Apocalypse Arrives: I Become a Powerhouse by Scavenging

She went over and gathered some loot as a matter of course. As the game drew to a close, two Cetabeasts, having learned that Moira Lynch wanted to hatch a Cloudsea Whale, volunteered to leave with her.

Once the nine days were up, Moira Lynch’s vision went black. The next second, she found herself in a blue space with a familiar prize wheel not far away.

[Congratulations, player SoySauceDrunkard. As the only player to successfully last for thirty days, you have been awarded one free spin. Five hundred thousand Gold Coins will be deposited into your account in three days. Please check for the deposit.]

"Can I ask a question? What happened to all the other players?"

’How did I become the only player to last for thirty days?’

After waiting for a long while, Moira Lynch received no response to her question.

"Fine, if you won’t tell me, you won’t tell me." ’Worst case, I’ll just look for answers on the game forums when I get back.’

Plenty of players enjoyed writing detailed accounts of their experiences on the forums after a game ended, charging other players a fee to read them.

That’s right. For a fee.

Walking up to the wheel, Moira Lynch glanced over the prizes. Most of them were items.

Moira Lynch’s gaze landed on two blank spaces on the wheel.

One of the two blank spaces read "Spin Again," while the other said "Thanks for Playing."

And at the very bottom of the wheel, a line of text was written in a tiny font.

"Insert one Energy Ore to remove the ’Thanks for Playing’ space from the wheel!"

Moira Lynch: ...

Pretending she hadn’t seen that line of text, Moira Lynch pressed the start button.

’It wasn’t just that she had no Energy Ore on her; even if she did, she wouldn’t have used it.’

The wheel started to spin, going faster and faster and faster.

When it reached top speed, Moira Lynch silently counted to three and slammed the stop button.

The wheel gradually slowed, and the pointer finally came to a stop on something that resembled a flying saucer.

[Planet Exploration Device: The latest machine developed by the Nebula Group. It can survey a planet’s conditions and formulate a development plan in the shortest possible time.]

’This machine might be useless in someone else’s hands, but it would be incredibly useful to me.’

Her vision went black once more. When she opened her eyes, she was met with a gaze full of worry.

Startled, Moira Lynch shot up into a sitting position, nearly banging her head against Kai York’s.

"What are you doing? You scared me to death!"

Moira Lynch clutched her head with one hand and her pounding heart with the other.

’For a second there, I thought I’d been kidnapped.’

Kai York jumped in surprise. "Hey, you stole my line!"

Once she came to her senses, Moira Lynch looked around and saw that it wasn’t just Kai York; Shane Rhodes and Hugh Finch were there too.

"Why are you all here?" Moira Lynch asked.

"Do you even have to ask? We were worried about you, of course," Kai York said.

At his words, Moira Lynch frowned. "Worried about me? What was there to worry about?"

Seeing that Moira Lynch was still in the dark, Shane Rhodes explained, "You got out of the game a full day later than we did. You tell me if we should have been worried."

"Yeah, yeah! We thought something happened to you. Then again, the game was set in a kindergarten this time. The difficulty was about the same as the first two rounds, so even if there was trouble, it couldn’t have been anything too serious, right?"

When she heard Kai York mention the game was set in a kindergarten, Moira Lynch was stunned. "Are you sure your game took place in a kindergarten?"

Hugh Finch nodded. "Why wouldn’t we be sure? It was the Starlight Stellar Kindergarten. We were helping them set up for their centennial anniversary celebration."

Just then, Shane Rhodes sensed something was off. "Moira, you weren’t in the same game as us, were you?"

Moira Lynch let out two hollow, deadpan laughs before briefly recounting what had happened to her in the game.

The first part of her story was actually quite normal. Given Moira Lynch’s preparations and ability, living comfortably on a deserted island for thirty days wouldn’t have been a problem—if it hadn’t been for the subsequent volcanic eruption.

And when Shane Rhodes and the other two heard Moira Lynch mention the volcanic eruption, they were all stunned.

’Were they really in the same game?’

"What happened after that?" Shane Rhodes asked.

Moira Lynch shook her head. "I’m not sure. Remember the Cetabeasts? I ran into the one I met during the first two games. It took me to a safe place. I don’t know anything that happened after that."

After she finished, Shane Rhodes and the other two fell into a brief silence. They didn’t know whether to call Moira Lynch unlucky or incredibly lucky.

On the one hand, if you said she was lucky, they had all played a normal game while she, specifically, was teleported to a deserted island to survive and even faced a volcanic eruption.

On the other hand, if you said she was unlucky, she had happened to run into a Cetabeast at the most critical moment and safely survived the final, most dangerous nine days.

"Oh, right. The game system compensated me with a D-grade Awakening Stone and a game slot."

Looking at the thumb-sized stone Moira Lynch produced, Hugh Finch asked, "Did all players get one of these, or was it just you?"

"Everyone got one. But there probably weren’t many players in my version of the game."

’Probably only a few hundred people at most.’

"If that’s the case, didn’t you say you ran into the Redlight people from the base? They’ll probably come looking to buy it back from you. I don’t need to tell you how to handle that, do I?"

Hearing this, Moira Lynch nodded.

’The Awakening Stone and game slot aren’t of much use to me, so I might as well turn them over to the base. As for compensation, I’m not lacking anything, so I’ll just ask for a token payment.’

After all, Moira Lynch knew the entirety of Cathaya was in a frenzy preparing for the auction in just over a month. She wasn’t about to exploit the situation.

It wasn’t just Cathaya; the whole world was bustling with activity over this. Some smaller nations, too weak to compete with the major powers, had even begun to form alliances amongst themselves.

After Shane Rhodes and the other two left, Moira Lynch opened the game forums. They were filled wall-to-wall with posts complaining about how hard the kids at the Stellar Kindergarten were to handle.

[EarlyRiserRage: You guys should count your blessings. All you had to do was babysit.]

[ScaredyCatShooter: To the dude above, looks like we were in the same game. I barely scraped through the first twenty days, only to get taken out by a volcanic eruption. Thank god the game let me keep my entry pass, or I’d have cried my eyes out.]

[SkateboardingPigFromNuts: To the guy above, getting taken out by a volcano is a pretty good deal. At least it’s painless. Close your eyes, and it’s over. You know how I died? I was boiled alive by the seawater. Now I’m even scared of hot water.]

[DaolonFan: I was the smart one. I bailed on day twenty. But this game was insanely hard. They even restricted what items you could bring in.]

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