The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse

Chapter 212 — A Grand Shopping Spree

Luo Xun scanned the area, smiled, and patted the little girl on the head. “Let’s rest a bit longer. There’s no rush.”

The weather had been getting hotter lately. Because of the total absence of human activity, the entire world had become incredibly lush. Trees and wild grass grew in rampant abundance, and looking out, it truly felt as though they were standing in the middle of the deep wild.

Many of the city’s old buildings in the distance were covered in climbing green vegetation, looking like ancient, deserted ruins hidden in a forest. It gave off an unreal, dreamlike vibe.

Yet this was reality—the exact sort of environment those still alive in the apocalypse had long grown accustomed to.

Treating the excursion like a camping trip, everyone got out of their vehicles to stretch their legs and walk around, pointing and chatting from a distance at the roadside wild flowers and plants, unsure if they were mutated or not. Vibrant red and yellow blossoms were blooming exquisitely on a few anonymous roadside weeds.

While little Xinran sipped warm water from Song Lingling’s hand, Luo Xun took the opportunity to let the baby soak up some sun. They had been cooped up inside buildings constantly of late, which wasn’t great for a child; he needed to come out and get some fresh air.

As the group was resting, they suddenly felt a faint tremor ripple through the ground…

“Z-Zombie tide?!” Wang Duo jolted, instantly whipping his head left and right, looking ready to sprint back into his car and flee for his life at a moment’s notice.

The others tensed up as well. Luo Xun shot a look at Zhang Su, who immediately released his wind ability, sending a sensory draft in the direction of the vibrations.

However, before his wind could even reach the target and send information back, Luo Xun and the others saw exactly what the source of the commotion was…

Two massive wolves were bouncing and frolicking down a small dirt path. A short distance ahead of them, a few ducks and geese, vastly oversized due to mutation, were fleeing frantically and mindlessly, their bills letting out panicked, continuous quacking.

What a true display of “a dog chasing ducks and making them squawk.” Luo Xun and the team were now witnessing it firsthand.

Likely because their targets were merely a few foolish, wildly flapping, noisy ducks, the two wolves didn’t bother driving them toward Luo Xun’s group. They simply chased the ducks and geese all over the hills until they grew bored of the game. Then, with a sudden lunge, they pinned one down, followed by another sharp pounce to secure a second. Finally, happily clamping their jaws around their rations, they wagged their tails and sauntered off into the distance.

Witnessing the entire sequence, Luo Xun and his team watched open-mouthed as the two wolves departed with their prey, leaving the few surviving ducks and geese standing in the field, looking around in utter bewilderment.

After a long silence, the group finally exchanged looks. Luo Xun couldn’t help but complain, “And here I was wondering where those two wolves had run off to. Turns out they went looking for ducks!” Well, phrased like that, the sentence carried an entirely different connotation.

Wu Xin suddenly asked, “Brother Luo, are those two really wolves?”

“What do you mean?” Luo Xun was puzzled, and the others turned to look at him blankly as well.

“I think I heard before that a wolf’s tail always hangs down, and only dogs wag their tails upward… When they left just now, their tails were raised high and wagging all over the place, right?”

“…I didn’t notice.”

“They were definitely wagging, but were they raised high?”

“Could they actually be dogs? If they were real wolves, why haven’t they attacked us even once?”

“True, true. And I heard there aren’t many wild wolves left anyway, right?”

“Aren’t there some in zoos? What if they escaped from a zoo?”

A bunch of idle survivors actually debated whether those two canines were wolves or dogs for a full half-hour before finally remembering they had official business to tend to today. After a quick discussion, everyone reached a consensus—let little Xinran ride in Luo Xun and Yan Fei’s vehicle right up front to lead the way.

Little Xinran could use her superpower to sandify the large rocks on the road ahead. They could ignore the small pebbles and minor potholes, only targeting the exceptionally bumpy stretches. In this manner, she successfully sandified a smooth, broad highway for them.

The destination for this run was relatively far from Luo Xun and the team’s base, but once they merged onto the main thoroughfare, they no longer needed to trouble little Xinran to clear the ground.

It took the convoy a little over a day to drive to their objective—a rural township on the outskirts of City A’s southeastern perimeter. Before the apocalypse, these peripheral regions occupied an awkward, somewhat stagnant position, but after the apocalypse, due to their remote location and low population density, they hadn’t suffered severe destruction.

This was especially true for the area Luo Xun and the team had visited; because it was packed with warehouses and transit hubs before the apocalypse, almost no one was around during early mornings or late evenings except for cargo trucks and warehouse watchmen.

Driving near the warehouse district, Luo Xun and the team observed from a distance first, confirming the surroundings were clear before driving inside.

Some of the nearby warehouses had been partially vandalized, but others still retained a relatively pristine exterior. From the satellite photos, Luo Xun and the team could only verify whether the roofs and main structures were intact; finer details could only be seen in person. For instance, right now, several warehouses had gaping holes blasted through their side walls or had their main doors broken open—things they couldn’t possibly detect beforehand.

“Someone has been here before,” everyone remarked after taking a cursory look as they drove in.

Luo Xun thought for a moment, steering his vehicle toward a specific warehouse up front. “Let’s hit our target warehouse first. We can check the others after that.” He fully anticipated that some survivor teams had visited this area before; after all, this was a major cluster of warehouses, and among the various mandatory missions issued by the base, some were bound to involve this location. It wasn’t a surprise. As long as a portion of the items they were searching for remained, it would suffice. He wasn’t aiming to find pristine windfalls; he just needed the core resources to still be there.

After driving around to search for a bit, Luo Xun and the team pulled up before a large warehouse whose main gate had a massive hole violently blasted through it. Seeing that the place had already been broken into, he remained unperturbed, turning to Yan Fei beside him to open the gate.

The metal gate swung open at the command, exposing the somewhat dim interior of the warehouse.

Almost every single warehouse gate in this vicinity bore similar signs of forced entry. It had likely been hit by a single, large scavenger expedition in the past. But while they had opened the doors, they wouldn’t necessarily have hauled every single item away, which was precisely why Luo Xun remained so relaxed.

“There are still supplies! Brother Luo, there are still supplies!” Excited voices echoed from the other vehicles parked nearby. Luo Xun didn’t let his excitement cause him to overlook their security, instead turning to Zhang Su in the adjacent car. “Zhang Su, do a quick sweep inside to see if anything is there.”

Through the entrance, they could see stacks of cardboard boxes piled high inside, and the outer packaging looked relatively intact. They just didn’t know if any zombies or zombie animals were nesting within.

Zhang Su’s wind ability circled the interior of the warehouse. “I don’t sense anything moving.”

Only then did Luo Xun set half his worries down. Opening his door and stepping down, he led the group cautiously into the warehouse to inspect the cargo.

Standing a short distance away, Zhang Su used a small wind draft to slice open one of the cardboard boxes, revealing the contents inside—salt, table salt.

This was a regional distribution hub for a salt corporation. The inventory inside consisted of table salt—exactly what Luo Xun and the team desperately required, a resource that would never spoil no matter how long it was stored.

Catching sight of the familiar packaging inside, the group couldn’t help but let out a low cheer. Confirming that no unexpected hazards arose when the box was opened, Luo Xun and the others stepped forward, carefully and thoroughly tearing the cardboard box open.

The outer packaging of the boxes was in decent shape. Although they had sat through the apocalypse for so long, because rainwater hadn’t leaked inside and the regional climate was relatively dry, these boxes hadn’t degraded from moisture.

“It looks perfect. Haul them away!” The volume of salt in this warehouse was substantial, though it didn’t strictly fill the entire facility. Other scavengers had likely visited previously and carted away a portion, or perhaps the warehouse hadn’t been fully stocked to begin with. In any case, the stack of salt boxes currently before Luo Xun’s group was just this single mound.

Furthermore, aside from the standard iodized salt, there were varieties enhanced with other minerals, along with coarse rock salt, pickling salt, and sea salt—all under the exact same brand.

The boxes of salt carried substantial weight. Luo Xun and the team used the trailers Yan Fei casually fabricated to wheel the supplies back to their vehicles. They loaded a portion into the large truck’s cargo bed and distributed the rest among the small solar-powered vehicles. It wasn’t until barely twenty or thirty cardboard boxes remained that Luo Xun and the team finally vacated the warehouse.

The facilities surrounding the salt depot seemed to consist entirely of food-related warehouses. Some emitted a foul, eccentric stench without even needing to draw close—what other kind of smell could items past their expiration date possibly produce? Others were completely empty, likely stripped bare by survivor teams early in the apocalypse.

After checking several similar food depots, Luo Xun and the team finally discovered something different—an appliance warehouse.

“Boss, Boss! Air conditioners! Air conditioners!” He Qiankun was hopping and jumping outside a warehouse door. As the lone heavy-set individual on the team, He Qiankun declared that scorching summer days were an absolute nightmare to survive.

Previously, under the exact same temperatures and lifestyle, he was the only one constantly drenched in sweat. Consequently, he harbored an absolute obsession regarding the fact that the majority of the air conditioners at the new base were broken.

It wasn’t just air conditioners, either; there were all kinds of other appliances—refrigerators, televisions, range hoods, electric fans, and so on. This exceptionally large warehouse was clearly a regional transit hub for a major home appliance retailer before the apocalypse. Items purchased from their showrooms were essentially dispatched from this coordinate, which resulted in an incredibly comprehensive array of pristine goods inside this warehouse and its immediate neighbors.

Xu Mei and Song Lingling even spotted matching blenders, hair dryers, and compact vacuum cleaners resting on a few display shelves as promotional giveaways.

“For now, let’s just take the quantities we need, and haul back a few more freezers.” The freezers currently at home were all secondhand models, so seeing these brand-new, unopened appliances left Luo Xun equally eager to grab them.

“We need at least one air conditioner per room, right? The basement needs them too; we can’t rely solely on exhaust fans and vents for air circulation. Should we look for a central AC system?”

“Boss, can we bring a blender back? Once the fruit at home ripens, we can make fresh fruit juice for everyone to drink!”

“Everyone prioritize the essential items first. If there’s extra room, cram whatever else fits into the vehicles…”

The group behaved exactly like shoppers cut loose in a mall before the apocalypse with a credit card bearing no limit, completing their grand procurement spree with absolute excitement.

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