"This diesel engine is great, but it's a little loud. Starting it at night is a bit troublesome."
Watching the diesel engine rumble as it charged the battery, Su Mo felt slightly troubled.
After spending two Survival Points to repair a light bulb he had picked up from Shelter Number Two, the base finally had stable lighting.
The Electric Crossbow was also plugged into the diesel engine's power output.
Generally, generating one kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed 210–240 grams of fuel, or roughly 0.25 to 0.28 liters. Taking transmission efficiency into account, the actual consumption was 0.3 liters.
Based on the base's fuel reserves and the losses during conversion, 200 liters of diesel could generate roughly 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity.
"For now, that's enough!"
Su Mo nodded. After pulling the wire attached to the light bulb over to the kobold, he called Oreo over.
For some reason, Oreo had become increasingly inactive lately. Every day, after eating his fill and playing for a while, he would lie beside the Vegetable Culture Medium, staring blankly at the small opening where light could shine in.
A tiny head, filled with enormous confusion.
"Hmm... I'll wake him up later. You'll act as the translator. Any problem with that?"
"Woof?" Oreo tilted his head in a very humanlike display of confusion.
"I mean, you'll convey what I say to this kobold. Then, after he answers, you'll tell me what he said."
After a simple explanation, Oreo nodded his doggy head and revealed his signature, wickedly charming smile, indicating that he was completely qualified for the job.
Hey, you should've said you wanted an interrogation earlier. That would've solved everything~ Seeing that Oreo understood, Su Mo helped the kobold sit on a stool, then threaded a wooden stick through the Hemp Rope binding his body and propped the entire kobold upright.
"Hey, wake up!"
Su Mo reached out and slapped the kobold twice on the cheek. Perhaps because the punch earlier had been too heavy, the kobold showed no reaction.
Without changing expression, Su Mo gave Oreo a meaningful glance. Oreo understood instantly, leaped to the kobold's feet, opened his Big Mouth, and bit down.
"Ah!"
"Arf!!"
A howl that sounded like a wolf erupted inside the cave. The kobold, who had still been pretending to be unconscious, was jolted so badly that he nearly fell to his knees.
"I'm telling you, this dog's got something wrong with his brain. He hasn't even bitten him yet, and he's already started?"
Watching the kobold's performance, Su Mo grew even more curious about the kobold race.
How could there be such a strange race with so little dignity? Even this sort of creature could handcraft a nuclear bomb—no, handcraft a Hand Grenade? Seeing the indignation on the kobold's face, Su Mo smiled faintly.
"Oreo, ask him if he submits!"
Upon receiving the order, Oreo began communicating in dog language with a wicked grin.
"Woof woof, arf woof woof!"
"Woof!"
The kobold made a very humanlike expression. Su Mo and Oreo immediately understood its meaning—disdain!
The kobold disdained speaking with Oreo, a lower-ranking reptilian member of the same species!
"Well, you old dog. You've got quite the stubborn temper. No need to say more. My China has a complete criminal code for you to choose from. Come on."
"Not going to talk, huh?"
Seeing the kobold raise his head instead, Su Mo made no attempt at courtesy. He stepped forward and punched the kobold in the stomach.
Thud~ Buzz~ For some reason, Su Mo felt that his strength had increased.
Within 0.1 seconds of the punch landing, tears burst from the face-to-face kobold's eyes, and he began crying out, "Wah! Wah!"
"Do you submit?"
When the kobold still gave no response, Su Mo slammed another punch into him.
"Wuu wuu wuu, woof woof, wuu wuu wuu!"
After being punched twice in succession, the kobold finally realized what it meant for circumstances to be stronger than the individual. If he had not been tied up, he probably would have dropped to his knees and started kowtowing the next second.
Oreo, standing nearby, also raised his chin. Although he still had to look up at the kobold, an air of disdain surged from him!
"Hm? You still dare to glare at me!"
One punch! Farmer Three Fists really did have a sweet side. After this one, the kobold no longer dared show the slightest sign of resistance. He wailed continuously while nodding again and again to show that he submitted.
However, Su Mo impassively punched him again.
"Sorry, I don't like Nongfu Spring. I prefer C'estbon!"
"Woof-ha, woof-ha!"
Lying nearby, Oreo watched the dazed kobold and laughed so hard he could barely catch his breath when he heard Su Mo's words.
"Oreo, translate this for him. What the hell does 'surprise' mean?"
Looking at the kobold's pained face, its features scrunched together, Su Mo finally swallowed down a deep breath of resentment.
The kobold looked honest, but deep down, it clearly did not merely look down on Oreo. There was even a hint of contempt in the way it looked at him.
If normal "courtesy" was useless, then he could only...
Start with courtesy, then resort to force!
Fortunately, after four punches, the kobold had become much more obedient.
"Ask him what he came here for. Was he specifically looking for me?"
"Woof woof woof woof!"
"Arf wuu wuu, woof hiss woof."
Watching Oreo and the kobold struggle to communicate, as though one were speaking a dialect and the other standard language, Su Mo could only sit to the side with his hand on his forehead and wait.
It was a simple sentence, yet Oreo spent a full four or five minutes communicating it.
"Woof?"
"You're saying he didn't come looking for me?"
Seeing Oreo shake his head, along with the unmistakably genuine expression on the kobold's face, Su Mo instead began to feel a headache coming on.
"Ask him what he was sneaking around our Shrub Forest looking for!"
Su Mo had originally thought that the kobold had followed a trail to get here. Now, it seemed that was not the case!
"Looks like I was being too cautious."
"Perhaps the kobolds sent several teams to look for something, and I just happened to run into this one?"
After thinking it over briefly, Su Mo decided to wait for the results of Oreo's conversation.
This time, it took even longer. Oreo barked for nearly ten minutes, until his mouth had gone dry, before finally getting an answer.
"Woof."
"Woof!"
Seeing that Su Mo could not understand, Oreo simply ran to the pile of miscellaneous items and rummaged through it. At last, he dragged out a wooden stick.
It was unmistakably the tool the kobold used for spellcasting!
"There's something wrong with this wooden stick? But the system can't scan any attributes from it at all?"
Su Mo picked up the wooden stick, held it beneath the light bulb, and began examining it carefully.
Back in Shelter Number Two, he had already inspected the Magic Wand that the kobold seemed to use for casting spells.
After all, who had never dreamed of becoming a mage? Unfortunately, this Magic Wand not only had no attributes, it also lacked the ability to produce a fireball when waved.
Now, prompted by Oreo, Su Mo looked at it carefully again and immediately noticed something unusual.
There was a small opening at the top of the wooden stick, as if it had been sealed with wood. No matter how he looked at it, it did not seem like anything that could have grown there naturally.
Su Mo held the wooden stick near his nose, then fanned the air with his hand, gathering the scent emanating from the stick beneath his nostrils.
"This smell..."
A familiar memory began circling through his mind.
Feeling along the wooden stick, Su Mo once again found something resembling a button beneath its middle section.
He pressed it gently. The sealed opening at the top of the wooden stick opened, and the scent inside grew even stronger.
"This is... gunpowder?"
Flop Diary: A new week! We urgently need everyone's collections and votes for support. Whether Three Jin can go far in the recommendation slot depends on all of you! The editor said I can't mass-release chapters during the new-book period, so Three Jin will make sure to update on time for all my esteemed readers. Two chapters every day, right on schedule: from 12 to 1 p.m., and from 6 to 7 p.m. Please keep reading~~~~
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