by N. Heller
Lin Sanjiu held one of the small balls and squeezed the very squishy material in her hand. It turned into a card in less than a second.
This is a tidbit developed by Garden of Eden Laboratories. Guaranteed without any 100% natural juice additives and Vitamin C. The chewable texture is like that of a rubber shoe and is impossible to bite through. On top of that, it maintains a sickly sweet taste that inferior sweets have. Eating this product will temporarily boost the user’s resistance to radiation. As this isn’t the newest version, it only lasts for about three days. The user has to consume the gummies at regular intervals, eating at least ten gummies each time.
Note: This chewing gum should only be used as a supplement. For the best results, please use this product with other anti-radiation protection or measures.
Lin Sanjiu felt an unexpected burst of energy, she popped the small round gummi into her mouth after changing it back to its original form and desperately searched for the remaining gummies on the ground. Sweat quickly poured from her forehead. She was still trapped by the man’s corpse and her body was so weak that she could only move one arm. Luckily, she managed to find seven to eight gummies and immediately stuffed them into her mouth.
Even though she did not consume the right dosage of ten gummies, a soothing feeling quickly extended from her abdomen to the rest of her body. The dizziness, headache and other symptoms were momentarily alleviated and she felt much better. She laid on the ground, panting, as she felt her blood vessels coursing with life again. Looking at the gray radioactive clouds in the sky, a drop of tear rolled down the corner of her eye.
After all, even as a person not afraid of death, she didn’t want to die.
After gathering some strength back, LIn Sanjiu took a deep breath and pushed the corpse away from her. She slowly sat up and noticed the human-shaped bloodstain on the ground.
Lin Sanjiu soon discovered what saved her life before she ate those gummies.
The black helmet remained on the ground while the human head within it and its attached body disappeared. Lin Sanjiu held a card with the drawing of a dead man between her fingers. She started reading the words on the back of the card.
[Er Dao's Corpse]
Species: Human
Status: Dead
Potential Growth Value: 152
Passive abilities: Advanced Radioresistance, Physical Enhancements, Eagle Eye, Body Modification
Active Abilities: Crazy Dog Dashing, Radiation Negation Blood Granules
Even though [Crazy Dog Dashing] sounded quite strange, it was really just a simple ability which boosted its user’s speed. On the other hand, the other ability was something worth pondering about.
"Radiation Negation Blood Granules?" Lin Sanjiu blinked her eyes, trying to make sure that she was reading it right. Due to her exposure to radiation, her vision was still blurred. She couldn’t resist tapping on the words to get more information.
[Radiation Negation Blood Granules]
Small granules will form within the blood of the ability holder and these granules will negate 60% of the radiation within the ability holder’s body. [Advanced Radioresistance] would only reduce the radiation exposure from extremely high levels to a mid-level exposure. Long-term exposure to mid-levels of radiation would still be damaging to a human’s body. These granules not only keep the ability holder healthy but can also be thrown at creatures who have mutated due to the radiation.
"No wonder…" Lin Sanjiu suddenly understood what happened and felt a complex emotion while she looked at her arms which were covered in blood.
This man, called Er Dao, probably came over to scavenge some items when he saw that she was about to die. Unfortunately, he touched Lin Sanjiu’s skin and died because of her Versu Poison. Next, the drops of fresh blood from his body fell on her. This helped to nullify 60% of the radiation in her body...
Lin Sanjiu sat in a daze for a while before sighing and opening Er Dao’s backpack.
Chapter 110 - Lin Sanjiu, the Widow
There wasn't much in the backpack. Other than a saber, a white paper bag caught her eyes. When she opened it, she saw the familiar red sparkling glow. Apparently, it was more of those Anti-radiation Gummi Candy V2.0, and there were ten of them.
The effects of Er Dao’s blood could only last for a day and the effects of the ten gummies could last for three days. To make things worse, Lin Sanjiu could only regain enough energy to move if she used them in combination. For her, that meant that she had to overcome her emotions and rematerialize Er Dao’s corpse every day to draw blood from his body and then turn it back into a card...
When she converted items to cards, they would retain the particular state they were at during conversion. Thankfully, they were only exposed to the effects of time when she rematerializes them, otherwise, Lin Sanjiu wouldn’t know what to do if the blood in Er Dao’s corpse coagulated. Even so, she realized that she only had six days to find the next batch of gummies. She couldn’t help feeling that her future was bleak.
Lin Sanjiu massaged her sore temples and turned the bag of gummies into a card. Then, she apologized softly to her [Er Dao’s Corpse] card and kept both cards stored into her body. She felt rather helpless about the whole situation with the corpses. She wondered what Tai Sui[1] she offended. Why in hell did she have to collect a corpse from each New World?
She saw a dirty, stainless steel thermos at the corner of the bag and basically wasted a card-changing quota because the description simply stated [Irradiated water]. Right beside the thermos, there were a few slices of disgusting-smelling jerky of some kind, wrapped in paper. As Lin Sanjiu still had quite a lot of fish meat she collected from the deep sea, they did not interest her. She dumped them back into the backpack and heard a ‘thud’. She immediately reached and felt the bottom of the backpack and found a hard, circular plate-like object hidden under the fabric.
[If he had to hide this, it is probably something valuable, right?] With this in mind, Lin Sanjiu took an orange [Dog’s Frisbee], which had a ring of small LED lights around it, out from the backpack.
[Dog’s Frisbee]: No matter how far an owner throws this frisbee, a dog can always bring it back… Does anyone find that amazing? Why won’t the dog lose its way? The answer lies in the frisbee!
Instructions: There is an area on the edge of the frisbee that is specifically designed for biting. When the user bites this, the corresponding LED lights on the frisbee will light up, pointing the user in the right direction to the "owner". The "owner" is actually a geographical marker. When the user holds the Frisbee in its mouth, the frisbee will direct the user back to the location where the geographical marker had been set. Once the user reaches that place, the LED lights will automatically switch off.
"Does that mean I’m the dog?"
Status: There is already a geographical marker set, please check the name of your geographical marker when you reach your destination.
"If you manage to find your geographical marker, what’s the point of knowing its name?" Lin Sanjiu muttered as she tested the frisbee, holding it in her mouth using her teeth. Just as expected, a light on the left edge lit up. After she determined the direction, she took the frisbee out from her mouth and picked up the helmet on the ground.
[Ambition Helmet]: Inspired by MMOs, Locke Corp developed a line "Defictionalized Armors", transforming a fictional game armors into reality. This helmet is one of the items in the [Ambition Armor Set]. Effects are doubled when the user wears the complete set.
Key features: The helmet stimulates the user’s brain with Far-Infrared Rays. Increasing the rate of blood flow in the user’s brain, the user will feel more alert and energetic.
Additional features: Reduce physical damage by 15%, includes thermographic vision, provides a small amount of radiation protection.
"Did they mix up the key features with the additional features?" Lin Sanjiu commented as she examined the interior of the helmet. Her arms trembled slightly as she lifted the helmet, even though it weighed
less than 5 kg.
"What sort of shadowy technology does this use?" Lin Sanjiu grinned to herself, trying her best to ignore her fatigue.
She felt so uncomfortable after this short stretch of activities that she was forced to take a break. But her biggest problem wasn’t the weak state of her body, which felt like she just recovered from some serious illness, her biggest problem was that she didn’t know where to go next.
Logically speaking, if she wanted to get more gummies, she should actually turn back. But she did not see any visible entrance in that snow globe city and the residents didn’t seem like they wanted to let her in. Even though Lin Sanjiu already prepared herself to accept that fact, she still tried knocking on the glass for quite awhile before she finally lowered her fists. She took one last look at the clean and beautiful city before she turned and walked away.
Thinking about it, she concluded that the people wouldn’t open up their shelter so easily as it would compromise its ability to protect them from the radiation outside…
[If that is the case, how did Er Dao get those gummies if he was cut off from the snow globe city?] In the end, Lin Sanjiu took out the orange frisbee after contemplating for some time.
Though there was no one miles away from her, Lin Sanjiu felt a sense of shame when she held the frisbee between her teeth. "Who thought of this sh*tty design…" she complained in a muffled voice.
As the last twilight peered over the horizon, the grey skies looked gloomier than before and her surroundings sunk into a few lifeless shades of grey. As Lin Sanjiu’s body was still on the verge of total collapse, she had to rest every now and then after walking for a short distance. She only walked for about half an hour but sweat poured from her forehead profusely. Her legs felt so weak that they were barely holding her up. When she saw a partially damaged house nearby, she rushed over and sat on the steps at the doorway, panting heavily. There was only half a roof on the house, and the slanted roof had collapsed into the room below it. A small patch of wild grass was growing from the side of the walls. Lin Sanjiu stared at it but her discomfort pulled her attention away from it.
She wondered if she was gradually feeling more and more uncomfortable because she did not take the recommended ‘dose’ of ten gummies. After confirming the direction that the frisbee was pointing towards, she swapped the frisbee for the [Ambition Helmet]. Even though the helmet was quite heavy, she felt better just a few minutes after she wore it. She began to feel a little more energetic. There was a small button on the eye level of the helmet and Lin Sanjiu pressed it to test its function. Her vision immediately changed, as her surroundings were reduced to their general outlines and charted with yellows and blues. When she looked at her arm, it appeared red due to the heat from her body.
She had never tried using a thermographic scanner before so she couldn’t help looking around inquisitively. She did not expect that her casual action would lead to her spotting a vague red silhouette crouching in a patch of grass nearby. She did not know how long it had been crouching near her. Lin Sanjiu quickly stepped away from the grass, switched off the thermographic scanner, and drew out Er Dao’s saber. From the size of the creature, it definitely wasn’t a human.
The creature probably sensed her movement so it leaped out from the black grass patch. The creature was a greyish white rodent which looked like a rat but it was the size of a five-year-old child. It was covered in white spots and had a hairless back. It flashed its red sinister eyes at Lin Sanjiu. The most gruesome part of this creature was the huge pustule, which bulged out from its back. Lin Sanjiu could see the fluid in the pustule, encased by the partially transparent, stretched, grayish skin of the creature. When she looked at it carefully, she could even see a smaller creature with a similar face within the fluid.
[Is this bloody creature pregnant?] Lin Sanjiu held back her disgust as she held her saber up.
"Don’t kill it!" a voice came out from within the dilapidated house. She paused and backed away awkwardly. A fat man with a round face looked out from behind a broken wall. He rushed over toward her anxiously, waving his hands, "It is my pet! Don’t touch it!"
Before Lin Sanjiu could react, the fat man whistled. The greyish white giant rodent hesitated for a second before it turned away from Lin Sanjiu and ran into the house. For a moment, Lin Sanjiu did not know if she should lament over the fact that she could not sense the creature even though it was so close to her or that someone would actually keep such an ugly creature as his pet.
In any case, it was good to avoid a battle. She slowly placed her arm down though she could still feel her muscles in her arm pulsating. In the past, such an ‘exertion’ would have been nothing to her. The man seemed to sense her frailness and his tone became rougher, "What’s wrong with you? How could you act so impulsively? These 'free-range chickens' are no longer found in the wild, how could you kill one just because you are hungry? Huh?"
He obviously wanted to continue berating her but he narrowed his eyes suddenly, "Wait, that helmet… It belongs to Er Dao, right?"
[Damn it!] Lin Sanjiu cursed in her heart.
The fat man looked at her suspiciously. Lin Sanjiu definitely appeared fishy—she was wearing someone else’s helmet, holding that person’s saber and her body was covered with blood… It wouldn’t be surprising even if that fat man immediately attacked her.
While Lin Sanjiu held her [Tape Recorder] card tightly in her hands, the man suddenly slapped his t.h.i.g.h, "I know! You’re Er Dao’s woman, right?"
Chapter 111 - Captured
Despite the continuous waves of exhaustion, Lin Sanjiu tried her best to keep up with the fat man, trudging through the patches of waist-high grass. This place had probably been a part of the city as she could still see the remnants of pedestrian pavements. However, it was evident that the place had been abandoned for a long time as the plants have already decimated most of the tiles on the ground.
As they walked, the grayish-white pet rat obediently followed behind the fat man. When it moved quickly, the fetus within the pustule on its back would wobble along with the moving fluid. Lin Sanjiu did not have the time to process her disgust because all her attention was drawn to what the fat man was saying, "When Er Dao told me about that, I thought he was joking! I can’t believe someone like him would have an otherworldly lover who would come here to look for him… Cough, now I know he’s telling the truth."
Lin Sanjiu felt an indescribable feeling when she heard that there was possibly a woman out there searching tirelessly for Er Dao. She found herself momentarily speechless, so she just said, "oh."
"But my main point is that Er Dao is just too inconsiderate. How could he let a woman walk around here by herself? That’s too dangerous…" The fat man seemed a little angry as he shoved the grass in his path. "Sister-in-law, when we go back, make sure you lock all the windows and doors. I will go out and look for him."
Moments before, Lin Sanjiu had made up an excuse about being separated from Er Dao because of a dangerous situation. After thanking the fat man for offering help, she couldn’t help secretly feeling relieved—it was, of course, impossible for that fat man to meet Er Dao, so she just needed to escape after finding some anti-radiation supplies. Furthermore, she managed to grasp some useful information between the lines of his words.
Firstly, the apocalyptic event in this world must have happened quite some time ago and definitely wasn’t like the newly "created" Hyperthermal Hell.
It was apparent that the Posthumans who live outside the snow globe city were already accustomed to the way of life and had their own survival methods. For example, that disgusting huge rat was the main source of meat for the people there. Even though it is a species which mutated due to the radiation, it seemed to have a mild temperament and supposedly the texture of its meat was quite tender, just like a spring chicken, and thus it was called "free-range chicken".
From what the fat man said, Er Dao probably had his own shelter, so
it might even be possible that
he had some anti-radiation supplies in his house.
The most important information she managed to glean from the man was that there were different batches of people sent to this world. As the Garden of Eden must have been around for some time, there were people who had been living here for different amounts of time, thus everyone had a different level of "familiarity" with this world. This might be Lin Sanjiu’s first day, but for others, it might be their last few days in this world. That is to say, Lin Sanjiu could benefit from others’ experience and the conveniences they left behind.
"Ah, what do I call you?" Lin Sanjiu asked the fat man with his hoarse voice.
The latter clapped his hands together and replied, "That’s right. I haven’t introduced myself. You can call me Yuzi. I’m Er Dao’s old friend, we came here together from the previous world…"
They chatted as they walked for an hour. After wearing the helmet, Lin Sanjiu already felt much better. Besides, she didn’t want a stranger to find out how weak she was now, so she gritted her teeth and forced herself to walk.
The building was most likely a cheap motel in the past. She could vaguely make out the picture of a cutlery set and a bed on its black walls. There was also a red carpet in the main hall which stank of mildew.
"This place is quite big. We both live here. Er Dao lives on the second floor and I occupy the first floor," Yuzi said briefly and quickly chased the grayish white rat into a corridor. One of the guestrooms had already been converted into a rat’s nest, and the huge rat entered it without any fuss.
After ensuring that his livestock was back in its room, Yuzi closed the door and smiled at Lin Sanjiu, "Are you hungry? Do you want food, I could make something… You can go upstairs to rest. When Er Dao comes back, I’ll lecture him on your behalf."