Chapter 271: Kick

“Forget it, we’re just unlucky.” Yang Bo added the two people to a private chat and noticed their usernames were almost identical—one was ‘Yellow Pen’ and the other was ‘Two Yellow Pens.’

The other two also saw Yang Bo’s username—Wasteland Swordsman. They couldn’t help but think to themselves, what an ancient name.

Deep down, Yang Bo was still a little suspicious of the two. He wasn’t sure if those three were called by them, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t there for the mission item, just skills.

“If we take the loss this time, we can just look for another farm next time. Though we should be better prepared, and push through faster.”

“How about the three of us work together? As you’ve seen, clearing a farm takes a lot of bullets. If I go alone, it’ll be troublesome. When it comes to the mission reward, I’ll give you two 20% of the final loot, the rest you can have. I don’t need any other mission items.” Yang Bo typed out to them.

“Boss, won’t you be at a loss like this?” The two were happy but still typed to ask.

“Change your gear first. The ones you’re wearing might get recognized by others.” Yang Bo suggested.

So, the other two immediately swapped into some worse gear, one of them speaking up, “Boss, why don’t we form a squad? That way, we can leave messages for each other and even share locations.”

“Hmm.” Yang Bo kept typing. Sharing locations would need to be manually activated, and it could also be turned off.

“Boss, this is the first time I’m seeing a One-Star mission item.”

Yang Bo didn’t answer since he himself wasn’t sure about it either.

“This time, Boss took a big loss.” The two players had clearly seen the news on the forum.

Yang Bo continued typing, “Next time, we have to be quicker. We wasted too much time this round. Here’s the map. Let’s split up and find areas with herd animals.”

“Boss, what about a zoo? I remember seeing that some of the zoo animals also have leaders.” The two asked after seeing Yang Bo sharing the map, unbothered by it at all.

Hearing their words, Yang Bo glanced at the zoo, typing again, “That’ll work. Let’s scout the terrain first.”

“Boss, we’re good with scouting. Even if we can’t fight zombies, we can run no problem. Should we scout the zoo?” The two players asked, almost in unison, clearly using the official game voice pack.

Yang Bo typed immediately, “Alright, I’ll go check out another farm.”

The zoo was right next to the city, covering a large area. Scouting it thoroughly would be difficult.

“Boss, if you need anything, just message us.” The two were excited. Though they had spent a lot of game currency on bullets, the profits were still pretty good.

“Boss, you can use mission points to buy more online time.” At this point, the two mentioned.

Yang Bo had also found it strange. A few hundred credits an hour—what were the officials thinking? Now it made sense. Of course, they want you to go out and find useful stuff.

Instead of looking for a farm, Yang Bo spent time reading drama on the forum.

Among the three who tried to take his mission item, one of their characters had already been destroyed.

That character still had another sheep horn on them.

Now the 30,000-credit sheep horn was taken by someone else, who even posted a picture on the forum.

“Those three must be fuming.” Yang Bo looked at his post, which had over 3,000 replies by now.

Some were even criticizing Yang Bo, saying what he did was inciting player conflict.

Others opened livestreams chasing after the remaining two, with the chat shouting to kill them for rewards.

Clearly, those three had robbed more than just Yang Bo. Some people even added fuel to the fire, stoking the drama.

“This is better than watching a blockbuster.”

“That old-fashioned fighting style is still worth watching.”

“Too bad someone brought a laser gun.””

“Do you think they could shoot a full-blown costume war movie in there?”

“Definitely. Just clear a zone and set up some props.”

“That’d cost way less than CGI!”

“It’s not so easy. People have tried it in the mecha game. Other players always mess things up, and you can’t do squat.”

“Find an isolated area. Set it up and blow up anyone trying to interfere.” The stream viewers were full of wild ideas.

Yang Bo logged out of the game and began reflecting on the day’s results.

“First, I discovered a skill that increases Mind Control. Now I need to focus on targeted hunts.”

“Could I kill the leader of a beast herd and make it spawn a new one?”

Yang Bo knew that if the king of an animal group was killed, a new one would eventually emerge.

But that would take time, and there were still normal animals in this world.

So he needed to carefully consider and experiment constantly.

“Would zombies develop leaders too?”

“Or would famous people or former leaders in this world be able to give Mind Control skills?” Yang Bo stood up, stretching his body while pondering these questions.

Yang Bo wasn’t an idiot. He clearly understood the benefits of Mind Control. The simplest was increasing his superpower’s range for locking onto enemies and controlling his abilities.

The stronger the Mind Control, the farther the superpower could reach. Different terrain and environments affected the locking distance too.

“It’d be great if I could curve a laser strike.”

“But controlling it would be impossible; the laser’s way too fast.”

“Could I slow down a laser attack using Light Power?”

The Mind Control question opened up more thoughts for Yang Bo.

“If I could slow down my Light Power attacks to any speed I wanted, that’d be insane.”

He imagined a scene where he fired a laser and it chased after someone at any speed he desired.

“Heh heh!” Yang Bo chuckled at the thought of such a scenario.

“I should be able to test soon whether the leaders of these beasts can increase my Mind Control.” Of course, until he successfully verified it again, it was just a theory.

“What about joining a sect in the future?”

“Maybe I’ll just pretend to know nothing, taking it step-by-step.”

“Who knows if these sects have some crazy rules. I don’t want to get exploited by them.” Yang Bo wasn’t keen on joining a sect. The longer a sect’s history, the more complex its relationships were. If he ever wanted to escape, it’d be difficult.

“Better figure things out first. If it doesn’t work, I won’t join. I learned lockpicking already. If I get really strong later, I’ll just rely on my own research.” Yang Bo had prepared a backup plan.

While Yang Bo was training in real life, his two teammates hadn’t gone scouting at the zoo either. They were still on the forum, entertained by the livestream drama.

“Those three jerks had it coming.”

“We spent over 10,000 currency just detoxifying our characters.”

“And there are still sheep horns we didn’t collect.”

“But our captain’s plan worked beautifully.”

“Our captain must be rich. If it were anyone else, they would have fought for it, at least taking the sheep horn.”

“But we don’t really know what kind of person our captain is. I’ve seen some captains in the mecha game act all arrogant.”

“Let’s follow him for a couple days. If there’s any benefit, we’ll stick with him. If not, we’ll ditch him.”

“Good point. We’re here to make money, after all.”

The three players who clashed with Yang Bo were killed by others. Two of them revived and cursed out the players at the respawn point.

You should know, it costs tens of thousands to revive. For players who use this game to make money, that’s a killer. After all, they’re here to earn.

Unfortunately, those three had no proof Yang Bo was the one who destroyed their sheep horn.

It’s not like anyone who steals from others records it.

They never expected Yang Bo to turn the tables, causing a mess for the other contenders.

At least 11 players died during this fight, based on statistics.

They could either spend tens of thousands to buy a Revival Token or wait a year.

Some players who thought they’d earn enough within a year bought the token. Others, who thought they wouldn’t, chose not to revive.

This was another game feature. It filtered out the weak—players who died too often wouldn’t keep playing.

And if you did spend money to revive, you’d have to work harder to find mission items.

In the end, this game worked on a remote control system, helping the military search for resources.

Everything revolved around that. Yang Bo understood the quirky rules, but other players just found it frustrating.

When Yang Bo logged back in, he immediately heard someone cursing at the respawn point.

But his gear had long since been swapped out, and in any case, they didn’t know each other’s usernames.

Unless they were in a squad together or had exchanged contact info.

“Serves you right!” Yang Bo had already seen the outcome on the forums. Of the three, one hadn’t revived, while the other two did but lost all their gear and items.

Other players who had died because of the incident were also cursing at the respawn point.

Yang Bo left the respawn area, then pulled out his map to study it carefully.

“Is there no cattle farm around?” Yang Bo spotted a cattle farm. From what he recalled, cows didn’t have leaders, especially on a large scale.

“Same for chicken farms. Unless it’s free-range chickens, most farms would only have hens.”

“But just looking at the map, I can’t tell which farms are free-range and which are egg farms.”

Looking at the map alone, Yang Bo couldn’t distinguish what each farm near him was raising. Some animals didn’t have a leader, after all.

In the end, Yang Bo picked a farm that wasn’t too far or too close. It was a small farm, around 20 kilometers away.

Choosing a spot too far would waste time, and too close might attract unwanted attention.

It would take him around 40 minutes to reach it, based on his bionic body’s speed.

He also had to consider the condition of the roads. If there was too much tall grass or if the roads had collapsed, it could delay him.

The road conditions weren’t too bad, at least there were no collapses.

The surrounding maps were mountainous, and the farms and ranches were all set up in distant areas.

After 40 minutes, Yang Bo arrived at the farm and saw over a dozen zombies wandering around.

The farm was halfway up a hill, with a road leading to the mid-slope.

Both in front and behind the farm were fields, but they were now ruined beyond recognition. The only visible road was the one leading up to the property; the rest was overgrown and deserted.

The buildings were concrete, but the metal reinforcements had rusted completely. The originally installed windows had fallen to the ground, leaving gaping holes where they had once been.

It gave off a rather eerie feeling overall.

Yang Bo picked up a stone and threw it as hard as he could.

The stone hit the abandoned building with a loud thud.

The dozen or so zombies wandering around the building immediately howled.

“Moving to the second target.” Yang Bo observed the place carefully. There were no animals around, which was strange. There should have been chickens or ducks, but there were none.

Before setting off, Yang Bo had already marked a second target. It was one kilometer away, also a farm, but much larger according to the map.

The second target was further up the mountain, almost at the peak.

Yang Bo moved cautiously along the way, as there was no telling what kind of monsters could come bursting out of the overgrown bushes.

Suddenly, a chorus of howls erupted, followed by echoing roars from the surrounding grass.

Yang Bo immediately turned and ran, recognizing that there were at least dozens, maybe even hundreds of them.

As he bolted, dark shadows emerged from the tall grass behind him.

“Zombie chickens!” Yang Bo instantly recognized them. They were exactly what he had been looking for.

These chickens had morphed into grotesque creatures, their feathers completely gone, leaving behind shriveled, jet-black bodies with elongated necks and clawed feet. Their heads were dried and skeletal.

They looked nightmarishly vicious.

Yang Bo immediately opened fire. These creatures hopped and bounced, moving extremely fast.

Kick +2!

One chicken’s head exploded. The resulting ability surprised Yang Bo. What kind of skill was this? Yang Bo quickly resumed running. After covering about two kilometers, the initial large group of zombies had fallen back, but over a dozen were still chasing him.

Among the pursuers were rabbits, wild chickens, a wild boar, and some rats.

Seven or eight of the rats looked like dried, withered corpses, but small as they were, they scurried around with lightning speed.

Luring the zombies to an open area, Yang Bo started taking them out one by one.

Wild Boar: Charge +2!

Rabbit: Hearing +2!

Wild Chicken: Kick +2!

Rat: Dynamic Vision +2!

Those animals gave him these abilities. Seeing what the wild boar had granted him, Yang Bo’s eyes lit up. It would enhance his physique.

“If only I could find a massive pig farm!”