There... There Was a Vehicle!

There... There Was a Vehicle!

The skull on the ground neither let out a poof as ghostly fire spilled from its eye sockets like in a novel, nor shouted "How dare you!" It simply rose from the ground and roared:

"Warrior Dou Sheng ahead, do you dare dismount and fight me?"

It lay crookedly on the ground, sizing him up with hollow eyes.

If he was honest with himself, even though everyone had realized after crossing over that this world was vastly different from the one they had known before,

seeing a skeleton scattered across the ground with his own eyes still inevitably filled him with wave after wave of fear.

After all, humans had always possessed an instinctive fear of ghosts and spirits.

Su Mo stared at the scene before him, his thoughts churning rapidly.

He shifted his steps lightly, trying his best to avoid the skull's line of sight.

Bang! Su Mo cautiously stepped to the left, never expecting to brush against something on the ground and produce a crisp crack.

He lowered his head and immediately felt his scalp prickle.

"Sorry, sorry, old man. I didn't mean to. Sorry for disturbing you!"

The white bone arm under Su Mo's foot had broken into two pieces, a crack spreading open through the middle.

By the light, Su Mo looked around. It was not only this bone arm—bone fragments were scattered all over the ground.

"I don't know who this old man was. He really got it rough."

Looking at the skeleton lying on the ground with only its head still intact, Su Mo smiled bitterly and stepped around the broken bones on the right.

The floor of the ruins looked as though it had been made of concrete. Scattered across it were quite a few tufts of feline fur.

After thinking it over, Su Mo took the last unused torch from his inventory and chose to light it.

In the pitch-black ruins, relying on flashlight illumination was truly terrifying.

It was just like tomb raiding. Add a BGM, and it could easily become a horror movie.

When bright firelight appeared in the ruins, Su Mo finally had time to properly examine the furnishings around him.

The room in these ruins was not large. Standing near the entrance, Su Mo could vaguely make out the things inside.

Focusing his attention, Su Mo regretfully discovered that, for some unknown reason, both the Game Panel's appraisal function and the Survival System's appraisal function had been sealed.

Calling it a ruin was less accurate than calling it an underground shelter.

"I recorded my shelter as Shelter Number One. Then I'll temporarily refer to this underground ruin as Shelter Number Two."

Opening his usual Dead Man's Private Message, Su Mo found the dead friends he had added earlier and began recording what he had seen and heard.

Memory could deceive people, but written words could not.

After recording what he had seen and heard, perhaps he could find the flaw after returning to the shelter and analyzing everything carefully.

When he reached the entrance, the record of his first exploration began appearing in the chat window.

"Doomsday Calendar, January 6. Entered Shelter Number Two for the first time."

"The gate of Shelter Number Two was preliminarily judged by touch and sound to be made of iron or steel from an unknown material. By touch, it felt similar to the Alloy Gates of the civilized era. Its sturdiness remains to be tested. No signs of leakage were found."

"The walls were made of an unknown material. Based on observation, they are preliminarily suspected to be a product of Reinforced Concrete—or an unknown architectural stone. Their strength is extremely high. Judging from the hole in the ceiling, the walls are approximately 25 centimeters thick."

"The floor has mysterious patterns. The number and shapes of the patterns vary. They do not form symmetrical figures of any referential value, nor can any transmission of information be detected. They currently have no specific reference value (underline this point; further investigation required)."

"There are dozens of tufts of fur from an unknown feline animal (picked up), as well as one humanoid skeleton (currently impossible to determine whether it is human; further examination required)."

"There are scattered tables all around. Utensils have been knocked over on the floor. There are no written records. The Game Panel cannot be used to inspect attributes. The reason is unknown."

"Based on the previous signs, it was highly likely that an unknown entity (key points: blast marks, fur) explored the place first. Most valuable items had already been removed or destroyed!"

"At the innermost part of the shelter, there is an abandoned deep well resembling an Ether Energy Well. At first sniff, it released a strange fragrance. Er, it was a little intoxicating. After smelling it, my mood became cheerful."

"After smelling it again, I determined that it had the scent of blueberry jam."

"After smelling it again, I determined that it had the exquisite fragrance of being beneath heather blossoms in spring."

"Su Mo, Su Mo, how can you be so addicted to pleasure? Have you forgotten why you came here?"

"Smell it again and determine its scent."

"Strike out the entire passage."

"Attempted to manually raise and lower the abandoned well. The method was incorrect, and the mechanism had already jammed. The reason is currently unknown (priority investigation!!!!)."

"In a corner of the shelter, I discovered a vertical ladder leading downward. A small amount of feline fur had fallen onto it and become caught along the edges of the ladder (collected)."

"Following the ladder downward, there were fourteen steps. I discovered the second floor of the shelter (underline this point) and found what appears to be a vehicle from civilized society??!!!!"

Holding the torch in one hand while distractedly recording and recalling the smell of the abandoned well, Su Mo froze.

As Su Mo's thoughts faded, the Game Panel slowly disappeared before his eyes.

However, none of this attracted even the slightest bit of Su Mo's attention.

Because on the underground second floor, Su Mo saw at a glance the vehicle placed in the middle.

"Isn't this the Bouncy from Last Man Standing?"

The vehicle's frame was reinforced with a triangular roll cage. At the rear was an engine a full size smaller than a generator, but clearly much more finely made.

It had a single seat, as well as a "luxuriously extravagant" open-top design with ventilation on all four sides. Without glass restricting him, the driver could fully feel nature's caress while driving.

Aside from several places on the frame bent by external impact and the tires being completely flat, its overall shape was unmistakably that of a Bouncy.

Human civilization? Su Mo did not know.

If this place had not been looted, perhaps he could have learned the owner's identity from the details inside.

However, this scene of devastation had already destroyed any possibility of leaving behind clues to the owner's identity. Even around the second floor—

"Hm? Is this character 'vehicle'?"

Looking at the pictographic character resembling "vehicle" on the left wall, Su Mo instinctively looked toward the only Bouncy on the second floor.

Looking to the right, he saw an arrow-shaped sign pointing directly at the Bouncy in the center.

Its meaning was self-evident.

"Did the owner of the ruins want to convey some message through this vehicle?"

Su Mo furrowed his brows and thought as hard as he could about whether he had missed anything after coming down.

From Liangfang Town in the Mist Ruins to the traces in the underground ruins that seemed to have been left by one of their own—everyone else was playing a game of violently bulldozing through obstacles, while he was playing a brainpower puzzle game.

An idea struck Su Mo, and he began stringing together and analyzing every detail from discovering the ruins to entering them.

Time passed second by second.

One conjecture after another was disproved, and all the clues pointed to a single place.

Su Mo shook his head and strode to the Bouncy's fuel tank. He decided to verify his conjecture according to these signs.

Unfortunately, after opening the fuel cap and taking a look, he found that, just as expected, every drop of fuel in the tank had evaporated.

The diesel in the shelter could be added to a dual-fuel vehicle like the Bouncy and make do, but because the Storage Space was too small, he had not brought any when he left.

"I wonder if there's any diesel or gasoline in here."

If the Bouncy was intact and could still run, then with the world this vast, where couldn't he go?

Holding the torch, Su Mo was just about to crouch down and search the ground carefully for a fuel can.

But a tremendous commotion suddenly came from outside! "Woof woof woof~ Awoooo!"

"Woof!"

"Woof!"

First came Oreo's signature barking, followed by two more barks in extremely strange tones, as if a human were imitating a dog.

"Crap! That's Oreo's warning! 'People' are outside!"

In an instant, Su Mo extinguished the torch, pulled out the already-cocked crossbow with a flip of his hand, and shot up toward the first floor.

Clang, clang, clang. Here's today's update~ Please bookmark, vote, and follow along~