I Have a Modern Weapon Gacha System in the Zombie Apocalypse

Chapter 184: It’s Decided

"Okay, let me get this straight, there is a doctor trapped in your country which has answers to one of our greatest questions about how this apocalypse started?" Adrian asked.

"That’s basically correct. Which is why we need your help in extracting her. You said before, you extracted a Korean..."

"...A Korean virologist," Adrian corrected calmly.

Captain Liu nodded once.

"Yes."

The cramped submarine quarters remained quiet except for the faint hum of the Changzheng-418’s nuclear reactor somewhere deeper inside the vessel.

Ryan still looked unconvinced.

"Captain, you’re basically asking us to enter a nuked capital city crawling with infected just to extract one scientist."

Captain Liu did not deny it.

"Yes."

Ryan blinked slowly.

"Well at least he’s honest."

The Chinese captain rested both hands lightly against the desk afterward.

"Doctor Lin Mei may be one of the last surviving individuals with direct knowledge regarding the origin of the outbreak."

He looked directly toward Adrian.

"If there is even a small chance she possesses information capable of explaining this catastrophe, then she is worth recovering."

Adrian remained silent for several moments.

Honestly, Captain Liu was not wrong.

The origin of the apocalypse remained humanity’s biggest unanswered question.

Every military faction.

Every surviving government remnant.

Every scientist.

Every survivor.

All of them wanted the same answer.

How did this happen?

And more importantly—

Could it happen again?

Ryan crossed his arms.

"Okay, let’s say we agree. How exactly are we supposed to reach Beijing?"

Captain Liu immediately walked toward the large wall map again.

He pointed toward the northeastern Chinese coastline.

"Our submarine cannot safely approach the mainland anymore."

"Because of the infected?"

"That too."

Captain Liu’s expression hardened slightly.

"But also because the coastlines are dead zones now."

Adrian narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Dead zones?"

The Chinese captain nodded once.

"Massive radiation contamination from the strikes. Naval wreckage. Coastal infestations."

His finger slowly moved farther inland across the map.

"And something else."

Ryan frowned slightly.

"What?"

Captain Liu paused briefly before answering.

"Large infected concentrations."

The room became quiet again afterward.

Captain Liu continued calmly.

"After the nuclear strikes, surviving population centers collapsed toward underground shelters and military bunkers."

He looked toward Adrian.

"Those bunkers eventually failed."

Ryan slowly exhaled through his nose.

"So basically entire underground cities turned into feeding grounds."

"Yes."

That honestly sounded horrifying.

Especially underground.

Confined spaces.

Dark corridors.

No escape routes.

Captain Liu slowly tapped one marked section near Beijing afterward.

"This region suffered multiple direct strikes."

The map showed overlapping red circles around the capital.

Ryan stared at it quietly.

"That place should be completely dead."

Captain Liu nodded slowly.

"That’s what we believed too."

Then he pulled another document from the metal case.

A thermal satellite image.

Recent.

Very recent.

Adrian immediately noticed that.

"Two days ago?" he asked.

Captain Liu nodded.

"Doctor Lin transmitted emergency coordinates from beneath this sector."

Ryan looked closely at the image.

"What am I looking at?"

Captain Liu pointed toward a faint underground heat signature beneath the destroyed capital zone.

"This."

The thermal anomaly sat deep beneath Beijing.

Shielded underground.

Still active.

Adrian crossed his arms slightly.

"She still has power."

"Yes."

"She still has communications."

"Intermittent," Captain Liu corrected. "But functional."

Ryan frowned.

"So why hasn’t she left?"

Captain Liu’s expression darkened slightly.

"Because she can’t."

That answer immediately drew Adrian’s attention again.

The Chinese captain slowly sat back down afterward.

"Doctor Lin stated that the underground sector suffered structural collapse after the nuclear strikes."

He pointed toward one of the reports.

"Several access shafts are destroyed. Elevator systems failed. Upper sectors flooded with infected."

Ryan stared.

"So she’s trapped."

"Yes."

"Well, if we can’t reach via shore, we’ll have to go through air. I believe nuclear weapons are conventional, right? We just have to take necessary precautions. I have an air asset back in the Philippines," Adrian continued calmly. "Long-range capable."

Captain Liu immediately looked toward him more carefully.

"What kind of asset?"

Ryan answered before Adrian could.

"...A C-17 Globemaster," Ryan finished casually.

That immediately drew visible reactions from several Chinese officers inside the compartment.

Even Captain Liu blinked slightly.

"You possess strategic airlift capability too?"

Ryan shrugged lightly.

"We possess a lot of things."

Adrian shot him a brief glance.

Ryan raised both hands slightly.

"What? I’m not giving details."

Captain Liu slowly nodded afterward.

"That aircraft may work."

He stepped back toward the map again while studying the marked regions around Beijing.

"The radiation zones are dangerous but survivable with proper protection and limited exposure time."

Adrian crossed his arms slightly.

"How severe?"

Captain Liu pointed toward the outer blast regions.

"The outskirts remain manageable in short durations. But the central sectors..."

His finger moved toward overlapping red circles near the capital.

"...those regions are heavily contaminated."

Ryan frowned slightly.

"So basically don’t breathe."

"That would be ideal," Captain Liu answered dryly.

That was probably the first joke Adrian had heard from the man since they met.

The Chinese captain pulled another document from the desk afterward.

Aerial reconnaissance imagery.

Destroyed highways.

Collapsed skyscrapers.

Burned districts stretching endlessly toward the horizon.

Ryan quietly stared at the photographs.

"Jesus..."

Beijing no longer looked like a city.

It looked like the aftermath of the end of the world.

Entire districts had been flattened beneath nuclear fire while others remained partially standing like burned skeletons. Craters scarred the urban landscape while smoke still lingered over some sectors even months after the strikes.

Captain Liu noticed Adrian studying them.

"The infected remained active even after the detonations."

Adrian narrowed his eyes slightly.

"How?"

"We don’t fully understand."

Captain Liu slowly placed another report onto the desk.

"Some variants survived underground."

Ryan blinked.

"Underground?"

The Chinese captain nodded once.

"The subway systems. Emergency shelters. Military bunkers."

His expression darkened again.

"And the radiation changed some of them."

Radiation-mutated infected inside underground military sectors beneath Beijing.

That sounded less like a rescue mission and more like suicide.

Ryan slowly rubbed his face.

"I swear every time we learn something new, things somehow get worse."

Captain Liu quietly answered.

"Yes."

Adrian remained focused on the maps.

"If we deploy by air, where’s the safest insertion point?"

The Chinese captain immediately pointed toward a marked region west of central Beijing.

"This district."

Ryan looked toward it.

"That close?"

"It’s the nearest surviving access tunnel leading toward Doctor Lin’s sector."

Captain Liu looked directly toward Adrian afterward.

"The upper districts are infested, but satellite heat mapping suggests the western sectors have lower infected concentrations compared to central Beijing."

"Lower doesn’t mean low," Ryan muttered.

"No," Captain Liu agreed calmly. "It does not."

Adrian studied the insertion route carefully.

The path would require crossing ruined districts before descending underground through partially collapsed infrastructure.

And once underground, escape routes would become limited.

"Okay, we’ll take this mission as it is an utmost importance."