Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 552 Coughing up blood
“I have no objection,” Cheng Ming said.

Yu Duo glanced at He Dawei, then at Shen Rui, and could only nod: "Alright, if you want to be the captain, then you can be the captain. I have no objection."

She initially tried to win Cheng Ming over, but to her surprise, Cheng Ming supported He Dawei without hesitation. As for Shen Rui, that kid kept calling him "Brother Wei," so he would definitely support He Dawei as well.

"Damn it," Yu Duo cursed inwardly.

Cheng Ming seems to be asexual, while Shen Rui is a two-dimensional person who only knows how to get aroused by anime characters...

For the first time, Yu Duo felt that her advantages in gender and appearance had become useless.

"Forget it... at least this guy has actually hunted monsters before. There's a big difference between monsters and monster skeletons... as long as 20% of what he's bragging about is true, it's fine to let him be the captain." Yu Duo comforted herself in her heart. "Anyway, it's just a temporary team. I can listen to his orders, but whether I actually carry them out is another matter."

"Since everyone is so kind to me, I'll gladly accept their praise," He Dawei said with a smile.

"What do you mean it's disrespectful to refuse? Didn't you offer to be the team leader yourself?" Yu Duo couldn't help but mutter to herself, her contempt for He Dawei growing even stronger—for a man, while physical appearance is important, a lack of education is also a significant drawback.

Just as He Dawei was about to say something, a commotion suddenly broke out at the back of the carriage. The four of them turned around and saw a female hunter kneeling on the ground, coughing incessantly. With each cough, she coughed up a lot of blood mixed with black, rotting flesh. The blood made a hissing sound when it touched the carriage floor, and a foul, sour smell quickly spread throughout the carriage.

"What's going on?" Shen Rui stood up curiously, but He Dawei pressed him down.

"It's best not to join the fun at this time," He Dawei said in a low voice.

"Why... does that person seem a bit off?" Shen Rui asked rhetorically.

“That’s precisely why we shouldn’t have gone over there,” He Dawei said. “Look at the others, did anyone go to help her?”

Just as He Dawei said, although everyone in the carriage was looking at the woman, no one offered her a helping hand. In fact, some people who were sitting close to her even got up and put some distance between themselves and her.

The hunter's strength was rapidly depleting. After coughing up another mouthful of black blood, she could no longer maintain her kneeling position and slumped to one side, leaning against the chair next to her.

"Does anyone have meme monitoring equipment?" one of the hunters asked.

“I brought it.” The other person hurriedly took out a device that looked like a radio from his backpack, pulled out the antenna, and pointed one end of the antenna at the female hunter who was already on the verge of death.

"So, what's her meme frequency like...?"

"It's a mess! The device is just reading gibberish!" The hunter holding the meme monitoring device shook his head. "This is bad."

"Could it be that the inhibitor wasn't injected at the prescribed time and dosage?" another hunter asked. "Damn it, aren't these tests supposed to be done during the entry inspection? How could there be any that slipped through the net?"

"I've already notified the Public Security Bureau and the Institute of Mysterious Objects!" a middle-aged man said. "I've reported the situation here!"

"What did they say?"

"...Damn it, they've sealed off our carriage and demanded we control the situation inside until we reach the next stop." The middle-aged man holding the phone's expression changed slightly. "They told me someone would come to handle this at the next station, but until then..."

"We can only rely on ourselves? Damn it!" The hunter who spoke first couldn't help but curse as well. "Does anyone know this woman? Is anyone with her?"

No one answered.

“This is troublesome. We don’t even know her memes or abilities…” The middle-aged man glanced at the train window. Although the front and rear doors of this carriage were locked, they could still break the window. At this point, the “safest” course of action for the people on board was to break the window and throw the female hunter out…

But he can't be the one to say that... otherwise, if the Public Security Bureau and the research institute investigate, he'll be the one primarily responsible.

"That woman... will she turn into a monster?" Shen Rui asked cautiously.

"I don't know." He Dawei shook his head.

"What if she really mutates? Our weapons and equipment are all being shipped as cargo, and I don't even have a small knife on me right now." Shen Rui's tone was somewhat anxious, and his eyes quickly scanned the surrounding objects, as if trying to find something that could be used as a weapon.

“Don’t worry, even if something really happens, it won’t be your turn to go.” He Dawei said in a low voice, “This carriage is full of hunters. In fact, there must be quite a few experts who can kill the monster with their bare hands. This is just a woman. Even if she is completely transformed into a monster, she can’t cause any trouble.”

"What if... I mean, what if..." Shen Rui rummaged through his backpack for a while, and finally took out the brick-like power bank and held it in his hand.

He Dawei glanced at him but didn't say much—holding something in your hand can significantly reduce tension, especially for a novice hunter like Shen Rui. The first lesson in real combat is to learn to control your emotions.

He Dawei glanced at Cheng Ming again, and found that Cheng Ming's expression had not changed at all... He couldn't help but become more cautious.

Faced with this situation, even a seasoned hunter would experience some emotional fluctuation. Someone as calm as Cheng Ming either has immense confidence in his own abilities or is simply expressionless.

Although He Dawei thinks it's more likely to be the latter.

The female hunter lying on the ground was no longer moving, but the instruments showed that the memetic frequency in her body had not weakened, which meant that she was still alive.

But this isn't good news for others.

After an infected person dies, the memes in their body will quickly dissipate. Even if the infection process has entered the acute phase, as long as the infected person is killed at this time, everything will end.

The most alarming cases are those infected who are half-dead.

Cheng Ming remembered that during his training, the person in charge told him that some infected individuals would unleash powerful energy when near death, even using this final burst of energy to turn the tide and kill their enemies. However, the price for doing so was either completely depleting their life force or drastically accelerating their infection process—after the infected individuals experienced this final burst of energy completely burned out, their only fate was complete metamorphosis. Moreover, the resulting creatures or remains formed under these circumstances were far more powerful than those formed under normal circumstances.

Although the reasons for this have not been fully understood, there is a generally accepted theory in the academic community that when the memes in the infected person's body sense that the "host" is about to die, out of the "survival instinct", the memes will force the host to enter a period of rapid change in order to greatly enhance its abilities.

The eerie meme parasitizes the infected person's body and gradually matures as the infection progresses—a process similar to the natural growth of a plant. With current human technology, this process can be observed and controlled. The infected person can use inhibitors to suppress the progression of the infection, and when the infection is on the verge of danger, the "harmless treatment" can nip all harm in the bud.

In critical moments, the monster meme can only rely on "forced growth" to ensure the survival of itself and its host. Under this mutation, which is almost a "stress response", everything becomes uncontrollable.

The person in charge had told Cheng Ming that, in many cases, the investigators and soldiers who worked with the hunters not only assisted the hunters in completing their missions, but also shouldered another mission.

That is, when the hunter enters a state known as "stress mutation," kill it to prevent it from turning into a monster or a monster.

"Should we... kill her?" Yu Duo said in a voice that only the four of them could hear.

Although she was a free hunter, she was also familiar with the concept of "stress mutation"—whether they were free hunters or registered hunters, the Monster Research Institutes in various places would train them and teach them basic knowledge about monster memes and infected people.

Not only are they required to receive training, but they are also required to take regular exams. Those who fail the exams may have their hunter licenses frozen or even revoked.

The others in the carriage also knew that killing the female hunter might be the best option at this moment, but no one was willing to do it.

No one even wanted to get close to her.

"What if she suddenly stands up and lunges at us?" Shen Rui muttered.

"Don't talk nonsense," He Dawei scolded in a low voice. "Even if she were to pounce, she shouldn't have pounced on us. We're so far away from her, and there are so many people between us!"

“To be honest, it reminded me of a zombie movie that Korea made before,” Yu Duo said. “Most of the scenes in the movie took place on a train, tsk… it feels a bit like the atmosphere right now.”

"Will that person turn into a zombie?" Shen Rui asked again.

“That’s a movie, it’s fiction.” He Dawei glared at him. “Remember, we don’t need to do anything, we don’t need to say anything… This is none of our business, and it’s not our place to worry about it… We just need to wait and see.”

Yu Duo wanted to complain, but she also had to admit that He Dawei's approach was correct.

Finally, after nearly ten minutes of this stalemate, a tall, thin man took the safety hammer hanging by the car window and walked towards the female hunter who was lying in the middle of the aisle.

Shen Rui and He Dawei instinctively held their breath, their eyes fixed on the man holding the safety hammer.

This safety hammer is used for breaking windows to escape, and it is completely different from the fire hammer that can be held with both hands and swung around to smash doors and walls. The hammer head of this thing is only the size of a thumb, and it is obviously not a suitable murder weapon.

"Ugh... using this thing?" Yu Duo muttered. "How many times would it take to smash his head open... the scene would probably be disgusting."

"Why not just strangle her with your hands?" He Dawei also complained.

“Given her current condition… she might not be able to be strangled to death,” Cheng Ming suddenly said. “She’s stopped breathing, but the memes within her haven’t dissipated.”

“No breathing…” He Dawei’s pupils contracted slightly. “Then isn’t she practically a ghost now?”

Before he could finish speaking, the man's safety hammer had already smashed down towards the hunter's temple!
A muffled sound rang out, and blood splattered everywhere.

The hunter's body twitched, but she showed no signs of resistance.

Her left temple was smashed and was covered in blood and gore; the furthest drop of blood even splattered less than a meter away from He Dawei's seat.

"They really went all out." Seeing that someone was willing to take action, He Dawei breathed a sigh of relief. "To be fair, this woman is pretty and has a good figure. It's a pity."

After the fear and tension subsided, some filthy thoughts suddenly popped into He Dawei's mind.

"Is it really that good?" Yu Duo said somewhat indignantly, "Is it better than me?"

“They’re not the same type, so it’s hard to compare,” He Dawei said. “Tsk, this kind of bloody scene really makes one’s heart tremble.”

He said he was shuddering at the bloody scene, but his eyes never left the hunter's head. With the second and third blows, the hunter's head was smashed to pieces, and blood began to slowly flow from her eyes, ears and nose.

"Has anything changed?" The man carrying the safety hammer turned to the hunter who had initially taken out the memetic detection equipment, pointed to the woman on the ground, and said, "Her memetic frequency."

"I...I can't tell...it seems even more chaotic," the hunter said.

Although the research institute also provided these hunters with portable meme detection devices, the hunters, who had only received simple training, could only tell whether the thing was infected with memes or whether the infection process had exceeded the danger threshold. As for more information, forget about it... Firstly, the accuracy of portable devices is not that high, and secondly, only researchers specializing in this area can extract valuable information from those complex data.

"It's even more chaotic now?" The man, covered in blood and carrying a safety hammer, paused for a moment. The next second, the safety hammer fell to the ground with a thud.

His face flushed red, and he clutched his throat.

Through the gaps between his fingers, you could see that his Adam's apple was bobbing up and down, as if something was trying to pop out of his throat.

(End of this chapter)