Bad Taste

Cheng Shuili was truly worried about another powerful monster appearing; at this rate, it was possible that no one would make it out alive.

She squinted her eyes unconsciously, trying to peer through the gray-white barrier to see the situation inside clearly.

"What is that?"

Zhang Yueying's voice sounded like a chicken being strangled, unnaturally shrill.

He scrambled backward on his hands and feet, the packaging of his compressed biscuit scraping harshly against the asphalt road.

Qi Wanyi set down her half-eaten lunch box and silently followed behind Cheng Shuili to observe the latest developments.

The sound of shattering glass suddenly exploded.

Cheng Shuili snapped her head around and saw the entire floor-to-ceiling window on the west side of the service area struck by an invisible hammer, with fragments spraying outward in a radial pattern.

Countless blurry shadows writhed within the smoke, their silhouettes flickering in and out of view.

Cheng Shuili had already imagined countless terrifying monsters.

Such a huge commotion! Such a cool display! These twenty points must be for something truly difficult, right?!

Could it be that they had to kill another elite monster?

Even if they had enough points, these powerful monsters were all entrenched inside the service area...

Could they even get out?

The smoke finally cleared, and Cheng Shuili finally saw the writhing monsters clearly. Her eyes widened slightly, filled with visible astonishment!

Those... those monsters...

The monsters worth twenty points were old friends Cheng Shuili was familiar with.

Sticky, slippery, and fresh.

Were they slimes?

They were slimes!

For the first time, Cheng Shuili felt the system's bad taste so nakedly.

Was Qi Yue's death because he wasn't cautious?

No, it was purely because he had bad luck! Because he was the leader, he had to speak, and so he died.

Was the bald man's death because he wasn't brave enough?

No, with no information whatsoever, that seemingly unreachable destination was actually the best choice.

On the contrary, it was the adventurers in Cheng Shuili's group who chose the service area; they were the gamblers, the ones truly risking their lives.

Those who cherished their lives died, while those who didn't were still alive...

Living companions were companions, but dead companions were elite monsters...

Cheng Shuili almost laughed out loud.

This dungeon was basically treating them like aliens!

This was a hell-level dungeon!

Cheng Shuili finally understood the meaning of the word "hell" today.

Forms of the Blooming Skeleton, terrifying, right? Mouth-Mouth Slime, terrifying, right?

When it was finally revealed, these monsters that truly determined whether they could leave were actually slimes!

The kind of slimes you could kill with a single hit from a stick.

The twenty of them had argued incessantly about whether to go to the destination or the service area, and they had schemed endlessly to avoid exploring the more dangerous convenience station.

Until now, Cheng Shuili finally realized that if they had just stayed outside the service area for three hours, only five people would have had to accept the mysterious failure penalty.

Unfortunately, there were no "ifs."

Cheng Shuili stood up, gripping her dagger. Standing before her were only the Forms of the Blooming Skeleton on the boundary line.

There were three people still alive now.

Wang Lu's corpse was intact and hadn't turned into a monster, plus there was Qi Yue, whom Cheng Shuili and Qi Wanyi had killed together.

Cheng Shuili scanned the area and didn't see Yang Yunsheng, whose body had been torn apart. Perhaps the Mouth-Mouth Slime couldn't accept failed artwork, so humans torn apart by the Forms of the Blooming Skeleton couldn't turn into them again!

By this count, there were still twelve Forms of the Blooming Skeleton blocking the boundary line.

That was twelve of them!

Cheng Shuili had stabbed the one at the convenience station several times before killing it.

Now there were twelve! Never mind killing these monsters; the moment Cheng Shuili dared to step into the service area, her body would be torn apart by several of them instantly.

The destination was inside the convenience station, but now, never mind the station, they couldn't even enter the service area.

A dead end.

This was another dead end.

Cheng Shuili was still relatively composed; she had a powerful trump card in her hand. When it truly came to the last resort, bullets were nothing.

She could just take them out and spray them; even if she didn't kill these monsters, she could at least beat them half to death, right?

As she was thinking this, she saw Zhang Yueying, whose face looked deranged, suddenly pull something from his lower back. It was a pitch-black iron lump with high-quality paint that shimmered with a dark light, looking quite advanced.

Cheng Shuili shuddered; she recognized what it was.

A pistol!

Where did he get that?!

Zhang Yueying wasn't necessarily a very warm-hearted person, but he did have a sense of self-righteous justice!

That is to say, if he had this thing earlier, he should have taken it out long ago to help the skinny guy deal with the monsters.

Cheng Shuili instantly pieced together the sequence of events. Zhang Yueying probably discovered the pistol inside the gas station, and the most likely scenario was that he brought it out while fleeing!

Otherwise, he would definitely have fired at the Forms of the Blooming Skeleton inside the gas station!

How did he have the presence of mind to hide the pistol at a time like that?

In this moment, Cheng Shuili was truly incredibly grateful for her good luck.

That's right, it was just good luck.

If the two of them hadn't shouted the contents of the note from outside, if Qi Wanyi hadn't thrown the dagger to save Wang Lu, who knew if Zhang Yueying would have been biting people like a mad dog?!

He had a gun in his hand!

Caught off guard, if the two of them had been shot, given the current medical standards... even a god couldn't have saved them!

A deep sense of urgency rose in Cheng Shuili's heart.

It seemed the system's specific declaration that weapons brought out of this dungeon would be firearms was true!

This thing was the true equalizer of all living things; no matter how high one's attribute points were, if they got hit by this, they would be laid out cold.

She needed a bulletproof vest! She needed an item that could withstand bullets.

This world definitely had such things; she just hadn't seen them yet...

Cheng Shuili's thoughts were chaotic, but everything concluded in an instant.

The moment he saw the slimes, the string that had been pulled tight in Zhang Yueying's mind snapped completely, and rage clouded his judgment.

He immediately pulled out the pistol, clumsily pulled the bolt to load it, and, filled with the resentment of being toyed with, pulled the trigger at the head of the nearest Form of the Blooming Skeleton.

"Bang!"

The massive sound caused the gaze of every living thing to focus on Zhang Yueying.

The recoil made Zhang Yueying's hand tremble uncontrollably, but he had no time to worry about the gun.

The bullet fired from the pistol, at such close range, did not penetrate the head of the Form of the Blooming Skeleton; instead, it seemed to sink into mud, hovering right on the surface of its skin.

This monster... was actually immune to bullets?!

Cheng Shuili was equally shocked. She had thought she had a trump card, but she hadn't expected... that a gun would be no different from scrap metal in front of these monsters!

This shot, which caused almost no damage, completely enraged the Form of the Blooming Skeleton.

Under the horrified gaze of the three, it defiantly crossed the service area boundary line, ignored Cheng Shuili and her companion standing to the side, and lunged straight at Zhang Yueying!