Wasteland: I Awakened A Plant System - Chapter 148: Information

Chapter 148: Information

He was certain he wasn’t mistaken; this was the location where he hunted his first creature in the wasteland.

The wild buffalo that provided Vikram with a lot of meat was killed here.

Even with the wind and snow blurring his vision, he could still make out the tree where the wild buffalo had once foraged for food.

Moreover, he looked around and realized that he could navigate the roads near the shelter with his eyes closed.

Everything has changed dramatically since then.

No… it’s not a change, it looks more like a proportional reduction.

“Is the overall shrinkage of land area due to this?”

He thought the mountain had been hollowed out and was about to collapse. It now appears to have been a false alarm.

The only thing that’s frightening is that the changes in this wasteland world can no longer be explained by science.

When they said they were reducing the area, they really did reduce it in a simple and crude way.

“The land area has decreased? But the mountain, and my Territory 2 hasn’t shrunk, has it?” Looking at the hill whose volume remained unchanged, Vikram was somewhat puzzled, wondering how the judgment range was calculated.

It wasn’t until he turned to look at another mountain and noticed it was noticeably smaller that he showed a thoughtful expression.

“The size of the mountain where the shelter is located has hardly changed, but the surrounding mountains are a bit smaller, and the land area on the road below the mountain has been reduced significantly.”

The final conclusion is, “Should the amount of land reduction be determined based on the survivor’s location?”

“Only in this way can the previous situation be explained,” he said.

“Vikram, the earthquake seems to have stopped. Let’s go to the shelter,” Anjali said, unable to bear the cold outside of their territory.

—

In the early morning, after the series of events that happened yesterday, all four of them changed their usual lazy demeanor.

Real disasters followed one after another, and even though they couldn’t go out, they were still busy with something.

In the living room, Vikram was empty-handed, yet he launched the first attack against the three of them, wielding knives.

Despite being outnumbered three to one, he handled it with complete ease.

He casually dodged and weaved amidst the simultaneous slashes and thrusts of the them.

So far, he has not found any zombies in the wild, but in order to be prepared, he decided to practice their combat skills again.

He didn’t know how to increase their combat skills, due to being unable to go outside, so he can only rely on himself to train them.

After they fought for more than ten minutes, Anjali couldn’t take it anymore and suggested stopping first.

The two were physically weaker than Vikram, so it was understandable that they couldn’t beat him. But Sophia was very easy in battling him. It’s like she was suppressing herself, or she would have beaten him.

—

After the training, as his daily routine, Vikram opened the trading market.

When he tried to harvest some more metal to earn more for my daily item recycling quota, he found that the price of metal had risen significantly today.

He first browsed through the chat channels but didn’t find any discussions about metals.

Reluctantly, he had to pay a slightly higher price to acquire the metal.

He didn’t pay much attention, simply assuming it was market self-regulation and the metal returning to its original price.

—

On the other side.

In the dense forest, a huge refuge stands. The entire house was made of precious metals, gleaming brightly in the silvery wasteland.

Inside the shelter, a middle-aged man with a greasy face was questioning the survivors in front of him, with one on each side.

“So, did that kid buy any metal today?”

“Reporting to the boss, he bought it. 200 units of metal. He only hesitated for a moment before using 20 kg of meat to buy it.”

“Tsk tsk tsk, looks like this little brat’s wallet’s pretty bulging.”

“Continue to raise prices tomorrow, but be careful to do it little by little, so he doesn’t find out too quickly.”

“We have to collect some interest before we find out the kid’s exact location.”

“Okay, boss, I understand.”

“Hmph, you like to ruin my (Savage Wolf Shelter’s) plans?”

“If I really let a lone wolf like you get away, I, Rahul Soniwal, would be a failure as the leader of the Savage Wolf Shelter.” The greasy middle-aged man rubbed the head of the woman next to him, then pressed her down, chuckling maliciously from time to time.

—

Since the natural disaster, Vikram and her best friend have spent a lot of time practicing fighting skills after finishing their daily chores in the shelter.

Vikram’s coaching skills haven’t improved much, but their physical abilities have improved significantly.

With a physical constitution of around 30 points as a foundation, it seems like they learn things much faster.

And the Plant Essence in my pocket is growing bigger and bigger as the days go by.

Five days after the natural disaster, when he reopened the trading market, he was shocked by the metal prices there.

From the initial 20 units of metal to 20 kg of food, it increased to 25 kg of food yesterday.

Vikram was already somewhat skeptical about the rising metal prices.

Upon seeing that today’s transaction price had suddenly risen to 200 units for 30 food, they immediately realized that someone had deliberately manipulated it.

“Is someone trying to drive up metal prices, or is it targeting me?”

After careful consideration, he quickly ruled out the first possibility.

Metal is not a necessity for survivors right now, so there’s no way to hype it up.

If you’re really wasting time on metals, there are plenty of other, better resource options available.

Furthermore, there was no discussion about metals in the chat channel, which means someone is deliberately targeting him.

Without even thinking, Vikram knew it was Savage Wolf Shelter’s doing.

After all, he couldn’t think of anyone else besides a powerful force like Savage Wolf Shelter could influence metal prices in the region on such a large scale.

However, he didn’t rush to make a definitive statement. Instead, he first found someone among his friends whom he had almost forgotten.

Abhishek.

He remembered the last time he was asked to find out what was going on with Shalini in the Savage Wolf Shelter.

Now that so much time has passed, he hasn’t mentioned it, and Abhishek seems to have vanished into thin air, never contacting him again.

He remembered that Abhishek had slave bracelets, since the Brown Wood Shelter members were exchanging goods with the Savage Wolf Shelter.

We can definitely get some information about Savage Wolf Shelter’s recent trades from him.

[Vikram: How’s the thing I asked you to do going?]

[Vikram: Don’t think that just because you’re far away, everything you have is useless.]

After waiting a while and seeing no reply, he tried giving commands directly in the chat window.

[Vikram: Reply to me immediately!]

According to the instructions of the slavery bracelet, the wearer should be given an electric shock if they disobey his commands.

Where he couldn’t see, Abhishek in Brown Wood Shelter had already begun to convulse.

He was fast asleep when suddenly an electric current surged from the wristband he was wearing, sweeping through his entire body at an incredible speed.

By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late; his whole body tensed up from the electric current.

At that moment, Abhishek felt like he was straight for life.

The small iron house nestled against the mountain ridge was packed with members of Brown Wood Shelter.

“Crunch, crunch—”

The room was filled with bunk beds, and one of the bed frames was shaking violently.

Finally, someone couldn’t stand the jarring noise any longer and started cursing.

” Abhishek, are you having another epileptic seizure? Shaking and shaking and shaking and shaking.”

“If you don’t stop right now, I’ll fucking hit you on the head and make you behave.”

The man, who was hurling insults, slammed his fist on the bed frame and stared intently at Abhishek.

Fortunately, the creaking of the bed frame stopped soon, and the man spat out a light snort before lying back down on the bed.

The room became much quieter as a result.

Everyone else went to sleep peacefully, but Abhishek clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.

[Abhishek: Brother Vikram, what’s up?]

The tense muscles relaxed the instant the message was sent.

The tingling electric current disappeared without a trace, leaving Abhishek, covered in sweat, lying exhausted on the bed.

The moment he was taken over by Vikram, he thought his wasteland life was completely over.

However, after receiving some food from Vikram by passing on messages last time, he felt that being controlled wasn’t so bad after all.

At least compared to the other lower-class members who couldn’t even afford proper food, his situation was relatively better.

Unexpectedly, the food that he had worked so hard to get from Vikram was snatched up by the beasts in the house as soon as it was taken out.

They also claimed that this was compensation for his epilepsy affecting his roommate.