Qianyuan: My crew comes from the world of anime.

Monster: "Roar—!"

Chapter 4 Looting

Below, the sound of Levi firing her gun kept reaching Luo Tianming's ears. Just from the roars and the frequency of the shots, he could roughly guess how intense the battle below was.

"..."

Luo Tianming thought somewhat irresponsibly, "I really hope she can conserve some bullets."

Since he had already decided to entrust the task of attracting the monsters to her, Luo Tianming didn't intend to say anything more about her actions. With less than 29 minutes left, he had to collect as many supplies as possible in this extremely short time.

Luo Tianming knew his goal was very clear:

A supply depot—essential for submarines, containing fuel rods, and you might even find some leftover ammunition.

The warehouse—there must be resources he needs there, such as food and fresh water.

The medical room—a place where medicines and medical consumables are scarce.

"..."

But before that, he decided to go to another place first. Located on the very top floor of the entire site: the stationmaster's office.

The reason for going here is that when Luo Tianming was reading the 'Captain's Log', he learned that the stationmaster's office must be located at the very top of the outpost, and that there are many good things there.

The log even devoted half a page to describing how luxurious the stationmaster's office was, which made Luo Tianming want to strangle himself again.

"Forget it, let's find something handy to use as a weapon first."

With the gun out of bullets, it's less useful than scrap metal. If we encounter any real danger, we can only throw this thing out as a hidden weapon.

"..."

After watching for a while, Luo Tianming casually pulled out a crowbar from the corner of the wall...?

This thing blends seamlessly into its surroundings wherever it's placed, without looking out of place at all; he almost missed it.

Picking up the crowbar, Luo Tianming swung it around in his hand, making a whooshing sound. He seemed quite satisfied with the crowbar's effect.

As for that pistol that was out of bullets... it had become a burden at this point.

He had quite a few things on him: a multi-functional Swiss Army knife, emergency food, a wallet, a pen, and the captain's logbook... Now that he had to carry a crowbar on his back, the pistol he originally carried was somewhat redundant.

"Ugh……"

Just when he couldn't put the logbook and pistol together in his inner pocket...

Suddenly, he felt a lightness in his body!

When he hurriedly pulled it out of his inner pocket again, all that was left was the captain's log.

"...Hmm, what's going on?"

He looked into his pocket, then at the ground... There were no holes inside, and the pistol wasn't on the ground either.

So… Luo Tianming looked at the 'Captain's Log' in his hand; this was the only suspect.

He opened the captain's log and flipped to the latest page—where he saw his pistol (?), its original futuristic metal casing now transformed into a lifelike painting!

The 'drawing' of the entire pistol took up a whole page, and it looked exactly like his pistol.

"Could it be...!"

Luo Tianming took out a multi-functional Swiss Army knife again and tried to bring it close to the cover of the journal... Instantly, the Swiss Army knife seemed to be sucked into the journal.

Turning to the last page of the log again, the Swiss Army knife had become just a piece of paper.

Luo Tianming curiously weighed the logbook in his hand. The weight hadn't changed, but strangely, when he tried to take out the Swiss Army knife inside, he suddenly felt an urge to tear the paper to shreds.

Stab it--!

He tore off the page representing the Swiss Army knife, and within two seconds, the page transformed back into a Swiss Army knife.

"...!"

Seeing this scene, Luo Tianming couldn't help but feel overjoyed.

But before he could be happy for long, a problem suddenly occurred to him: the diary didn't look very thick, what if all the pages were torn up?

Fortunately, when he turned over the torn pages, the remaining page was growing a fine spiderweb-like structure, as if it were growing.

It seems this thing has a self-repairing function.

Since that's the case, Luo Tianming's bold idea, which had just subsided, returned to his mind.

'If I had this log, wouldn't I be able to easily take away a huge amount of supplies?!'

With this in mind, he immediately took bold action—starting with the stationmaster's office at the very top, he launched a thorough search!

[25 minutes remaining until the agreed time]

-

On the other hand, Life isn't so easy for Levi, who is in charge of restraining the mutants of the Painted Skin.

"...Damn it!"

Just as Levi was about to draw her gun and fire again, she remembered Luo Tianming's words telling her to conserve her bullets.

"..."

Left with no other choice, she gritted her teeth and put the gun back in the leather pouch at her waist.

She quickly climbed the suspended ladder of the outpost, using both her hands and feet. When she reached the next level, she didn't forget to look down.

Monster: "Hiss...!"

The painted chimera, with its gaping maw, rapidly approached her, climbing the suspension ladder at a speed almost identical to Levi's.

Of course, Luo Tianming wasn't lying to her... Compared to the speed at which this monster ran in a straight line, climbing the suspension ladder was indeed a bit slow.

Death's footsteps drew ever closer behind her, and just as it was about to catch up, Levi jumped off a suspended ladder once more.

As she herself said: This was a deadly 'tango'; the moment the two came close was the moment her life ended.

"..."

However, sometimes the threat doesn't come from the Chimera himself.

Luo Tianming had once told her: This thing is a parasitic organism. It can infect the attacked, thereby modifying the host's body within hours and ultimately parasitizing and controlling the host.

It's like the zombie virus in zombie movies.

Now, those who were attacked by the Painted Skin Chimera but were not eaten by it have completed the final stage.

Chitinous tentacles gushed from their throats, and their eyes snapped open, turning into pure white pupils.

"...!"

They now have a new name: Painted Skin Infected.

-

Station Master's Office —

Luo Tianming looked at the safe peeking out from behind the desk, his eyes filled with joy.

There's a safe here, and I have a crowbar... Isn't that a coincidence?

Creak—~~~!

The sickening sound of metal bending echoed through the office as Luo Tianming pried open a corner of the safe door with a crowbar in his hand.

Through his tireless efforts, the cabinet door was finally pried open to a size large enough for a hand to fit inside.

He reached in and his fingertips touched a heavy, rectangular object. He pulled it out without much effort…

"liquor?!"

He looked at the bottle of wine that had been taken out with some confusion.

The liquid inside the bottle is amber in color. The bottle itself is rectangular, and the bottle features a silhouette of a British gentleman wearing a top hat, walking briskly.

Coincidentally, he recognized the bottle—John Walker whisky from Scotland.

It also has a more resounding name: 'Johnnie Walker'.

Looking at the unopened label at the bottle opening, it's clear that this is an original product from Earth.

Europa doesn't have the environment or materials for brewing; most alcoholic beverages there are chemical products, but this bottle of whiskey is definitely not.

"..."

It seems the stationmaster here is quite old. This bottle of wine is probably the last bottle of wine produced on Earth that he kept as his most precious keepsake after learning that Europa had lost contact with Earth and that he felt he would never be able to return to Earth in this lifetime.

Luo Tianming: "..."

This thing is valuable, and if you sell it on the black market, you could probably get tens of thousands of marks. If you're lucky enough to meet a collector, you might even get a hundred thousand marks and buy yourself a submarine.

But to say it's useless... this thing really is useless, at least in this desperate situation, the only way to alleviate the pain is to get drunk.

Fortunately, this stuff contains at least a fair amount of alcohol, so it's good to use it as a disinfectant.

Luo Tianming slapped the captain's log on, then tore off the page about the 'door' to the stationmaster's office and threw it away.

"..."

Time was running out; he couldn't waste any more time searching for useless things. He had to find supplies as soon as possible.

[15 minutes remaining until the agreed time]

Chapter 5 Parasite

Luo Tianming entering the warehouse was like a mouse falling into a rice silo...

Look at this, look at that... he wants everything.

The disaster that would result from a hamster-collecting obsession developed from playing games, coupled with a log storage capacity that is almost weightless, is predictable.

Wherever his large hand reached, a piece of the object disappeared.

"..."

"What is this? Five kilograms of space compressed food... Take it, take it."

"...Building materials? Bundle them up and take them with you!"

"Wow! A complete high-pressure diving suit, even with an oxygen tank! Take it! We have to take this!"

"Let me see what else we have... oxygen cylinders, let's take five with us."

"How come there's no money here? Are all the Marks carried around by those poor bastards?"

Luo Tianming swept across the warehouse like a locust swarm, staring at the dozens of pages of spoils in the captain's log. If it weren't for the limited time remaining, he might have even wanted to take the tables in the warehouse.

"..."

However, during the looting of the warehouse.

To Luo Tianming's surprise, there were traces of living people who had once lived here. There were compressed biscuits with their packaging torn open on the ground, and bottled water that was half-drunk but hadn't been capped. These were all traces of living people who had once lived here.

Judging from the moisture content of the cookies, this must have been at least several hours ago...

The reason for using the word 'once' is that a large amount of blood is scattered around those traces of life.

"..."

The people here must have suffered some misfortune.

However, there was only blood on the ground, but no corpses or remains of limbs that had been eaten.

"?"

Looking at the trail of blood left on the ground, Luo Tianming suddenly realized where the corpses that should have been lying on the ground had gone.

-

[6 minutes remaining until the agreed time]

Levi felt like her lungs were about to explode.

"..."

The continuous, intense running had pushed her physical limits.

If it were just a painted-skin chimera, it wouldn't be this troublesome.

The problem is... since when did it start, and instead of the Chimera with the painted skin, those who were chasing her have become these infected with the painted skin.