Chapter 7 Hunting Monsters

Therefore, Zhang Yanhang said this old newspaper was useful because it recorded information of interest to him. Was it celebrity gossip? No, it wasn't. Was it a photo spread of female models? No, it wasn't either.

The real answer was actually just a few simple words—'The Raccoon City Journal.' Yes, that was the name of the newspaper.

If you look at the English alone, it might seem unfamiliar, but the two words in the middle together mean 'Raccoon City,' so this newspaper, if translated into Chinese, would be 'Raccoon City Daily.'

"How in the world did Raccoon City come out of nowhere? What happened to Ashen World? Why has it suddenly turned into a Resident Evil scenario?"

At this moment, Zhang Yanhang was truly astonished. He was mainly shocked by the possibility of encountering monsters like Lickers and Tyrants. Although he could mow down ordinary zombies without any trouble, a Tyrant could also potentially mow him down without any effort.

The thought of being brutally killed from a distance by a Tyrant wielding a machine gun, flamethrower, or rocket launcher immediately soured Zhang Yanhang's mood.

"Forget it, when in Rome. Although a Tyrant is strong, it's slow, so, if I can't beat it, I should still be able to just run away," Zhang Yanhang was now regretting why he hadn't been holding a Spiritual Artifact in his hand while sleeping. If he could bring over an attack-type Spiritual Artifact, he might not have to worry about being unable to defeat his enemies.

"Let's continue the search for something that can serve as a weapon." After searching under the bed, beside the bedside cabinet, and the wardrobe but finding nothing, Zhang Yanhang headed to the kitchen, which was located farthest from the old wooden bed, right next to the anti-theft door.

Fortunately, the original owner of the room seemed to have the habit of cooking, which meant that Zhang Yanhang found an entire set of Western-style kitchen knives, including seven small knives that appeared similar to paring knives but whose specific functions Zhang Yanhang could not discern, and one bone-chopping knife that was both larger and heavier compared to the other knives.

The bone-chopper was about thirty to forty centimeters long, while the other seven knives varied in length from a few centimeters to about fifteen centimeters.

"As expected, I only found kitchen knives, but using a kitchen knife to chop up zombies is quite typical, even though most of the time it ends up with the person getting killed in retaliation," Zhang Yanhang had often seen scenarios in zombie movies where a housewife would try to chop up a zombie with a kitchen knife, only to have the zombie bite her neck.

Apart from kitchen knives, Zhang Yanhang also found a bunch of keys on the table next to the kitchen, which, if he wasn't mistaken, should be the keys to this room. They were quite useful, given he was definitely going to need to come back here later.

So, to prevent any zombies or other monsters from suddenly breaking in while he was gone, he needed to lock the room door with the keys.

Next, he examined the attached kitchen cabinets. In the lower cabinets, Zhang Yanhang found some bagged edible salt and other seasonings, as well as half a box of bottled mineral water, approximately seven or eight bottles, with no indication if they were expired or not.

After searching through the lower cabinets, Zhang Yanhang then checked the upper ones, finding some canned foods like beans, pork, and luncheon meat.

"Finding drinking water and food in the kitchen truly is good news. It at least means that I won't die from basic needs like hunger and dehydration in the Ashen World."

Although these items might already be expired, Zhang Yanhang felt that as an Awakener, he should be fine eating expired food. At the worst, he might get diarrhea but certainly wouldn't die.

After going through the entire room, Zhang Yanhang stood by a window facing the street. From there, he could observe the outside world, the street view. What could he say? The world outside was shrouded in a gray haze; downstairs, there were seven or eight abandoned cars parked, most of which had no obvious damage, except for a few whose cabins were covered in dark red bloodstains.

As for zombies? He didn't see any at all. Yes, not a single one, not even a corpse on the street.

"What happened to Raccoon City? Why aren't there any zombies on the streets? I remember when I played the game, it was crawling with zombies." Zhang Yanhang initially wanted to gather more information about his surroundings to better understand the situation, but now, everything was completely unclear to him. It was so chaotic all he could do was to take one step at a time.

"Now that I've searched the entire room, it's time to make a choice. I pick the third option, to wait a while longer." After the Time Pause ended, Zhang Yanhang went back to the old wooden bed.

Since he hadn't found any suitable shoes in the room, Zhang Yanhang had to continue walking barefoot on the dusty floor, which had turned his soles pitch black.

If possible, Zhang Yanhang thought his secondary mission should be to find a pair of shoes for himself, as walking barefoot was really uncomfortable.

You might ask what his primary mission was? That would be hunting the monsters of Ashen World, of course! Getting stronger was always Zhang Yanhang's foremost priority.

As for finding weapons, honestly, he was an Awakener after all, and for monsters at the level of zombies, whether he had a weapon or not really didn't make much difference. It would only slightly affect the speed of his unrivaled slaughter fest.

As he only had three minutes, and since Zhang Yanhang did not have a watch, he could only count the seconds in his heart to track the time.

Zhang Yanhang had already decided what to do during the Time Pause. He went to the wardrobe first and took a sling bag to wear across his shoulders, which could later be used to carry many items. Then, he headed to the kitchen and stuffed into the bag the steel knife block containing the seven small knives and the bone-chopping knife.

Yes, he shoved the entire knife block into the bag, because he thought the small knives might be used as throwing knives, and although carrying an entire knife block was somewhat cumbersome, an Awakener's strength meant it was not a big problem.

After packing the knife block, Zhang Yanhang had nothing else to prepare. After all, his opponent was just a Goblin, and the options even indicated that the enemy had extremely low combat power, so what was there to fear? The options would never deceive him, so for sure, he could defeat this Goblin.

But still, the need for caution remained. Zhang Yanhang first peeked through the peephole of the security door to check for any monsters outside the door. After confirming there was nothing, he gently opened a crack in the door and peeked through the gap to observe more of the surroundings, still seeing no sign of any monsters.