48 Hours a Day

Chapter 1132: Countdown

When the last player climbed onto the bus, the doctor immediately called for everyone to shut the doors and windows.

The repairman was already sitting in the driver’s seat, holding the steering wheel. However, the next question he asked left all the players dumbfounded.

“The hospital... which way?”

Previously, everyone had decided their next plan in the corridor, preparing to go to the hospital to get iodine tablets. However, they had neglected the most crucial problem: they did not know where the hospital was. They were now certain that this dungeon’s background was Chernobyl, and based on their historical knowledge, they knew that Pripyat was the nearest town to the nuclear power plant.

However, they were clueless about the more detailed information, such as the number of available hospitals in Pripyat and where they were located.

They could not be blamed for being careless, though. The main reason was that it was never difficult to find a place for those who lived in the information-laden 21st-century and were already familiar with the internet. All they had to do was take out their mobile phones and search for a location. Now, not only was there no internet, but even though the players wore white skins, no one knew and spoke Russian.

In the end, it was Zhang Heng who reminded them.

“Ambulance.”

He didn’t explain much because after observing the game for a while, he realized that although most players in this round were single-players without guilds, their average skill level was still pretty good. Even though they were a little dazed from the first nuclear explosion, he believed they had not completely lost their ability to think and understand what he meant.

There would definitely be injured people after the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, so there would definitely be someone who would call for an ambulance. By then, as long as they followed the ambulance, they would naturally find the hospital.

The first ones to arrive, however, weren’t the ambulances but the firefighters.

In fact, before the players had even run out of the building, the first batch of firefighters had already arrived at the scene only two minutes since the explosion. Subsequently, the second and third teams of firefighters arrived at the scene within five minutes.

Almost as soon as the fire engine came to a stop, the firefighters on board hastily jumped down the truck and rushed into the sea of fire with water guns in their hands.

A few workers in white coats had been fighting there for some time. They had used nitrogen to replace the hydrogen in the generator in the turbine hall to prevent an explosion before transferring the diesel supply from the turbine fuel tank to the emergency water tank above the reactor unit.

All the work was done under unimaginable radiation doses of 500-15,000 roentgen per hour. Thanks to their valiant actions, the turbine hall was saved from being engulfed by the flames. If the fire spread to the other reactors, this would lead to an even larger disaster.

The firefighters climbed to the roof through the fire escape and began to think of ways to fill the reactor with water. Like the workers at the nuclear power plant, the firefighters weren’t in any radiation protective gear. They were only wearing their ordinary fire uniforms and were completely exposed to the radiation. Some of them even took off their helmets because they were too hot.

Though the smoke from the burning asphalt on the roof severely blurred vision and made breathing a chore, the firemen still tried to get as close to the fire as they could.

At the same time, fire engines were coming in from all directions, not only from around Chernobyl but also from Kyiv and other areas, after receiving the call for help.

Under the doctor’s guidance, the maintenance workers drove the bus to a wall to prevent it from being continuously exposed to radiation.

Until they could no longer see the scene inside the nuclear power plant, the hearts of the players still could not calm down for a long time. Most of them had heard of the name of Chernobyl more than once, but the disaster that year was too far away from them, and most hadn’t even been born at that time.

All of their knowledge of Chernobyl came from news and anecdotes, novels, and games on the Internet. Never in their wildest dream had they ever thought that someday they too would be involved, witnessing one of the most tragic disasters in human history. And from such close proximity as well.

“I feel terrible now...” Mouse said. He sat on the chair of the bus and panted heavily. However, it was not because of the intense exercise just now, but purely because of the physiological reaction after heavy palpitations. When he thought about the reactor scene that had just exploded, Mouse’s legs went weak.

“Who isn’t? I thought it was a welfare book, but I didn’t expect it to be a life-ending book after I came in,” the maintenance man said with a wry smile. “No wonder the mission time is unlimited. Who would want to stay here? I can’t wait to go back now.”

“The situation isn’t that bad. At least we don’t have to worry about the aftereffects.”Master Kui had calmed down at this time, “We are in a game after all. Compared to the firefighters and the workers of the nuclear power plant, as long as we can return to the real world alive, our physical condition will return to normal.”

As soon as she finished her sentence, Coconut, who was sitting in the back seat of the bus, suddenly vomited.

“Are you okay?” Mouse had been following her and carried her all the way to the bus. As a result, the two had drawn close. Seeing how unwell Coconut was, he asked with concern.

“Vomiting is one of the common adverse reactions brought about by radiation overdose,” the doctor said.

“Because lots of cells die when exposed to this much radiation, new cells need to be divided to make up for them. To produce cells, you need water and energy. This will lead to an insufficient blood supply to your stomach, which will eventually lead to vomiting.”

“I’m fine.” Coconut wiped the vomit from his mouth with his hand and smiled weakly at Mouse.

“You don’t have to explain everything in such detail. It makes me want to vomit myself,” the boy said.

“Sorry, I like to keep talking when I’m nervous.”

After waiting for a few minutes, the ambulance finally appeared. A doctor ran down from the ambulance and injected some tranquilizer into an unlucky person hit by a crossbeam during the explosion. He did some simple triage, then ordered his men to carry the injured man into the ambulance while he stayed behind to deal with burn victims and mildly injured.

The players were also cheered up when they saw the ambulance because this meant that they could finally leave this godforsaken place.

When the ambulance drove out of the main entrance with the injured, the maintenance worker stepped on the accelerator impatiently. The bus returned to the road from under the wall and followed the ambulance in front, heading toward the nearby town of Pripyat.

Zhang Heng turned back to look in the direction of the nuclear power plant. A few brave firefighters had climbed up to the roof of the reactor and were attempting to fill it with water. Under their feet was a huge crack, where the melted core was spewing out a vast amount of radioactive particles.

The invisible flame had burned everyone present.