Multiverse’s End - Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Chapter 054 – A Camera-Related Character Card

By the time Luo Su and Chris drove back to Prosperity, it was nearly dusk. They went to the mine so that they could arm the miners but discovered that no one was there.

“Maybe they got off work early. After all, it’s no longer safe…” Chris said to comfort himself.

There was no one in the office, and when he called home, no one picked up. Just as he was starting to get worried about Gladys, a voice came from the loudspeaker calling all the people in town to get their weapons and gather at the mall.

Luo Su’s heart pulsed. The mine was very different today, very dangerous! He didn’t dare to tarry, so he dragged Chris into the car and drove off to the mall.

On the road, he saw many residents with their families heading toward the mall. Samantha alone would have never been able to gather everyone, but more and more police cars were coming into Prosperity and even laying down caution tape. Thus, the townspeople were forced to take her seriously.

A line of flashing police cars had been set up in front of the entrance to the mall, blocking all cars. The police were guiding traffic, having each person park their cars so as to create a buffer zone.

Chris’s pickup truck was also intercepted, but once Luo Su took off the tarp on the back and revealed the guns and ammo, the pickup truck was let through.

Just as they had finished parking the car, several police officers came over to commandeer the munitions on the truck. Frankly speaking, letting the police officers use the weapons on the truck would definitely be better than the miners, but the guns and bullets hadn’t dropped out of thin air. Did they really think they could just take them because they wanted them?

The negotiations were going poorly, but thankfully, Samantha came just in time. With her acting as an intermediary, the two sides quickly reached an agreement. Luo Su generously gave the police more than half the munitions as long as they moved all of the ammunition into the mall for him.

The three research teams were also in the mall. It was exactly because they had confirmed that the spiders liked to move at night that everyone in town had been told to take refuge in the mall.

The townspeople were still gathering. As Luo Su looked at the massive three-story building, he realized that packing nearly one thousand people inside wasn’t that great of an idea. The spiders would gather all their forces here, and the assault would probably be even more frightening than the one in the movie.

But there was no other option. Everything had happened too suddenly, and the police were too few in number to make spreading out a viable strategy.

Luo Su took some of the stab-resistant uniforms and headed into the mall. He found Ashley and Mike and gave them each a set, and then he went to find Aunt Gladys.

The old lady had a cigarette in her mouth, a double-barreled shotgun in her hand, and was even wearing safety goggles. She was in the middle of telling the crowd how she had used this shotgun to kill a bear once.

While it sounded impressive, the shotgun was completely useless. The spiders moved far too quickly, especially the jumping spiders, and she wouldn’t even have time to reload. As for the bear, Luo Su considered the surrounding terrain…it was probably a raccoon!

The townspeople were all armed and joined the defense line. There were a variety of weapons, but primarily hunting rifles and handguns. The town’s only gun store had been emptied, and the gun store owner was also present. He had a revolver, his only weapon, but even still, he was recommending it to the people around him as if he was trying to sell off his last weapon.

There was always someone trying to be funny, no matter the occasion. It had already been announced that the enemy was giant spiders in great numbers, but some people had come with electric saws and baseball bats…

As for the researchers, the young ones had bought handguns from the gun store, but the old professors were once much more refined, equipped with cameras and small video recorders as they awaited the spider onslaught. One of them was even asking if there was a chance of capturing the spiders alive. All of this was for the sake of science.

“As expected of the country that’s mastered the skill of courting death! What big hearts!”

[Ding!]

[User has encountered ‘electric chainsaw,’ triggering the lottery phase. Would you like to pull now?]

[User has encountered ‘camera,’ triggering the lottery phase. Would you like to pull now?]

[User has accumulated five pulls. Would you like to pull now?]

Three of the five pulls had been farmed from the spiders, and Luo Su didn’t think he could get anything good from them. Thus, he planned to use them after he left the Mission World and see how lucky he was.

As for these two pulls.

Luo Su recalled how he had gotten the godlike driver Baby’s Character Card from the F-150, which had even left him the permanent skill Driving Proficiency once its effect had run out.

“System, pull the rewards for these two!”

Putting aside the electric chainsaw, Luo Su felt that the camera would give him a Character Card. He also couldn’t rule out a god-level photography skill.

Alas, the reality was more nonsensical than he could imagine. There was no Character Card, no Skill Card, only two terrible Item Cards.

[Item Card: Rechargeable Electric Chainsaw (Turn it on, and everyone will become very reasonable)]

[Item Card: Digital Camera (Can save a lot of money on film)]

Luo Su: “…”

Were the hell these pulls? He had the real deal around him, so what did he need these two cards for?”

“Eh, I guess they’re not completely useless. At least I can bring them into other Mission Worlds. Once I’m done killing spiders, I’ll take a plain photo of Ashley. When I end up in a Marvel film one day, I can give it to Black Widow…”

…

Luo Su found Samantha and asked her about the situation. The special forces will be flying on a helicopter from Tucson, Arizona’s second-largest city. Before their arrival, the police and townspeople would have to fend for themselves.

“The mall’s basement is connected to the mines. We need to block it, or else a defense line won’t be any good,” Chris reminded.

His words made Luo Su recall that the chemical was no longer the source of the spider mutations. He had almost forgotten about this.

As the sun was already beginning to sink, Luo Su immediately ran down to the basement. Chris came with him, but when the two got to the basement storage entrance, they discovered that there was a lock on the door. Upon further questioning, they learned that Mayor Wade had put the lock on.

This fraudster was probably worried about his crimes being discovered, so he had hastily locked the basement, clueless as to how this could have gotten everyone killed. Luo Su blew off the lock with his gun and then found the police to explain the situation. A group was swiftly mustered, and with the aid of a forklift, all the heavy objects in the storage were used to block up the entrance to the mine.

Wade felt guilty on the inside, but he put on the face of a victim, saying that they were destroying his property and that he wanted compensation.

Luo Su had never been one to indulge this sort of person. He immediately reported him for secretly harboring prohibited products and also accused him of smuggling them.

This incurred the fury of the crowd. The people finally realized why Wade had built a mall in Prosperity and why he was trying to get everyone to leave. He had been colluding with Vioro Chemical from the very start.

In the face of the armed and unhappy crowd, Wade hid in a corner, not even daring to fart.

The sunset behind the mountains and the temperature of the town plunged!

As they had seen no sign of spiders despite several hours of bustling around, the townspeople began to relax. They held Prosperity’s first song-and-dance party in the food court, with the MC being Harlan, a somewhat excitable young black man.

Luo Su had always thought that this black radio announcer had something wrong with his head, but the people of the town loved listening to his nonsense, even occasionally laughing at his corny jokes.

Luo Su, Ashley, and her little brother sat in a corner, eating the free snacks they had taken off the shelves. These originally cost money, but the moment Wade tried to say anything, he had five or six guns pressing against his head.

As he listened to the clamor around him, Mike worriedly said, “We should be quieter. Spiders are drawn to vibrations, especially noise.”

Luo Su said nothing. It was inevitable that monsters would attack a location where humans had gathered, so caution was pointless. The secondary characters could not be blamed for their idiocy. Even if they didn’t try to court death, the monsters would attack all the same. Otherwise, the audience would have nothing to watch!

Ashley snuggled against Luo Su’s chest. As she played around with the Goddess of Fate’s Ring, she finally couldn’t hold herself back. “Luo Su, once this whole spider thing is over, will you use this to pro…mmmm…”

Luo Su had promptly covered Ashley’s mouth. If this flag was raised and those words really left her mouth, the only thing getting stiff after tonight would be his corpse.

Shashasha…

A soft chafing noise came from the distance, and the hubbub in the mall quickly stopped. The crowd looked at each other and swallowed.

“Come on! Hurry and get ready! The spiders are coming…” A police officer standing by the window said, but his voice began to grow softer as cold sweat began to drip down his forehead, “Maybe I should think about opening a canning factory. This is way too damn much…”