Starting with a Cellar Safe House - Chapter 8

The speed of the boat’s movement was actually influenced by the current wind strength!

With a level 2 wind, the fishing boat moved like a leisurely old man taking a stroll, covering less than a hundred meters in two minutes before the electronic map vanished and the boat came to a halt.

Because the wind had stopped.

Su Xiao: …

What a helpless feeling; she should have come to the riverbank sooner.

When the level 20 Hurricane hit, she might have been able to experience the thrill of speeding on the water.

Casually glancing around, Su Xiao noticed some information appearing next to the willow tree.

[This willow tree seems peculiar; chopping it down might reveal something.]

Could it be another purple treasure chest?

Su Xiao felt a bit tempted.

But the binding of the fishing boat was still in progress; should she leave the boat?

Just then, a red Ferrari suddenly appeared, effortlessly weaving through obstructive branches and piles of debris, stopping not far ahead. This was clearly no ordinary sports car.

What kind of sports car could run like this in a city ravaged by a Hurricane?

The wind picked up slightly, and Su Xiao quickly took the opportunity to move the fishing boat away from the shore, creating some distance.

“Binzi, there’s a red treasure chest here!”

Two men got out of the car, which then disappeared.

The young man with ash-gray dyed hair scanned the surroundings, looking pleased: “Binzi, you were right. Everyone’s heading to the city center, but the outskirts are deserted. This red treasure chest is just sitting here, and no one’s come to open it.”

The glasses man following him looked bewildered.

Su Xiao furrowed her brow, observing the two.

“Binzi, doesn’t that fishing boat seem odd… there’s something on it…”

The gray-haired man raised his hand, pointing in Su Xiao’s direction, prompting her to instinctively brace herself.

But it took a moment to realize that while they could see the fishing boat, they couldn’t see her on it.

So the Safe House would disguise itself as an ordinary structure anywhere, with the cellar’s exit being the least conspicuous on the ground.

Looking up, the next scene shocked Su Xiao.

The glasses man suddenly picked up a stone and smashed it onto the gray-haired man’s head.

Once, twice.

The gray-haired man quickly became a bloody mess, his eyes glaring at the glasses man with resentment before he died.

“Liu Yong… I’m… I’m sorry… this world has changed.” Binzi dropped the stone, his voice trembling, “There are so few survivors, and with the Safe House in your hands, I… I couldn’t feel at ease.”

His fearful, timid demeanor was hard to reconcile with the ruthless act of killing his friend.

Liu Yong’s eyes showed disappointment, drifting towards the fishing boat in the lake’s center, but he didn’t reveal it was a Safe House, closing his eyes as he passed away.

After Liu Yong’s death, a voice in Binzi’s mind made his face light up.

Looking up again, a red treasure chest indeed appeared.

Opening the chest, he took out the level 1 hammer inside, and when he looked up, he saw the fishing boat in the river, his puzzled gaze inadvertently meeting Su Xiao’s, causing her breath to catch.

Especially since she had just witnessed him kill his friend.

But Binzi had bound the Safe House by killing another survivor; he didn’t know that the red dot on the electronic map indicated an unbound Safe House, nor could he see the electronic map of the Safe House.

Apart from finding the fishing boat’s presence on the river strange, he noticed nothing else.

After all, he couldn’t see Su Xiao inside.

So he quickly looked away.

Su Xiao exhaled, regaining her composure and speculating.

The red sports car was a Safe House, and its owner was the deceased gray-haired man; this glasses man was likely a friend of the gray-haired man before the apocalypse struck.

Just like the survivor who was squatting in the bathroom at home, only to have the bathroom suddenly turn into a Safe House, they were on the road when their car became a Safe House.

The more she thought about it, the more terrifying it seemed.

In this apocalypse, unless absolutely necessary, don’t easily trust others.

Fortunately, she was inherently a rather cold person.

Because she was an orphan.

Adopted at thirteen.

But shortly after the adoption, her adoptive parents found their biological child, and to avoid making the biological child feel uneasy, they kept their relationship with her very clear, providing money but never meeting her, like sponsoring a poor student.

She didn’t feel sad about it.

She simply chose to take out loans to attend university, pursue graduate studies, and earn a Ph.D., working on software to earn money and pay off debts while studying.

She saved money to buy a house, moved her household registration, and repaid the money her adoptive parents spent on her over the years, then rarely contacted them, until she graduated with her doctorate.

So Su Xiao quickly accepted this reality.

Continuing to observe the glasses man’s actions.

After obtaining the weapon, the glasses man immediately looked around, quickly noticing the unusual willow tree.

Taking advantage of the slight breeze, Su Xiao quietly maneuvered the fishing boat closer to the shore, wanting to see what kind of treasure chest the glasses man would open.

But unexpectedly, as the glasses man struck the willow tree with his weapon, it transformed into a two-person tall black monster, looming over the glasses man like a beast of dawn and dusk.

Su Xiao froze.

It wasn’t a treasure chest?

What on earth had he unleashed!

“Damn!”

The glasses man was startled, instinctively using the hammer in his hand to strike the black monster, only to find that the creature was unharmed and instead went berserk, retaliating against him.

The black shadowy blade easily pierced his skin, causing blood to flow profusely.

Su Xiao then noticed a line of information above the monster’s head.

[Apocalypse Monster (Level 1)]

Because the monster was taller than a person, standing close made it easy to overlook, only visible from a distance.

The glasses man, in pain and fear, realized he couldn’t kill the monster and tried to flee, but the monster’s black claw-like tendrils extended like willow branches, capturing him and swallowing him whole, its level changing from 1 to 2.

The glasses man vanished, and the hammer he had just picked up fell to the ground.

Three seconds later, the hammer disappeared, and the red treasure chest reappeared by the riverbank. Su Xiao now saw it not as a treasure, but as a dangerous lure.

She organized the information she had gathered.

This suddenly appearing apocalypse monster leveled up by consuming survivors, and its level was likely related to the weapon’s level.

Most importantly, this was a monster revealed by a prompt.

Which meant special prompts weren’t safe; monsters were hidden within them.

Yet the game clearly stated that these four hours were absolutely safe, disaster-free time?

No, wait.

Safe, disaster-free time didn’t mean there were no monsters.

Moreover, this apocalypse monster was hidden within the plant, so as long as survivors didn’t recklessly act on these specially marked buildings, nothing would happen.

Su Xiao stared at the text prompt on the willow tree.

Could the pattern of whether a monster or treasure chest would appear be hidden in this prompt?

Of course, Su Xiao currently had no way to verify the pattern.

Because this apocalypse monster was already level 2, it didn’t seem like something she could handle with her level 1 axe; perhaps only by upgrading her weapon could she attempt it.