Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 1001 - 433 Entering Winter_2

Chapter 1001: Chapter 433 Entering Winter_2

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In the last few days of autumn, other than a further increase in the number of zombies, life was dull. At the terminal station of the hand-cranked car, swarms of zombies could already be seen, and the road below the bridge had been blocked.

Everyone once again witnessed Dawn’s shamelessness. The temperature at 23:59 of day 135 was 18 degrees Celsius, dropping to 16 degrees precisely at 24:00 of day 136, and then falling at a rate of 2 degrees every ten minutes, until it reached minus 20 degrees. Snow began to fall from the sky, and a blizzard covered the entire city.

Xiao Jing joined the cook’s team, and with Little Knife and Xiao Wen, went to car number 12 at six in the morning to boil water and cook noodles. Maya was checking the snow accumulation and water storage at this time. On duty were Lin Wu and the Little Girl, around a hundred meters away from the camp. They hid in the last carriage of the tractor.

The rear of the last carriage was shaped like an archway, with fixed sentry positions on both sides. The carriage, along with the sentry posts, completely blocked the road. There was a coal stove inside the carriage, but for safety reasons, it had to be ventilated. The wind and snow mixed in, and only the lower half of the body near the stove could feel some warmth.

Even with the help of the spotlights on the roof of the carriage, visibility on a blizzard night was only around 15 meters. Judging by the spent shell casings at their sides, they have probably killed quite a number of zombies during their hours on duty. These dead zombies would be dragged away by other zombies, not to save them, but to use them as food. Though they would not die without eating, each bite was still counted as sustenance.

The blizzard also had its benefits, as the noise it created masked some of the gunfire, making the current situation relatively relaxed. There were basically no problems during the daytime; Maya was more worried about a zombie attack at night. If the sentry got distracted for even a moment, it would likely be game over. The worst thing was when it cleared up during the day, with Dawn’s nature, clear skies by day meant trouble was inevitable at night.

Maya then went to the infirmary. Xiao Zhuan and Blood Meng who were scheduled from midnight to four in the morning were originally in the outdoor sentry post but were later moved to the carriage sentry post, resulting in frostbite on their feet. In addition, Shana and Stone both caught colds, suspected to be a result of the temperature difference when going to the toilet before sleep.

Xiao Zhuan complained that he had lived in Day After Tomorrow City for over 20 years and had been a soldier for 12 years outside. The only memory of rain with snow he had was a two-hour downfall in his childhood.

Just as she was going to check the farmland at the front of the train, a call came from the sentry post. Maya arrived at the sentry location first, and Lin Wu handed her the binoculars, "After the snow stopped, I leaned against the side to warm up by the fire and enjoy the view. I discovered that the zombies seem to have developed a leadership layer."

While looking through the binoculars, Maya asked, "How so?"

Lin Wu explained, "Observe for a while, and you’ll see that the zombies at the terminal station of the hand-cranked car can be divided into three groups. Like a tide of corpses, the zombies follow and form a small squad, with some straying occasionally and others joining."

Maya nodded, "Indeed, but it seems the Zombie King is not their leader. No leader?"

Lin Wu said, "They seem to behave like a flock of sheep." Sheep have a strong herd instinct and will even jump off a cliff following the herd. A sheepdog only needs to control the lead sheep, and the entire flock will obey the dog’s arrangements.

Maya responded, "That’s not good news. Scattered attacks are not scary, what’s frightening is an unending wave, one after another."

Lin Wu said, "I suspect that the zombies have some way of transmitting information between them. I’ve noticed that the more we kill, it’s not because the gunshots are attracting more zombies, but because of food. It’s like ants: when ant A meets ant B and says there’s food by the railroad bridge, ant B goes there, spreading the message on the way: there’s food by the railroad bridge."

Maya: "I agree with your observation, do you have any suggestions?"

Lin Wu: "Let’s learn from Starlight Base, blow up the bridge, cut off the road."

Maya: "That would be disastrous, the entire base would become an isolated island. Zombies wouldn’t enter the base, and the base would be unable to reach the city. However, your suggestion is good. Just in case, we should install explosives at the 15-degree incline at the bridgehead."

After Maya finished speaking, she walked back to the medical carriage through the deep and shallow snow, took out paper and pen, and began to draw; Xiao Zhuan also participated in the three-person meeting. Given last night’s bad weather, which dashed everyone’s hopes of easily defending the railway bridge base, the three of them agreed to install explosives in advance and determine the locations for placing them.

Xiao Zhuan: "We need to drill twelve holes in total, and besides those twelve holes, we also need to place at least 50 kilograms of explosives at the spots marked with X that I’ve drawn. I suggest separating each batch of explosives and using remote control for simultaneous detonation, which can reduce the impact of time and environmental variables. I’ll prepare the explosives first. Tomorrow morning, we’ll launch a counterattack to retake the blast sites."

Maya asked, "How much time do we need for this operation?"

Xiao Zhuan answered, "We lack heavy machinery, and our most powerful tools are just portable drills and small cutting machines. One method is manual chiseling but the workload would be enormous. The second method is directional blasting where we use the explosions to dig the holes. This method is fast and effective, and we can make adjustments afterward."

Maya: "But the explosion sound will attract a large number of zombies."

Xiao Zhuan nodded, "Yes."

Stone interjected from the side, "Adding a new plan because of an idea, is it really a good or bad thing? And blasting isn’t that simple, especially when we are unfamiliar with the internal structure of the railway bridge. We can’t be sure that it won’t damage the bridge’s main structure."

Stone said, "Especially when considering Lin Wu’s suggestions, we must think twice, since he is always about poisoning, arson, or blasting. He does whatever seems fun."

Shana asked, "Do you have a better idea?"

"I think maintaining our current sentry defense system is more effective for us. A bunch of fools, what does score even mean? You only earn points by killing zombies. There’s no danger if the zombies don’t come, but we also won’t get any point bonuses. We have four sentry posts. Two of them are equipped with heavy machine guns outside that can stop a thousand troops. The most important thing is to keep warm and resist the cold," Stone said.

Stone said, "If we feel the night defense pressure is too much, then we can adjust one shift’s manpower to four people. Everyone takes turns resting, drinks some hot tea, and eats a bowl of instant noodles. We’ll also construct a triangular canopy for the sentry posts, use waterproof cloth to increase insulation, and add two outdoor coal stoves."

Will we stick to the defense strategy and improve warming measures, or place explosives and blow up the bridge?

Just as Maya was indecisively mulling it over, the third group mission was updated: Slay Ten Thousand Zombies.

Before the end of winter, if the base personnel kill ten thousand zombies, all members of the base will receive a 2% increase in their total individual points. Killing a thousand zombies will result in a 0.2% increase in total individual points. The ratio follows accordingly. However, upon accepting the mission, if fewer than a thousand zombies are killed, a deduction of 2% from the total individual points will be applied.

Note: Base personnel refers to the current people at the base, including everyone such as Xiao Wu, veterans, and Lin Wu, but not the four people tasked with flowers, plants, vegetables, and meats. Also excluded are Nightmare, Blood Meng, and Xiao Jing, since they still have a base mission pending and cannot accept other base missions until their current ones are completed.

Is killing ten thousand zombies difficult? It’s both difficult and not. The difficulty is that adding up all the bullets at the base, there’s only a little over twenty thousand. It’s not considered difficult because only a little over two hundred zombies need to be killed each day. From dawn to 7 a.m. now, sentries have eliminated more than fifty zombies but used up over three hundred bullets.

The best method is to conserve bullets by sniping zombies during the day.

Without holding a meeting, everyone tacitly agreed to take on the mission. Nightmare and others were completely unaware of this. In the following days, a craze for practicing marksmanship emerged, led by Shadow.

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