Fantasy Game: Infinite City

Chapter 520 The Polluted City (14)

"Why did these guys suddenly become like this? Is it because of some damn biochemical experiment?"

"It looks very similar. Isn't that why we came to the hospital to test the samples?"

"But I don't know where the previous samples were lost..."

"It doesn't matter. The hospital is full of mutated townspeople, so there's no shortage of samples."

"I'm talking about that half bottle of drink. Didn't you suspect it might be related to that?"

"Didn't Madison say before that this drink is very popular in town? Then they should be easy to find. I'm not worried about that, but..."

"Based on our experience, it's likely only the half of the bottle that was consumed was problematic."

"That's possible, but it's not serious... huh?"

"Find the password to the backup generator (optional)"

Adenauer, who had no idea how to find the password for the backup generator, was about to give up looking for the password, so he was talking to the old policeman Juan while preparing to go to the fourth floor. However, just as he arrived at the elevator on the third floor, a secondary task suddenly appeared on the task panel of the Infinite City, and this task was related to the password of the backup generator.

These optional secondary quests won't affect the progress of the dungeon, but completing them can significantly alter the course of key points during the dungeon. For example, completing these optional quests might lead to additional dialogue with important characters later in the game, opening up new paths or providing an additional solution for other quests. Generally speaking, despite the potential time investment, most players will attempt these optional quests once they're triggered. After all, they're the only quest in the Infinite City dungeon where failure carries no serious consequences. With no penalties, many players naturally try them.

For Adenauer, since he has come to this copy, he will do any possible task. After all, the strength of his current alias is no longer the "rookie" he was three months ago. He is at the level of a middle-class player. In addition, his relatively cautious playing style means that as long as he does not use his own abilities, he will not attract unnecessary attention. Therefore, compared to three months ago, if Adenauer performs some powerful operations now, it is also acceptable.

In Infinite City, a player's strength isn't entirely tied to the amount of time they've invested in the game. Someone who's been a player since the beta test isn't necessarily more powerful than someone who's only recently joined. Talent, mindset, and the types of abilities all contribute to strength. While spending money can certainly help, simply spending money isn't enough. At least one of these factors must be present; spending money simply accelerates the process.

In the eyes of other players who knew Adenauer, his mindset in battle was a crucial factor in his rise to power. In their understanding of Adenauer, his abilities weren't exceptional. After all, the player base of the Gunner type was large, and he wasn't a pay-to-win player. While he had talent, it wasn't exaggerated. He was a steady player with a good mindset. Therefore, as long as Adenauer didn't display excessive combat prowess and focused his actions around his mindset, his actions would be justified in the eyes of other players. This was also what Han Zu had been doing recently.

Unlike the main quests, these optional quests often don't give the exact location of the item you need to find, but they will mark a rough area on the map, and the item you need to find will definitely be within this area. This area is not too large to make it difficult for players to find it, nor too small to allow players to see it at a glance.

The search area for this mission was currently limited to a certain location on the fourth floor, and a small area at the entrance to the fifth floor. Adenauer looked carefully and found no other search nodes outside of these two locations. This made things very simple; they only needed to start searching on the fourth floor.

Directly across from the third-floor elevator is the stairwell. However, the hospital's structure in this small town is flawed; the stairs only reach the first three floors. To reach the fourth and fifth floors, one must use the elevator. Generally speaking, this type of hospital structure is not uncommon. Floors accessible only by elevator are typically special wards, private spaces reserved for the most powerful. The director's office at some private hospitals is also located on the top or second floor, all for the sake of privacy.

After the three of them arrived at the small town hospital, Adenauer learned about the floors. The first floor housed basic hospital facilities like the emergency room, the registration counter, the ambulance dock, and the death certificate office. There might also be some minor medical procedures like IV drips. The dentistry department was also on the first floor, but it was only connected to it and not part of the overall hospital building.

The second floor houses some basic medical departments and inpatient wards, and is normally the busiest part of the hospital. The third floor is home to large medical equipment that requires significant power, such as MRI machines, as well as operating rooms, intensive care units, and backup generators. Generally speaking, there are very few patients here, as the town is relatively small, and aside from the elderly, virtually no one is hospitalized on this floor.

Although he hadn't seen the fourth floor in person, Adenauer, through his X-ray vision and the scans of the contractor's equipment, discovered that its layout didn't resemble a hospital, but rather that of a resort hotel. While there were some medical equipment inside, most of it was expensive, resembling some kind of high-end private ward. Only, there was no one there. As for the fifth floor, there were only two rooms. One looked like a luxurious presidential suite, furnished with every possible detail, none of it cheap. It looked more like the residence of a high-ranking official than a hospital. The other room didn't resemble the director's office either; it was a computer room filled with servers. Both the luxurious residence and the computer room had separate power systems, making them brightly lit compared to the dimly lit other four floors of the small town hospital, as if completely isolated from the town's activities. On the fifth floor, there was also no one there, but half a body, bisected from the center, lay on the floor of the computer room. The left half of the body, which remained, revealed a young woman wearing revealing lingerie, but the right half was missing. What is strange is that there is no bloodstain on the floor of the computer room, even where the body is. This is not normal.

There are three ways to reach the fourth floor now. The first is to pry open the elevator door and climb up the maintenance ladder. For Han Zu, this is as easy as drinking water, but Adenauer does not have enough strength to complete this action. If he wants to reach the fourth floor through this route, he needs to at least find a crowbar. According to the scan of the contractor's equipment, the closest thing to Adenauer that is durable enough to support opening the elevator door and can be used as a crowbar is on the second floor. Now there is not only that outrageous big guy there, but the noise it made before has attracted many townspeople on the first floor. The second floor of the small town hospital is now a complete death trap.

The second option was to exit through the stairwell window and ascend the fire escape. However, the fire escape led all the way to the first floor, where many townspeople roamed, including some unusual mutants. Going up by himself was fine, but Juan and Madison might not survive. Juan certainly couldn't die, as Adenauer still needed to ask him questions about New Mountain City and might need him to lead the way. As for Madison, if she died, it wouldn't be a problem, but Adenauer had a feeling she might be hiding some secret, possibly related to the town's situation. After all, Madison was the only town resident who hadn't mutated.

The third method is safe and reliable, but unreasonable.

At the far end of the elevator shaft, there was a private elevator that could reach all floors. It wasn't hidden, but there were no exposed buttons or panels. Through the contractor's equipment, Adenauer discovered that there was actually a hidden palm print reader on the wall to the right of the elevator. Its shape was identical to the surrounding wall, and even up close, it was invisible. The contractor's equipment scanned its connection location, indicating that this palm print reader was the only way to open the elevator. Furthermore, in the corner of the ceiling above the elevator door, there was something resembling a hidden camera. It was an advanced composite identity scanner that could simultaneously recognize voice and scan irises. Furthermore, in order to use the elevator, currently parked on the fifth floor, to move between floors, a specific data card was required in addition to these devices.

The existence of a private elevator equipped with palm print recognition, iris recognition, voice recognition, and a special data card in this ordinary small-town hospital was inherently unreasonable. It was even more unreasonable if someone could use it. After all, this private elevator wasn't part of the mission, so without the necessary conditions, there shouldn't be a way to use it.

At the moment, the most reliable approach was for Adenauer to go up the fire escape himself to find the code, leaving veteran police officer Juan and Madison temporarily on the relatively safe third floor. This was not only reasonable, but also highly feasible.

"Matching data card found."

However, just as Adenauer shared his thoughts with veteran police officer Juan and clerk Madison and prepared to move, the contractor's equipment, based on the data stored in the private elevator's internal card reader, found the special data card that allowed access to the elevator. This in itself wasn't surprising; the strange thing was who was currently holding it. The card was currently in the breast pocket of Madison's police uniform shirt.

"I actually guessed right..."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. You guys stay here for now. I'll go to the fourth floor to check the situation."

Madison's possession of the private elevator data card suggests her identity is more complex than she previously claimed. She must be connected to the half-body in the hospital's fifth-floor computer room, and perhaps even to the events unfolding in town. Her calm and cooperative behavior during Adenauer's abduction at the police station had already aroused his suspicions. This, coupled with Madison's expert autopsy skills during the subsequent autopsy of the officer's body, further fueled his suspicions. Despite her plausible explanation, it failed to convince Adenauer, who already harbored suspicions, and only served to deepen his suspicions.

Madison's possession of the data card couldn't be a coincidence, which also meant she also had access to palm print recognition, voice detection, and iris scanning. She definitely wasn't as infrequent at the hospital as she claimed. It's also possible that "Madison" wasn't her real name. The only truth she'd ever spoken was that she wasn't proficient with firearms. Adenauer had carefully observed her handling of the gun, and his lack of skill was genuine, not an act.

But leaving her alone with Juan didn't seem like a good idea. After all, killing isn't just about using a gun. An experienced doctor, with just a little exercise, could seamlessly transform into a seasoned killer. If Madison truly had a hidden secret, then veteran policeman Juan wouldn't be safe with him.

But after careful consideration, Adenauer decided to feign ignorance. After all, while he did need Juan's intelligence on Johor Bahru, even if Juan were truly dead, at most it would only waste a bit more of his time gathering the information himself. As for Madison, if Adenauer wanted to kill her, she would have no chance of escaping. She wasn't even a threat.

Adenauer said nothing and followed his original plan, opening the window and entering the fire escape. The heavy rain outside had not yet stopped, causing a lot of water to flow down the stairs. Some wandering townspeople slipped and were thrown down. However, because the heavy rain was so loud, the large number of townspeople gathered below the fire escape were not attracted by the sound.

Under the cover of heavy rain and thunder, Adenauer successfully reached the fourth floor after killing several townspeople. However, the windows here were locked. He could only use bullets as keys to directly shatter the glass, open the window and climb into the fourth floor. As the previous scan showed, the fourth floor was empty, so there would be no problem.

Adenauer brushed off the raindrops on his body, touched his wet hair, checked the status of his weapon, then walked cautiously to the location where the password might appear and began searching.