Chapter 96: Belated Justice |
The path out of the asylum was surprisingly smooth. Without the Walrider, this place was just a cluster of ordinary buildings. As for the highly aggressive asylum inmates, most of them had burned to death in the Church.
Along the way, they did not run into any of Murkoff's soldiers.
Most of the soldiers had rushed into the Underground Laboratory. The soldiers took the secure underground passages; those wide sewer pipes had been prepared for them in the first place. Even earlier, they had arrived there under Wernicke's command.
If a Player turned off the Morphogenic Engine and followed Wernicke's instructions to take the main road out, they would definitely bump into the soldiers face-to-face. Of course, the Main Quest was only to escape Mount Massive Asylum. The moment one walked out of the Underground Laboratory, the Script would be considered cleared, though it would only result in a normal ending with mediocre rewards.
The group arrived at the administration hall. Waylon, a former employee of Mount Massive, unlocked the main doors. The heavy rain outside had begun to subside.
There were still a dozen or so dazed asylum inmates in the hall. Waylon tried to persuade them to run away, but few paid him any attention.
Only one person followed them out; it was the patient who had been sitting in the wheelchair earlier and had accepted Bai Mu's candy.
Bai Mu thought for a moment, then simply took out all the sweets from his Candy Box and stuffed them into the patients' mouths one by one. After eating the candy, these somewhat demented patients regained a brief moment of clarity. One after another, they stood up and headed out the main doors together.
Bai Mu had entered alone, but his exit was quite a grand procession. A large crowd of people lined up behind him, walking out the hall doors together.
"Don't we have cars?" Bai Mu pointed out. "I drove one here, and you drove one. That makes two."
"But how can two cars fit over a dozen people?"
"Isn't the roof pretty spacious?" Bai Mu pointed at the hood of his vehicle.
The rain stopped by the time they reached the front courtyard. It had been a passing thunderstorm, coming and going quickly. He counted the heads; including himself, there were eighteen people in total. Divided up, they only needed to cram nine people into each car. In reality, that was far from reaching a car's weight limit. After all, everyone knows that a single motorcycle can carry over a dozen people, let alone a car.
"I also have a car," Waylon chimed in. "It's parked right here in the courtyard."
"See, now we have three cars," Bai Mu declared.
If fitting eighteen people into two cars was slightly troublesome, three cars would not even count as overloaded.
Under Bai Mu's direction, they smoothly ushered the patients through the car doors. Waylon took in five disabled patients with missing limbs, while the remaining patients were evenly split between Stephen and Bai Mu.
Stephen's car was actually parked nearby and he quickly drove it over. Surprisingly, the patient whose teeth Bai Mu had knocked out earlier was working hard to help his fellow inmates into the vehicles. He chuckled at Bai Mu, who looked at his breezy gums and felt that he might have been a bit too heavy-handed.
"Here, take this cake. Eat up." Bai Mu tossed the Chocolate Cake that Lucy had given him into the man's hands.
Bai Mu did not mean anything by it; he just felt that this guy seemed to love sweets, so he offered it as compensation for knocking out his teeth.
The patient let out a foolishly happy laugh after receiving the cake. He pulled a glass marble out of his pocket and presented it to Bai Mu.
"Is this... for me?" Bai Mu asked.
The patient nodded with a giggly grin.
Bai Mu thought, 'He is quite principled to understand the concept of returning a favor,' and so he accepted the marble.
[You have obtained the "Lucky Marble".]
Bai Mu paused in surprise. This marble was actually a Special Item.
[Name: Lucky Marble]
[Type: Special Item]
[Quality: Common]
[Remarks: An unpretentious glass marble. It is said that carrying it brings good luck, such as not stepping in dog poop when you go out.]
A Common-quality Special Item with a system notification meant that this thing could likely be brought out of the Script.
The remarks for this item were a bit mystical. Being a Common-quality item, its effects probably were not too strong, but it was better than nothing. After all, it had been traded for a piece of cake that could not be brought out of the Script anyway.
"Thank you," Bai Mu expressed his gratitude to the patient.
"Hehe." The patient grinned, tore open the cake wrapper, and ravenously shoved the cake into his mouth, as if terrified someone might snatch it away.
After a few minutes of minor shuffling around, Bai Mu hopped into the driver's seat and started the engine.
He glanced back and still saw no sign of soldiers. Lucy was also helping him keep watch, but she found no pursuers either.
Mainly, they had acted quite fast, and the patients had all been surprisingly cooperative.
Furthermore, Bai Mu figured that Murkoff's people would never dare drive into Mount Massive. Cars were simply too conspicuous, making it far too easy to be spotted by the Walrider and suddenly killed.
Bai Mu stepped on the gas pedal, casually tearing open a sandwich cookie wrapper and tossing the treat into his mouth.
Stephen's car took the lead, followed by Bai Mu and Waylon. After driving for a few seconds, Bai Mu heard a notification chime.
[You have taken the evidence out of Mount Massive Asylum.]
[Main Quest completed. You will be teleported to the Community after the storyline concludes.]
A flash of white light swept past, and Bai Mu's condition was fully restored. However, he could no longer control the car. The vehicle switched to autopilot, locking his vision into a first-person cinematic perspective, and "Best Friend's Help" entered a cooldown state.
"Looks like only the final cutscene is left."
The three cars traveled along the muddy road. Then, the sun slowly rose ahead, its morning light illuminating the main highway.
At dawn, the three cars merged onto the main road.
Bai Mu watched a scene of Stephen making a phone call. Not long after leaving Mount Massive, communications seemed to have been restored. The intersection ahead was lined with police cars, news vans, and reporters.
The group of disabled asylum inmates got out of the cars. Meanwhile, in Bai Mu's view, the Camcorder was brought out, displaying some footage.
The scene then shifted to a press conference. The entire event was broadcast live across radio stations, television programs, and online platforms. People all over the world were tuning in to this shocking scandal.
From Bai Mu's perspective, he directly faced the flashing cameras and microphones, with Stephen and Waylon seated to his left and right respectively.
A massive trove of carefully selected and processed photos and videos was made public. Waylon exposed Murkoff's inner workings, and the leaders pulling the strings behind the corporation were subsequently arrested by the government.
After the press conference concluded, Stephen gave Bai Mu a hug—or more accurately, he hugged Bai Mu's camera perspective.
"Bai, you are a well-deserved professional Reporter!"
[Side Quest "The Professional Ethics of a Reporter" completed.]
[You have obtained a reward: "Professional Press Badge".]
[You have achieved the Hidden Ending: Belated Justice.]
[Ending Summary: Two reporters with noble spirits uncovered the entire truth behind Mount Massive Asylum and rescued key figures along with pitiable patients. Although this dark conspiracy was only exposed years later, at least you got it done, didn't you?]
[The storyline has concluded. You have completed the Script and will be automatically teleported to the Community.]