Chapter 353: Only Want to Be Found by Him

Mordecai Quinn and Sean Joyce were childhood friends.

That emoticon was a doodle Sean Joyce had been drawing since he was a kid.

This was clearly a sign Sean Joyce had left for him!

"There’s a line of small text here."

Nina Jacobs found a line of graffiti-like writing on the back of the sign.

Although they were Drakonian characters, she couldn’t recognize them strung together.

Mordecai Quinn looked at it and smiled. "This is a local dialect from our hometown. You have to understand it using homophones from the dialect. That kid..."

He knew where Sean Joyce was.

"That’s great."

Daniel Lewis was thrilled to hear the news. He never believed Sean Joyce was the type to run off with the supplies.

"Yeah, let’s go. Crestfall Avenue isn’t far,"

Mordecai Quinn said.

Sean Joyce had told him to look for him at a hardware store on Crestfall Avenue.

"That’s good."

Nina Jacobs nodded, but a doubt also surfaced in her mind.

’Can a person really survive alone in a city teeming with zombies?’

’Does this Sean Joyce have some other skills?’

"Sean Joyce was always smarter and more resourceful than me, even as a kid. Only he could’ve come up with a code like this,"

Mordecai Quinn said.

But when the group arrived at the hardware store on Crestfall Avenue, they found nothing but zombies—not a single human.

"Mordecai, come look at this!"

Daniel Lewis pointed to some graffiti behind the door.

It still had the same mischievous smiley face, and Mordecai Quinn translated the dialect for everyone:

"It’s too dangerous here, so I’m going to hide out on Vespera Road, upstairs in the arcade we used to go to. Make sure you find me!"

"Vespera Road. Let’s go."

Mordecai Quinn was a little exasperated.

Sean Joyce had just added another layer of encryption to his location.

The arcade on Vespera Road had been converted into a clothing mall years ago.

Probably only a handful of people knew that.

To save time, Mordecai Quinn had Oswin Marshall take some people to collect the supplies on Crestfall Avenue first.

Vespera Road wasn’t far, and they planned to regroup after finding Sean Joyce.

Upstairs in the old arcade, now the clothing mall, there was still no sign of Sean Joyce.

Mordecai Quinn found another message from Sean Joyce at the spot where his favorite arcade machine used to be:

"No choice, the zombies found me again. This time, I’ll be at the place where you had your first blind date. I promise I won’t move again this time!!"

"It’s a coffee shop."

Mordecai Quinn couldn’t help but frown after reading it. ’What the hell is that kid playing at?’

"It’s like he wants you to find him, but he’s afraid of being found by others?"

Nina Jacobs said.

’Is Sean Joyce worried about being found by the Ziegler Family?’

But she also felt something was off about this last message.

’What does "I won’t move again this time" mean?’

With the same question in mind, Mordecai Quinn quickly found the coffee shop.

After clearing out the zombies, Daniel Lewis couldn’t help but say:

"This kid is hiding in a pretty secluded spot. The whole area below is crawling with zombies; who would’ve thought someone was hiding up here."

"Over here."

Mordecai Quinn spotted the same familiar emoticon.

He and Nina Jacobs walked up the stairs and saw a closed door.

Next to it, a line of small text was written on the wall, one only Mordecai Quinn could recognize:

"Congratulations, you found me!"

Following the arrow, Mordecai Quinn pushed the door open with a sigh of resignation.

However, the sight that greeted him made him freeze on the spot:

Tethered to the leg of a coffee table was a zombie with a vaguely familiar face.

ROAR!

The zombie opened its mouth wide and roared at the newcomers.

"Is that... Sean Joyce?"

Daniel Lewis and the others stared in disbelief at the zombie before them.

Its skin was rotting and even sloughing off.

But anyone who knew Sean Joyce could still tell—this was the zombified Sean Joyce.

Nina Jacobs now understood everything.

No wonder Sean Joyce had made them change locations multiple times.

He only wanted to be found by Mordecai Quinn.

"There’s a letter here."

Nina Jacobs circled behind the zombie and picked up a stained piece of paper.

Judging by the handwriting, it was also written by Sean Joyce.

"Why... did it turn out like this?"

After reading the letter, Mordecai Quinn’s eyes immediately turned red.

He had originally planned to pick a fight with Sean Joyce after finding him, to demand why he had been so easily tricked.

But now, it seemed that was impossible...

"So Sean Joyce never ran away at all. We misunderstood him."

Daniel Lewis couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache as he realized the truth.

Nina Jacobs picked up the letter. It was written in the same lighthearted tone:

"...Sorry, I did my best. You really can’t survive alone in a city full of zombies. If I just croaked one day, wouldn’t all the supplies in my space be a total waste?"

"...It’s impressive you found me here. Remember to burn this ugly corpse of mine. I don’t want to be remembered like this..."

"...Oh, right, don’t be sad. I just gave myself a little scratch with a blade, I wasn’t bitten!! Painless zombification, haha..."

As expected...

Nina Jacobs had indeed been curious how a Space Superpower User could survive for over two months in a place with no humans, only zombies.

Even with supplies, you couldn’t fend off the fear that could strike at any moment, day or night.

But there was no such thing as painless zombification. Humans suffered immense pain during the transformation process; Sean Joyce was just trying to comfort Mordecai Quinn.

"After a Space Superpower User zombifies, there is indeed a way to retrieve the supplies from their space."

Nina Jacobs conjured a Fireball in front of the zombified Sean Joyce.

Sure enough, the zombie Sean Joyce immediately tossed out an entire case of compressed biscuits.

"The Ziegler Family... I won’t let a single one of them go."

Mordecai Quinn clenched his fists and stood up.

Zachary Ziegler was already dead.

Next, he would show no mercy to anyone in the base connected to the Ziegler Group.

After hearing this, Nina Jacobs was silent for a moment before saying, "Be careful."

’It looks like Meridia Base and the Ziegler Family are heading for a fight to the death.’

"I want to stay here with him for a little while,"

Mordecai Quinn said with a nod.

"Alright."

Nina Jacobs left with Wayne Warner and the others.

When Mordecai Quinn came out again, he found that Nina Jacobs had already left with Wayne Warner.

"Did she say anything before she left?"

Mordecai Quinn asked.

Daniel Lewis nodded. "She asked me to give this to you and said she’ll see you in two months."

It was a set of training notes for a Strength Element Superpower, supposedly compiled from Wayne Warner’s own training experiences.

By now, Nina Jacobs was already heading toward the mission location according to her system’s map.

She had given Mordecai Quinn the notes hoping he would be able to protect himself.

After all, she also had to be constantly on guard against the Ziegler Family and the Mystic Sect.

Looting Mission 45 was a supermarket.

The system’s mission details only indicated that supplies there would be lost within two days.

’It seems that once the roads are cleared, a lot of people will come to collect supplies from the city.’

Nina Jacobs noticed many zombies on the road ahead and didn’t dare to be careless.

Because she remembered Mordecai Quinn and his group saying there were two Intermediate Mutant Zombies here.

If she had already killed one, then there was still one left.

During the search for Sean Joyce, Mordecai Quinn had his people keep an eye out for any sign of the other Intermediate Mutant Zombie, but they never found a trace of it.

Maybe it had gone somewhere else, or maybe it was still lying in ambush somewhere in Veridia.

After getting out of the car and quickly dealing with the horde of zombies ahead, she drove for just a few minutes before encountering another large group.

"I’ll never kill them all at this rate."

After being blocked by zombies for the third time, Nina Jacobs decided to take out her safe house and temporarily lure the zombies away.