Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 549 - 272: Breaking Through the Wall_2

Maya said, "Then, we’ll leave the scavenging to Shana and the others. Our work should be more active, more meaningful."

"Makes sense." Lin Wu opened the public channel: "Shana."

Shana: "I’m here."

"Does Shadow have any sledgehammers and pickaxes?"

"Yes."

Lin Wu: "Bring the brothers and sisters, especially the main force, that most beautiful young girl, over to smash the wall."

Little Knife: "Hehe."

Shana contacted Maya separately: "Do you need it?" Don’t trust Lin Wu.

Maya said, "We need it; it’s a rather large project."

Shana: "Okay, I’ll bring people over, and we can take a bath and have a meal in the meantime."

Maya: "Good, I’ll ask Cotton to prepare a few more meals."

With the connection ended, Lin Wu laughed: "Hehe." You don’t want to smash the wall yourself either.

After pondering for a while, Maya said, "I seem to have developed a sense of estrangement from them, feeling like I’ve lost the authority to directly assign tasks to them. Subconsciously, I think I can’t ask them directly to do anything. Shana seems to feel the same; she contacts me first when she needs assistance, instead of issuing tasks directly on the public channel."

Lin Wu: "No, it’s not estrangement; it’s respect. Respect for the other person’s immediate superior. Even in a harmonious collective like Shadow, there are factions and hierarchies."

Stone asked on the public channel: "Are you going to break through the wall? Do you need help from the armored vehicle?" Driving this thing is actually addictive.

"Scram."

Stone, frustrated: "Whoever kills him, I’ll add ten pieces of meat to his dinner."

Maya: "Please keep the channel clean."

Stone reluctantly said: "Okay." What can I do if someone’s being protected?

...

There are benefits to being hardcore. In addition to being able to repair facilities and cars at the base, things destroyed by players or zombies are gone for good; they won’t respawn back to their original state.

The wall-smashing team brought their tools, and teams of two set to work. Soon, they had smashed open a large hole. Just as Maya had thought, it was the basement of a bookstore, filled with lots of bookshelves and books. However, the noise of smashing the wall attracted a lot of zombies. The zombies wouldn’t crawl through the sewer, but they could walk downstairs. The basement was quickly filling with zombies.

Shana, who knew a little bit about everything but wasn’t an expert in anything, took out a water pen and drew circles on the wall. Following the circles, everyone smashed five holes. Then, following Shana’s instructions, they gently chiseled away parts of the wall. After that, everyone evacuated the vicinity, inhaled fifteen minutes of sewer aroma, and then returned to see that the zombies in the basement had mostly dispersed. High activity levels couldn’t help it; they don’t like to stay in one place.

Next came Shana’s amazing move. She reached into two holes with both hands and, using some principle, removed a large chunk of the wall, a mix of cement and bricks, without making much noise. Maya took the opportunity to shoot a few zombies in the basement.

After Shana removed two more chunks of wall, Lin Wu stepped in first. He dived in among the sea of books. Cotton succeeded in diving in and went invisible, disappearing from everyone’s sight. Cotton took the lead, went up the stairs to the first floor, and stealthily killed the zombies there.

It seemed everyone knew Maya was looking for classics. They split up to check the bookshelves in the basement and on the first floor.

"Wuthering Heights?"

Maya: "Who is the author?"

"Bronte, Emily Bronte," Horse Soul said. "Earthlings used to have such nice names."

"It’s a classic."

Snow Egg disagreed with Horse Soul’s view: "There are also some names that are hard to pronounce, like the elder Dumas, the younger Dumas. Didn’t expect that Earthlings liked that tune."

Little Knife: "The one here called Bacon isn’t talking."

Maya: "The Dumas, senior and junior, and Bacon are all famous literary figures; we need their books."

The Red and the Black, Les Misérables...

One after another, classics were turned out by everyone. After a round of searching, they had gathered 25 classics. Maya carefully put the books into her backpack. On the channel, she said to everyone: "Thank you."

Lin Wu: "Maya means that the library that’s built afterward will belong to her personally."

Maya hurriedly said, "No, that’s not what I meant. Of course, it’s open to everyone."

Lin Wu asked in confusion, "Then what are you thanking for?"

Maya was at a loss for words, realizing only then that her thanks were somewhat superfluous; saying thank you had actually made things seem more distant.

Lin Wu suddenly understood, "Thank you, Brother Shadow, for coming all this way. I’ll give you a 30% discount on books in the future."

Stone said, "You guys, break his bones on site for me."

Lin Wu said, "Old Man, please keep the channel clean."

And that was that.

Next, the team breaching the walls made their way to the vicinity of the fire station’s basement, and started to imitate the earlier wall-smashing process. Since it was a safe area, the zombies dispersed even more quickly.

Checking the time, it was only five-thirty, and the western sun outside was deadly. Since they were already here, with a safe area and an escape route at hand, the two Deputy Commanders started directing everyone to scavenge the surrounding buildings.

Little Knife was the first to find something: "Electric welders and welding rods? What are these?"

Shana, having seen much of the world, said, "It’s something that sticks two pieces of metal together."

Little Knife asked, "If it’s meant to stick them together, why make two separate pieces of metal?"

Shana explained, "Back then, Earth’s technology was pretty backward. From what I know, welding wasn’t easy, and in some places, the protective measures were very poor. Long-term work could easily lead to pneumoconiosis." She habitually offered scientific explanations.

Lin Wu reported his spoils: "A bottle of 1982 Lafite wine, how odd." The wine they usually scavenged didn’t have brands, only occasionally would they find a few branded bottles. According to Shana and Stone, branded ones tasted very good, but Lin Wu and the others didn’t feel the same. This was the first time Lin Wu had come across a wine with the production date written on it.

Starlight said over the channel, "82 Lafite is a high-end wine from that year on Earth, very popular."

Snow Egg: "Cuban cigars. Why does everything here have a brand?"

Starlight responded, "Cuba is a country. I think you guys have been scavenging places like malls and supermarkets before. It’s normal for administrative buildings near the fire station to have some luxury items."

"Normal, huh?" everyone asked.

Starlight was less certain, "Maybe it was quite normal on Earth back then."

Maya said, "Hurry up, tonight is ’Twilight Night.’ Oh no, Peanut."

Peanut had died at 8:20 p.m. the previous night, which meant that Peanut would be resurrected at 8:20 p.m. this evening. The resurrection protection only ensured that the resurrected didn’t need to sleep or eat for a certain period, without protection from zombie attacks.

Stone said, "It’s not a big deal, we can just stay in the dark room for another day if need be."

Little Knife said, "I’ve found a lot of snacks in this drawer that have gone bad."

Lin Wu said, "Same here, the drawers are all spoiled."

At this moment, system items and ordinary items were very easy to identify. System items and very special luxury goods wouldn’t corrode, while ordinary items, including pens, had already started to lose their original functions.

The looting of the four buildings yielded little: two building packs, some luxury items, and a few tools. Air conditioners, TVs, and other appliances were all broken without exception. Lin Wu used a personal computer to open a safe, inside of which was only cash and some jewelry. However, they discovered a letter near the safe.

This letter could be called the only significant find of the day. A purple mission: The Last Will. A purple mission refers to the text of the mission being in purple. Shadow had never encountered such a mission before; it was said that completing a purple mission would surely reward one with a purple Loot Chest.

The letter was left by the local administrative chief. It roughly stated that with Left County out of control, he would lead all administrative personnel aboard a command ship to the lighthouse to escape the disaster. The letter mentioned that they carried a lot of long-lasting food, weapons, and fuel. Given that there was a fresh water well on the lighthouse, he believed they could hold out for a considerable time.

Mission objective: Reach the lighthouse, find the administrative chief.

"Still alive?" Maya wondered.

Shana said, "It’s highly unlikely. If he had escaped alone, or with a few people, then survival was possible. But leaving with all the administrative personnel meant certain death. I think the mission aims to find the chief’s body or a personal item."

Maya said, "I will observe the sea conditions soon and choose the right weather to set out to sea and check."

Shana objected, "No, with our current fuel reserves, even if the tugboat could reach the lighthouse, we would lack fuel to return."

Lin Wu said, "Maybe we can find fuel at the lighthouse? The mission said they carried a lot of fuel."

Shana laughed, "I didn’t expect you, Lin Wu, to actually hold out hope for Dawn."

"Ha." The remark made it sound like he was greedy, but indeed, he hadn’t thought of this. Gambling your life with players, there was a 50% chance of survival. But gambling with Dawn, not even a hundred thousand lives would be enough to pay the price.

Maya said, "It’s about time, everyone, assemble in the basement to prepare for evacuation."