I Conquered the Villain Boss Chapter 48
Translated by Digitalian (ko-fi)
Chapter 48: Qi Yuan
While waiting for Si Xu to clean up the base, and Jiang Ran found the place where the food was imprisoned in the base. In the dark dungeon, footsteps were heard coming from far away, and the originally quiet people became restless.
They huddled together in the corner of the dungeon, like lambs to be slaughtered.
It was like this every time. Those people would come down and pick out a person they liked and take him away, and then that person would never come back again.
"Boohoo." As the footsteps approached, someone broke down emotionally and let out a sad cry. However, his mouth was immediately covered by the people around him.
—— It was all a scam. This wasn’t Xiling Base! This wasn’t Xiling Base at all! Those in the base lived off the supplies from passers-by, and when the supplies ran out, they began to feed on people.
This wasn’t the safe base they thought, but a real hell.
……
Jiang Ran held the torch, stepped into the dark and damp dungeon, and walked in the direction of the sounds.
There was an unpleasant rancid smell wafting in the air, and through the flickering light of the torch, the situation in the dungeon could be clearly seen.
Looking at the people with different expressions in the corner, Jiang Ran wrinkled her nose and decided to act quickly.
"Are there any superhumans among you?"
……
Not expecting a beautiful girl this time, the people huddled in the corner of the dungeon exchanged glances with each other, and no one answered Jiang Ran's question.
"Are there any superhumans among you?"
The girl repeated her question, but still no one answered.
"Since no one answered, that means there isn’t." The girl looked at the lock on the gate, and frowned. "Does anyone know where the key to this lock is?"
This time, someone finally spoke.
A thin girl slowly crawled out from the crowd. She placed her hands on the iron gate, and looked at Jiang Ran quietly.
Due to malnutrition, her cheeks were deeply sunken, which made her eyes large and round. Her dark eyes were like black agate, bright and full of life.
Those were a pair of soulful eyes.
Jiang Ran looked back at her without looking away.
The girl looked at her silently for a moment and said softly, "The key is not here. It’s in the hands of the administrator."
"Okay." Knowing that she could not open the gate lock with her own strength, Jiang Ran gave up and turned to leave. "You guys wait here for a minute. I'll find something to open the gate."
After the flame disappeared, darkness returned to the dungeon.
Someone asked the girl leaning against the gate. "Qi Yuan, what did that girl say?"
"She said she was going to find something to open the gate."
"Open the gate? Was she here to save us?"
Because of these words, there was a commotion in the crowd.
The light of hope rekindled in their dim eyes, and they began to discuss quietly.
"Was she here to rescue us? Was she from Xiling Base?"
"But didn't those people say that Xiling Base is far away from here? Why would someone from Xiling Base be here?"
"Maybe she’s a superhuman who is new here. She doesn’t want to join them in their evil deeds, so she came to save us.”
“That girl,” the girl at the gate said calmly, “isn’t a superhuman.”
In stark contrast to the excited voices of everyone, she remained calm. The people in the dungeon fell silent instantly at her calm words.
"She isn’t a superhuman?" A girl hiding behind others snorted, unwilling to have her hopes broken. "Qi Yuan, you aren’t a superhuman. How can you be so sure?"
The girl curled up and buried her cheek in her arms. She replied gloomily, "It’s because she can't open the gate lock."
Yes, if she was a superhuman, how could she not even be able to open the gate lock?
The group of people who had originally raised their hopes fell into despair again. They were even sure that the unfamiliar girl would not come back after she left.
"Why didn't you grab her at that time?" The girl who asked the question just now had nowhere to vent her anger and despair, so she pointed her finger at the girl by the gate. "Qi Yuan! It already occurred to you that she would not come back to save us. Why didn’t you stop her from leaving?!"
The girl was silent and didn't reply.
The dungeon fell into dead silence again.
Time passed unknowingly, and as expected, the girl who left did not come back.
"Hey, who do you think those people will take away next time when they come down?"
In the silence, someone couldn't help but whisper.
"Can you drop this topic? No matter who they take away, it's not something to be happy about, right?"
"I'm not happy either. I just feel that it would be better to die early and get reincarnated sooner... It's better to die than to live no better than animals."
"You say that every time. Why did you hide so far back when they came down to take someone away last time?"
"..."
"Hey, come to think of it, it's Qi Yuan's fault that we were caught. If she hadn't exposed those people, those people wouldn't have caught us at all!"
"Look at what you said –– do you want to eat human flesh and drink human blood like those people? Even if it is the apocalypse, we should still preserve our morality as human beings!"
"Yes, we did, and now we have become food for others..."
"What's the point of saying that now? Even if we complain now, those people won't let us go!"
"I'm just saying. Why are you so fierce?"
After a few more discussions, footsteps suddenly came from outside the dungeon again. This time, there were obviously more than one person.
The people who had been imprisoned for days were all shocked and huddled together again.
The girl leaning against the gate raised her head and looked at the person who came back again.
The girl held a torch and a young man's hand as she came down the moss-covered steps.
Because she was walking in a hurry, the girl slipped. The man immediately supported her and grabbed her waist to prevent her from falling again.
Seeing the interaction between the two, Qi Yuan opened her eyes slightly and stretched out her hand to Jiang Ran. "Are you here to save us?"
After asking this question, she already had the answer in her heart.
Although it was her first time meeting the girl, she had a gut feeling that these two people were not companions of those devils in the base.
She was here to save them.
……
Cutting off the lock on the dungeon gate, Si Xu kicked open the iron gate and glanced at the dim cell.
"Can everyone still move?" Jiang Ran supported the girl by the gate and asked the others, "If you can still move, let's go out and talk."
Not expecting these two people to really have come to save them, those people were stunned. Then, they scrambled to get out of the dungeon.
"Thank you." Qi Yuan thanked Jiang Ran gratefully, and followed those people out of the dungeon.
She was rescued... she was finally rescued –– her father and mother had sacrificed everything to protect her. After some struggles, she finally survived.
……
The group of people had always felt that the dungeon was the most dangerous place in the world. Those people walked out of the dungeon and bathed in the moonlight again. However, when they saw the blood and corpses everywhere, a few timid girls fainted from fright.
"Was... this place attacked by zombies?"
"No." Si Xu, who was following behind them, answered lazily, "I killed them –– all of them."
The expressions of the other people present changed at the man's words.
"You... killed everyone?" The girl who had been arguing with Qi Yuan covered her mouth with a horrified look on her face. "Those people... there were innocent people among those people, yet you killed them all? You..."
Si Xu heard the girl’s accusation in her words and responded indifferently, "What does that have to do with me?"
"What did you say?"
"What do the innocent people have to do with me?" Si Xu was in a bad mood today. His tone sounded sinister, and the temperature around him dropped. "I don't like them, so I killed them."
"How-how could you say that?"
The girl still wanted to speak, but Jiang Ran, who was following Si Xu, was speechless at the girl’s words. She waved the torch in her hand in front of the girl's nose.
"Whoa!" The girl was so frightened that she took two steps back and her face turned pale.
"Have you said enough?" Jiang Ran sneered. "If you think we are cruel, you can go back to the dungeon and I will lock the gate again –– this way, you can wait for someone who is not cruel to save you. How about that?"
Before she could recover from the panic of the torch burning her face, the girl subconsciously shook her head when she heard that she was about to return to the cold basement.
Jiang Ran nodded with satisfaction. "Since you don't want to go back, then just shut up."
After scanning the faces of everyone present, and roughly figuring out what they were thinking, Jiang Ran smiled and said in a gentle voice, "The two of us are from Xiling Base. We originally came out to collect supplies with the superhuman team. We thought there was something strange about this base, so we came to take a look.
"We already know what the superhumans in this base rely on to survive. In order to ensure the safety of the residents of Xiling Base, we killed these people."
"We only saved you out of convenience. We don't need you to be grateful."
"If you have nowhere to go, you can go back to Xiling Base with us –– of course, if you think that you can't accept our style of doing things, we can part ways here and have nothing to do with each other."
Jiang Ran’s words were clear. After those people looked at each other for a short time, they got someone to step forward and speak.
"If you two don't mind, we will follow you to Xiling Base."
Jiang Ran nodded in agreement without much expression.
"My name is Jiang Ran." After deciding to travel together, Jiang Ran simply introduced her name, "There are still a few hours until dawn. You can find a place to rest first. We will hit the road tomorrow morning."
After those people took two steps away, Jiang Ran added, "There are corpses everywhere here, and the smell of blood is too strong. You'd better stay away from here to avoid being attacked by zombies –– we’ll just meet at the gate early tomorrow morning."
After those people left, Si Xu took Jiang Ran to the main gate.
The base was full of corpses, and the smell of blood wafted out, quickly attracting the surrounding zombies and mutated beasts.
"Are you sleepy?"
Knowing Si Xu's plan, Jiang Ran said enthusiastically, "I’m not sleepy!"
"Well, then practice hard." Si Xu patted her head and said, "Get used to night mode."
Night mode? Jiang Ran couldn't help but laugh. "When you say that, it feels like a game which one can play again infinitely after one dies."
"No." Si Xu corrected her. "If you die, you will be dead. You will be buried underground and turn into bones. There is no such thing as soul, and there is no afterlife."
He was so serious that Jiang Ran nodded hastily. "I know. I’ll be serious."
"Yeah." Several zombies staggered over in their field of vision. Si Xu pushed her forward two steps and said, "Go."
……
The next morning, the people who had rested all night arrived at the entrance of the base as agreed. After seeing the pile of zombies and mutant beasts at the entrance, their jaws dropped.
Jiang Ran was recording her final results. When she heard the noises, she pointed at the minibus in the open space.
"The vehicle is a bit small. Just squeeze in so that we can get to the base."
"You... you killed those people just to attract these zombies?" someone asked in a low voice.
Jiang Ran glanced sideways at the speaker –– it was the girl who accused Si Xu of being cruel last night.
"What's your name?" Jiang Ran put away her gun, folded her arms in front of her, and slightly raised her chin to look at the girl.
"Shu Yue."
"Shu Yue..." After murmuring the name, Jiang Ran said, "How long have you been caught?"
"I don't know." They were locked in a dark dungeon, and they couldn't see the sunrise or sunset at all. Time simply passed.
"Besides locking you up, have those people done anything outrageous to you?"
Shu Yue shook her head.
"Oh, I see." Jiang Ran smiled and crooked her finger. "Follow me."
"Where to?"
"I’ll take you to a nice place to see the scenery." After taking two steps, Jiang Ran saw that she didn't move. Jiang Ran said, "Come on, don't worry. I’m also an ordinary person, and I’m not interested in women."
Si Xu didn’t stop the two girls from leaving.
He glanced at the other people who were stunned and said coldly, "Get in... The zombies are coming. I won't be meddlesome."
"..." What he meant was that the zombies were coming, and he wouldn't care about them.
Author’s Note: Captain Chu’s wife had appeared. She was a cute young lady~