‘What’s there to cry about?’
‘I’m no good at comforting people, no good at all!’
Mandy Donovan hurried away.
Gary Moore and Etta Moore each carried a tattered cloth bag and a shovel.
“I’ll buy some tools, too.” Mandy Donovan’s Space held better equipment, but it wouldn’t be right to bring it out.
Since they were supposedly “making a living in the wild,” exchanging points for tools was the most sensible approach.
She traded for a shovel, an axe, a pickaxe, and a carrying basket.
“I’ll carry that,” Gary Moore said, taking the basket and slinging it onto his back.
“Give me the tools, too.
I’m strong.”
She gave him the shovel and the pickaxe, keeping the axe for herself.
“Aren’t either of you going to ask where I’m taking you?”
“You said we’d follow your lead from now on.” Gary Moore’s eyes were calm, his expression unchanging.
“Just as long as we don’t miss our departure in half a month.”
“Can you see my point balance?” Mandy Donovan had a plan from the moment she took the brothers in.
She would use them to help stockpile goods for her Space.
New Sharn District is relatively cold, so heating supplies are bound to be incredibly scarce there.
The weather in Old East District was warm, yet ironically, it had no shortage of heating supplies.
Gary Moore glanced at his wristband and shook his head.
“You’re the Family Head.
We don’t have the clearance.”
‘Good, as long as you can’t see it.’ That put her at ease.
Mandy Donovan made a shushing gesture.
“I’ll tell you when we get somewhere more private.”
New East District was massive, containing several cities.
They were currently in the district’s City Three, which was located closest to the sea.
It was surrounded by rolling mountain ranges.
The area teemed with Mutant Beasts and mutated plants.
A gathering zone surrounded these cities.
Passing through the city, crossing the gathering zone, and entering the unsafe zone beyond would take the better part of a day, unless you were part of a dedicated gathering team.
The three of them headed toward the gathering zone.
Two people approached from nearby, shoving and pulling at each other.
One of them was Rocky, who was struggling desperately.
“I don’t want to marry you!
I’m the one who’s supposed to take a wife!”
The woman dragging him, however, looked quite pleased.
“Marrying into her family, taking a wife—isn’t it all just a man and a woman ending up together?
I’m very satisfied with you.
Stop struggling.
You can’t get away.”
This woman was notorious at the welfare center; how could Rocky possibly agree to marry her?
He was filled with regret now.
‘If only I hadn’t been so put off by how much that Mandy girl ate, marrying her would have been fine.’ He suddenly pointed in a direction.
“The person you’re looking for is over there!”
The person he pointed at had already ducked into the gathering zone and vanished.
The woman glanced over but saw nothing.
“Don’t even think about it.
You’re marrying me today, whether you want to or not.”
With that, she began forcefully dragging Rocky toward the registration office.
Within the dense gathering zone, various mutated plants stood tall like a forest.
Mandy Donovan stayed alert, wary of anyone or any Mutant Beast that might charge out at them.
“Gordon Gomez’s team was wiped out.
Not a single one of them made it back.
Did you guys hear?” Gary Moore suddenly spoke up.
“Are you trying to get me to change my mind?” ‘I’m not changing my mind, no matter what.’ Even if Mandy Donovan had to go alone, she was still determined to stockpile supplies.
In her past life, she had lived in the south, a region that normally had few heating supplies.
Once she moved to New Sharn District, she might end up living there for the rest of her life.
The shortfall in supplies would be enormous.
“That wasn’t my intention.
I just wanted to remind you that there might be High-level Mutant Beasts in the wild.” Gary Moore had gone out with hunting parties to clear the unsafe zones before.
“There are still many places deep in the mountains that no one has ever set foot in.”
“Both of you, give me your hands.” Worried they might get separated, Mandy Donovan took Gary Moore’s hand with her left and Etta Moore’s with her right.
Her voice was just a whisper, audible only to them.
“I’m taking you to my secret base.
There are no Mutant Beasts.
And even if there were, with one Wood Element and two Gold Element users, couldn’t we kill them?”
“I can use my Gold Element Superpower to form a small knife,” Etta Moore said, raising his other hand.
The Gold Element gathered in his palm, slowly forming a small metal dagger.
The blade was only a finger long.
‘What was he going to do with a tiny knife like that?
Tickle a Mutant Beast to death?’ Mandy thought.
“…Forget I said anything.”
‘Well, I’m leaving Old East District soon anyway, so there’s no need to keep the secret base a secret.’ This was the first time she had ever brought anyone else there.
At the edge of the gathering zone, a large fallen tree lay on the ground, its branches and leaves strewn about.
Mandy Donovan glanced around.
After confirming that the three of them were alone, she pushed aside the leaves and branches, revealing a hole beneath the trunk.
“You two go down first.”
She would follow last to cover the entrance.
The inside of the hole was pitch-black.
Gary Moore crawled in without a second thought, and Etta Moore went second.
Mandy Donovan backed in after them, then reached out and pulled the foliage back over the opening to conceal it.
“It’s pitch-dark in here, I can’t see a thing!” Etta Moore said as he felt around.
The entrance sloped downward; he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground.
“Agh, damn it!”
Gary Moore fumbled in the dark to help his brother up.
“Mandy, which way now?”
“Just a second!” Mandy Donovan pulled an extremely simple, battery-powered flashlight from her pocket.
She fumbled to assemble it and then pressed the switch.
CLICK.
A beam of light, no bigger than a pea, pierced the pitch-black cave.
It was barely enough to illuminate the ground at their feet and the area right above their heads.
But here in the darkness, it seemed exceptionally bright and dazzling.
She handed the flashlight to Gary Moore.
“You hold this and light the path for you two.
I’ll take the lead.”
The passage was narrow and low, its path rugged and winding.
They walked for what felt like an eternity before coming to a fork in the path.
The diverging tunnels looked even gloomier in the flashlight’s weak beam.
Mandy Donovan led the two brothers down one of the tunnels.
After a few minutes, she gestured at the wall.
“See this?
It’s all charcoal.
You know what charcoal is, right?
If so, use your shovels to scrape it down and put it in a pile.”
She took out two simple, “special-edition wasteland” headlamps and put one on each of their heads.
“I’ll be digging in the next tunnel over.
This stuff can be exchanged for points.
Let’s dig up as much as we possibly can before we have to leave.”
Gary Moore and Etta Moore promptly took out their wristbands.
DING!
[Fir Charcoal.
Contamination: Medium.
Exchange Rate: 1 point per two pounds.
Buyback Price: 10 pounds per point.]
DING!
[Fir Charcoal.
Contamination: Low.
Exchange Rate: 1 point per pound.
Buyback Price: 5 pounds per point.]
Etta Moore spat into his palms excitedly.
“It’s all charcoal!
We can trade this for a ton of points.
Let’s start digging!
I can probably dig up several hundred pounds a day.”
Mandy Donovan was sick of that notification sound; she had switched hers to silent long ago.
“The food and drinking water I traded for today are in the carrying basket.
Eat if you get hungry.” As the Family Head, Mandy Donovan could claim the rations for her family members.
“When you pile up the charcoal, make sure to separate the medium- and low-contamination types.”
With that said, she turned to head for the other entrance.
“Mandy, let’s add each other as friends first.
It’ll be more convenient to contact each other with our wristbands,” Gary Moore said, quickly stopping her and holding out his own wristband.
“Oh, right!
We can use the wristbands to stay in touch,” Etta Moore said, extending his as well.
‘Normally, the only person who contacts me is Archie Young,’ she thought.
‘I almost forgot the wristbands even had a communication function.’
The wristbands had three main functions: analysis, communication, and text messaging.
They also came with basic features like an alarm clock, a watch, and a calendar.
After Mandy Donovan added them both as friends, she said, “Don’t skimp on the food and water.
I exchanged for a fifteen-day supply.”
After warning the brothers not to wander off, she took a shovel and a pickaxe and headed for the other entrance.
The cave she had assigned to the brothers was filled with trees that had been burned in a forest fire and subsequently buried by an earthquake, which turned them into charcoal.
The tunnel she was heading to was a small coal deposit.
Tectonic shifts had pushed the coal seam close to the surface, making it easy to dig.
In some sections, she could even just collect it directly.
Some of the coal chunks were too large, but it was easy to break them into smaller pieces with the pickaxe.
The coal seam stretched deeper into the earth.
Mandy Donovan collected the coal as she followed the tunnel downward.
DRIP!
DRIP!
The sound of dripping water grew clearer the deeper she went.
Cranking up the brightness on her headlamp, Mandy Donovan located the source of the dripping.
She held out her hand, caught a drop, and used her wristband to analyze it.
[Natural Water Source.
Contamination: None.
Potable.
Exchange Price: To be negotiated.
Buyback Price: To be negotiated.]
Bringing out even a low-contamination item would cause a sensation, let alone an uncontaminated natural water source.
Mandy Donovan found where the water was dripping from—a fissure between two rocks.
She pulled out a length of flexible tubing, inserted it into the crevice, and siphoned the water out.
Mandy Donovan used an empty plastic bottle to collect the water.
When she shone her flashlight on it, she saw that it was crystal clear, with almost no sediment.
‘I have to collect all of this,’ she thought.
‘Water is a truly precious commodity.’