Players, Please Board the Train

Yi Mao and the others stared at the words on the ground in astonishment, finding it hard to believe for a moment. After a few seconds, Yue Weiping finally spoke, ”I’ve long heard that Mutants are good at imitating humans, but I never thought they could write...”

Xu Huo turned his head, ”Brains are for thinking. He’s not a Mutant. He’s a living person.”

”My name is Jin Dong. I am a warrior from the 803rd cleanup batch,” the man continued writing on the ground.

”Impossible!” Yue Weiping completely ignored Xu Huo’s sarcasm, exclaiming in disbelief, ”The 803rd batch was completely wiped out a year ago! No one survived. And you are clearly a Mutant!”

”I am human.” The ”Mutant” squatting on the ground wrote while backing away, not only writing down his home address and nearby well-known buildings but even listing the names of his squad members.

Yi Mao, who had some understanding of the cleanup mission data, clutched his head, ”I know all these names. They’re all on the commendation list. I even went on behalf of my family to deliver condolence money...”

The shock was significant for the group. Wan Xiao quickly said, ”No, no, that’s not right. Why do people from Clown City look like Mutants through the glasses? Could it be a problem with the equipment?”

”This is clearly not an equipment issue,” Xu Huo added from the side, offering a reasonable explanation for the moment. ”Perhaps it’s because he was judged as a Mutant after being infected.”

Hearing this, their dangerously shaken belief barely stabilized. Yi Mao slapped his forehead, ”Right! That must be it. The equipment can’t possibly be wrong!”

After saying this, he maintained his distance and asked Jin Dong, ”You can’t speak anymore?”Mentioning this, Jin Dong’s emotions surged. ”The water and anything edible in the cleanup area are all poisoned. My companions and I lost our voices on the way back.”

Yi Mao sighed, lamenting the untimely deaths of the several warriors, then comforted him, ”You’re lucky. You haven’t completely degenerated into a Mutant yet. Coming back to Clown City with us might mean there’s still a cure.”

”Going back is impossible!” Jin Dong agitatedly scratched on the ground. ”Once you leave Clown City, you can never go back!”

”What does that mean?” Liang Song asked after reading it.

”Everyone who leaves the city is a discarded piece...” Jin Dong wrote frantically, but there wasn’t much space to work with. So, Xu Huo lent him his communicator. With the holographic projection in the air, he quickly wrote: ”Clown City won’t let infected people back into the city. I and the two remaining squad members fled to the Gobi Area. Before we could even get close to the Protective Wall, we were shot at. Not by anyone else, but by the players guarding Clown City’s wall!”

”After my two companions were killed, I escaped to the Swamp Area. Only later did I figure it out. Don’t you find it strange why they don’t let high-level players handle the cleanup missions? They have such powerful items; killing Mutants would be so simple!”

”The only reason is they don’t dare come! Because this is a Contaminated Zone. Anyone who enters will eventually get infected with the pathogens and slowly degenerate into Mutants. People with backgrounds, influence, and higher-level players are all important resources for Clown City. They can’t come to the cleanup area. So, only us bottom-tier people are sacrificed!”

”There were warriors in the past who survived and went back to get rewards, but who has seen them since?!”

Yi Mao said with difficulty, ”They moved to the upper level. And there have also been warriors who participated in cleanup missions a second time.”

”Were they really participating in cleanup missions a second time?” Jin Dong retorted. ”Do you know them? Or know their background thoroughly?”

Yi Mao had no answer to this, because the mortality rate of cleanup missions was too high, and besides those who applied voluntarily, participants were selected from the entire city based on meeting the criteria. Not knowing them wasn’t strange.

”You can’t accuse the wall-guarding players just because you degenerated into a Mutant,” Yue Weiping said at this point. ”I have indeed seen warriors who returned from the cleanup area, and they are still alive and well now.”

He then said to Liang Song, ”We can put the mission on hold for now. Let’s send this person back first. We can’t just stand by and watch someone die.”

This was, of course, one reason. The other reason was clear to everyone present: Jin Dong’s words had shaken their resolve. Only by verifying the truth could they continue with the cleanup mission.

Liang Song hesitated, not agreeing immediately. At that moment, Xu Huo threw out the pouch from his waist. ”Going back now is asking for death.”

”The culprit behind our ambush in the Gobi Area earlier was this.”

”An invisible armed flight device.”

”It has a serial number on it. You can check if it’s a weapon produced by Clown City.”

Yi Mao pulled out the metal piece carrying the serial number, his shoulders slumping. ”Why would this happen?”

”This is impossible!” Yue Weiping said. ”Even if what Jin Dong says is true, why would they try to kill us right after we left the city?”

”I don’t know. Maybe the people in charge of the cleanup missions have other ideas.” After saying this, Xu Huo looked at Jin Dong. ”I’ve seen information about the pathogens on you before. They’re just a common hallucinogenic type, not life-threatening.”

Jin Dong was stunned for a moment, then quickly understood. ”I haven’t degenerated into a Mutant!”

”That’s not necessarily true,” Xu Huo said. ”It might just be that you’ve retained your humanity temporarily.”

”I still can’t believe it!” Yue Weiping raised his voice. ”If warriors who come out eventually get infected and become Mutants, what’s the point of Clown City doing this? The Mutants would never be completely eliminated!”

”The weapon that attacked us was undoubtedly from Clown City,” Liang Song said at this point. ”I detected the sound of the flight device back in the Gobi Area. If it weren’t for the sudden sandstorm, we could have shot it down then.”

At this, he glanced at Xu Huo. ”You’re not an E-grade player either, are you?”

”D-grade,” Xu Huo said, then added after a pause, ”Since flight devices can leave the city to kill their own people, then the claim that high-frequency sounds will alert Mutants probably doesn’t hold water. Or perhaps the people on the wall don’t care about the lives of the cleanup teams. Either way, turning back is definitely not an option.”

Yi Mao swallowed hard. ”Maybe if we don’t eat anything from the cleanup area or drink the water here, we won’t get infected...”

Before he could finish, everyone realized another thing: why were there so few D-grade players participating in cleanup missions? Because D-grade players have luggage compartments to store water and food. Many D-grade players signed up, but even fewer actually ended up joining.

”If not consuming food and water from the cleanup area prevents infection, isn’t that cutting off our path to survival?” Yi Mao said. ”Could it be that the cleanup mission is actually cultivating Mutants?”

After a series of changing expressions, Yue Weiping finally pointed at Jin Dong and said through gritted teeth, ”Then what do we do now?!”

”I’ve seen people who returned alive. Right now, the only way is to strive to complete the mission and ensure we don’t get infected. Only then might we have a chance to return.”

Yi Mao and Wan Xiao hung their heads without speaking. Liang Song also frowned deeply. Yue Weiping glanced at them and added, ”We have to turn a blind eye to this matter. Only by returning alive do we have the right to talk about anything else!”