Apocalypse Descends: I Win Effortlessly by Turning Trash into Treasure

「Day sixteen of the game.」

After dealing with the plant, the two decided not to leave the park right away. They prepared to explore it instead.

The bugs outside had grown enormous, yet there wasn’t a single one in the park—only the plants were oversized. It was clear there was a secret here they had yet to uncover.

The park was vast, and the dense vegetation made their search progress incredibly slow.

”Searching like this isn’t sustainable,” Amber Sheridan said, wiping the sweat from her brow. ”Since there are no insects here, the plants are the most likely source of the anomaly. Have you tried communicating with them?”

”What makes you think I haven’t tried?” Perry Yates retorted. ”If it were that easy, I would’ve done it already.”

”Are the plants here impossible to communicate with? That can’t be right,” Amber Sheridan said, surprised.

At that, Perry Yates frowned slightly. ”It’s not that I can’t communicate with them. It’s just that the plants here are... odd. It’s like they’re all completely wasted. But one thing’s for sure—there’s something in this park that we haven’t found yet.”

”In that case, we should split up. We’ll cover more ground that way. Whether we find anything, and what it might be, is all down to luck.”

”Alright.” Perry Yates nodded, and the two went their separate ways.

She placed her hand on a plant, trying to communicate again. After a few minutes, Perry Yates pulled her hand back and clicked her tongue in frustration.

Communicating with the plants wasn’t the hard part. The problem was that their answers were completely nonsensical. You’d ask a question, and they’d tell you one plus one equals three.

It felt like talking to a brick wall.

Staring at the endless expanse of weeds, Perry Yates had an idea. A moment later, her body began to sink into the ground, disappearing completely from sight.

Once underground, Perry Yates was stunned by the sight that greeted her.

The normally dark subterranean world was illuminated like the galaxy. A river of silvery light flowed over the roots of every single plant.

Perry Yates reached out, attempting to touch the silver river.

The instant her finger made contact, she felt a surge of pure energy flow into her body. Immediately, all the cards within her began to thrum with agitation.

Alarmed by the strange reaction, Perry Yates quickly pulled her hand back.

’This stuff is good!’

Her eyes lit up.

From just that momentary touch, Perry Yates could feel that her cards had already been slightly enhanced.

’I don’t know what this stuff is yet, but who cares? I’m taking it with me.’

Perry Yates dammed the underground river, diverting its flow into one of the trash bins inside her Space Backpack.

Time trickled by as the bins filled up one by one... one, then two, then three.

By the time the fourth trash bin was full, she had collected nearly the entire underground river, leaving only a few scattered, star-like droplets behind.

Perry Yates wasn’t about to let those go to waste. She used empty water bottles to collect every last drop.

After finishing, Perry Yates returned to the surface. 「It was now day seventeen of the game.」

She had been underground for a full day.

Now, without the nourishment of the mysterious liquid, the surrounding plants were still lush, but Perry Yates could sense a distinct change in them.

The plants were now no different from the ones outside the park.

This time, communicating with them was easy.

With the help of the plants, Perry Yates quickly located Amber Sheridan.

’She didn’t leave.’

Amber Sheridan breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Perry Yates appear unharmed. ”If you hadn’t shown up, I was about to leave without you.”

”Heh, but I’m back now, aren’t I?”

Amber Sheridan didn’t ask what Perry Yates had been doing for the past day, and Perry Yates didn’t bring it up. The two used the Any Door to return to their RV.

The area around the RV was covered in signs of a battle. The rose vines they had used for cover were destroyed, and several of the Cannibal Flowers had been killed.

”Looks like we had visitors while we were gone,” Amber Sheridan said.

”But at least the RV is still in one piece,” said Perry Yates.

It had clearly been attacked, but it seemed the intruders hadn’t succeeded in breaking in.

”By the way, can your Any Door transport something as large as an RV?” Amber Sheridan asked.

”It can, but where are you thinking of going? Back to the park?”

”Why not? It’s safer than here, at least.”

Perry Yates nodded. ”Alright, let’s go.”

Perry Yates cleared away all the surrounding plants and opened the Any Door.

The RV drove slowly through the Any Door. Once it was through, the two climbed back aboard.

Unlike before, they could now hear the chirping of insects.

’So that silvery-white liquid from underground really was the key.’

’But where did that liquid come from in the first place?’

After setting up the rose vines and Cannibal Flowers around the RV again, Perry Yates stretched. ”I’m going to go lie down for a bit.”

She’d been busy underground for a full day and night. She hadn’t felt it while she was working, but now that she had a moment to relax, a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

Perry Yates yawned, lit some insect-repelling incense, and collapsed onto her bed, falling asleep almost instantly.

When she next awoke, night had fallen.

”You’re finally awake! I was about to starve to death. What’s for dinner?”

Amber Sheridan didn’t know how to cook. In her desire to stock up on raw meat, she hadn’t bought any pre-cooked meals, and they had already eaten most of the food Perry had made earlier.

Seeing Amber Sheridan staring at her with pleading eyes, Perry Yates yawned. ”I dug up some edible wild greens in the park earlier,” she said as she headed downstairs. ”How about something fresh tonight?”

Amber Sheridan was a die-hard carnivore who couldn’t be happy without meat. Perry Yates liked meat too, but she knew they needed vegetables. Unfortunately, neither of them had thought to stock up on any.

Fruit, of course, was a different matter entirely.

The wild green Perry Yates had found was still just a seedling that had recently sprouted, but it was already enormous—about the size of a large head of cabbage.

Having been away for a few days, the water in the RV’s tank was no longer usable. They now cooked with bottled spring water and washed the vegetables with road-collected water that had been boiled and left to cool.

Soon, a refreshing dish of stir-fried greens and meat was on the table. After they finished eating, Amber Sheridan went to get some rest, leaving Perry Yates to stand watch.

Later that night, Perry Yates was absorbing energy from the moon when a violent crash suddenly echoed through the park. The impact was so powerful that the entire RV shuddered.