The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH220

Chapter 220 — The True Nature of Otakus

Although the items in the other buildings were scattered, the team truly managed to unearth quite a few good things. Furthermore, they even located a storage warehouse behind one of the shopping plazas. Adhering to the mindset that more was always better—and that they would need replacements if their current equipment ever broke down in the future—Li Tie and the guys packed their vehicles as tightly as possible, filling them to the absolute brim!

Once they had gathered enough digital and surveillance hardware, the group headed straight for the first basement level of another building they knew of. They planned to grab a few cell phones along with gaming consoles of every type and specification before calling it a day and heading home.

They filed down the non-functional escalators step by step, everyone holding a flashlight. Some wore specialized helmets fitted with solar-powered flashlights taped to the top. Luo Xun and the team descended cautiously, holding up a metal shield Yan Fei had fabricated in front of them.

Before they could even reach the first basement level, a faint fluctuation abruptly rippled through the air. Zhang Su had no time to speak; a violent wind shield condensed instantly in the direction the whistling sound originated. Yan Fei seamlessly reacted to his defensive positioning, erecting a solid metal wall right behind the wind shield—two consecutive impacts of thud and bang echoed in rapid succession.

Judging by the sound, the entity had likely forced its way through Zhang Su’s wind shield before slamming into Yan Fei’s metal barrier immediately behind it.

“There’s more!” Before Zhang Su’s words could even finish, a barrage of clang-clang-clang echoed continuously as objects slammed into the metal wall Yan Fei had casually thrown up around the group for safety. Sensing the danger, Yan Fei immediately capped the metal perimeter with a roof, thoroughly enclosing and protecting everyone inside.

“Slowly back up, return to the escalator entrance,” Luo Xun ordered immediately. The first basement level was completely devoid of lighting, and they didn’t even know what exactly was lunging at them. How were they supposed to defend themselves? It was better to retreat to the ground level first before reassessing.

The metal fortification shifted slowly upward along with the group’s movements, accompanied by an intermittent, sharp ding-ding-dong-dong cadence scraping against the exterior wall. Because the space was narrow, the noise echoed as if it were right next to their ears, leaving their eardrums slightly numb from the resonance.

While moving the metal shelter, Yan Fei inspected the plating for any signs of structural damage. To his relief, likely because he had advanced past level five, refining metal no longer consumed much effort, and the structural integrity remained as formidable and secure as ever.

Just as they retreated to the escalator landing, a piercing, screeching screeech—screeech— echoed against the exterior wall. The sound circled the metal plating rapidly over and over, appearing to slash at the exact same coordinates every single time.

“Something is slicing at the metal, and its velocity is incredibly high!” Yan Fei reacted instantly. He replenished whatever thickness the entity managed to shave off the metal wall, but the creature’s speed was so extreme that the sound of it circling the perimeter fused into a single, continuous shriek. Sooner or later, his reinforcement speed wouldn’t be able to keep up with the attack!

Luo Xun exchanged a quick glance with him. Although a trace of surprise surfaced on his face, he wasn’t worried at all, pulling a metal container from his waist and handing it to Yan Fei. Without a word, Yan Fei pressed the container directly against the inner wall. The capsule fused seamlessly with the plating, and rapidly, the metal container began to elongate and expand. After integrating two more containers, a distinctly recessed metal groove formed along the inside of the perimeter wall. The moment the ear-splitting screeching outside finally transformed into a crisp, resonant pop, the noise stopped abruptly. A chaotic flap-flap-flap sound of beating wings followed, sliding down along one side of the metal fortification.

The continuous clang-clang impacts that had been creating a racket earlier now originated from the recessed groove, followed immediately by the identical sound of wings frantically beating and struggling as creatures tumbled heavily onto the floorboards below.

The containers Luo Xun had handed to Yan Fei were portable capsules packed with mushroom juice. These units were compact and lightweight, carried by the team to serve as makeshift “mushroom juice grenades.” If necessary, they could also be used to replenish the ammunition for their water guns.

Just now, Yan Fei had tracked the sound of the entity slicing the exterior wall, deploying the metal containers along that exact “line” on the inner plating. The mushroom juice filled the recessed groove evenly, so the moment the exterior metal wall was breached, the liquid naturally sprayed outward onto the attacking entities.

“The size isn’t large, likely avian creatures,” Luo Xun analyzed after catching the noises outside.

Yan Fei had already peeled open the metal plating on the outer side of the groove, letting the mushroom juice drizzle down the exterior wall. Several entities that came into contact with the liquid clearly suffered immensely, tumbling to the ground in succession.

“The annoying trait of these things is that while their mass is small, their velocity is extreme.” Zhang Su raised a finger and crooked it toward Yan Fei. “Open an aperture.”

Yan Fei created a small peephole in the wall nearby. Zhang Su immediately channeled his wind ability, blasting a draft out through the tiny hole. Separated by the metal plating and relying solely on the clearance of that single aperture to manipulate the currents outside, he encased the thrashing creatures on the ground in a flurry of wind blades.

Before long, his eyebrows arched with immense interest. “No wonder. They’re all wind-types.” That explained their exaggerated velocity.

Although the creatures attacking them outside shared his wind attribute—making them somewhat troublesome for Zhang Su to handle—fortunately, the vast majority had been drenched in mushroom juice. Their physical mass was tiny, so a single splash combined with their frantic thrashing meant they ended up thoroughly covered in the substance. The outcome… was completely predictable.

Zhang Su re-verified the conditions outside several times. Once he confirmed that nothing remained active apart from a few final twitches on the floorboards, Yan Fei retracted a portion of the metal wall. The group raised their flashlights once more and filed slowly down the escalator landing, finally stepping safely onto the first basement level.

Stepping into the space and running their flashlights meticulously across the floor, the group finally discovered exactly what had assaulted them—bats. And they weren’t zombie bats, either; these turned out to be mutated bats whose physical bulk appeared roughly identical to ordinary bats.

After dispatching the few remaining bats twitching on the ground, the group stared at one another in bemusement. “Where on earth… did these things come from?”

Before the apocalypse, how many years had it been since kids living in major cities had personally witnessed a bat inside the urban core? Luo Xun recalled that during his childhood, before his hometown was demolished for redevelopment, he used to spot bats emerging at dusk to catch mosquitoes in the alleys. But ever since the city entered its relentless cycle of modernization, these creatures had vanished completely. Forget about bats; in the core districts of certain metropolises, even swallows and dragonflies had become exceptionally rare sights.

Consequently, running into mutated bats was a rare curiosity for them. Heaven only knew where they had flown in from. Had they entered the urban center after the onset of the apocalypse? Or had they been nesting in this vicinity prior to the apocalypse, only shifting to this specific basement recently?

Whatever the reason, they rapidly dispatched the small creatures whose wings were thoroughly corroded, harvesting the crystals from their bodies.

Exactly as Zhang Su had stated, these bats genuinely possessed the wind attribute. What struck everyone as surprising was that the lead wind-type bat—the one that had zipped around the perimeter wall with immense lethality—was actually a level-five creature. Regrettably, by the time they discovered it, nothing remained except its crystal and a few mangled fragments, making it impossible to evaluate if it possessed any anatomical differences from the rest of the flock.

Zhang Su held the level-five bat crystal with a somewhat sour expression. Although this item was level five, could it truly push his ability into the level-five tier? Did he really not need a substantially larger level-five crystal?

“Go ahead and test it tonight alongside the other level-four wind crystals. What if you manage to break through? Your ability has been locked at the peak of level four for a while now,” Luo Xun offered casual comfort.

In truth, Zhang Su’s luck was quite tragic; among the crystals they unearthed from the mutated farmland, wind-type crystals occupied the absolute lowest percentage of the entire yield. Even when they found them, they were invariably below level three without exception. There was no helping it; wind-type zombies above level three usually learned how to fly through the air. Unless they explicitly encountered a wind-type zombie launching an assault on their position, how could they possibly have the golden luck to harvest high-tier wind crystals?

Fortunately, the quantity of ordinary crystals stored at home was substantial, and Zhang Su could casually use those to grind his level progression. This level-five crystal could at least count as better than nothing.

With the first basement level thoroughly cleared of threats, the group—especially Li Tie and the young men—burst forth with immense passion. They charged straight toward the retail counters specializing in cell phones, targeting the counters showcasing several major brands that had just launched right before the apocalypse. They intended to haul them all back to swap out and use slowly over time, completely indifferent to whether they were refurbished units or had replaced components.

Once they finished gathering those gadgets, the boys lived up to expectations by locating at least three retail stalls selling video games. Desktop stations, handheld consoles—every major console brand from before the apocalypse sat waiting obediently for the group to inspect and select them.

“We can save one of every single console per bedroom. Later on, we can set up a dedicated room upstairs specifically for gaming… Let’s hit a television retailer nearby in a bit to see what the absolute largest screen size they have in stock is. Haul them back together!”

“Brother Luo, is there still room in the trucks?”

“Adapters, adapters…”

Luo Xun rolled his eyes at their enthusiasm. “Yes. We brought extra wheel chassis along anyway. If the beds get packed, I’ll have Yan Fei add an extra cargo section to each of the two large trucks.” Before setting out, they had already planned for the contingency of running into an overwhelming volume of resources that required expanding their cargo space. After studying the structural blueprint of the container beds, Yan Fei had directly unmounted the wheels from two spare cargo beds and prepped the necessary metal, ready to assemble temporary container extensions at a moment’s notice.

Hearing his words, another round of ecstatic cheers erupted, and the five otakus instantaneously transformed into pure, hardcore geeks. They piled boxes of gear onto the trailers Yan Fei casually fabricated, packing one full before immediately loading another…

One TV game console of every type for each bedroom… that volume alone was already completely staggering, combined with the immense mountain of game discs they required. Furthermore, they grabbed handheld consoles to ensure every single person had at least one…

Luo Xun watched speechlessly as the cargo piled higher and higher on the trailers, developing a surreal illusion that he was hauling this mountain of gaming consoles back to the base to operate a wholesale distributorship.

Whatever. In any case, they would have an abundance of leisure time in the future, and they weren’t fond of constantly running around outside. This could simply serve as a way to find some entertainment for the Otaku Team.

After thoroughly stripping the inventory from these gaming shops, the group proceeded to pillage a storefront specializing in PC game discs. They didn’t care if the titles were duplicates, doing everything possible to strip the shelves bare. Once they finished wrangling all these supplies, they wheeled the metal crates (yes, because the loose boxes were far too numerous, Yan Fei had already upgraded the trailers into large metal bins) back and forth for a full six or seven trips before successfully moving everything to the surface—after all, none of the escalators inside the plaza were functional now.

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