Chapter 4

The small town had dozens of detached houses and quite a few multi-story buildings. The town had already fallen. Zombies wandered the streets in droves, bloodstains everywhere—a veritable picture of hell on earth.

"So that's the direction," Lin Tu murmured, recalling the map of this world as she surveyed the town. "This should be a small village, but the disaster world is twice as large, and it extends toward my home. No wonder zombies have been wandering over."

Lin Tu frowned. It seemed today's zombie appearance wasn't a coincidence.

She tried to spot any living people in the town through her binoculars, but unfortunately, she only saw a few zombies still shambling in the direction of her home.

This town was somewhat dangerous... Given its size and prosperity, it must have had nearly a thousand permanent residents. If the entire town had fallen, Lin Tu imagined being chased by an endless horde of zombies and couldn't help rubbing her forehead.

"Let's head back and treat the wounds first." Now that her adrenaline had dropped, the pain from her scrapes and bruises surged all at once.

Back in the warm little cabin, Lin Tu first hung up her dirty clothes, planning to wipe off the blood and grime with a damp towel later. Then she rinsed her wounds with clean water, disinfected them with alcohol, applied erythromycin ointment, and wrapped them in bandages. She also rubbed Yunnan Baiyao on her bruised arms and legs.

The medicine seemed to take effect, easing the pain considerably and lifting her spirits.

At least she'd stocked up on plenty of medicine. There would be more injuries to come, Lin Tu thought, finding bitter humor in the situation.

She rummaged through her supplies, planning to stew a chicken soup for lunch to nourish herself.

The fresh meat and vegetables were gone, but she still had eleven cans of chicken soup in her stockpile. Lin Tu opened a can of Wangji native chicken soup and poured it into the pot, added a pinch of cordyceps flowers, and fried a farm egg to toss in. She'd originally planned to cook some noodles, but she was so hungry that she ended up throwing in a big bowl of rice instead—just enough to make a thick, semi-dry porridge. Noodles couldn't compare to wolfing down a big bowl of rice.

She set the pot on the fireplace and, while waiting for the chicken soup to release its aroma, ate some bread to stave off hunger while preparing what she needed for the town.

First, the motorcycle—if she were discovered by a large horde, it would be her key to a quick getaway. Next, a crowbar, an axe, and a hammer—these three tools could not only kill zombies but also break open locked doors and cabinets, giving her a chance to find firearm supplies. Finally, a flashlight, along with emergency food, water, and medicine.

After organizing the crowbar, thermos, and other items onto the motorcycle, she grabbed a drone and hung it from the rear seat.

"There are still zombies outside?" the Butler asked cautiously as Lin Tu packed her things. As a smart machine with a learning mechanism, it had realized after a quiet month and a half that Lin Tu's choice of [Travel Once] was far more useful than its own recommendation of [Iron Wall Fortress], and since then, it had kept its voice even lower.

"Yes, I'm planning to check it out. You stay home and watch the pot, and take care of Xiao Huang." Lin Tu swallowed her bread to fill her stomach. A month and a half of companionship had made her realize this was a useless but humanely emotional robot AI, and out of a desire to reassure it, she added, "I'm just going to survey the building layouts and plan a route. I do want to earn points, but I won't act rashly." With that, she began to push the motorcycle.

"Wait, I can help!" The Butler pointed at the drone hanging from the rear seat of her motorcycle, volunteering eagerly. "If you need a building distribution map, you can have the drone circle the town once and transmit the data to me—I can quickly draft a town map. And if I borrow the translation software on your phone, I can even convert the building signs into a language you're familiar with."

Lin Tu blinked. "...?"

Wait, based on the way you're talking, you really are a smart robot?!

"If it's not too much trouble... thank you." Lin Tu's tone was a bit strange. She repented for half a second for treating the Butler as a dog-walking master and alarm clock, and for just now thinking it was useless—but only half a second. Someone, or rather, some robot, had to watch the dog and the pot, right?

With the Butler's help, what Lin Tu needed to do next became much simpler. As the Butler had said, she only had to fly the drone in a 360° circle around each building.

So Lin Tu leisurely rode her motorcycle along the flat mountain road toward the town.

Along the way, quite a few zombies were attracted by the motorcycle engine's roar. Lin Tu threw on her motorcycle rain poncho and gunned the throttle, plowing straight into them. Several zombies were knocked flying several meters away, and one even got launched into the air, the tires leaving a trail of blood-stained ruts. Lin Tu savored the "criminal fantasy" of a hit-and-run from her youth, didn't bother to check if they were dead or not, and sped right past them.

Her eyes gleamed with excitement as she let out a short, cheerful nearly silent "woohoo," careful not to attract more zombies.

At the edge of town, Lin Tu found a hidden spot that was also easy to escape from and took out the drone. She'd practiced with it before, so she handled it fairly skillfully.

There were plenty of wandering zombies on the main street. To avoid the drone's noise drawing zombies to follow, Lin Tu kept it flying at the height of the second or third floors, and did her best to stay far away from the windows of residential buildings.

The drone hummed as it circled the few houses on the edge, gradually moving deeper into the center.

"Huh?" Lin Tu suddenly said.

In the center of the screen appeared a four- or five-story European-style apartment building. Through the third-floor window, she could clearly see several living humans locked in a heated argument.

Two identical windows revealed completely different interiors—one showed warm, cozy furnishings, while the other revealed an empty apartment corridor with a few bloodstains.

Inside the door, a woman was covering the ears of a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl and shouting desperately toward the door outside. The woman's expression was pained, while the young girl looked sad and confused.

Outside the door, a middle-aged man was frantically pounding on the door, his expression manic. Behind him stood a middle-aged woman tugging at his clothes, seemingly trying to persuade him.

Unfortunately, the drone wasn't equipped with audio recording, so Lin Tu was as good as deaf to what was happening.

Curious, she directed the drone to circle the building once. There didn't seem to be any other living people inside. About twenty zombies were gathered outside the apartment, likely drawn by the commotion of the argument inside. They were madly banging their heads against the door, completely unaware of what the people on the third floor were doing.

Lin Tu thought: Stop fighting, please, just stop fighting! The zombies are coming!

She flew the drone back to the window to see if the people inside had noticed the gathering zombies, only to watch the middle-aged man enter the apartment next door and emerge holding a Tokarev standard-issue pistol. He pressed the gun muzzle against the door and slammed it hard twice.

Lin Tu's eyes lit up—a pistol!

The woman inside began to cry, pleading desperately. The standoff dragged on for a while until, finally, the woman slid a pack of bread out from under the door. Only then did the man and woman turn and leave.

Lin Tu's mind raced. She'd always wanted a gun, and the standard-issue pistol in that man's hands would be perfect for a beginner like her.

But... the drone didn't linger near the apartment for long.

Lin Tu wasn't foolish enough to try to take a weapon from an armed man or to barter with him. Sure, she could think of all sorts of schemes or offer a price tempting enough to sway him. But when she weighed the cost and risk against the standard-issue pistol on the other side of the scale, it was clear this was a bad deal.

With a tinge of regret, she marked the apartment's coordinates on her map and steered the drone toward the town center.

This was undoubtedly a big job. By noon, she still wasn't done, so Lin Tu leisurely went home for lunch and a nap. In the afternoon, she returned to the same spot and flew the drone around the rest of the town, finishing just as dusk fell.

Lin Tu wrapped up and zipped back to her cabin. The chicken soup rice from lunch had been surprisingly delicious, so she made another pot for herself for the evening. By the time she got back, the rice was just done, steam rising with a fragrant aroma. She was starving, so she grabbed a jar of Lao Gan Ma to use as a dipping sauce and wolfed down the entire pot of fragrant stewed chicken rice.

After eating, the Butler sent the drawn map to Lin Tu's phone. Satisfied, she patted her belly and, while studying the map, opened a can of yellow peach.

Going into the town wasn't just about killing zombies for points—she also wanted to take advantage of the apocalypse to stockpile more supplies with some zero-cost shopping. Knowing what shops were in the town was crucial.

The map clearly showed the town had a typical ring-radial layout, with the center containing a hospital, a market, an outdoor supply store, and almost all other shops. Lin Tu zoomed in on the map, searching inch by inch, until she spotted a small shop in a remote residential area north of the apartment building—a place called "Combatants."

She immediately pulled up the drone footage and replayed it in slow motion. Sure enough, she saw a flyer printed with a gun pattern pasted outside the shop.

"Hard work pays off!" Lin Tu was ecstatic. She immediately began planning her route and packing a bento box. She planned to set out early the next morning, clearing zombies along the way as she made her way to "Combatants"!

.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Lena River, just east of Yakutsk, three men and three women were bundled up in their coats, dragging two ice-rescue rafts laden with supplies, slowly heading west.

"It's forty kilometers in a straight line, but if we want to avoid the city, we still have more than a hundred to go. Good thing we're across the river—we can find a car at the city's auto shop and drive from there, so it'll be quick." The burly man in front, dragging one raft solo, spoke. His nearly two-meter frame made the others, who were struggling to drag the rafts together, look like weaklings.

On an old GPS device he held, a red dot was blinking steadily—it showed a small town west of what used to be Yakutsk, which was precisely their destination.

"Has your captain replied yet?" a woman in a sporty down jacket asked. She was in her forties, with a youthful bun hairstyle that made her look young.

She only carried a small backpack and was the only one in the group not pulling a raft. Yet no one dared to complain.

"Not yet, Sister Huadan, but the captain's definitely fine!" a woman resting nearby chimed in. She was barely in her twenties, wearing braces even in the apocalypse, but a smile was always on her face.

Now, for instance, she said reassuringly, "We bought the one-time teleport scroll and one-time location scroll from your shop, and made sure they were locked onto Combatants. There's no way it could go wrong!" She laughed lightly.

"I hope so." Dong Huadan said gently, not voicing the possibility she suspected.

"Could something have happened to the captain?" a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old kid blurted out bluntly.

There was a moment of silence before the burly man, currently acting as captain, voiced the concern. "Jingjing, Yangyang, he hasn't replied for nearly a week now, and..." The big man sighed. Though he didn't want to believe it, it was the truth. "His tracker's been showing him in Combatants the whole time, but he's been moving erratically day and night. That's not normal. Either he's trapped there, or he's already..." dead.

The faint sun reflected off the ice surface, but both the sun above and the reflection below were cold and lifeless. The big man's words froze the team's atmosphere.

"We should've known better than to come. If he's dead, didn't we come all this way for nothing?" a man in glasses muttered to himself, sending a chill through the whole team.

"That's not true," a girl with a wolf-tail haircut said firmly. "The captain was military before, and he brought special gear—no one can beat him in a one-on-one fight. He's clever too; he'd never walk into danger recklessly. And this time, he was really cautious. I even saw him studying the area map in the hallway in the middle of the night!"

"No matter what happened, I refuse to believe the captain would end up like that!"

Her resolute tone loosened the tension on the others' faces.

"Zhang Zisheng's right." Luo Yongzhi shot a glare at the man in glasses. "Han Yu, stop running your mouth!"

"I was just asking from an objective perspective... and Zheng Yangyang was asking all sorts of questions too," the man in glasses muttered in complaint.

"She's just a high schooler. You've got a grad student's brain—use it to think about why the captain took the risk! This is a D-level disaster with monsters! You think it's like the tsunami or the cold snap we got through before, where we could just hide and ride it out? And there's the disaster evolution, which might not even happen—I won't even bring that up to scare you..."

Luo Yongzhi continued, "Without supplies, we're dead for real. We barely scraped together the points to buy that intel, and it confirmed Combatants has a huge stash of weapons. You want to give up our only hope? The system only gave the captain a 1-in-2 chance of survival. Don't talk about whether the captain should've gone—look at your own survival odds, and you'd know to pray for the captain's luck!

"If he's really gone, we're all dead too!"

"You've been riding the team's coattails all the way to an E-rank rating, so maybe keep your mouth shut." Zheng Yangyang, too young to hold back, shot Han Yu an impatient glare.

Han Yu, a typical bookworm, muttered something but didn't get angry and fell silent.

"Let's all be civil. Nothing in a disaster is easy." Dong Huadan put a stop to the unmanageable topic. She squinted, gazing northwest into the sunless warmth. "What matters now is... what could have gotten your captain into trouble at Combatants? And is he still safe?"

Luo Yongzhi stared at the tracker, where the red dot belonging to the captain kept blinking in place. A private chat window on his phone was already filled with messages from him, still with no reply.

"Let's hurry. I hope he's still alive." Luo Yongzhi dragged the ice raft faster, leading the group onward toward their destination.