Chapter 1 She Just Wants to Live Well

Mu Ning had been feeling rather vexed lately. She sat in the back of the truck heading outside the base, wearing a large fisherman's hat, completely unwilling to interact with the boisterous crowd around her.

She silently clutched the newly issued firearm in her hands.

Occasionally, when the truck jolted too violently, she couldn't help but look up, then turn to glance at the direction they were traveling. All she saw were dilapidated and decaying buildings.

Just a few months ago, this had been a prosperous and lively residential area, but now it looked as if it had been abandoned, a piece of garbage thrown into a forgotten time.

She just wanted to live well.

This damn game was too hard!

Mu Ning hugged the firearm, trying to draw a bit of courage from the weapon.

Mu Ning was a sophomore majoring in statistics at the Fourth Imperial Military Academy.

In other words, her future career path after graduation would be in logistics and administrative work, basically unrelated to military combat.

However, her school's approach to participating in the Eight Schools Exchange Competition had always been very hands-off: a lottery.

She could only blame herself for being unlucky. Out of thousands of students in the entire school, she somehow managed to get picked.

But wasn't the school being a bit too careless?

How could they be so confident in sending her?

For the sake of the Eight Schools Exchange Competition, she had temporarily learned mecha combat, starship piloting, mecha piloting, and other courses that she shouldn't have even touched. She had even thought she was learning quite well, but—

Whenever Mu Ning thought about the massive trauma inflicted on her by that game she played the night before the official start of the Eight Schools Exchange Competition, she couldn't help but feel that this competition was going to be terrifying!

In the last round, as an administrative student, she had only managed to scrape by with a barely passing score thanks to sheer luck!

And now, at the start of this round, she was beginning to suspect that her luck had been a bit too good lately.

Her score was enough to give her an Esper identity, and she randomly rolled a speed ability, which was perfect for surviving and escaping—not bad.

Even her birthplace was incredibly lucky; she spawned directly inside the base.

The character's built-in family ties meant she was the niece of a high-ranking official, so she had no worries about food or drink from the start.

This identity allowed her to decisively choose to stick close to her high-ranking relative. It was perfect for a newbie like her!

However, as time went on and she learned more, Mu Ning increasingly realized that this faction's future was bleak.

Her original plan had been to stay under the protection of a powerful figure and survive for a year.

But now it seemed impossible to even last that long!

What was going on?!

She never expected to be sent out on a mission!

On the surface, she was assigned to collect food from the granaries, but in reality, she was supposed to ambush the "troublemaker" teams on their way back, kill them, steal their supplies, and then blame the deaths on the zombies outside the city.

To that end, they had been given some heavy weapons that the base had been reluctant to use.

If she hadn't seen those people standing behind her uncle, Mu Ning might have thought this mission would be successful.

Mu Ning couldn't help but shiver when she recalled Julian and his son sitting there with smiles on their faces as her uncle assigned her the mission.

Especially when, at the end, her uncle patted her on the shoulder in front of the two men and earnestly told her, "I'm counting on you!"

Mu Ning: ???

Uncle, take a look at that handsome uncle next to you with the malicious smile, and the young man beside him—they're the "troublemakers"!

You've been infiltrated to the core, what good am I to you?! QAQ!

Thinking this, Mu Ning gave Julian an awkward but polite smile as their eyes met...

"What do you think, doesn't this rocket launcher look cool on my shoulder?"

"Cool! Sigh, I'm not so lucky, I just got a rifle~"

"Ha, with these, we'll make sure they don't come back alive!"

Mu Ning's ears were filled with the chatter of her companions, who didn't seem to feel anything was wrong with this mission, without any psychological burden.

"Don't you guys feel bad?"

"What?"

Everyone turned to look at the "well-connected" young girl who had been sitting quietly in the corner since getting on the truck, looking as if she didn't want to interact with anyone. Now she had suddenly spoken?

"Compared to killing zombies, doesn't killing people make you feel bad?"

"Ha! You little girl, is it against the law to kill people these days?"

Mu Ning: "......?"

"Besides, if we don't do this job after accepting the mission, our whole family will go hungry. Are you going to feed them?"

Mu Ning: "......"

Ah, driven by the necessities of life~

"Bah! Whole family? Yang Laowu, you're the only one left in your family, and you still have the nerve to lie to a little girl!"

Mu Ning: "......"

Mu Ning, who had been stumped by the big man's question, heard someone nearby exposing his lies, choking her speechless.

The woman who had exposed the lie earlier stared at Mu Ning with interest and asked, "Is this your first time doing this, little sister?"

"First time?" Mu Ning immediately reacted, "Does that mean there have been times like this before?"

"Ah... probably." The woman played with her fingernails, which were deliberately painted black. "It's just that none of them have been on this scale."

"These days, everyone has their own way of living. They rely on their abilities to live freely and不受管教不受管教 (bù shòu guǎn jiào - be unruly/unmanageable), while ordinary people just want to eat, drink, and live safely every day. Is that possible? If you live in the base, you have to accept the restrictions. If you can't accept them, then don't live in the base."

Every word the woman said made sense, but she glorified the high-ranking officials' oppression and control over those below, only saying that the players wanted freedom and didn't want to be managed. If Mu Ning hadn't seen it with her own eyes, she would have believed it.

"By the way, girl, I think the design of the firearm in your hand is quite unique. What kind of firearm is it?"

The woman suddenly mentioned the firearm in Mu Ning's hand, but Mu Ning just smiled and turned her head away, not wanting to say more.

When the truck stopped at their planned location and cleared out the nearby zombies, everyone hid in the nearby abandoned buildings, waiting for the "troublemakers" to appear.

However, no one expected that a blinding red flare would suddenly shoot up from the ground, screeching as it rose into the air!

"Crap! A signal flare!"

……

Five minutes ago,

After dealing with the few evolved zombies in the granary earlier, Zhen Po used their space ability to take most of the collected food, and the rest was placed in the truck to pretend to bring it back.

Soon, several trucks met at the agreed location.

After Mu Chen and Lu Gui met up, they drove the trucks slowly back along the road with several other Esper teams.

Some of them drove ahead of the trucks, carefully investigating the trap areas mentioned in the information they had received earlier.

"Everything is in place."

Just as Lu Gui and Mu Cheng stopped near the new investigation area to prepare for a surprise attack for the trucks that were about to catch up, Lu Gui used the binoculars he had prepared in advance to carefully watch the direction they had come from.

If he could see the vehicles, then the group lying in ambush behind him would naturally be able to see them as well.

Soon, a signal flare shot into the sky behind him, instantly illuminating the entire area!

"There's an ambush ahead!"

Following Lu Gui's shout, a commotion broke out in the ambush area ahead of them—

"Crap! A signal flare!"

"Ahhhhh! Who the hell... there's a spy!"

"Quick, quick, retreat!"