Doomsday Cat City Lord - Chapter 24

Opening the system panel and using the warehouse retrieval function, a three-dimensional image and a material catalog appeared before its eyes.

The white cat tapped lightly with its paw, and a bag of orange candies appeared in its claws. Tearing open the bag, it gave one piece each to Yellow Donkey and the squirrel, and stuffed the rest into the rabbit nest and the ant colony. Mi Miaomiao stared at the yellow donkey chewing on the candy and asked: “You said before that you were able to avoid the great banyan tree’s life-force extraction because you dug holes underground?”

Yellow Donkey’s dark, round eyes darted around in their sockets, then looked straight into the giant white cat’s eyes and nodded: “Yes, we dug very, very deep.”

Before the white cat could speak again, Yellow Donkey continued: “I can make the soil soft, the rabbits are skilled at digging holes, the queen ant can detect very far distances underground, and the ants’ strength increased, allowing them to break through the underground rock layers. Only by working together did we survive.”

A light flashed in the gold and blue cat eyes. Mi Miaomiao looked deeply at Yellow Donkey and the animals on its back: “As the City Lord of Rong City, I invite you to complete a secret mission. If you succeed, the reward will be generous, and I guarantee you’ll have a stable job in Rong City.”

“Deal.” The white squirrel jumped onto Yellow Donkey’s head, pushing hard with its hind paws, and Yellow Donkey obediently quieted down.

“Thank you, City Lord, for thinking highly of us. We will definitely keep the secret.” The white squirrel didn’t ask another word; its bright, bean-like eyes showed no true emotion, and its demeanor was entirely that of someone who believed the City Lord wouldn’t hurt them.

So, the white squirrel was the true leader among this group of animals. Mi Miaomiao felt it must understand humans well; it even spoke with the bureaucratic tone of the news. Smiling and shaking its head, it led the way toward the back mountain city wall and explained: “It’s not a difficult mission; I just need your help to dig holes in the mountain. Besides the main warehouse, Rong City needs some hidden, secret storage vaults.”

“Understood, City Lord-sama. I know the importance of this matter. I will watch these little ones and guarantee they won’t let a single word slip.” The white squirrel stood up straight, its little paws patting its chest with a dull thud.

Behind Mount Muyuan, the terrain was steep, resembling a cliff, and the location was well-concealed.

Mi Miaomiao found a long, narrow crevice in the lower half of the mountain body, and Yellow Donkey and the others started working from there as a starting point.

True to their life-saving skills, this group of animals excavated at a terrifying speed. One hour later, a spacious cave with a diameter of five meters had reached the belly of the mountain, and they began expanding the space horizontally.

During the process, Mi Miaomiao finally met the queen ant.

In her normal state, the queen ant’s strength barely reached Level 4. She was only the size of a human fist, her entire body encased in a translucent, golden-yellow crystal, vaguely showing a blurred human form, and her whole body exuded a gentle, motherly aura.

Those ants, only the size of a human knuckle yet capable of lifting mountain rocks the size of a human, did not hesitate at all regarding the queen ant’s orders.

Mi Miaomiao could perceive that the ants also had their own thoughts and emotions, but they placed the queen ant’s orders and emotions above all else, like treating a deeply beloved mother; there was not the slightest sense of rejection. They even felt happy and blissful to be able to execute the queen ant’s tasks.

Another half hour passed, and the first 500-square-meter space was completed. The ants followed the queen ant to transport the rubble cleared from the second warehouse. Mi Miaomiao blocked the first cave with vines; the originally empty cave was now filled with various types of mechanical equipment.

Starting from the second cave, Mi Miaomiao also participated, weaving cargo racks of various sizes on the excavated walls using vines.

“Alright, let’s start working.”

Mi Miaomiao had just finished clearing the overflowing warehouse, and Cheng Ningye saw it the very next second. He jumped up from the ground and called out to the black cat standing guard at the door.

There were five large artificial meat factories in Qitai City. The one Cheng Ningye had sneaked into was near the city center; the main entrance had long since been destroyed by furious evolved animals, but most of the metal machinery in the sterile room was still intact. Located underground, the nutrient solution storage vault was still completely sealed due to the advanced equipment.

The large freezer and power-generating equipment also had to be moved away. Under Cheng Ningye’s direction, Xuan Yu used wind blades to violently cut through the walls. As long as the equipment could fit into the 500-square-meter system warehouse, everything was moved in its entirety.

Mi Miaomiao could only keep issuing modification requests to the construction team on the other side: “Increase the height of the next space by another 2 meters, and increase the width by twenty meters.”

The factory was packed with 13 large warehouses’ worth of items. They moved the entire production chain back to Mount Muyuan. In the process, Cheng Ningye found time to go to the adjacent shopping mall to transfer out the winter supplies stored inside. He also took the time to organize supplies other than electronics. In this city occupied by animals, most industrial products were well-preserved.

The great geomagnetic storm and cold wave would arrive in half a month. In the year or two following that, daily electricity and technological products would be difficult to recover.

All life on the planet would begin a primitive life of using fire for heating and lighting.

Only the inner liners of the automated electromagnetic cookware were usable, but ceramic cookware, ordinary metal pots and spatulas, charcoal and solid fuel for outdoor barbecues, barbecue grills, and various thick quilts, thick blankets, and thick mattresses were all taken away.

When he found the shelf with decorative candles, Cheng Ningye was so moved he almost burst into tears.

“BZZT—!”

A sudden sense of numbness caused Cheng Ningye’s body to stiffen and fall directly to the ground. After gasping for breath several times, he was barely able to move his neck. Looking at the black cat not far away struggling to fly, he said with difficulty: “Xuan Yu, stay calm, it’s just a paralysis pulse projectile.”

Noticing that the light screen of the foldable computer was only flickering slightly and the communication signal had recovered to one bar from zero, Cheng Ningye breathed a sigh of relief: “The place the shot came from is very far from us. It carried a mobile signal device… it should be a human legion; it could be that they came to collect supplies or wipe out the evolved animals in the city.”

Ten minutes later, the human and the cat recovered their bodies. They moved the last batch of supplies and retreated rapidly from Qitai City.

Cheng Ningye stayed at the limit of the signal reception zone and invaded their communication channel:

“Ga-ga-ga-ga!”

“Me-eh!”

“What I need are the supplies in the city; you need feed. Cooperation is the best choice.”

“Woof, woof, woof, woof!”

“If you were truly attacking the city, you wouldn’t be alive right now.”

Separated by a distance of over a thousand meters, Cheng Ningye couldn’t understand the conversation between the animals from the audio, but from the human speech, he knew that the army intended to cooperate with the animals in Qitai City.

And that male voice was very familiar; it was highly likely to be Gu Jing. If it was him, then it would be a fair cooperation.

“Meow!” Hurry, go! Those animals don’t intend to negotiate with humans.

Xuan Yu could understand the animals’ conversation. It pulled on Cheng Ningye’s sleeve, so nervous that the fur on its back stood on end.

Cheng Ningye didn’t hesitate; he turned and ran. On the road, he found a car with a key card inserted. Not bothering to worry about whether they would be discovered by monsters or evolved animals, he immediately drove away with Xuan Yu.

Five minutes later, a loud bang came from the east side of the city. A colorful-feathered rooster soaring into the air was surrounded by colorful flames. As the flames appeared in the sky, the surrounding space became visually distorted due to the high temperature.

The arm Cheng Ningye had stuck out of the car window felt a scorching heat, but the next instant, his whole body felt a chill. Turning his head, he saw some crystalline blue square ice blocks floating in the sky on the other side.

It was Gu Jing’s signature ability move, the Polar Ice Jade!

Ice that approached absolute zero and couldn’t be melted even a Level 5 powerhouse would be frozen instantly if touched, and then die from hypothermia.

The car drove out of Qitai City. After crushing 5 monsters in succession, the tires were completely scrapped.

Cheng Ningye donned his military-grade armor, an electrode shield in one hand and a Coulomb laser cutter in the other. Xuan Yu coordinated from the sky. Together, they killed the thirty-plus monsters that had been attracted to them.

There was no time to dig for crystals. The human and the cat hurriedly replenished their bodies with air freshener, took out the honeysuckle in the sealed bags, and wore them on their bodies, racing rapidly in the direction of Mount Muyuan.

Rong City

Five days were enough for some city residents to build their houses. More residents set up tents on their own plots of land to store the various supplies they had collected during this time.

At dinner time, everyone still gathered at the temporary canteen. It had professional chefs, rich dishes, and perfectly balanced nutrition. The key was that the price wasn’t expensive 1 point for a full meal, which was even more cost-effective for animal citizens.

The children gathered together to play, the elderly discussed how to build houses, and the animals crowded together to show off the good toys they had found. More people sat by the fire pit, playing games online while exchanging information about the day.

“There are more and more monsters in the mountains. When we came back this afternoon, we ran into a Level 2 devourer-monster less than 200 meters from the city gate.”

“Monsters are attracted to living things. It’s already lucky enough that monsters only appeared after we built our city walls. There’s almost a monster tide forming around Lushan Town.”

“There are more and more survivors fleeing into the mountains. The Lushan Town base must have over 1,000 people now, right?”

“Let’s discuss it with the team leader. Don’t go near Lushan Town tomorrow; there are too many people, and we almost got into fights with them several times.”

With the number of monsters increasing, going out of the city required extreme caution. Everyone cherished the opportunity to go out and collect supplies and didn’t want to waste time on disputes with outside survivors. They preferred going to farther small villages, or around even farther abandoned cities.

“Wow, everyone, hurry out and look! The great banyan tree is moving!”

At the greeting, the animals rushed out first, then a pile of fluff crowded together at the doorway, which the humans behind had difficulty moving aside.

The laughter vanished upon seeing the tree vines slowly dangling down from the sky. All the city residents looked on with wonder.

Under the bright orange-yellow sky, brown-gray aerial roots landed on the ground. According to the location of the public roads on the city plan, a root system was planted every 50 meters on both sides of the road. Then, at five meters above the ground, the roots coiled around each other, converging into two 1-meter-wide aerial overpasses except this bridge spanned the entire Rong City, stretching all the way from the mountainside to the city gate at the foot of the mountain.

There were two core convergence points for the overpass: one outside the octagonal log cabin, and one on another mountainside platform where land reclamation hadn’t been completed.

“What is that? Stones can go up the mountain on their own! Is this a maglev elevator?”

Looking in the direction of the sound, one could see giant stones of about one cubic meter each, moving slowly up the mountain along the overpass. One could vaguely see a tiny gap between them and the bridge deck.

A crowd of city residents squatted outside the canteen, holding their rice bowls and little stools, staring blankly as those stones climbed the mountain slowly yet firmly, stopping on the platform along the tree roots on both sides of the road.

The stones were lined up regularly on both sides of the square’s road; only then did they notice those black ants the size of peanuts. Some of them stayed behind to watch the stones, while others went back down the mountain along the overpass, transporting a new batch of giant stones.

“Let me introduce everyone: these new Rong City residents the ants will become Rong City’s security team. They will establish a separate ant city on Platform 5. In the future, Platform 5 will also become a settlement for tiny-sized citizens.” After Lu Jia finished reading the information on the light screen, she stood up and informed the city residents present.

Platform 5 was the other convergence core for the overpass. The city residents just watched out of curiosity, but then turned their attention elsewhere: “What does the security team do?”

“Among the ant residents who moved to Rong City, there are over 600 Level 1 strength-type evolvers. They are numerous, small in size, and have a unique way of transmitting information. The daily work of the ant-based security team is: patrol inside and outside the city walls, provide early warnings of monster auras. If city residents encounter an emergency, they can look for the ants on duty on the tree bridge nearby; they can transmit event information to the Rong City Office at the fastest speed.”

“Can we join the security team?”

Lu Jia was still marveling at the City Lord’s whimsical ideas. Hearing this, she gave a unified answer: “Everyone will have a chance. As Rong City expands, various functional departments will be perfected in the future, and the recruitment quota will be expanded.”

Understanding the cause of the matter, the city residents dispersed. The animals went to chat with the ants, while some people looked curiously around the tree bridge, knocking gently on it to find that the trunk rang with a hollow metallic sound.

Some people secretly climbed up, and the tree bridge remained motionless.

“Meow-meow-meow.” Don’t worry, you can treat this bridge as a metal bridge entirely.

Mi Miaomiao lay on the windowsill, waving its paw to say goodbye to the great banyan tree’s consciousness.

Lu Jia, with a wooden face, stopped looking at the tree bridge upon hearing this. She took out her folder and began to report on the work situation over the past five days… and finally raised the issues in urgent need of resolution:

“City Lord-sama, since you said there is no need to worry about supply reserves, I won’t concern myself with that. But there are three other matters that need you to handle:

1. Some animal citizens like to mark their territory everywhere, which is uncivilized behavior.
2. Some animal citizens have reported a lack of food; they live on berries and nuts.
3. A large number of survivors have gathered in Boyun Province, and some want to join Rong City. May I ask what our recruitment requirements are?”

Walking out of the office, Mi Miaomiao bumped into Deng Huai, who was carrying a string of small solar lights.

“City Lord-sama, let’s get Rong City powered up; I can improve the generators. With lights, everyone can make use of the nighttime hours as well.”

Mi Miaomiao shook its head, rejecting the proposal to turn on electricity, turned, and took a blade of pasture grass out of its bag.

The pale purple, slender grass leaves slowly unfolded under the moonlight, fluttering with the breeze, emitting a pale white fluorescence brighter than the moonlight, illuminating a space of two or three meters around.

“Meow.” Plant lighting, energy-saving and eco-friendly.

Handing the luminescent plants and seeds to Deng Huai, Mi Miaomiao turned and reached its paw into the room, admonishing Lu Jia, who was busy writing: “Meow-meow-meow.”

In the new rules for Rong City, besides the one: marking behavior outside private territory is prohibited add another: citizens are prohibited from eating the “street lamps.”

Mi Miaomiao walked back to the big log cabin where it slept, thinking to itself, perhaps it should also build a house of its own?

How much longer until Cheng Ningye and Xuan Yu return? It missed them.

Opening the system panel, a message suddenly popped up:

[Congratulations, your city’s perfection level has reached 10%, the average satisfaction of territory residents is over 60 points; you have been rewarded with 2,000 points. Hope you keep up the good work!

City: Rong City Current Area: 1,300 square kilometers Current City Residents: 2,418 Animal Residents: 2,376, Human Residents: 42, Plant Residents: 3.

Current Points: 45,122.6]

The points from the existing city residents’ strength advancement, plus the points from the newly joined residents, plus the 2,000 rewarded points the number of points increased by 4,970 in a short time, bringing it one step closer to upgrading the city to Level 5.

[Data updated. Rong City is currently ranked 998th (Total participating cities: 2,402).]

Looking at the updated data, Mi Miaomiao suddenly felt that it should indeed recruit more new city residents.

However, there was still one problem…

There were no tree saplings or seeds! Where in the world were they supposed to get fruit trees and nut trees?