Reborn in the Apocalypse: A Commoner's Survival Log

After seeing the convoy off, Li Li greeted Zhou Qi and Yan Fei, then led the remaining 500 soldiers to an empty bungalow to set up tents, cook, and rest.

Zhou Yang and the others returned to the empty warehouse where they had set up tents.

Because they weren't familiar with Li Li's team, they only cooked for their own team and a few people, including Zhou Qi.

Of course, Zhou Yang couldn't do more than that.

There are over 500 mouths to feed, we can't afford to feed them, we can't afford to feed them.

Since it was just the few of them, Zhou Yang was much more casual. He simply took out some ready-made rice balls and mutated stir-fried chicken from his space and made a loofah and tofu soup.

After finishing their meal quickly, they cleaned up, washed up briefly, and went straight to sleep.

Having done physical labor for two days in a row, Zhou Yang fell asleep soon after lying down.

Shen Zechuan, on the other hand, was no longer suffering from the aftereffects of being knocked unconscious by the stench yesterday. Instead, he felt no fatigue at all, and his mind was filled with the scenes from his dream when he was unconscious yesterday.

In his dream, the apocalypse didn't happen. Zhou Yang joined his company as his personal assistant. He fell in love with Zhou Yang at first sight, and the two quickly fell in love. They lived like conjoined twins every day, shamelessly... cough cough.

The more he thought about it, the less he could sleep. So Shen Zechuan secretly moved Zhou Yang closer to him, letting him rest his head on his shoulder. Only then did he feel much more satisfied.

Looking at the young man's unguarded sleeping face, she couldn't help but give him a light kiss on the forehead, and she didn't dare to do anything more.

Shen Zechuan stared at Zhou Yang for a long time before finally drifting off to sleep.

The granary was silent at night, with only the occasional crackling sound of the embers of burning firewood.

Before they knew it, it was past midnight, and everyone had fallen asleep.

Suddenly, Pea, who was seemingly asleep with her eyes closed but was actually always on alert, heard a faint sound. She immediately opened her eyes, raised her head, and looked in the direction from which the sound came.

It pricked up its ears and listened carefully for a while. Once it was sure that something was approaching, it immediately stood up.

This single stop startled the entire family of weasels sleeping next to it, waking them up.

At first, Da Huang was also confused. In a daze, he felt that he smelled a familiar scent, so he sniffed hard and immediately opened his eyes wide with excitement. Then he barked at his wife and son.

Upon hearing what Da Huang said, Er Huang and Xiao Huang were also excited and danced with joy.

Ever since the family of three found this place and caught a batch of mutated rats as food, these rats have been hiding underground for a long time and haven't climbed up.

Just when we thought we were about to run out of the last few rats and there might not be any meat left, some mutant rats actually came to our door. How wonderful!

It was the major actions taken by the grain depot in the past two days that alerted the mutated rats lurking underground.

Last night, the Mutant Rat King received a message from the scout rats below, so he sent a few more mutant rats up to secretly observe for a long time. They discovered that a group of humans were stealing the food they had their eyes on.

Moreover, the family of mutated weasels had vanished without a trace, leading the Rat King to conclude that they had been killed by the humans. His confidence surged, and he decided to seize the granary that very night.

At a drainage outlet outside the granary gate, a large group of fat, dark-skinned mutant rats kept crawling out of the tunnels they had dug. In the blink of an eye, they filled the open space outside the granary, chirping and passing messages to each other.

The squeaking of one or two mice is not very loud, but the squeaking of hundreds or thousands of mice is comparable to noise to a dog.

So the pea was successfully woken up by the squeaking of the mice.

The mutated military dogs in Li Li's unit also heard the sound of the rats and immediately became restless. In addition, Li Li had left a few soldiers on night watch, so they quickly noticed the abnormality and led the mutated military dogs out to investigate.

When Pea heard that something was wrong, she didn't go out to check immediately. Instead, she turned around and went into the big tent. She found Zhou Yang's location precisely, went up to him, and woke up the two people who were hugging each other.

Zhou Yang was sleeping soundly when he was suddenly struck by a pea attack, which woke him up instantly.

When she opened her eyes, she found herself lying in Shen Zechuan's arms without even realizing it.

Looking up, he met Shen Zechuan's eyes, which were staring directly at him. He was immediately embarrassed and rolled to the side.

"Um, I might have been half asleep. I didn't mean to end up here. Sorry..."

Under Shen Zechuan's seemingly meaningful gaze, Zhou Yang forced a smile and explained.

Logically speaking, he usually sleeps quite upright, so how did he end up rolling into someone's arms?

Besides, who sleeps like that on such a hot day? Don't let Shen Zechuan think I'm a pervert.

Shen Zechuan had actually woken up quite early. He was never a deep sleeper, and seeing Zhou Yang's awkward situation, he struggled to suppress his laughter. He nodded seriously and said, "Yes, it's okay, I understand."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yang became even more embarrassed and didn't know how to respond, so he awkwardly changed the subject.

"Hey, let's get up and go out to see what's going on. Pea rushed in to find me, something must have happened outside."

"Okay." Shen Zechuan nodded and got up with Zhou Yang.

Yan Fei, who was on the other side of the tent, was also not sleeping soundly. He woke up as soon as Wandou opened the tent and came in. His first reaction was to grab the gun next to his pillow. He only relaxed when he saw that it was Wandou who came in.

But then he remembered that Pea wouldn't have knocked down their tent for no reason, and knew that something must have happened. So he got up and woke up Lu Xingye and Chai Jin and Xu Zhiyi next door.

When Zhou Yang and Shen Zechuan came out, they saw the others who had been woken up by Yan Fei sitting on the benches outside the tent that hadn't been put away yet, yawning. Lu Xingye was even more squinting, his head was still spinning, and he wanted to continue to doze off as soon as he sat down.

After yawning widely, Chai Jin asked, "What happened?"

“It should be. Pea’s reaction is quite strong,” Zhou Yang said, touching Pea, who had been unusually agitated since he woke up.

Just as Zhou Yang was completely baffled, the weasel family climbed onto his lap, excitedly waving their arms and pointing outside while barking.

Seeing how excited the three little creatures were, Zhou Yang became curious.

It seems something has come to the outside of the barn. Anything that can excite the weasels so much must be their favorite thing.

What do weasels like most?

A mouse... or something?

The thought of this possibility caused Zhou Yang's face to gradually contort.

Then, considering that this was a granary, which was most likely to attract rats, he became even more certain of his guess.

Mutant rats are a real nuisance in the apocalypse; they're not so bad that you can't kill them, but that you can't kill them all!

Besides their hardened fur and teeth capable of gnawing through sheet metal, the most notorious thing about these mutated rats is their reproductive ability. If you leave even a few rats alive, they can turn into a huge rat colony within a few months! They are impossible to kill!

Moreover, each time rats appear, tens of thousands are considered small; in the worst stages, the number swells to hundreds of thousands, leaving nothing but barren land in their wake...

Zhou Yang's head throbbed with worry as he thought about it, and he frowned as he said:

"There are most likely mutated rats outside..."

"Rats? What's so scary about rats? Just kill them!"

The rough-around-the-edges Chai Jin didn't take it to heart.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Yang pretended to deliberately scare Chai Jin, and said with a fierce look, "What if there were thousands or tens of thousands of them, possibly even biting through sheet metal, and all of them were mutated rats the size of rabbits? Wouldn't you be scared?"

"Um... never mind then..."

Following Zhou Yang's words and imagining the scene, Chai Jin, who had a slight case of trypophobia, decisively refused.

When Yan Fei and Shen Zechuan heard Zhou Yang say that it might be a mutated rat, and then heard Zhou Yang's description of the mutated rat, they both fell silent.

If that's the case, then it's indeed going to be difficult to deal with.

"Everyone, pack your things quickly. We'll go find Commander Li and the others first, and then we'll go investigate the situation."

Everyone agreed to start the operation, quickly packed their luggage and equipment, which Zhou Yang then stored in his spatial storage. Afterward, they each took their weapons and opened the door to their bungalow.

As soon as they stepped out of the warehouse, Yan Fei, who was leading the way, made eye contact with a mutated rat that was exploring outside the door. Both of them were immediately stunned.

Fortunately, Yan Fei quickly regained his senses and threw a knife before the mutated rat could react, piercing its head.

Looking outside again and not finding any other rats, Yan Fei then gestured for everyone to follow.

As Zhou Yang was about to walk past the corpse of the mutated rat, the two yellow rats grabbed his trouser leg, pointing at him and then at the rat corpse on the ground.

The meaning couldn't be clearer: they wanted Zhou Yang to collect their corpses.

Zhou Yang was speechless. He wanted to refuse, but didn't want to waste time on it, so he picked up the rat carcass and threw it into an abandoned plastic box in his space.

The flat warehouse where Li Li's group was located was not far in front of them. The group arrived near the warehouse door in just a few minutes.

Just as they saw the light coming from the warehouse entrance, they heard the screams of several soldiers and the barking of military dogs coming from there.

The group knew something was wrong as soon as they heard this, and immediately ran towards the warehouse door, but they were forced to stop after only a few steps.

The open space in front of the warehouse was teeming with countless mutated rats. Their tiny eyes, like sesame seeds, gleamed eerily in the moonlight. Hearing the commotion of the group approaching, they immediately turned their heads and stared at them.

"Holy crap! So many big rats!"

Lu Xingye, who was still a little sleepy, was startled awake by the bunch of rats, and his hand holding the knife trembled.

This was also the first time Zhou Yang had faced so many mutated rats, and he couldn't help but feel a little scared. It took him a while to calm down and start thinking about countermeasures.

Or should we go with the water and lightning electric shock formula?

So Zhou Yang patted Lu Xingye and Shen Zechuan on the shoulder and whispered, "You two work together. Xingye, hold back, and you unleash the lightning. Even if you don't kill them, you can stun them for a while."

Lu Xingye and Shen Zechuan nodded and released their superpowers in coordination. Sure enough, many of the mutated rats closest to them fell down, but judging from the rise and fall of their bellies, none of them died.

However, the group was in a hurry to rescue the people and didn't have time to finish them off. Using this method, they were the first to reach the place where the soldiers were being attacked.

The two soldiers and the military dog ​​were covered in holes from being bitten, with bright red blood all over their bodies. Several mutated rats were still clinging to their bodies, and no matter how much they rolled around, they couldn't shake them off.

In this situation, area-of-effect skills like fire and lightning are unusable. Among the group, Yan Fei is the most suitable to take action, while the others are responsible for helping to drive away the surrounding rats.

After much effort, they finally managed to rescue the two soldiers and the military dog ​​who were on the verge of death.

Chai Jin helped two soldiers up, while Wandou carried the injured military dog ​​on her back. The group fought and retreated, slowly making their way to the warehouse entrance.

Before they even entered, they ran into Li Li, who had just been woken up by the soldiers on night watch and was leading his men out to check the situation.

Seeing that his two soldiers were badly injured, and that the military dog ​​was also covered in wounds, Li Li was immediately alarmed and quickly called the medic over to take a look.

"How did you get injured like this? What on earth is outside?"

“They’re mutated rats! Lots of mutated rats!” Yan Fei said with a grim face.

Upon hearing this, Li Li's face darkened: "Then use fire! Burn these beasts to death!"

“We just tried it, and fire had some effect, but the fur of these mutated rats seems to have a certain fire-resistant effect in addition to being hardened. If we rely solely on fire, it will probably take a long time to burn.” Xu Zhi adjusted his glasses and continued, “Of course, if we had gasoline, it would be faster, but Commander Li probably only brought enough gasoline to get back, right?”

“We didn’t bring much gasoline, after all, this kind of energy resource is limited at the base.” Li Li slapped his forehead, looking worried. “Then maybe we should just spend more time burning it…”

Zhou Yang recalled that although there seemed to be many mutated rats outside the door, upon closer inspection, there were actually only a few thousand, far from being a problem they couldn't handle. He couldn't help but feel a little worried: "I'm afraid they're using a feint, stalling us here while stealing grain from the granary there."

Upon hearing this, Lu Xingye was somewhat incredulous: "Can a rat be that smart?"

"Don't underestimate rats. Rats before the apocalypse weren't stupid, let alone rats that have mutated and evolved after the apocalypse. What's so strange about them knowing some tactics? Moreover, there's probably a rat king, the most evolved rat king, in this swarm, directing their actions."

"Didn't you notice that the mutated rat outside the door just stood there blocking the way and didn't move much?"

Lu Xingye: "..."

"Then we need to hurry up and get rid of these rats outside the door first, and then go check out the rest of the granary."

Li Li was so anxious at the thought that the granary might have been eaten by another group of rats that he jumped up and down in panic.

"Commander Li, how many superhumans do you have under your command, and what are their abilities?" Yan Fei asked after thinking for a moment.

"Of the remaining 500 people, 68 have evolved strength, 36 have evolved speed, 8 have water abilities, 5 have metal abilities, 6 have fire abilities, 7 have earth abilities, and there are two space abilities that were temporarily assigned, plus my evolved strength and plant abilities. The rest are all ordinary soldiers."

Before the apocalypse, Li Li's regiment was just an ordinary military unit. In addition, some of the superhumans were transferred away, so it's already quite impressive that the remaining regiment has such a high evolution rate.

But right now, it's not enough to deal with the mutated rats quickly.

Shen Zechuan thought for a moment and said, "How about we use the old method? Have a few water-based ability users release water together, and then I'll do my best to set up a lightning net. That should temporarily disable these rats. The rest of you can then finish them off. That should work."

"That's the only way. These mutated rats have tough fur, so it'll be faster to just stick the needles into their brains through their eyes," Yan Fei nodded and said.

Li Li immediately agreed to the plan, and then divided the soldiers into several groups, explaining the subsequent action plan in detail to the group leaders.