novelraw Chapter 57: The Magician's Top Hat, Another Battle Against the Mutant Giant Rat
Chapter 57: The Magician's Top Hat, Another Battle Against the Mutant Giant Rat
[Choose one of the following three Fate's Gifts as the gift fate bestows upon you.]
——Magician's Top Hat
Function: The top hat possesses 1 cubic meter of space, allowing free access to items, and can transform the top hat's form.
——Arms Dealer's Weapon Rack
Function: Each day the weapon rack randomly refreshes one weapon (firearm, crossbow, melee weapon), with a probability of high-quality weapons appearing.
——Three-Star Manager's Steam Pot
Function: After the steam pot continuously heats for ten minutes, a steamed dish randomly appears. There is a probability of high-quality food appearing. After Yu Yuan looked over all three options, he hesitated for a moment because he wanted all three choices.
The first option goes without saying. For the second weapon rack, although he wasn't lacking weapons, he was missing high-quality weapons, especially after experiencing combat with the Giant Mutant Rat where his current firearms' power was no longer sufficient to handle threats.
The third option's food was also quite good, with no usage limit, only requiring heating to refresh.
However, considering the actual current situation, Yu Yuan still chose the first one.[Magician's Top Hat has been placed in shelter, please check it yourself!]
Immediately following that was the long rectangular wooden box shaking again.
[This Fate Card——Conquest]
[Conquest Card, quality 'Rock' level, player must conquer a powerful creature or an organization of ten or more people within two days, otherwise the player dies.]
(Friendly reminder: Ant, if you cannot submit in spirit, then perish in flesh!)
"If you cannot submit in spirit, then perish in flesh?" Yu Yuan murmured softly.
The first thing he thought of was that Giant Mutant Rat. From any perspective, the Giant Mutant Rat absolutely fit the definition of a powerful creature.
If the Giant Mutant Rat didn't count as powerful, then Yu Yuan truly didn't know what other creature could be considered strong.
Even tigers or brown bears couldn't ignore firearms, but that Giant Mutant Rat handled them with ease.
A sharp light flashed in Yu Yuan's eyes.
"Perfect, I was already planning to go to District 15 to find it today! This Conquest Card arrived at just the right time."
The threat of the Giant Mutant Rat had kept Yu Yuan from eating or sleeping peacefully. He couldn't maintain peak condition at all times. If he ever got injured in the future and this thing ambushed him again, he would truly die without a burial place.
Now that the Giant Mutant Rat was seriously injured, this was the perfect opportunity to eliminate it.
Strike while the enemy is weak and take their life - this was a principle Yu Yuan always believed in.
Checking the time, it was almost eight o'clock.
He immediately equipped his gear: Enforcer Chest Rig, Tactical Gloves, Tactical Boots, AK-12, Kukri, F1 Grenades, flashbangs - all fully equipped.
Finally, he transformed the [Magician's Top Hat] into a ring and wore it on his right middle finger, its name changing to [Magician's Ring].
Positioning Watch on his left hand, Magician's Ring on his right hand - all set!
He loaded all the 5.45×39mm 7N10 rounds into spare magazines and stuffed them into the wristband. For extra insurance, he even placed an AK-74 inside as backup.
He was truly armed to the teeth.
But before leaving, Yu Yuan still dug out the Enforcer helmet that had been slashed by the giant mutant beast from the pile of scrapped equipment.
"Still don't feel safe without a helmet!"
After making complete preparations, he left the shelter, mounted Mie Mie, and headed at full speed toward District 15.
When he returned to the place where he had fought the giant mutant beast last time, traces of that battle still remained.
The walls and ground were covered with bullet holes and the deep scratches left by the Giant Mutant Rat's whipping and tearing.
Looking at the devastated walls and ground with dried bloodstains, one could imagine how intense that battle had been.
As the main participant in that fight, Yu Yuan still felt a chill thinking about that battle.
Touching the inch-deep scratches on the wall, Yu Yuan took a deep breath.
"This time, the giant rat must die!"
He also saw the place where the Giant Mutant Rat had ambushed him before. It turned out there was also a civil defense shelter level above this sewer, and the spot where the Giant Mutant Rat ambushed him wasn't a proper exit.
Rather, at some point, the civil defense shelter level had broken open a gap. The gap wasn't large, and it happened to be in a blind spot, which was why Yu Yuan had never discovered it.
Following the virtual map's guidance, when he entered District 15 and was still some distance from the Wild Dog Community, he could already smell a distinct rotting odor.
Yu Yuan knew he had found the right place.
He immediately completed equipment with Mie Mie. As his physical fitness had improved, Yu Yuan slowly advanced toward the sewer leading to the Wild Dog Community while holding his AK-12.
Learning from last time's lesson, Yu Yuan paid special attention to positions above him this time, even every corner that could potentially hide figures. As he moved forward lightly, getting closer to the Wild Dog Community, the rotting smell in the air grew increasingly strong.
Yu Yuan couldn't help but frown. Fortunately, he had prepared in advance and put on the disposable mask he had brought.
The mask was from the Medical Backpack - he hadn't expected to use it this time.
Before setting out, Yu Yuan had used tape to fix the flashlight to the AK-12's handguard, essentially creating a simple tactical flashlight, so the light moved synchronized with his field of vision, and he had set it to low-light mode.
His enhanced hearing constantly listened to surrounding sounds, and just as he was about to enter the Wild Dog Community, Yu Yuan's movements suddenly stopped.
He tilted his head slightly, ear oriented toward the right front position - he seemed to have heard something...
Munching munching.... munching munching...
Yu Yuan's eyes brightened slightly. He hadn't misheard - it was the sound of chewing something.
His breathing began to slow, paying more attention to his foot movements, advancing forward bit by bit.
As the distance closed, that sound became clearer.
Combined with that almost solidifying, nauseating smell in the air.
Yu Yuan determined that the Giant Mutant Rat was ahead, right where the sound was coming from.
And the Giant Mutant Rat was quite cautious too, pausing almost every few minutes of chewing to observe the surroundings. At those moments, Yu Yuan would stop and wait quietly.
Only when he heard the other's chewing sound resume would he continue approaching.
"It seems the damage I inflicted on the Giant Mutant Rat before has significantly reduced its perception ability!" Yu Yuan thought to himself.
Under normal circumstances, the Giant Mutant Rat's perception ability definitely exceeded Yu Yuan's, but now that he had gotten this close, the other still hadn't detected him - this spoke volumes.
When he had blown out one of its eyeballs before, he had likely affected its auditory nerves as well. It still hadn't recovered, and this was Yu Yuan's opportunity.
With both visual and auditory impairments, Yu Yuan was confident he could eliminate it.
Yu Yuan chose not to turn off the flashlight, but instead lowered the muzzle.
Turning the flashlight on or off would produce a slight 'click' sound. He was already very close to the target, and any slight noise could alert it.
And he could see the other's position now.
About twenty meters ahead, in a sewer pipe with a diameter of at most 1.3-1.4 meters, he could already see half of the Giant Mutant Rat's body and its extremely ugly tail.
At the connection point between that sewer pipe and the sewer channel, there were several completely gnawed skeletons.
The giant rat seemed to be eating quite contentedly, its tail occasionally flicking a couple of times.
Yu Yuan's position happened to be on the same side as that sewer pipe. The Giant Mutant Rat, which had already squeezed its body into the pipe, couldn't see him at all.
Yu Yuan didn't approach any closer. The AK-12 disappeared from his hands, replaced by an F1 Small Lemon. Finally looking toward the Giant Mutant Rat's direction, a sharp light flashed in his eyes.
The moment the safety pin was directly pulled out, the F1 grenade was thrown toward the Giant Mutant Rat's location.