Chapter 18

2

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

A person carefully moved about the pile of scrapped metal and inspected the area while dressed in ugly metal armor and holding a handgun.

This was naturally Shen Cong. As he continued upholding his belief that his safety was his top priority, wherever he arrived at an unfamiliar place, the first thing he did was to get rid of all threats. But even if he was certain that there were no other threats around, he still made sure to equip the Activity armor, even though it was really uncomfortable. He lived up to the name of a person with a persecution complex.

He felt that if he did not wear his Activity armor, a monster similar to the earth-digging insect would jump out to bite him.

Once Shen Cong checked the area for threats, he also gained a detailed and visualized understanding of the place filled with scrapped cars. Based on the messy way the cars were distributed in the area, many of them were “stuck” in the dirt, making it look like they were dragged by a tornado, which meant that they suffered through a disaster the level of the storm—a supreme grade disaster.

Shen Cong had thought of that term himself, because no one on Earth had ever witnessed a disaster at such a level before.

‘But something’s strange. The density of cars at the center is great, and it looks like the center. Did the tornado stop here coincidentally?’

Shen Cong saw that a few of the car frames were twisted together at the center, as if someone had twisted the cars into a ball by hand.

He walked over with the intention to separate the car frames.

Right when he grabbed the bumper of a car, he heard a crack despite not using any force. The bumper cracked straightaway, and Shen Cong could see that the steel under it had already rusted away.

It did not look like it had been exposed to the elements for two months. Instead, it looked like it had been exposed for twenty years.

Shen Cong tugged at the frame of another car forcefully. But the same thing happened. He just used the slightest bit of force, and the frame of the car broke. Through the crack, he could see that the rust had progressed very far.

‘Something’s off.’

He could keenly sense that there was something abnormal about this. When he removed the spare parts of the cars in the perimeter, they were still somewhat new; the level of corrosion was not too severe. But the rust on the cars in the center was extremely heavy. If Shen Cong pinched down forcefully, he could break off bits of broken metal fragments from the metal pillars.

Shen Cong remembered how the plastic rabbit had rammed against the cage, how the poodle had fought against the tumor-covered pig, and felt that there was something hidden in the pile of car frames twisted together.

He chose to treat this problem carefully—by first returning to Titan.

The plastic rabbit was still behaving in the same way in Titan’s driver cab. It stared north-northwest and growled deeply. Shen Cong tied the plastic rabbit and let it wander outside. The plastic rabbit instantly jumped to the pile of car frames, but when it reached the edge, Shen Cong held it back.

Clearly, the problem was within the car frames. There was something inside that attracted the plastic rabbit, poodle, and tumor-covered pig.

Shen Cong did not know what was inside, but this did not stop him from using force to solve his problem. He turned on the ignition and used the bulldozer blade to clear off the frames.

Clang! Clang!

Titan possessed three engines, and it had sufficient horsepower. The car frames were the same as a pile of trash before the bulldozer blade. Soon, Shen Cong was able to separate them by sweeping them to the sides. But even after he separated the car frames, he did not notice anything abnormal.

No rare plant or ore with miraculous powers rolled out, and the earth he scooped away only possessed some of the humidity unique to earth. No plants grew among the scraps. In fact, Shen Cong had not seen any sign of plants after the apocalypse.

This place was on high ground. The amount of sand and shattered stones here was relatively low, and he could see fresh dirt.

He could not tell just what was inside, but the plastic rabbit could. At this moment, it was the time for it to shine again.

The plastic rabbit led Shen Cong to the side of a pile of scraps. They were separated far from each other, so no danger could possibly hide among them. Hence, this time, Shen Cong simply allowed the plastic rabbit to pounce into the scraps.

Hop, hop, hop.

The plastic rabbit jumped on a dilapidated metal frame and stopped moving.

‘This is… the frame of a motorcycle?’

Shen Cong lifted the plastic rabbit by its ears and stuffed it back into its metal cage. Then, he began investigating the metal frame, which resembled the frame of a motorcycle.

He first used his hands to tug at it. It was different from the other car frames since it had not rusted away. There was a layer of rust on the metal parts, but it was not rust that could not be wiped away. The metal underneath was brand new, and it shone with a bright, silvery light—the light of metal.

“Hmm?”

At the moment Shen Cong wiped off the rust, an urge suddenly grew in his heart. It was an urge he could not describe in words. It felt as if he wanted to “eat”, but it was not a desire to eat due to hunger, and neither was it a desire to eat because he saw something delicious. Instead, it was pure, physiological need. Perhaps it would be better to describe the desire as a wish to “devour”.

When the desire to devour the metal frame rose, Shen Cong sensed that the metal frame had started to release the radiation that was unique to Activity.

At that instant, Lady Luck decided to grant Shen Cong wisdom, and he swiftly came up with an idea.

The metal frame in front of him… might have come “alive”, just like Titan.

Shen Cong could not describe how messy his thoughts were at the moment. He never thought that he was the only survivor in the world, and neither did he think that his and Titan’s mutation was unique, but when he truly saw another “Titan”, he suffered a great shock. He turned his head around with great difficulty and cast a glance at the plastic rabbit.

A bold thought rose in his head once more. ‘Perhaps the nature of my mutation and the plastic rabbit’s mutation is the same.

‘But how can I be of the same type as such a low form of life!’

2Shen Cong shook his head. He did not stay around to continue thinking. Once he was certain that the motorcycle frame was the source of all the problems, he lifted it and moved it to Titan’s truck compartment.

The poodle and the tumor-covered pig placed not far away were stuffed back into the bulldozer blade and were hoisted high in the air.

It was only when Shen Cong was hidden in Titan that he could research them at ease.

*****

Ever since Shen Cong brought the motorcycle frame back, the plastic rabbit returned to its previous lifestyle of eating, drinking, pooping, and repeating this entire process. The fresh tumor-covered pork was very much to the plastic rabbit’s tastes. The green-headed flies also had a piece of tumor-covered pork.

1Shen Cong first conducted a simple research on the poodle and the tumor-covered pig.

The poodle was slightly smaller than the fanged wolves, which were the mutated forms of mutts. He could see clear signs of a poodle from the mutated poodle. It had curly fur, a short tail, and a long p*nis at its groin. Clearly, the mutation had given the poodle the ability to fulfill its desires as a poodle once more.

1‘I heard that dog p*nises are great supplements.’

3But Shen Cong tossed the dog p*nis out of the car window without hesitation. Its stench was too strong, and it contaminated the air in the truck. Besides, the water in Titan was a strategic resource. Shen Cong was reluctant to use it to wash a dog p*nis, and he would not eat a dog p*nis that had not been cleaned thoroughly. He was still young, and at his age, he would not face any problems that would require him to take supplements.

7‘Its fangs are smaller compared to the fanged wolf, but there is a pair on the upper jaw and the lower jaw, which means that there are four fangs that contain the properties of an Activity core.’

Shen Cong removed the Activity cores and put them away. He then updated the information on his laptop.

[Unspayed poodle: A mutated canine. A high chance that it is the mutated form of a poodle. It is agile, has low intelligence, and weak combat abilities. It is assumed that it is weaker than a fanged wolf.]

The tumor-covered pig was much larger, and it was about the size of a buffalo. Its Activity core were the tusks above its mouth. The tusks were the largest ones that Shen Cong had ever seen, and while they might not compare to an elephant’s tusks, they were nearly 70 cm long, and their curve almost formed half an arc. They looked like crescent moons.

4Once Shen Cong polished them a little, they would turn into crescent moon-shaped scimitars.

The mutated pig was covered in disgusting tumors the size of fists. Shen Cong did not know whether it was because it had those tumors to begin with, or whether something went wrong while it was going through its mutation.

1Shen Cong recalled the mutated pig and the unspayed poodle’s fight before he recorded new information for his illustrated information document.

[Tumor pig: A mutated domestic pig. It has multiple tumors growing on its body, which seems to have been caused by the mutation. It has such low intelligence that it would touch the hearts of those hunting it, is slow, and has low combat ability. But its skin is rather thick, and it is difficult to break its defense.]

Aside from the mutated monster that resembled a prehistoric crocodile, the mutated monsters that Shen Cong had run into so far were weak compared to Titan, and there were many aspects in which they could not compare to it. After Shen Cong put on his Sky Lifting Pillar 1.0, he felt that it would not be difficult for him to fight against the mutated monsters one on one.

If he had to use a precise number as a representation of their strength, then if his combat power was five, then the plastic rabbit was around zero to one, the earth-digging insect would be around two or three, the unspayed poodle and large-toothed rat would be close to four, and the tumor pig as well as the fanged wolves would be around four to five.

Of course, Shen Cong had just made a simple comparison in his heart and did not record it in the illustrated information document. Comparing combat strength through such a method was too subjective.

Shen Cong was more inclined toward using the strength of the Activity cores to categorize the strength of the mutated monsters. The radiation levels in the tumor pig’s crescent-shaped tusk was the highest, followed by the fang wolf, the unspayed poodle, the large-toothed rat, and the earth-digging insect. As for the plastic rabbit, it was still up for observation.

Once Shen Cong performed a simple analysis of the mutated monsters, he spent the rest of his time on the motorcycle frame.

It was a metal object that had Activity, just like Titan. It released an electromagnetic field that constantly stirred up Shen Cong, making him have the urge to instantly devour it.