The Reborn Otaku’s Code of Practice for the Apocalypse – CH244

Chapter 244 — New Changes in the Base

The moment that herd of rabbits bounded right in front of the group, the trap fabricated by the joint efforts of Yan Fei and little Xinran proved its immense worth! Setting aside the ones that bypassed the pit, jumped out by stepping on their companions’ heads, or were dispatched directly by the rest of the crew, Luo Xun and the team did a final count and discovered they had actually captured a whopping eleven live mutated rabbits in a single breath!

However, the absolute physical bulk of these eleven rabbits was truly substantial. They had no choice but to let Yan Fei forge temporary metal cages on the spot, mount a set of spare wheels beneath them, and hitch the rig to the rear of the cargo truck to cart this newly secured haul back together. True to form, not a single one of these rabbits possessed an elemental superpower, which perfectly aligned with the consistent tracking style of those two wolves.

Skinning the four rabbits that had been dispatched directly and gouging out their crystals, they tossed the meat to the two wolves currently sitting by the roadside with their tongues lolling out as they waited for their meal. Only then did Luo Xun and the team gather up the rabbit hides and steer the vehicles back toward the entrance of their secret tunnel.

“Honestly, though the physical bulk of this rabbit herd is vastly smaller than the monstrous one we crossed paths with previously, their fur is significantly softer and finer. Once we air-dry them thoroughly, we can fashion a few winter coats out of them.” Luo Xun was currently in an excellent mood. Having just packed an entire truck container with rabbits, this harvest was barely a step down from trading for supplies back at the major base.

Yan Fei also let out a chuckle. “Where do you intend to keep this rabbit herd?” Catching that he wanted them brought back alive, Yan Fei knew precisely what his partner was plotting—their household had only just taken in two eaglets, rounded out by a pair of wolves that consistently sought out their coordinates to signal for rescue and fresh meat. Cultivating a warren of rabbits alongside the quails that were already hitting a point of surplus yield at home would likely be perfectly sufficient to supply these carnivorous gluttons down the line.

Luo Xun narrowed his eyes, his smile blooming so widely his teeth were completely visible. “Let’s keep excavating! We’ll structure a vastly larger livestock sector this time, or simply excavate another subterranean tier to form a massive interconnected block, planting grass and greens inside.” Rabbits were exactly like their own quails; as long as the food and water supply was maintained, they could breed relentlessly year-round! Coupled with intermittent hunting runs into the perimeter, once they weathered the initial setup phase, they could completely break away from worrying about running short of meat ever again!

Luo Xun’s momentum was excellent. Housing two alternative gluttons inside the trucks wasn’t a major issue, especially since they had just handily sorted out a herd of aggressive, massive rabbits anyway.

Steering the vehicles back to the main gate of their secret tunnel, they threw open the subterranean entrance barrier and drove the convoy smoothly inside.

Conducting a thorough check from the upper levels straight down to the basement, they harvested the various greens that had grown slightly overripe and tossed them straight into the rabbit cages. Following that, they transported the two eaglets up to the greenhouse in a single breath via the elevator. Luo Xun’s household still retained an immense stockpile of sun-dried rice and wheat straw; utilizing a sheet of raw rabbit hide on top of the straw, they comfortably structured a pristine nest for the twin eaglets. The eagle nest was temporarily positioned across a relatively level patch of open ground that was clear of vegetation—this coordinate flanked their grape trellises, swings, and metal tables and chairs, making it an excellent spot for Luo Xun and the team to soak up the sun and chat during their leisure hours.

Finalizing these core chores, the group finally and thoroughly relaxed their bodies, catching the lukewarm breeze sifting through their base as they let out a wave of boundless sentiment—”As expected, there truly is no place like home.”

“Ain’t that the truth! Who could possibly tolerate that sweltering heat outside?”

“Let’s focus straight on excavating the subterranean layers over these next few days anyway, that way we don’t have to venture past the gates at all.”

“August is already rapidly drawing past its midpoint; once September hits, the weather will turn vastly cooler.”

“Wait, if we intend to excavate a third subterranean level, will the metal reserves stored at our base run a bit short?”

Speaking up to this precise point, the entire crew turned their gazes toward Yan Fei in absolute unison.

Yan Fei noted, “We had systematically stockpiled a fair volume previously, and on our trajectory back this time, I harvested as much scrap as possible along the highway. Fabricating a single subterranean floor should be perfectly sufficient.” However, once this basement extension was finalized, they would still require continuing to harvest and stockpile reserve scrap metal the next time they ventured outside.

Verifying that the metal supply was perfectly sufficient—and that they merely required focusing on physical excavation for the time being without having to brainstorm supply runs past the gates—the group let out a collective sigh of relief.

Inside the complex, whether across the basement levels or within the above-ground glass greenhouse, the current temperature and humidity indexes were vastly more comfortable than the wild outside. They temporarily harbored absolutely zero desire to step past the gates to absorb misery.

Consequently, after a brief team discussion finalized a highly leisurely daily labor arrangement, the squad disbanded on the spot to retreat to their individual bedrooms, leaving every member free to engage in whatever personal interests they desired.

Heading down to the first-floor bathroom to wash up thoroughly, Luo Xun returned to his master bedroom and immediately booted up the television and gaming console. Sifting through his collection for a good while, he extracted a disc to slide into the drive, preparing to kick off a gaming marathon.

Having completed his own shower and currently patting his hair dry with a towel, Yan Fei arched an eyebrow slightly, sliding into the seat right beside Luo Xun.

“Want to join?” The title Luo Xun had selected was a blockbuster Western release, allowing a pair of players to cooperatively wield firearms to systematically blast xenomorphs and alternative aliens across the screen. While booting up the game, he even let his thoughts wander—it was a profound blessing that the post-apocalyptic reality Earth encountered was merely a combination of zombie columns and native biological mutations; if they had to weather an extraterrestrial invasion on top of that, absolutely no one would survive.

Yan Fei shook his head. Catching the response, Luo Xun excitedly began clearing the introductory map, failing to notice that the gaze of the man sitting beside him had begun shifting into an intensely profound, dark focus…

A half-hour later, the television screen frozen on a continuous “PAUSE” overlay. Meanwhile, Luo Xun had been completely stripped bare by a certain individual and pinned flat against the mattress, biting down on the bedsheets as he lost himself completely to the sensations. Currently, his brain possessed absolutely zero processing power to police alternative parameters, but by the time his consciousness cleared enough to evaluate alternative realities, heaven only knew if “today” had already slipped past? When the time came, would a certain individual who had failed to enjoy his gaming marathon run completely wild?

The next morning, every single member of the Otaku Team uncharacteristically rolled out of bed late. However, this parameter had been perfectly anticipated by the group in advance, and absolutely no one had intended to kick off their chores during the morning hours anyway. Their daily labor targets had been systematically arranged for the afternoon.

Nevertheless, the underlying catalyst behind every single member waking up late was structurally distinct. For instance, the root causes behind Luo Xun and Zhang Su rolling out of bed late were virtually identical, whereas the parameters triggering the delays for Li Tie, He Qiankun, and Xu Mei were similarly uniform.

Having absorbed a round of heavy physical labor, Luo Xun felt a trace of soreness radiating across his lower back the absolute moment he slid into his seat at the dining table. Catching a sideways glance at Zhang Su—whose face was flushed with a vibrant radiance, his entire form emitting that dazzling aura unique to someone who had been thoroughly and deeply satisfied—Luo Xun was intensely tempted to locate a mirror to verify whether the physical markers on his own form appeared equally visible.

Failing to detect Luo Xun’s underlying stiffness, Wu Xin slid into the seat right beside him, letting out a heavy yawn along the way. “Brother Luo, which specific title were you playing last night?” When the group gamed during the daylight hours, they generally preferred to gather inside the communal playroom to play together, but regarding the sessions right before turning in for sleep, every member loved to retreat to the privacy of their individual bedrooms to enjoy the experience.

Luo Xun’s expression tightened for a split second, recalling the miserable television terminal that remained powered on when he woke this morning, displaying that cursed “PAUSE” overlay throughout the entire night.

Anchored on Wu Xin’s alternative flank, Han Li let out a highly conspiratorial, wicked chuckle, reaching out to nudge the unobservant Wu Xin with his elbow as he lowered his voice: “You blockhead, why are you probing into what specific games a couple plays together?”

A wave of realization finally struck Wu Xin, and he joined Han Li in letting out a succession of “hehehe,” vulgar chuckles.

Luo Xun helplessly shot the pair a sideways glance, catching the breakfast bowl Yan Fei had thoughtfully ladled for him. This pack of young men was simply far too idle! Furthermore, regarding this squad of geeks, currently, as long as functional video games were available to allow them to play unrestrictedly every single day, their baseline desire to locate a partner to live out their lives had completely evaporated! Back when they resided inside the base proper, they had even joked about the dynamic—noting that if a few years slipped past and they still failed to locate compatible female partners, should they simply compromise by internally digesting the pool and pairing off with one another instead?

Yet by this point, video games were perfectly and thoroughly packing their entire leisure footprint, meaning they had likely completely abandoned even that lingering thought, hadn’t they?

Finishing that combined breakfast-lunch meal, the group rested for a brief moment. After tending to the twin eaglets resting inside the greenhouse alongside the floral flora and fruit trees, Luo Xun and the team deployed to the basement to manage their household crops. Along the way, Luo Xun completed an organizational overhaul across a compact planting room that had consistently sat unused, structuring the cultivation racks and packing the containers with fresh soil—to plant the sugarcane cuttings!

Luo Xun and the team had meticulously coddled these sugarcanes harvested from the base along their entire return trajectory, lightly misting the root structures with fresh water daily to lock in the moisture, treating the stalks with absolute care every single day over those ten-plus days. Reviewing the inventory currently back home, out of the forty individual stalks packing the two bundles, a mere two specimens had degraded past redemption. The remaining stock was systematically cut section by section according to the location of the live buds, and carefully planted into their soil containers.

Naturally, Luo Xun explicitly extracted a single pristine stalk, chopping it into sections to distribute among the crew as an afternoon snack. Although the internal moisture index ran slightly short, the underlying flavor profile carried zero mutations, confirming it was an authentic, pure sugarcane beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Cultivating the sugarcane and arraying the fresh mushroom logs, Luo Xun and the team subsequently brought the rabbits they had stashed inside the basement yesterday up into the above-ground glass greenhouse. Yan Fei fabricated a vastly more expansive metal cage, and everyone threw in a medley of fresh greens along with a hoard of sun-dried wild grass leaves harvested previously, which was perfectly sufficient to satisfy their dietary demands.

Yan Fei had explicitly engineered the base of the metal structure to feature slidable iron drawers; after all, the droppings excreted by the rabbit herd could be handily repurposed as high-grade agricultural fertilizer down the line.

Finalizing these immediate chores, Luo Xun and the team huddled to brainstorm their long-term strategy, ultimately resolving to directly excavate the third subterranean tier into a single, fully integrated basement block dedicated exclusively to housing the rabbit warren.

It was profoundly fortunate that when Luo Xun and the team visited the marketplace to trade for supplies previously, although the pricing for a great number of items ran exorbitant and the absolute volumes were sparse, they had managed to unearth a substantial hoard of fluorescent light fixtures. At that specific moment, Luo Xun’s primary intent was merely to guard against their existing bulbs burning out without replacements, but currently, they could be put to perfect use to illuminate this newly structured subterranean floor.

As for the septic tanks that originally occupied a fraction of the third subterranean tier… with Yan Fei anchoring their construction line, he could simply shift the entire system down by another alternative floor level.

By the time their strategic planning wrapped up—with Luo Xun finalizing the structural clearance height for the basement, the mandatory thickness parameters for the topsoil layer, and the exact crop strains targeted for cultivation across the first subterranean floor—dusk had already settled over the complex once more.

Consuming a simple dinner, the group retreated back to their individual bedrooms. Stepping into his master bedroom, Luo Xun stood by the window frame to scan the gloomy, overcast sky outside. “It’s about to unleash another downpour, isn’t it?”

Yan Fei placed little Baozi gently inside his miniature crib—the baby had smoothly fallen asleep while everyone was eating together down below. Hearing the comment, he glided over to peer out the window as well. Sure enough, the leaden, grey sky appeared immensely heavy, a massive rainstorm visibly imminent. “Our luck on this run was remarkably decent; the cloud cover didn’t even begin to turn gloomy until the day after we returned safely.”

“I hope the runoff doesn’t leak too heavily into the deep subterranean soil, otherwise we won’t have a way to properly air-dry the dirt over these next few days…” Speaking up to this precise point, Luo Xun suddenly caught that the immediate visual layout flanking their perimeter appeared slightly bizarre. He blinked his eyes with deep confusion, before raising a hand to rub his eyes meticulously, hurriedly pulling at the sleeve of Yan Fei standing beside him. “Look! Did those mutated plants grow slightly taller?!”

Yan Fei froze for a split second, rapidly sharpening his focus to evaluate the perimeter foliage. Immediately after, his expression darkened completely—they had truly… grown taller!!

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