After completely arming herself from head to toe, Yue Suran stealthily pulled open her front door, clutching the clothes-drying pole in her hand.
The apartment complex where Yue Suran rented her flat was situated on the third floor, with only two households per level. The building stood six stories high in total, featuring stairs but no elevator.
Because the entire residential area was quite aged, anyone with a bit of financial means had long since moved away. The remaining units were either owned by locals or rented out—much like Yue Suran’s situation.
Consequently, the entire building housed only eight households in total: seven others besides Yue Suran herself. Aside from the elderly couple living right next door, she knew absolutely nothing about the residents on the other floors. The only reason she even knew there were eight apartments was because that very same elderly couple had mentioned it to her before.
Yue Suran’s primary inspection target was her elderly neighbors. She could only pray they were safe and sound.
With a fluttering, anxious heart, Yue Suran knocked on the door next door.
Yet no matter how long she knocked, no one came to answer.
She had no choice but to press her ear against the wooden door to listen for any movement. Perhaps the sound of her knocking had drawn the attention of whatever was inside.
At that moment, Yue Suran could clearly hear something heavily slamming against the inner door. She didn’t need to guess to know it was a zombie.
Even though the thought of the elderly couple turning into zombies filled her with deep sorrow, Yue Suran still pulled out a piece of thin steel wire.
She knew that besides the main security door, the neighbors had installed an extra protective metal gate on the inside. The noise inside was undoubtedly being made by zombies slamming against that inner gate.
Fortunately, because Yue Suran always had a habit of forgetting her keys, she had once learned the craft from a professional locksmith. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the slightest clue how to pick the lock.
The instant the door clicked open, the two elderly zombies abruptly stopped their assault.
Three pairs of eyes locked in a mutual stare for a few seconds before the two zombies bared their fangs with wild excitement, lunging forward to claw at Yue Suran. Judging by their frantic movements, they must have been starved to the bone.
Yue Suran repeated the exact same maneuver she had used on the half-headed zombie earlier, thrusting the cleaver-tipped pole through the gaps in the iron security gate.
Then, she began hammering away blindly at their skulls, not daring to pause for even a second.
She smashed one, then turned on the other, refusing to stop until a mess of red and white fluids pooled across the floor.
Swallowing down the turbulent waves of nausea churning inside her, Yue Suran forced herself to suppress the overwhelming urge to vomit.
She repeatedly lectured herself in her heart that this was only the beginning, and she had to weather this trial no matter what.
It took her a long time to shake off the lingering sickness, after which she hurriedly called up the system panel to check her progress.
She wanted to see if her task count had jumped to one-fifth completion.
“Xiao-Ou, pull up the interface for me.”
This time, Xiao-Ou was completely stunned by Yue Suran’s actions. It had honestly expected her to hesitate and shrink back from striking.
Instead, Yue Suran had dealt a massive surprise, adapting to the environment of the early apocalypse within an impressively short span of time.
After lingering in a daze for a moment, Xiao-Ou remembered to open the panel.
“Congratulations, Host. Only eight more to go before reaching the target of ten.”
Seeing the mission interface—which had previously sat completely dormant—finally update and tick upward, Yue Suran let out a long breath of relief.
Once she finished off those two zombies, she prepared to retreat to the safety of her own rental to decompress.
Though she looked relatively composed on the outside, her entire body was trembling uncontrollably. If anyone were to grab her hand right now, they would discover her fingers were abnormally icy, as if all the blood in her veins had frozen solid.
“Wait! Zombie brains contain crystal cores, you know. They are extremely useful to the host. Are you sure you’re just going to leave them behind?”
Xiao-Ou offered a friendly reminder, urging Yue Suran not to pass up the cores inside the zombie skulls, which served essentially as the system’s most crucial currency.
“Didn’t apocalypse novels say that initial-stage zombies don’t have crystal cores in their heads?”
Hearing that crystals actually existed, Yue Suran halted her retreat.
She had long been curious about the crystalline cores inside zombie brains as described in web literature. Never had she imagined that the apocalypse would truly descend, let alone that the brains of the undead would start growing these hard formations.
“Not at all. Every zombie’s head contains a core, though its grade depends entirely on the zombie’s level. The host will understand all of this in due time.”
Yue Suran nodded in understanding; after all, she hadn’t spent all those hours reading apocalyptic fiction for nothing.
Looking down at the thoroughly dead corpses, her courage began to mount.
Pulling out her thin steel wire once more, she picked the lock on the inner security gate that stood between her and the valuable cores.
With a crisp click, the door swung open.
As she drew closer to the two grotesque, mutilated bodies sprawled across the floor, Yue Suran felt the bile rise in her throat all over again.
Does this mean I actually have to reach in with my bare hands and rummage through their brains to find the core?!
No way! Just thinking about it makes me want to puke!
And yet, abandoning the crystal cores after having come this far felt like an absolute waste.
Unwilling to part with her hard-earned loot, Yue Suran unfastened her headscarf and wrapped it around her hand. Closing her eyes tight, she reached her evil claws straight into the pool of chaotic red-and-white muck.
Where did the headscarf come from, you ask?
Simple—she had dug it out from her rental unit earlier.
Xiao-Ou hadn’t anticipated that Yue Suran would be this ruthless; he hadn’t even finished speaking yet! Seeing her dry-heaving while blindly rummaging through the mess with her eyes shut, Xiao-Ou sensibly shut its mouth.
It had no idea what kind of horrific scenario she was imagining behind those closed eyelids. Either way, she was going to puke—wouldn’t it be far more efficient if she just opened her eyes?
“Finally found them!”
Yue Suran felt like she was on the verge of throwing up raw bile when her fingers finally made contact with two irregular, solid objects.
Scrambling backward, she bounded straight over the two thoroughly dead corpses and darted toward the water dispenser. Without wasting a single second, she used the bottled water to rinse the two objects thoroughly clean.
Only then did the true appearance of the crystal cores come into view.
Perhaps because this was her very first harvest, the rush of excitement managed to overpower her earlier disgust. She held up the cores, examining them with keen interest.
“They really are just dull, grayish little spheres!”
After admiring her prize for a few moments, Yue Suran suddenly recalled that Xiao-Ou had seemed to be mid-sentence earlier.
“By the way, Xiao-Ou, what were you trying to tell me just now?”
“Uh… Little Xiao-Ou thinks it’s probably better if the host doesn’t know.”
Xiao-Ou decided it was best not to let her know—at least for now—that the system could automatically collect crystal cores on her behalf. If she found out right this second, who knew if she might suffer an immediate mental breakdown?
“Spill it.”
Yue Suran had a sneaking suspicion that whatever Xiao-Ou was holding back had to be important. And the more important something was, the sooner she needed to hear it.
“Well… the thing is… Little Xiao-Ou can actually auto-collect crystal cores for the host, so you won’t have to suffer through retrieving them yourself in the future~”
Xiao-Ou attempted to divert her attention so she wouldn’t dwell on what had just transpired. Who would have guessed it would completely backfire?
“WHAT! DID! YOU! SAY!”
Yue Suran could hardly believe her ears. What do you mean, auto-collect?! Why didn’t you tell me something this important earlier?!
No… stop… Just recalling her foolish actions a moment ago made her want to hurl all over again.
“You can’t blame Little Xiao-Ou for this! The host started digging in before Little Xiao-Ou even finished talking!”
Xiao-Ou watched her dry-heave with a guilty conscience. It’s just an auxiliary support assistant, after all! Without the host taking the lead and issuing direct commands, its delayed response is completely understandable, right?
Yue Suran was entirely out of temper. What was the point of picking a fight with a system anyway?
After doing some heavy mental gymnastics to rebuild her composure, she remembered to check the apartment for anything useful that she could haul back to her own place.
This wasn’t stealing; it was purely for her own survival in this ruined world. If left here, these supplies would either be looted by someone else or left to rot and mold. In that case, she might as well put them to good use.
After lugging back everything she could carry, her peripheral vision caught sight of a baseball bat leaning against the corner that she had previously overlooked.
A baseball bat! That was the ultimate zombie-smashing holy grail in all apocalyptic literature—an invincible starter weapon for the early game.
She had no idea why an elderly couple owned a baseball bat, but none of that mattered now.
What mattered was that this baseball bat belonged to her now.
Claiming her new prize, Yue Suran stepped out of her neighbors’ apartment. Polite as ever, she locked the door behind her, returned to her own unit, and began organizing the newly scavenged supplies.