Superman Termination Manual

Chapter 041 Post-war Settlement

Not long after the chef zombie died, his bloated body was stained by blood into a black statue, standing motionless like the shape of embers solidified, right in the center of the supermarket.

The one flickering and broken light bulb on the ceiling was acting as the only source of light at this moment, occasionally making a "pop pop" noise, and the sparks it scattered vanished in a flash in the darkness, drowned in the air filled with the smell of blood.

Four players sat down against a cold wall.

Their eyes were fixed on the panel in front of them, their fingers skillfully sliding across the screen, quickly checking the loot from instance No. 5.

[You will leave the instance in two minutes, instance rewards have already been delivered to each player's bag, please confirm receipt...]

[You have received the standard completion reward for instance No. 5, one, 3000 Mall Coins; two, 1500 Experience Points; three, one "E-class Equipment" Lottery Ticket; and four, a one-time summon card, "Suicide Zombie."]

[Your level has been elevated to Lv. 4 (0 points/2000 points), and you have gained one attribute point to allocate at will.]

[The attribute point has been added to "Physical Fitness," and your "Physical Fitness" attribute has been elevated to 19 points.]

Ke Mingye closed the panel and looked ahead.

Right before the chef zombie died, he vomited a solid piece of fresh blood, which stuck to a column in a sticky mess.

Now, that solid piece of blood was melting slowly like ice, occasionally dripping down one or two drops onto the floor, making a ticking sound.

They had just checked the large hole at the depth of the supermarket, the place where the chef zombie had charged out from, and found nothing but a huge pulsating heart inside.

Ke Mingye signaled the other three with his eyes and then shot a strand of spider silk from his right hand that stuck to the heart and slowly pulled it outward.

The next moment, the heart burst open, splashing blood all over everyone. They thought some rare item would explode out, so they pinched their noses and searched through the pool of blood.

They came up empty-handed.

Having lost both manpower and effort, their current appearance was very disheveled, covered in blood that they couldn't wipe clean.

But since the instance couldn't be entered again after a successful challenge, it would be a pity to miss any hidden levels; bearing this thought, they had investigated once and were reassured.

At this moment, Ke Mingye, with his Deception Puppet sitting cross-legged on the ground, was the first to break the silence.

"Are you guys hurt?"

"I'm fine." Ju Zipi turned and smiled at him, "Shouldn't we be asking you? Weren't you the main target of its hatred all the way?"

"Not an issue, I think we should be more concerned about Punk Girl," Ke Mingye said.

"Warn you, stop calling me Punk Girl, if it wasn't because this body's predecessor was a punk, I wouldn't need to fit in with the persona so tiresomely every day."

Qing Meng said this with a cold sideways glance at him.

"Personality largely depends on experiences, and the predecessor's memory counts as an experience. Thus, it's not strange for you to be influenced by her and gradually become a punk girl through subtle influence," Fan Quan said as he sat on an overturned shelf while staring at a bible in his hand, not looking up.

He paused, "Besides, in the instance, it doesn't matter if we get hurt since we'll heal instantly when we return to reality."

"Okay," Qing Meng said. "Since it doesn't matter, can I shoot you in the head?"

"Go ahead."

"Tch, you really are a freak."

Qing Meng stopped looking at him and began disassembling the handgun in her hands while continuing to practice the assembly process of the firearm.

In the player panel, "General Skills" like "Cooking Skills" or "Firearms Use" all have proficiency progress, the higher the proficiency, the higher the skill level.

If you want to increase the level of the "Firearms Use" General Skill, practicing the disassembly and assembly of firearms is also a good way, not only firing them.

"Punk Girl, can you not be so terrifying?" Ke Mingye said. "Even though shooting him in the head won't kill him, it will still hurt, right?"

"So what, it's not like he won't get shot in the future, let him get used to it early," Qing Meng said.

"That's how it should be," Fan Quan spoke emotionlessly, "I suggest you all take advantage of being still in the instance to experience the stimulation of pain more, to prevent giving up too soon in real battles due to unbearable pain. For instance, if your arm is severed, you can still run, but if you just kneel down clutching your arm and yelling, it's over."

"Makes sense,"

Ju Zipi nodded and echoed.

In their past lives, everyone had been workers or students. If things truly came to blows with those superheroes, even a little scrape could leave them wincing in agony, not to mention whether they could still think clearly if an arm or leg were broken.

Ke Mingye understood this very well, especially when it came to Qing Ya. He always felt that even if the old man had a huge gash in his stomach, he could still think calmly about what to do next.

If the enemy could do that, then they had to achieve the same, otherwise, how could they stand against them?

Qing Meng pointed her index finger at Fan Quan and squinted at Ke Mingye, "Do you know how bizarre this guy is?"

"How bizarre?"

Ke Mingye asked curiously, looking up at the cultural person sitting on the shelf.

Ju Zipi answered the question for her, slowly explaining.

"On the way to Yandai Commercial Street today, we got tangled up with a couple of beggars. Initially, I thought about giving them a couple of dollars, but Fan Quan said that wouldn't solve the real issue. So he joined the beggars' line, taught them some more urbanized methods of begging, and even made a deal to take a cut of their earnings periodically.

As a result, he was cursed and chased by the two beggars all the way here."

Ke Mingye was stunned for a moment; he had thought this man was merely aloof from reading too much, but now he realized the guy might actually be bordering on insane.

"He doesn't seem like a normal person."

Qing Meng shrugged her shoulders while clicking together a handgun and complained.

"It's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish, I taught them how to beg for money to survive, so they wouldn't have to worry about food and drink in the future," Fan Quan defended himself. "Their begging methods are still rural; they haven't adapted to new ideas in the city."

"See, that's what happens when you read too much," Ju Zipi said as he did push-ups with his hands on the ground and teased him.

"Right?" Qing Meng said.

"Yes," Ke Ming replied, nodding.

"If there's a Skill in the mall that could check a teammate's educational level, I might consider buying it outright," Fan Quan said as he flipped through a book with a cold sneer.

"Alright," Ju Zipi got up from the ground, dusting off his hands, "It's almost time to leave the instance. Should we all add each other as friends?"

"No."

Fan Quan refused decisively.

"Playing mysterious, huh, cultured person?" Ju Zipi started to call him that too.

"Alright, I'll keep the mystery too. Let's not add anybody," Ke Mingye said.

While he said that, he had a reason for not adding friends: Deception Puppets couldn't use the contact list, and adding friends required being face-to-face, which he couldn't always manage.

"You guys are really childish."

Muttering under her breath, Qing Meng successfully assembled a handgun, inserted the magazine, and cocked the gun.

"If we're not adding, then we're not," Ju Zipi glanced at the countdown on the panel and waved, "The countdown's almost up, see you guys later."

"See you next time, Brother Ju," Ke Mingye also waved at him.

"Bye."

Qing Meng bid them farewell while packing three handguns into her backpack and slung it over her shoulder.

"We'll let you know when we find a suitable next instance, see you then," Fan Quan dropped a lukewarm comment and shortly after, the four of them disappeared within the supermarket.

After a brief plunge into darkness, the Deception Puppet came to its senses, standing in a deserted alley on Yandai Commercial Street.

After leaving an instance, the exit location in reality was chosen by the player; the system provided some "unmonitored" locations as options. Ke Mingye chose the alley behind Yandai Cinema City, while the other three chose different locations, so there were no signs of them around.

At that moment, the school uniform on the puppet, stained with blood, had reverted to its clean state, just as it was before entering the instance.

"Well, the instance is done, I hope the movie is over too," Ke Mingye thought, having the puppet stay put in the alley while he himself opened his eyes in the cinema.