Chapter 270: Highway Survival 2

Perry Yates wasn’t driving very fast, as she was also searching for nearby treasure boxes.

She didn’t have a shortage of food, but she definitely needed fuel.

Her car had a full tank for now, but it was a small vehicle, which meant it had a small gas tank. Who knew how long this little bit of fuel would last?

By afternoon, her car had used up a third of its fuel, and Perry Yates still hadn’t found any. She’d discovered a few treasure boxes, but none of them contained fuel. They were all filled with food and water, plus one monster, which Perry Yates dispatched with a single strike.

At first, she thought these monsters would be tough to handle. ’Turns out they’re so fragile.’

Perry Yates pulled the car over to the side of the road and took out a meat floss bun. She began eating while opening the chat channel.

She seemed to recall the game rules mentioning that players could trade resources with one another.

After opening the chat channel, Perry Yates quickly located the trading section in the bottom-right corner.

She hadn’t known what to expect, but one look gave her a shock. The prices for items in the trading section were all frighteningly high; they didn’t look like anything anyone could afford.

Or rather, it seemed these people had no intention of actually selling anything.

Looking at the wide variety of items—they had everything—Perry Yates suddenly had a ridiculous thought. ’Could it be... that these people are using the trading section as a personal warehouse?’

The more she looked, the more she felt she was right. No wonder the prices were set so high—they were afraid someone might actually buy their things.

Perry Yates looked at the listings. ’Why are there Pet Eggs?’

And quite a lot of them, too.

Almost every player had a dozen or so Pet Eggs listed, and the prices were marked very low.

With prices like that, it either meant they weren’t afraid of someone buying them, or the items had no market value at all.

Perry Yates guessed the latter was more likely.

She checked the information on the Pet Eggs. They required a drop of blood to claim ownership and had to be personally incubated, like hatching a chick. Furthermore, the pet couldn’t provide any help in its early stages and would consume a large amount of survival resources.

’No wonder no one was bothering to hatch them.’

Seeing this, Perry Yates decided to do a "good deed" and buy them all. The price was cheap, anyway, and it was a good way to use up some of the extra resources in her storage space.

After buying up all the Pet Eggs, Perry Yates found a few players who were genuinely trying to sell fuel and bought ten barrels of gasoline from them. Now she shouldn’t have to worry about fuel for a while.

With the fuel problem solved for the time being, Perry Yates’s mood improved considerably, and she started driving faster.

As dusk approached, she remembered the system rules mentioning that monsters came out to roam at night.

Although Perry Yates wasn’t afraid of the monsters, she still pulled the car over and activated her Cold Moon Guardian.

A pale blue barrier completely enveloped the car. Perry Yates took out a container of beef and potato stew over noodles, pulled a utensil case out, grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and began to eat.

She opened the chat channel again. It was buzzing with activity. Everyone was discussing the same thing: all of their Pet Eggs had been bought out.

[NextDoorOldWang: Which poor sucker was willing to trade food for that many Pet Eggs?]

[El_Oh_Well: Or maybe they discovered a new use for Pet Eggs. Hey, friend who bought all the eggs, are you here? Care to share your discovery? We’re all friends here, after all. Don’t be so stingy.]

What followed was a mix of people agreeing with him and others being passive-aggressive. In short, the comments were all over the place.

Perry Yates was glad she had made the purchases anonymously.

After finishing her noodles, she turned to look outside and was met with a pair of red eyes.

’What a huge wild boar!’

Perry Yates stared at the boar monster outside. It was nearly as large as her car.

The boar monster was currently blocked outside the Cold Moon Guardian. It snorted two plumes of air from its nostrils, looking furious.

The boar monster then took a few steps back before charging straight for the barrier.

Seeing this, the Spiritual Ability Gun materialized beside Perry Yates. She pressed the trigger, and a beam of light shot out, instantly piercing through the boar monster’s body.

The boar monster collapsed, lifeless. Its momentum carried it forward until it slid to a stop half a meter from the Cold Moon Guardian’s barrier.

Staring at the dead boar monster, Perry Yates waited for a long time, but no treasure box appeared.

’What’s going on? Killing a monster doesn’t drop a treasure box?’

’Terrible design!’

Despite her complaint, Perry Yates expanded the barrier to include the boar’s corpse. Then she got out of the car. A few cards appeared in her hand and transformed into tools.

A boar this big would yield hundreds of pounds of meat alone.

And with everyone currently short on food, even the parts that would normally be discarded would be snatched up.

Perry Yates spent the night butchering the entire boar, then listed the meat on the trading section.

She didn’t lack for anything, so she set the price to be paid only in Pet Eggs.

Perry Yates hadn’t seen any information about cards in the trading section before, so she suspected the other players didn’t know about them. To avoid exposing her abilities, she didn’t mention cards at all.

After posting the listings, she paid them no more mind. She downed a cup of coffee and got back on the road.

She hadn’t been driving for long when she spotted a shimmering silver treasure box in the grass not far ahead, beckoning to her.

’A Silver Treasure Chest. I wonder what’s inside.’

Perry Yates didn’t get out of the car to retrieve it herself. Instead, she used vines to open the treasure box for her. This approach ensured her safety and gave her time to react.

The box slowly creaked open, and a round, jiggly, jelly-like thing fell out.

’What is this thing? A Slime?’

Perry Yates’s eyes widened as she watched the blue-and-white jelly-thing bounce twice after hitting the ground.

’Seriously? A Silver Treasure Chest gave me *this*?’

’Is that even fair?’

Sometimes, she really felt like reporting this game to the authorities.

As everyone knows, Slimes are completely useless. They have no attack power—with the exception of a certain famous slime protagonist, of course.

Just as Perry Yates was considering whether to spare the little thing, the blue-and-white Slime suddenly leaped up and shot a stream of white slime toward her.

The slime was blocked by her Flame Barrier and fell to the ground. The moment it made contact, a corrosive, sizzling sound filled the air.

Perry Yates was speechless. ’Okay,’ she thought, ’I take back what I just said. This Slime isn’t useless at all. So...’

She pulled out her Spiritual Ability Gun and finished it off with a single shot.

After the Slime died, three glowing orbs of light appeared on the ground.