track immediately echoed over the vast shopping mall, its lively melody instantly dispelling the surrounding silence of dread.
Hail—hail——
It had to be said, good music seemed to possess a magical power of its own. To the rhythm of "Get Up I Feel Like Being a Sex Machine," Luo Jie's attacks began to take on a playful cadence.
What's the matter with your head, yeah?
A dead security guard lunged from the side. Luo Jie casually lopped off its head, and before it could hit the ground, he hooked it with his toe, brought his blades up, and swatted it like a baseball, smashing the skull of a balding dead man several meters away.
Hail—hail——
What's the matter with your mind and your sign?
Two male office workers, now dead, closed in from left and right. Luo Jie struck in a V-pattern, disemboweling both. Their falling trousers tripped them up, and they collapsed on their knees before him, as if in penitent prayer.
Get up, I feel like being a sex machine— Get up, I feel like being a sex machine—
A dead woman in a bright red dress, seemingly a model for a jewelry brand, bit down on the armor of his shoulder from diagonally behind, shattering her silver teeth instantly.
Luo Jie looked back instinctively at that still somewhat beautiful face, a mischievous smile playing on his lips.
He wrapped an arm around her still-soft waist, spun her around twice like a dance partner, then suddenly released her, sending the voluptuous body flying over ten meters to crash into a marble pillar, splattering brains everywhere. Her pale white legs twitched spasmodically.
Luo Jie then hopped back, cupped his hands around his mouth, and made an exaggerated Stephen Chow-style face.
"Sorry about that, lady. Slipped."
And so, Luo Jie stepped to the music's beat, effortlessly cutting down the dead drawn to the sound. Every now and then, a sudden burst of inspiration would strike, and he'd devise a creative death for one of them. He strolled leisurely through every corner of the mall.
This playful style of fighting, while seemingly frivolous, was in reality, with the instant-kill synergy of [Meito: Fugu Doku] and [Umbrella Enemy], just as efficient at clearing the dead as the carpet-sweeping method he'd used in "Dead Rising."
Moreover, since the dead were actively drawn to him, he didn't have to waste effort searching for them, making the actual clearing efficiency even higher.
As for wasting stamina... Luo Jie would just have to say that his supply of [True·Smiling Half-Step Madness] was more than enough to keep him going.
When you've got meds to pop, you can afford to be reckless.
Just as he was popping pills, alternating between near-death and revival, and pushing his way to the second floor of the mall, he suddenly heard the loud roar of helicopter rotor blades from the rooftop direction, followed by several muffled gunshots, as if from suppressed weapons.
Someone's there? Could it be another Umbrella Corporation strike team?
Luo Jie glanced instinctively at his visual projection screen. Fortunately, no special alerts appeared.