By this point, everything they had to do here was finished. With Captain Wang found, their task on this mountain was complete.
Captain Zhang said, "Your minds only just cleared. After these last few days, your bodies need time to recover. The ships also can't sail until they're cleaned. We'll rest in place for two days, then move."
Two days was enough. One day to sleep, one day to clean the ships. After that, they could board and rest in shifts. Even on the water, they wouldn't meet strange creatures every single day.
Most important of all, no one knew what they would face on the road ahead. These two days were the time to get familiar with new abilities. If trouble came, they wouldn't panic. Everyone agreed. There were sixty-seven left, and they couldn't divide ships by the old squads anymore.
Captain Zhang thought it through. His core group of a dozen shouldn't be split up, and he had reasons.
Lan Jin's team of four had very strong abilities. Looking closely, though, among all these people, the ones with high combat power were really those four. Captain Zhang's mental power couldn't attack, so he didn't count it.
If something happened, those four would be the shield. Keeping them together made sense.
Since those four were so strong, and the newly awakened were still learning, Captain Zhang assigned more than twenty ability-less people to his own ship along with them.
That meant their ship had powerhouse abilities, but also too many ordinary people. If a crisis hit, protecting everyone might still be hard.
The remaining thirty or so ability users were split evenly between the other two ships.
After thinking it over, no one objected.
…
On the first day of rest, everyone slept like the dead. They even slept through mealtimes. When they woke, there was plenty to do. First, fill their stomachs. Then clean the ships.
The job was simple. Pile broken items in a corner. They could repair them later or find new uses for them. Nothing was to be wasted. The hardest part was disinfecting and scrubbing away the blood inside the cabins. It took work, but it wasn't beyond them.
By the time the cabins were clean, the two days were gone. After another night of rest, they set out at dawn on the journey back to base.
…
The horns of three ships boomed across the mountains. Ling Jiang stared toward the distant dense forest and said, "Lao Shi should hear it too. The ships are so loud."
"He'll hear it, Sister Ling…"
Lao Gao started to say something to comfort her, but Ling Jiang cut him off. "I don't need comfort. We've had plenty die along the way. We've killed plenty along the way. I won't cry over someone who betrayed me."
Lan Jin said, "It's normal to feel sad. There's nothing wrong with that. In love he was no good, but in work he was serious and responsible. All in all, he was a good man. To be left here like this is a pity."
Even going out in a final battle would have made more sense. Instead, a sweep of light, and then…
In short, it was a pity. Nothing more. Lan Jin had no other feelings to spare.
Ling Jiang drew a long breath. "Enough. I can handle it. Also, we're relaxing too soon. We don't even know if we can make it back."
Huang Jinghe grimaced. "Sister Ling, don't say it like that. We'll make it back. The ones still here will return safe."
Heh.
Truly, just heh.
…
On a peak inside the dense forest.
From the highest point, you could see the water far away. As the ships moved off, a humanoid mutant stood watching them go, reluctant to look away. The humanoid mutant was Lao Shi after mutation. By now he had become the same kind of humanoid mutant they had seen on basement five.
Lao Shi's new attribute was lynx, a feline. Such animals could stand upright and leap, with thick pads and sharp claws. He had inherited every one of those traits, and some habits too. He now preferred rabbit and deer. He could find them in the dense forest and bring them down quickly.
At first Lao Shi refused. Habit was habit, carved into bone. Without food he would die. After thinking it through, he finally sank his teeth in.
He transformed later than the others, only now. He already knew what he had to know. So he chose prey that did not have human faces. He wanted to avoid eating his own kind while any human thought remained.
At least while his mind was clear, he would not do it.
The strange part came after the bite. Lao Shi picked ordinary mutant beasts. Yet once he bit into them, the wounds knit shut, leaving a long seam. Faces grew along that seam. Eyes opened. Mouths moved. Voices spoke. One by one, just like those nightmares.
So the creatures with human faces in the dense forest were infected by beings like Lao Shi.
Why did this happen? His head throbbed. No matter how he tried, he couldn't reason it out. And here in the dense forest, even if he understood, he had no way to tell anyone.
In the end, Lao Shi accepted it. He was now a mutant. Who knew what he would become later? None of that was his concern anymore.
Except…
Attachment to the human world did not fade so easily.
…
The ships cut through the water. They were still in R City. Their job now was to search the city center, the base, and the areas around the base for any survivors who might still be alive.
Everyone thought the odds were low. But they had to look, no matter what.