Chapter 1908 Taking a Moment To Enjoy
The tower was cleared without much resistance, and the Grey Bears took their bearings while updating the map through the System. They could deploy a drone ahead, but most of them felt it was not worth it considering they knew that the expressway was down south.
However, all of them took a while to slow down to take in the sights of the Great Wall as well as the surrounding environment. The sun was not going to set anytime soon, but the slight fog in the area had made the forest feel a little more than magical.
If they had come a little later, perhaps they could see the sunset from the Great Wall Tower's view. "We can actually do that, you know? Jin did not specify any timeframe that we have to deal with this as soon as possible." Diaz was the first to speak out, as she could see all the Mechanoids had the very same expression on their faces.
"Huh, for once you said something nice, eh?" Click said as she looked at the sky for a moment in order to determine if they could get the rough timing that they were on. However, Page and Tellie had a better idea than the engineer as they searched the dead zombies to see if they were wearing any watches. Of course, electronic watches were a no go unless they were the classic battery only without any smart functions, but automatic watches could give them some indication of the time.
Sure enough, they were able to find three pairs of watches, and they all pointed at approximately the same time. Page even found that very watch powered by batteries and was still working when she picked it up to inspect. With this, they were able to tell not only the time but also the date. It was ironic that it had the very same time wavelength as Jin's World and thus it does make things easier for the group to keep track should they need to return to their master's planet.
"Well, if everything is the same as Commander's world then it would be about an hour later that the sun should set. We can take our time to walk to the closest Great Wall Tower that is near the expressway. We should still have a decent view from there." Diaz remarked, and the others nodded their heads. After all, it was their very first time seeing the sunset together in a foreign world with their physical bodies. They believed that they had the luxury to at least enjoy this particular scene before continuing to walk ahead.
In the meantime, despite the slight fog, their solar battery panels on their bags were still working, and this will give them some extra battery juice as well instead of walking within the forests. Hence, they took the time to stroll towards the next Great Wall Tower, killing any zombies that were blocking their way. The only one who was busy was actually Click, as she took this time to start performing some 3D printing. This was because of the presence of her storage ring, where she could abuse the amount of space that it could carry.
After all, the Grey Bear Squad would not know whether the highway road towards the nearest town or city would be infested with zombies. And although visibility was not a problem for the Mechanoids, they were not sure how active those zombies could be or how sensitive they were to noises. (After all, they do not smell like human since they are Mechanoids.)
So, it was better to be prepared by creating extra drones or mechanical turrets so that they could have some extra firepower if there was a need. Although there was always the portal back, the System did say that it did not wish to waste precious resources and system processes to always bring the Mechanoids to and fro the Zombie World. This was evident with the other minions that went out scouting too. (The only outlier were the Night Foxes since Kraft had forced them to go on constant patrols to ensure that information was still available to him first compared to the rest.)
"So as they finally reached the Great Wall Tower nearest to the highway, all of them decided to stop for a moment and have a quick bite that Lynn had prepared for them previously. Rations were packed similarly to what their Virtual Simulation would have done. This was precisely how Lynn had allowed them to reminisce about their past by imitating how the rations were. It was a bittersweet experience for all of them, but the moment they tore the rations open and took a bite, it was a brand new feeling.
"Oh my god. Lynn's cooking is way beyond words. This is even better than anything she had cooked in the Virtual World!" Diaz said, and the rest concurred as well.
"But this still cannot beat the piping hot food that was served in Amber Arbour at all." Yinn remarked.
"Duh, this is packed food. But the fact that she was able to enhance the flavours compared to those shitty rations we were used to eating, heavenly was not even the word to praise her food." Click replied. Thus, with such flavourful bites, they all waited for the sun to set with the mountains as part of the backdrop.
There were no birds, no chatter, even among the Mechanoids except silence. Everyone quietly saw the sun set and coloured the skies with its majestic orange hues before the abyss took over, leaving them with nothing but stars and clouds. Not even the moon was out for them to peak at.
"I enjoyed it," Page said plainly, and the rest smiled as they felt the same way too.
"Alright, let's go. Swords out, rifles at the side. Once we reach the highway, we are going to use those prototype roller blades to move." Yinn said, and everyone did not object to it as they rappelled down the tower and ran diagonally through the sparse forest and later onto the highway express.
As expected, the highway was littered with cars. Some were burned, some were crashed, but the majority of them were halted. The funny thing was that most of the cars remained intact, and only a few had been brutally damaged. The Mechanoids deduced that there were still a good number of vehicles that still had zombies within them, and they were not provoked to come out.
And their hypothesis was proven right, as they ran a tad too close to one of the cards that a zombie was banging on the car. Page was swift to dispose of the zombie before it could make any more noise, but it sure did rife up the entire expressway as the Grey Bears could sense that the place was not quiet anymore.
However, Yinn did not give a damn about the small fry as she pressed the squad to move further south. So far, the expressway has not deviated from the current map that Jin's World was using, but she would not be surprised if there were different changes later, when they move closer to the towns or cities. Still, that was not her main concern, as the squad was swiftly moving through the highway as fast as they could.
It did take them some time, but eventually, the disturbing sounds of the zombies were far away from them, and the current cars they passed did not make a sound, mainly because they zoomed past them fast enough to make their presence known. The prototype roller blades powered by kinetic energy were able to speed them up to the point that they could breeze through hundreds of metres easily within minutes.
However, that also means that the squad needs to make sure of the road condition, as any cracks, potholes, or even slight debris like a twig could break their momentum very easily. Yet, it was something they had already taken into consideration when they moved through the highway. The squad deployed a sensor formation where they could give each other depth and distance despite the speed they were travelling. This could never be achieved with humans, but Mechanoids were an equation entirely out of the spectrum of human's capabilities. Their ability to process the information far ahead had given them the advantage of keeping them away from the zombies as well as the road ahead.
It was safe to say that with their formation and speed, they were possibly the fastest skaters the world had ever seen, and it was a relatively quiet way of travelling too.
Unfortunately, as smooth sailing as they wished the trip would be, they had noticed that the front had something blocking them and it was not something they could avoid or jump out of the way from.
"It seems like an abnormal group of zombies based on its shape. They do not match with the rest of the zombies that we saw." Tellie reported, and the rest knew that this was the data that they were dying to get, but they were also wary that if they were to move to intercept this, it would cause other zombies to come out of the 'woods' for them.
"We will stop 400 meters away from it." Yinn said, and the rest acknowledged, slowing their speed down so that they do not make too much sound from the friction in an attempt to perform a forceful stop.
When they reached their destination, they purposely moved away from any cars and positioned themselves near the edge of the highway to have a proper understanding of the situation ahead.
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