Step Back! Master is Here! - Chapter 49
Chapter 49: Bronze-Armored Zombies
Thud, thud, thud!
Sounds as though a massive hammer being drawn back and smashing against the ground echoed.
It was hard to imagine that human bodies hitting against a metal door could produce such sounds. And those were even… dead bodies.
By right, the durability and whatnot of a corpse should actually be very low.
To be able to create such a great ruckus, these were evidently not your average zombies.
The corpse transporter hiding somewhere out there was likely much more formidable than the driver.
“It’s bending!”
“It’s bending!”
A yelling Auntie Shufen pointed at the door frame.
Due to the pounding, the door frame had visibly bent a little. Although the metal door was very solid, the door frame wasn’t quite as sturdy.
If this went on, the zombies would probably be able to break through the walls in five minutes.
With a sinister expression on his face, K suddenly charged into the tiny room at the side.
A short while later, K came running back out and then toward the bus resting stationary on the other side. He turned on the engine. Leaving the lights off, he drove toward the metal door, veering left and right the whole time.
The bus turned and stopped with its side to the metal door, blocking it off.
“Ha!” K jumped down the bus and ran happily into the other bus.
This time, he didn’t need to change the direction that the bus was facing anymore—ramming straight into it would do!
Originally, a gap had remained between the bus and the metal door. But with this crash, the two came into intimate zero-distance contact.
The metal door was now fully and thoroughly blocked off.
“With this, they can’t get in so easily anymore.” K was incredibly pleased with his heroic undertaking.
The red scarf in front of his chest[1]… No, even his limbs that were originally weak and sluggish felt a lot stronger.
Auntie Shufen generously gave him a thumbs up and complimented him, “The young man still thinks on his feet pretty quickly after all, doesn’t he?”
“Monk, this is much more useful than you shooting everywhere thoughtlessly,” said K to Tang Luo.
Tang Luo replied, “You can block the door, but it’s not necessary.”
K sneered.
‘Be stubborn all you want.’
He involuntarily looked toward Mico.
Compared to the praise from a middle-aged lady, a typical man would definitely prefer to receive the favor and attention of beauties instead.
Except that there wasn’t the scene that K had imagined.
Mico didn’t look at him with adoration and idolization in her eyes. On the contrary, she was looking in the direction of the metal door with unconcealable horror in her eyes.
“What’s…”
K looked toward where Mico was looking at.
The remaining two words, ‘the matter’, were swallowed back down alive.
On top of the bus that was blocking the metal door was a zombie.
“Zombies don’t possess any intelligence, but most corpse transporters do. There’s no need to block the door when you can just use a ladder to climb in,” said Tang Luo.
K couldn’t help yelling, “Then what the hell were they slamming against the door for earlier!”
“Just trying their luck before the ladder arrived, I guess? If they had managed to slam their way in, wouldn’t it be much easier than climbing in using the ladder?” replied Tang Luo. “Giving it a go didn’t pose any loss to them anyway.”
As they spoke, the zombie had already fallen from the top of the bus.
It landed on the ground in an awful way. It seemed like it had even injured its leg and it started to limp. Its movements slowed down significantly.
The walls and the metal door of the terminal were moderately higher than the bus.
It was impossible for every zombie, which climbed in to have the same body durability as the one that had nearly slammed the door open.
If they fell onto the ground, even becoming paralyzed from the waist down was something within reason. But with the buses there, part of the height was instead lowered.
The damage they would have suffered from the fall was significantly reduced.
Bang, bang!
Tang Luo shattered all four limbs of the zombie with a few shots.
There wasn’t anything like blood and flesh flying everywhere. The only things there were broken bones and air-dried cured meat. It was a typical corpse that had been dead for many years.
The loss of its limbs successfully prevented the zombie’s actions even though the corpse transporter’s commands were still in effect.
Its body wriggled like a caterpillar and continued to attempt to get nearer to Tang Luo and the rest.
Its contorted form under the moonlight sent chills down one’s spine.
By this point, the second zombie also landed on top of the bus.
These zombies were unlike those hopping zombies[2] in zombie movies.
The way they moved was more similar to the zombies in western movies, though not the slow-moving kind. Their speed was probably comparable to the speed of a normal human.
“Get on the bus,” said Tang Luo after he blasted the second zombie into a few parts with a few shots.
“Get on the bus?” K didn’t understand what Tang Luo meant.
Getting back onto the bus at this point?
“The one that’s filled with corpses,” replied Tang Luo. “We had slightly cleaner ones, but you have wasted them.”
K had an awful look on his face.
What did he mean by waste? If he hadn’t used the buses to block the door, that horde of zombies would have rushed in here a long time ago, alright?
“You’ll drive.” Tang Luo walked toward the bus that they had taken to the terminal. He stepped on the wheel and leaped on top of the bus with great ease. “Bring these zombies around in circles. I’ll shoot them down.”
“…”
So it could actually work like this too?
Without waiting for K to respond, Auntie Shufen had already run into the bus. Mico was hot on her heels.
Auntie Shufen opened the window and shouted at K, “Young man, what are you still standing there for? Hurry over and drive! All of us are already on-board!”
“Where am I supposed to drive to?!”
Nothing was going smoothly in the mission this time. K felt extremely troubled.
“You know, around in circles! Even I know better than you!” answered Auntie Shufen.
A terminal the size of a soccer field was enough for a medium-sized bus to go around in circles and take those zombies out for a walk.
In addition, they could even run over a few to death.
“…”
K endured the stench from the corpses in the bus and ignited the engine.
At this point, more zombies entered the terminal. The sound of the door being slammed into had also stopped.
Knowing how to drive didn’t mean that K knew how to drive a bus.
Unlike how he had carelessly driven the buses earlier, having to truly operate a large vehicle like this was a task of mammoth proportions to K.
The bus veered all over the place. It looked like it was in extreme danger of toppling over.
Monotonous and mechanical gunshots rang out.
Tang Luo accurately shot off the limbs of one zombie after another. They were then run over by the bus and thoroughly lost their ability to move.
However, there was no sign of joy on K. He hadn’t forgotten about the presence that had almost broken down the metal door.
That definitely wasn’t a zombie which a tiny pistol could shoot its limbs off, nor could they run it over with a bus.
Up till this point, rather than calling the zombies that they had encountered zombies, calling them moving corpses instead would be more accurate.
When their quantity was under control, they didn’t present much of a threat.
K believed that the mission couldn’t be so simple that they could get through it by leading the zombies around in circles.
As though Murphy’s law, K’s premonition was very accurate.
A big and tall figure flipped over the metal door and crashed heavily onto the bus’ top. Its landing alone actually caused a deep indentation in the metal exterior of the bus.
It was evident just how heavy it was.
Under the moonlight, one could see that the color of this particular zombie was unlike the bluish-gray, bluish-white, and grayish-white of the other zombies. Instead, there was a metallic luster, like that of bronze ware, to it.
It was over two meters tall and had large and thick limbs. Its hands were huge, much like palm-leaf fans.
‘A bronze-armored zombie?’ K wondered to himself.
It was beyond normal for all sorts of products of the imagination to appear in the Game of Gods And Demons.
That outstanding color and luster of its skin strongly resembled the bronze-armored zombie that K knew of.
Ring, ring, ring!
Crystal clear bell chimes traveled along with the wind over to them.
It confirmed everyone’s guess of, “There’s a corpse transporter hiding somewhere”.
No more zombies came in after the bronze-armored zombie’s arrival.
It was hard to tell whether this was because the reserve of zombies had been fully depleted or because the corpse transporter wanted to concentrate on manipulating the bronze-armored zombie and didn’t have the leisure to manipulate other zombies.
There was also the likelihood that the corpse transporter felt that the bronze-armored zombie alone would be enough to put an end to the terminal’s unexpected guests.
The bronze-armored zombie’s movements were a little sluggish.
It took a total of ten seconds for it to jump from the top of the bus to the ground.
This also gave K a chance to properly adjust the direction of the bus. He stomped on the accelerator and rammed fiercely into it.
Boom!
The bus was in intimate contact with the other buses beside it. The front of the bus struck the bronze-armored zombie.
At once, glass shattered and formed a large spread of snowflakes.
The driver’s seat was mashed together.
Fortunately, K had been prepared a long time ago and had already fled before the impact.
In comparison, Auntie Shufen and Mico were all over the place instead.
K crouched low and stared hard at the windscreen that was still in one piece.
An arm reached out. Blue light surfaced. He was all ready to launch his skill.
Right at this moment, the bus suddenly moved in the reverse direction.
Unable to maintain his balance, K instinctively braced his hands against the ground, preventing himself from falling.
Crash!
The windscreen fell off, revealing the bronze-armored zombie that was completely unscathed.
K reached out once more, about to launch his skill the next instant. He aimed at the chest of the bronze-armored zombie.
If luck was on his side, it could totally cut the bronze-armored zombie into two.
K refused to believe that the bronze-armored zombie was really as impenetrable as bronze and iron.
Before going through six missions and receiving an all-rounded stat upgrade, an Employee of Gods and Demons leaned more toward the typical glass cannon. They could kill an opponent very easily, but it was also very easy for their opponent to kill them.
Thus, seizing the first strike was extremely crucial in battle.
Of course, the moment their skills were unable to break through the opponent’s defense, the situation would become incredibly awkward.
It was very easy for them to end up in a situation where they were at the complete mercy of others.
Just as K was about to strike, a white figure came down from the front of the bus and pushed the bronze-armored zombie down.
“You guys can leave, let me do it.”
They heard Tang Luo say.
K’s movements paused for a moment.
Before he could react, the monk, who had only just suppressed the bronze-armored zombie, was flung to the left. He crashed against the bus that laid parallel next to him with a boom.
The loudness of the crash didn’t lose out to the one K had caused when he rammed the bus into the bronze-armored zombie earlier.
In his peripheral vision, K caught a glimpse of the area where the monk and the bus had collided. It was sunken inward and formed a shallow pit.
The bronze-armored zombie reappeared in front of K.
However, following a series of harried bell rings, the bronze-armored zombie ignored K, who was inside the bus.
Slightly shifting the direction it was facing, it crouched a little and turned to the side with its shoulder aimed at Tang Luo.
It was a standard Tieshan Lean[3] stance, a close-quarters combat technique in the Baji Fist[4].
Small broken rock fragments flew everywhere. K felt like what had charged over wasn’t a human but a huge truck that had gone out of control.
Boom!
Yet another deafening boom rang out.
The bus lying parallel next to him was thrust into the air, like a toy car that had encountered a spoiled brat with extreme destructive tendencies.
It overturned a few times in the air before crashing heavily onto the ground.
The wheels facing upward spun under the moonlight. After spinning a few rounds, one of them even dropped onto the ground. Except that this strike, which was comparable to a strike from a battering ram, didn’t really achieve many effects.
One second before the strike connected, Tang Luo had already ducked to the side and successfully evaded it.
The bronze-armored zombie turned and looked at Tang Luo, who had dodged its attack.
With slightly stiff movements, it charged toward him in silence, as though a moving metal tower.
On the other hand, Tang Luo’s actions were a lot more nimble and graceful. He retreated and put distance between himself and the bronze-armored zombie, diligently ensuring that he didn’t fall into enemy hands.
K got off the bus. Under the moonlight, he saw the white-robed monk contending with the bronze-armored zombie.
Every strike dealt by the bronze-armored zombie produced a low and heavy whoosh as it moved through the air.
Unfortunately, its speed was a little too slow. Tang Luo evaded every attack by the barest of margins. He was even able to counterattack.
Except that even the monk’s skill, Gautama’s Palm Hit, could only produce a crisp thud when it connected with the bronze-armored zombie.
The bronze-armored zombie barely even staggered.
One was unable to overcome the other while the other couldn’t break past its opponent’s defenses.
The situation entered a stalemate right away.
[1] The full phrase ‘The red scarf in front of (one’s) chest became even more vibrant’ refers to someone feeling proud of themselves for doing something good. It originated from the red scarves that elementary school children wore as part of their school uniforms
[2] Refers to the ‘jiangshi’, literally ‘stiff corpse’, of Chinese legends and folklore
[3] ‘Tie shan’ literally means ‘metal mountain’
[4] Literally ‘Eight Extremities Fist’. A Chinese martial art that features explosive, short-range power and is famous for its elbow and shoulder strikes
