Chapter 153: Going Out |
On the fortieth day, the weather remained scorching hot.
The radio no longer broadcasted any programs. Everything had fallen into a dead silence, save for the chaotic crackle of static.
The five of them hid in the factory, living out forgotten days.
The Doppelgangers had likely won this war.
Bai Mu had no way of knowing what the city had turned into, but he knew it was filled with death. It had probably already been occupied by the Doppelgangers and turned into their nest. There were ten days left until the Main Quest was completed.
These were the final ten days. If he continued hiding in the factory, he would return to Paradise in ten days.
He handed all his cash over to Lucy to exchange for food, storing it in a specially modified food pantry.
Even after he left, this food would likely be enough to sustain the other four for three to four months.
He took the canned goods Lucy brought back each day and placed them in a storage room, pretending it was a treasure trove they had stumbled upon. The other four were overjoyed, believing it to be a blessing from above. Only Bai Mu knew that this was the final gift he could leave behind.
He did not think the Doppelgangers would find their way here. If their goal was to exterminate humanity, or if they were controlled by those mushrooms to parasitize humans, then the most efficient method would naturally be to conquer the cities one by one.
This was exactly what the Doppelgangers were doing. From the very beginning, they had targeted densely populated cities. Bai Mu believed that there were still other cities that had not yet fallen. If he were the core of that hive mind, he would gather all available forces to occupy another city. The Doppelgangers clearly possessed a collective, machine-like rationality; they felt like a complete, unified system, much like a colony of ants.
An ant colony appeared to be composed of a dense swarm of different types of ants, but on some level, the entire nest could be viewed as a single, complete living organism.
Individual ants were like the cells of the nest, making up that massive, ceaselessly functioning system.
This system possessed precise judgment. Bai Mu did not believe they would waste their surplus energy searching the wilderness.
The resources consumed by such an endeavor would be completely disproportionate to the returns. After all, the world was vast. It might seem as though humans were spread all over the globe, but if one actually compared the total area occupied by humanity to the entire surface of the earth, it really wasn't that much.
Searching the wilderness during such a critical period was clearly a thankless, exhausting task. Massive chunks of prime meat were waiting for the Doppelgangers to harvest elsewhere. As long as someone fled into the wilderness and solved the problem of food and water, they had essentially cleared this Script.
At this very moment, Bai Mu was merely waiting for his time to return.
Living here was not as agonizing as being in the city. On the contrary, it brought a sense of inner peace, practically feeling like a vacation. However, on the night of the fortieth day, he still began taking the others outside.
That night, he took Leon with him, leaving the remaining three in the basement.
He led Leon over the mountain paths, crossing through the wilderness until they reached a rural village on the outskirts of the city.
Under the cover of darkness, they gazed toward the city. The towering clouds of fire were gone. They could see the silhouettes of skyscrapers, but all the lights were extinguished. Only a deathly silence enveloped the area.
The village was just as dead.
The houses had long been scorched black. Bullet holes and artillery shells had shattered the brick and stone, a clear sign that the flames of war had spread here. Charred corpses lay scattered across the ground in a haphazard mess, visible everywhere. The air was thick with the nauseating stench of rot and gunpowder.
Leon felt sickened by the corpses, but fortunately, he managed to keep from vomiting.
Bai Mu led him through the ruins of the houses to scavenge for useful items. They found the remains of soldiers and managed to salvage a few intact firearms and some ammunition.
Additionally, they discovered edible food in the villagers' cellars and refrigerators.
They found some canned goods, along with harvested potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn. Bai Mu taught Leon how to pick locks. When scavenging, the most important thing was speed; they absolutely could not afford to waste time outside.
They stayed in the village for less than ten minutes. Afterward, the two of them loaded the supplies into their backpacks and swiftly departed.
They returned to the shelter before dawn.
Throughout the excursion, Leon had been highly tense, but his overall performance was acceptable. He hadn't done anything unnecessary and had completed the tasks Bai Mu assigned to him.
"This is your loot." Bai Mu handed him a pistol. "Keep it safe. It might save your life in the future." Leon solemnly accepted the gun. The grip was cold, but its heavy weight brought a sense of security.
Back at the shelter, Leon excitedly recounted the experience of their outing to the others. He poured the potatoes and sweet potatoes onto the ground, an unstoppable smile plastered across his face.
Bai Mu watched all of this in silence, not wanting to dampen his spirits.
On the forty-first, forty-second, and forty-third days, he took someone out to scavenge every night. He familiarized them with the routes in and out, and taught them how to erase their tracks and use plant ash to mask their scent.
During this period, he refrained from using his skills or his Player inventory. He simply led by example, showing them how an ordinary person should survive in such an environment.
Over the four nights, they only encountered Doppelgangers on the night he went out with Anton.
It was a group of Doppelgangers that weren't combat units. He and Anton managed to dispose of them using Molotov cocktails and guns. They burned the Doppelgangers' corpses to ash, and the ruins they visited that day were marked as a restricted zone, never to be approached again.
Little by little, he guided the others in mapping out the surrounding area and the range of the Doppelgangers' activities, meticulously recording all the gathered intelligence. He didn't explore toward the city center; that would have been tantamount to courting death. He was only one person, and it was impossible for him to slaughter tens of thousands of Doppelgangers.
The living conditions and ecosystem of the Doppelgangers remained a puzzle that could only be inferred and pieced together through observed details. They paid special attention to dealing with the mushrooms and fungi. Fortunately, due to the high temperatures and arid climate, they hadn't seen any of those mushrooms growing where they lived.
The place that required the most vigilance was the water reservoir. They checked it daily, and every few days, they sterilized their fresh water reserves by boiling it. Just like that, by the forty-eighth day, Bai Mu had taken each person out twice.
Not every night was smooth sailing. They had faced moments of danger in between, and sometimes they returned empty-handed. But with a veteran like Bai Mu leading the way, they managed to overcome every scare without injury.
On the forty-ninth day, Bai Mu no longer asked the others to follow him outside.
"I won't be taking anyone out tonight, but I hope you can decide on your own scavenging team," he announced.
Anton seemed to sense something and asked, "Sir, are you..."
He glanced at the children and ultimately swallowed his words.
"Who is willing to volunteer to go out?" Bai Mu asked.
After a long silence, Leon and Anton stepped forward. They likely sensed that Bai Mu was about to leave. Their expressions were complex, yet filled with bravery. "I wish you a smooth journey," Bai Mu said.
And so, Anton and Leon shouldered their backpacks, grabbed their guns, and stepped out through the iron door leading to the outside world.