Reborn One Week Before the Apocalypse

Chapter 105: Chapter 97: Can I Join?

Tang Mo’s decision to leave had been made long ago, so she began her next move with almost no hesitation.

This trip would likely be a long one, so she needed to fully restock at S Base before leaving.

Her Space had just been upgraded again, so the supermarket inside was fully stocked.

The warehouse, however, was now empty and spacious after being cleared of Crystal Cores and expanded.

Tang Mo went out into the forest, hunted some mutant beasts, and returned. She traded all the meat and materials for the most basic nutrient solution, piling it up in her warehouse.

The nutrient solution provided only calories and tasted terrible, but Tang Mo felt it was essential to have some on hand for when she was on the road.

She had enough bullets for her pistol, and she wasn’t going to worry about any abnormal treasures anymore.

With her new little partner, Jingjing, by her side, all that was left to consider was how she would set out.

Tang Mo’s destination was clear: B City, just as she had decided before.

Although she was reluctant to rely on outside help, and she had an even more powerful Spirit Flower blooming unused in her Space...

...she still wanted to see the Desert Flower. After all, a place that housed an abnormal treasure worth one hundred attribute points had to be special.

Just like Taoyuan Village, where the Spiritual Flower was found, she guessed there must be a place in B City being influenced by the Desert Flower.

She didn’t plan on traveling alone this time. While going solo was more convenient in some ways, humans are social creatures, and she was truly tired of days spent doing nothing but journeying.

Tang Mo understood clearly that only by being with others could she have more unique experiences.

However, the question of how to find a group of like-minded people heading to B City gave Tang Mo pause.

She spent three straight days hanging around the mission center, and sure enough, she spotted a group heading to B City.

But this group wasn’t recruiting members; they were posting a mission.

Mission details: [Protect a group of twenty people and ensure their successful arrival in B City. Recruiting five superpower users. Requirement: Comprehensive Attribute Value of 200 or more. Reward: Two Intermediate Crystal Cores per person.]

A Comprehensive Attribute Value of 200 wasn’t particularly high, but it was enough to handle a few Basic-level Mutant Beasts. Five such people could, just barely, manage to take down a single Intermediate Beast.

The distance from S City to B City was actually quite far; traveling on foot would take over half a month. A reward of two Intermediate Crystal Cores could only be described as standard, certainly not generous.

To be hiring bodyguards with such a tight budget for both the team and the reward, it was clear this group of twenty was both desperate to return to B City and truly poor.

Tang Mo decided this was the one. She activated her watch and contacted the person at the address listed in the mission posting.

Following the address she was given over the phone, Tang Mo soon found the group’s location.

It was a large house—or rather, a single large room of several dozen square meters.

Only after stepping through the door did Tang Mo truly grasp just how poor this group was.

Seventeen or eighteen people were all on bedrolls on the floor. Some were sitting up and resting, while others were still lying down, asleep.

There were even a few young children chasing each other in circles, playing and roughhousing.

There were men and women, young and old. The one in charge was a man in his fifties whom everyone in the room called Uncle He.

”Hello. Are you here to apply for the bodyguard position?”

Seeing that it was a young woman who had entered, Uncle He’s brow furrowed.

For this journey home, he had pooled all of everyone’s savings, which was barely enough to hire five people.

’A woman? That’s definitely not going to work. They didn’t have the extra funds to hire someone useless.’

”No. I came to ask if I could join you.”

Tang Mo smiled again. Whenever she smiled with her eyes narrowed like this, it meant it was time to start acting.

Uncle He looked at Tang Mo’s attire. It was just a plain tracksuit, but it was very clean.

’People who could keep themselves clean every day in these times were no simple figures. First, it meant she had a permanent place to live. Second, it meant she didn’t have to worry about her next meal.’

Uncle He had lived for half a century; he could tell what was going on with a single glance.

After a moment of thought, he finally let Tang Mo into the room.

”The room’s a bit crude, I apologize.”

Uncle He took out a small cushion and offered it to Tang Mo so she could sit on the floor.

Seeing a stranger enter, the dozen or so people in the room all looked over with curiosity.

But Uncle He’s authority in the room was considerable, and not a single person dared to speak up and ask.

However, a little boy, two or three years old with a grimy face, struggled to crawl into Tang Mo’s lap after she sat down.

”Mao Tou, get out of there!”

Uncle He scolded, seeing the boy’s actions.

Hearing Uncle He’s words, the boy, far from being scared, burrowed his face deeper into Tang Mo’s embrace, his dirty little face smudging a patch of her clothes.

The boy’s reaction to Uncle He showed that the man was usually very kind to the children.

”It’s alright, let him stay,” Tang Mo said with a smile, wrapping an arm around the little boy and gently patting his back.

Ever since Yangyang was born, she had watched him grow from a tiny, wrinkled bundle into a chubby, fair-skinned one, and her heart had unconsciously softened toward all children.

”Here’s the thing,” she began. ”I’m not here to apply for the bodyguard job. I want to travel to B City with all of you. If you’ll have me, I’m willing to cover half the cost of hiring the bodyguards.”

Tang Mo stated her intentions.

’That’s right, she wasn’t here to be a bodyguard. She might be ”poor” at the moment, but that was by her own design; she certainly wasn’t hurting for a few Crystal Cores.’

’Being a bodyguard meant responsibility, a lack of freedom. She had decided to travel with others, but she absolutely refused to be tied down.’

’Besides, she wanted to keep a low profile while traveling with a group this time, not be so conspicuous. It was far better to spend five Crystal Cores to blend in with the group, take it easy, and act as the situation demanded. It would be much more relaxing.’

In truth, Tang Mo had discovered long ago that her rate of improvement was slowing down.

She had consulted many texts, and they all said the same thing: the human body has its limits. You can’t push it too hard in a short period; you have to give it time to recover.

If you allow yourself a plateau period to recover and relax a little, your subsequent progress will be much faster. That’s how you get twice the results with half the effort.

Though Tang Mo was a young woman in the prime of her youth, she had never tried to lose weight.

If she had, she would know this was the same principle as a weight-loss plateau.

So Tang Mo decided she needed to slow down, to experience life, to feel her way forward on the journey ahead.

Moreover, she was of the Spiritual System, which placed great importance on mental relaxation and insights of the mind and spirit.

If one’s mind and spirit were empty, increasing spiritual power was far more difficult than increasing other attribute values.

This was the most important reason why Tang Mo wanted to travel with a group that had such a strong, vibrant sense of life.