Chapter 53: Hunting
Nothing much happened that night, and everyone prepared to set off in the morning after washing up. The only incident was how Woolf's toothbrush became quite useless. He held the toothbrush in his hands, not knowing how to go about brushing his huge terrifying alligator-like mouth.
"Damn it!" In the end he got angry for no reason and smashed the tap.
Irritable!
Bai Yi looked at Woolf and observed his actions. Woolf was being slightly irritable lately, was it because there was too much stress lately, or perhaps… Anyway, this was a problem. As their bodies grew bigger, the daily items they usually used became unsuitable for their body size and shape. For example, for Woolf it was not only the toothbrush but even his clothes were made out of a few pieces of clothing sewn together.
"Come on, calm down and just roughly washup. We need to set off soon." Bai Yi patted Woolf's back and said.
"En, got it." Woolf nodded and some of his irritability gradually faded away.
Bai Yi saw that Woolf had calmed down and didn't say anything more, but a slight wariness slowly grew in his heart. The naming of the phases by the researchers weren't just for fun, an important criterion for being a researcher was being realistic and practical. If LV1-1 meant binge eating in the Binging Phase, then the violence in LV1-2 Brutal Phase would definitely appear as well.
……
Along the way, no other monsters appeared, and they smoothly drove along the road to enter the next city. They encountered a few car accidents along the way, but it became completely normal to them by now. The moment they entered the edge of the city, the sky started to drizzle and caused the entire Te Kuiti to appear extremely shady.
Te Kuiti was located in a small basin surrounded by small hills. Due to the geographical limitations of this place, it was also not a big city.
It was very quiet; the four cars gradually drove through Te Kuiti and they didn't even find the slightest trace of any living things. Not only were there no evolved lifeforms, but there weren't even any signs of humans.
"Weird, there shouldn't be any experimental monsters in Te Kuiti? There aren't any signs of large-scale destruction either, where's everybody?" Sara asked through the communicator.
"This is a city! It's normal to have nobody around." Bai Yi replied.
"Why? Shouldn't there be more people in a city?"
"That… was in the past. A normal city definitely has more people, but it is different now. Due to the Binging Phase, all the food was rapidly consumed so there's nobody left in the city now."
"Let me put it this way, a normal city is usually made up of consumers and not producers. For the sake of keeping food fresh, food is kept flowing and circulating. Normally, all the food stock in a city won't be kept for more than a week."
"A week? So short?" Sara was not the only one surprised and the rest of them also made sounds of disbelief through the communicator.
"I've seen the things in the supermarket many times before, it doesn't seem like it's only sufficient for a week?" Heloise also added.
"That's why I said food stock inside a city is kept flowing. The abundance of food you guys see normally is because food is constantly being imported and replenished from outside, such as from farms and gardens. However, it is different now. New Zealand underwent a great change and this supply chain had long been disrupted. Without the replenishment from outside, the city is just purely a steel forest. Even the dumbest person would gradually leave this place when they find that there's no more food to be found in the city. They would head for places like the rural farms, croplands, and even the forest where humans do not usually visit."
"Hence, that is why the city is this quiet now. There's definitely still people remaining here, but it won't be many." Bai Yi concluded.
"So that's what happened, it's like that."
"But Bai Yi, I really couldn't tell, but you really know a lot, huh?" The latter half of Sara's sentence caused her true colours to be shown, casually teasing Bai Yi.
"I'm a chef, I just know some things related to food." Bai Yi said nonchalantly.
What Bai Yi didn't say was that this city just appeared to be quiet on the surface. Now that order had completely broken down in New Zealand, nobody knew what was happening underneath. There were a lot of records detailing what happened during famines in ancient China.
Since they didn't encounter anything along the way, they didn't stop in this city but continued onto the next city.
The next city was Taumarunui; the city was really far away, as far as the distance from Hamilton to Te Kuiti. Moreover, this path wasn't like the one they'd taken previously where there were cities in between to replenish their supplies. Fortunately, along the way there were various households and small farms.
……
"Martin, help me stop it! This guy can feed us for a few days!" Woolf shouted and chased after an ancient beast-like 'cow'.
All the living things in New Zealand got infected with the activated cells and their body size grew greatly. However, just like Bai Yi said, the 'common sense' these creatures had of their bodies previously impeded their ability to display their true power. For animals like cows, goats and horses, even though they grew greatly to become like monsters, a portion of them still remained on the farm and grazed on the grass.
Of course, it was difficult to find livestock now, most had already run off or were already caught and eaten by humans.
The cow that Woolf was chasing was 3 meters tall, with a pair of thin wings on its back just like that of a warble fly. Even though it had wings, it was still completely unable to fly and ran around on the ground as usual. However, the limbs of this cow became rather strange and its leaping ability evolved to become extremely outstanding. One leap could bring it more than 10 meters into the air, so it could move around rapidly in the meter plus tall grass field.
Seeing Martin standing in front of it, the cow didn't attack Martin but powerfully kicked with its back legs and 'flew' over the top of Martin's head in the tall grass. Although it couldn't fly, it still subconsciously opened its wings by a bit, and there were even signs of gliding.
Martin saw the cow flying over him and thought to grab onto its hooves, but he immediately lost courage looking at that gigantic body.
"Hey! Fuck, no wonder this guy still remained here, I'm so tired." Woolf tripped and fell down in the thick grass, planting his face into the grass patch and eating a mouthful of it.
"Bai Yi, let's just use the guns. We really can't catch it!" Woolf shouted to Bai Yi from the other side.
To let everyone familiarize themselves with their changed bodies, Bai Yi instructed them to use their own bodies to hunt and not use guns as much as possible. This was the fastest way for them to get used to their new bodies.
Bai Yi glanced over after hearing Woolf's voice and didn't say anything. In reality, with the strength of Martin and Woolf's bodies now, they could completely hunt this 'not too threatening' cow bare-handed. However, Woolf and Martin's common sense were still restricting them, so they were still quite timid and hesitant to take action. If not, Martin could have easily dragged the cow down from the air just now.
"Continue, the mission you guys have today is to hunt this cow. Be careful not to touch its blood, unless you want to merge with its genes." Bai Yi did not accede to Woolf's request.
Woolf and Martin looked at Bai Yi's expression and knew that there was no room for negotiation, they had no choice but to continue chasing the cow. Unknowingly, the cow very quickly ran to a distant place, Woolf and Martin also disappeared inside the underbrush and shrubbery.
"Hong Qi Hua, go give them a hand." Bai Yi said.
"En!" Hong Qi Hua nodded and jumped down gracefully like a cat, landing without a sound. She then rapidly ran out towards them.
Cat's gracefulness!
Very quickly, Hong Qi Hua caught up with the two of them. Judging by the direction they were running in, she quickly found a large tree, easily climbed up and ran along the branches. While running, her eyes that had become incomparably sharp mapped her surrounding situation. Not only was she observing the humans and cow running below, but also everything that was happening on the large tree.
An insect with wings and sharp teeth suddenly shot out towards her from underneath a leaf while she was running, however her short knife was already moving through the air.
With an almost inaudible 'chi!', the insect split into halves and she lightly jumped down from the branch. At this moment, the evolved cow just happened to run below the branch as well. As though a real cat, Hong Qi Hua nimbly landed on the head of the cow. At the same time when her body crouched down slightly, two short knives sliced across both its eyes.
"MOOOO…!" A booming cry shocked their ears.
Hong Qi Hua completely ignored the cow's cries as she agilely ran across its back and landed on the floor. After landing on the floor, her hands rapidly moved for a moment and the two knives left several afterimages in the air. The blood that was on the knives was all completely flung off of them. Hong Qi Hua then sheathed both knives back into the sheaths on her back on either side.
"Hong Qi Hua, why are you here?"
"Uncle Bai said that the forest is too dangerous to us now, so he asked me to come help you guys. Let's hurry up. Kill this guy and rush back." Hong Qi Hua said and did not continue helping them. If they couldn't even handle a blinded mutated cow, then it was really not doing justice to the training that Bai Yi had made them go through during this period.
"Really! Making you help again, let me show you!" Woolf rushed forward, holding that frightening greatsword in his hands.
Chapter 54: Fishing
Over 10 minutes later, Martin and Woolf dragged the giant mutated cow back to the edge of the small farm.
Little Warner stood at the side very excitedly. He was now already at the height of an adult male, with a body that was as round as a fat pig. However, his strength now couldn't be underestimated, and his body was very agile as well. Other than the pig and cow genes, Little Warner followed Hong Qi Hua in everything, even including her battle style. However, he was still very young, so Bai Yi had no intention of letting him participate in battle, just that he still underwent training normally.
Although everyone understood what Bai Yi said previously to not be restricted by their common sense, the ones that managed to do it the best were still Bai Yi and Hong Qi Hua.
Just like Heloise said, maybe some people were just more suited to certain environments and times.
"You guys worked hard!" Bai Yi said to the few of them.
"En." Hong Qi Hua replied plainly.
"Bai Yi, how about we eat beef hotpot today? I remember that we found some hotpot seasoning last time!" Woolf said excitedly.
"Ok!" Bai Yi smiled and nodded. A packet of hotpot seasoning was definitely not enough for everyone to eat, so he still had to season the base himself.
After nearly three days, they were finally approaching Taumarunui. However, more than half the time was spent on searching for food, cooking and resting, so the time used for travelling wasn't that much in comparison. This couldn't be helped as well. Bai Yi's body healed at an abnormally slow pace, so they couldn't afford for him to become travel-worn. Moreover, during the Binging Phase, food had to always be ready, or else it wouldn't be just an issue of getting hungry faster.
They didn't have a fixed time for meals now; they just prepared food whenever they got hungry. So, the group of them didn't wait for mealtime, and while the cow was still fresh they started to prepare their meal.
Bai Yi already had no problems moving about now, as the abnormally slow speed of recovery was only in comparison to Woolf and the others. Compared to normal people before the change, it was actually many times faster.
The road to Taumarunui was built along the Whanganui River, which was downstream from the Waipa River. The small farm that they stopped at was right beside this river. Bai Yi prepared the food on an open patch of ground while Sara and Heloise helped out. Hong Qi Hua went to ask Mavis about things regarding medical expertise, while Momo rode on top of Sharpei as they ran around nearby, playing their hearts out.
"See, what did I say, this thing would definitely be useful!" Martin searched the container inside the truck for awhile and took out a fishing rod, showing off to Woolf.
"To think of it, it has been so long since I ate fish. There should be a lot in this river, right?" Woolf said.
"There used to a lot of fish, but I don't know about now." Martin said and the two of them headed to the edge of the river. There wasn't any fish bait around here, so the two of them took some cow organs that Bai Yi had taken out just now as bait.
"Anyway, what fishing rod is this? Would this kind of fishing rod be useful now?" Woolf suddenly asked when Martin was preparing the bait.
"You don't know how great my fishing skill is."
"There're no more normal animals left in New Zealand, I doubt that you can catch a fish using this fishing rod!" Woolf was surprisingly smart for once and ran back towards the truck. Woolf suddenly recalled that there was a 3-meter-long steel bar inside the truck as well as a roll of steel wire. After struggling for a while, Woolf carried his 'fishing rod' back to Martin and winked at him in glee.
"To fish in New Zealand now, you have to use something like this!" Woolf said extremely pleased with himself.
"Tch, you think you can get a fish like that?" Martin saw the so-called fishing rod and jibed.
Bai Yi and the rest were closeby and didn't know whether to laugh or cry looking at their actions. Did they really want to fish? What kind of fish were they intending to catch, sharks? Very quickly, this caught the attention of Momo as well and she rode Sharpei over to Martin and Woolf's side.
"Is there any fish here? Didn't Bai Yi say that many animals died because they started to eat each other due to the Binging Phase last time?" Staring at the fishing float for a long time, Woolf finally couldn't take it anymore. He didn't have that much patience.
"What do you think you're fishing for? Even in normal times fishing isn't so fast!" Martin retorted and waved his right hand, gesturing for Woolf to go play somewhere else. Suddenly, Martin felt his left arm shake as an enormous strength transmitted from the fishing rod.
"It took the bait!" Martin shouted excitedly and tried to raise the fishing rod.
With a 'Pa!', just like Woolf said, a slight tug was enough to snap the fishing line. At this moment, Woolf also felt tension in his hands and started to pull his steel bar.
"What did I say, your lousy fishing rod can never get any fish!" Woolf said gleefully while exerting his strength to pull the steel bar.
"Fuck, it's so strong! Come help me!" Woolf said and the two of them joined forces to pull the steel bar. At this moment, the steel wire was already completely taut.
Suddenly, the tension disappeared and the two of them fell back onto the floor. At this moment, the surface of the river broke with loud splashes and a giant head raised itself up. The head was kind of sharp, and along its back grew multi-coloured sharp spikes like that of a porcupine. Purplish-black patterns circled its mouth and extended all the way down its body. Above the surface of the water was an upper body roughly the size of a car tire. However, the fish's body seemed to be very long, and they didn't know how much of it was hidden underneath.
Coloured Poison Spike Lizard! (TN: I'm not too sure what this is either, I suspect it may be a thorny dragon? So yeah I went with a more literal translation. It's彩纹毒刺蜥 for any curious souls. Or it could be a fictional creature, i mean, this is a fictional story.)
"Hsss……!" The spiked lizard opened its mouth wide and hissed fiercely. There was still a giant 'fish hook' stuck to its mouth, and its cold vicious eyes stared at Martin, Woolf and Momo.
Martin and Woolf were completely stunned.
"Fuck why did you want to fish, see what you caught!" Woolf immediately pushed away the responsibility guiltlessly.
"You caught that thing, what has it got to do with me!" Martin instantly retorted.
Momo was rooted to the spot in fear from the beast that suddenly appeared from the water, but Sharpei reacted the moment the spiked lizard appeared. Sharpei immediately tensed its body and shot out viciously. Before the beast could react, Sharpei's sharp claws brutally swiped across its nose.
"Hss, Hss…!" All the spikes on the lizard's body instantly erected and at this moment, Sharpei already hopped away and rapidly dodged.
Although they were blaming each other, Woolf and Martin's movements weren't slow at all. Martin immediately ran towards Momo by the side. Momo was the flesh of Bai Yi's heart (TN: means really loved, hurting her would mean hurting the person's heart.), if anything happened to her then Bai Yi might just murder the both of them. Woolf held the steel bar in his hand and stabbed it towards the spiked lizard. Both of them didn't bring along the weapons, nobody knew that something like this would happen.
The spiked lizard was also fuming. It was initially extremely hungry and bit the piece of meat after smelling blood. Who knew that it would get caught on the hook, and the moment it came out of the water it got clawed on its nose! Just from looking at the wound you could tell that it was very deep.
The spiked lizard hissed again; its body paused for a moment, then pounced towards Sharpei. At this moment, its full body was finally revealed. It was just like a lizard with four legs. Its body wasn't big, but the tail was very long, roughly 6-7 meters in length. Many coloured spikes adorned its back as well.
At this moment, Bai Yi and the rest of them who were nearby also discovered the commotion. They immediately threw down whatever they were doing and ran towards the lizard.
Sharpei saw the coloured spikes on the back on the lizard and knew that he definitely couldn't touch those. When the spiked lizard pounced, Sharpei immediately dodged nimbly, waiting for his chance to counterattack.
At this time, Woolf had already fiercely stabbed the steel bar towards the spiked lizard. It then curled its body up and those spikes abruptly closed onto itself. Woolf's steel bar rammed into it and immediately slid off its body. So slippery…a phrase rose in Woolf's heart and at that instant the spiked lizard opened up its spikes again. Due to Woolf miscalculating his actions, his body was about to slam into the spikes.
At this moment, Bai Yi rapidly dashed from the other side and rammed into Woolf. Woolf got knocked to the side but Bai Yi himself went onto the path of slamming into those poisoned spikes.
Looking at the colourful spikes, Bai Yi could guess how potent its poison was. At this moment, Bai Yi could very clearly see the poison spikes on its body swell slightly and become even more colorful, glistening.
Damn it!
Bai Yi raised the broadsword in his right hand and his left hand still held onto the kitchen knife that he was using to prepare the cow. His focus was incomparably sharp at this point and as expected, in the next moment those poisoned spikes burst out from its body like arrows. The soft fur around Bai Yi's eyes trembled a few times and his irises contracted, pushing his concentration to the limit.
Bai Yi's body twisted slightly and both blades in his hands waved rapidly, almost forming a whole series of afterimages. Countless 'ding' and 'dang's sounded and after a few seconds, Bai Yi stopped with his body twisted into an awkward position. Beside him was over a hundred colored spikes on the floor.
The spiked lizard still thought of doing something, but Bai Yi's body fiercely snapped back, and at the same time the broadsword cut down brutally.
Bai Yi exerted his strength and the broadsword hacked through the neck of the spiked lizard. With a 'puchi!', multi-coloured blood sprayed out from its neck and Bai Yi instantly jumped back and dodged. After its head was chopped off, the body of the lizard flailed for a few moments and gradually stopped moving.
At this time, everyone looked at the corpse and looked at each other in dismay.
"Bring your weapons along with you next time, no matter what!" Bai Yi said to Woolf and Martin.
"Yes!" The two of them immediately stood at attention. Although Bai Yi's tone wasn't heavy, but everyone could tell the furious undertone in his voice. Bai Yi emphasized this many times. New Zealand was very dangerous now, nobody knew when danger would appear, so they had to be prepared at all times.
Chapter 55: Taumarunui
"But you guys did not do bad this time, it was a stroke of luck but fortunately we managed to catch this guy. Otherwise, it would have been really dangerous to just let it hide in ambush near us." Bai Yi said.
"Bai Yi, are we going to keep this lizard for food?" Woolf said.
Bai Yi looked over the flesh of the spiked lizard and saw that it was bright red. However, he adjusted his angle so that it would be against the Sun and saw the fluids containing a tinge of purplish light. Meat could of course be consumed, and the nutritional value would be very high as well. However, this meat couldn't possibly be prepared through normal means, if they didn't want to be poisoned to death.
"No, there's poison in this. If it were before then perhaps I would have the interest to try and prepare and neutralise the poison, but we don't have that time now." Bai Yi said as he used his broadsword to flip the lizard over. He then split open its tummy, then cut off a few organs and roughly a meter-long stretch of meat.
"Didn't you say that it's inedible?"
"This thing can't be eaten, but I want to try and see how can I prepare and neutralise the poison in this meat. Nobody knows what we will encounter in the future. Who knows, maybe this can stave off hunger when we have no food left. Remember well, don't take the wrong food in the future!" Bai Yi said to everyone.
"En." Everyone nodded, and Bai Yi placed the poisoned meat inside a metal container.
Bai Yi returned to Momo's side and found that Momo was still trembling, but she still brought out her short sword and grabbed it tightly in her hands. Due to an excessively tight grip, her small hands had already turned white. Seeing Bai Yi walk over, Momo immediately raised her head and look at him, her eyes containing fear and grievance.
Bai Yi squatted down and gently caressed Momo's little tense face, revealing a small smile.
Under Bai Yi's consolement, Momo's tense body gradually relaxed and her unfocused eyes gradually came back into focus. She then immediately jumped into Bai Yi's arms and wailed loudly. Momo almost stabbed Bai Yi with her indiscriminate sword, and after Bai Yi carefully grabbed hold of her sword, he patted her on her back.
"En, cry as much as you want."
Bai Yi had always been emphasizing during this period that New Zealand became extremely dangerous, so everyone had to be prepared to face danger at any time. What was important to know was that, when facing the danger, the only one who could protect you at the very last moment was only yourself. This was the first time Momo had faced such a fierce monster directly. The fact that she could still remember his words and draw her sword was already very good. One must know that Momo was still only four years old.
"Bai Yi…!" Woolf and Martin wanted to explain themselves, but Bai Yi just shook his head at them.
Bai Yi wasn't angry. You could even say that he was slightly happy, since Momo had to take that step eventually. Although it was quite dangerous this time, at least nothing bad happened in the end. When Momo calmed down, Bai Yi brought Momo back to Sharpei's side. Now Sharpei was already a meter tall standing up straight, looking extremely sinister.
Bai Yi saw that Sharpei's right paw had some bloodstains. It wasn't his own, but from when the spiked lizard just appeared from the water and Sharpei clawed its nose.
The genes that Sharpei fused with now were 1. Slug, 2. Ant and 3. Hummingbird. These were the genes that Bai Yi had decided for Sharpei, and now Sharpei probably fused with its fourth type of genes. It was just that they didn't know what the monster's original genes were. Hopefully it wasn't too lousy.
Bai Yi patted Sharpei on its head, the muscles that burst out from underneath its split skin were rather rough to the touch, but they also felt very tough.
As the group walked back towards their campsite, Sharpei followed behind Bai Yi and his huge body gave off a terrifying pressure.
Though there was a small accident, everyone put it aside very quickly. It was just a monster, what was the big deal? It wasn't like they had never encountered one before. Very quickly, Woolf's long-awaited beef hotpot was prepared, and everyone ate in a circle ravenously. In times like this, there was nothing more important than filling your stomach.
……
Very quickly, they finished their meal and left this place in their cars. More than two hours later, another two cars reached this place and stopped here.
"Team leader, there's a small farm here. The sky is almost dark. Are we going to rest here for the night?" A voice came from the car.
"We'll rest here then, remember to be careful." Another voice sounded, and six people got out of the cars. Of course, the six people were just 'human-like', there were probably very few people who still maintained their original human form now. Excluding the dead, 90% of those who were still alive had probably already fused with genes from other animals.
"Team leader, there seems to be people who were here before… Team leader, team leader! There's a monster here, so much meat!" Suddenly, the person who was sent out to scout the situation shouted in joy and ran over to the spiked lizard's corpse.
"Wait!" The person who was being called team leader immediately stopped the guy nervously.
"What's wrong, team leader?" Luckily, the trust in leader was still not bad, the initially excited guy immediately stopped after hearing his voice.
"Be careful, at a time like this where everyone is starving, don't you find it strange that there would be monster meat leftover?" The leader said and slowly walked towards the lizard corpse.
The group of them walked over and the leader carefully checked over the marks in the surroundings, his eyebrows creasing tighter and tighter.
"What's wrong, team leader?"
"An expert, and this meat probably can't be eaten."
"Look at these marks, very obviously, somebody encountered this monster by the river, but they didn't panic much. And over here, look at these spikes, it fell all over this area but there's just one space within the area that didn't have even a single one. There weren't any other bloodstains in that area too, apparently all the spikes were blocked. There weren't any other signs of battle nearby either, it should mean that in the next moment this monster was slain. What a smooth cut, I'm afraid that person has a very sharp sword in his hands." The leader started deducing from the small details he observed.
"This monster probably has poison…" The leader said as he looked at its tummy area, the huge cavity that Bai Yi cut down.
"Maury, bring the knife, we will cut a piece of its meat too." The leader said to the excited youth.
"But team leader, didn't you say that it was poisoned?"
"It's poisoned, but I'm not making you eat it. This thing might have other uses, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared." The team leader explained. After slicing off a big slab of meat, the team leader casually dug a hole and buried the lizard corpse. If this thing fell into the river, it would probably poison the entire river.
"I can even be sure that the previous team definitely has an excellent chef, not sure how long they've left this place for, but I can still smell a trace of a delicious aroma…" The other guy said as he swallowed his saliva. He then discovered the scraps from the leftover of the hotpot at the corner.
"Hey you, are you saying that my cooking skills aren't good? That the things I make don't taste good?" A rather plump pig-man walked out and said in a low muffled voice.
"It's really not good…"
"Then you do it, I happened to not want this job…" The pig-man immediately gave up his job and quit.
"Hey, how can you be like this? Out of everyone here, only the things you make could barely be considered to be edible. Bastard, don't be arrogant…" The team immediately started to become noisy.
The team leader held his head helplessly. A bunch of idiots, looks like we really have to find a chef now, a real chef. The so-called real chef referred to somebody who could turn these weird ingredients into something delicious. Even people like them would definitely be able to season the food properly, but there weren't any normal ingredients left in New Zealand anymore. If you did not know how to prepare those ingredients, the texture was enough to put you off. After eating the food made by the old pig for a few days, their tongues were almost growing mold.
No, they should say that as long as they weren't poisoned to death, it meant that they had a strong life force!
……
Bai Yi's group didn't know that the scraps they poured into the corner from their hotpot resulted in an internal conflict for another team, if they knew, they probably would've burst out laughing.
By now, they had already reached Taumarunui.
Taumarunui was located at the confluence of Whanganui River and Ongarue River. The scenery was very beautiful, and Bai Yi had even brought Momo here to ski during Waikato University's holiday last year. Now, however,, the city in the late afternoon was completely lifeless. The remnants of the snow only revealed the biting cold and dead silence.
"Let's go and find a place to rest inside the city while the sky hasn't darkened yet." Bai Yi said.
The city now wasn't chaotic like how New Zealand had been when the changes first started happening, and they also weren't completely powerless like how they'd been at the start.
Bai Yi drove the car to the edge of the city and stopped at a coffee shop called The Flax Café. The last time Bai Yi was here, he'd visited this café and the coffee here was quite good. Moreover, the coffee shop wasn't too big, and with the few of them it was just right for resting. Not too far away, they could see a gas station. Although it was damaged, they still hoped that they could find some gas there. Otherwise, their cars wouldn't be able to move anymore.
"Bai Yi, what're you looking for?" Sara looked at Bai Yi searching the café and couldn't help but ask.
"The last time I came here I got along really well with Yoshimoto. He said he had some treasured civet coffee that he never could never bring himself to drink. Ah, I found it…!" Bai Yi said, and his tone suddenly became heavy. The last time he drank coffee here, the surroundings was still so comfortable and serene. Now though, the shop was still here, but the people were long gone. Yoshimoto didn't even bring his treasured coffee away; the chances were high that he had met with some mishap.
Chapter 53: Hunting
Nothing much happened that night, and everyone prepared to set off in the morning after washing up. The only incident was how Woolf's toothbrush became quite useless. He held the toothbrush in his hands, not knowing how to go about brushing his huge terrifying alligator-like mouth.
"Damn it!" In the end he got angry for no reason and smashed the tap.
Irritable!
Bai Yi looked at Woolf and observed his actions. Woolf was being slightly irritable lately, was it because there was too much stress lately, or perhaps… Anyway, this was a problem. As their bodies grew bigger, the daily items they usually used became unsuitable for their body size and shape. For example, for Woolf it was not only the toothbrush but even his clothes were made out of a few pieces of clothing sewn together.
"Come on, calm down and just roughly washup. We need to set off soon." Bai Yi patted Woolf's back and said.
"En, got it." Woolf nodded and some of his irritability gradually faded away.
Bai Yi saw that Woolf had calmed down and didn't say anything more, but a slight wariness slowly grew in his heart. The naming of the phases by the researchers weren't just for fun, an important criterion for being a researcher was being realistic and practical. If LV1-1 meant binge eating in the Binging Phase, then the violence in LV1-2 Brutal Phase would definitely appear as well.
……
Along the way, no other monsters appeared, and they smoothly drove along the road to enter the next city. They encountered a few car accidents along the way, but it became completely normal to them by now. The moment they entered the edge of the city, the sky started to drizzle and caused the entire Te Kuiti to appear extremely shady.
Te Kuiti was located in a small basin surrounded by small hills. Due to the geographical limitations of this place, it was also not a big city.
It was very quiet; the four cars gradually drove through Te Kuiti and they didn't even find the slightest trace of any living things. Not only were there no evolved lifeforms, but there weren't even any signs of humans.
"Weird, there shouldn't be any experimental monsters in Te Kuiti? There aren't any signs of large-scale destruction either, where's everybody?" Sara asked through the communicator.
"This is a city! It's normal to have nobody around." Bai Yi replied.
"Why? Shouldn't there be more people in a city?"
"That… was in the past. A normal city definitely has more people, but it is different now. Due to the Binging Phase, all the food was rapidly consumed so there's nobody left in the city now."
"Let me put it this way, a normal city is usually made up of consumers and not producers. For the sake of keeping food fresh, food is kept flowing and circulating. Normally, all the food stock in a city won't be kept for more than a week."
"A week? So short?" Sara was not the only one surprised and the rest of them also made sounds of disbelief through the communicator.
"I've seen the things in the supermarket many times before, it doesn't seem like it's only sufficient for a week?" Heloise also added.
"That's why I said food stock inside a city is kept flowing. The abundance of food you guys see normally is because food is constantly being imported and replenished from outside, such as from farms and gardens. However, it is different now. New Zealand underwent a great change and this supply chain had long been disrupted. Without the replenishment from outside, the city is just purely a steel forest. Even the dumbest person would gradually leave this place when they find that there's no more food to be found in the city. They would head for places like the rural farms, croplands, and even the forest where humans do not usually visit."
"Hence, that is why the city is this quiet now. There's definitely still people remaining here, but it won't be many." Bai Yi concluded.
"So that's what happened, it's like that."
"But Bai Yi, I really couldn't tell, but you really know a lot, huh?" The latter half of Sara's sentence caused her true colours to be shown, casually teasing Bai Yi.
"I'm a chef, I just know some things related to food." Bai Yi said nonchalantly.
What Bai Yi didn't say was that this city just appeared to be quiet on the surface. Now that order had completely broken down in New Zealand, nobody knew what was happening underneath. There were a lot of records detailing what happened during famines in ancient China.
Since they didn't encounter anything along the way, they didn't stop in this city but continued onto the next city.
The next city was Taumarunui; the city was really far away, as far as the distance from Hamilton to Te Kuiti. Moreover, this path wasn't like the one they'd taken previously where there were cities in between to replenish their supplies. Fortunately, along the way there were various households and small farms.
……
"Martin, help me stop it! This guy can feed us for a few days!" Woolf shouted and chased after an ancient beast-like 'cow'.
All the living things in New Zealand got infected with the activated cells and their body size grew greatly. However, just like Bai Yi said, the 'common sense' these creatures had of their bodies previously impeded their ability to display their true power. For animals like cows, goats and horses, even though they grew greatly to become like monsters, a portion of them still remained on the farm and grazed on the grass.
Of course, it was difficult to find livestock now, most had already run off or were already caught and eaten by humans.
The cow that Woolf was chasing was 3 meters tall, with a pair of thin wings on its back just like that of a warble fly. Even though it had wings, it was still completely unable to fly and ran around on the ground as usual. However, the limbs of this cow became rather strange and its leaping ability evolved to become extremely outstanding. One leap could bring it more than 10 meters into the air, so it could move around rapidly in the meter plus tall grass field.
Seeing Martin standing in front of it, the cow didn't attack Martin but powerfully kicked with its back legs and 'flew' over the top of Martin's head in the tall grass. Although it couldn't fly, it still subconsciously opened its wings by a bit, and there were even signs of gliding.
Martin saw the cow flying over him and thought to grab onto its hooves, but he immediately lost courage looking at that gigantic body.
"Hey! Fuck, no wonder this guy still remained here, I'm so tired." Woolf tripped and fell down in the thick grass, planting his face into the grass patch and eating a mouthful of it.
"Bai Yi, let's just use the guns. We really can't catch it!" Woolf shouted to Bai Yi from the other side.
To let everyone familiarize themselves with their changed bodies, Bai Yi instructed them to use their own bodies to hunt and not use guns as much as possible. This was the fastest way for them to get used to their new bodies.
Bai Yi glanced over after hearing Woolf's voice and didn't say anything. In reality, with the strength of Martin and Woolf's bodies now, they could completely hunt this 'not too threatening' cow bare-handed. However, Woolf and Martin's common sense were still restricting them, so they were still quite timid and hesitant to take action. If not, Martin could have easily dragged the cow down from the air just now.
"Continue, the mission you guys have today is to hunt this cow. Be careful not to touch its blood, unless you want to merge with its genes." Bai Yi did not accede to Woolf's request.
Woolf and Martin looked at Bai Yi's expression and knew that there was no room for negotiation, they had no choice but to continue chasing the cow. Unknowingly, the cow very quickly ran to a distant place, Woolf and Martin also disappeared inside the underbrush and shrubbery.
"Hong Qi Hua, go give them a hand." Bai Yi said.
"En!" Hong Qi Hua nodded and jumped down gracefully like a cat, landing without a sound. She then rapidly ran out towards them.
Cat's gracefulness!
Very quickly, Hong Qi Hua caught up with the two of them. Judging by the direction they were running in, she quickly found a large tree, easily climbed up and ran along the branches. While running, her eyes that had become incomparably sharp mapped her surrounding situation. Not only was she observing the humans and cow running below, but also everything that was happening on the large tree.
An insect with wings and sharp teeth suddenly shot out towards her from underneath a leaf while she was running, however her short knife was already moving through the air.
With an almost inaudible 'chi!', the insect split into halves and she lightly jumped down from the branch. At this moment, the evolved cow just happened to run below the branch as well. As though a real cat, Hong Qi Hua nimbly landed on the head of the cow. At the same time when her body crouched down slightly, two short knives sliced across both its eyes.
"MOOOO…!" A booming cry shocked their ears.
Hong Qi Hua completely ignored the cow's cries as she agilely ran across its back and landed on the floor. After landing on the floor, her hands rapidly moved for a moment and the two knives left several afterimages in the air. The blood that was on the knives was all completely flung off of them. Hong Qi Hua then sheathed both knives back into the sheaths on her back on either side.
"Hong Qi Hua, why are you here?"
"Uncle Bai said that the forest is too dangerous to us now, so he asked me to come help you guys. Let's hurry up. Kill this guy and rush back." Hong Qi Hua said and did not continue helping them. If they couldn't even handle a blinded mutated cow, then it was really not doing justice to the training that Bai Yi had made them go through during this period.
"Really! Making you help again, let me show you!" Woolf rushed forward, holding that frightening greatsword in his hands.
Chapter 54: Fishing
Over 10 minutes later, Martin and Woolf dragged the giant mutated cow back to the edge of the small farm.
Little Warner stood at the side very excitedly. He was now already at the height of an adult male, with a body that was as round as a fat pig. However, his strength now couldn't be underestimated, and his body was very agile as well. Other than the pig and cow genes, Little Warner followed Hong Qi Hua in everything, even including her battle style. However, he was still very young, so Bai Yi had no intention of letting him participate in battle, just that he still underwent training normally.
Although everyone understood what Bai Yi said previously to not be restricted by their common sense, the ones that managed to do it the best were still Bai Yi and Hong Qi Hua.
Just like Heloise said, maybe some people were just more suited to certain environments and times.
"You guys worked hard!" Bai Yi said to the few of them.
"En." Hong Qi Hua replied plainly.
"Bai Yi, how about we eat beef hotpot today? I remember that we found some hotpot seasoning last time!" Woolf said excitedly.
"Ok!" Bai Yi smiled and nodded. A packet of hotpot seasoning was definitely not enough for everyone to eat, so he still had to season the base himself.
After nearly three days, they were finally approaching Taumarunui. However, more than half the time was spent on searching for food, cooking and resting, so the time used for travelling wasn't that much in comparison. This couldn't be helped as well. Bai Yi's body healed at an abnormally slow pace, so they couldn't afford for him to become travel-worn. Moreover, during the Binging Phase, food had to always be ready, or else it wouldn't be just an issue of getting hungry faster.
They didn't have a fixed time for meals now; they just prepared food whenever they got hungry. So, the group of them didn't wait for mealtime, and while the cow was still fresh they started to prepare their meal.
Bai Yi already had no problems moving about now, as the abnormally slow speed of recovery was only in comparison to Woolf and the others. Compared to normal people before the change, it was actually many times faster.
The road to Taumarunui was built along the Whanganui River, which was downstream from the Waipa River. The small farm that they stopped at was right beside this river. Bai Yi prepared the food on an open patch of ground while Sara and Heloise helped out. Hong Qi Hua went to ask Mavis about things regarding medical expertise, while Momo rode on top of Sharpei as they ran around nearby, playing their hearts out.
"See, what did I say, this thing would definitely be useful!" Martin searched the container inside the truck for awhile and took out a fishing rod, showing off to Woolf.
"To think of it, it has been so long since I ate fish. There should be a lot in this river, right?" Woolf said.
"There used to a lot of fish, but I don't know about now." Martin said and the two of them headed to the edge of the river. There wasn't any fish bait around here, so the two of them took some cow organs that Bai Yi had taken out just now as bait.
"Anyway, what fishing rod is this? Would this kind of fishing rod be useful now?" Woolf suddenly asked when Martin was preparing the bait.
"You don't know how great my fishing skill is."
"There're no more normal animals left in New Zealand, I doubt that you can catch a fish using this fishing rod!" Woolf was surprisingly smart for once and ran back towards the truck. Woolf suddenly recalled that there was a 3-meter-long steel bar inside the truck as well as a roll of steel wire. After struggling for a while, Woolf carried his 'fishing rod' back to Martin and winked at him in glee.
"To fish in New Zealand now, you have to use something like this!" Woolf said extremely pleased with himself.
"Tch, you think you can get a fish like that?" Martin saw the so-called fishing rod and jibed.
Bai Yi and the rest were closeby and didn't know whether to laugh or cry looking at their actions. Did they really want to fish? What kind of fish were they intending to catch, sharks? Very quickly, this caught the attention of Momo as well and she rode Sharpei over to Martin and Woolf's side.
"Is there any fish here? Didn't Bai Yi say that many animals died because they started to eat each other due to the Binging Phase last time?" Staring at the fishing float for a long time, Woolf finally couldn't take it anymore. He didn't have that much patience.
"What do you think you're fishing for? Even in normal times fishing isn't so fast!" Martin retorted and waved his right hand, gesturing for Woolf to go play somewhere else. Suddenly, Martin felt his left arm shake as an enormous strength transmitted from the fishing rod.
"It took the bait!" Martin shouted excitedly and tried to raise the fishing rod.
With a 'Pa!', just like Woolf said, a slight tug was enough to snap the fishing line. At this moment, Woolf also felt tension in his hands and started to pull his steel bar.
"What did I say, your lousy fishing rod can never get any fish!" Woolf said gleefully while exerting his strength to pull the steel bar.
"Fuck, it's so strong! Come help me!" Woolf said and the two of them joined forces to pull the steel bar. At this moment, the steel wire was already completely taut.
Suddenly, the tension disappeared and the two of them fell back onto the floor. At this moment, the surface of the river broke with loud splashes and a giant head raised itself up. The head was kind of sharp, and along its back grew multi-coloured sharp spikes like that of a porcupine. Purplish-black patterns circled its mouth and extended all the way down its body. Above the surface of the water was an upper body roughly the size of a car tire. However, the fish's body seemed to be very long, and they didn't know how much of it was hidden underneath.
Coloured Poison Spike Lizard! (TN: I'm not too sure what this is either, I suspect it may be a thorny dragon? So yeah I went with a more literal translation. It's彩纹毒刺蜥 for any curious souls. Or it could be a fictional creature, i mean, this is a fictional story.)
"Hsss……!" The spiked lizard opened its mouth wide and hissed fiercely. There was still a giant 'fish hook' stuck to its mouth, and its cold vicious eyes stared at Martin, Woolf and Momo.
Martin and Woolf were completely stunned.
"Fuck why did you want to fish, see what you caught!" Woolf immediately pushed away the responsibility guiltlessly.
"You caught that thing, what has it got to do with me!" Martin instantly retorted.
Momo was rooted to the spot in fear from the beast that suddenly appeared from the water, but Sharpei reacted the moment the spiked lizard appeared. Sharpei immediately tensed its body and shot out viciously. Before the beast could react, Sharpei's sharp claws brutally swiped across its nose.
"Hss, Hss…!" All the spikes on the lizard's body instantly erected and at this moment, Sharpei already hopped away and rapidly dodged.
Although they were blaming each other, Woolf and Martin's movements weren't slow at all. Martin immediately ran towards Momo by the side. Momo was the flesh of Bai Yi's heart (TN: means really loved, hurting her would mean hurting the person's heart.), if anything happened to her then Bai Yi might just murder the both of them. Woolf held the steel bar in his hand and stabbed it towards the spiked lizard. Both of them didn't bring along the weapons, nobody knew that something like this would happen.
The spiked lizard was also fuming. It was initially extremely hungry and bit the piece of meat after smelling blood. Who knew that it would get caught on the hook, and the moment it came out of the water it got clawed on its nose! Just from looking at the wound you could tell that it was very deep.
The spiked lizard hissed again; its body paused for a moment, then pounced towards Sharpei. At this moment, its full body was finally revealed. It was just like a lizard with four legs. Its body wasn't big, but the tail was very long, roughly 6-7 meters in length. Many coloured spikes adorned its back as well.
At this moment, Bai Yi and the rest of them who were nearby also discovered the commotion. They immediately threw down whatever they were doing and ran towards the lizard.
Sharpei saw the coloured spikes on the back on the lizard and knew that he definitely couldn't touch those. When the spiked lizard pounced, Sharpei immediately dodged nimbly, waiting for his chance to counterattack.
At this time, Woolf had already fiercely stabbed the steel bar towards the spiked lizard. It then curled its body up and those spikes abruptly closed onto itself. Woolf's steel bar rammed into it and immediately slid off its body. So slippery…a phrase rose in Woolf's heart and at that instant the spiked lizard opened up its spikes again. Due to Woolf miscalculating his actions, his body was about to slam into the spikes.
At this moment, Bai Yi rapidly dashed from the other side and rammed into Woolf. Woolf got knocked to the side but Bai Yi himself went onto the path of slamming into those poisoned spikes.
Looking at the colourful spikes, Bai Yi could guess how potent its poison was. At this moment, Bai Yi could very clearly see the poison spikes on its body swell slightly and become even more colorful, glistening.
Damn it!
Bai Yi raised the broadsword in his right hand and his left hand still held onto the kitchen knife that he was using to prepare the cow. His focus was incomparably sharp at this point and as expected, in the next moment those poisoned spikes burst out from its body like arrows. The soft fur around Bai Yi's eyes trembled a few times and his irises contracted, pushing his concentration to the limit.
Bai Yi's body twisted slightly and both blades in his hands waved rapidly, almost forming a whole series of afterimages. Countless 'ding' and 'dang's sounded and after a few seconds, Bai Yi stopped with his body twisted into an awkward position. Beside him was over a hundred colored spikes on the floor.
The spiked lizard still thought of doing something, but Bai Yi's body fiercely snapped back, and at the same time the broadsword cut down brutally.
Bai Yi exerted his strength and the broadsword hacked through the neck of the spiked lizard. With a 'puchi!', multi-coloured blood sprayed out from its neck and Bai Yi instantly jumped back and dodged. After its head was chopped off, the body of the lizard flailed for a few moments and gradually stopped moving.
At this time, everyone looked at the corpse and looked at each other in dismay.
"Bring your weapons along with you next time, no matter what!" Bai Yi said to Woolf and Martin.
"Yes!" The two of them immediately stood at attention. Although Bai Yi's tone wasn't heavy, but everyone could tell the furious undertone in his voice. Bai Yi emphasized this many times. New Zealand was very dangerous now, nobody knew when danger would appear, so they had to be prepared at all times.
Chapter 55: Taumarunui
"But you guys did not do bad this time, it was a stroke of luck but fortunately we managed to catch this guy. Otherwise, it would have been really dangerous to just let it hide in ambush near us." Bai Yi said.
"Bai Yi, are we going to keep this lizard for food?" Woolf said.
Bai Yi looked over the flesh of the spiked lizard and saw that it was bright red. However, he adjusted his angle so that it would be against the Sun and saw the fluids containing a tinge of purplish light. Meat could of course be consumed, and the nutritional value would be very high as well. However, this meat couldn't possibly be prepared through normal means, if they didn't want to be poisoned to death.
"No, there's poison in this. If it were before then perhaps I would have the interest to try and prepare and neutralise the poison, but we don't have that time now." Bai Yi said as he used his broadsword to flip the lizard over. He then split open its tummy, then cut off a few organs and roughly a meter-long stretch of meat.
"Didn't you say that it's inedible?"
"This thing can't be eaten, but I want to try and see how can I prepare and neutralise the poison in this meat. Nobody knows what we will encounter in the future. Who knows, maybe this can stave off hunger when we have no food left. Remember well, don't take the wrong food in the future!" Bai Yi said to everyone.
"En." Everyone nodded, and Bai Yi placed the poisoned meat inside a metal container.
Bai Yi returned to Momo's side and found that Momo was still trembling, but she still brought out her short sword and grabbed it tightly in her hands. Due to an excessively tight grip, her small hands had already turned white. Seeing Bai Yi walk over, Momo immediately raised her head and look at him, her eyes containing fear and grievance.
Bai Yi squatted down and gently caressed Momo's little tense face, revealing a small smile.
Under Bai Yi's consolement, Momo's tense body gradually relaxed and her unfocused eyes gradually came back into focus. She then immediately jumped into Bai Yi's arms and wailed loudly. Momo almost stabbed Bai Yi with her indiscriminate sword, and after Bai Yi carefully grabbed hold of her sword, he patted her on her back.
"En, cry as much as you want."
Bai Yi had always been emphasizing during this period that New Zealand became extremely dangerous, so everyone had to be prepared to face danger at any time. What was important to know was that, when facing the danger, the only one who could protect you at the very last moment was only yourself. This was the first time Momo had faced such a fierce monster directly. The fact that she could still remember his words and draw her sword was already very good. One must know that Momo was still only four years old.
"Bai Yi…!" Woolf and Martin wanted to explain themselves, but Bai Yi just shook his head at them.
Bai Yi wasn't angry. You could even say that he was slightly happy, since Momo had to take that step eventually. Although it was quite dangerous this time, at least nothing bad happened in the end. When Momo calmed down, Bai Yi brought Momo back to Sharpei's side. Now Sharpei was already a meter tall standing up straight, looking extremely sinister.
Bai Yi saw that Sharpei's right paw had some bloodstains. It wasn't his own, but from when the spiked lizard just appeared from the water and Sharpei clawed its nose.
The genes that Sharpei fused with now were 1. Slug, 2. Ant and 3. Hummingbird. These were the genes that Bai Yi had decided for Sharpei, and now Sharpei probably fused with its fourth type of genes. It was just that they didn't know what the monster's original genes were. Hopefully it wasn't too lousy.
Bai Yi patted Sharpei on its head, the muscles that burst out from underneath its split skin were rather rough to the touch, but they also felt very tough.
As the group walked back towards their campsite, Sharpei followed behind Bai Yi and his huge body gave off a terrifying pressure.
Though there was a small accident, everyone put it aside very quickly. It was just a monster, what was the big deal? It wasn't like they had never encountered one before. Very quickly, Woolf's long-awaited beef hotpot was prepared, and everyone ate in a circle ravenously. In times like this, there was nothing more important than filling your stomach.
……
Very quickly, they finished their meal and left this place in their cars. More than two hours later, another two cars reached this place and stopped here.
"Team leader, there's a small farm here. The sky is almost dark. Are we going to rest here for the night?" A voice came from the car.
"We'll rest here then, remember to be careful." Another voice sounded, and six people got out of the cars. Of course, the six people were just 'human-like', there were probably very few people who still maintained their original human form now. Excluding the dead, 90% of those who were still alive had probably already fused with genes from other animals.
"Team leader, there seems to be people who were here before… Team leader, team leader! There's a monster here, so much meat!" Suddenly, the person who was sent out to scout the situation shouted in joy and ran over to the spiked lizard's corpse.
"Wait!" The person who was being called team leader immediately stopped the guy nervously.
"What's wrong, team leader?" Luckily, the trust in leader was still not bad, the initially excited guy immediately stopped after hearing his voice.
"Be careful, at a time like this where everyone is starving, don't you find it strange that there would be monster meat leftover?" The leader said and slowly walked towards the lizard corpse.
The group of them walked over and the leader carefully checked over the marks in the surroundings, his eyebrows creasing tighter and tighter.
"What's wrong, team leader?"
"An expert, and this meat probably can't be eaten."
"Look at these marks, very obviously, somebody encountered this monster by the river, but they didn't panic much. And over here, look at these spikes, it fell all over this area but there's just one space within the area that didn't have even a single one. There weren't any other bloodstains in that area too, apparently all the spikes were blocked. There weren't any other signs of battle nearby either, it should mean that in the next moment this monster was slain. What a smooth cut, I'm afraid that person has a very sharp sword in his hands." The leader started deducing from the small details he observed.
"This monster probably has poison…" The leader said as he looked at its tummy area, the huge cavity that Bai Yi cut down.
"Maury, bring the knife, we will cut a piece of its meat too." The leader said to the excited youth.
"But team leader, didn't you say that it was poisoned?"
"It's poisoned, but I'm not making you eat it. This thing might have other uses, and it doesn't hurt to be prepared." The team leader explained. After slicing off a big slab of meat, the team leader casually dug a hole and buried the lizard corpse. If this thing fell into the river, it would probably poison the entire river.
"I can even be sure that the previous team definitely has an excellent chef, not sure how long they've left this place for, but I can still smell a trace of a delicious aroma…" The other guy said as he swallowed his saliva. He then discovered the scraps from the leftover of the hotpot at the corner.
"Hey you, are you saying that my cooking skills aren't good? That the things I make don't taste good?" A rather plump pig-man walked out and said in a low muffled voice.
"It's really not good…"
"Then you do it, I happened to not want this job…" The pig-man immediately gave up his job and quit.
"Hey, how can you be like this? Out of everyone here, only the things you make could barely be considered to be edible. Bastard, don't be arrogant…" The team immediately started to become noisy.
The team leader held his head helplessly. A bunch of idiots, looks like we really have to find a chef now, a real chef. The so-called real chef referred to somebody who could turn these weird ingredients into something delicious. Even people like them would definitely be able to season the food properly, but there weren't any normal ingredients left in New Zealand anymore. If you did not know how to prepare those ingredients, the texture was enough to put you off. After eating the food made by the old pig for a few days, their tongues were almost growing mold.
No, they should say that as long as they weren't poisoned to death, it meant that they had a strong life force!
……
Bai Yi's group didn't know that the scraps they poured into the corner from their hotpot resulted in an internal conflict for another team, if they knew, they probably would've burst out laughing.
By now, they had already reached Taumarunui.
Taumarunui was located at the confluence of Whanganui River and Ongarue River. The scenery was very beautiful, and Bai Yi had even brought Momo here to ski during Waikato University's holiday last year. Now, however,, the city in the late afternoon was completely lifeless. The remnants of the snow only revealed the biting cold and dead silence.
"Let's go and find a place to rest inside the city while the sky hasn't darkened yet." Bai Yi said.
The city now wasn't chaotic like how New Zealand had been when the changes first started happening, and they also weren't completely powerless like how they'd been at the start.
Bai Yi drove the car to the edge of the city and stopped at a coffee shop called The Flax Café. The last time Bai Yi was here, he'd visited this café and the coffee here was quite good. Moreover, the coffee shop wasn't too big, and with the few of them it was just right for resting. Not too far away, they could see a gas station. Although it was damaged, they still hoped that they could find some gas there. Otherwise, their cars wouldn't be able to move anymore.
"Bai Yi, what're you looking for?" Sara looked at Bai Yi searching the café and couldn't help but ask.
"The last time I came here I got along really well with Yoshimoto. He said he had some treasured civet coffee that he never could never bring himself to drink. Ah, I found it…!" Bai Yi said, and his tone suddenly became heavy. The last time he drank coffee here, the surroundings was still so comfortable and serene. Now though, the shop was still here, but the people were long gone. Yoshimoto didn't even bring his treasured coffee away; the chances were high that he had met with some mishap.
