The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH176

Chapter 176 — Breaking Out

Zhang Su lightly tapped his cheek with a finger. After listening to Luo Xun list the various problems that still needed solving, he let out a snort.

“What’s so difficult about it? We can protect this place the same way we protected ourselves inside the base.”

Everyone looked at him in confusion.

Wang Duo hesitantly pointed out, “But… if people see the metal cover…”

Things were different outside the base. If those metal structures were spotted from a distance or photographed by satellites, it would still be a problem.

Zhang Su rolled his eyes and mocked his boyfriend.

“Did the zombies chase away your IQ? Just paint the frames green or gray so they look like ruins from a distance. Is a person supposed to die because they can’t find a bathroom?”

The others fell silent.

To be fair, none of them had thought of a solution either.

Perhaps their brains really had been eaten by the little guy.

Luo Xun stood up, excitement flashing in his eyes.

“Good! Then let’s settle on that for now! We can discuss the details later. First, let’s deal with all those dead plants.”

The underground levels were packed with the remains of dead crops.

They took up a tremendous amount of space and were an eyesore, though fortunately disposing of them wasn’t particularly difficult. The real problem was the sheer quantity, which made the work time-consuming.

Still, with a migrating zombie tide overhead and mutant plants surrounding them, what else could possibly be more urgent?

The food they had brought was sufficient. Since Song Lingling was with them, they didn’t even need to carry water whenever they traveled.

As long as food held out, all they needed to do was wait for the zombie horde to pass and leave. Then they could focus on finding a safe way back to the base to pack up their belongings.

The small group of zombies that had relentlessly pursued them originally had already been wiped out.

Unfortunately, their luck seemed terrible.

The area where they were hiding happened to lie directly along the zombie horde’s migration route.

The zombies moved forward with absolutely no intelligence whatsoever. Even when faced with obstacles, they never considered going around them.

Of course, that might also have been because only a small edge portion of the overall horde was passing through their location.

Luo Xun and the others spent two full days clearing the dead vegetation from the underground levels.

Starting on the third day, they alternated between organizing the rooms inside the building and climbing to the top floor to monitor the situation outside through binoculars.

“The zombies aren’t heading toward the base,” Luo Xun said while continuing to observe the movement of the horde. “They seem to be moving southeast.”

Yan Fei pointed toward the zombie stream and raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you think there are more foreigners among them than usual?”

“Foreigners?”

Luo Xun had been focused on the direction of travel rather than the zombies themselves. Aside from the unusually large or heavily mutated ones, most zombies looked more or less the same after you’d seen enough of them.

But after Yan Fei mentioned it, he looked more carefully.

Sure enough, many zombies still had patches of pale yellow hair remaining on their heads. Combined with their taller builds and vaguely deeper facial features…

“They really are foreign zombies…”

Lowering his binoculars, Luo Xun frowned.

“Where did they come from? Across the border?”

“Very likely,” Yan Fei replied. “They never get tired and just keep walking in one direction. Two years is more than enough time for them to travel that far.”

Foreign zombies weren’t particularly surprising.

Luo Xun was quite certain there were plenty of Chinese zombies wandering into other countries as well.

If zombies could swim, some might even cross oceans and visit the Americas. Perhaps others had gone to Australia in search of zombie kangaroos.

The end of the zombie horde still wasn’t visible.

Although everyone worried about what might be happening back at their home in the base, there was nothing they could do except stay put for now.

As for how they would leave this place once the zombie tide passed and they were still surrounded by mutant plants?

The solution was surprisingly simple.

They had gotten the idea from the very building they were currently occupying.

Dig a tunnel.

They didn’t have an earth-type ability user.

But they did have little Xinran.

They didn’t have professional tunneling equipment or lumber for reinforcement.

But they had Yan Fei.

Once a few more days had passed, Xinran could gradually turn the soil to sand and excavate in the direction Luo Xun had calculated. Eventually, they would create a safe escape route.

The little bun’s ability might very well be capable of controlling the Devil Vines.

But he was still a baby.

Nobody could expect an infant to understand instructions and consciously control mutant plants.

They already had trouble communicating with the little creature and getting it to use its abilities under the right circumstances. Asking the same of a newborn was simply impossible.

The group didn’t spend these days idle.

Besides cleaning the building, they thoroughly inspected every structure within the Devil Vine enclosure.

They discovered a large quantity of tools, machinery, and farming equipment.

If the supplies Luo Xun had collected before the apocalypse were mostly household-grade, compact, portable tools, then everything here was large-scale professional equipment.

There were oil presses, sausage-making machines, noodle presses, and all kinds of food-processing machinery.

There were also agricultural vehicles used for harvesting, irrigation, and planting.

Unfortunately, those vehicles were intended for the surrounding farmland.

And the surrounding farmland was now filled with mutant plants.

How exactly were they supposed to drive a tractor out there and harvest anything?

After a detailed inspection, they also discovered several solar panels installed on the roof of the third floor.

However, these panels only supplied power to emergency lighting and solar water heaters.

Since they had been buried beneath snow, nobody noticed them at first.

There was still some stored electricity remaining in the system, but only a tiny amount.

On the fifth day after entering the experimental building, they finally saw a glimmer of hope.

The number of zombies passing outside had dropped dramatically.

The horde was clearly nearing its end.

After discussing the matter, everyone made a decision.

They would begin digging.

A tunnel.

Digging tunnels was a technical job.

Very technical.

Luo Xun first calculated the route, angle, length, and width.

After that, the work depended on Xinran’s remarkably practiced digging abilities and Yan Fei’s constant reinforcement of the tunnel walls with metal.

The metal lining prevented rocks from falling and also protected against anything trying to burrow through the soil and attack them.

For example, mutant plants.

Or earth-type zombies.

The men were responsible for hauling away the excavated sand and soil and piling it in the small square outside.

The soil they removed came from deep underground, nearly as deep as the second basement level.

It was clean and fertile.

They planned to dry it, break it up, and save it for future farming.

The tunnel took two full days to complete.

Eventually it reached a shaded area behind one of the nearby single-story buildings.

Toward the end, they actually ran out of metal.

Yan Fei was forced to dismantle equipment from the laboratories to obtain enough material to finish the job.

After waiting another day and confirming that the zombie horde had completely disappeared, they finally broke through the last section of the tunnel.

Yan Fei then dismantled metal from several nearby buildings and constructed an extremely sturdy gate at the tunnel’s exit.

The route was finally open.

There would undoubtedly be more problems to solve in the future, along with countless plans and improvements to make.

But at least they had completed the first step.

“Brother Luo, what now?”

After finally opening the escape route, Li Tie and the others looked at Luo Xun eagerly.

They were already looking forward to the next stage.

Luo Xun rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Should we return to the base first… or go retrieve the solar panels?”

When they had fled from the zombie horde, they had been forced to abandon the metal containers holding the solar panels.

Now those panels were relatively close to their current location.

But the situation at the base was also worrying.

“The metal boxes are sturdy,” Yan Fei analyzed. “Unless a metal-type zombie deliberately destroys them, they should be fine. Even if people from the base happen to find them, they probably won’t be able to move them right away.”

Xu Mei nodded.

“Our food is almost gone. We should head home and restock, especially the cream fruits.”

They had brought a considerable amount of food.

Adults could endure a few extra days if necessary.

But there were children with them.

The supply of cream fruits prepared for the little bun was nearly exhausted.

If they delayed any longer, the baby might end up going hungry.

Luo Xun nodded and looked around at everyone.

“We’ll go back first. If everything at the base is fine, we’ll come out again in a few days.”

Everyone nodded in agreement.

The tunnel leading outside had been made quite spacious.

The elevator in the experimental building could easily accommodate a disassembled sled vehicle.

Before long, all the vehicles had been transported out.

After choosing the correct direction, they accelerated toward the base.

Fortunately, the sled vehicles could still travel across bare ground, albeit with some wear to the metal runners underneath.

With Yan Fei around, that wasn’t much of a problem.

The zombie horde had trampled most of the nearby snow during its passage, exposing the ground beneath.

As a result, the Devil Vines could no longer drag snow over to conceal themselves.

This made it relatively easy for Luo Xun and the others to avoid those dangerous plants and follow the road back toward the base.

This time, because they already knew the route and because the snow outside was rapidly melting, it took them less than two days to locate the vehicles they had hidden earlier.

They sped all the way back to the base.

Under a sky full of stars and the cover of deep night, the group quietly returned to the foot of their apartment building.

Back in the stairwell, after opening the doors and checking each apartment, they finally breathed a sigh of relief—everyone was safe.

There was no time to say anything. Exhausted, the group hurriedly returned to their rooms, tidied up briefly, and fell asleep immediately. As for other matters to discuss or care about? They could deal with them tomorrow; they had no energy for that now.

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