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Hearing the plan in full, delusional-but-not-yet-stupid Lixiang calmed down right away and began to consider the possibilities. “But those game exosuits all have an anti-theft system installed. The system within will automatically cease all motor functions outside of Game City, hast thou considered this?”

Lixiang was right, of course. Game Cities wouldn’t be able to stay financially afloat if they allowed all their customers to just ride away in an exosuit. Strictly speaking, even those entertainment exosuits were capable of killing a person…

“Ah… but I’m a hacker.” Said Bitong, chin slightly raised high. “I can break the defenses of that system easily. All I need is ten seconds.”

She basically had me at that point with her suggestion, but the moment I thought of Jiaojiao, I got a little concerned again. “But can Jiaojiao even ride an exosuit? She’s still young…”

“Jiaojiao will be fine!” Jiaojiao thumped her chest. “I’m a genius!”

“Ke, did you forget? Jiaojiao is an ace at piloting exosuits.” Bitong rubbed the girl’s head at that point. “If she wasn’t so young, she might even be a better pilot than me.”

Whether she was actually a genius pilot remained to be seen, but the exosuit should at least provide some protection if she could pilot it. She might not even be afraid of zombies at that point, since those zombies couldn’t break through the defenses of the exosuit. Furthermore, these exosuits were designed to absorb the SP in the air, and could theoretically function on its own perpetually.

These exosuits might be labelled as ‘entertainment only’, but their defenses were comparable to those used in the army. After all, players engaged in real combat with these exosuits, so a little caution went a long way.

The real way in which these exosuits were tailored for leisure purposes were their functions. Other than defenses, parameters like speed were lowered by design so that a normal player could still react to the machine.

Next, its offensive capabilities were completely stripped. Any melee weapons were set to ‘sealed’ mode. This way, there was no physical way an entertainment exosuit could ever break apart another. Its ranged weapons received the same treatment as well. Bullets were swapped out for rubber ones, and any lasers were more flashy than actually harmful.

Finally, every such exosuit had its own anti-theft system that prevented its user from leaving Game City in it, barring hacked ones. However, there weren’t many hackers who were bored enough to actually try and steal such a stripped down exosuit.

“It’s settled then.” Seeing as the girls were basically on board with the plan at this point, I clearly wasn’t going to say no either.

Naturally, grabbings some military-grade ones would have been better, but society hadn’t crumbled to the point where I would consider that yet. Besides, these were just zombies… the entertainment ones could handle the job.

“Map.” Bitong pulled out a map of the city with her AI assistant. She then pointed towards a building in the distance. “Northwest, one kilometer. That’s the closest Game City. Walking should take us ten minutes.”

“But we will have to pass by an underground shelter on the way…” Jiaojiao leaned in to have a look at the map as well. Upon noticing the shelter, her brows immediately furrowed in worry. “Maybe we should take a detour instead…”

“But this is the shortest route. Taking a detour would waste another ten more minutes.” Griped Lixiang.

“Let’s not. We will take the direct route to Game City. Each additional minute we spend outside right now is one extra minute we spend in danger.”

“Ding! Mission received: Looking for Weapons.”

Mission: Looking for Weapons.
Requirements: Enter Joyworks Game City.
Reward: Fireball, a skill that expends at least 1 SP. (Scales with SP used.)
Comments: How much fire could a firechuck chuck if a fire could chuck fire?

Nice, a mission as well. Looks like this trip will be a fruitful one. But what the heck is up with those comments?

Seeing as the system seemed to agree with this plan as well, there was even less of a reason for me to object. Off to Game City!

“I’ll take point. Lixiang and Jiaojiao will be in the center while Bitong covers our rear. If there’s any problem, yell.”

“Got it.”

Just like that, we set off towards the exit. After killing a few more zombies in the passageway, we safely made it out to the pavilion structure above ground.

I carefully stuck my head out first, and found the exterior stacked full of corpses, of which some were wearing police uniforms. Other than the corpses, there looked to be about a couple dozen zombies wandering around.

Perhaps it was because this was an innate feature of their undead nature, but the moment we popped out, they immediately sensed us and began moaning in their characteristic gratingly hollow voice.

However, I was already prepared for just such a danger.

At the same time as I had the girls back away a little, I erected a fire wall across the entry points. Any zombies who dared cross the line were instantly set aflame…

Because I only spent 50 SP on this wall, they weren’t immediately burnt to ashes, but the effect wasn’t that far off either. At times, there was that odd straggler who managed to make it through the wall, only to collapse soon after in a pile of ashes…

The wall lasted for half a minute. Its scorching heat was so strong, we could even feel it through the environmental conditioning in our shirts.

Still, the flame wall had done its job and it fizzled out without trouble. The zombies who tried to swarm us were all burnt, and the ground was painted black once more…

During the time the wall burned, I occasionally stared at my status menu, and to my delight, my points were jumping up! A whole 31 points!

At this point, I had crossed the 100 mark into 117.

Shameless Self-promotion

Announcement: I’ve re-opened my Patreon in case anyone wants to sponsor more chapters. Every end of the month, those chapters in early access will be released for free for all to read. If you sponsored a chapter, you will gain permanent early access to these chapters. Essentially, everyone gets more chapters to read, but those who donated get to read earlier. More chapters will then be translated at the start of the month. Explanation on the Patreon itself.

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