Chapter 220 Trouble Knocks at the Door

Leonard Adams looked at a small grocery store with an open door, 98 feet away, and involuntarily licked his chapped lips.

He scanned his surroundings. There were a few skeletons draped in rags within his line of sight. Occasionally, the shadow of a zombie would stagger by in the distance.

A seven-story residential building was further away. One of the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor had a large hole in it, and a climbing rope dangled from inside. Tied to the end of the rope was a person, swaying in the wind between the buildings, occasionally hitting an air conditioning unit with a thud.

Down below, zombies occasionally looked up, searching for the source of the sound, their hollow nostrils sniffing desperately, unwilling to miss any potential food.

There was some noise in the small grocery store, indicating danger. Although this was just a small town next to Accraville City, it still had tens of thousands of permanent residents and a fairly decent small hospital.

Leonard felt a bit aggrieved as he thought about it. If he hadn't come to this hospital to give a lecture to the medical staff, he wouldn't be trapped here.

Leonard felt very pessimistic as he thought about his family in Accraville City. The survival problem in front of him was significant. If he couldn't find food and water soon, he wouldn't last more than three days.

His body was already very weak.

He decided to go in. He had no choice. His strength would be completely depleted by tomorrow, and by then, there would be even less hope of finding food.

Bending over, Leonard, the youngest surgical professor from Accraville City, dashed into the grocery store.

The room was dark, emitting a faint stench that post-apocalyptic survivors were all too familiar with—the smell of decaying corpses.

Leonard glanced around, but didn't spot any immediate danger. The noise from earlier had stopped. He couldn't afford to worry about anything else because, just 6 feet away on a shelf, there were several boxes of cookies. Even though they were covered in dust, Leonard recognized them immediately.

He lunged for them. They were his lifeline.

Suddenly, a voice said, "Another one has taken the bait."

A hand grabbed the back of Leonard's neck and forcefully dragged him away from the shelf. At that moment, Leonard's fingertips were only inches away from the boxes of cookies.

Leonard was thrown to the ground. Due to hunger and the force of the throw, his head spun for a few seconds. When the world stopped spinning, he felt a hand searching his body.

A voice cursed, "Fuck, not a single Magic Crystal?" 

Then Leonard saw that the person who had knocked him down was a burly man, at least 6 feet tall, with a beard and a foul odor.

Yancy Bailey slapped Leonard without a word when he saw him looking at him, the sound echoing in the small grocery store.

Yancy cursed again, "Poor bastard, not a single Magic Crystal. How have you survived this long?"

Leonard felt his face swell rapidly, affecting his vision on that side.

He curled up, hugging his head. He had nothing left. He had once had Magic Crystals but had traded them with a convoy for food. The people in that convoy were decent; he had treated some of their wounds and they had even given him an extra bottle of water.

Since he had nothing worth coveting, a beating was inevitable.

However, Leonard didn't feel the hard punches he was expecting even though he waited for them . Through the gaps between his arms and head, he saw a stick coming down hard.

His body instinctively lunged toward Yancy, causing the stick to hit the ground and knocking Yancy away. Enduring the pain, Leonard propped himself up with one hand and slashed at Yancy's neck with the other.

Although it was just a few simple moves, it left Leonard gasping for breath. He leaned against the cold wall of the grocery store and watched as Yancy knelt on the other side, hands clutching his neck but unable to stop the spurting blood.

Leonard wasn't a killer, but he was a very skilled surgical professor. It wasn't difficult to kill if he was desperate enough. A 0.3-inch cut in the carotid artery was enough to kill Yancy. 

Suddenly, he heard a voice. "Looks like you don't need my help."

Startled, Leonard stood up in a panic, holding his small scalpel, and saw a young man standing in a corner of the grocery store.

"You're a doctor, right?" the young man said, glancing at the bloodstain on the scalpel and then at Yancy, who was about to become a corpse. "You must be a pretty good one."

"Let's go." The young man turned and walked out, a white Warblade strapped to his back.

As Leonard watched the figure leave the grocery store, he hesitated and asked, "Where?"

The young man said, "A place where doctors can get a meal. Oh, and bring those boxes of cookies. Maybe you can trade them for a woman later."

Four people sat around a room with windows tightly barred with steel rods, their faces full of skepticism.

A skinny man scratched Leonard's face, expressing doubt about the news he had just heard. "Are you serious? Someone's really buying scrap metal?"

Someone explained, "Of course. You know the Black-clad Convoy, right? They brought the news. A lot of people around here know about it now. Apparently, a new group has arrived at Cloud Peak Manor, and they're specifically collecting abandoned vehicles. I heard someone traded a junk car for a loaf of bread the size of a fist!"

"Why do I feel like that's too good to be true?" another person questioned. Such good fortune was rare even in peacetime, let alone during the apocalypse.

A voice suggested, "Why don't we just go check it out? There are abandoned cars everywhere. We'll find one that works, drive it over, and see if we can sell it. Even if it's a scam, we won't lose anything."

"Alright, let's do it. Let's go find a car," someone agreed. 

"Mr. Walker, are you serious?" a middle-aged man asked, looking at Yves suspiciously, followed by a dozen ragged, emaciated people.

Yves sat in his car, speaking to the middle-aged man through the window. "We knew each other before, and there's some goodwill between us. In the apocalypse, that goodwill increases when we trade for food. Why would I lie to you about this? Cloud Peak Manor really does need people. It's even better if you have skills. The pay is good. If you don't have skills but you have strength, you might not always be full, but you won't starve. Isn't that better than your current situation? It's only been a few days, and you've already lost four or five people since I last saw you. Right now, you can still trade Magic Crystals with us for food. But as your numbers dwindle, what will you do when you can't kill zombies anymore? I'm offering you a way out. Think about it."

The middle-aged man nodded repeatedly. "Alright, we'll take your advice and try our luck at Cloud Peak."

"Remember to say I sent you when you get there," Yves reminded him.

As the group eagerly headed toward Cloud Peak, one of Yves' subordinates couldn't help but ask, "Mr. Walker, what do you think Cloud Peak Manor is up to? Everyone else is struggling to survive, but they need more people? And a lot of people at that. It just seems so strange."

Yves smiled. "That's why you're just a driver and not a big shot."

When Yves saw his subordinate's embarrassed smile, he said seriously, "The leader of the Cloud Peak Manor has big ambitions. Compared to him, we're on a different level. So it's normal not to understand his actions. We just need to do our jobs and gain some benefits. As for the future, Let's watch and see what they're really up to."

As news about a new base spread across the land, the leader of the base was participating in a surgery.

Leonard's gloves were stained red with blood, and his usually steady hands were trembling slightly.

He had never seen anything so bizarre.

At this moment, there were thin branches writhing around inside the patient's open abdominal cavity. One had accidentally whipped his wrist, which still hurt.

Since Leonard had been brought back by a young man named William yesterday, he had eaten several full meals and had gotten some sleep. Today, he stood at the operating table, performing a terrifying surgery.

"Stay calm. Are these more frightening than clusters of roundworms?" William frowned, wearing a mask, his hands gripping some light-colored tendrils.

"Pull all these things out of the blood vessels, and the surgery is half done. Now it's your turn. See the white roots? Dig along them and remove every single root," Leonard instructed.

He thought these were far scarier than roundworms, but he didn't dare say it out loud. He focused on carefully extracting the roots that had penetrated various internal organs.

There was no blood transfusion, no oxygen, not even anesthesia. They had simply knocked out a woman named Clarissa, and the surgery was being performed in a room that was far from sterile.

This was something Leonard could never have imagined before. Beside him was a chubby nurse who had graduated from a nursing school he had never heard of and who didn't seem very professional. The only other people in the room were William, who had brought him here, and a rather pretty, intellectual-looking woman named Lucy.

Although he had never performed such a rudimentary surgery, Leonard witnessed something even more miraculous.

Every time he skillfully cut open an organ infiltrated by the white roots and carefully extracted them, the intellectual-looking woman would extend her finger, emitting a white light chain that gently touched the area he had just operated on. Usually, it only took one or two seconds. When the white light disappeared, the wound healed miraculously.

Leonard thus gained a bit more understanding of this world.

The surgery lasted four hours. Leonard had predicted that the woman, who he thought had no chance of surviving, would not make it. Yet, the massive wound disappeared in a flash of white light without even needing stitches, and Clarissa was breathing steadily, as if she were just asleep.

"Mr. Adams, thank you for your hard work. You must be tired. Go get some rest. There will be two more similar surgeries in the coming days," William said, patting Leonard on the shoulder, his tone filled with appreciation.

Clarissa's surgery had gone even more smoothly than expected, mainly thanks to Leonard. William hadn't anticipated that this doctor, who was not even forty years old, could wield a scalpel with such mastery.

It might not be the most appropriate way to describe a doctor's skill, but it was the truth.

Leah, Abigail, and a few other women were gathered around outside. They all let out a sigh of relief when they heard that the surgery was successful and Clarissa was fine. But when they saw the Deceptive Ghost Tree sapling, which had suddenly lost its nutrients, fear showed in their faces.

Who would have thought that the fruit, which supposedly granted evolution, was a lie? It was merely a parasite. If it weren't for William, they would have turned into treefolk in a few days.

As Leah and Abigail thought about the same thing inside their bodies, they looked at the Deceptive Ghost Tree sapling for a moment before rushing out and throwing up.  

Michelle was already waiting outside the villa, which had been repurposed for medical use.

Michelle waved a piece of paper filled with dense writing at William, saying, "You tyrant, your comeuppance is here! The goddess of justice will punish you." 

William snorted disdainfully and retorted, "Mind what you say."

Michelle immediately drew the Edge of the Moon, shouting that she would fight William to the death.

"I'll let you use one hand!" William said disdainfully, then smiled. "What's up?"

Michelle laughed twice, then her brow furrowed slightly.

She reported, "I don't know why you're in such a hurry to recruit people, but congratulations. The Black-clad Convoy's promotion was quite effective. Over three hundred survivors have arrived here in the past three days. And after we cleared all the zombies around us yesterday, the road here is now safe, and more people are coming here. Over a hundred people arrived just today.

"Actually, we can build the base slowly. Rushing things will only bring problems to the surface," Michelle said. As she looked at William, who had a stubborn and somewhat infuriating look on his face, she felt an urge to bite him. "The most pressing issue is food."

She explained, "Originally, the food in Brian's storage area, combined with what we traded from Yves, could keep us from going hungry for two months with the previous number of people. But now, even without considering the gradually increasing number of people, the remaining food won't last us a month. If we take in more people..."

"Anything else?" William asked casually.

Michelle was momentarily speechless, then gritted her teeth and said, "This is a huge problem. What will we eat when the food runs out? Drink milk?"

William lowered his head and pretended to cough.

Michelle added, "And then there's the matter of the abandoned cars and metal you're collecting. Many people have come to trade in the past few days, mostly asking for food, some for Magic Crystals. But as you instructed, we didn't agree. Although the things we give for each abandoned car aren't much, dozens of cars have been brought in over the past few days. It might not be a big problem now, but if more people start trading, our already limited food supply will dwindle even further."

William nodded but still didn't address the issue.

She continued, "These are just the immediate problems. There are more derivative issues, like the survivors' living conditions, cleanliness, safety, stability, health, and so on. There's also the threat from external forces brought by these messages, for example..."

Finally, she said, "There are plenty of problems. What do you plan to do about them?"

As they talked, they walked to the survivor camp. The newcomers were arranged in the meeting area, now separated from other areas by wire ropes and guarded by armed sentries.

Many people sat in groups outside, some chatting loudly, some staring at the sky, and some wandering around.

William said, "There are still many work uniforms from the manor in the storage area, right? Take them out, have these people clean them up, and change into them. Add some minced meat from Level 1 mutated animals to their food to improve their physical condition. Have them clean up the fake mountain and decorative area in the meeting area as temporary labor. Before we start building the walls, let them get used to it."

"Okay," Michelle replied with a nod.

William reminded, "Don't stop collecting abandoned cars. That material will be used to make Warblades in the future. We can't have too much of it. Our standard equipment will depend on it."

Michelle felt a warmth in her heart, knowing that William trusted her enough to share this information.

William continued, "Have Jack speed up the training. They don't need to learn everything, just how to position themselves in a team and follow orders. Give him no more than five days. Once Clarissa and the others are in better shape, we'll head to the mechanical factory."

Michelle committed all this to memory.

Suddenly, a voice called out, "William!"

Natalie ran over from the other side, her face serious.

She reported, "A group of people has arrived at the gate with a lot of junk cars and people. They say they want to trade with us. They have a lot of people, all armed, and they seem pretty aggressive."

"Do they have death wish?" Michelle said, her eyes narrowing, exuding a murderous aura.

"Let's go take a look." William smiled and walked towards the manor gate with the two women, asking as they walked, "Did they say which faction they belong to?"

"No," Natalie replied, "but one of Mr. Collins' men said they're from Accraville City Prison."

William's steps faltered, and his eyes narrowed. "Arthur's people?"

At the gate, a short but strong bald man sat on top of a large trailer, a cigar in his right hand, looking down at Elijah, who was on guard duty today.

A long convoy of vehicles piled with junk cars was behind him. Many of the cars had fresh bloodstains on them. Behind these trucks were over a hundred dirty survivors, guarded by armed men.

A voice said impatiently, "That pretty girl has been gone for a while. Is she coming back or not? If I don't hear any news soon, I'm breaking in!"