บท 49: Heading to Mall

William brought Gloria out and rummaged through a nearby car that was left behind on the street. It was unlikely that the owner would return back anytime soon, so he opened the front and began to work on taking the necessary cables along with the alternator and accumulator.

He furrowed his brows as he looked at the two devices in his hand. "Do you think this is enough?"

"An accumulator can last for 10 to 15 years if they're good enough, but since we're in Country V, I'm sure that I'll only able to last 5 to 9 years," Gloria said bitterly. The poor regulation in this country was not a secret to the citizen. There were so many accumulators that was poorly made.

"On the other hand, an alternator can commonly last for 7 years. As long as we can survive, I'm sure it's enough for the time being and we'll only need to think about it again after five years," Gloria explained with a grin.

William arched his eyebrows. "Are you not sure that we'll be able to survive that long?"

"Well, most canned food can only last for 3 years at most even if we ignore the expiry date. If we want to survive longer, we'll need to find other food sources," Gloria explained with trailed voice as they walked into the building once more.

"There's still civilization outside since the cities that were bombed are only the capital city and City."

"There's also City V27."

"It's on the East part of this island, so it's unlikely that we'll encounter it."

Gloria pursed her lips. The capital city was located a bit to the middle but still in the West area of the island. The cities around the capital city was city V11 up to city V17. The place where they were staying was City V14, a small city located south of the capital. It was also thanks to the distance that the city survived from the blast.

However, from City V11 to V17, they were all put inside lockdown. No one inside and outside the cities could come out or come in from the perimeter that they had set on both the west and east. East was even stricter because there were still countless cities on the other side of the islands with large population.

On the other hand, the east only had three more cities, which was city V8 to V10. The previous numbers were all located in other island.

Country V was a country with several big islands and thousands small islands. It was located outside of the other continents that was big and filled with more lands. This country was surrounded by seas and other continents.

"I'll put it here," William said as he placed the alternator and accumulator on the table. He noticed that Rozan had returned. "Can you make a wooden box that's sturdy enough to put this?"

Rozan arched his eyebrows. "Do you think wooden box will be strong enough to keep it? I'll use special plastic for it."

"There's a special one?"

"Yeah, the term is quite long, but it's usually used for insulation for metal materials," Rozan replied. He didn't really care for the name, though, as he could only think of it as plastic that was a bit more durable.

"Alright. I'll just leave it to you," William said hurriedly. He was not familiar with materials that had already undergone some special change. If he was not wrong, he flunked his chemist back when he was in high school…

Not his glorious days for sure.

"I'll cook the instant noodles and also prepare some canned dried food," Gloria said. "You'll need more food if you're going to fight for a long time outside."

"Alright."

They needed to make sure that they didn't lack in nutrition if they wanted to survive. Even though saving food was important, they couldn't possibly starve themselves.

The night passed quietly and the next day, William and Yakov departed to the mall nearby. There was an abandoned mall just beside the construction building, so they didn't need to take the car.

"So, food?" Yakov asked as he climbed the fence.

William nodded. "We need more nutrition if we don't want to die because of lack of nutrients."

"It'll be better if we can just eat meat."

"And where do you want to find it?"

Yakov didn't reply and focused on searching for the store. His eyes were locked at the entrance of the mall that was opened wide. There were several corpses on the ground, some were already decaying. It was the mark that they have died for a few days.

"This is bad, the smell is going to kill us," Yakov whined.

"Will the Xermo get attracted to corpse?"

"…I don't know."

The two didn't say anything else and began to sweep the mall. There were a lot of people who were still inside when the incident happened. They might not realize that the city had turned dangerous because of the capital city bombing and continued to live their lives as usual, believing that the government would clear everything.

But in truth, it was the opposite.

William could see that this area was not affected by the bomb in the slightest bit. The buildings were intact and the street was not filled with destruction. What happened here must have been a large swarm of Xermo coming over and attacked every single human being.

They left the car and everything else, doing everything they could just to be able to survive.

"There's still enough food supplement here," William said after he found the location of the store.

Yakov came to him while bringing a large bag that he picked up on the way. "Put everything here. We can't stay here for long."

"I know."

The two of them filled the bag with the food nutrients that Sienna had listed for them to take. In addition, they also took a few more medicine that might be necessary and a first aid kit box. No one knew when they would get sick or hurt, so it would be better to be prepared first rather than regretting later.