10. The Crystal Core

Ruth frowned in annoyance, but then breathed a sigh of relief. She asked once again, "Why are you sneaking around, huh?

Luca, who was a little behind Ruth and couldn't see clearly in the dark, asked, "Who's there? I can't see very well."

"Who else? Your friend Dash, huh!" Ruth's tone was filled with complaints.

Dash hobbled over to them, wide-eyed and with his hands clutching his flat stomach. He had a tired and slightly pale face as he said, "I'm starving. You guys left no food on the table."

Hearing that, Luca lightly patted his forehead and chuckled, "Ahh, I've eaten everything. I forgot there were still people here."

"Hmm. Come on, I'll make something for you to eat. Luca brought a lot of vegetables earlier," Ruth said as she led them out of the storage room and into the kitchen.

They sat at the dining table while Ruth struggled with the vegetables and cooking utensils.

"Where did you get vegetables in the midst of this world chaos?" asked Dash, looking at Luca in confusion.

Luca wasn't too confident to reveal about the space he had, so he quibbled, "Well, we always buy groceries ahead of time. We also have some dried vegetables. Just cook them, and they're ready to eat."

Half an hour later, Ruth placed the food in front of Dash and asked him to eat quickly. Looking at the food on the table, which was rather unusual as these vegetables had never been in the city's supermarket, Dash was very skeptical. He hesitated when he picked up his spoon.

"Yo, these vegetables... are you sure they're safe to eat?"

"Bro, I checked and it's safe. Plus, it's really good for your body."

"If I die after eating this, I'll haunt you, man."

"Relax, eat it before it gets cold." Actually, what made Luca feel uncomfortable was thinking of Ruth, who had gone to the trouble of cooking for Dash. If he could, he wanted Dash to cook for himself, but he remembered that Dash had just woken up from a coma and his hands were still missing.

"How pathetic," Luca thought.

Dash took his time to eat, and although Ruth's cooking was not very special, it was still edible, even better than his. After a while, Dash also showed a happy expression.

"Hey, my hands don't hurt anymore! And I'm starting to feel less weak." He looked at his best friend for a moment and continued eating while speaking, "You don't mess with this food, man! I'll eat and get better."

Luca felt a little proud. "That's it, keep eating and you'll get better. Oh, and tomorrow you'll help us clean up the mess outside."

"Mess? What mess?"

Luca looked at him lazily and didn't want to explain; he just said casually, "You also contributed to it, bro."

That night, they rested early to prepare for tomorrow's chaos. In the morning, Ruth woke up early and made breakfast with the vegetable soup Luca brought from space. After breakfast, the three of them got ready to clean up the mess outside.

Ruth reminded them, "Don't forget to wear raincoats. This drizzle will last for a few days."

Luca and Dash answered in unison. Then Luca had another question, "What will happen when this rain stops?"

While putting on her raincoat, Ruth replied, "The zombie attacks will get crazier. Because even after the rain stops, the sky won't return to normal, and the sun will still be covered by thick clouds."

Staring at the sky covered in thick clouds and the sunlight not penetrating it in the slightest, Luca again asked, "So when the sun rises again, the zombies will hide?"

"It's possible. I've never experienced that; how would I know?" Ruth shrugged and looked indifferent.

They were already wearing raincoats and armed to the teeth, ready to exit the base gate. There were many zombie corpses lying on the streets in various forms, whether burnt, hit by gunshots, and so on. The appearance was disgusting, coupled with the puddles of rainwater.

After pausing for a while and calming his shock, Dash said with a sigh, "Bruh, I only have one hand. Are you guys really going to make me work hard?"

Hearing that, Luca and Ruth both looked at Dash with a look that said "Don't expect any mercy from us."

"What's the matter? Why are you guys looking at me like that?"

Instead of answering him, Ruth glanced at Luca on the side and said irritably, "We shouldn't help this guy, Luca."

Luca agreed with Ruth's words and replied viciously, "Yeah, exactly."

Dash was furious but helpless. He lowered his shoulders and exclaimed, "What are you talking about? That's nonsense!"

"Listen, Dash. If you want to survive in this chaotic world, you need to be strong and learn to handle zombies by yourself." Ruth patted her shoulder encouragingly and continued her lecture, "You can't rely on others to help. This is the best way to train yourself."

They never knew who they would encounter in the future or how strong the zombies were. All they need is to practice as much as possible and familiarize themselves.

Luca nodded in agreement. "Ruth is right. You have to learn to rely on yourself, even if you only have one hand."

After a while, Luca added seriously, "Don't worry, we'll find you a prosthetic leg when we go hunting out of the base."

Dash couldn't complain anymore, so he agreed quickly and followed Luca and Ruth into the middle of the zombie mass. Each of them had a scalpel and a metal tube for storing zombie crystal core. They braved the spatter and dissected the zombies' heads one by one.

"Wow, the stench makes me want to vomit!" Dash touched the thick mask covering his mouth and nose, but the stench was too strong.

"Ugh! I'm really going to throw up!"

Luca glanced at him disdainfully. "Why do you have so much trouble with change, man?"

Dash snorted in disgust, turned his face to the other side and said, "But seriously, Luca! These corpses smell worse than a garbage dump!"

After a while, Dash ran to the side of the tree and vomited. His pale face grew paler and his hands trembled.

Luca watched him for a moment and let out a long sigh. "Come on, man! Adapt or we'll be here all day!"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it!" Dash pulled himself together after vomiting and started walking back to the pile of zombie corpses after organizing his mask. He worked hard and quickly understood how to scrape the crystal cores on the zombies' zombie heads.

Dash began to work frustratingly, following their orders.

Not far from his side, Ruth said encouragingly, "Hey, tear the zombie's head off with all your might!"

"It's not as easy as you think, you know!"

Ruth snorted and strutted to the other side, she was focused on her work and seemed unfazed by the stench and the disgusting rotting bodies on the ground. After all, Ruth had experienced it once.

Luca walked up to Ruth and held the crystal cores in his hand, watching the coin-sized crystal stone emitting light. He asked Ruth, "By the way, can I throw this crystal cores into space?"

"Yeah, you can."

Luca was a little excited. "Alright, I'll keep the healing-type and fire-type crystal core."

As if remembering something, Luca looked back at Ruth and asked another question, "Hey, how can you tell the difference?"

Ruth tore off the zombie's head and took out a rare pure white glowing crystal cores. She cleaned the sticky black blood and showed it to Luca.

"Look, this is a healing type crystal cores. It glows white. Since these zombies are weak, the light is not very bright."

Luca stared at the crystal cores in Ruth's hand, then looked at the crystal cores in his hand that was emitting red light. "Oh cool, so red is the fire type!"

"That's right. The one you're holding is fire-type."

They talked briefly about the color of the crystal core before getting back to work. Luca continued collecting crystal core and tossing them into space, where they turned to froth and disappeared. Looking at the zombie corpses, he felt they looked much better now.

However, Luca was too immersed in his happiness to notice that one of the zombies was still alive. The zombie was about to touch his arm when Ruth suddenly appeared and smashed its head, grabbing its crystal core with skillful movements that left Luca mesmerized for a moment.

"Stay vigilant!" Ruth's voice snapped Luca back to reality, and he laughed apologetically. In contrast, Dash seemed to be struggling, complaining and almost vomiting constantly.

"I need time to adjust! Ahh, something caught my leg! Help! Someone help me!" he cried.

Ruth kicked the zombie holding Dash's leg, then executed it as before, looking flatly at Dash. "You should learn to deal with these zombies," he said.

Just as Ruth was about to say more to Dash, Luca suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, the rain has finally stopped!"

Ruth looked up but didn't feel any rainwater. Her expression turned worried, and she shouted, "Let's go back to the Dashas for now! Luca, Dash, let's go!"

Luca was confused, not wanting to leave his work. "What? I'm trying hard here, you know!"

"We need to return to base first. I have a bad feeling," Ruth replied.

"Seriously? We just started about 5 hours ago, and we still have to take out half the zombie army," Luca argued.

"Trust me, we still have time to retrieve this one zombie crystal."

After some struggle, Luca agreed, and they headed back to the base. The wind was getting stronger, and the temperature was dropping. They secured the gate tightly upon their return.