Investigating the Surroundings

The television provided them with enough information to know that the current situation in Country V was quite perilous. The government couldn't make their moves even after a period of time. Even official's announcement hadn't been made yet. With the electricity supply cut off to a certain degree, there were some areas that couldn't get a hold even if they spread the news.

And at this point of time, it was even more so.

"Are we going to stay here?" Gloria asked after she had eaten some breads. She took some breads aside from canned food when they were in the mall back then. It would expire first, so they better eat those foods first.

William shook his head. "We'll be going later. For now, you should stay in your room and don't go anywhere. I want to check on the other survivors."

"How?"

Pointing to the window at the north side, William smiled. "Don't worry about me. You should just stay here and rest. There's no need for you to get involved."

Gloria furrowed her brows. However, she didn't refute what William said. Before this, she was nothing more than a student in a university nearby and had quite poor physical abilities. Even if she wished to help him, there was nothing that she could do.

"Don't die." Gloria turned her head around and walked to one of the bedrooms. It was still afternoon, but there was nothing that they could really do aside from watching the television to get the newest information.

They were all still clueless over the situation. With so many people dying on the streets, those who could survive couldn't think about anything but finding a method to stay alive. The two of them were obviously not an exception.

William smiled and walked to the window. He pocketed a few pieces of bread before he took out a metal pipe and gun. His bullets were limited, so he obviously had to make sure that he had enough to survive after making a round. Hopefully he would be able to find a more suitable weapon after taking a trip in the mall next to this hotel.

Walking to the balcony, William looked at the distance between the two buildings. There were only around two meters' distance, which was not that far in his opinion. In addition, the one at the other side of the hotel was a window made of glass.

'Ordinary items wouldn't be able to break it, huh?'

Raising his hand, William aimed at one point. Afterwards, he pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Prang!

With two bullets at the same point, the glass broke. William looked at the hole in front of him and sighed. It seemed that the manufacturer was actually using quite a faulty material. It was a bit too easy.

Well, it didn't matter to him.

Stepping to the back a bit, William then run and jumped to the other side. This distance was nothing much to him.

Tep!

Landing on the mall, William swept his gaze with his gun in his right hand and the metal pipe in his left hand ready. There was no living being in sight. In fact, the mall was oddly quiet as if there was no one here in the first place.

However, the smell of blood began to assault his senses. Slowly, William began to travel in the empty mall and looked around. The mall didn't show any sign of chaos since it was not covered in the distance of the bomb. However, there were still many corpses of the unfortunate people who were attacked by the Xermo.

'As I thought, I hated calling them that way.'

William sighed and checked for any living beings inside this place. If there was one thing he felt fortunate about, that would be the fact that Xermo had to be a living human being and not a dead person. If a person was attacked by a Xermo and ended up dying instead of getting infected, it meant that he or she would never turn into a Xermo.

That was a piece of good news.

Just as William was thinking about it, he heard faint rustling sound then the sound of someone speaking with speaker sounded out.

"Tes, tes, this is official government speaking. The country has declared emergency state bzzzt. As of now, there are sudden influx of…."

The problem with the speakers because of the connection caused the words to be unclear, but William could guess that the remaining members of the government were trying their best to salvage this situation no matter how hard it would take. There must be several medias that they used to deliver the news to the entire city.

"The following cities have been blocked. Those who are currently staying in the place mentioned below will not be able to come out without facing rigorous inspection. In several days, military personnel will come to your place to fetch those who are still alive…."

8 Cities including the capital city was included.

William knew that based on the geography that those were all the cities around the capital city, which included the place he was staying at this moment. Aside from that, the other two cities that were bombed were also included since the Xermo in that place were released as well. The government couldn't afford having more Xermo getting out of the range and possibly infect those who were still healthy.

Because of that, they employed a very strict rule: immediate lockdown!

Those who were living in those mentioned cities could only blame their bad luck for living in the areas that was targeted by other countries in this devious war. The chance for them to survive from this incident was also extremely low.

"Lucky, are you there?"

"What is it, Sharp?"

"There's bad news, the government is allowing the citizen to take firearms and defend themselves from Xermo."

William furrowed his brows. He walked to the window and looked outside. The area where the speaker was erected was now filled with countless Xermo. It seemed that they were attracted by the voice that the speaker uttered.

Just like what Sharp told him, the speaker continued to speak.

"For those who encounter the mutated people, whom we termed as Xermo, you're free to take weapon and attack them. We'll not charge you based on the law because Xermo can't no longer be categorized as humans…."

"There's no method to cure the Xermo, huh?" William asked in a low tone.

"None. As you might have known, Virus R directly attacked your nerve and based on what I know, there's no method to recover damaged nerve. All people could ever do is to reduce the rate."

"Things could get messy here," William muttered. If these people started to take firearms and began to attack on ordinary citizen too, the chaos would be worse. There would certainly be some people who wanted to take advantage of the situation to do crime.

"Is there any prison nearby?"

"I think no? Why?"

"There's news that the electricity might not be able to support the destroyed cities anymore. In a short period of time, there's a chance that they might even cut off the supplies to prevent people dying because of electrocuted."

William's face changed. Without electricity, the prison might be vulnerable. While there was emergency generator, there was no saying how long they would be able to hold on with just that alone.

When the prisoners were released, there was no guarantee that the situation wouldn't get even worse.

"Hah…."

"Wil…. I mean, Lucky, what's wrong?"

"Just what had happened to this world that we used to know?" William asked with a bitter smile on his lips.

The world is changing.

But the change was simply too fast. There would be a lot of people who would not be able to catch up with the current rate of the chance and possibly be left behind and died in the process.

"It's indeed bad."

"And it's not the only point, Sharp."

"Yes?"

"Country V is not the first one," William reminded. The war had already officially started three months ago. During this time, how many cities have been destroyed by the bombs? How many Xermo was released and created all over the world?

There was no one who could count it.

They all could only deploy one method when they were facing with this situation: immediate lockdown to prevent the Xermo from spreading further in their land.

But this method also came with the cost. The citizen who were living in the areas where the Xermo was roaming wouldn't be spared and would be sacrificed. This time, they were included in that number.