Kingdom of Corrosion
Chapter 913 - 397: Sanctuary_2

Chapter 913: Chapter 397: Sanctuary_2

Building a bridge over the train cars is a good idea, but it lacks the necessary bridging materials, and not all carriages are of the same height; consequently, there are inconsistencies in the distance between trains.

"Keep moving forward."

Once they moved forward, problems arose, primarily with the rubber dinghy used. In water, the rubber dinghy moved quietly, but the train tracks were lined with many small stones, causing a shrill noise as the dinghy slid over them. This noise brought about the first wave of zombies.

The first zombie wave consisted of more than 20 zombies, coming from a sliding door freight train. One by one, zombies jumped down from the open carriage doors, pitter-pattering over the small stones as they ran towards Lin Wu and his team. Lin Wu immediately ordered the use of guns; he fell back while Xiao Wu and Snow Egg advanced, forming a triangular position. Xiao Wu and Snow Egg had each other’s backs, while Lin Wu was responsible for close-range shooting and guarding against surprises from the rooftops and under the carriages.

It wasn’t a big issue, but even wealth cannot withstand such depletion—it consumed over thirty bullets in that round alone. Based on the current situation, bullets are non-renewable resources. They should be reserved for survivors, not zombies.

The first solution, abandon the rubber dinghy, which meant not only abandoning some survival gear but also discarding the food gathered along the way. In the game, carrying a backpack doesn’t hinder movement, but in Day After Tomorrow City, a backpack significantly impacts combat effectiveness and mobility.

Even if they could transfer all the supplies to the backpacks, they had to consider capacity and weight. Most critically, the squad had an 80 kg generator, a crucial supply that absolutely couldn’t be discarded. If the squad couldn’t transfer supplies via the rubber dinghy, what about the rest of the group’s supplies?

Make several trips? Lin Wu suggested the idea of splitting it up, and Xiao Wu and Snow Egg found it feasible. Thus, the three of them got to work, packed up most of the supplies, and hid the rubber dinghy and remaining items inside the sliding door carriage. Without the cumbersome dinghy, the trio didn’t circle around; they went straight by climbing the rooftops.

Lin Wu’s Spiderman identity shone again as he always went up first and then pulled the others up. It was exhausting and consumed a lot of physical energy, but the progress was fast. As they climbed, they also discovered many supplies, including everyday essentials ranging from paper towels and toothpicks to wooden boards, as well as pots, porcelain, and tea leaves. Excluding soaked items that were unusable, everything else was usable.

The luckiest find was two carriages full of instant noodles, completely packed in cardboard boxes. The boxes were soaked and falling apart, but the sealed instant noodles inside were completely undamaged. Overjoyed, the trio indulged in eating dry noodles on the spot.

Afterward, Lin Wu dragged a zombie corpse over and then closed the carriage doors with the zombie’s arms sticking out to scare potential survivors. Meanwhile, Xiao Wu acted as a temporary clerk, recording the logistics points of the hub. He marked down the style, color, number, and position of each carriage.

Xiao Wu had essentially figured out the situation of the distribution center. From east to west, the arrangement of the trains on the tracks was orderly. The trains to the east awaited unloading, their destination being a logistics hub ten kilometers north, from which goods would be offloaded and then transported by truck into the city.

To the west were trains already loaded with goods, ranging from large machinery and cars to wooden boards, representing the output of Day After Tomorrow City, prepared for transport to other cities or ports. They further divided into two categories; one included large orders transported from warehouse hubs, and the other, less-than-truckload shipments from a logistics hub ten kilometers to the south.

Continuing west were passing trucks; some of these trains would offload and load parts of their cargo and move on, while others were purely passing through, waiting on the hub rails by order of the dispatcher. And on this particular rail, five passenger trains appeared. Presumably, during the initial zombie outbreak, under railway dispatch orders, the passenger trains temporarily halted at the distribution center.

All five passenger trains stopped on the middle track, also the area with the highest density of zombies in the distribution center. The flood had not eliminated the principal forces of zombies; as the water receded, the zombies began to move away from the trains, filling up both sides of the trains.

After understanding the situation, Lin Wu decisively ordered a detour, because even if the detour was more difficult, they couldn’t afford a brawl with the horde of zombies. By observation, there was at least a thousand zombies around the five passenger trains.

Continuing westward was the container freight train, essentially flatbed carriages, which went to the dedicated container freight station, where cranes would load and unload the containers, all of which were locked. Considering the passenger train was just next door, the trio didn’t dare to go closer to inspect the situation and instead quickly passed through the death zone.

The last eight railway tracks had ordinary trains either awaiting maintenance or empty carriages prepared for the freight warehouse.

...

Starting from 7:30 in the morning until about 2:30 in the afternoon, the trio was able to pass through the distribution point. Their destination—the railway bridge—was two kilometers away on the side. When they reached the single track leading to the railway bridge, they discovered a Divine Artifact: a manpower railroad car, also known as a rail car, human-powered locomotive, handcar, among others.

It was a four-seater manpower car, weighing about 50 kilograms. The three of them sat in the manpower car, each rotating the handle in front of them, and initially, due to coordination issues, it was ineffective. After several tries, the trio found their rhythm, and the manpower car raced along the rails, reaching speeds of up to 25 kilometers per hour.

Calling this thing a Divine Artifact was not an exaggeration. Apart from its transportation and mobility functions, the most important aspect was that after the latter half of the 20th century, electric rail cars had almost completely replaced manpower rail cars, and many countries could only see them in museums.

As for why there was a usable manpower rail car at the distribution point? The reason was unknown, but with this device, the three of them quickly reached the railway bridge, covering the two-kilometer distance in just five or six minutes.

After aligning to the shelter, and inspecting this twelve-carriage train, everyone learned why an old-fashioned internal combustion engine train was parked here.

The train was named Hope, a train too precious to discard, yet useless to employ.

Hope had historical significance as it had been used for prisoner of war exchanges during wartime and transported supplies and wounded soldiers to the frontline. However, Hope wasn’t very historically significant since there were many standout items during the war. The train chief of Hope at the time later became the president of the nation that Day After Tomorrow City belongs to. Yet, this president had a bad reputation and was arrested and imprisoned after his term. But, a newly appointed King from abroad visited Day After Tomorrow City, and his first stop was the Hope, as he had once been an severely injured passenger urgently transported from the frontlines by Hope.

All this led to Hope’s awkward status. Taking it to a museum was problematic due to its connection with the scandalous president, who after all, owed his successful election to his brave performance on Hope. Throwing it into a scrap heap seemed inappropriate. Thus, Hope was ultimately left on a disused railway bridge, just needing a paint job every few years to keep it out of sight and mind. All its interior features had been completely stripped, not even a single screw remained. The train wasn’t damaged by floods, with its cumbersome, half-pulled windows still intact.

Xiao Wu went to find firewood, Snow Egg broke open some instant noodles, and Lin Wu used a satellite phone to contact Shana, detailing the situation here. Shana was very satisfied with the outcome and stated they would come over tomorrow. By then, Lin Wu would head to the outskirts of the distribution point to meet them.

This meal of instant noodles was the best they had eaten in recent days, even better than at the shelter in Galaxy Building. The three of them felt a sense of happiness and spontaneously exchanged fist bumps.

Before setting off this morning, all three felt this journey would be profoundly difficult. Indeed, it was somewhat dangerous and harsh, but the situation turned out a bit better than everyone expected. And the greatest loot was, of course, discovering the two carriages full of instant noodles.