Survival of the Nation: My luck was a tiny bit worse.

Well, now nobody's going to get any sleep.

Ou Yun immediately launched himself out of the tent.

"They're here? Where are they? How big are they? Have they fought yet? Can we win?"

"Calm down, they're not here yet."

Leng Ruolan pressed down on his shoulder.

"It just showed its shadow in the distance and then retreated. It's most likely just scouting the situation and won't make a move tonight."

"Then why did you wake me up?!"

"Because I want you to experience what it's like to be woken up in the middle of the night."

Leng Ruolan smiled and said, "You didn't even tell me before you jumped out of the helicopter last time."

"...You're way too vengeful."

"Thank you for the compliment."

Ou Yun lay back down in her sleeping bag, but this time she couldn't fall asleep again.

He stared at the top of the tent, his mind replaying the enormous shadow that appeared and disappeared in the sea of ​​sand.

The ultimate boss of this area has taken notice of them.

Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.

But he knew one thing.

His sword was charged to 89%, just 11% away from unleashing another area-of-effect attack.

And in this desert, there are enough abyssal monsters to power him up.

The campfire crackled.

The Milky Way overhead slowly rotates, and the sound of shifting sands never ceases.

In the distance, a huge black shadow moved slowly beneath the sand dunes, waiting for its chance.

*

Just as the sky began to lighten with the first hint of dawn, Ou Yun was awakened by a strange noise.

"Glug glug glug—Pfft!"

He groggily sat up in his sleeping bag, unzipped the tent, and looked outside.

Marcus squatted by the campfire, holding a simple coffee pot he had made himself from sheet metal.

Brownish foam was spraying out of the spout, making a "popping" sound like some kind of creature farting.

Good morning, brother.

Marcus looked up. "I'm making coffee."

"Coffee...where did you get coffee?" Ou Yun thought he had misheard.

"Yesterday, we found several desert coffee plants next to the dead sandworms."

Marcus held up a dry, grayish-green plant beside him. "The seeds of this plant contain caffeine. After drying and grinding them, you can brew a coffee-like beverage. Although it doesn't taste as good as real coffee beans, it's a rare pick-me-up in the desert."

Ou Yun said "Oh," and added, "You even recognize this?"

My college roommate majored in botany.

Marcus pushed up his homemade glasses, a hint of nostalgia in his expression.

"He chose to study desert botany to pursue a female student. In the end, he didn't win her over, but he did manage to identify all the desert plants. Later, he sent me all his notes, saying that they shouldn't be wasted."

"What about your roommate?"

"He was chosen in the first phase of the forbidden area and didn't survive past the third day."

"..."

The campfire crackled.

Ou Yun was silent for a moment, then climbed out of his sleeping bag and sat down next to Marcus.

"Give me a drink too."

The coffee didn't really taste like coffee—it was more bitter, astringent, and had a faint earthy smell.

But in this wasteland where there is nothing but sand, being able to drink a hot beverage is already a luxury.

Leng Ruolan emerged from another tent, wrinkling her nose at the smell: "What's that smell?"

"Desert coffee".

Ou Yun raised his glass. "Marcus Cocktail. It has a very unique flavor. Would you like a glass?"

Leng Ruolan took the cup from Marcus, took a sip, and her expression instantly changed from confusion to shock to pain to relief, finally settling on "You can't ask for too much when you're living in a forbidden area."

"It's alright," she said.

"Your expression just now didn't say that," Ou Yun retorted.

"If I say it's alright, then it's alright."

Alexander was the third to wake up, and his eyes lit up as soon as he smelled coffee.

He took the cup and downed half of it in one gulp, then his expression looked as if he had been hit on the back of the head with a stick.

"Is this coffee or torture?!" He finally managed to utter the words after a long pause.

"It's a coffee-flavored form of torture," Markustan said honestly.

"Then why didn't you say so sooner?!"

"Because I want to see your reaction."

"You intellectuals are wicked!"

Douglas was the last to get up.

He was on the second night watch last night and didn't go to sleep until the early hours of the morning. He had two obvious dark circles under his eyes.

He picked up the coffee cup with practiced ease, clearly having drunk plenty of bad coffee during his previous military service—but he still couldn't help but frown when he took the first sip.

"This tastes even worse than the one I drank in the trenches last time," he commented.

"Isn't the coffee in your army notoriously bad?" Alexander asked.

"It's notoriously bad. But at least it's a little better than this."

"Then I can imagine how awful this coffee must taste."

Marcus remained unaffected, continuing to stir the coffee in the pot with the stick: "You don't understand, this is called acclimatization training. If you can drink this, you won't be afraid of any unpalatable food you encounter in the forbidden area."

"Then why don't you drink it yourself?"

"I'm a chef, and chefs don't have to drink the awful food they make."

"Aren't you a construction engineer?!"

"In the forbidden area, everyone has to take on multiple roles."

"..."

Despite the complaints, everyone still finished their coffee, not wanting to disappoint the person who had put in the effort.

*

After settling into camp, the expedition team prepared to continue their journey.

Nanbei's wounds have healed considerably after a night's rest.

Chen Hao's homemade hemostatic medicine was indeed amazing. The long cut had now formed a thin scab, and it no longer bled when pressed.

But Leng Ruolan insisted that it continue to lie on the stretcher.

"At least one more day of rest. In this restricted area, an infected wound is practically a death sentence."

Nanbei lay on the stretcher, his expression one of utter despair and resignation.

As the leader of the lynx pack, the camp's security captain, and Leng Ruolan's personal mount and battle partner, when has it ever been so humiliating?

Red Bean stayed by its side, occasionally brushing its nose with its tail, as if to comfort it.

Nanbei snorted and turned his face to the other side.

"It's throwing a tantrum." Ou Yun found it amusing. "This guy is becoming more and more like a human."

"I learned it from you." Leng Ruolan said without turning her head.

"I wasn't throwing a tantrum!"

"When you were woken up yesterday."

"...That doesn't count."

"If you say it doesn't count, then it doesn't count."

The morning chill on the sand dunes was enough to make you shiver.

When the sun just rises, the sand is covered with a thin layer of frost—that's how extreme the temperature difference between day and night is in the desert; it's freezing at night and unbearably hot during the day.

The expedition members wrapped their coats tightly around themselves and trudged forward on the crunching frozen sand.

Marcus walked at the front, holding a homemade navigator made with a compass and star chart, stopping every few minutes to check his position.