Chapter 96: How to Dodge a Bullet
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 96: How to Dodge a Bullet
If you can dodge a flying bullet, you're no longer human.
Seeing and dodging a bullet traveling at 600 to 1,000 meters per second is practically in the realm of teleportation.
That's why guns are such threatening yet reliable weapons in a zombie apocalypse.
They shouldn't be easy to find; if farming them is too easy, it ruins the game's difficulty.
Of course, guns aren't always a cure-all.
Their most fatal flaw is that they are consumable weapons that require ammunition.
Even if you have a gun, it's useless without bullets.
No matter how destructive a weapon is, if it has a limited number of uses, it inevitably becomes a heavy burden on the user.
Especially if farming ammo is incredibly difficult.
It becomes a last resort, used only when absolutely necessary.
And while guns have guaranteed lethality, their accuracy varies wildly depending on the user.
Since a bullet can fly completely off-target with just a slight shift in angle, hitting even a stationary target is no easy task unless you're at point-blank range.
Well, whatever the case, their lethality is guaranteed—at least against humans.
In a zombie apocalypse, factions with guns—factions that have farmed firearms well—are bound to be incredibly powerful.
You might be able to overwhelm one or two guns with sheer numbers while the shooters miss.
But against a faction like a military unit, you could get completely wiped out by blind, rapid fire before you even get close.
So, even I have to be wary of guns.
Even if my average stats have surpassed level 15, a gun is still a gun.
Thinking, Maybe I can see and dodge bullets by now? is a shortcut to an early grave.
I know that when the trajectory appears and turns green, that's the exact moment the bullet is fired. But it's safest to deal with them before the red trajectory even touches me.
In that sense, Hunting Expert is definitely a cheat mode.
Unless they're throwing stones at me from a distance, if a pistol has already appeared, it means they have other guns too.
Whether I can see and dodge bullets even with my Agility stat is still a mystery.
But shooting before the opponent does is something I can easily do.
I've already confiscated two pistols.
I'll have to check how many bullets are inside, but they won't be empty.
"Anyone else have a gun?"
[Faction Quest 4]
– You have discovered a drug cartel within the Safe Base. The drug cartel is a faction that can have a devastating impact on your faction. If not suppressed early, your faction's territory could become a den of drug addicts. Quickly wipe out the drug organization within your faction to prevent the spread of drugs early on.
– Reward: 3 Points, Normal Mode Level (★) Selection Ticket x5, leads to Faction Quest 4-1.
The quest had already popped up the moment I rescued the delivery rider and entered the building.
I was planning to tear everything down anyway, but now that a quest has popped up like this, there's no need to hesitate.
"Since no one's answering, I guess that's all of them?"
I didn't blindly believe them.
Bang!
I fired the pistol I was aiming, hitting the head of the guy closest to me.
It's been a while since I fired a pistol, but my hands still remember the feel.
Pistol shooting, especially after transitioning to VR, yielded wildly different results depending on the user's skill. Like most veterans of the zombie apocalypse, I spent most of my time practicing my shooting.
After all, once you set up your own base, move from city to city, and raid military bases, you end up with crates of guns and ammo stacked up. Building proficiency isn't that hard.
And it wasn't just the veterans.
Newbies also practice shooting so they don't waste precious bullets when they finally get a gun.
Since ammo is hard to come by, the community gallery introduces mods that increase the drop rate of guns and ammo, and many players use them to get massive amounts of bullets for target practice.
Target practice isn't all that boring.
Sure, you can shoot at targets at home until you hit them, but you can also go to a Demonic Lair packed with moving zombies for some real-world practice, bringing tons of ammo and blasting away.
It relieves stress, serves as practice, and is overall great.
Anyway, I didn't just sit around doing nothing for 100,000 hours, so I pride myself on being among the top tier of zombie apocalypse players when it comes to shooting.
It's not like I have to hit a tiny coin.
It's just hitting the head of a guy barely three or four meters away.
"Why... why are you shooting?! We don't have any more guns!"
"No, you do. Throw them over here."
Bang!
Another guy collapsed.
There were nearly forty people gathered here anyway.
This couldn't be all of them, so if I dragged this out, more would definitely show up.
Would the quest be cleared if I just went back like this?
The third floor of the building was burning fiercely from the Molotov cocktail, and the flames were spreading to the second floor.
The great thing about a Level 1 Molotov Cocktail is that the fire doesn't just spread mindlessly.
Because it burns intensely only within a certain range, there was no risk of the fire spreading outside this building.
Soon, the fire would make its way down.
That was why those bastards weren't breaking their encirclement, even as their comrades died.
They had to protect the drugs at all costs.
But they couldn't pull out their hidden guns either.
They had already seen me snatch away their weapons twice before they could even draw them. Pulling one out now, thinking they'd be different, would be nothing short of proving they had air for brains.
I added a bit of acting.
Bang!
"We've done enough, so how about we go our separate ways?"
"..."
I mixed a hint of anxiety into my nonchalance.
Their numbers had dropped by about five from forty, but they still outnumbered me.
They seemed to think that no matter how strong I was, I wouldn't be able to handle over thirty people at once.
They could rush me right now, but perhaps they were wary of the drugs getting damaged in the process.
It was obvious they wanted to retrieve them safely, by any means necessary.
"Just put the drugs down, and we'll let you go."
"Are you dumbasses seriously expecting me to put them down?"
"Then we can't let you leave."
They must be pretty desperate in their own right.
I didn't know exactly how much the drugs in my backpack were worth, but they'd fetch a hefty price in any currency, let alone Coins.
Besides, this probably wasn't their main base.
A drug cartel usually has a much larger organization behind it. If they let me walk away like this, these guys would likely pay a steep price regardless.
That's why they were blocking me.
They were going to die anyway.
But if they retrieved the drugs, their punishment might be downgraded from death to just getting beaten up.
"Hmm. Fine."
Pretending to give in, I set down the two confiscated pistols.
I placed them on the floor, raised both hands, and took three steps back.
"Let's talk this out. Just talk."
Guns are incredibly threatening weapons.
Of course, my ammo was limited, and even if it wasn't enough to shoot every single person here, they couldn't rush me blindly because they'd have to suffer heavy casualties.
So, I was releasing them from that shackle.
The cartel members exchanged glances.
I saw a few of them tighten their grips on their weapons.
This was the signal for battle.
A few kept their eyes on the pistols on the floor.
Others locked their gaze onto my feet.
They were probably planning to snatch the pistols the moment the fight broke out.
And exactly two guys.
I saw them reaching into their coats.
"There we go."
Smiling, I drew a pistol from the Survival Belt at my waist and shot both of them in the head.
Bang! Bang!
Then, I retrieved the items they had been trying to pull from their coats and scooped up the pistols from the floor.
"You did have more, you motherfuckers."
I had retrieved them just in case it was a trick, since there was no risk anyway, and they actually turned out to be guns.
Now it really seemed like they were out, so it was time to wrap things up.
Faction Quest 4 alone offered 3 Points, and it was a highly lucrative quest that guaranteed a follow-up with Faction Quest 4-1.
There was no need to waste time here, nor was there any reason to let these bastards live.
Only when these guys burned to ashes along with the building would the bigger fish come looking to screw me over.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
I generously unloaded the bullets in the pistols.
Realizing they were utterly screwed, they rushed me, but unfortunately for them, they couldn't outrun bullets.
Starting with the closest ones.
When one pistol ran out of ammo, I switched to another. After emptying all four confiscated pistols, I even used the one I had brought with me.
Even so, there were more than enough bullets to kill forty people.
If the stat gap between us hadn't been so massive, they might have been able to use their sheer numbers to close the distance, block me, and subdue me without giving me an angle to shoot, regardless of whether I was firing or not.
But these bastards overlooked one thing.
Even without a gun, there was no way I would lose a 40-to-1 fight.
They probably didn't realize it.
Not even up to the moment they died.
After all, I had only shot them all because firing a gun for the first time in a while felt good.
"Whew. Now this is what I'm talking about."
If you have enough guns and ammo, walking into a Large Mart with a shotgun and clearing out hundreds of zombies feels absolutely ecstatic.
It's no wonder many players consider the ultimate endgame of the zombie apocalypse to be graduating from farming and just sweeping zombies out of a large department store.
Watching the flames slowly creep down to the first floor, I grab whatever useful items I can see and head out.
[Quest Complete!]
Now that the quest is finished, there's no need to drag out the event by running into any latecomers.
"Thanks for the loot."
– Seongsu Apartment Autonomous Organization.
I left a note in a spot that wouldn't catch fire and made my way back.