My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 7

Fortunately, even though the zombie’s head had been blown to bits, the crystal nucleus dropped onto the ground completely intact. As Ren Chenxi retrieved the Level 1 crystal from beside the corpse, she noticed a mobile phone and a lighter lying next to it as well.

So, the Explosion Card.  not only did it vaporize the head, but it also forced the items the zombie was carrying to drop?

Later, Chenxi observed the same phenomenon with other zombies. After some careful study, she realized these were “item drops” to put it bluntly, it was exactly like monsters dropping loot in her online games. She also discovered that an “Auto-Pickup” toggle had appeared in the bottom right corner of her inventory panel at some unknown point. Once checked, any items dropped by zombies she killed within a ten-meter radius would be automatically sucked into her bag.

Relying on her Explosion Cards and the Auto-Pickup feature, Chenxi cleared out the remaining Level 1 zombies trapped in the hotel rooms. In addition to the mandatory crystal nuclei, she harvested chewing gum, bank cards, nail clippers, scissors, daggers, and even instant noodles.

She could somewhat understand finding scissors or daggers her intuition suggested those zombies might have been criminals in their past lives—but what was the deal with carrying instant noodles in your pockets? Regardless, it all benefited her in the end. The item info even showed that the noodles hadn’t expired. Unfortunately, with the entire hotel lacking power, those noodles would remain a cold snack; even with an electric kettle in the room, she had no way to boil water.

Sigh. Instant noodles, something she had utterly disdained before the apocalypse, had now become a precious treasure.

Prompted by that single pack of noodles, Chenxi took another look at the Doomsday Mall. Sure enough, a search revealed that they sold mini portable gas stoves. However, the price made her heart ache: the cheapest model cost 10,000 Crystals, and the required gas canisters were another 10,000 each.

Forget it. She’d keep the precious noodles in her inventory for now. Maybe one day she’d get the chance to eat them piping hot.

Chenxi didn’t have many fused Explosion Cards left. As she continued clearing the hotel, she had to brave the challenge using only her N-rank cards. After blowing up several heads, she found she was actually getting used to the gore. She also realized that Level 1 zombies really weren’t that frightening. Having been trapped in rooms for two years, these creatures were little more than skin and bones. They were slow, stiff, and weak. Even if she couldn’t outfight them, they certainly couldn’t outrun her. As long as she retreated into a room, they couldn’t even break through a sturdy door.

That first zombie she’d met—the one that had torn through the metal shutter had only succeeded because the shutter was already thin and damaged.

Now that she understood the limits of a Level 1 zombie, Chenxi grew bolder. She began bombarding them with Greasy and Flash cards. While they were blinded by the light or sliding around in grease, unable to get back up, she would either crush them with heavy, discarded furniture from a distance or use a hand-saw to hack through their skulls.

She had found the hand-saw in the hotel’s first-floor warehouse. In the kitchen, she had also scavenged a sharp kitchen knife and a heavy bone cleaver. Sadly, all the food in the kitchen had long since rotted away. While a bone cleaver was technically better for hacking through bone, it lacked the reach of the saw. For a novice like Chenxi, the extra distance provided by the hand-saw was much more comforting.

Using a hand-saw as a machete felt terrible, and the process was incredibly bloody and nauseating. Chenxi had to constantly hypnotize herself It’s just a game, it’s just a game to force herself through it.

Eventually, she adapted. By the time she had cleared every Level 1 zombie from the hotel, she had also collected five bottles of gasoline. The fuel came in large 6L jugs that looked like peanut oil containers, with simple labels that just read “Gasoline.”

With the hotel secured, Chenxi gathered a pile of junk from the warehouse and barricaded the main entrance. She had exhausted all her free N-rank cards during the cleanup, leaving only a few useless Dress-up and Pickpocket cards. All she could do now was wait for her daily draws to refresh and work on leveling up her Accuracy Advanced skill.

In this updated version of the game, she could no longer exchange affection points for skill points. She had to level up her skills the old-fashioned way: through practice. To level up Accuracy, the method was simple: throw things at zombies. Whether she killed them or not, every hit increased her proficiency.

With the main doors blocked, she found a third-floor window and took one of the functioning phones she’d looted. After setting the alarm to a deafening volume, she tossed it into the street below. As the wandering zombies gathered toward the sound, she used them for target practice, throwing every useless item she’d scavenged from the rooms: electric kettles, ashtrays, teacups, and teapots. She even considered throwing the bathroom soaps and toothbrushes but decided they were too valuable to waste. Fortunately, she eventually found a massive ring of spare room keys at the front desk to use as projectiles.

After two days of this, her Accuracy reached Level 5. Her 100% hit range expanded from 10 meters to 50 meters. The “training” zombies were eventually crushed to death by the heavier objects she dropped. In addition to a handful of Level 1 crystals, she had saved up one Greasy Card, two Flash Cards, and fused one new Explosion Card.

Armed with her Level 5 Accuracy and her small stash of cards, Chenxi slipped out the hotel’s back door to scout the neighborhood for useful supplies. She even returned to the mobile phone store once more; even without a signal, phones were great for making noise and luring monsters away.

From her scouting, she deduced why there were so few zombies and no other survivors. First, this was a niche tourist area that wasn’t very popular even before the world ended. Second, there was no commercial center nearby just a single hotel and a few shops, which meant no reason for travelers to congregate here. When the apocalypse hit, the few people present either turned, died in natural disasters, or were eaten.

Chenxi saw plenty of mangled remains during her walks. These excursions confirmed that while the area was relatively safe, it lacked water and food. She had to leave. The shops nearby were useless mostly selling gold, jade, or traditional ethnic decorations rather than groceries.

Initially, she had planned to hide out in this safe zone for longer, but her dry rations were incredibly water-intensive. The naan bread and pickles were delicious but left her parched. In just one week, she had restricted herself to brushing her teeth once a day, using a damp towel for her face, and only washing her hair twice. She had even cut her hair to shoulder-length to save water, yet her stash of 60 mineral water bottles had dwindled to just 20.

Water was everything. No matter how safe she was, she wouldn’t survive without it.

On the day she decided to leave, Chenxi ate a massive meal in the hotel and boldly gulped down half a bottle of water. Satiated, she opened the world map to choose her destination. While the map didn’t show red danger dots, it did reveal various “Survivor Bases” scattered across the country.

A base would surely have drinkable water, right? With so many “Awakened” people gathering, there had to be one or two with water-based abilities. If she could find a large, well-defended base, she might actually be able to hunker down for the next ten years.

After studying the map, she decided to continue south toward the coastal city of H-City, which was near Y-City. She had seen the grasslands; now she wanted to see the ocean. In fact, her original travel plan before the update had been to visit H-City. She had only changed her mind at the last minute to see the plains first. Besides, she was curious to see what a post-apocalyptic ocean looked like.

The distance between the two cities wasn’t great only a seven-hour drive in the old world. But in the apocalypse, the journey would undoubtedly be much longer and more dangerous. Fortunately, the mini map could help her avoid heavy concentrations of red dots, and she had no intention of walking the whole way.

She planned to drive. Even though she didn’t have a license in this world, who was going to pull her over now? The Mall sold armored military RVs, but with only thirty-something Level 1 crystals, she could only look at them and drool.

There were several dust-covered cars in the hotel parking lot. She intended to find one that still worked to use as her transport to Y-City. Based on her small supply of gasoline, she probably wouldn’t make it all the way to H-City on one go. Luckily, there was a service area with a gas station on the highway leading out of the scenic area.

Her second stop in this doomsday survival journey would be that service station!

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