Apocalypse Descends: I Win Effortlessly by Turning Trash into Treasure

”I’ll accept the one hundred Contribution Value points and the reward card, but I’ll pass on joining the Survival Game Administration. I don’t have any grand ambitions, I don’t like following orders, and I like managing other people even less. So, let’s just leave it at that.”

These men seemed to have anticipated Perry Yates’s refusal.

”That’s a real shame,” one of the men said with a smile.

”Since you’ve made your decision, we won’t press the issue. You can choose your reward card here.”

As he spoke, the other man produced a silver-gray laptop out of thin air.

He opened the laptop, revealing a display filled with three-star cards.

At the sight of this, Perry Yates didn’t hesitate and began to browse forthrightly.

She went straight past all the item cards and started looking at the Artifact Skill Cards, filtering for the Wood Attribute.

’After all, since these people managed to find me, they must know which card attributes I’ve integrated with.’

What Perry Yates didn’t know was that as she bent her head to pick a card, the two men were secretly observing her.

When they saw her skip the item cards to look at Skill Cards—specifically, only Wood Attribute Skill Cards—a flash of understanding passed through their eyes.

What the two men failed to notice, however, was that while Perry Yates was looking at Wood Attribute Cards, she was ignoring all the single-attribute ones.

Her gaze lingered mostly on the Dual Attribute Cards.

After some careful consideration, Perry Yates finally selected a card with an image of a dodder on it.

The card’s description indicated that in addition to its Wood Attribute, it also possessed a powerful Devouring attribute.

After all, in nature, a dodder latches onto more powerful plants to grow, stealing their nutrients before finally strangling its host to death.

This is why describing people who are too weak to even truss a chicken and who depend on others for survival as ”dodders” is actually quite inaccurate.

Seeing Perry Yates’s choice, the two men confirmed it and turned the laptop back toward themselves.

Perry Yates had assumed they would put the laptop away and arrange to have the card delivered to her home later.

But she was wrong.

She watched as one of the men reached his hand into the laptop screen and, with a fluid motion, pulled the card right out.

A smile touched Perry Yates’s lips as the card was handed to her. She accepted it and said politely, ”Thank you.”

After taking the card and seeing the men out, Perry Yates finally breathed a sigh of relief.

’Dealing with people is just too much trouble. I should just stay home.’

After stashing the card away, Perry Yates returned to her room. She looked ready to crawl back into bed, and that was exactly what she planned to do.

The two men’s arrival today had disrupted her plans.

She opened her phone and checked her building’s resident chat group. Sure enough, her identity as a player had been exposed. The group chat was buzzing with all kinds of comments.

Thankfully, she had bought an apartment with a private elevator entrance. For security, each resident’s key card could only access their own floor.

Perry Yates lived on the top floor, so it was unlikely anyone would come to bother her.

’Still, even with that, I definitely can’t go out today.’

Perry Yates thought for a moment and decided to send her Clone out instead. It would be a good opportunity to test if the Clone could travel far from her main body, and whether there was a range limit.

If there wasn’t, then in future games, she could find a shelter ahead of time, send the Clone out to explore, and never have to worry about her own safety again.

With that thought, Perry Yates popped a piece of candy into her mouth. A green light then shot from her finger and flew out the window.

At the same moment, a young woman who bore a slight resemblance to Perry Yates emerged from the shrubbery of the residential complex.

After brushing off some stray bits of grass, Perry Yates controlled her Clone, having it skip happily out of the complex.

The biggest difference between controlling the Clone and her own body, she found, was that she now had two points of view.

At first, Perry Yates thought she would find it disorienting or become flustered, but that wasn’t the case. She adapted to the state surprisingly quickly.

Perry Yates wanted to find a suitable location to open a shop. ’The city center is out,’ she thought. ’Too many people, and more importantly, no abandoned buildings.’

After a moment’s thought, Perry Yates pulled out her phone and did a quick search. Then she scanned a rental bike and started riding toward the outskirts of the city.

She remembered an area on the outskirts that was supposed to be developed into a commercial district. But halfway through construction, the Survival Game had arrived.

The investor behind the project and his son were both pulled into the game, and neither of them ever returned.

Because of that, the entire project had been shut down.

Upon arriving at the city’s edge, Perry Yates found exactly what she was looking for: rows of half-finished buildings.

After looking around for a bit, Perry Yates settled on a shopping mall.

’The space seems a bit large, but that’s not an issue. Better to be too big than too small later on.’

Once she’d decided on the location, Perry Yates flung out two golden cards.

The Nameless Bar card merged with the shopping mall, and in an instant, the entire building underwent a staggering transformation.

The once half-finished shopping mall was now fully constructed. The name of the bar hung above the entrance.

Perry Yates had renamed The Nameless Bar to The Card Tavern, a place dedicated to card exchange.

The Phantom Street card landed in front of the shopping mall, and once again, the surrounding scenery changed in a flash.

The street, which had been lined with derelict, unfinished buildings, was now completely empty. All the abandoned structures had vanished, leaving only a deserted street with a neon-lit bar at its end.

[Please set the entry conditions for Phantom Street!]

Entry Condition: Only players or those invited by a player may enter.

Anyone who starts a fight within Phantom Street will be immediately ejected.

After setting these two conditions, Perry Yates walked toward the shopping mall—no, The Card Tavern.

From now on, any ordinary person who came here would still see only the abandoned construction site. But if a player came, they would be guided by Phantom Street.

However, it wasn’t time to open for business just yet. The interior of The Card Tavern still needed to be furnished. For now, apart from basic fixtures like tables, chairs, and a bar counter, it was completely empty.

’But I’ve already prepared for that.’

A black card appeared in her hand.

With a flick of her wrist, a red card merged with The Card Tavern. Instantly, the once-stuffy bar became pleasantly cool.

It was a three-star item card: Thermostatic System. It had to be bound to a building to be used, and its effect was to keep the interior of the bound building as pleasant as spring all year round.

Following that, Perry Yates began to throw out one prepared card after another.