The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH195

Chapter 195 — Renovation Work

The group of foodies joyfully dug up the trees and moved them onto the trucks. During the hauling and positioning, they had to be exceptionally careful not to knock off the flower buds on the branches—every flower that dropped meant one less fruit they might get to eat in the future!

They meticulously loaded the fruit trees. For the safety of the trees, Luo Xun had Yan Fei modify the truck bed, creating a grid-like metal rack on the bottom. Each grid could snugly hold a tree, allowing them to be placed upright. This way, even if they traveled the whole way back, the flowers and branches wouldn’t be damaged by bumps.

To eat delicious fruit as soon as possible, Luo Xun’s brain was spinning pretty fast.

It was the same routine: little Xinran dug the holes, everyone pulled the trees and loaded the trucks. But before they even had time to get back into their vehicles after loading the trees, they noticed the ground was faintly vibrating.

“What’s going on?”

“Something is running!”

“Good heavens! It can’t be mutated animals again, can it?”

On their way here, they had seen some mutated animals from afar. However, because the distance was great and Luo Xun’s trucks were driving very close to one another, they probably looked like a large, crawling organism from a distance, so those mutated animals hadn’t shown any interest in coming closer to investigate.

Right now, the commotion was getting louder and closer, clearly rushing right toward them!

“Get on the—” Before Luo Xun could finish his sentence, he realized the running animals were incredibly fast. With a loud thud, one leaped to the other end of the fruit orchard.

Before they could clearly see what kind of creature had arrived, another animal of similar appearance and size also came rushing over, crashing headfirst into the first one. The two giant animals rolled around and around right in front of the tiny humans, inside this orchard bursting with colorful blossoms…

“Holy crap… luckily we already got the trees we wanted…” Seeing the trees being flattened like wild grass on a lawn, knocked down in large swathes beneath the weight of these two massive canines, everyone couldn’t help but twitch the corners of their mouths.

“Let’s go, keep the noise down.” Luo Xun still couldn’t clearly see the appearance of the two animals. Judging by their bulk, their height was roughly two to three meters. For these young trees that were only two or three years old, being crushed and slammed into by them was absolutely fatal. Moreover, as mutated animals grew larger, they usually became thick-skinned and tough, so they wouldn’t be afraid of the broken trees piercing their flesh.

The group hurriedly scrambled into the trucks, stepped on the gas, and accelerated, racing away toward the base. Although the two canine creatures noticed their presence, they didn’t seem to have much interest in these humans who would barely fill the gaps between their teeth. Or perhaps they were already full, so they had no interest in these troublesome snacks.

Whatever the reason, it was for the best that the two mutated animals didn’t come to provoke them. Driving the trucks, Luo Xun and the others skipped even the time to stop for a rest and eat lunch. They accelerated all the way back to their base. Only when all the vehicles had driven into the tunnel and the tunnel entrance was sealed did they finally breathe a massive sigh of relief.

“The distance just now was way too close, wasn’t it? Thank goodness they didn’t roll onto the highway.” Only after the trucks were parked and everyone had climbed out did Han Li pat his chest in lingering fear.

“Could the ones howling outside that night be those two?” He Qiankun suddenly asked, looking tense.

“Possibly.” Luo Xun wasn’t sure either. “That night we faintly saw two shadows, but we couldn’t be too certain since it was too dark to see clearly.”

“Let’s not talk about those two wolves for now, we haven’t even eaten lunch yet.” Xu Mei looked down at her watch, then spread her hands to everyone. “It’s already 4:30 PM.”

Taking out all the dry rations they had brought with them, the group returned to the first-floor cafeteria to prepare today’s meal.

The men, who had provided the main labor today, sat around the dining table waiting for food, while the two ladies bustled around in the kitchen.

Luo Xun knit his brows slightly. “Do you think we’ll run into those two again when we go out in a couple of days?”

Everyone looked at each other.

“Well…”

“Hard to say.”

“It’s possible, right? If those two really are the ones that made a fuss outside our base last time, they’ve been here all these days. Maybe their den is right nearby!”

“Brother Luo, how about next time we go out, we just bring a giant meat bone? If we run into them, we can just throw it out, right?”

Luo Xun rolled his eyes. “What if they remember it after eating it once, and follow us every time we go out from now on? When we run out of meat bones, won’t they just eat us?”

“…That is indeed a problem.”

“We can only wait until next time to see…”

“Exactly, there’s still so much metal on that bridge. It would be such a pity not to go!”

“Sigh, speaking of a pity, it’s really a pity about that fruit orchard. Who knows how many fruit trees will be left to bear fruit…”

Fortunately, there only seemed to be those two mutated animals for now. If they wanted to go over there later, they could still head over to try their luck. If they discovered a whole pack of those things… how could they possibly have the guts to go over?

Before long, Xu Mei and Song Lingling had the food ready. A lot of the food at home had long been processed into portable items, so right now they only needed to make some soup, heat up the dry rations, and prepare some vegetables and meat.

After eating and drinking their fill and recovering their strength, the group went down to the basement again to handle the supplies.

The fruit trees were planted one by one into metal planting pots and barely squeezed into the remaining planting space in the basement. Once the above-ground greenhouses were built, these things would be planted up there along with the vegetation from Luo Xun’s home terrace.

The metal components currently filled the tunnel about half full. Tomorrow, once Yan Fei recovered his mental energy, he could slowly use them to renovate the entire building.

About three or four hours later, taking advantage of the post-meal digestion time, everyone finished moving the entire pile of scavenged goods. Only then did they plunge into the bathrooms one by one to enjoy a comfortable hot shower, before returning to their respective rooms to rest and sleep.

The next day, Yan Fei decided to follow their previous plan and move the hauled metal above ground to continue reinforcing the exterior skin of these buildings. Right now, although there was already a layer of metal protective framing on the outside of the house to protect the entire building, because the previous amount of metal was limited, Yan Fei hadn’t dared to refine the metal meticulously for fear of running out. Thus, the protective effect was relatively average.

At the very least, Zhang Su and Xu Mei’s superpowers could affect these metal frames after a few blasts. What Yan Fei needed to do now was to make it so that even if a mutated bird flew over, it wouldn’t collapse the frame; and even if a passing mutated animal spat fire out of boredom, it could at least protect the house inside from suffering any damage.

The difficulty of this task was comparable to the time they remodeled the metal walls back at the base. Fortunately, because Yan Fei’s superpower had already leveled up to a certain extent, the strength and toughness of the metal he created were much stronger, though it was quite time-consuming.

Yan Fei was responsible for remodeling the wall outside the building—this was only the first step. Afterwards, they would have to reinforce the metal walls in the tunnel a second time, and even the four walls of the basement had to be reinforced with metal.

The two ladies, along with Li Tie and Han Li, were responsible for further processing the supplies they had brought back, categorizing and organizing them.

He Qiankun pulled Wu Xin back to their bedroom to open the computer and continue searching for areas nearby that might have supplies. The types of things they needed were too varied, and the volume was quite large, so the two decided to use their current location as the center to redraw a detailed supply distribution map. They would also log what places they had visited, what items they had taken, and whether any supplies were left over.

Meanwhile, Luo Xun took little Xinran and the puppy, with Zhang Su as a bodyguard and Wang Duo tagging along, to head down the corridor Yan Fei had built for them to the first floor, near the mutated plants, to collect crystals.

Since they returned, they hadn’t found the time to properly collect crystals yet. Now was the perfect time to harvest a portion first. It would be even better if they could happen to find a level-five crystal of a certain element.

Everyone was working up a storm according to their respective divisions of labor. Luo Xun and the others gathered at the end of the corridor, trying out various methods to see which way could yield a larger number of crystals. For instance, having little Xinran sandify the earth and then letting Zhang Su blow a gust of wind—sand was much lighter than crystals, so even with little Xinran’s control, it looked like a sandstorm was about to kick up every time.

Or having the puppy try out its gravity control. As a result, every time little Xinran “grabbed” the crystals, the puppy would “press” the sand and crystals back down together.

After messing around for over half an hour, everyone helplessly discovered that it was still better to let the little girl collect them slowly; her efficiency was much more convenient than their fooling around.

“Hey, if all the dirt nearby gets sandified, will these mutated plants die?” Wang Duo suddenly brought up a concern, turning to look longingly at Luo Xun.

Luo Xun froze for a moment, then shook his head. “It’s fine. The soil Xinran sandifies doesn’t lose its nutrients. We just need to have Song Lingling come over and help make it rain every time we finish an area.” Having superpower users of every element was truly convenient. The pity was that their variety of superpowers was still a bit limited; it would be even better if they had an earth-user or a lightning-user.

“This one is so big! Uncle, Uncle, it’s another big one!” Little Xinran suddenly bounced up, her two hands, which had grown a bit chubby, raised high as she manipulated the sand to “cradle” an incredibly massive crystal over.

The brilliant, fiery red color brought a flash of amazement to everyone’s eyes.

“It’s actually a fire-type. Sister Xu is in luck!” The earth-type crystal from that rabbit earlier was still being held in reserve, waiting until the base’s acceptance of mutated crystals grew higher before they took it back to trade with someone.

Just as Wang Duo joyfully picked up the fiery red crystal, which was about the size of his head, and bent over to set it on the ground, the cell phone in Luo Xun’s pocket suddenly rang. Don’t misunderstand—they couldn’t receive messages or calls from the base here. Moreover, for security reasons, Luo Xun and the others weren’t using the phones they had used inside the base, but rather ones they had lifted from some pre-apocalyptic phone stores while out scavenging.

Right now, thanks to Li Tie and the guys’ hard work, they had finally set up a local area network in the new base, meaning they could at least use modified internet communication software.

Luo Xun picked up the phone, only to hear He Qiankun’s loud voice booming from the other end: “Brother Luo! Hurry back! A major discovery!!”

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