Acetic acid, acetone, and methanol all had quite a wide range of uses.
If the shelter outpost truly wanted to begin industrializing, then these chemical raw materials were indispensable.
Though they could not be put to use for now, Chu Guang still rewarded Damn, There Really Are Mosquitoes with 1,000 contribution points and publicly announced his outstanding achievement of "successfully producing acetic acid, acetone, and methanol using wood as raw material."
Did this count as a server-wide announcement in an online game novel?
Seeing Damn, There Really Are Mosquitoes looking so proud while the other players stared on in envy, Chu Guang felt it was necessary to preserve this fine tradition.
Mm.
Not just in the game.
It needed to be announced on the official website too!
Later, he could even make a Hall of Fame and record things like, "On this day of this month in this year, a certain player achieved a certain accomplishment."
Such accomplishments could involve solving a development problem or clearing some high-difficulty dungeon.
As an impoverished ruler, cheap feelings of honor were the only cost-effective reward he could offer his players.
Once that was done, Chu Guang took Ye Shi and Garbage Lord and continued exploring north along the elevated highway leading out of the city outside the Wetland Park.
They searched for traces of prey while looking for valuable exploration targets.
Clear Spring City's industrial clusters were mainly concentrated in the city's southeastern corner, spreading fanwise along the Third Ring Road and Second Ring Road.
The northern area where Water Caltrop Lake Wetland Park was located, meanwhile, was primarily residential. Along the roads leading out of the city, there were even many unfinished housing developments.
Aside from relatively complete public facilities such as schools, hospitals, and transportation, this area had not formed any large-scale industrial clusters. There were only scattered small light-industry workshops in the suburbs far from residential areas, serving as neighbors to garbage incineration stations.
Now, most of them had been covered by forest.
When the nuclear war came, Clear Spring City's northern suburbs, due to their huge population base and extremely low strategic value, had suffered almost no direct strikes from strategic weapons.
However, after order completely collapsed, the enormous number of refugees brought a different kind of disaster to the area.
Supermarkets, convenience stores, produce markets, and shopping malls were quickly looted clean. Next came hospitals, schools, office buildings, and every storefront along the streets—even every refrigerator and storage cabinet inside people's homes.
No shelter would gamble with its own safety by opening its gates to accept them, and in any case, they could not have done so. With transportation completely paralyzed, these people also found it difficult to leave.
Even two hundred years later, the bullet holes in the walls and shattered glass still offered a glimpse of the tragedy that had once unfolded here.
In some display windows, beside shelves, and inside trash cans, partially weathered skeletons still hung there to this day.
"Damn... this is too horrible."
Looking at the two skeletons, one large and one small, clinging to each other, Garbage Lord could not bear to keep looking. He shut the open dumpster lid.
Ye Shi was comparatively calm. After all, this was not his first time traveling far from the shelter with Chu Guang. He had long grown accustomed to the sights here, and even put on the airs of an experienced player as he commented.
"To be fair, this game's environmental design is pretty damn good... It really feels like a world after the apocalypse."
"This is a world after the apocalypse."
Chu Guang casually replied in an even tone. He carefully observed the inside of the shop's display window and made a mark on his paper map.
This should have been a clothing store.
But there were barely any clothes left on the shelves. The only two strips of rag still hanging there were covered in dark mold.
Clearly, scavengers had visited this place long ago.
And more than one group had come through.
"...I think we're wasting our time," Ye Shi sighed. "Obviously, this place has already been picked clean."
"There's always something useful to find... like this." Chu Guang found an unopened sewing kit behind an almost completely shattered cabinet and tossed it to Ye Shi.
The needles were probably made of alloy, while the thread was likely synthetic fiber. Since the package had never been opened, oxidation was not an issue. Forget two hundred years—it would still be usable even after another two hundred.
These little tools were exactly what the outpost needed most right now.
Teng Teng would probably be interested in it.
With nothing else worth searching for, the group prepared to withdraw from the shop.
However, at that moment, a shrill scream suddenly rang out in the distance, followed immediately by two sharp gunshots.
Judging by the sound, they were 5mm bullets.
Chu Guang instantly became alert. He took the iron-pipe rifle from his back, crouched into the shadow by the wall, and carefully looked toward the source of the noise.
At a nearby street corner, beneath a crooked billboard, a man in a gray coat had been shot and fallen to the ground. His face was filled with terror as he dragged himself backward.
Blood seeped from his back and pooled across the ground.
"...A scavenger?"
Before long, another figure came around the street corner.
A gunman in a beast-hide coat was chewing on half a cigarette. He carried an iron-pipe rifle pieced together from garbage and walked toward the man lying on the ground begging for mercy.
Behind him followed another man and a dog.
His companion held a similarly shaped rifle, with a fire axe hanging from his waist and a dog leash tied at his other side.
Chu Guang's pupils contracted slightly.
In less than a second, he had identified the two men.
Raiders!
"What's going on out there?" Ye Shi leaned over from the side and asked in a lowered voice.
He thought he had been quiet, but his stealth skills were still far too lacking.
"Shh!"
Chu Guang had only just managed to make a silencing gesture when he saw the mutated hyena with an iron chain around its neck instantly turn its head and bark twice in their direction.
Chu Guang's expression changed at once.
Fuck!
Had this beast put all its skill points into perception?!
In that flash of an instant, the two raiders looked over as well. Their reactions were incredibly fast as they raised their rifles and fired.
Bang! Bang!
Chu Guang swiftly pulled his head back, but quickly realized that he had worried for nothing.
Those homemade DIY rifles probably did not even have rifling.
From across the street, they could barely hit anything. Sure enough, several bullets did not even come close to the doorway beside him, all striking the concrete road instead.
"They opened fire?! What's happening?! Did we run into mutants?!" Garbage Lord, hiding inside the shop, was not frightened in the slightest. He even rubbed his fists excitedly.
Ye Shi was the same, immediately pulling out his javelin.
"Don't panic. Let me take a look—"
"Look at my ass!"
Seeing that neither of them knew any fear, Chu Guang was nearly driven crooked with anger. He freed one hand, grabbed Ye Shi by the head, and shoved him back down.
"They're raiders! Two men with guns, and they've got a dog with them! You two retreat through the back door. We'll meet in front of the bus stop three hundred meters directly south of here—"
"Respected Administrator, why should we retreat? There are only two people and one beast over there. We don't have fewer people than they do!" Garbage Lord clenched his fists. "We can fight too!"
"That's right! We can fight!"
Ye Shi nodded excitedly, picked up the crossbow the Administrator had just thrown down, and said with high morale, "We may only have one gun, but we've also got Molotov cocktails... and this two-meter-tall lizard. I don't believe he can't beat one dog."
Hearing that, Chu Guang, who had been tense moments ago, suddenly came to his senses.
Right.
Why run?
Back when he had been alone, with his life hanging by a thread as he opened up the wilderness outside, it was normal enough to avoid vicious bandits like these.
But now they had guns and men, so why the hell were they running?!
Besides, there were only two of them.
Chu Guang reacted quickly and made his decision at once. At the same time, he worked the bolt and chambered a round.
Fuck them up!
"You, take the Molotov cocktails over there." Chu Guang tossed the Molotov cocktails and matches into Ye Shi's hands, then casually pointed toward the opposite side of the street corner.
"Listen for my command. The moment my gun fires, light it and throw!"
The enemy did not know how many people they had. If they saw someone run out, they would definitely give chase.
Ye Shi froze after catching the Molotov cocktails.
"I-I... how am I supposed to get over there?"
"Run over there. What, did you expect me to carry you? Relax, their guns don't have rifling. They can't hit you." With that, Chu Guang gave him a push.
Ye Shi staggered to the doorway.
Though he was scared shitless inside, the thought that this was a chance to prove himself before the Administrator made him grit his teeth and force himself onward.
Fuck it.
I'm doing this!
Why be scared in a game?!
Sure enough, just as Chu Guang had expected, when the two raiders saw Ye Shi rush out of the shop, they immediately let out a string of unintelligible cries and fired two shots at him.
"Haha, my little baby, where do you think you're running?"
"Give up. You can't escape. Surrender now, and we might spare your life!"
Ye Shi could not understand what they were saying. He only felt bullets whizzing past his scalp.
He did not dare stop for even a moment, nor did he dare look up. He rushed headlong into a shop on the other side of the street.
The two raiders exchanged glances and gave sinister smiles. One after the other, they raised their guns and pressed forward, releasing the dog leash as they did.
No guns on them.
They were probably scavengers picking through garbage nearby.
To them, crushing a scavenger was no different from stepping on a cockroach.
Chu Guang remained perfectly still inside the shop, quietly waiting for the right moment.
As the barking drew closer and closer, he suddenly leaned half his body out, aimed at the charging mutated hyena, and pulled the trigger.
Bang!
The 9mm bullet burst from the barrel. At a distance of less than five meters, there was no way to dodge it. One shot pierced straight through the beast's side—
Though Chu Guang had aimed for its head.
Before it could even cry out, the hyena crashed to the ground, rolled two meters, and stopped moving.
The raider who had rushed close first froze, clearly not expecting the other side to have a gun as well.
By the time he came to his senses, the companion he spent every day with was already dead. His face instantly twisted with fury.
"I'll skin you alive!"
"Qiong, calm down! There's more than one of them—"
Before he could finish, a Molotov cocktail flew over and smashed with a crack against the wreckage of an abandoned car behind the two men.
Flames surged up alongside the scattering shards of glass.
Seeing that the enemy even had Molotov cocktails, the raiders hurriedly dodged. The thought of retreating had already surfaced in their minds. However, with flames blocking their retreat, they had nowhere to fall back to and were trapped in an awkward situation.
Just then, one of the raiders caught sight of a terrifying figure beneath the eaves of a storefront by the street from the corner of his eye.
It was a lizard with dark green skin.
Or rather, a humanoid lizard.
"Monster—"
Whoosh—!
A sound tore through the air, cutting off the raider halfway through his words. The incoming javelin pierced straight through his chest and nailed him to the burning wrecked car behind him.
Even at the end of his life, he could not understand why that monster that looked like a mutant creature was mixed in with scavengers.
He had heard of people taming mutated hyenas as pets. He had even heard of people raising bears and horses. But this was the first time he had heard of anyone taming something like this.
This was too absurd!
Before you continue