Free Web NovelChapter 279: Chapter 187: The Corpse
People often say that life is full of disappointments.
If Paige Summers hadn’t believed it before, she certainly did now. Staring at a warehouse that was even cleaner and emptier than the world outside, she finally, truly understood the meaning of that phrase.
It was the deflating feeling of a powerful punch landing on a pillow, of all her hopes coming to nothing. Even someone as strong-willed as she was couldn’t suppress the explosive urge to curse someone out. Even the consolation prizes—the experience gained and the few Crystal Cores they’d collected—did nothing to soothe her wounded spirit.
Overwhelmed by disappointment, she couldn’t stop herself from blowing the head off a low-level Zombie that lunged at her...
Paige Summers glared resentfully at the headless corpse on the ground. ’So much for the High-level Zombie! So much for the Artifact Making materials! This is ridiculous! Does life have to be such a pain in the ass?’
But no matter how furious she was, a thorough search of every warehouse, inside and out, yielded nothing.
Everyone fell into a unanimous silence. In a situation like this, no one was in a good mood.
Vincent Vaughn and Chester Lincoln were also disappointed, but not nearly as devastated.
For them, the experience of fighting Zombies along the way was already a huge gain, not to mention the Crystal Cores they had acquired and the rapid improvement in their own abilities.
So, seeing Paige Summers standing there perfectly still and silent, they both grew a little worried.
"Deputy, are you... alright?" Chester Lincoln asked, cautiously approaching her. "Maybe we should head back and regroup with the Captain?" ’If we can just get away from this place of bad memories, maybe the Deputy will go back to normal,’ he thought.
But Paige Summers didn’t agree. She waved a hand. "You two find a place to rest first. I need to think."
’Looks like she still needs time to accept this cruel reality!’ Chester Lincoln thought with a touch of poetic flair, then obediently leaned against a wall with Vincent Vaughn to wait.
In reality, Paige Summers had already calmed down considerably and was no longer so angry.
Because it was useless.
Instead, she was focused on a single question: ’Where did the supplies go?’
’Did someone beat us to it? Or did the people from The Foundry hide them away after realizing the danger?’
The answer was crucial.
If it was the former, then it was game over.
Never mind the "first come, first served" principle—even if she wanted to steal the supplies back, she had no idea who to look for or where to find them.
’But what if it was the latter?’
’The people from The Foundry couldn’t have all turned into Zombies at once. Is it possible that after discovering the first few infections, they moved the supplies to a more concealed location to protect them?’
’If that’s the case, the location can’t be too far from here.’
’And... it’s probably underground.’
At this thought, Paige Summers’s spirits lifted instantly.
She turned to Ben beside her. "Let’s make another round. See if there are any underground storage rooms or anything like that nearby. Also, didn’t you sense something was off here before? Is that feeling gone now?"
A flicker of confusion crossed Ben’s eyes.
He paused, as if confirming something, then took the initiative and pulled Paige Summers out of the warehouse.
’He’s already found something?’ Paige Summers was surprised.
Soon, the two of them arrived at a small, unremarkable building to the side of the warehouse.
Unlike the warehouse, this place was slightly larger and furnished with a table, a chair, and a single bed. It looked like the living quarters for the warehouse keeper.
Paige Summers’s gaze swept over the floor, and a glint appeared in her eyes.
Drag marks in the thick dust led from under the bed. ’Which means,’ she thought, ’there’s something hidden under it!’
She was just about to move the bed when Ben acted first. freewebnovёl.ƈom
He delivered a direct, violent punch to the center of the wooden bed frame. SPLINTERS FLEW. Beneath the shattered wood was a narrow opening. To Paige Summers’s disappointment, however, the opening was only large enough for one person to fit through; it was far too small to have been used to transport supplies.
Still, she had to see what was down there.
So after Ben, eager as ever, scrambled down first, she saw Vincent Vaughn and Chester Lincoln rushing over from outside, drawn by the noise. She gave them a silent nod and slid into the opening after Ben.
The shaft wasn’t very deep, only about five or six meters, and she quickly reached the bottom. It was followed by a narrow, four- or five-meter-long tunnel, just wide enough for one person to crawl through. Passing through it led into a slightly larger cavern.
"Larger" was only relative to the tunnel; at least a person could stand up, with a few centimeters of clearance to the ceiling. The space wasn’t roomy, feeling cramped with just two people. At the absolute most, it could maybe fit four or five.
However, this wasn’t the only cavern. There was another opening in the opposite dirt wall, about half a person’s height.
Paige Summers scanned the rough, uneven walls before turning her attention to the cavern beyond.
She had noticed it the moment she entered the passage—the sound of breathing.
But the rapid, shallow rhythm didn’t sound human. It was more like some kind of animal.
’If it’s breathing, it’s not a Zombie animal. To have survived down here in these conditions, it must have mutated.’
Taking her blade in hand, she grew more alert.
Sometimes, Mutant Animals were even more troublesome than humans, especially in such a cramped space where there wasn’t even room to fight properly.
Ben, standing in front of her, had no such concerns. He simply made the dirt wall between the two caverns disappear. As if under his command, the earth parted and piled up neatly on both sides, leaving a completely unobstructed view.
Now, Paige Summers could see the situation inside clearly.
A low, long, and seemingly threatening growl reached her ears, coming from the dog in the other cavern.
It had definitely mutated.
It stood waist-high, its eyes glowed an eerie green, and at first glance, it looked quite a bit like a wild wolf.
It seemed to be warning them not to get any closer, taking a protective stance with its hackles raised as it stood guard in front of a corpse.
Yes, a corpse.
A very strange corpse, wearing only underwear.
It wasn’t like the usual dead in the apocalypse—shriveled and desiccated. On the contrary, this corpse was very fresh, its skin glowing as if it were still alive. If the middle-aged man lying there weren’t completely devoid of breath, Paige Summers would have thought he was sleeping, not dead.
’This is just too bizarre!’
Seeing that the dog was unlikely to attack unless they made a move, Paige Summers took a moment to observe the scene more closely.
The man was definitely dead.
There were no obvious wounds on his body, so he clearly hadn’t been killed by a Zombie bite.
But he didn’t look like he had starved to death, either.
’Did he take poison, then?’
Theoretically, that didn’t make much sense.
’This cavern was dug some time ago; hiding here was relatively safe. It wouldn’t be strange if he had died of hunger or thirst, but that’s clearly not what happened. Could he have despaired of this world and given up on life before he was truly at the end of his rope?’
Paige Summers shook her head slightly. ’There are still too many unanswered questions here!’
As she was pondering this, Ben lost his patience. He shot his hand out, reaching for the mutated dog!
