"Damn it!" The gambler pounded the steering wheel angrily, his face contorted with impatience.
The seven who had made their fortune had gone from initial smugness to utter panic in less than two days.
During this time, they had looted every jewelry store and gold shop they encountered. Even though some of the secure boxes couldn't be opened, the scattered gold still provided them with a large amount of hard currency.
If they could bring all this back, they could return to Rota City and live the life of the wealthy in the upper district.
As for the source of this wealth? No one was investigating, so why would they care? Perhaps the tax bureau would?
The seven who had each made a fortune encountered an unexpected incident during their recent operation; it was
not unusual for someone to be bitten. Cities are never short of moving corpses; besides those openly active, many others lurked like hibernating animals in dark corners.
They become active when they are so hungry they can no longer maintain a low-energy state. Hungry zombies are more dangerous; their reaction time is faster and their explosive power is greater than normal zombies. Although this effect is short-lived, do zombies need sustained power to infect humans?
A fleeting moment is enough. If they can't kill someone, they'll likely be killed by the enraged humans.
Then, the enraged humans become new zombies due to the virus.
This process takes about two hours. During this time, the infected people are not weakened; instead, they become highly agitated and impulsive.
This is why the Seven Tycoons of Fortune were reduced to a group of five.
Those injured by zombies couldn't stand the stares of others, especially since they possessed dangerous weapons. If the gambler hadn't reacted quickly and killed the attacker, that person would have opened fire on them.
Even so, they still lost two members, which calmed the now five-person group of the Seven Tycoons of Fortune. They had already acquired enough wealth and needed to leave the city quickly.
The longer they stayed, the higher the chance of unexpected events.
The city was teeming with zombies, and they had to avoid even the slightest wound, as a minor abrasion would plunge them into a terrifying, suicidal situation.
Their jewelry and gold further hampered their progress.
One member of the five-person escape team was clever enough to find a shopping cart in a supermarket to lighten their load, but even so, based on the city's landmarks, reaching the rendezvous point would take a long time.
The roads weren't straight, and they were constantly surrounded by zombies, slow-moving yet seemingly immune to fatigue. If
the escape team moved slowly, the zombies would relentlessly follow, closing in dangerously close in a moment of inattention. They would shoot to eliminate the zombies, but the gunshots would attract even more.
Running too slowly would result in the streets being blocked off.
Moving too fast wouldn't shake off the zombies either; after escaping one area, another area would remain relentlessly aggressive towards them.
As night fell, the zombies moved with ease in the darkness, making it much harder for them to spot the lurking zombies. The danger was significantly increased compared to daytime.
After one brief attempt, the five-man escape team dared not take any further action at night.
They needed to find a safe house to hide in at dusk.
Losses, depleted ammunition, and the pressure of facing zombies while traveling made the five desperately want to get the cars on the road moving.
They were fortunate that the city had no shortage of food—bottled water, sealed bags of food, and everything else was free.
"Keep your voice down," someone slapped one of the gamblers, annoyed. By now, they knew a thing or two about these cars.
Those with keys could generally be started; during the biohazard outbreak, many people abandoned their vehicles due to traffic jams, leaving behind the keys. The problem was still how to drive them.
The sound of a car starting was highly stimulating to the zombies; the sound of a car starting was like the sound of a wild can of food hitting the ground.
"Those corpses are surrounding us!"
the gambler cursed, kicking open the car door. "Don't waste time on this junk, let's use something else!"
Since they couldn't drive, they'd switch to bicycles; after all, they had wheels.
The others looked at the angry gambler, not saying anything. At least the gambler could make the car twitch; they… well, it was a long story.
They were all struggling to make a living in the lower city, none of them had ever handled a car before. If they lived in the upper city, they might have had the chance to drive for the rich.
"Have you noticed that there are more and more zombies surrounding us?" After the five escapees fought their way out of the area, the gambler looked at the zombies in the distance, expressing a suspicion that wasn't just a figment of his imagination.
"More importantly, we haven't encountered any other survivors yet. Is there no one left in this city?"
Another member of the five escapees was anxious. With so many cars in the city, it meant everyone here was good with them, right? If they could find one or two survivors, they wouldn't be so passive.
"Who knows what kind of bizarre 'dream' this is!" The gambler righted a bicycle. This thing was much simpler than a four-wheeled vehicle; with a little practice, it could run, and it was much faster than on foot.
"Let's use this from now on. We don't have much time left. If we can hold on, we'll all be rich!"
The gambler encouraged the others.
"Actually, I was thinking about those kinds of vehicles. Although they're not quite the same as the police motorcycles, but..." Someone pointed to a motorcycle lying on the side of the road.
"Don't think about using unfamiliar things. We've wasted too much time on that. Let's use the simplest thing." The gambler sighed, deciding to abandon unrealistic ideas sooner rather than later. They should be able to reach the rendezvous point quickly using bicycles.
The other members of the escape team agreed. They were all rich; they shouldn't waste their lives in a dangerous environment.
A bicycle it is, as long as they escaped, that was better than anything else.
"Have you noticed that the number of zombies seems to be increasing?" Gunman Eller, sitting in the passenger seat, reminded them.
They were constantly clearing out zombies, but their numbers showed no signs of decreasing.
"Zombies have excellent hearing. They gradually converge towards the source of a sound, and even after the sound disappears, they will instinctively reach the last area where the sound originated,"
Wilfer explained.
Matt thought about what they had done along the way—using bombs, shooting to clear out zombies. There were hardly any living people left in the city; they had become the sound source creators, the center of a moving vortex, and zombies attracted by the sound would slowly approach.
Matt quickly put this matter out of his mind.
The future was still bright, because the zombies that instinctively gathered around the sound were just some obstacles to their journey to a better life.
Wilfer told them about many places suitable for wealthy people to live in. Matt and the others had never heard of those places, but that didn't stop them from learning about them.
The world in the alternate dream was far better than their own. Moreover, Wilfer had hinted that the research data he brought was extremely valuable.
If they could join forces and grow stronger, a large number of small countries would be willing to spend a lot of money to buy this 'cheap' 'poor man's nuclear bomb,' and many organizations wouldn't be stingy with their money!
(End of Chapter)