"If I ever gamble with you again, I'll chop it off!"
At dinner time, Lux hugged his lunchbox and shoveled instant noodles mixed with soaked rice into his mouth, muttering resentfully.
Because most of the food in the fridge had already spoiled, and nobody wanted to live on tasteless plain rice afterward, MDR suggested cooking a pot of instant noodles as a side dish. Everyone happily agreed to change things up.
After losing all day, Lux had more or less figured it out. HK416 and UMP45 had extremely strong computational abilities. Basically, the moment they got their hands, they started deducing the others' cards. As more cards were played, their guesses became increasingly accurate—meaning Lux was practically playing with his hand face-up the whole time.
As for Lianne, her IQ was as high as 168. Just from Lux's expression when he drew his cards, she could tell whether his hand was good or trash.
Playing against these three, he had absolutely no advantage. Today he had been completely crushed… and on top of that, his body had been touched all over by them. For a man, this was practically the greatest humiliation imaginable. It felt like all the power dynamics had been completely reversed.
"No! You can't! Commander, you absolutely can't do that! Next time, I won't let you gamble again!"
HK416 said seriously.
"I was just joking… don't take it seriously."
Lux looked at the overly serious HK416 with a headache.
"That scared me… Commander, don't make jokes like that."
HK416 relaxed and patted her chest.
"Well, I think I'll be mostly recovered by tomorrow. After we take the grain from the granary, let's head to Walmart."
Lux said while eating.
"Before that, I think we should go to a pharmacy. Once someone gets injured, it'll seriously slow the team down. Our physiques haven't evolved like yours, Brother Lux—we can only recover slowly through medication."
"And after this, we won't be able to get vegetables anymore. We should take vitamin tablets every few days. A vitamin deficiency could even be life-threatening."
"Lux's spatial ability is probably one of the best abilities in this apocalypse. As long as we have enough combat power, we can easily collect supplies that'll last us several years within the first month."
Lianne made her suggestion.
"That works. We'll need to go to a pharmacy sooner or later anyway."
Lux nodded. Although HK416 had a medical module and refreshed one selectable medicine every day, Lux mostly chose hemostatic spray or painkillers—things directly related to survival.
Vitamins were more like daily necessities. Stocking up on them wouldn't hurt.
"Commander, the fuel in the van is running low too. We should probably stop by a gas station. We can manage one round trip at most. Your call?"
UMP45 reminded him cheerfully.
"Let's go to the pharmacy first. At the gas station I want to pump a lot of fuel to store, which will probably take a few days. If we delay the pharmacy by even one day, we might lose a lot of medicine."
"No objections. You're the commander—you decide."
"Oh right, Bunny, I wanted to ask—can you use other sniper rifles?"
Lux asked M99, who was packing her backpack.
"I can use them, but I'm not as proficient as with my engraved weapon. Long-range accuracy might drop a bit."
"That's fine. I'm planning to get you a VSS. It's a sniper rifle specialized for special operations, very quiet. That way, you can usually join the fight too."
M99's current anti-materiel sniper rifle produced massive noise when firing. In a city, one shot meant you had to immediately run. That was why Lux had always limited her combat opportunities.
Earlier, while browsing redeemable items in the system, Lux found a category called suppressed weapons.
Most of them were pistols, and UMP45 was listed among them.
Compared to completely silent compound bows and crossbows, the VSS sniper rifle cost 7,000 resource points and had an effective range of about 400 meters. With it, M99 could serve as a key combat unit without being hindered by noise.
If they could clear out a high-rise building near Walmart and provide M99 with enough ammunition, they could drastically reduce the number of zombies around the supermarket, significantly improving everyone's safety.
"A VSS? Sure, I can use it. It can even function like a submachine sniper. The difficulty isn't that high."
M99 nodded confidently.
"Then it's settled."
---
Early the next morning, HK416 removed the bandages from Lux's leg. The wound, which had shown granulation tissue yesterday, was now completely covered by a layer of pale pink new muscle. Lux tried moving around and didn't feel any stiffness at all.
Led by UMP45, Lux arrived in front of a massive warehouse. The old padlock on the door had already been cut open with hydraulic cutters. When the warehouse doors were pushed open, endless stacks of bagged rice filled the entire space. Lux couldn't help but feel excited.
With this batch of grain, their future settlement would never worry about food.
Based on his previous appetite, he only ate about ten kilograms of rice per month.
The amount of grain in this warehouse was enough to support a settlement of tens of thousands of people mining resources for him in exchange for resource points.
In the apocalypse, food was no less valuable than gold or silver.
"Alright, 416, stay here and help me keep watch. The rest of you can go back to the dorms and get some sleep. I'll need some time to store all this grain in my storage space."
Lux said calmly.
He had to physically touch items to store them in the system space. With millions of bags of rice, it would take hours. There was no need for everyone to wait here.
Everyone left obediently. Lux tapped the ground with his toes and leaped three meters into the air, landing lightly on top of a small mountain formed by the rice bags. He then rapidly stored bag after bag into his storage space.
"Huh? Lux, you seem even stronger now?"
HK416 asked happily from below. The stronger Lux was, the safer everyone would be, so seeing him surpass human limits made her very happy.
"Yeah, I exchanged for a basic internal energy skill in the system. It's like a kind of aura circulating inside my body. When it runs, I feel lighter and stronger."
Lux explained with a smile.
In less than five minutes, one cubic meter of bagged rice was stored away—but compared to the entire warehouse, it was barely a drop in the ocean.
Lux plunged back into the sea of rice, while HK416 followed closely behind, chatting with him from time to time to pass the time.