The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH179

Chapter 179 — Professional Street Sweepers

One battered vehicle after another sat in line, their bodies covered in scars and damage.

Some bore terrifying claw marks.

One of the worst-looking vehicles had actually lost half of its rear end.

Judging from the jagged break, something incredibly strong had literally torn it off by force. Fortunately, the rear wheels hadn’t been ripped away along with it. Otherwise, the people inside would never have made it back alive.

Luo Xun and the others quietly joined the queue and began gathering information.

Many people from the vehicles ahead had gotten out and were standing around while waiting for inspections to finish. As they waited, they complained loudly about something.

Among the group, Wang Duo was by far the biggest gossip.

The moment he realized there was juicy news to uncover, he practically forgot about his queen altogether. Jumping out of the vehicle, he rushed over to mingle with the crowd.

Only after several vehicles ahead had entered the base did he finally return, still looking unsatisfied.

After confirming that none of the team members had been infected by the zombie virus, Luo Xun’s group entered the base without incident.

As they passed the damaged vehicles parked temporarily beside the entrance road, they took a few extra glances but didn’t stop.

Instead, they hurried back to their apartment complex.

After parking, heading upstairs, and confirming that nobody had broken into their homes while they were gone, everyone immediately gathered around Wang Duo to ask about what he had learned.

“They were all teams carrying out missions in the city,” Wang Duo explained excitedly. “Apparently they were doing one of the base’s designated missions and had to go into the urban area to retrieve something. But before they even reached the city, they got ambushed by zombies.”

His eyes lit up as he lowered his voice.

“And this isn’t the first time!”

“According to them, there are zombies hiding under the snow all over the place outside the base. They wait until vehicles get close, then suddenly jump out and attack.”

“At first everyone thought it was just bad luck. But the survivors compared notes afterward, and almost every team that went out encountered the same thing! Some teams never came back at all!”

He paused dramatically.

“Now there are rumors all over the base that zombies have learned how to set traps.”

Everyone immediately remembered the zombies hidden beneath the snow that they had encountered during their first trip outside the base.

They exchanged glances.

That hadn’t been an isolated incident?

“But when we’ve gone out and come back these last few times, we haven’t encountered any hidden zombies,” Song Lingling suddenly pointed out, looking toward Luo Xun for an explanation.

Unfortunately, Luo Xun wasn’t a zombie.

How was he supposed to know why they had disappeared afterward?

Before he could begin speculating, Zhang Su suddenly spoke up.

“Maybe they all followed the zombie tide.”

The zombie horde they had encountered had covered a massive area.

Based on the traces they had seen afterward, the edge of the horde had indeed passed near the locations where the hidden zombies had originally appeared.

“…That’s possible.”

Luo Xun frowned.

“What I don’t understand is why all the zombies seem to move together now.”

The zombies clearly possessed some level of coordinated behavior.

Whatever the reason, it was terrible news for people like them who relied on hunting zombies for crystal cores.

During their recent trips, they had hardly encountered any isolated zombies at all.

There had been almost no opportunity to collect crystal cores.

The one time they had found zombies, it had been an entire zombie tide.

If they wanted crystal cores in the future, they would need to think much harder about how to obtain them.

“There’s no way to verify any of our theories right now,” Luo Xun finally concluded. “Let’s focus on the moving project first.”

Since they couldn’t figure out the answer for the moment, it was better to concentrate on the task that mattered most.

Moving house.

And moving house was a huge undertaking.

This time they had driven out with four fully loaded vehicles.

Every single one had been packed to capacity.

Yet after returning, they discovered there was still an astonishing amount of stuff left behind.

Only now did Luo Xun truly realize just how many supplies they had accumulated over the years.

The fact that the building hadn’t collapsed under the weight was practically a miracle.

Of course, that miracle’s name was Yan Fei.

Without him constantly reinforcing the stairways and structure, who knew how long the building would have lasted?

At this rate, nobody knew how many trips it would take to move everything.

Just as everyone rolled up their sleeves and prepared for another round of packing, a text message notification interrupted them.

Only then did they remember something important.

They hadn’t returned solely for the move.

They still had to complete this month’s mission.

The base seemed unusually enthusiastic about cleanup operations.

Or perhaps they simply thought the Otaku Team’s name sounded too pathetic.

Maybe they assumed a team called “Otaku Team” was only good for sweeping streets.

Or perhaps no other team wanted to accept such obviously low-status work.

Whatever the reason, when Luo Xun announced that this month’s mission was yet another street-cleaning assignment, everyone’s expressions became extraordinarily colorful.

“Which street this time?”

Luo Xun carefully read the message.

Then he frowned.

“Outside the base. One of the main roads leading into the city before winter.”

Although the zombie tide had flattened huge amounts of snow and even cleared most of the snow near the city walls, that didn’t mean every road outside had become passable.

Many routes that people had commonly used before the apocalypse remained buried.

Since the zombie horde hadn’t passed through those areas, the roads still needed to be cleared manually.

The snow was indeed melting.

Unfortunately, it melted during the day and froze again at night.

That made the roads even more dangerous.

The road assigned to their team happened to be one of those.

Everyone stared at one another for a while before looking back at the phone lying on the table.

“This location is pretty far from the base.”

“And it’s close to the city. We might run into zombies.”

“Zombies aren’t the problem,” someone replied. “The problem is those things hiding underground and suddenly popping out.”

“We can deal with that by scouting ahead while we work. The real problem is how long this stretch of road is.”

Everyone’s brows furrowed.

They exchanged unhappy looks.

The truth was simple.

At the moment, every member of the team was completely focused on moving out of the base.

Anything that interfered with that goal—whether it was an unexpected problem or a time-consuming mission—automatically became something they deeply disliked.

“It’s best to do this mission during the daytime, after it’s fully light out,” Luo Xun said. He didn’t have particularly strong objections to the assignment. Although he was eager to move over and start fixing up their new home, since they weren’t planning to abandon their apartment in the base just yet, it was better to continue completing missions obediently.

Do the missions.

Avoid attracting attention.

Fortunately, the tasks they had been assigned so far were all fairly simple.

“There are only so many easy missions available,” Luo Xun continued. “The base isn’t going to keep handing us simple jobs forever. We got lucky the last couple of times. But what if next time they assign us one of those city-center retrieval missions?”

He spread his hands.

“Wouldn’t that be even more troublesome?”

After hearing that, the others stopped complaining.

Truthfully, when they first learned that the base would assign mandatory missions—and that they would have to pay resources if they refused—they had already mentally prepared themselves for missions involving trips into the city.

Their current complaints were mostly because they were preoccupied with moving.

As for clearing snow?

They had plenty of experience with that already.

After spending some time tending to the crops at home—after all, those plants were everyone’s food supply, and they couldn’t simply ignore them even if they were preparing to move—the group returned to their respective apartments to wash up and rest.

Early the next morning, they packed their equipment, weapons, and defensive gear before heading once again to the mission hall to officially accept the assignment and leave the base.

For a simple snow-clearing mission, the amount of equipment they carried was almost identical to what they normally brought on long expeditions.

In fact, they were carrying far more weapons than anyone would usually need to sweep streets.

But missions outside the base were different.

If they happened to encounter a large number of zombies, those weapons might be the only thing keeping them alive.

Before departing, they repeatedly confirmed that they wouldn’t have to pay crystal-core entry fees when returning from this assigned mission.

Only after receiving that assurance did they leave.

If they had to pay crystal cores even while completing mandatory base missions, they might as well have skipped the assignment altogether.

For efficiency’s sake—and because very few people were still willing to leave the base these days—the group made a decision.

They would use their abilities to clear the road directly.

Using abilities to remove snow was actually very simple.

Xu Mei was a fire-type ability user.

Song Lingling was a water-type ability user.

Working together, the two women could clear a road remarkably quickly.

The remaining debris and garbage could easily be handled by everyone else.

Before long, their assigned section would be finished.

Red flames floated steadily above the snow-covered road.

As the snow melted, Song Lingling immediately redirected the water to the roadside.

Out of caution, however, they deliberately avoided working too quickly.

They slowed their pace on purpose.

If they finished too efficiently, the base might decide to assign them even more difficult tasks next time.

Since this mission relied almost entirely on the two women, while everyone else mostly removed debris and occasionally fired long-range weapons into snowbanks to check for hidden zombies, the team had already agreed beforehand that most of the mission rewards would go to Xu Mei and Song Lingling.

A smaller portion would be added to the team’s shared funds.

By a little after noon, the road was almost completely cleared.

That estimate even included all the time they spent pretending to work manually whenever vehicles passed by in the distance.

Whenever someone approached, they immediately stopped using their abilities and picked up shovels to maintain appearances.

There was nothing secret about using abilities to clear snow.

The real reason they hid it was because they had never done so openly before and didn’t want the base deciding they were capable of handling larger workloads.

Once the mission was complete, everyone leisurely climbed back into the vehicles.

This time they had only brought two cars.

“Looks like we got lucky. Didn’t run into a single zombie.”

The moment they got inside, conversation and joking immediately resumed.

“Don’t jinx it,” Han Li said as he casually smacked Wu Xin on the back of the head.

Wu Xin looked completely unconcerned.

“Come on, we’re almost back anyway. Even if zombies showed up now, so what?”

He crossed his hands behind his head, stretched out comfortably, crossed one leg over the other, and began shaking his foot.

The group chatted and joked as they drove back toward the base.

After arriving at the entrance, they completed registration and inspections and prepared to enter.

Just then, two military vehicles approached from outside the base.

Luo Xun casually glanced over and immediately spotted Captain Guo sitting in the passenger seat of one of them.

He nudged Yan Fei with his elbow.

Yan Fei followed his gaze.

At that exact moment, Captain Guo happened to look their way as well.

The three men’s eyes met briefly.

Captain Guo simply nodded.

Without saying a word, he blinked twice at them before turning his attention back toward the base gate ahead.

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