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Gu Su was starving. A sharp hunger surged from deep in his stomach and spread through every limb, leaving him restless and weak.
Ever since he had entered this strange and unpredictable game world, trouble had followed him like a shadow. He was like a wind-up top, spinning without a moment's rest.
Either he was fighting Goblins, giant rats, and Harpies—fighting again and again without end—
or he was leading the Skeleton Squad through desolate, perilous woods, hurrying along while staying alert for unknown threats all around them.
Even the scraps of time he had left were spent searching for supplies and reinforcing his equipment.
Forget a hot meal or a sip of clean water—even finding something he could put in his mouth had been out of the question.
Now he was so hungry that his head spun and his vision kept going dark. His legs were so weak he could barely stand, and a fine tingling crept through his fingertips from low blood sugar. He could hardly muster the strength to raise his hands.
He pressed hard against his throbbing temples, forcing himself to clear his head despite the dizziness, and rapidly assessed the situation.
The Oil-Slick Monster was powerful and bizarre. Ordinary weapons couldn't harm it at all, and his plan still had too many unknowns. This clearly wasn't the time to rush off and avenge himself.
Taking care of his hunger was the most urgent and important thing.
Having made up his mind, Gu Su shook his heavy head and slowly shuffled into the tent, his steps unsteady.
He quickly rummaged through the clutter piled inside.
But after only a moment, he couldn't help cursing under his breath, his voice thick with restrained anger and resentment.
That damned profiteer had been far too greedy. He had quietly pocketed the three days' worth of food and water Gu Su was supposed to receive when he first entered the game!
If Gu Su ever got out of this game, he would find that profiteer and settle the score. He wouldn't let himself be cheated without a fight. He couldn't just swallow this humiliation.
With his anger building and nowhere to vent it, Gu Su took a deep breath and managed to suppress his rising emotions.
He left the tent and gave a stern order to the Skeletons waiting among the Graveyard Demons: head into the woods at once and catch some wild animals, such as rabbits and pheasants.
Gu Su knew pitifully little about plants. He couldn't tell which of the strange-looking fruits and leaves in the woods were edible and which were poisonous.
He was afraid one careless bite would poison him before he even had a chance to level up.
Fresh meat, on the other hand, was safe to eat as long as he cooked it through.
It would fill his stomach and quickly restore his strength.
The most important thing now was to eat, regain his strength, and make sure he didn't collapse from hunger if he ended up in a direct confrontation.
If that happened, he wouldn't just be unable to fight the Oil-Slick Monster—he might get himself killed. Then he'd be well and truly doomed.
At Gu Su's command, the elite Skeletons beside him nodded in unison and strode off without hesitation, their figures quickly disappearing into the shadows beneath the thick trees.
For these utterly loyal Skeletons, combat never called for complicated orders or unnecessary chatter. Give them a clear objective, and they would do everything in their power to carry it out.
Gu Su sat back down on the bed, struggling to steady himself as he waited quietly for news from the Skeletons.
About seven or eight minutes later, a jumble of heavy footsteps came from the distance, accompanied by the Skeletons' low voices and the creaking of an old pickup truck's wheels as they rolled over the ground.
The Skeleton convoy slowly made its way back.
This was the squad he had sent to scavenge for supplies at the abandoned shopping mall.
Once again, the old pickup they were pushing was loaded to the brim, nearly overflowing.
Plastic bottles, glass bottles, and all kinds of other odds and ends were piled high.
A lot of this stuff was useless, but Gu Su had given them those orders.
They had assigned some of their number to load the oil from the cold-storage room while searching for other supplies.
After searching around the mall's ground floor for a long time, they had finally found the stairs leading up to the supermarket on the second floor.
But most of the supplies on the second floor, just like those on the first, had already been carried off by other people.
Most of what remained had rotted away over the years and was useless. Only a few overlooked, inconspicuous items—or things nobody had any use for—had survived.
Gu Su slowly walked over and leaned down to inspect the supplies on the pickup, his gaze moving across the pile.
Aside from the sludge filling the truck bed, the haul included a large amount of plastic that wouldn't break down or decompose in the environment.
There were old plastic washbasins, plastic buckets, and scattered scraps of plastic. They looked unremarkable, but might come in handy.
There were also several bottles of liquor wrapped in thick layers of dirt. Their bottles were coated in dust, and the original labels were too blurred to make out the brand or alcohol content. Who knew how many years they had been buried in the ruins?
But judging by the bottles, the liquor should still be drinkable.
What surprised him even more was a heavy bag of industrial salt tucked into a corner of the truck bed.
The writing on the package had faded and blurred, but he could just make out the weight: fifty kilograms.
Beside it were a few scattered packets of table salt in battered plastic bags, somehow still intact.
Gu Su frowned, baffled by how the Skeletons had managed to dig up such inconspicuous but useful things from the chaotic ruins.
Still, he could tell that most of these items were stable and unlikely to spoil. In their current situation, any one of them might prove unexpectedly useful.
His gaze shifted slowly before settling on the bottles of liquor and the two large bags of salt.
A sudden thought struck Gu Su, and the vague idea in his mind snapped into focus.
A plan for dealing with that bizarre Oil-Slick Monster flashed into being.
The Oil-Slick Monster looked strange, its body covered in thick, black, sticky oil. It was bulky and lumbering, and from a distance, it bore some resemblance to a giant snail carrying a shell on its back.
Based on his basic scientific knowledge, Gu Su knew that salt naturally worked against soft-bodied creatures like snails.
If a snail's body came into contact with salt, it would be forced to rapidly expel the water inside it, eventually drying out, shriveling, and dying.
For a snail, that was a devastating blow.
Perhaps salt could work against the bizarre Oil-Slick Monster the same way it worked against snails.
As for the liquor that had been buried for years, much of its water should have evaporated by now, leaving it with a high alcohol content. It would be perfect as an accelerant to set the sticky black oil covering the Oil-Slick Monster on fire.
Even if the fire didn't work as well as he hoped, he could turn the high-proof liquor in those glass bottles into crude Molotov cocktails with a little effort.
Then he could show that Oil-Slick Monster the power of knowledge.
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