Alex wasted no time and ran back to the top of the wall.
"Arf arf! Arf arf!"
The dogs started barking when they noticed Alex. A few more joined them as they rushed toward him.
Before, none of them dared to move toward him, but now, with their pack, they feared nothing.
He stared at the other side and saw a few of the agitated dogs were also looking in this direction.
Alex knew if he stayed on the wall, the dogs would soon surround him from both sides.
He looked down on the other side, hesitating. There was no garbage heap in the back. He knew once he was down, he could not climb up this tall wall.
The only way left would be to go deeper into the alley.
Without the heap of garbage, he could only search for this mesh of the alley.
It was super risky, as he did not know the exact way out. He stared at the grey alley and closed his eyes for a moment.
The next moment, his eyes flashed, and he jumped down to the other side.
Thud!
He looked around and sighed in relief that there were only two dogs who saw him. Both of them were growling at him but dared not approach him.
The pack of dogs behind the wall was still barking. He wasted no more time and placed his ear on the ground.
With all the barking around, it wasn't clear, but he could hear a bunch of barking on both coming from sides.
From the sound of it, a bunch of dogs were fighting each other. It must be because they were trespassing on each other's territory.
Alex ignored the two meek dogs growling at him and started sprinting deeper into the alleys.
…
After 5 minutes of running, Alex found himself back in isolation street. There was nothing but grey cement walls while of them did not even have cement coating on them.
He tried to stay away from the bare walls. These walls could easily scrap his skin.
Alex took a deep breath to calm down and looked around the big alley in front of him. This area was double the size of other smaller alleys. If he was not wrong, this must be the back of the factory area.
Now he wasn't sure if it was the same in the game world, but he knew for sure that crossing this alley would lead him out of this mess.
In the real world, this area was a small slum full of homeless people, along with some drug peddlers. Many of the local groups even use it as their fighting zone to avoid the police.
But right now, he couldn't see a soul in this area, not even the dogs.
Alex took some deep breaths to calm his nerves. He already wasted more than half an hour running around this congested area.
What was more bizarre was that after encountering 50-plus street dogs, he was not sure if there were any rabid dogs among them.
While running, he saw many skinny dogs on the verge of death, but they did not show the extreme stage of rabies. If some of them had the first stage of rabies, it would be impossible to tell, but he doubted that was the case.
After all, this was only a trial game. He was sure that those infected by rabies would have something different about them that made them stand out from the rest of the dogs.
Alex rubbed his forehead as there was one possibility that the rabies hadn't spread to the street dogs but to pet dogs. Alex slammed his fist on the wall. "I hope I'm wrong."
Alex checked the game task once more and started moving into the big alley. He knew there was no point in panicking here. The game was still on, so there must be rabid dogs left for him to hunt.
He increased his speed, but the moment he entered the halfway mark, a stench hit his nose. The rotten smell was so strong that he felt his head spinning. The repulsive smell almost made him vomit.
Alex moved back in a hurry.
Once he walked four steps back, the rotten stench faded like it had all been an illusion.
Alex looked ahead and saw a bunch of black bags along with a dead dog's corpse behind those bags.
He covered his nose with his arm and walked closer to the bags. Alongside those bags, he saw several other bags around the road.
There was a bunch of rotten food scattered all over the road from these bags.
This dog must have been eating the rotten food from the bag. Did it die from food poisoning?
He wasn't sure, but as he moved closer, his eyes went wide when he saw fresh blood beneath the dog's body. This thing had died recently.
Alex went on guard as he continued to move closer to the dog.
The moment he saw the entire corpse, his scalp went numb. It was gruesome. The dog's internal organs were on the ground around the body.
Alex mumbled, "Important object."
This was a code to remove the limitation on pictures limitation.
Even though the stench made it harder, Alex still moved close and kicked away the black bags around the body.
At first, he saw nothing but blood and meat chunks, but soon he noticed bite marks on the dog's face and back. The skin around these areas was still intact, and when he looked at those marks, a jolt of realization rushed through his body.
These were dog bite marks.
Alex froze for a second but then moved near the corpse. For years, he had not only worked on his physical training but also his mental toughness.
The scenes of him going to the butcher shop for the first time and watching the entire process flashed through his mind.
That was hard at first, but when he joined the butcher shop as a part-timer, he had already killed a bunch of animals.
Heck, he even saw an actual murder a couple of times in this area. In front of that, this was nothing.
He was sure that none of the players in this area would have any problem killing. People here were used to seeing a body or two every 5-6 months.
He shook his head and focused back on the corpse's condition.