Chapter 200 - Speeding Up the Journey
TL: xDh20, LifeisaJourney
ED: Nintendonuts
Yay chapter 200!! May the next 100 chapters be faster than the last!
The abandoned warehouse was also considered on the outskirts since it was two to three kilometers away, so there should be considerably less zombies and abandoned cars along the way. Therefore, with less traffic blocking the roads, traveling by car was a feasible idea. With the team members traveling by car to Green Pao Bay, it would be a lot more efficient. Since the group was only as fast as the slowest person.
In addition, if they didn’t drive, then the players would end up as mules for the resources. Everyone was biased towards having a car to drive around.
As the night sky drew closer, the group would have its first night together. Just like before, with a surplus of food, Liu Gan didn"t place a food portion restriction so the large group of 40 could enjoy a good feast.
Hopefully through this feast, the new and old members could slowly get used to each other. In the process, there would be many minor habits and misunderstanding. Many of these issues were resolved by the squad leaders so the troubles never reached Liu Gan.
Resolving these conflicts were rather easy. All that the squad leaders had to say was ‘if the members don"t resolve the issue soon and Elder Liu was in a bad mood, he might act irrationally. By that time someone might end up losing a limb or two’. Upon hearing this, any of the rebellious new players joining the group would definitely think twice before acting.
...
Upon the second day, Zhang ShengLi went along with Zheng Lin and a few members to scout the road ahead. The purpose of their trip was to confirm the three vehicles that had been stashed in the warehouse was still there and operable. Once they had confirmed that it was still in good shape, they reported back to Liu Gan. The group then packed up to get ready to move headquarters.
Zhang ShengLi, w.a.n.g DeCheng, Han GuangMing and Zhang Hua were responsible for clearing obstacles in their path ahead. In the middle of the pack were players pushing bicycles that were filled with food packages. The players that were pushing shopping carts had bulkier objects like rice bags in the carts. Then there were the remaining human mules, who had to carry food rations and a variety of day-to-day products in their backpacks. Of course, Liu Gan and Yin He had duties as rear guard.
With four Level 5 players, the level of safety clearly increased significantly. Their att.i.tudes toward regular zombies had changed, as the front line could easily deal with it.
With so many human mules transporting cargos, Liu Gan was able to finally relax and casually move around. He didn’t have to personally scout or carry his own bag. He only needed to be ready to use his power to ensure the safety of his group at a moment’s notice.
So anything trivial that could be handled by the four Level 5 players, wouldn’t need to be bothered by Liu Gan.
The road to the warehouse had zombies that were cleared out by Zhang ShengLi. New zombies had wandered onto the road as they had to once again cleared the route out. These zombies were the ones that Zhang ShengLi had missed, so there weren’t too many regular zombies wandering around. At the group’s current level, the regular zombies weren’t a threat, it was just time consuming.
With so many team members traveling with resources, their speed as a group wasn’t fast at all. The warehouse was only a few kilometers away, but it still took them until noon to reach it. Within the warehouse, they found three vehicles.
w.a.n.g DeCheng called over a few players that understood auto mechanics so that they could look through the car just to ensure that there wasn’t anything wrong with the engines and brakes. Even though the possibility was low, the mechanics were also asked to look for any homemade bombs, it was better to be more cautious.
There were two sedans, and one large truck. It was enough to fit everyone and the resources too. With the apocalyptic world at hand, there wouldn’t be any objections from police officers who would penalize them at the sight of cargo and humans sitting together in the back of the truck.
The fuel in the vehicle wasn’t too full, so it was good thing Mr. Sheng had drawn the map in detail. He had even marked the location of gas stations on the map. Liu Gan calculated that the current amount of fuel in the vehicle should just be enough to reach the prison in the outskirts. As indicated on the map, there was a gas station near the prison.
Without a doubt, the first pitstop would be the gas station near the prison. It was still questionable if the gas station had fuel to spare. If there was enough fuel, it would be possible to drive the vehicles directly to Green Pao Station. Even from their current location, there was a dozen kilometers of road left to reach the gas station. So to make it before dark, they would have to hurry.
To prevent further damage to the front hood and b.u.mper of the car, the players who understood auto-body repair gathered materials to reshape the car. The installation on the front of the car was to make it suitable for hit and run tactics. The idea of the modified car was to have a pointed tip, this way it could dissipate the sustained damage from crashing into zombies. The pointed end was in the middle, where it would flare outward so zombies could be brushed aside.
“It works on cloudy days! I’m afraid that there will be a thunderstorm though.” w.a.n.g DeCheng said to Zhang ShengLi.
“Which day isn’t cloudy? Even if it rains, there is nothing we can do. We can only hurry on our journey! Let’s try to reach our next pitstop first,” Zhang ShengLi replied to w.a.n.g DeCheng.
“You are right, compared to the freak tornado days ago, the weather for these past two days are good. So if we are all in the car, I just hope that there won’t be any freak accidents.” w.a.n.g DeCheng nodded. He was still scarred from that last incident.
At the warehouse, everyone immediately got to work. The mechanics would rush the modifications on the car and the others would prepare lunch for everyone. By the time it was around 2 to 3 PM, they were ready to get back on the road. With a designated driver driving, the players would be able to rest and maintain their stamina so they wouldn’t have to waste any effort in being mules.
The top speed of the car was only as fast as the slowest vehicle, the car wasn’t able to move as fast as they would’ve liked. The main reason was the absurd amount of cars that were destroyed and acted as obstacles blocking the roadway. If they were on foot, with just one or two wrecked vehicle every dozen meters, they wouldn’t feel like it was obstructing them. Now that they were driving, every few hundred meters was an obstacle and they felt annoyed.
With every obstacle, the players would have to get out of the car to push the vehicle aside. They also had to make sure there weren’t any sharp materials on the floor as a preventive measure from getting the tires damaged.
After opening a path on the road, the head car with the modifications went ahead. After several hundred meters of smooth driving, they came upon a section of road with enough zombies for a corpse tide. If there were only a few zombies in the way, the car would’ve ran them over. With this many zombies, the cars might get stuck and surrounded by the zombies and getting surrounded would certainly be trouble.
After confirming that the vehicles aren’t able to pa.s.s through, Zhang ShengLi led his squad out of the cars. With a dozen meters between the zombie and the players, the players held up their weapon as they prepared to engage the small group of zombies. They defeated the zombies and chopped them up, so the cars would have room to pa.s.s through.