Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 76 - 75: Production

Chapter 76: Chapter 75: Production

After chastising Lin Wu with a pillow, Little Knife sneaked up to Lin Wu while sitting on a chair and whispered, "Hey!"

"Yeah."

Little Knife said, "I feel quite sorry for Shana, she’s your partner and should have been the one to get the exclusive Skill Book."

Lin Wu sighed and said, "If you all think that way, I’ll feel really guilty." Lin Wu’s original thinking was very simple; Little Knife was a brother suitable for bringing along on an adventure. Shana was a friend, a coworker; it didn’t seem right to expose her to danger without knowing what the reward would be.

The problem was that the reward for the mission was quite good; coupled with Stone and Little Knife’s opinions, Lin Wu felt rather sorry for Shana. After all, she had been his partner for a week. The only time they separated, something like this happened. Annoying - sometimes it’s better to mind one’s own business. Without a partner, he wouldn’t have these troubles, right?

Because of the rain, the day shift had already finished, and everyone was resting in bed to recover from fatigue. Shana, who was planning to work the night shift, was alone in the dormitory, reading a book, completely unaware of what had happened in the past hour. At seven in the evening, Shana looked for Lin Wu and was informed that he was busy dismantling cars on the commercial street. He was still 300-plus pieces of scrap metal short of the 50 steel plates he needed.

Shana admired Lin Wu’s persistence and rode her motorcycle to the commercial street. There, she found Lin Wu swinging a big hammer: "How much more do you need?"

"127 pieces of scrap metal, damn it, not even iron comes out anymore, just scrap." Lin Wu checked the time: "It’s not even eight o’clock."

Shana said, "You’re working overtime in the rain at night. As your partner, I should at least come and see you. Stone said it’s going to rain heavily tonight, and the temperature changes are uncertain, so he suggested we finish work early."

Lin Wu took a deep breath, jumped off the car, walked over to the motorcycle, looked at Shana, hesitated, but eventually said, "Shana, I must tell you something, first off, I should apologize..."

Shana raised her left hand to indicate a pause and said, "I already know."

Lin Wu said awkwardly, "Sorry, sorry."

Shana said, "You don’t need to be like this. I wasn’t really angry, and even if I was a little, considering all we’ve been through this week, I should forgive you. The only surprise for me was that you’d come forward and explain; I thought you’d just shamelessly act like nothing had happened."

Lin Wu smiled sheepishly, "That was the plan initially."

Shana waved her hand dismissively, "No need to say more. Where to tonight?"

Lin Wu said, "Highland Villa. It’s the villa where we first partnered up. You said you found a Skill Book in the garage once. I had forgotten about the garage at the time. But to maintain the dignity of the base’s old members, I had refused to scour the garage."

To your honesty. Shana said, "Besides the garage, there’s a treehouse."

"Yeah." Lin Wu said, "I’ll hurry up."

"Hey, I want to interview you for a second. Faced with a 33% chance of success, why can you put in 100% effort?" Shana explained, "These past few days, I’ve noticed that your idea is, as long as you gather enough materials, you can get the Beast Trap. You have no worries about the 33% success rate."

Lin Wu said, "That’s 95% realization."

Shana didn’t understand, "What do you mean?"

Lin Wu said, "Aside from a segment of society that nurtures waste, 95% know that no matter how hard they study, they can’t surpass the majority of 5%. But if I don’t try my hardest for even a 33% chance, then I don’t even have the right to envy the successful."

Shana asked, "What if there is only a 1% chance?"

Lin Wu said, "Just give up."

...

At 7:30 PM, Mountain Top Church Base in North Mountain Town, Left County, North City of Future City held a large prayer meeting.

As Lin Wu put all the materials on the crafting table, surrounded by a circle of base members, he took a deep breath, "Hey, I’m just making a Beast Trap, is all this really necessary?"

Stone said, "Hurry up, I’ve already come up with two speeches."

Everyone echoed, "Right, we’re still playing cards."

Lin Wu nodded fiercely and began crafting; a progress bar started to move. Since others couldn’t see the progress bar, they could only observe Lin Wu’s expression. As Lin Wu became anxious, everyone followed suit. But then, everyone grew puzzled as Lin Wu tilted his head, his face full of question marks while looking at the crafting interface, then he took his backpack off and rummaged through it.

"Did you succeed in crafting?" Maya asked.

Lin Wu: "I did."

Everyone was about to cheer in celebration, but Lin Wu said, "But I don’t see the Beast Trap."

Su Shi asked, "It’s not in the crafting station’s inventory?"

"No."

"Not in your backpack?"

"No."

Su Shi: "Check the warehouse."

Lin Wu ran to the warehouse, "It’s not there either."

Shana asked, "Lin Wu, you’re not playing a trick on us, are you?"

Su Shi denied, "The items crafted should appear in the inventory of the crafting station, and I saw that the inventory is empty."

Shana asked worriedly, "Did you really succeed?"

"Yes," Lin Wu looked at Su Shi, "The progress bar turned green and flashed once it reached 100%, with ’Crafting Successful’ displayed above."

Su Shi nodded, "That’s right. If it fails, it turns red and displays ’Crafting Failed’."

Everyone started to search the crafting room inside out, and Maya asked, "Have you checked your own system interface? The Hunter’s skill interface?"

"Oh..." Lin Wu checked the Hunter’s skill and saw the Beast Trap, hugging Maya excitedly, "It’s here, it’s here."

Everyone asked, "It’s a skill? Not a weapon?"

Lin Wu nodded repeatedly, "Beast Trap, the explanation is lengthy... Essentially, it means I can set up Beast Traps within a five-hundred-meter radius. If the distance between a person and the Beast Trap exceeds five hundred meters, the Beast Trap will disappear. A maximum of three Beast Traps are allowed to exist at the same time."

Enthralled by game data, Maya said, "Let’s go and test it on a zombie."

The group donned raincoats and went to the base entrance where Lin Wu used his skill, and a Beast Trap appeared in his hand, which he then placed on the road. It was a ferocious-looking trap with a thirty-centimeter radius. Lin Wu lured a zombie over, and as the zombie charged towards him, everyone watched its steps intently. The zombie’s left foot touched the Beast Trap, which instantly snapped shut, trapping the zombie’s left foot, causing it to fall to the ground. Then, the zombie, dragging the Beast Trap, struggled to crawl towards Lin Wu until Little Knife by Lin Wu’s side crushed its head with a stomp.

One minute later, the zombie’s corpse respawned, and the Beast Trap disappeared along with it.

This result was far more disappointing than expected, the effectiveness of the Beast Trap was well below what everyone had anticipated. Though it was a skill that didn’t wear out or require repairs, its limited functionality hardly justified the tremendous amount of materials used. Everyone felt Lin Wu’s nearly a week’s worth of effort was in vain.

Stone came over and patted Lin Wu on the shoulder before heading back to the base. Snow Egg and Horse Soul also patted his shoulder as a sign of condolence and followed Stone back inside. Seeing Lin Wu standing there in a daze, Maya didn’t know what to say and took Little Knife’s hand, who seemed at a loss for words, and returned to the base.

After a while, Lin Wu saw that Shana was still standing by his side and asked, "Why are you still here?"

Shana: "Night shift! If you don’t want to work today, everyone would understand."

Lin Wu let out a soft sigh, "You go ride the bike, we’re heading to Highland Villa."

Shana took a few steps, then turned around, unable to bear it, she said, "Hey, at least you succeeded, even though the outcome is lower than expected, but you did succeed."

Lin Wu forced a small smile and nodded. He didn’t feel like talking, in his mind, the Beast Trap should have at least been able to break the zombie’s leg. What he didn’t expect was that after the zombie died, he couldn’t remove the Beast Trap; he had to wait for the zombie’s corpse to respawn after a minute to recover it, limiting the possibility of setting up consecutive Beast Traps.