The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH151

Chapter 151 — The Wall-Repair Squad

Seeing that the man left while taking every soldier who had arrived with them in the same vehicle—clearly intending to provide the group with no further support whatsoever—Luo Xun frowned and quietly asked the others,

“Captain Guo won’t get into trouble over this, will he?”

Xiao Li gave a bitter smile, while Sun Shaoyang sneered.

“How could he not? Ever since you guys left last time, Captain Guo’s been under detention the whole time. A while ago, I even heard they assigned him to street-cleaning duty. Supposedly he almost got sent outside the base to join the external cleanup teams. If this zombie siege hadn’t happened and they didn’t need to contact the old metal-type users, who would’ve even remembered Captain Guo?”

Luo Xun was stunned.

“He’s been detained the whole time? Sent outside the base for cleanup work?”

The soldiers sent outside the base for cleanup work were usually only of two kinds: heavily armed units… or cannon fodder.

And in the early days of the apocalypse, those cleanup squads were mostly military personnel. But after a year or two, the base would begin recruiting ordinary civilians for the work instead. They’d hand out some weapons, food, and water, but…

Those people were basically expendable sacrifices.

Nobody guaranteed their survival.

Even now, although experienced soldiers were still being sent out, aside from special ability-user squads, the rest were just ordinary soldiers without powers. Casualties in such teams were always severe.

“Exactly,” Xiao Li said coldly, his expression stiff while gripping his partner’s arm tightly.

“I think they were trying to work him to death.”

“Just because of what happened last time?” Luo Xun frowned deeply.

“Because they insisted we go defend the wall during a blizzard and someone died, they dumped all the blame on Captain Guo?”

Sun Shaoyang sneered again.

“That’s part of it. But not all. That was just an excuse. The real reason was because Captain Guo refused to side with any particular higher-up. So they simply stole the Metal Squad captain position from him, slapped him with disciplinary punishment, and tried to slowly ruin him…”

At that point Yan Fei suddenly looked toward Sun Shaoyang.

“What about you? You left the squad too?”

Sun Shaoyang was clearly dressed in civilian clothes rather than military uniform. Anyone could tell at a glance.

Combined with the expression he’d worn upon seeing that officer earlier, it was obvious he’d completely left the military.

Sun Shaoyang suddenly laughed and pointed toward the infantry fighting vehicle parked below the wall.

“I had a huge fight with that bastard. You guys have no idea—after he took over our squad, he acted just like the other ability-team leaders. Every crystal core used, how long it lasted, how much metal each core produced—he monitored everything obsessively. And not only did he extend working hours until six every evening, after work he refused to distribute any extra crystal cores for recovery. We had to rely solely on sleeping to recover our strength…”

“Damn it, he didn’t treat us like people at all!”

“After I got into a fight with him and got kicked out, I joined another ability squad and finally found out—he’d been hoarding all the metal-type crystal cores and secretly selling the extras every day!”

Only then did Luo Xun and Yan Fei understand why the logistics department had suddenly gained so many metal-type crystal cores.

So that was the reason.

Nowadays, any crystal cores obtained by the military were prioritized for their ability-user squads. Only surplus cores were sent to logistics for sale to civilians or military users wanting exchanges.

Back when Captain Guo had been in charge, he’d always found ways to secure the cores for the squad members. Aside from a small mandatory quota sent to logistics, nearly all the cores ended up distributed among the team.

But after the leadership change, the new captain began skimming off as many as possible and secretly selling them.

Luo Xun laughed helplessly.

“Didn’t he ever think that if none of the metal-type users left the squad, who exactly would buy all those metal-type cores he was selling?”

Xiao Li’s partner Zhang Quan spread his hands helplessly.

“Even if nobody left, the squad never distributed enough cores anyway. People probably still would’ve found ways to buy more privately. He’d still profit.”

Since Captain Guo hadn’t returned yet, the group simply stood off to the side where they wouldn’t interfere with wall defense personnel and chatted about recent events.

Sun Shaoyang had joined another ability-user squad and now lived in New City. Since he was newly recruited and his ability was rare, the captain and other members valued him highly. Plenty of people flattered and courted him.

But honestly…

Human relationships out there…

If not for being squeezed out, and if military life hadn’t been so rigidly regimented, he actually would’ve preferred his old life.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei were relatively fortunate.

After all, they’d never been officially enlisted to begin with, and they already had a way to survive independently.

Xiao Li’s situation, on the other hand, was rougher.

Not only were his crystal cores skimmed off, he also constantly endured various forms of mistreatment.

Of course, since he was the squad’s only remaining ability user, nobody openly bullied him.

The one truly suffering was Zhang Quan, his partner.

After the new captain took over the Metal Squad, he immediately wanted to remove all ordinary members and retain only metal-type users. But because Sun Shaoyang and Xiao Li objected at the time, he couldn’t implement it immediately.

The squad had already been short-staffed, so he first filled those vacancies, then exceeded normal staffing limits by adding several trusted subordinates under the excuse of “protecting the metal-type users.”

What that really meant… everyone understood without explanation.

Before long, the newcomers began deliberately targeting the old members.

Sun Shaoyang’s partner eventually got into a shouting match with them, and the new captain immediately tried to punish him formally.

Sun Shaoyang exploded in anger and argued with the captain too. Furious, he simply announced he was quitting the squad.

The captain directly expelled him from the military and marked him with severe disciplinary punishment.

Sun Shaoyang took the opportunity to leave together with his partner.

After losing that resistance, the new captain quickly expelled all ordinary members from the original Metal Squad.

But Xiao Li and Zhang Quan were deeply attached to each other, so Xiao Li directly confronted the captain.

Having learned from the Sun Shaoyang incident, the captain understood very clearly that the only reason his current lifestyle was so comfortable was because he was the “captain of the Metal Squad.”

If the final metal-type ability user also left…

Who exactly would he remain captain over?

So he had no choice but to keep Zhang Quan.

But harassment was unavoidable.

All the other members were the captain’s loyal followers. And now that Xiao Li was the only remaining metal-type user, everyone wanted to control him.

So constant troublemaking became inevitable.

At this point, Xiao Li tightly grabbed Zhang Quan’s arm.

“They’re getting worse and worse now. I’m honestly scared… scared they’ll secretly do something to him. These days I don’t even dare let him go to the bathroom alone.”

Zhang Quan smiled helplessly and patted his shoulder comfortingly.

“Honestly, if it weren’t for me, your life in the squad would actually be pretty good…”

“How could I not have you?!” Xiao Li burst out.

“We’ve known each other for years! We’ve been in the same unit since enlistment, and we’ve stayed together ever since! If you weren’t there, I wouldn’t stay in that squad either!”

Standing atop the city wall, the two held hands and gazed directly into each other’s eyes, radiating enough romantic tension to blind everyone nearby.

Luo Xun and the others all lowered their heads trying not to laugh.

Honestly, because support personnel were responsible for protecting and caring for the ability users, most such partnerships developed at least some ambiguous feelings over time.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei were obvious examples. They’d already been together before joining the squad, and Luo Xun had entered purely because he worried about Yan Fei’s safety.

Sun Shaoyang had also fallen out with the new captain because his partner was about to be expelled. According to him, his partner had already left the military as well, and the two now officially lived together in housing assigned by their new squad.

As for Shen Ping from the former Second Squad…

He too had shared an ambiguous relationship with the soldier assigned to care for him.

Unfortunately, Shen Ping had already died, and his partner had also been expelled by the new captain.

“Ahem.”

Suddenly a coughing sound interrupted everyone.

Turning around, they discovered Captain Guo had returned from his phone calls.

“If you’re going to flirt, at least pick a better time,” he remarked dryly.

“Be careful the zombies don’t get annoyed and set you two on fire.”

The pair immediately turned red and lowered their heads in embarrassment, making everyone else desperately want to gouge out their own eyes.

After mocking them sufficiently, Captain Guo turned to Luo Xun.

“I’ve contacted them. A team of earth-type users will arrive shortly to coordinate with us—”

A smug grin spread across his face.

“Fully coordinate with our operation.”

Sure enough, not long afterward another squad arrived and found Luo Xun’s group resting near the wall.

They brought five earth-type users and three fire-type users.

After a brief discussion between Luo Xun, Captain Guo, and the other squad’s captain, the teams immediately began coordinated operations.

The metal-type users inspected the reinforced wall sections, checking for structural damage and repairing metal components.

Two earth-type users inspected the wall beneath everyone’s feet while repairing portions damaged by the zombie birds the night before.

The remaining three earth-type users waited for the fire-types to melt the ice and snow outside the wall before restoring and leveling the ground below.

The fire-type users handled snow and ice removal.

While they were working, water-type users from logistics also arrived, helping clear away the melted runoff outside the wall.

The entire group advanced while repairing, spending a full three hours circling the entire perimeter wall and repairing damaged sections.

Of course, the earth-type users restoring the wall surfaces worked more slowly.

After all, the zombie birds had caused extensive destruction overnight.

Once the full circuit was complete, Yan Fei and the other metal-type users finally created a gigantic metal wheel once more—and began rolling it around the base perimeter in a crushing sweep.

The long-absent “Grindstone Squad” had returned.

Rumbling thunderously around the entire outer wall of the base.

The exhausted defense squads guarding the walls nearly burst into tears cheering when they saw the sight.

News of the breached eastern wall had already spread throughout nearly the entire base.

People pushed to the edge by exhaustion and despair had been on the verge of psychological collapse.

But now—the appearance of this squad meant one thing:

The outer wall had been repaired.

And humanity could once again organize an effective defense against the zombie horde.

Thank you for reading 🙂 I hope you all liked my translations. If you enjoyed my work, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi 😉