Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“The law of the wasteland: be ruthless to yourself and monsters. As for your own people…”
“I’ll naturally repay those who treat me well. As for those who treat me badly, or want to harm me, I must retaliate ten or a hundredfold!”
Sprawled on the hillside overgrown with wild grass, Su Mo leisurely recorded Version 2.0 of the post-apocalyptic survival rules on the private message channels of the dead.
At present, there were three main private message channels of the dead. One was used to keep a diary, one to record the rules of survival, and the remaining one to record material acquisition.
“I’ve tested my strength and shouldn’t face any problems fighting three kobold warriors, not to mention my armor. This should give me sufficient margin for error.”
“When dealing with things that require a more radical approach, I should perhaps be a little more bold and courageous.”
As he muttered, Su Mo once again jotted down two points.
People would inevitably change. Faced with the cruelty and ruthlessness rampant in the doomsday world, even a person of a good conscience and faith would gradually lose their humanity and devolve into an animal just to survive.
Su Mo did not want to become that kind of person—literally.
At the very least, he did not want to lose to Magoo, who persisted over 400 days without losing his original disposition.
Su Mo’s competitive nature prompted him to add yet another point to his list of principles for the future.
Next to him, Oreo also enjoyed a long-awaited period of sunbathing. However…
“My little Oreo, what’s wrong with you? Are you already sleepy even though we’ve just come out? This sluggish look of yours…”
Looking at the tightly closed doors of the kobold castle, Su Mo simply turned around, lay down, and rested on Oreo’s belly.
Feeling Su Mo’s touch, Oreo barked softly, before closing her eyes and continuing to enjoy her sunbathing.
Seeing how sluggish she was, Su Mo would have thought that she was deathly ill if he hadn’t been certain that she was fine and hadn’t eaten anything funky in the past few hours.
“Alright, you can just sleep for now. There’s nothing to do today anyway. We’ll just stay on guard here. If they come out, we will accept their delivery package. If not, there’s no loss to us either.”
Seeing Oreo ignore him, Su Mo had no choice but to turn around and, placing his hands under his head, lay down quietly; gazing at the blue skies of the wasteland.
“It seems like it’s been forever since I’ve had this kind of quiet and leisurely atmosphere!”
“Actually, if not for the constant stream of disasters, living here would be quite interesting. At least…”
“I’ve become stronger!”
Thinking about it, the corner of Su Mo’s curled up into a smile.
A person’s confidence and charm were a direct result of their vision and strength.
In his previous life, he mingled around in an office in Mystic City. Although there were no bloody incidents, such as being instigated by the boss or being beaten and framed by colleagues, at least in that life, it was impossible to achieve financial freedom and freedom of thought.
Each day he returned to that small 120-square-foot room in Mystic City and stared at its pale yellow ceiling, Su Mo always thought that if doomsday did arrive one day, he would finally be spared from all these thoughts.
Unfortunately, when a few meteors really did come flying toward planet earth, not only did Su Mo panic, but even those who stood on Earth’s upper echelon panicked.
In just three months, one large shelter after another was built on Earth.
The country’s machinery that had entered the state of war was also unusually terrifying. Everyone had become a screw or cog that could be transferred at will. Thus, until it was time for the big escape, Su Mo did not even manage to grab a ticket home.
When he heard his parents expressing worry on the phone, Su Mo could only pretend to be confident and comfort them, saying, “Dad, Mom, what are you afraid of? This is just a meteor coming, not an alien invasion. The earth is so large. Surely it can’t smash through it, right?”
At this point, his father would always put on the facade of an experienced and knowledgeable person, and reprimand, “A young child like you knows nothing. When I was working in the detonation squad, I attended a class of a great academician. The academician spoke about the relationship between kinetic energy and impact. Stop trying to coax me into being happy. I’m taking good care of your mother and sister. If you can just take care of yourself, your mother and I will be relieved!”
Not surprisingly, Su Mo’s mother would interrupt at this point, “Remember to bring more clothes. The shelter has already announced that they will only distribute food and water. They won’t bother about your personal belongings!”
Sometimes, even his sister would chime in mischievously, “Brother, don’t worry about us anymore. We are the ones worrying about you! You’re an old geek. In this situation, we should be prepared to not see each other for more than ten years.”
“When that time comes, you can bring a sister-in-law home with you, but don’t bring me a nephew. I’m not ready to be an aunt yet.”
He thought of the two old people’s advice again and again.
Gazing at the skies, Su Mo seemed to see a hint of a playful smile hidden beneath his father’s seriousness, and his mother’s eyes that always seemed happy but tinged with a hint of worry.
“Dad, Mom, everything will be better.”
“Whether it’s me, us or the people of Earth, as long as we want to live, there will always be a way.”
Licking his parched lips, Su Mo waved at the empty air and took out the biscuit paste he had cooked in the morning, sharing it with Oreo.
Excluding food, the psychic energy water had a fixed daily supply of 7L now.
Although he could not achieve self-sufficiency with food, at the very least, the psychic energy water was in constant supply.
Taking out the psychic energy water, Su Mo drank about 300ml. Turning around, he opened Oreo’s mouth and poured the remaining water into it. With a thought, Su Mo retrieved the water bottle.
Turning around, he once again looked at the silent kobold castle. Su Mo got up and inched forward.
The hill he was on was about 500m away from the castle.
By conservative estimates, the surveillance range that the kobolds on the sentry tower could reasonably detect intruders should be about 200-300 meters.
Of course, the possibility that those kobolds may have developed extraordinary vision or other sensory abilities could not be ruled out.
Therefore, Su Mo decided to use the time before the sun had set to test their surveillance range.
Signaling Oreo to stay low, Su Mo crouched down and inched forward.
By estimating the sun’s position in the sky, it should be five o’clock in the afternoon.
The night in the wasteland always arrived late and the sun would set on the horizon around half-past seven.
The sun was not as strong at this hour.
Thus, when he was about 400 meters away from the sentry tower, Su Mo finally changed to a commando crawl, dragging himself slowly forward on the ground.
The weight of the iron armor and combat uniform had been unnoticeable while running, but it felt slightly heavy now in his current position.
After covering 100 meters, he reached the 300-meter mark distance from the tower. Su Mo then raised his head and looked up.
At this time, it seemed like the kobold at the southeast corner of the tower was staring in his direction. Still, he was not entirely certain if he had been seen.
“Let’s continue going. These kobolds can’t run as fast as me anyway, so they won’t be able to do anything to me.”
Under the armor, Su Mo lightly guffawed and continued to inch forward.
280m…
250m…
230m…
…
150m!
The angular resolution of the human eye was around 0.0003 radians, and that resolution would be expanded to about 4 cm at about 150 meters.
At such a close distance, and with Su Mo’s increasingly better eyesight nowadays, he did not need binoculars to vaguely observe the expression of the kobold in the sentry tower.
“Is it actually snoozing? Was it trying to deceive me into fighting an imaginary battle?”
Summoning a pair of binoculars from the storage space, he positioned it in front of his eyes.
This time, not to mention the expression on the kobold’s face, Su Mo could even see if its pupils were large or small or whether the black spots on its lips were distributed to the left or to the right.
The pupils of the kobold in the sentry tower radiated brilliantly, but yet its ciliary muscle was slack. At a single glance, he could tell what it was. It was something countless high school students envied—a secret technique: sleeping with one’s eyes wide open!
“This good old kobold is really something!”
After observing for another five or six minutes, he carefully examined the castle for any other loopholes, including the gate specifications and other details.
Su Mo retracted the binoculars and replaced it with a cold electric crossbow.
He pressed the switch button and waited for the crossbow to complete its self-examination cycle.
Su Mo slowly adjusted his posture, moving from a prone position to kneeling on one leg. While doing that, he slowly raised the crossbow and took aim.
Through the scope, he could see that the sentry tower kobold was still unresponsive. The corner of Su Mo’s mouth curled up with a smile.
“Good boy, continue sleeping!”
He pulled the trigger!
A black arrow pierced through the air and penetrated the fragile skull of the kobold in an instant.
A one-foot fountain of blood splashed and spurted under the backdrop of the blue sky.
Almost simultaneously…
From the depths of the kobold castle, an alarm bell rang and loud barks could be heard!
The terrifying noise from the huge castle sounded like it came from at least a thousand kobolds!
With so many kobolds, even if he had an automatic rifle, he would not be able to fend them off.
“Run!”
Putting away the crossbow, Su Mo did not bother with a disguise and simply started sprinting away.
