My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 13

Although the girls were desperate for a reliable water source and wanted nothing more than to drive to H City immediately, the sky had already darkened. Ren Chenxi was against traveling late at night, and the three girls agreed that the darkness held greater dangers; they were likely to be ambushed by packs of mutated animals. Besides. They hadn’t even eaten dinner yet!

The supermarket had fallen silent. When Ren Chenxi and the girls entered, they found Huo Keyu standing frozen, clutching a blood-stained machete. Her face was splattered with horrific streaks of red, and the floor around her was littered with grisly remains. Ren Chenxi fought back a wave of nausea and looked away, while the other three girls simply grumbled about the headache of having to clean up another mess. After two years in the apocalypse, they had seen every kind of corpse imaginable; these remains were nothing they hadn’t seen before.

Perhaps because she had finally exacted her revenge, Huo Keyu seemed much more stable after the others arrived. She even helped clear the bodies from the store. Later, as she and Ren Chenxi were lifting the corpse of the fire-user—the one whose head Chenxi had crushed—Huo Keyu noticed Chenxi’s strained expression. She asked suddenly, “Was this your first time killing someone?”

“Eh?” Caught off guard, Ren Chenxi hesitated before giving a vague answer. “I’ve only ever killed zombies before.” Today was indeed the first time she had ever killed a human in the game.

Huo Keyu offered a faint, weary smile. “Where did you live before. It must have been very stable and peaceful. That must be nice.”

Nice is an understatement! During the three months she had been away from the game, she had been back in the peaceful reality of the modern world.

With so many bodies and scattered remains, the supermarket should have been overwhelmed by the scent of blood. However, the aggressive aroma wafting from a pot across the room had completely hijacked Chenxi’s senses, masking the metallic stench of death.

“Smells amazing. These scum were certainly living large. Where did they get so much hot pot base?” From the girls’ stories, it seemed these men had been enjoying hot pot frequently on their journey.

“They stole it from another group. Apparently, they took an entire crate,” Huo Keyu explained, answering Chenxi’s unspoken question. “They bragged about it. Honestly, almost everything those bastards had was stolen. In this world, some people hunt mutated beasts, but they… they specialized in hunting humans.”

Seeing the simmering rage in Huo Keyu’s eyes, Ren Chenxi nodded. In this two-year-old apocalypse, a small team with five ability-users was likely quite powerful. Cruel, cunning, and devoid of humanity, they were a nightmare for anyone—even other ability-users—to encounter.

“Sigh, it’s such a waste of a good pot of spicy beef tallow broth.” Song Xin stood by the stove, staring at the bright red soup with a face full of regret.

“Wait, why? Can we not eat it? Did they… did they already put meat in it?”

“They hadn’t put meat in it yet!” Song Xin turned to explain. “It’s just that… this specific pot has been used to cook human meat many times before.”

Ren Chenxi fell silent for a moment before letting out a long sigh. Throw it out. The soup, the pot everything.

Fortunately, the scavengers still had over half a crate of hot pot base left. Ren Chenxi used the girl’s own clean pot to start a fresh mushroom broth. They hauled bottled water from the bus and found dried mushrooms and noodles that the men hadn’t managed to ruin. Ren Chenxi also produced three large pieces of naan bread for everyone to soak in the savory soup.

Since they had plenty of mushrooms, Ren Chenxi didn’t pull any other specialties from her backpack. Jian Dan and the others explained that in the apocalypse, mutated fungi were everywhere. They survived mostly on these hardy mushrooms, though they had to be careful to avoid the poisonous varieties.

Even without the warning, Ren Chenxi had already secretly checked the mushrooms using her backpack’s interface; every single one was non-toxic.

The fire-user was dead, but that didn’t stop these survivors. Jian Dan and the others skillfully set up a metal rack, gathered some dry branches and dead leaves from outside, and started a fire to boil the pot.

That night, Ren Chenxi finally had a hot meal and a warm bowl of soup. Slurping the noodles and chewing the naan, she felt so moved by the savory mushroom broth that she nearly cried. It really was better to have a few reliable companions in the end times.

After dinner, they began scavenging the remaining useful supplies in the supermarket. Most of the shelves had already been picked clean by previous survivors something the scum had complained about loudly. Despite the bare appearance of the store, the girls, accustomed to living on scraps, managed to find an unopened bag of salt wedged under a fallen shelf.

Furthermore, the three girls insisted on going up to the staff lounge to strip the beds of their sheets and covers. Even though Ren Chenxi told them she had plenty of new ones, they refused to use them.

They hadn’t bathed in a long time and felt too filthy to ruin new bedding. They preferred to make do with the old stuff and save the “good” supplies for when they reached the H City base. Even Huo Keyu, covered in grime and blood, turned down Chenxi’s offer of new clothes. They simply weren’t comfortable putting clean clothes on dirty bodies.

With H City mentioned again, Ren Chenxi found herself sharing their anticipation. She also asked for Huo Keyu’s opinion. With her sisters gone and her enemies dead, Huo Keyu had no remaining goal, so she agreed to join them on the journey to H City.

The double-decker bus had sleeping quarters on the top floor, but previously, only the men slept there. The girls they captured had been forced to sleep on the lower deck seats. The upper deck was also packed with stolen supplies: jars of seasonings, three large jugs of water, two bags of rice, two crates of compressed biscuits, half a case of canned beer, and two cartons of cigarettes.

Water, food  and even booze and smokes! Those men had been living a life of luxury. Well, that luxury had officially come to an end.

Hearing the girls describe the second floor as the place where the men spent all their time made Ren Chenxi recoil at the thought of sleeping there. The other girls felt the same revulsion. Ultimately, they decided to spend the night in the staff lounge above the supermarket. There were only two beds; the girls insisted Chenxi take one, and they gave the other to Huo Keyu.

They reasoned that Huo Keyu had suffered more than any of them and deserved a good night’s rest. As for Jian Dan and the others, they didn’t even lay down blankets; they simply curled up on the floor in their clothes under a single quilt. They said that back when they couldn’t bear the bus seats, they used to sleep in the aisles between the rows anyway.

Before settling in, the energetic but cautious Song Xin and Chang Ling suggested that someone should stay behind to guard the bus. It would be a tragedy if a zombie, a mutated beast, or another survivor made off with such a valuable vehicle in the middle of the night.

Jian Dan turned to Ren Chenxi and joked, “Sister Xi, is your space big enough? Why don’t you just put the bus inside?”

Jian Dan’s suggestion gave Ren Chenxi pause. Wait, why haven’t I tried that? In the other MMOs she used to play, mounts and vehicles could always be stored in the inventory. No matter how realistic this world felt, it was still a game, wasn’t it?

With a smile, she told Jian Dan, “Let me give it a try.” She walked up to the bus and used the same method she used for small items. In an instant, the massive vehicle vanished into her backpack, occupying only a single inventory slot.

The girls stood frozen, eyes wide with shock. After a long moment, Song Xin gasped, Sister Xi, just how big is your space?

Huo Keyu looked at Ren Chenxi deeply before warning her, “In the future, don’t show that trick to people you don’t fully trust.”

Ren Chenxi looked at Huo Keyu, then at the yellow dot representing her on the mini-map, and nodded seriously.

After stowing the bus, Chenxi thought for a moment and also pulled the SUV she had hidden in the tall grass into her inventory.

Later, as she lay in bed, she pulled up her backpack panel. Seeing the two vehicles taking up only two slots, she marveled at the system’s convenience. As she scanned her growing inventory, she noticed something odd. Her spirit crystals were usually on the second page, but now, three new slots on the third page were filled with crystals. She checked the item info: two Level 1 crystals, two Level 2 crystals, and one Level 3 crystal.

She realized immediately—these belonged to the five ability-users she had fought. The system had an “auto-loot” feature. When she had walked past them, the crystals must have been automatically collected. The numbers matched perfectly: one Level 3 petrification user, one Level 2 fire user, one Level 2 strength user, and the two Level 1 users she had pelted with rocks… Wait, that wasn’t right. She had only knocked one of the Level 1 users unconscious; Jian Dan was the one who actually killed him.

Did the game mechanics work like a traditional MMO? As long as she tagged the target or dealt damage, did she get a share of the loot? Since there was no formal “party” system, she had essentially “monopolized” the drops.

Searching through her bag further confirmed this. Along with the crystals, her bag now contained several bottles of male enhancement pills, boxes of sleeping pills, some half-eaten betel nuts, and even a necklace made of human finger bones disturbing junk she definitely hadn’t picked up manually.

Tch. They really were total scum.

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