Chapter 114 The Garbage

“Xiao Tan, why don’t you teleport first? What’s coming up next is a narrow escape from death.” Feng Bujue said.

“You say lines like that, you just don’t want me to leave, huh?” Wang Tanzhi replied. “If I teleport after hearing that, I’ll lose all my face.”

“Heh…” Feng Bujue chuckled, taking out the Winchester and tossing it to Wang Tanzhi, along with a box of ammunition.

Xiao Tan had already mastered Firearms Specialization through practice at the gun store, so using it wasn’t a problem.

“Hey! You two generals!” Feng Bujue shouted as he walked toward the blood wolf zombie horde. “I can only buy you three minutes at most, and if you still can’t handle that X-23 over there after three minutes, you can only fend for yourselves!” With that, he re-hung the two strings of garlic, chewed on a few cloves, and stood in the path of the oncoming blood wolf zombies, wielding a pipe wrench in one hand and a kitchen knife in the other.

Xiao Tan also took out the garlic he had prepared in his knapsack, chewing on it as he stood on the other side with the Winchester in hand. He formed a defensive position with Feng Bujue, guarding the level of the stands where Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were, preventing the monsters from flooding in.

“To be helped to this extent by players, if we still let this Derivative get away, it’ll be too embarrassing,” Pan Feng said to Hua Xiong during a break in the fight.

“It’s already embarrassing enough as it is,” Hua Xiong replied. “After letting the Mutant escape at the Ellobo Building, things were inevitably heading in this direction. It’s already pretty good as it is now.”

Pan Feng also said, “The key is that we underestimated this Derivative… By the way, what is X-23?”

“Who knows, is it a robot serial number?” Hua Xiong said.

“Isn’t it a bit rude to discuss a lady like this in person?” the Derivative suddenly said.

Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were both shocked. They had never encountered or heard of Derivatives with the ability to speak. In Thriller Paradise, monsters only spoke when the plot required it or during combat, and the dialogue was arranged by the system to fit the character's setting. Fourth-level Derivatives were basically silent, and their way of communicating with monsters was unknown. They didn't expect that the third-level Derivative in front of them would actually respond to a random topic.

“You seem surprised?” The Derivative swept its claws to both sides, forcing its opponents back two steps, then jumped up and did a straight backflip, flying five or six meters away to create some distance between them. “Of course, I can answer your questions because I have self-awareness. I also know who you are because I know very well who ‘I’ am.

You see us as data garbage, but do you know what it feels like to be garbage? From the moment we are born, we are constantly thrown into various worlds, hunted down by a higher dimensional being. Once we ‘die,’ we are erased by the system, and as long as we are ‘alive,’ the hunt will not stop.

But you, even if you are killed here, it will not endanger your real lives. You two, and the two over there, are just projections of higher dimensional beings displayed in front of me, and they are even strengthened projections. This unfair fight is the entire experience of my life. My birth was a mistake, and disappearing is my only destination, but as a set of data, I have the instinct to fight endlessly, to fight for survival and evolution.

I have no choice, but you do, but you won't let me go, will you? For you, giving up and failing are the same; it's just leaving this world actively or passively.”

“This AI talks a lot…” Pan Feng said. “Is it stalling for time?”

Hua Xiong replied, “Most likely, we need to hurry. Even if those two kids can hold out for three minutes, they’ll be teleported.”

They were not influenced by the Derivative's words, and they didn't waver. In fact, they had no intention of listening to what the monster was saying.

“Hmph… Talking to a brick wall…” The Derivative sneered. On her face was a look of resignation after being disheartened. “Want to see what X-23 looks like?” The steel claws on her hands immediately changed. Several of them retracted, leaving only two steel blades on each hand. And at this moment, a steel blade popped out from between the toes of her bare feet.

“What’s going on?” Pan Feng and Hua Xiong were both shocked by the changes in front of them. Could this Derivative gradually increase its strength before the script ended?

Before they could figure out what was going on, the Derivative attacked again. This time, her attack methods were even more diverse. In addition to wielding the steel claws on the front of her hands, her long legs were also extremely dangerous. When she did a split upside down, the steel blades on her toes spun and danced, with a range of lethality that was no less than a long-handled weapon.

Not only had these two not found a way to quickly end the battle, but they were gradually falling into a disadvantage.

Feng Bujue heard the Derivative's conversation with them and was constantly paying attention to the situation there, but he had no time to get away. Right now, he was under even more pressure than when he was trapped in the elevator. He had been bitten and scratched several times, and he also had the [Bleeding] status effect. His Survival Value was dropping rapidly, already below 50%.

At this moment, Feng Bujue, who was seeing red, looked more like a monster than the monsters themselves. He waved the two short weapons in his hands and fought fiercely with those blood wolf zombies, whose strength and speed were similar to his, or even stronger. His whole body was bathed in blood. The effect of the garlic still existed, but it was minimal. The heavy stench of blood almost covered everything. The smell of garlic only made the monsters move slightly slower when they were very close to Feng Bujue.

Xiao Tan was also in a considerable mess. Although he barely managed to block the first few monsters with the Winchester, dozens of them rushed over at once, so he could only retreat while fighting. Even so, he was still caught in an encirclement and had to take out the kitchen knife again, using the second [Retreating Quick Slash].

Although this title skill was useful, it consumed 30% of the upper limit of his Stamina Value each time. In other words, even if his Stamina Value was full, he could only use it three times at most in a short period of time. Moreover, Xiao Tan's Stamina Value was not full when he entered the basketball hall. After using it twice, he fell into a state of extremely low stamina, and the feeling of exhaustion had begun to affect his movements.

At this moment, Feng Bujue was bearing more than 70% of the monster's attacks alone. Xiao Tan only led away 30%, and monsters were constantly pouring in from various entrances, endlessly.

In the dark basketball hall, howls, clangs, gunshots, chopping sounds, tearing sounds... were mixed together.

Feng Bujue's and Wang Tanzhi's flashlights had both fallen to the ground and been crushed by the monsters. At this time, they didn't need any lighting equipment. They could fight by looking at the red eyes in the darkness, and even attacking randomly would not miss.

The number of those eyes... was really too many. They were declaring a deep despair.

And at this time, only seventy seconds had passed since the death of Dr. Ashford's Mutant.

At some point, under the influence of countless zombie movies, people gradually believed that the setting of a biochemical crisis, where zombies were rampant, was a relatively simple horror world. In fact, among the various doomsdays that could possibly descend on Earth, this was probably the most difficult one. For ordinary people, there was no "simple" horror world. Any small danger could be fatal, let alone this tidal wave of monsters attacking.

Two system prompts sounded almost simultaneously, announcing an unexpected and reasonable thing:

[Team Member: Peerless General Pan Feng, has died.]

[Team Member: Thousand-Man Slayer Hua Xiong, has died.]

"Teleport!" Feng Bujue shouted almost desperately. He knew that Xiao Tan was still alive, but he estimated that he wouldn't last a few more seconds. At this time, they had no reason to continue staying in this script and had to leave quickly.

"Understood!" Xiao Tan was pinned to the ground by five or six monsters, and his left leg and right shoulder had been bitten and were bleeding profusely, but he still didn't forget to respond before teleporting.

When he disappeared in a flash of white light, he slightly illuminated an area of the stands. Feng Bujue knew that he had successfully teleported, and he was also preparing to leave. But at this time, something happened that made him feel incredulous.

The lights in the gym turned on, and the monsters suddenly stopped.

They stopped attacking and left Feng Bujue's side.

Feng Bujue was half a second away from selecting teleportation in the menu when an unexpected change occurred, which made him quickly hit the brakes.

The blood wolf zombies left an area around him, forming a circle. On one side of the zombie circle, the monsters retreated to both sides, leaving a one-meter-wide passage.

A graceful figure walked out from there. She was wearing a tuxedo, dress pants, and was barefoot. She was covered in blood. There were signs of being cut on the sleeves, ribs, and pant legs, but through these openings, only a few patches of dazzling white skin could be seen. Those wounds had already healed.

She walked to Feng Bujue, kindly extending her hand, palm up, as if trying to help him up.

Feng Bujue also accepted her kindness, grabbing her hand and shakily getting up. At this moment, he was very curious, what exactly did this AI want to do?

“You… are different from the others,” she said.

Feng Bujue laughed, “Although I am a little bit more handsome than them, you have to point out these kinds of things before they die or leave for it to have any meaning.”

“They… did not die, correct?” She ignored Feng Bujue’s words and asked on her own.

“Didn’t you already know that?” Feng Bujue asked back.

“I know, but I want to hear someone from ‘you’ confirm it personally,” she said.

“That’s right, they didn’t die, their consciousness just returned to a certain space,” Feng Bujue then asked, “You said I’m different from the others, what exactly do you mean?”

“You…” She stared at Feng Bujue, walking around him in a circle, “You and I are very similar, you are ‘incomplete’.”

Feng Bujue’s heart skipped a beat. He thought to himself: This AI can see my Abnormal Mentality Value?

“In your world, are you also a set of abnormal data?” she asked.

“Heh… I guess you could say that,” Feng Bujue laughed.

“They don’t know about your anomaly?” she asked.

Feng Bujue seemed to have understood the core of this question. He replied, “You’re trying to ask why ‘abnormal’ data like me hasn’t been erased?”

She nodded, continuing to stare into Feng Bujue’s eyes, waiting for an answer.

“Hmm…” Feng Bujue thought for a moment, “In our world, ‘anomalies’ like me can be accepted. I… just like you said, became ‘incomplete’ due to certain reasons, but this wasn’t my choice, so I can be forgiven, even pitied and helped.” He paused for a moment, “There are also some people whose actions are called ‘crimes.’ These people’s anomalies aren’t expressed physically, but they actively ‘break the rules’ and ‘harm other individuals.’ These people will be punished, and in severe cases, they will be killed in the true sense.”

“Is this your world’s way of cleaning up ‘garbage’?” she asked, “Being born as garbage can be forgiven, while choosing to be garbage is punished.”

Feng Bujue chuckled dryly, “Although summarizing it like that… sounds a bit harsh and is rather one-sided, it seems that’s how it is.”

“The higher dimensional beings that created you don’t interfere with you?” she asked again.

“Uh…” Feng Bujue was stumped by her question, “To be honest, we don’t even know if higher dimensional beings exist. Even if they do, we can’t understand them at the moment. Perhaps they don’t want to interfere with us, or perhaps they have already implanted ‘interference’ into our thoughts, causing us to follow their ideas without being able to fathom their existence.”

She might not have been able to understand Feng Bujue’s words, or she might just have needed time to digest the information.

She was silent for a long time. The time had exceeded Feng Bujue’s teleportation limit, but Feng Bujue hadn’t been sent away.

“You can stop the system from teleporting me away?” he asked.

“I can extend this time,” she replied, “I…” She paused for half a second, “can already do many things…”

Feng Bujue understood that this Derivative was already quite powerful. He tentatively asked, “Are you a Second-Level Derivative now?”

“Second-Level Derivative…” she said thoughtfully, “You mean… them?” She actually laughed, revealing her sharp teeth, “No, battles like these aren’t enough to make me an existence equal to them.”

Hearing this sentence, Feng Bujue could basically confirm that the information Pan Feng and Hua Xiong possessed was also incomplete. It seemed that there were big problems with Dream Inc.

“I am very happy,” she said, “that you are willing to listen to me speak and answer my questions, even though you previously participated in the hunt for me.”

“You are very generous… As the saying goes, this is one time, that is another. I am absolutely friendly now. No, I have already defected from the human side…” Feng Bujue thought that the other party had already forgotten about the hunting thing, but hearing her mention it again, he was really worried that he would be trapped here and unable to log off.

“Can I use the name you gave me?” she suddenly asked.

“X-23?” Feng Bujue said, he was stunned for a moment, “You don’t have a name?”

“Of course not,” she replied, “This name won’t be used for too long either; I will die.” The tone in which she said this was matter-of-fact, but it made people feel a sense of sadness and helplessness. “But I think I should have a name. A name can prove that I existed.”

Feng Bujue was silent for a few seconds, sighing, “You’re right. Derivative Twenty-Three, at least I’ll remember that you existed.”

Twenty-Three tried hard to make a friendly smile that wasn’t so terrifying, “Let’s end the conversation here. I don’t think we’ll meet again. Maybe when you log into the game next time, I’ll have been cleared.” She paused for a moment, “So, farewell, my friend from another dimension… Feng Bujue.”