Chapter 25: Wanted Criminals

Chen Yining rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought for a while before speaking.

“We can’t keep this stuff here anymore—after he comes the first time, he would definitely come a second time. Our food won’t be safe, unless we stay home to guard our house and stop heading to the suburbs to hunt magical beasts.”

On the other hand, Chen Jing’s eyes were red from frustration and absolute heartache over the stolen food, the impulse of devouring the burglar’s flesh engulfing him. “We’ll kill him if he dares to come steal again! What is a person after I’ve already killed so many magical beasts?!”

“Brother, let’s not leave tomorrow. We’ll just stay home for one day and wait for him to come,” he added, scowling with a hint of bloodlust in his eyes.

“What if he doesn’t come?” Chen Yining replied calmly. “Are we going to stay home until he comes?”

“Well…”

“Hunting magical beasts is the most important thing here. After we become powerful enough, we would be able to survive thanks to that forest even if we don’t have food at home. If we sit around and do nothing while others improve themselves, we would be regressing,” Chen Yining reminded him.

Chen Jing said nothing, but he knew that his brother spoke reason.

“Could it be… our landlord? He has backup keys, right?” Chen Jing asked.

Chen Yining shook his head.

Chen Jing was surprised. “You don’t think it’s him?”

“No, I just don’t know,” Chen Yining replied. “Moreover, he doesn’t seem like the type of person, judging from our previous interactions, and he shouldn’t be running out of food since I did remind him to buy it before.”

Afterwards, the brothers sat around the living room for a while—despite having food piling around the house, they felt no sense of security at all.

Right now, the city was surrounded by forest. However, there would be no problem if the forest was fully utilized to sustain the six million people in the city.

Even so, development the forest would take time, just as there were endless magical beasts in the forests.

And through that period, there was no telling how many people would die or how many people would fight or slaughter each other over food.

What was worse was that food would become scarcer as time passes.

Still, every household should have some food stored, and the situation would not escalate to extreme conditions for the time being.

However, what was a household supposed to eat when their food supply was exhausted?

Any person was capable of anything when hungry.

Right now, the most question that bothered Chen Yining the most was that he had no idea where the burglar came from.

The feeling that there was a snake in the grass left him extremely unsettled.

If the burglar was observing their movements in secret, and resolved himself to only get inside their house when they left, Chen Yining and his brother were never going to encounter him no matter how long they waited.

It would be great if he had something like a void storage.

Chen Yining fiddled with his Summoner’s Grimoire then and found that it had no function other than summoning after half a day.

Then, turning to the blazing chicken, he asked, “Could you picked out the scents in the air, or the scent of the stranger in this house?”

Blazing chicken was dumbstruck.

I’m a chicken, not a dog!

Nonetheless, the brothers decided not to leave the house, considering that the burglar might return.

They had wanted to buy some materials, but would have to put it off due to sudden situation.

***

It was nighttime at Unit 4-06, Block B of the same residential complex. There were six houses on each floor, with three on each side, divided by the elevators and the stairs.

Beside Chen Yining rented house, which was adjacent to his landlord’s house, the remaining house had also been occupied.

Five men sat in the living room.

They were wanted criminals who had escaped here from a different province, having secured themselves an unoccupied house to wait out the storm and evade capture.

There was a cardboard box placed on top of the living room tea table, with rows of dried meat kept neatly within. Two large cans containing bee honey and other condiments stood beside it.

“You stole all that from the next house?” a bald man sitting on the couch exclaimed excitedly, licking his lips.

“Yes, but that is only a fraction of it since I didn’t have the time to take more—I saw them returning from above the balcony,” a rather skinny man sitting beside him replied.

“You won’t believe it even if I told you, but that whole house was packed with food! It’s enough for us five to keep eating for half a year, but I didn’t have enough time, damn it.”

“For real?! Did they store the food knowing ahead of time that all of this would happen?” the man who sat furthest to the right asked—he was an avid reader of novels, wearing a black jacket and had slightly tanned skin.

“How did you know that there was food in that house?” another man with a crewcut asked then, carrying a stool to sit in front of the skinny man.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay in your room and wait out the storm? Who allowed you to move freely?” Their leader—a pudgy man with inverted triangular eyes—spoke, having stayed quiet as he sat at the middle of the sofa all along.

“Fifth’s kleptomania has most likely kicked in again,” suggested the bald man with a laugh.

The leader shot the bald man a glare and the latter stopped laughing right then, settling down on the sofa with an awkward smile.

“I don’t want that to happen ever again.”

“It won’t, Boss. Don’t worry,” Fifth promptly replied, subtly breathing a sigh of relief just then.

The leader nodded quietly as his eye twinkled.

If it had been the old days, disobedient lackeys like this one would have been squeezed into a barrel filled in concrete and thrown to the bottom of the sea.

However, things were different this time.

In the morning, he had led the other three out of the city, ready to abandon Fifth in the first place.

He would have left directly if he could find the route of the city.

If he could just get out of the country, he would be living free and easy with his foreign accounts that was loaded with millions.

However, he saw that everything beyond the suburbs were forests after strolling through the northern side several times! Even the highways were cut off!

And what was worse? The most frightening part of all that was the innumerable magical beasts in the forests.

There was something wrong with this city and they were not going to escape for now.

The only good news was that communications across the city was cut off, and supplies of water and power were out. Moreover, with magical beasts crawling all over the forests outside the city, neither the municipality nor the police of Mountain Water City would have the mood to search for his gang in the middle of this chaos.

They would have no problems as long as they were not pompous enough to go plaza dancing in front of the municipality.

That was why he had spared Fifth—not because he was a coward, but his skill in lockpicking was definitely useful.

Boss then asked, “How many people are staying next door?”

“Two, judging from the daily necessities they’ve kept. Both of them are men, too,” Fifth replied.

“Two? And both are men?” Second—the bald man—turned toward the man with a crewcut, giving him a weird look. “Third, those guys…”

“Get lost!” Third warned coolly while fiddling with a throwing dagger.

“But… I also saw that they had rebars and other knives,” Fifth added then.

“Knives? So what? Can those things match this?”

Second sneered and whipped out a pitch-black handgun from his hip, slamming it on the tea table. “Moreover, they are just two men and that makes six summoned beasts, eight if we count in the men as well. The five of us, with our fifteen summoned beasts and our guns? Do we even have to worry about not snuffing them out?”

“Let’s put this to a discussion then, people—are we going to kill them tonight or steal their food after they leave?” Boss asked for the others’ opinions then.

“I think it would be better if we wait until morning after they leave the house. There’s no need to cause a disturbance since we are still wanted, and we just need the food for now,” the novel lover said.

The bald man cursed at him in return. “Are you an idiot? Why would the police be bothered with us after all that has happened? And with both the Internet or power out, who could call the cops anyway? You’re too much of a coward, Fourth, and weren’t you talking about transmigration or some thingmajig yesterday? What’s there to be afraid of after we’ve transmigrated already? No one gives a damn now that we’re no longer on Mercury. If I had my say, we should just charge inside, kill them both, and take their food.”

“I was only suggesting the possibility. What if we didn’t actually transmigrate?” Fourth scowled even harder at that. “Moreover, guns are too loud—the whole residential complex can hear us.”

Third narrowed his eyes and suddenly asked, “Are you sure we can survive for half a year with the food?”

“I’m sure!”

Fifth assured him, patting his chest before adding hesitantly, “Boss, after I’ve stolen one box this morning, I’m afraid that they would notice and decide to hide their food someplace else.”

Boss’s eyes came alive at that—the possibility was there.

***

Later, opening their own door quietly, all five men arrived in front of Chen Yining’s house, their Summoner’s Grimoires hidden just around them.

They would warily study their surroundings from time to time to ensure that no strangers would sudden pop up from downstairs or behind them.

Since Fifth had opened the door in the morning, he managed the routine with ease.

Indeed, he was so skilled at it that he did not make much of a sound even after he opened the lock.

With a soft click from the door, it was slowly opened…