The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH219

Chapter 219 — The Digital Mall

Likely because people had died on the streets outside the day before, Luo Xun and his team discovered scattered zombies on the road continuously from the middle of the night until they got out of bed this morning.

Stepping out the door, they dispatched the nearby zombies. Luo Xun waited for Yan Fei to slightly repair the vehicle chassis that had been clipped yesterday before calling everyone into the cars to resume their journey.

Along the way, they still encountered zombies from time to time. This happened with increasing frequency the deeper they drove into the city center.

Originally, the city buildings that the base had blasted down during their early operations were located in the southern part of the city. Consequently, whenever survivors went out on missions afterward, they would subconsciously avoid the southern city center, choosing instead to operate mostly in the central and northern districts. The frequent human activity drew more zombies to cluster in these areas. Thus, the further north they went and the deeper they penetrated the city, the more frequently the silhouettes of zombies appeared.

Luo Xun and his team were quite lucky, and the route they selected was relatively quiet. Even so, zombies would pop out from the roadside every now and then with an aura that screamed “I own this road,” looking to rob them. Of course, while people in the past robbed for wealth or occasionally lust, these zombies wanted their lives.

Swatting these pests while rushing north, the group didn’t forget to express their admiration for Luo Xun along the way, describing it as a rolling river of respect. It was a massive blessing that they had brought so much mushroom juice this time. It was an even greater blessing that their weapons had all been upgraded by Yan Fei once again. Otherwise, how could they have so easily dispatched these elemental, secondary-mutated zombies? Their old weapons would have only left minor scratches on these creatures at best. If Yan Fei hadn’t modified everyone’s crossbows based on Luo Xun’s designs, they would have been locked in a grueling battle even against a mere handful of zombies.

An even more celebratory fact was that the level-five water-type crystal they had unearned from the farmland previously had successfully pushed Song Lingling’s ability past level five before this trip.

A level-five superpower granted an astonishing level of control over non-pure water liquids. Even if the target had absolutely no open wounds, she could instantly extract all the fluid inside its body!

This move wasn’t just effective for low-tech tasks like compressing mushroom juice; it was equally lethal against zombies. Though zombies were dead and the blood inside their veins had mostly turned into some unknown substance, it still fell under the category of liquid. In combat, she could use her ability to directly drain the fluid behind a zombie’s neck and around its brain. Afterward, a heavy attack from anyone else could easily snap the dry, branch-like neck of the zombie!

What delighted everyone even more was that if she drained most of a target zombie’s body fluids, a fireball thrown by Xu Mei could actually cause the zombie to burst into flames!

Although the damage output of that specific combination was relatively low, it was still a viable method of attack. Song Lingling’s performance left Luo Xun and the team harboring massive expectations for when the other elemental users reached level five.

Yan Fei had consumed the metal-type crystal after receiving it, successfully advancing to level five as well. However, since he had only just broken through, apart from his operational range becoming vast and his ability to detect microscopic traces of metal growing incredibly sharp, he hadn’t discovered other practical applications yet. He could only explore and master it slowly.

The convoy set out once more, accompanied by the two pure-metal dummy vehicles disguised as jeeps. Aside from these dummy cars, every vehicle carried more or less scrap metal stashed away as a reserve. Luo Xun was highly tempted to have Yan Fei fabricate a few more metal cars to use as shields on the outer perimeter like yesterday, but current road conditions were treacherous, with substantial debris littering the streets. If the convoy grew too long, they might not be able to react in time if an emergency arose.

Since entering the city center, they had headed straight north, taking a full three days just to arrive at their destination. Over those three days, they had to bash zombies every night before sleeping and every morning before setting out just to set their minds at ease.

What allowed them to breathe a sigh of relief was that while the number of zombies they encountered had steadily increased during their second day in the city, the count actually began to dwindle the closer they drew to the northern district. However, the signs of destruction left behind by a zombie horde along the streets were far more severe than what they had seen previously.

It seemed that because the last zombie tide had marched through this exact area, it had swept up all the local zombies along its path as minions, causing the majority of the local undead to march northward with the main column. In contrast, the path Luo Xun and his team had taken to get here differed from the northern trajectory of the zombie tide, which was why they had run into so many stragglers midway.

Holding up his binoculars to inspect the distant structures, Luo Xun and the team observed cautiously for a good while before deciding to drive closer to their objective.

“The eastern entrance is completely blocked by a collapsed building, but that block should have three other doors. The entrance of the building opposite looks relatively free of obstructions, and there are two more blocks behind it…” The area Luo Xun and the team had arrived at was City A’s dedicated commercial district for digital and electronic hardware. Before the apocalypse, back when e-commerce hadn’t fully taken over, this place had been exceptionally famous inside City A and even across the entire country.

Commercial buildings towered all around them, but not a single silhouette could be seen on the pedestrian overpasses, the vast majority of which were snapped in half.

Wild grass burst through the fractures in the asphalt, and even those buildings and overpasses that once possessed a highly modern aesthetic were now heavily choked with green weeds, looking thoroughly desolate and bleak.

Luo Xun and the team parked their vehicles in a relatively secure spot—by relatively secure, it meant an area free of precarious masonry or glass windows that could drop at any moment, and certainly not an intersection where they could easily be rammed by a runaway car charting an unexpected path.

Stepping down from the trucks and locking the doors, the group prepared to enter one of the massive buildings. Yan Fei’s footsteps suddenly paused, his eyebrows arching slightly. “The metal density inside this place is remarkably high.”

How could it not be? A single look at what this district sold explained the massive volume of metal inside. However, while Yan Fei could sense the presence of metal inside surrounding structures previously, the sensation wasn’t anywhere near as distinct or clear as it was now after reaching level five. Stepping within a certain range of these buildings, the absolute wall of metal sensation slamming into him… was truly no joke. Although phrased like that, the others might not fully comprehend the feeling, but one could visualize the????? scent profile when walking up to a public restroom; Yan Fei’s current sensation was highly analogous to that.

The very first sight upon stepping through the doors—a floor covered in shattered glass. And it wasn’t just limited to broken glass; rows of display counters had been violently smashed open, their original inventory strewn across the floor, with a substantial portion thoroughly broken.

Fortunately, the vast majority of these items were merely display samples; even if authentic retail units were out, they usually only amounted to one or two pieces.

Luo Xun and the team kept their footsteps light as they advanced deeper into the core of the building. Zhang Su’s wind ability spread outward, rapidly sweeping through the structural layout of the facility. “I don’t detect anything moving.”

“What’s next? Do we head upstairs or downstairs?” Luo Xun hadn’t visited this specific plaza across both his lifetimes and wasn’t familiar with the layout, but the small city he lived in previously also housed electronics markets like this. In his memory, plazas of this nature always had retail stalls operating both above and below ground.

In contrast, Li Tie and his tech-savvy crew were intimately familiar with this kind of layout, and hearing his question, the boys immediately entered a state of frantic excitement.

“The basement of this building is essentially dedicated to cell phones.”

“There should also be all kinds of gaming consoles!”

“We can definitely haul a few of those back! Remember the television sets we retrieved last time? The game discs and cartridges should still be around, right? Haul them back! Bring them all back!”

“Prioritize official business first. The upper levels should store various hardware equipment, surveillance monitors, and hard drives. We need to carry a massive hoard back today.”

“Cameras, cameras!”

“Don’t forget data cables!”

“Boss, Brother Yan, Beautiful Zhang, move, move, move!”

Looking at the five-man squad who were so ecstatic they looked like they had been injected with chicken blood, the three individuals called out—alongside Xu Mei and Song Lingling standing in the corner—couldn’t help but shudder silently.

Xu Mei held little Xinran tightly in her arms, doing her best to keep the little girl away from those guys who had practically devolved into a state of feral frenzy.

Ultimately, everyone decided to prioritize official business first, and the group marched majestically up to the second floor.

To everyone’s surprise—yet entirely within expectations—this floor had clearly been visited by previous scavengers.

Perhaps local residents holed up in this vicinity early in the apocalypse had visited the facility, or survivor expeditions looking for supplies had come through later; it was even possible that random travelers had casually stepped inside. The reasons for this conclusion were clear: first, a convenience kiosk on the second floor had been stripped completely bare of all inventory. Second, a great number of display counters had been pried open. Third, those “opened” counters hadn’t been accessed through normal means, but had been violently smashed apart, leaving glass scattered across the floor and retail goods dropped everywhere, many trampled into ruin or kicked into corners.

Looking at this chaotic wreckage, the group who had traveled a massive distance to search for resources felt a wave of anger rise in their chests—this was pure, mindless vandalism! The people who had visited this place previously weren’t searching for specific items; they had simply smashed whatever they saw, destroying everything out of spite because the goods weren’t edible or useful to them!

“Let’s search carefully. There are bound to be pieces that haven’t been broken yet.” Li Tie’s eyes flared with anger as he stared at a long row of overturned shelves holding a massive pile of graphics card boxes. Some of the boxes near the top were crushed flat, but the retail components sealed inside were bound to still have intact pieces.

“It’s fine, there are several other buildings in the immediate perimeter. They couldn’t possibly have smashed every single item across all the facilities,” Luo Xun patted his shoulder to comfort him.

Luo Xun’s assessment was correct. The people who had come here to wreak havoc previously were survivors who had ventured out to find food but come up empty-handed. Upon arriving here, they had simply vented all the grievances and fury piled up across the apocalypse onto these non-perishable, non-edible electronic goods.

Although they had destroyed a substantial amount of inventory, it was highly visible that while the first and second floors bore severe signs of violent vandalism, the sections from the third floor up weren’t anywhere near as exaggerated.

Regrettably, the roof of this specific building had been struck by some heavy object in the past, causing over half of it to collapse, leaving the inventory originally stored underneath thoroughly ruined by water logging.

The basement of this facility suffered a similar fate. Likely due to the melting snow from earlier, the two subterranean levels were completely submerged under melted runoff, leaving almost every item inside ruined past redemption.

Luo Xun and the team only managed to salvage a small volume of pristine electronic hardware along with an immense quantity of various data cables from the second and third floors.

Only when they crossed into the adjacent blocks behind the first building did everyone’s grim expressions improve significantly. The initial facility had suffered the most severe vandalism simply because it occupied the absolute outer flank, bordering the most prosperous commercial street and a subway exit. In contrast, the inventory inside the deeper blocks behind it hadn’t been touched out of spite by anyone, except for the food items.

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