[Ling Zhao.]
“What is it?”
Without even looking up, Ling Zhao entered the information into the map. She was compiling the data. The Type-I Sentry did not detect things by diameter, but in a straight line.
[This winter is going to be difficult.]
“Because of the Night Demons?” She raised her head and picked up her pen. “If I remember correctly, that notebook said the zombies originated from a fungal infection, right?”
[That’s correct, but that isn’t the main issue.] Sistrom said. [It’s because it’s getting cold too quickly this year. To prevent their hosts and themselves from freezing and splitting apart, zombie hordes appear around this time every year.]
[During this period, the areas where zombies are active and the places where humans gather will overlap significantly. The places they choose to spend the winter are also places where humans need to hunker down for the winter.]
[This period is also known as the Hunt. If too many settlements are destroyed by zombies, they will use the survivors from those places to produce new zombies. As a result, there is a very high probability that another zombie horde will appear in the spring of the following year.]
[Another reason it is called the Hunt is… some shelters, in order to avoid this situation, will temporarily open their external cities to allow people to take refuge inside. Others, however, will choose to hunt alongside the zombies.]
Sistrom’s meaning was already very clear.
Some people would choose to clear the fields and fortify the walls—in other words, they would kill all the scattered survivors first, thereby reducing the number of zombies that would appear the following spring.
This was a hunt between humans and zombies, zombies and humans, and humans and humans.
Ling Zhao stopped writing. She added this matter to her notes and then wrote down a deadline.
She needed to deal with the other problems as quickly as possible so that she could free up her hands to deal with the challenges of winter.
The shelter had nothing. It could practically be described as having bare walls.
She needed energy, water, and food. Of these, the energy problem was the highest priority.
The shelter’s primary energy source was a nuclear fusion battery, but the battery’s remaining energy was now practically negligible. On top of that, the recycling machine from the newly unlocked waste-recycling project also required energy. She had to solve the energy problem as quickly as possible.
Energy… energy…
“Wait. You said zombies would look for places where survivors are active. No, not places where survivors are active…” Ling Zhao suddenly thought of something else. “The zombies’ goal is simply to find a warm place to spend the winter!”
“I know how to solve the energy problem now! Thank you, Sistrom!”
She quickly added another task to her list of ongoing objectives. She needed to meet the unlocking requirements for the second and third projects in the shortest possible time.
Sell 100 items and complete 1,000 transactions.
It wasn’t a matter of points. The requirements were based directly on the number of items sold and the number of transactions completed.
If everything went smoothly, she should be able to complete the first requirement within two days.
It was already two in the morning, the time when Ling Zhao’s biological clock told her to sleep, but she couldn’t sleep yet.
She went to the floor closest to the surface and placed the [Waste Recycling Machine] near the entrance and exit.
This was the machine she had received as a free gift when she unlocked waste recycling. If she wanted more or better machines, that would cost extra.
For now, this basic machine was enough for her.
Its main functions were [Restoration], [Fusion], [Repair & Refurbishment], and [Random Upgrade].
Restoration returned an item to its raw materials.
Fusion involved putting two damaged items, along with some materials, inside and seeing whether they could complement each other.
Repair & Refurbishment was exactly what it sounded like—it consumed materials to repair and refurbish an item.
The final option, Random Upgrade, required her to choose a direction, put in some materials she thought might be useful, and then wait to see what she got, like opening a blind box.
Expired food would be directly recycled. Ling Zhao had already tested that.
However, she hadn’t tested whether she could put the previous administrator’s corpse inside. Instead, she had simply had the Sentry carry it away and buried it somewhere farther away outside.
Expired medicine, on the other hand, could be processed by adding several more doses to extract whatever usable ingredients remained. That was how she had obtained the zombie serum earlier. Five doses of medicine could produce one usable dose, and she had extracted ten doses.
There was still plenty of garbage in Shelter 999, but the energy available to keep the recycling machine running was running low.
After upgrading some of the damaged lights and converting them into ultraviolet lamps, she had just enough energy left to use the basic function twice and Fusion once.
Ling Zhao rummaged around and found a machine gun—a belt-fed Maxim. It was a little too heavy for her to drag, but fortunately, inside the shelter, she could use construction mode to move it.
The gun’s barrel assembly was broken. After she supplemented it with some useless plates she had found in the cafeteria, what appeared before her eyes was a brand-new belt-fed machine gun.
Then she placed the wheelchair she had found onto the conveyor belt as well.
It had been sitting in the medical room for who knew how long, and its wheels and axle were already damaged. Ling Zhao couldn’t use it. She couldn’t keep dragging an office chair around everywhere, and since it wasn’t an actual wheelchair, it wasn’t convenient enough.
While modifying the wheelchair, she selected Random Upgrade.
Four options popped up on the panel:
[Defense] [Speed] [Attack] [Balance]
In other words, she had to choose one aspect to focus on strengthening.
[Defense: The smallest mobile fortress. During summer, it is the smallest steamer.]
[Speed: Maximum speed can reach 300 KM/H. There have currently been no complaints about this mode. Please rest assured.]
[Attack: The method of attack depends on the weapon you provide. If you want the wheelchair to swing a baseball bat at people, that can also be arranged.]
[Balance: A little bit of everything, but nothing stands out.]
That Speed option…
Wouldn’t everyone who couldn’t brake end up being reduced to paste?
Ling Zhao took out a bundle of electrical wires she had found, a motor, some sheet metal, and the Maxim machine gun she had just repaired, then threw everything into the recycling machine.
Finally, she didn’t forget to throw in a belt to serve as a safety harness.
The machine displayed an upgrade time of four hours.
After finishing everything, Ling Zhao finally yawned and decided to go to sleep.
……
The next morning.
Bei You rubbed her eyes and jumped down from the tree trunk where she had spent the night.
Last night, she had only smelled the stench of the Night Demons. There had been no trace of the others in the wind, so she had simply rested in the tree for the night.
By morning, the stench of the Night Demons had disappeared.
The Night Demons only appeared at night. Ordinary zombies were not harmed by ultraviolet light, so there were only a few ordinary zombies wandering around.
To avoid alarming them, Bei You chose to approach each one and kill it with a single strike, without making any sound.
Soon, Bei You approached yesterday’s campsite.
She looked at the ashes remaining on the ground, as well as the faint footprints that were no longer obvious after the area had been cleaned up. Following them, she returned to Lingfeng Town.
Lingfeng Town was a very, very small town with a permanent population of only around 300 people. Some well-informed elderly people said that during the prosperous era, a population of this size wouldn’t even be enough to fill a single building.
Just how big would a building have to be to accommodate 300 people?
Bei You was sometimes puzzled by this question. The remnants of staircases, some collapsed and others buried beneath the greenery, would occasionally give her a glimpse of what the place had once looked like.
Previously, Bei You had known very little about the 300 people here. But when she returned this time, she discovered that everyone had gathered at the entrance of the town.
So there really were this many people…
Those who had returned earlier were already receiving a warm welcome from the crowd lining both sides of the entrance. If she suddenly inserted herself into the group now, she would look somewhat out of place.
In the end, it was the town mayor who noticed her.
The mayor was a brown-haired woman who looked very kind and amiable, though that was merely how she appeared. One of her eyes did not move when she looked at people. She had lost that eye while desperately fighting raiders to protect the townspeople, and it had later been replaced with a prosthetic eye.
That eye occasionally made her look somewhat cold and heartless, especially when she said, “Bei You, congratulations. I thought you weren’t coming back.”
Bei You instinctively wanted to hand over her sniper rifle, because the mayor never allowed her to carry firearms inside the town. But then she saw the mayor raise a hand to stop her.
“No need,” the mayor said. Perhaps realizing that she had sounded too cold, she added with a smile, “Consider this rifle my parting gift to you.”
Bei You stood where she was, her hand gripping the rifle strap. For some reason, beads of sweat had begun to seep from her palm.
“Hey… at least you knew to come back,” Li Shangshan muttered from the side. “If it were me, I wouldn’t have come back.”
The data clerk elbowed him several times, signaling for him to keep his voice down.
“Whether you’ve come back to say goodbye or you still want to stay here, you’re welcome here.” The mayor ended with a perfectly curved smile.
Bei You had seen the mayor talking to several other people earlier, and it was obvious that she had no intention of telling her about whatever they had discussed.
Afterward, she saw the mayor nod to several other people, signaling for them to follow her, but she did not call for Bei You, who had returned last.
Bei You looked at the familiar neighbors around her and wanted to ask them a few questions, but she was immediately met with mocking remarks.
“Isn’t this our big celebrity who has already entered a shelter? What, couldn’t you get used to sleeping on a silk bed, so you came back to sleep in a doghouse?”
“That’s right. We’re all just living the same miserable lives. So why is it that none of the others got chosen, but she did?”
“Hey, where are you going? There’s nothing left in your house! They thought you weren’t coming back, so they immediately organized people to divide up everything in your house! Now if you go back, you’ll be lucky if you can snatch a roof beam!”
Bei You stopped in her tracks.
The person who had spoken thought she was about to lose her temper and immediately dashed home, shutting the sheet-metal door behind them.
“……”
Bei You silently walked back.
She saw someone carrying away her family’s door and roof beams. When they saw her, they didn’t even bother to avoid her. Instead, they openly looked at her and said righteously, “I found these! If you’ve got the ability, go find some yourself!”
By the time Bei You reached the small mound of earth where her home had once stood, she couldn’t even tell where her house had been. There wasn’t the slightest trace of it left.
As for the nuts and bolts… Bei You had always habitually kept all her money on her person, and most of it had been lost during this battle.
This was what it truly meant to have nothing but bare walls and not a penny to one’s name.
As Bei You lowered her head to look at the ground, someone else who had just heard the news came searching for her.
“Hey, you over there! Is there anything left? They couldn’t have taken everything, could they?”
“Do you know whether that girl who used to live here had a habit of saving money? She was supposedly an excellent shot, so she should have earned quite a bit. Let’s dig around here and see if we can find anything!”
Bei You raised her head and stared at the man.
The man, who had been grinning excitedly a moment ago, immediately looked away.
“Uh, well, uh… I just came over to dig up some soil to take home and grow vegetables. Yeah, that’s right. Just digging up some soil…”
After saying that, he casually grabbed two handfuls of dirt from the ground and ran down the mountain.
Bei You didn’t quite understand.
Why was it that even though she hadn’t returned herself, merely sending back a message, the entire town had completely treated her as an outsider?
This definitely wasn’t jealousy.
There was even a trace of hatred in it—something Bei You couldn’t quite put into words.
She walked down the mountain in confusion.
Everyone who saw her, and everyone whose eyes met hers, would instantly pretend to be busy. Bei You even saw someone hurriedly tying up their hair, only to notice that the hair tie in their hand belonged to her.
Bei You walked to the vicinity of the mayor’s villa and finally remembered why she had come.
She was here to find the mayor and tell her about the Night Demon horde.
Bei You instinctively walked straight into the mayor’s villa, but the guard standing at the entrance reached out and stopped her.
This guard also served as the mayor’s housekeeper, cook, and driver, doing several jobs at once. She knew Bei You, yet she was stopping her outside now.
“This is the mayor’s order,” the guard said.
Bei You said urgently, “I have important information to tell the mayor. The Night Demons…”
“You have information about a Night Demon horde, right?”
“You all already know?” Bei You’s breathing caught.
This was the excuse she had painstakingly come up with. Now that they already knew, what reason did she have to continue staying here?
She herself hadn’t even realized that the desire she once had to return home had gradually disappeared.
Lingfeng Town was no longer her home.
“Yes,” the guard said. “A merchant from the Raven Traders brought this news, along with a solution.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the mayor patted the merchant on the shoulder, and the two of them walked out of the villa side by side.
Judging by their expressions, both parties seemed extremely satisfied.
Bei You noticed the lamp in the merchant’s hand and remembered the item that the lord had previously asked her to take away. It should have been… a sample?
Now that she thought about it, it seemed that even her final purpose had disappeared.
Bei You turned around and left.
She did not hear the merchant’s confident assurance behind her.
“Don’t worry! Everything I have is new equipment that was only recently phased out by Ash City and Shelter 199 next door. They’re absolutely effective against Night Demons! As long as you don’t run into a Night Demon at the leader level, I can guarantee your safety!”
Author’s Note:
I spent the whole morning running around outside to get some documents sorted out. I hurried back to finish revising the last part and finally posted it.