Beedrill flicked its poisonous stinger and precisely shattered the lock and chain on the iron cage.
Lu Li had discovered yet another trait of Little Yellow: its control over its strength was extremely precise. On that point, a certain Indeedee definitely deserved to be called out.
One mental infusion had nearly killed him on the spot. When it came to using force, Indeedee had absolutely no sense of restraint.
Indeedee: That was already the minimum energy output.
Once the iron cage was opened, Yao Xia rushed forward and tightly embraced her daughter as she crawled out.
The mother and daughter clung to each other and burst into tears. Seeing this, Lu Li silently turned his head away and shook it. As a tough guy, he really couldn’t stand these sappy, touching scenes.
“Did Wang Dazhuang have some kind of grudge against this mother and daughter? Why did he torment them like this?” Lu Li asked in confusion.
“This wasn’t exactly a secret in the camp. Back when Wang Dazhuang worked as a security guard, he often harassed some of the tenants in Anke Residential Complex. Sister Yao Xia was the one responsible for communicating with the property owners back then.”
“She confronted Wang Dazhuang about it plenty of times, but Wang Dazhuang’s brother-in-law was the manager of the security department, so none of Sister Yao Xia’s complaints ever went anywhere. Wang Dazhuang ended up holding a grudge against her because of it.”
Lu Li: “…”
Wang Dazhuang really had died far too easily. Someone like him should have been kept alive as an unlimited food supply for Mimikyu.
Jun Shutong also took the initiative to comfort the women Wang Dazhuang had forced.
“Wang Dazhuang is dead. Anke Camp is now under Dawn Camp’s management. You’re free.”
“Wait.” Lu Li stopped Jun Shutong just as she was about to let the women leave.
“The ones Wang Dazhuang forced can go. But those who were willing participants and helped him commit evil have to enter the Atonement Camp. Oh, right—remember to report on and monitor each other. There will be rewards for both reporting and supervision.” Lu Li obviously couldn’t just release all of them.
After all, not every one of them was necessarily innocent.
“Let’s go upstairs and take a look at the supply warehouse,” Lu Li said.
Cai Cong hurriedly led the way. This time, Jun Shutong didn’t follow. She still had to stay behind and have people sort through the group.
Anke Camp had a huge amount of supplies, far more reserves than Dawn Camp. What surprised Lu Li the most, however, was that more than half an entire floor was piled high with pig feed.
“Why is there so much pig feed here?” Lu Li asked, pointing at the pig feed.
Cai Cong hurriedly explained, “These pig feed was prepared for the newcomers living on the ninth floor. Wang Dazhuang said that since it was already the apocalypse, people should be eating pig feed.”
The mention of pig feed reminded Lu Li of something else.
Could pig feed be used to feed Pokémon?
Pokémon’s sense of taste wasn’t as sensitive as a human’s. Normally speaking, eating pig feed should probably feel about the same to a Pokémon as eating plain rice did to a human.
Lu Li had never intended to become a Trainer all by himself and monopolize supernatural power in the apocalypse. The reason he had kept the matter of Trainers secret until now was partly because he was worried people wouldn’t be able to accept the concept.
The other reason was the problem of Pokémon food supplies.
Even now, raising just two Pokémon with relatively small appetites was already putting enormous pressure on Dawn Camp. After all, clearing out an entire floor’s worth of health supplement stores had only provided enough food for the two Pokémon for one month.
That level of consumption definitely wasn’t something an ordinary camp could sustain.
As Lu Li saw it, Dawn Camp was already struggling just to provide for the daily training consumption of three Pokémon. If the Trainer profession were popularized on top of that, the entire camp might literally be eaten into bankruptcy.
He had always been thinking about high-nutrition foods like protein powder and had completely forgotten that something as useful as pig feed existed in this world.
“Looks like modern human technology isn’t completely worthless after all,” Lu Li thought with a smile.
Lu Li checked the other supplies as well. There were quite a few freezers on this floor, and all of them were still running.
He asked Cai Cong about it.
Cai Cong was one of the camp’s administrators and also one of the people most familiar with Anke Camp’s situation.
“Wang Dazhuang stole quite a few generators from the villa district, including solar generators. The camp actually isn’t short on electricity,” Cai Cong explained.
Lu Li nodded.
After they had more or less finished looking around the twelfth floor, Cai Cong hesitated for a moment before speaking up.
“Sir, there’s actually one more thing.”
Lu Li stopped.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Some nocturnal demon beasts live above the nineteenth floor. Those demon beasts survive by sucking blood. Wang Dazhuang would select ten people almost every day and send them upstairs to die.”
The instant he heard this, Lu Li’s gaze turned cold and sharp.
Sure, he also practiced sacrifices, but that wasn’t how sacrifices were supposed to work.
As someone who also dabbled in sacrifices, Lu Li felt that Wang Dazhuang’s method of sacrificing people was way too low-class.
Although Zubat lived on blood, it didn’t necessarily have to absorb it directly from humans. They could have simply used a blood donation system. With so many people in the camp, drawing a little from each person would have been far better than killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Still, considering that Wang Dazhuang probably didn’t dare come into contact with Zubat and instead kept as far away from them as possible, the fact that he had managed to think of sending ten people to die every day could almost be considered relatively clever.
Noticing the change in Lu Li’s expression, Cai Cong hurriedly explained, “If those demon beasts don’t get enough blood, they’ll attack the camp. So almost all the higher-ups knew about sacrificing people to the bloodsucking demon beasts, and they supported it.”
“Do those bloodsucking demon beasts only drink blood from living humans?” Lu Li asked.
Cai Cong shook his head. “The bloodsucking demon beasts will drink any kind of blood. We also considered drawing blood and sending it to them bucket by bucket.”
“But Wang Dazhuang said that was too troublesome. He figured it was easier to sacrifice ten people every day. After all, those people were only wasting food by staying alive.”
Lu Li finally seemed to understand Wang Dazhuang’s logic.
For someone as utterly selfish as Wang Dazhuang, getting rid of a certain number of people every day could even be considered a form of “progress,” because one less mouth meant fewer supplies being consumed.
In the apocalypse, human life truly was the cheapest thing of all.
Since they could simply use living people to feed the Zubat, Wang Dazhuang naturally wouldn’t bother with the trouble of drawing blood. After all, blood collection was too complicated. Without professionals to help, the whole process would be both cumbersome and dangerous.
“Looks like we can’t stay in this place for long either,” Lu Li thought helplessly.
Demon Camp was obviously a herd of “pigs” that Zubat were deliberately raising. In essence, what the Zubat were doing was the same as what Mimikyu and Indeedee were doing.
The difference was that the Zubat were genuinely raising “pigs”—and once the pigs were fattened, they really would slaughter and eat them.
Mimikyu and Indeedee, on the other hand, were more like farmers harvesting crops. Although they continuously collected the yield, they wouldn’t damage the foundation, leaving it intact for sustainable use.
Lu Li quickly realized something extremely important.
They had to take advantage of the daytime, while the Zubat were still sleeping, and evacuate the people as quickly as possible. If they cleared out the fifth floor of the mall, they should just barely be able to accommodate all these people.
With that thought in mind, Lu Li hurriedly contacted Jun Shutong over the walkie-talkie.
“Sister Jun, try to speed things up on your end. We need to get everyone transferred to our camp before nightfall.” Lu Li then told Jun Shutong about the Zubat.
Hearing that the people of Anke Camp had actually been living in the same building as a group of bloodsucking demon beasts all this time left Jun Shutong speechless.
But considering that Dawn Camp itself lived alongside a ghost demon beast, it somehow didn’t seem completely unacceptable anymore.
Jun Shutong directly selected some able-bodied people from the ninth floor and hired them to move supplies in exchange for a meal.
The task of Dawn Camp’s Scavenging Team was to keep an eye on these porters and prevent them from secretly pocketing supplies.
Lu Li returned to the roadside and released Beedrill to stand guard.
Viewed from high above, one would have seen a crowd of people like ants, continuously carrying supplies into the mall.
Jun Shutong asked with a worried expression, “Lu Li, do you think making this much noise will attract demon beasts?”
“It definitely will,” Lu Li replied with certainty.
If nothing else, the group of Raticate around the mall would definitely follow the scent over.
And things unfolded exactly as he had expected. The transport operation had barely been underway for long when startled cries suddenly erupted from the crowd.
“It’s the rat demon beasts!”
“Ah! The rat demon beasts are eating people!”
The orderly line of porters instantly descended into chaos. Some people even took advantage of the confusion, carrying stolen supplies on their backs as they frantically fled back into Anke Residential Complex.
“You go calm them down. I’ll deal with those rat demon beasts.” With that, Lu Li ran toward the Raticate.
By the time Lu Li reached the scene, there had already been casualties.
Lu Li’s gaze turned as cold as tempered ice, locking firmly onto the Rattata that was gnawing on a corpse.
“Little Yellow, Poison Sting barrage!” Lu Li ordered furiously.
Upon receiving the order, Beedrill immediately launched an indiscriminate barrage at the group of Raticate.
Poisonous needles glowing with purple light rained down densely like a storm, shooting straight at the Raticate. A group of Rattata that had been busy eating didn’t even have time to react before they were all struck by the Poison Sting.
The Raticate that had been attacking humans saw that a mere Beedrill actually dared attack the younger members of their group, so they all switched targets and charged at Beedrill.
But as everyone knew, neither Rattata nor Raticate could fly, while Beedrill was an aerial unit. Although it couldn’t fly very high, even that amount of height was already enough to make these creatures, who could only stay on the ground, despair.
Whether it was Hyper Fang or Bite, they were all close-range moves. If they couldn’t get close to the enemy, those moves were basically useless.
Little Yellow, who had initially been somewhat afraid of facing multiple Pokémon at once, also discovered that the Raticate couldn’t fly and had no ranged attacks.
Lu Li noticed this as well. Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately turned around and left the area, then ran up to the mall’s second floor.
That way, he could command Beedrill in the air from the second floor. Although the Raticate below might be able to climb walls, as long as they didn’t discover him, he would be safe.
“Beedrill, use ranged attacks! Don’t let a single one of them escape!” Lu Li shouted excitedly, his voice nearly cracking.
If they could wipe out this group of Raticate right here, it would definitely be killing several birds with one stone.
After all, if they went down to Basement 1 to fight these Raticate, then the Raticate would have the home-field advantage.
For a brief moment, Lu Li even considered whether he should use people as bait to lure all the Raticate out and kill them.
Although Lu Li loved Pokémon, he had no objection to killing them. After all, he was even capable of killing people, let alone Pokémon.
At present, Beedrill only knew three ranged moves: Poison Sting, which it had learned back when it was a Weedle, Toxic Spikes, and Pin Missile.
Toxic Spikes and Poison Sting were both Poison-type moves, while Pin Missile was a Bug-type move.
“Squeak, squeak~”
Unable to reach Beedrill, the Raticate could only remain where they were and squeak irritably.
Lu Li couldn’t understand what the Raticate were saying, but he could imagine that they were probably cursing very viciously.
After all, ground-dwellers would always hate anything that could fly.
Beedrill was also very angry, because the Raticate really were cursing quite viciously.
“Little Yellow, lay down Toxic Spikes first,” Lu Li ordered.
The Raticate were still quite fast on the ground. To prevent them from digging holes and escaping, Lu Li decided to first cover the ground with a layer of poisonous spikes.
Purple poisonous spikes instantly spread across the ground beneath Beedrill, the cold, gleaming spikes continuously seeping poison into the soil.
Lu Li didn’t know exactly how lethal Beedrill’s poison was to humans, but one thing was certain: it was absolutely deadly to people.
Lu Li decided that after the battle was over, he would put up a notice telling survivors coming to the mall to avoid this area as much as possible.
Mainly because he had no idea when these poisonous spikes would disappear.
Some of the more experienced Raticate finally sensed that something was wrong.
They seemed to have no way of dealing with the Beedrill in the sky, but when they tried to flee, the ground had already been completely covered in poisonous spikes.
The Raticate glared viciously at Beedrill with fierce light in their eyes, all while thinking about how they could land a blow on it.
“Raticate“
The leader of the Raticate leaped straight up from the ground, trying to charge at Beedrill in midair. Facing the Raticate leader that was hurtling toward it, a cold light flashed through Beedrill’s compound eyes.
It directly chose to counter head-on with Assurance.
Bang!
The Raticate leader slammed into the ground at an even greater speed.
After the dust cleared, Beedrill coldly stared down at the Raticate leader in the crater.
The Raticate leader had already lost its ability to battle and fallen unconscious.
Lu Li poked his head out and clearly saw the situation at the bottom of the crater. He couldn’t help clicking his tongue in amazement. So this world really did have the battle mechanic of Pokémon losing their ability to fight.
Following the principle of kicking an enemy while it was down, Lu Li hurriedly urged, “Little Yellow, follow up! Use Pin Missile and finish it off.”
Beedrill wasn’t exactly a gentle or kindhearted Pokémon to begin with. Upon receiving Lu Li’s order, it immediately unleashed the move.
The incapacitated Raticate leader had its head pierced through by Pin Missile and directly ascended to the spirit world.
Of course, that was assuming this world even had a spirit world.
Seeing their leader die, the remaining Raticate trembled violently in fear. If the ground beneath them hadn’t been covered in poisonous spikes, making it difficult to move, they would have already scattered in every direction and fled for their lives.
“Little Yellow, keep going. It’d be best if you killed them all.” Lu Li excitedly waved his fist.
The feeling of personally commanding a battle and winning on the battlefield made his scalp tingle with excitement.
Commanding Pokémon to defeat Pokémon in the real world was a little more brutal than he had imagined, but it still counted as fulfilling a dream.
Although Beedrill was the one actually fighting, he still felt deeply involved.
Beedrill once again transformed into a killing machine. Watching their companions continuously fall and die, the remaining Raticate finally couldn’t endure the fear that had seeped deep into their bones.
These local Pokémon had absolutely no sense of rules!
You already won, so why do you still have to kill every last one of us? Aren’t we supposed to submit, and then you take over the territory and do whatever you want?
Many of the Raticate couldn’t understand why Beedrill was trying to wipe them all out. Even if it were hunting for food, there was no need to kill this many Raticate at once.
Moreover, if a Pokémon’s corpse wasn’t processed using some special method, it would turn into energy and disappear after a couple of days. That was also why Pokémon wouldn’t kill a large number of other Pokémon all at once and stockpile the corpses as reserve food.
The Raticate endured the pain of having the soles of their feet cut by poisonous spikes and, braving the severe poison of the Toxic Spikes, forcefully ran into the mall.
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