Embark on the Road

by Tai Baiyang

  Just as Zhang Mu was eating happily, the ground suddenly shook. He frowned and looked at the source of the vibration. His frown was gone.

  It was the big black cocoon. The Obsidian Beetle was coming out.

  Has it finally level up? Stupid bug, you have stayed inside for too long. Are you feeling too comfortable? If my luck was just a little worse, you would not see me anymore.

  Zhang Mu suddenly had some sentiments. If Zero didn’t see his value today, he would have been eaten. By then, he wouldn’t know what the Obsidian Beetle would turn into.

  However, since he was fine now, what was the used of thinking so much?

  Zhang Mu realized that he became more sentimental. He stopped thinking about it and quietly ate his bear paw as he waited for the Obsidian Beetle to appear.

  Kacha!

  A crack appeared on the dull cocoon and then a certain part of it started bulging out. Zhang Mu could clearly recognised it as the head of the Obsidian Beetle. He smiled helplessly.

  This Obsidian Beetle made such a huge commotion when it was coming out. Was it afraid that no one would know when it is coming out?

  As he was feeling speechless, the cocoon split opened and a loud and clear insect sound resonated through the night sky. It was telling the world that it was back.

  Zhang Mu saw how the Obsidian Beetle looked like after it came out of the cocoon entirely. It’s size got smaller, unexpectedly, and there was a small bump on top of its head which looked like a horn. Using the moonlight, he could see that the pattern on the Obsidian Beetle head got denser and it was going to form a special pattern soon.

  Although the Obsidian Beetle was smaller now, Zhang Mu felt a sense of danger. Even though the Obsidian Beetle was linked to him, he felt a huge force coming from it.

  This might be the difference between a real level 2 and a level 1.

  What Zhang Mu didn’t expect was that the first thing the Obsidian Beetle did was to charge at him. More accurately, it was charging towards the bear meat in front of Zhang Mu.

  A gust of wind sounded and the Obsidian Beetle had already reached Zhang Mu. Before he could react, it was already eating the bear meat that Zhang Mu took much effort to barbecue.

  This speed was much faster than my maximum speed. Zhang Mu didn’t even catch any lingering shadow at all. He was shocked. He remembered that this kind of speed should not appear on a normal level 2 mutated animal. However, the Obsidian Beetle already had this speed after it just reached level 2.

  The Obsidian Beetle was not a mutated animal that emphasized on its speed. This might mean that the strength of the Obsidian Beetle had increased as much as its speed. It might have increased even more too.

  The Obsidian Beetle was not fussy at all. It hugged the mutated bear’s head and started munching it. Zhang Mu only regained his senses after half of the head was eaten. He remembered that the thing the Obsidian Beetle was eating now was his food. He immediately shouted at the Obsidian Beetle without caring about its level, “you eat my dinner the moment you came out? I have not eaten for a while day and I just barbecued this, You timing is really good.”

  However, the Obsidian Beetle just refuted him through their telepathy, “you didn’t eat for one day, I haven’t eaten for a week. Who is in the worse state? You have food and drinks outside but I have nothing inside at all. All you know is nag, nag, nag. So stingy.”

  Zhang Mu didn’t know what to reply to this at all. He thought about it and felt that the Obsidian Beetle really seemed to be in a worst state than him. However, he reacted quickly and realized that the Obsidian Beetle was just talking nonsense. It could just suck the energy from its cocoon so it was just satisfying its taste buds now.

  When he thought about this, the Obsidian Beetle had finished its bear head. It wanted to attack the ribs which were half eaten by Zhang Mu.

  Zhang Mu still wanted to say something but the Obsidian Beetle shut him up with one sentence. “Also, who told you that my timing was really good? I still needed to suck in more energy before I come out but I smelt the fragrance coming from outside so I forcefully kept the energy inside me first and planned to digest it later.”

  Zhang Mu had nothing to say now. This fellow was really impressive. It gave up its safe route to level 2 just because of the smell of meat.

  However, from its tone, it seemed confident that it could digest the energy later.

  Yuan Rui, who was standing in a distance, reminded Zhang Mu, “Uncle if you don’t eat faster, Little Black might finish all the meat. When Little Black eats, there won’t even be bones left.”

  Zhang Mu woke up and realized that he couldn’t chase the Obsidian Beetle away. Hence, he disregarded his image and started fighting with the Obsidian Beetle for food. He stuffed his mouth with a bear paw and held another one in his hand. He couldn’t care about the oil. Snatching it first.

  In terms of food, Zhang Mu felt that he couldn’t be compared at all to the Obsidian Beetle. The Obsidian Beetle looked as though it didn’t even need to chew. It just swallowed everything in an instant.

  It only needed to put the food in its mouth.

  Thus, when Zhang Mu finished his bear paw, the Obsidian Beetle had already finished most of the bear body. Without the blood and oil that was flowing on the ground, there was no other evidence that a bear body was here at all.

  Once it was full, the Obsidian Beetle ignored Zhang Mu totally and went to whine at Yuan Rui. Although it was in the cocoon, it knew that Yuan Rui accompanied it every day and transferred some of her slightly useful life energy to her.

  On the other hand, its owner, Zhang Mu, never really took care of it.

  Zhang Mu was kicked to one side. He felt that he was still hungry and ran into the house with a bitter expression. He took the big pot of rice that Yuan Rui cooked just now and stuffed it into his mouth.

  Chapter 118: Leaving Secretly

  Zhang Mu felt that ever since the Obsidian Beetle broke out of its cocoon, he was out of favor. As it became smaller and more exquisite, it got cuter and Yuan Rui kept playing with it every day and ignored Zhang Mu. Also, Zhang Mu only ate her big pot of rice at the end of his meal so she was a little unhappy too. Hence, on the second day, Zhang Mu immediately got the notice to make his own barbecue to satisfy his hunger.

  Whether I eat it or not is one thing, but whether you do it or not is another.

  Zhang Mu spent another day in Luoyang as he needed to exchange the food supplies with Wang Liang as well as other survival bases. Wang Liang was still doing okay. Although he had a lot of injured men, he had the weapons that Zhang Mu provided for him so he could still subdue a group of more than a thousand walking dead.

  Within this short period of time, he had cleared a whole piece of the area and had almost ten thousand crystals in his hand. He kept a thousand for himself and exchanged the rest with Zhang Mu for food supplies and weapons.

  Wang Liang had passed the era where he lacked food supplies so he was actually not very interested in the food. However, Zhang Mu didn’t sell water on its own so he could only buy some food and water together.

  He placed most of his attention on the special equipment and bought 100 sets of it. He took mostly on spears and double-handed shields.

  As for the other survival bases, they needed the food supplies desperately so they exchanged almost all of their crystals for food. As for the weapons, the nine survival bases bought as much as Wang Liang combined. Every survival base got ten sets of special equipment on average.

  By right, Zhang Mu didn’t destroy the distribution of the power for the bases in Luoyang city. Wang Liang had lost a lot of men in the battle against the North city and besides that, the special equipment was only useful against those stiff and brainless walking dead. It had no use against mutated animals that just unlocked their intelligence as well as the powers of other survival bases.

  Hence, everything still depended on Wang Liang. Zhang Mu couldn’t give him much help. He could give the resources that normal humans needed but
for the ones that would benefit an evolver, he would keep it himself.

  Of course, this situation was within Zhang Mu’s expectation. If Wang Liang was still not able to have a steady supply of food after clearing so many shops in this area, it just meant that he was really unlucky. The shops he cleared must be fashion and daily necessities shops. These things were useless in this era.

  That was why he used most of his crystals to buy special weapons. However, from the looks of it, the era merchant’s shop in Luoyang city would not be able to take in so many crystals. Zhang Mu placed his bets on the next city he was going to which had an era merchants shop too.

  He had taken close to a hundred ton of food and 200 units of special equipment. That meant he had 25000 crystals on his hand. He gained 25% profit in one day. That was quite scary.

  The craziest thing was, Zhang Mu still had 800 units of special equipment. Combining it with the additional 5000 crystals, the rest was his gross profit.

  Zhang Mu had to make sure that he got a portion of each city’s primary requirements before the era sub-merchants from that city appeared. Hence, he needed to grasp every minute.

  These ten survival bases were quite far away from each other so Zhang Mu had to run around the entire Luoyang city to deliver these goods to them. Some survival bases were still not familiar with him like how Wang Liang was and they had to count the goods slowly. Although they didn’t know what was the use of these crystals now, they knew that if Zhang Mu could use such important things like food and weapons to exchange it, it had a certain value. The price was decided by Zhang Mu but they still had to count the goods carefully. A ton of food might be able to support their base for one or two days so it was really important to them.

  Even though they had the support from Zhang Mu’s special equipment and could start targeting larger groups of walking dead, no one knew if a stronger monster would appear and prevent them from going out to search for supplies. During that time, Zhang Mu’s 10 tons of food would be their food reserve that might save their life.

  Zhang Mu had his own principals as a merchant. He knew that checking the stock was a normal request so he could only patiently wait for them to count the goods and leave with a smile after they had confirmed the stock.

  One day past by really quickly. The sky was almost dark but Zhang Mu couldn’t wait anymore. He told Wang Liang that he was going out and then pulled the mutated wolfdog and Obsidian Beetle along. He brought Yuan Rui and they left Luoyang city before the sky got dark. They didn’t disturb anyone and the guards only saw two shadows flying past them. However, they got an order from Wang Liang to shut their mouth so they didn’t spread the news.

  Wang Liang tried to persuade Zhang Mu to leave in the morning because a human was too weak at night. He had received a bloody punishment due to this before. Zhang Mu followed this principle last time but the situation was different now. He had his own considerations.

  The Obsidian Beetle was a level 2 mutated beast now. As long as it was willing to, it could release a pressure that would force all the mutated beast in the area to retreat. This had nothing to do with the quantity. It was the strict hierarchy system among the mutated animals. Normally, they would not attack a mutated beast that had a higher level than them unless the higher level mutated beast overstepped upon their benefits or they met while they were hunting for food.

  Last time, Zhang Mu didn’t dare to walk in the dark even if he had the Obsidian Beetle and the mutated wolfdog beside him. No matter how strong they were, their aura was the same as a level 1 mutated beast. They could not put any pressure on other animals.

  If they attracted a few hundred level one mutated beast, Zhang Mu would not be able to subdue them even at his state now. If there was a chance to escape, Zhang Mu would feel that he was really lucky,

  Zhang Mu was not trying now. He did this based on the experiences by the evolvers who had the ability to tame mutated animals.

  Hence, similar to his expectation, he was able to run along the road and didn’t meet any mutated animals along the way. Those animals that did appear would just look at them from afar. In order to hasten the pace, Zhang Mu didn’t ride on the mutated wolfdog’s back. He asked the Obsidian Beetle to pull Yuan Rui while he and the wolfdog used their fastest speed to catch up with the beetle. The Obsidian Beetle was carrying a person and slowing down a little but they could only just manage to catch up with him.

  Just like this, they reached a small village just as the sky turned totally dark.

  Chapter 119: Terror In The Village

  Zhang Mu’s destination this time was not Xi’an city. The price fluctuation for the first half of the year left a deep impression in Zhang Mu. He missed it too many times and so, he carved it into his heart. That time, he was really unlucky and didn’t grab a single chance to turn the tables around. Hence, his situation became worse and with his status as a normal evolver, he slowly became a person who struggles in the brink of death.

  Zhang Mu made use of the moonlight and looked at the village in front of him. There seemed to be no living humans here.

  He asked the Obsidian Beetle. It didn’t feel any signs of mutated animals in this village unless the level of the mutated animal was higher than it. However, that would mean, it had to be a level 3 mutated animal.

  The Cataclysm had only started for a month. If there was a level 3 mutated beast in this village, Zhang Mu would admit defeat. As for whether there was any walking dead here, the Obsidian Beetle didn’t know. There was a faint smell of something rotting in the air. Since it was not very strong, it was not able to predict if there was still walking dead inside or they were already gone.

  However, this was not a big issue too. Even if the walking dead have the night sky as their cover, they posed no threat to the team of two humans and two mutated beasts.

  After taking many things into consideration, Zhang Mu decided to stay here for a night and not moved in the dark anymore. The mutated wolfdog and he were starting to feel tired from running at their full speed. On the other hand, the Obsidian Beetle which pulled Yuan Rui didn’t seem tired at all. Its stamina had increased on a very high level.

  Hence, the panting Zhang Mu managed to regain a little bit of stamina after standing at the entrance of the village for a while. He managed to go back to his normal state and slowly walked in. The Obsidian Beetle crawled on Yuan Rui’s shoulder and stayed there. It was very bored. The wolfdog shook its tail and followed behind them. It caught an unfamiliar scent with its nose and stopped for a while. It wanted to sniff it again but Zhang Mu hurried it so it just forgot about the smell and caught up with them with its short legs.

  Zhang Mu patted the mutated wolfdog’s head and looked at it in its eye. He said, “What are you doing? You didn’t seem to have used your full strength just now. You are not even finding a resting place enthusiastically.”

  The mutated wolfdog stuck out its tongue as it felt wrongly accused. It wanted to lick Zhang Mu’s hand but Zhang Mu dodged it with disdain. Hence, it could only hide behind Yuan Rui.

  Zhang Mu look around for a long time but didn’t manage to find a suitable place for resting. All the houses were slightly damaged and there were lots of houses which were totally damaged. Zhang Mu felt that even with the bearskin, Yuan Rui would not be able to withstand the cold. He had observed her again and realized that maybe because Yuan Rui’s abilities were too special, a balance formed in her body. Her body was not even at the level of a level 1 evolver. She was just a normal small little girl so, in this kind of weather, a bearskin would not be able to help her withstand the drop in temperature.

  They were fine now as they were walking but once they started resting, Zhang Mu felt that their team would have a sick patient tomorrow. A doctor became a patient. Zhang Mu didn’t know if Yuan Rui could heal herself.

  Zhang Mu didn’t have a choice. He didn’t know what happened to these houses. They seemed to be destroyed by some uncommon creatures. However, the Obsidian Beetle said that there wer
e no signs of mutated animals in this village so Zhang Mu didn’t bother about it. Maybe some mutated animals came here before but they had left.

  Zhang Mu cursed at the mutated animals. Why do they like to destroy houses? They don’t look like they are finding food too. So weird.

  In the end, Zhang Mu could only choose a house that looked really big but the main door was damaged. The wind blew in. Zhang Mu asked Yuan Rui to hide in the corner as he prepared to use his body to block the wind for her. At this moment, he saw the mutated wolfdog, it was hesitating whether it should come in or not. He suddenly smiled and said slowly, “come in together.”

  Although the mutated wolfdog was puzzled at Zhang Mu’s sudden gentleness, it didn’t understand Zhang Mu as well as the Obsidian Beetle. It could resist the temptation of living in the house and walked in.

  Just as the mutated wolfdog came closer to Zhang Mu carefully, Zhang Mu grabbed its neck and then pulled it into the corner. He pressed it down and made it blocked the wind for Yuan Rui. Yuan Rui was warm enough with the bearskin underneath her so she was well protected in this corner of the house.

  Yuan Rui couldn’t bear to do this to the wolfdog. She blamed Zhang Mu for being too harsh and rubbed the furs that Zhang Mu made messy. She said, “Uncle, do it lightly. I am fine. I don’t need the little dog to block the wind for me. The bearskin is enough. It is quite thick. I am quite warm.”

  Zhang Mu just sat in another corner under the pitiful gaze of the mutated wolfdog.

  “Don’t care about it, it is just being pretentious. Just sleep. Drag it’s fur over and sleep.” Yuan Rui “oh” after hearing what Zhang Mu said and slept beside the wolfdog.