Chapter Fifty: Different Worlds

The binding monster was merely a minor incident. As for whether using the Monster Manual came with certain aftereffects, for now, it seemed limited to making him a bit more aggressive; at least his mind remained clear, not wholly consumed by the urge for slaughter.

If resistance is futile, one must learn to enjoy. Fan Li could not part from the Monster Manual—not now, not yet. There’s a saying, isn’t there? If you can’t fight life, then lie down and let life enjoy you. No, rather, enjoy life yourself.

Fan Li made a choice. Between the radical urge to kill and the hideous form of the monsters, he opted for the former.

The dead silence of his surroundings threatened to drive him mad. Along the way, he found not a single living soul. Thankfully, Ellie walked beside him, making him seem less alone.

If someone were to glimpse them from afar, they might reproach Fan Li for bringing a young girl onto such dangerous streets. Yet, drawing closer, they would see the girl was far from fragile. Her mouth, akin to a meat grinder, had devoured countless lives along the route. After each feeding, the remains of the zombies turned dark and shriveled, like charcoal.

If communication were possible, Fan Li would have liked to ask: if she eats her fill once, would she not need to be fed the next time she’s summoned?

Despite Ellie’s less-than-elegant manners, Fan Li’s decision to let her feast at a buffet this time won her favor. Her goodwill towards him rose from sixty to sixty-five.

In this environment, such news was rare and precious.

After an hour of wandering, Fan Li halted; he knew it was time to return. He had ventured far, but in the last ten minutes, he had killed no zombies—the slaughter value remained at sixty-two.

The most perilous moment had come when Fan Li encountered at least a hundred zombies roaming nearby. Had he been surrounded, the consequences would have been dire. Luckily, with Ellie’s help, he ordered her to distract the zombies, allowing him to escape by a hair’s breadth.

It was this narrow escape that made him decide to rest before returning to his base.

Along the way, Fan Li noticed many shops and quietly marked them in his mind, planning to return with Hu Huayao to collect their contents.

“Hm?”

Just as he was about to head back, he turned and spotted a pharmacy ahead.

All nearby facilities had collapsed, and the hospital was no longer functional. In peaceful times, a cold could be swiftly cured with drips and injections, but in the apocalypse, illness must be endured.

Medicine was essential.

It wasn’t heavy, so Fan Li considered searching the pharmacy for stomach remedies, cold medicine, and other daily necessities, then hastening back to camp.

However...

Strangely, while zombies wandered the neighboring area, there was not a single one near the pharmacy. That zone seemed marked as off-limits—no zombies ventured near.

When something is unusual, there must be a reason.

Fan Li was not unfamiliar with such scenes. Whether titans or weepers, they had used their presence to keep zombies at bay.

The emptiness around the pharmacy strongly suggested an advanced entity or even a monster was lurking nearby.

“Should I ask Hu Huayao to come with me and explore next time?”

The thought came, but Fan Li shook his head and dismissed it.

Neither advanced entities nor monsters could be handled by ordinary people. Hu Huayao was strong, but he had never truly faced monsters of this level. If something went awry, he might become a liability.

“Slaughter value…”

Fan Li muttered to himself, already having an answer in his heart.

If you don’t enter the tiger’s den, how can you capture its cub? His slaughter value was at sixty-two; if he only killed ordinary zombies, he would need to slay nearly forty more to meet his goal—too inefficient. Stronger zombies were worth more.

He was not alone; Ellie was by his side. If he encountered a troublesome foe, he could order her to injure it first, then finish it himself to gain the slaughter value. If he faced an unbeatable monster, he could let Ellie cover the retreat while he withdrew strategically—the danger wasn’t too great.

With this in mind, Fan Li stepped forward to explore.

As he moved, the abnormality grew more pronounced.

It was too quiet.

So quiet that it seemed the entire town had lost not only its humans but even its zombies—no insects survived.

Indeed, compared to noise, silence was more likely to drive one mad.

As he drew nearer to the pharmacy, Fan Li’s nerves tightened. He slowed his pace and let Ellie take the lead, scouting ahead.

The walk from the corner to the pharmacy entrance was slow. In the heat of battle, this span would have given Fan Li time to kill three zombies and arrange their heads in a neat pattern.

At last, they reached the pharmacy door. Upholding the virtue of “ladies first,” Fan Li opened the door and let Ellie enter.

Time passed. Fan Li felt like a criminal stationed at a bank’s entrance, waiting for his partner to signal before rushing in to loot everything.

Only, his partner had peculiar habits—the loot mattered less than eating one’s fill before starting work.

There was no sound inside. If Ellie had encountered zombies or monsters, she would have been fighting fiercely by now. This suggested that nothing dangerous lurked within.

“Perhaps I’m making too much of it. The monster’s intimidation range is nearly a hundred meters. Besides the pharmacy, there are other buildings here—perhaps the mutated being is hiding elsewhere.”

“You walk your narrow bridge, I walk my sunlit path. If possible, best not to come out at all.”

Fan Li did not fear monsters, but if he could gather medicine more safely, he wouldn’t mind. After confirming there were no sounds of fighting inside, he grasped the handrail and opened the door.

As the door swung open, Fan Li was suddenly blinded, as if a strong light struck his eyes. After a few seconds, he blinked again—and found, rather than shelves full of medicine—

He was standing in a park shaded by green trees. His mind blurred—this was…

The grassy slope behind his school?