Draven's eyes narrowed dangerously as he stared at the spot where the player had vanished, then his tone shifted. "If you want to kill them, then do it." As long as the one who died was not her, it didn't really matter. Thora looked into Draven's eyes. They were calm and icy, with all emotions buried deep, giving away nothing at all. She frowned slightly, then turned around and went back to the hidden quest she had just triggered. After helping a little girl who had fallen, the girl gave her a quest to find her missing father. This time, Draven didn't follow her. Instead, he walked in the opposite direction, raised a hand, and tossed out a single word. "Quest." Thora answered with a short sound. She knew he had triggered his own exclusive quest as well. She had noticed that NPCs tied to these hidden quests were very easy to overlook. Whether a quest was triggered depended entirely on the player's choices. At that moment, a system message rang out. "Player Ashley has applied to join your team." Thora frowned slightly, wondering if this person was here again just to leech experience. She was about to refuse, but the words changed at the last second. "Accept." "Thora, why do you always reject people like that? It really hurts feelings," Ashley's aggrieved voice immediately sounded in the team chat. Draven's expression turned cold in an instant. "What are you here for?" Thora asked as she searched around after arriving at the clue location. "What else could attract me here besides you, Thora?" Ashley answered bluntly, but Thora stayed calm. A flash of digital light passed, and Ashley was teleported to her side. "What are you looking for?" "I'm looking for someone," Thora replied flatly. Draven's voice suddenly cut in. "A girl being this shameless is really rare." Ashley sneered. "Better shameless than someone who uses dirty tricks behind others' backs." Draven's voice carried danger. "Your motives might not be clean either." "Number 79, I didn't mess with you. Do you really need to be this hostile to me?" Ashley said. As soon as she finished speaking, she realized she had been kicked out of the team, and Draven was kicked out as well. "So annoying," Thora said coolly. System messages rang out one after another. "Player Ashley has applied to join your team." "Player Number 79 has applied to join your team."Thora was speechless. Are these two out of their minds? "Reject." She had barely finished speaking when the application alert sounded again. Thora couldn't help but complain to herself. Why didn't this system have a permanent reject option? Did the developers get lazy and forget to add it? "Accept." After two system chimes, both of them rejoined the team and immediately handed the captain role over to Thora. "If you keep arguing, don't team up at all," Thora said impatiently. The squad fell into instant silence. Satisfied, Thora turned around and continued her hidden quest. This quest was pretty simple. The little girl's father was under a large tree behind an abandoned supermarket. He had lost the ability to move and begged Thora to take him back so he could see his daughter one last time. Ashley tried to help, but was blocked out, because this was a single-player quest that belonged only to Thora. Ashley watched as Thora pried open the wooden debris, rescued the man, and carried him on her back to find the little girl. Ashley's figure then vanished from the spot. Twelve cards would decide the end of the game, so she clearly would not just stand by and do nothing. Thora returned along the same path and brought the man to his daughter. After the father and daughter reunited, they were extremely grateful to Thora. A card glowing with golden light formed from their bodies as a reward, then flew straight into Thora's hand. "Blink," Thora read the ability printed on the card. In the next instant, she shot straight to first place on the leaderboard, and the system broadcast to the entire server. "Congratulations to player Ash for becoming the first to obtain a card." As the system message echoed through the channels, all players in the game looked at the name "Ash" at the top of the leaderboard. A sense of danger and jealousy pushed them to speed up their actions. Not long after Thora's points increased, she saw Draven's score rising as well. "Looks like he got a card too," she said softly. Usually, only the first player to get a card would be announced by the system. Later players would not. But Draven was in Thora's team, so she noticed his score changed immediately. After finishing the quest, Thora discovered a hidden hint for the next card on the back of the card she had just obtained. She read it carefully. Her eyes sharpened slightly, and she slipped the card into her backpack before heading toward the city center.No one was more familiar with an apocalypse environment than she was. Even though this was a game, it was no different from a real apocalypse—death, fear, desolation, danger, and most importantly, human nature. The people here showed their weakest and most desperate sides, and among them were hidden Infected. "High-tier Infected can hide among humans, watch them, treat the last humans as food, and spread the virus to players, turning them into Infected and traitors," Thora silently recited the system description in her mind. After that, she realized there were quite a few Infected hiding in the crowd. Just as that thought ended, she heard a wolf's howl. A player suddenly transformed into a wolf, lunged at a nearby teammate, and bit them, trying to infect them. Thora's expression turned cold. A handgun appeared instantly in her hand. She chambered a round and pulled the trigger.