Vol 2 Chapter 8 (1/2)
Chapter 8: The Many Tales of the Town—translated by Elkin (proofread by Arcedemius & EvlNabiki; C/E edited by lucathia)
As I drove, I kept turning to look at the passenger seat A three year-old kid earing a seat belt, head sluht pout He was super adorable It was hard to believe that this was Dàgē, the Dàgē who had become the Ice Emperor!
Enough! Even though on the inside, I was a thirty five year-old woawk at the child all the time I needed to find a map, not play around with children!
Jin Feng had givensuburbs, but what I needed was a ion Otherwise, if I could drive to Luo’an City just by knowing that it was in the east, I’d start suspecting whether I was actually a GPS instead
Originally, Dàgē had probably left some maps behind The basement hadn’t been completely empty There had been a few boxes left there, with supplies probably meant for me Unfortunately, the ice tornado had been brutal and had wiped the whole house off theof what it could do to a few boxes There wasn’t even a speck of dust left of them
So ain at Xiaotian And hunt for crystals to feed the child, too
I’d already reached the edge of the map, so I didn’t knohich road to take any east However, this was risky, not tofor soht
Soon, I saw a sign pointing to a “Fuli Town” After a ht, I decided to head over for a look Toere quite good resting stops because they were safer than cities, but they were also guaranteed to have aberrants that I could hunt for crystals Further, they’d have some supplies as well as the map that I wanted
Suddenly, a dark silhouette flashed by in front ofonto a child
I spun the wheel to one side, bashi+ng aside an abandoned car in the next lane Then, I drove around it and headed off, throwing a quick glance at the rearview mirror afterwards
The wo so loudly that I could still hear her from a distance But then a few others rushed out to slap her, before glaring angrily after me
Hmph, do you think I’m an idiot? That distance was perfectly calculated, close enough that I can see it’s a woh that I can brake in time and not really crash into the to rob us theShuyu!
“Mommy?”
I looked over at the seat next toconfused My abrupt yanking on the steering wheel had woken hih he had lost his memory and shrank in size, the Ice Ereat! After all, bringing a three year-old child along for a ride in the apocalypse really was no joke The , shi+t hits the fan, and the apocalypse has no lack of things that could scare a child to tears
“We’ll be stopping soon Are you hungry?”
Jiang Xiaotian hesitated, looking at the hipflask, and said, “Yes”
You’ve probably been hungry all this tiht? Cold sweat beaded on my forehead There was no way I could fill this child’s belly This was just the start of the apocalypse, so I had to risk et even a tier one crystal But even tier one crystals would probably do no er
“I’ll get you so to eat soon”
After driving a while, I saw a sign declaring “Welcome to Fuli Town” We had arrived
I stopped the car haphazardly by the roadside, leaving the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked I shoulderedXiaotian, then made my hasty exit
This car was one we had randoo around, but gas was in short supply, and this car’s gas was al it worthless Besides, all the roads in the toere filled with cars, so we couldn’t drive in When it was tio, we’d just drive away in one of the cars parked on the outskirts of town
The town’s architecture lent it a sense of antiquity All the buildings were just a few stories high, the only exceptions being the dozen or so taller buildings in the distance for as probably the town center
This place had probably been a popular tourist spot, judging froathered by the roadside Perhaps it had been a historical street of sohts I one back to an earlier time; otherwise, I could relive the times before the apocalypse
Instead, I’d come back just three days before the apocalypse and had only realized that the apocalypse was co on the second day I’d almost run out of time to stock up on supplies, so there was no way I could have found tione to the superhts of how the apocalypse was coain and whether or not I should just die beforehand and spareabout the days before the apocalypse
As alked, I searched for any tracks or traces Dàgē and the others were heading in the same direction as I was, so if they had come by this town, they must have taken this route as well
Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything useful The road was clogged up with vehicles, and there was no sign of any of the been age coe looked like it’d been done quite soo
Suddenly, I heard a soft crunching I spun on utter running along the street It was narrow, long, and white in color—maybe a bone?
Corpses both inside and outside the cars filled the air with the sly Currently, corpses were very popular and human corpses would be stripped to the bones In fact, sory aberrant would eat anything, even other aberrants’ corpses
So what had been left to rot was mostly blood, as well as the scraps of flesh and sinew that were stuck to the skeletons
I glanced at Xiaotian as sitting inat the scene like it was thein the world For someone who’d lived in the apocalypse for over ten years, this was indeed a coh later on, the colonized cities and toould no longer look like this, there would still remain many desolate and empty places
The problem of overpopulation had been ter, the population density had become so thin that you could take over a few hundredand no one would care That was assu eaten by, rather than eating, the rice you grew
High property prices also stopped being an issue You could keep changing to whichever building or house you wanted to live in everyday, for 365 days a year Even so, every era had its “expensive” neighborhood Property prices at the center of large colonies were dead expensive You had to swap a huge bunch of crystals for a place there, and it could becoet one
As I gazed at those two rats, they in turn stopped eating to stare over back at h they were about the size of small poodles, they hadn’t mutated too much, so they weren’t aberrants Plants’ and animals’ natural instinctsprovoked in the first two years of the apocalypse, unless they were large, wild carnivores
I walked away quietly Although the rats were edible, I didn’t really want to eat things like that yet
As I strolled below the balconies, I could see that many of the s and doors had been destroyed I picked a house and entered it Then, I set Xiaotian down and crafted a s a circuit around the first floor Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything, so we moved on to the next one
“Co Xiaotian’s hand, only to discover that he was staring fixedly at the ice knife, so I handed the knife to hi
Jiang Xiaotian happily took the knife and iht The Ice Eot cut?
“Children shouldn’t play with knives”
I hastily took back the knife, but Jiang Xiaotian’s face i like he was about to burst into tears His eyes were still fixed on the knife Seeing him like that, I wanted to cry myself O Ice Emperor, you’re the idol I most respect and adore, and the one person I want to emulate in this life But how can your fan still worshi+p you when you’re like this?
I took out a bandage for Xiaotian’s finger from the backpack, but once I wiped the blood away, the wound was nowhere to be seen I stared at his finger for a es When I next looked around, the child had started crying in earnest He didn’t le sound, but tears ran down his cheeks and dripped to the floor My heart ached at the sight
Quickly, I conjured a tiny ice haood toy for children, and if an aberrant really ca out of nowhere, it could even be used to whack their heads So useful!
Jiang Xiaotian ihtened up as he clutched the tiny ice hah he still had streaks of tears on his cheeks, he looked the picture of joy
I rubbed his head, then took his little hand and progressed to the next house I didn’t knohether ere lucky or not After searching seven or eight houses, we’d found a fair ale aberrant
I sunk into deep thought Situations like this happened at the beginning of the apocalypse mostly because there was a particularly powerful presence nearby, so nothing else dared to approach
Maybe a tier one aberrant? If so, that’s perfect Xiaotian needs a tier one aberrant’s crystal
After continually defeating a few tier one aberrants over the past few days, I was confident that I should be able to handle that tier Worst co afraid of running into aberrants, I was more concerned about the problems that would crop up if Xiaotian continued to starve
After going through another five or six houses, we still hadn’t encountered any aberrants We found even more supplies, so rab another big bag, and I filled it with bread, cans, and drinks I even stuffed in a few changes of clothes and shoes for Xiaotian
In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to leave behind the cans of food we’d found I resorted to child labor and got Jiang Xiaotian to helpwas full of instant noodles while mine was full of cans
It ed to find quite some stuff, but this was actually the bounty froh less conspicuous places These houses had been searched before, but because it was just the start of the apocalypse and supplies weren’t that hard to coh in their search
Maybe a powerful group wiped out all the aberrants here, then left after ransacking the place, so that’s why this area is empty?
It was certainly a possibility Thinking back to the area around our home, it had been equally empty of humans and aberrants and stripped clean of all supplies
With that settled, I decided that we should stay the night The sky was already pitch black, so we o for a wander around the town center If we really couldn’t find any aberrants, then we’d move on swiftly to find the next place to hunt for crystals to feed Xiaotian
I found a coas stove I could heat up whatever food I could e and finally have a hot meal
Jiang Xiaotian ate, but he kept eyeing the hipflask Food alone wasn’t enough to satisfy him
“Xiaotian, can you bear with it? Is it very uncomfortable?” I orried whether or not the Ice Ey could last Would he really “starve” to death?
Jiang Xiaotian’s eyes started bri with tears, but he refused to cry He siry”
When I heard that, I instantly gave up onAnyway, ht’s sleep wouldn’t affect me much
“Okay, then on’t sleep Let’s go hunting for crystals”
Jiang Xiaotian rubbed his eyes, , “But Xiaotian wants to sleep”
That was troubleso ed to locate a e It ca off its back, so I could put away the supplies and secure Xiaotian at ht blanket around us
We really had hit the jackpot A motorcycle was far more mobile than a car, but no one had taken it Perhaps the ones who had ransacked this place were part of a big group, so they didn’t think a motorcycle would come in handy? Furthermore, with aberrants everywhere, most people preferred to drive a car, so at least there would be a layer of metal between themselves and the aberrants
This was perfect for me, however, since I couldn’t wait for aberrants to throw themselves at me
My Xiaotian is hungry!
“Xiaotian, you sleep first”
At , the child closed his eyes and seery? Increasingly worried, I advanced toward the town center on the motorcycle
This toasn’t that big, and soon enough I pulled to a stop near the taller buildings There were still no aberrants to be found If this really was the work of a large group, they probably weren’t far away