Chapter 99

In addition to the glass windows, some furniture was removed from the almost empty home. These things were useless to the house dwelling team and it was a waste of time to move them back forth. If those were people were out looking for help, it was not worth the waste of time or effort.

When the couple left the house, they kindly did the team a favor – locking the door. With a metal user, blocking the keyhole of someone else’s home was too easy!

In fact, Yan Fei would have blocked all the windows of the house, but after thinking about it…blocking someone's door could be fixed in a few days but a sealed window would be a security measure instead of an issue.

He was not interested letting the team that to steal from him hide in a turtle shell, thus he only blocked the keyhole.

He wanted to use metal to completely block the home so no one could get in, but that was a waste of resources so he could only give it up.

The two people went back to their own car and returned home with the shabby spoils.

When they reached the 15th floor, Li Tie and the other students were in a rage. "Luo Xun, Yan Fei, where do those guys live? We're going to fight them too! Dared to bully the three women when others were not in the house, are they tired of living?"

Yan Fei rolled his eyes, "Why go? People have run away."

"Ah?" The five people exclaimed.

Luo Xun pointed behind him. "People ran, there was no one there when we showed up and all the things were gone…Oh I took their window and looked at the glass, quickly change."

The enemy was caught, the students drooped and went to check the broken glass on the 15th floor.

Room 1503 was broken, Xu Mei's room had two smashed windows. Fortunately they had a large number of people, the windows were quickly replaced. The sizes could be improvised using glass glue. Anyway, when Zhang Yi came back, no one told him that a few pieces of glass were different.

Luo Xun and Yan Fei got home and remembered what Captain Guo had said before. The former hurriedly ordered Yan Fei. "When we repaired the road and they joked that there would be flying zombies and if the barracks wanted to have a lid? I think…if rats have become zombies, what if there really were flying zombies? Even if I'm overthinking things, we should be prepared in advance."

Yan Fei raised his eyebrows with some surprise. Seeing that Luo Xun was serious, he nodded after a moment. "Plus today's incident…we are going to make some preparations, at least it would better to reinforce the walls. But the metal has been used up, we need to bring back some next time."

Luo Xun was relieved and smiled at Yan Fei. "Better to be prepared, there's no harm in strengthening our defenses.

The thieving incident was two days ago, when the military came no one dared to ask Xu Mei and Song Lingling, the two thorny roses about the situation. They generally recorded a statement and Luo Xun's life continued on as usual.

The wall increased in height and thickness day by day. The base had a large-scale, non-stop transportation of metal materials coming in. With all the metal users at level two, it was really easy to do these tasks. They built the walls far more quickly than before.

Just as everyone thought that ordinary days would continue, a message reached A-city southwest base.

Looking at the military vehicles, Yan Fe noticed that Luo Xun had once again opened his phone to look at the time. They had delivered produce to the canteen this morning. There had been no incidents recently, although the population had gradually increased, it had not been long since the two thieves had fallen and other small thieves were too afraid to take action.

Everything was normal at Li Tie's work, no trouble to be had. Zhang Yi…even if there was any trouble he could solve it himself. As for himself, although Captain Guo had mentioned that his boss wanted to see the special metal users, Luo Xun had found excuses to delay the meeting.

Why was he so restless now?

The doubts in his heart remained unanswered as they returned home. He had asked twice during the day but Luo Xun was a tad slow today, only answering with "Ah?" Yan Fei could not continue asking…

So he had to suppress his doubt. The two people were sitting in the living room while little Ran happily sung a song she had learned today – Steel Roses.

Well, the lyrics were good, the song was very nice, but why was a child under ten years old taught such a difficult song?

Luo Xun's mouth twitched as he listened, the little girl was out of breath by the end. He clapped with a smile, if Yan Fei did the same, it would be even better.

The two said farewell to Xu Mei and were bringing the puppy back upstairs. They encountered Li Tie and company.

Han Li called. "Luo Xun, have you heard the news?!"

"Heard what?"

"Several city bases have been in trouble! Sent a distress signal and heard that at least two bases have been destroyed!"

The corridor became silent, Xu Mei and Song Lingling stared at each other with wide eyes. Yan Fei turned to look at Luo Xun. Luo Xun was not as shocked as everyone else, he sighed with a hint melancholy.

Some things he knew ahead of time but could not make any changes. Luo Xun could have reminded to tell the military about cleanliness. Infection could cause people to become zombies, but laziness still caused survivors on base to become zombies.

He could tell the scientists that mushrooms could reduce crop mutation rates, but there were still many mutated crops planted into farmland.

He could tell others that M-city base could be attacked by zombies. But even if he said something, who would believe him? The two cities were so far away that it would not change anything.

Moreover, although he had known that more than one base would have problems in the near future, it was not clear that the events would coincide!

He had met other people on the road to A-city. However because the situation was very tense, there was not any time to speak about the specifics. They were focused on fleeing to A-city to escape the approaching zombies. Once they arrived at A-city, days had passed and there few who could remember the exact date.

M-city, X-city and C-city second base, a total of three bases were destroyed, the remaining bases sent for help and information. The atmosphere in A-city southwest base suddenly darkened, even if the base allowed people to go out and complete missions.

Even if they wanted to exit base, quite a bit of land was blown up! If anyone wanted to collect something nearby? Before you could go to nearby residential buildings, shopping malls and other places to loot but now? Sorry, you had dig into the city, or go north where the area had not been blown up.

Smaller teams had a harder time, if they went to deep into the city, they would be attacked by a mass of zombies. If they went to the blown up ruins, could return empty handed. As a result, life had become harder for smaller, 10 people teams.

Fortunately, the base had started recruiting, however the elderly who usually stayed on base earned less points. Busy at work all day, the poor people might not be able to feed themselves. Some young, less powerful people could not go out scavenging and thus joined various base construction work.

There were a lot of teams recruiting talents but ordinary people were not given a single glance.

Another thing that was fortunate for Luo Xun and Yan Fei – the base blatantly increased the number of men on base!

No other way, at first there might have been a number of single women, but with the various incidents and bombing, only strong women like Xu Mei and Song Lingling would show themselves on base. Even those who were not super attractive, or comparable to sister Feng had mostly found a home.

According to Li Tie's statistics, the ratio of women to men on base had reached 1:4.5!

With such an imbalance between supply and demand, people who were strong or struck first had a wife at home, the rest basically never saw a women. So more and more men were living together.

In this somewhat dreary atmosphere, Luo Xun's team went out at the end of June for a mission.

Because Li Tie and the others finally won a three day vacation, they decided after discussion to leave base the 27th and come back the 28th. That way Li Tie and friends could rest for a day while Luo Xun and Yan Fei could rest for two days in a row.

Had to mention, the reason why they did not set the last two days of the month was because of the previous incident. Although the adjustment was not large, they had to avoid being seen. This was the time to choose a date for the outing.

The night of the 26th, the group sat in Li Tie's room to have a meeting. Everybody had already prepared their equipment. Xu Mei and Song Lingling were preparing the food. Luo Xun had prepared the mushrooms a few days ago, the last thing was to map a route.

"The main south building was blown up during the last military operation, if we want to reach the previous place…" Li Tie trailed off helplessly.

Yan Fei responded. "No problem, as long as there is metal on the road. We can only temporarily deal with the setback."

"We can take a look at the situation and decided where to hunt zombies." Luo Xun explained. "The last bombing reduced the number of zombies around us, but since everyone is targeting north of the city, we can still act in the south. After all, our goals are different – we don't need to find any materials. We can find what we need anyways, so staying in the south would be good for us. Not too many zombies, but enough for us to fight. We can also collect metal along the way."

The crowd nodded, outside of base their targets were metal first, zombie crystal nuclei second.

Since they had Yan Fei, the team did not have to worry about bringing metal back. As for zombie nuclei? Some of the southern zombies had been killed, but the explosions also attracted more zombies, it was convenient for their team who was focused on killing zombies.

After setting their target, the team went to rest early. The next morning, drove to the city gate, ready to leave.

The team still had the four original cars..ah no, five cars. Luo Xun's car was technically two cars welded together.

Taking a look at the other cars at the gate – on average there were at least ten per team. The originally scattered teams were swallowed up by someone else, or a temporary alliance. Luo Xun's team would be considered small.

Of course, some teams failed to find teammates who waited at the gates with a sign seeking teams and alliances. Most of these teams were around ten people, they wanted to go out but dared not venture too far. Going north of the city required cooperation between teams.

The Otaku Squad naturally did not cooperate with anyone and joined the queue to leave. Soon a large group of at least 20 vehicles were released.

The explosions had pulled the zombies away from base, coupled with the base sending out soldiers to clear the walls, the area was clean as ever.

Luo Xun and team headed all the way south, back to where they hunted zombies before.

Along the way, the team encountered others two or three times. These were people who came from the destroyed bases.

Luo Xun and company drove to the bank previously used as a stronghold, but now…only rubble remained.

Looking at the unrecognizable buildings outside, Luo Xun sighed at Yan Fei. "Can you clear up the area?"

Yan Fei nodded, opened the window and began to manipulate the metal they had hidden. The reason why the bank was in ruins was because Yan Fei had attached metal to the walls!

The metal materials were placed in metallic boxes which Yan Fei combined into a huge iron ball that rolled beside them. Luo Xun started to drive again. Behind them, the bank ruins finally collapsed.

Because most of the buildings had been bombed beyond recognition, they did not think about looking for a building to act as a stronghold. Anyway, they had Yan Fei, as long as there was a supply of crystal nuclei, they could convert the metal into a temporary base!

Luo Xun chose a place where a lot of zombies were wandering around. Let Yan Fei first create a metal wall to block the zombies that would come over. The others would start shooting to thin the herd of zombies. Yan Fei started to tinker with the metal along the way to produce defensive fortifications.

With experience from base, the time needed to create defenses was short. Yu Xinran rose to level two and gained a new ability – she could control her sand and get enemies entangled. The two women had helped with training which helped everyone pick up the nuclei. The sand delivered the zombie heads to everyone!

It was a lot better than venturing out to grab crystals.

Song Lingling's water powers was no longer soft and harmless. She could cooperate with Li Tie and friends. They punched a hole in the zombie, she could control liquid from the wound! If the wound was close to the nucleus, she could bring it out using the liquid she controlled! This was a weapon that killed zombies and picked up crystal nuclei!

Once she brought the crystal core from the wound, Yu Xinran who was beside her would use sand to pick up the nucleus. This was a very easy trick to deal with zombies. Did not have to worry about getting attacked by zombies while picking zombie crystals.

In this way, the team could save a lot of stamina. After clearing out the nearby zombies, Yan Fei had basically completed the metal fortifications.

A protective bowl with a depth of two meters and twenty meters diameter protected the people inside. Yan Fei replenished with nuclei after finishing. Yu Xinran turned the area outside the metal bowl into desert.

"Is there enough metal?"

The attacks had temporarily slowed down. Luo Xun took the opportunity to let everyone rest in rotation as he approached Yan Fei. Their cars were also inside the "bowl" not far from them with supplies and everything inside. At night, they could sleep inside, much better than inside ruins.

Yan Fei nodded. "There is a lot of metal in the vicinity. We have a lot left." He glanced outwards to determine how much metal he sensed.

Luo Xun smiled in relief, his shoulder was sore from shooting. "If there were other metal users, we could have more metal. This wall is not high, if a zombie could jump in, it would be difficult to deal with."

Yan Fei nodded, he also felt there should be a roof. Though the air circulation would decrease…:"If the air is bad, let Zhang Yi use his ability."

Zhang Yi, who had sliced apart zombies glanced at Yan Fei. Those delicate and charming eyes left a person helpless, Yan Fei could not even eat a mouthful.

Yu Xinran cheerfully played around the ruins and turned the area to sand. Luo Xun checked the area after Yan Fei made a pillar to place a blood bag. There was a bowl at the top that held the blood. It was currently sealed to prevent zombies from rushing over. With a little scent of blood. Zombies started hobbling over.

"Ready – attack!" There were no other buildings near the shelter. Luo Xun only let a little blood slip out while Yan Fei sealed away the rest.

The first wave of zombies rushed over. Wind mixed with fire and burning sand struck out in all directions!