Lord of the Myriad Worlds

Chapter 206: The Food Crisis

The sun was bright. Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue's moods were frigid.

Outrageous.

Absolutely outrageous.

You shameless, treacherous—

Both women stood at the edge of the pit shaking with fury, faces flushed, blood pressure through the roof. If looks could kill, George would have been gone.

You—

You agreed to cooperate on killing the Rat King. You used us as bait, used us to absorb its aggression — and meanwhile you built this entirely unconscionable farm plot behind our backs. That's at least a mu and a half. At least three hundred Contribution. The nerve—

How are you not flying?

This was a gift-wrapped package for that Four-Star Mutant Rat King.

A pit this size, nearly four meters deep, stuffed with that volume of stone and concrete — even a Four-Star Mutant Rat King couldn't dig its way through that.And George, the sneaky — he'd deliberately sacrificed some planting area to leave a one-meter-wide patrol channel around the perimeter. Functional for security walkarounds, functional for installing traps. Wooden spike traps, for instance. The whole thing was completely terrifying.

It was over. They'd lost this one entirely. The Rookie King lived up to his name. The two of them admitted defeat.

Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue exchanged a glance. Said nothing. Walked back to the building and lay down.

Yes — there was nothing left to do now.

This wasn't a Rookie Mission. Even without claiming Head of Household, you still earned Plunder Points and a reasonable settlement there.

This was a Pioneering Mission. Zero-sum. Every action they took from here on would, in effect, be contributing bricks to George's Pioneering effort.

Better to lie flat.

Let George do his own struggling. Oh — and we have food, but we won't donate any. We're withdrawing. We'll give up our family Contribution entirely rather than feed you, you little traitor. Starve.

This was the optimal counter-strategy, and it didn't violate any explicit rules. Well — at least no rules from ten years ago. Unless new bylaws had been added to close that particular gap. But even if they'd technically violated something and got disqualified, it would still have been worth it to drag George's Pioneering line down.

Let's see this Four-Star Rat King keep ignoring you without us drawing aggro.

Ha.

Go on then. Meet your checkmate, Li Wei.

George was genuinely hungry at this point. These past few days, he had pushed himself without mercy to claim the strategic high ground, spending everything. Now that it was done, he was barely holding together — he needed a serious meal to recover.

Unfortunately, Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue had just gone horizontal.

So that was that.

George limped back into the building, drank the last of the well water he had on hand, changed out of his mud-thick clothes, and lowered himself to the floor. He didn't want to move again. He was exhausted.

But also — genuinely, profoundly satisfied. Ha!

The mental image of their expressions just now was enough to make him break into a silent, helpless grin. Good day.

No more squeezing contributions from those two, though. He'd have to handle his own food supply from here on.

He rested on the fifth floor for a full day. Hungry for the full day, too.

That was fine. He could take it.

When night fell, he put the Noble Crest Armor back on, laced up the cowhide boots, tucked the Three-Star Dagger into his belt, and slipped out. Just the dagger — nothing heavier.

Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue didn't even hear him leave. That was the Noble Crest Armor's stealth trait doing its job.

Out of the building and into the town, he looped south, heading for the edges of the Rat King's territory. The night was cover for most nocturnal creatures — but it was the same cover for him.

Insects everywhere. Mutant rats chittering and skittering. The occasional sound of meowing far away.

Didn't matter.

The Three-Star Dagger flew like a thrown blade. Never missed.

But George didn't get greedy. One field mouse. Two mutant rats. Retreat. He needed to keep his aggro score as low as possible.

He looped back, went to the well, drew four bottles of water, and returned. Built a fire. Roasted. Ate. Slept.

He needed the recovery.

Next morning — sharp and ready, the fatigue burned off.

He paid no attention to Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue. Went downstairs and back into the pit. Work wasn't finished yet.

He began hauling in larger blocks from the surrounding ruins — pieces at roughly 150 kilograms each, suitable for the structural frame. He fitted them together by shape, then packed all the gaps with smaller stones and broken concrete, pounded tight. The largest gap remaining: barely a fingernail's width.

Not a century's foundation — but a decade's work, no question.

The target: Four-Star Rat King. Try digging through that. If you manage it, he says you can call him Grandpa.

Two more days of this rhythm: day work on the foundation framework, night hunting in stealth. By the third day — day twelve of the mission — the foundation was complete.

Three meters of solid stone, one-meter patrol channel around the perimeter. Every angle considered.

In short: unless George lost a direct engagement with the Four-Star Rat King on open ground, there would be no sneaking in to eat the wheat. Not a chance.

Next: fill the foundation with good soil. Stack brick walls one meter high around the edge as a border. One meter of proper topsoil depth, all of it prepared earth — no raw clay.

On day fifteen of the mission, George stood back and looked at what he had built: a special, fortified farm plot, larger than anything he'd had before, but trimmed to roughly one and a half mu of actual planting area.

Even so, when he completed the planting, the returns made Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue's hearts ache:

【A Family Member has established a fortified farmplot near the Scavenger Camp — effectively rat-proof, stability: 100%, soil condition: excellent, germination rate: 100%. He has cultivated 1.5 mu of One-Star Wheat Field. He has gained 300 Farming Experience and 500 Construction Experience. Donate to the family?】

【Family Member Li Wei has chosen to donate. Given the current environment and overall family situation, he receives a 30% donation bonus: 300 + 300 × 30% = 390 Contribution. His cumulative total is now 600. He has become a Family Elder. At the Monthly Summary, he is immune to all standard Plot Kills — unless he commits a serious error causing major harm to the family, he cannot be Impeached.】

【Family Fixed Assets have increased. Maximum earnable Contribution has risen to 1,400 points.】

【Your Farmer Destiny Grid has increased. Current value: 15.】

—

Ha! A fat profit. All worth it.

The Farmer profession card had finally been put to the right use.

That said, the family's overall situation was still far from comfortable.

Food.

Not just this month's food — next month's as well. When he became Head of Household, how would he solve the food problem?

If he couldn't, and people went hungry — that was grounds for Impeachment at month's end, Family Elder status notwithstanding. And even without that, going hungry meant lower fighting capacity. George's own Stamina ceiling had already temporarily dropped from 250 to 220 from the sustained exertion without adequate nutrition. More of this and it would drop further.

That was just reality.

'But I only needed fifteen days to lock up the early advantage — and with the rules in place, Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue have nothing left to do but lie flat. The next half-month, I go hunting. I'm a Three-Star Hunter. You want to drag me down? Try harder.'

Day sixteen, early morning: Noble Crest Armor on, cowhide boots laced, quiver strapped, Three-Star Dagger at the thigh, Three-Star War Bow strung, Bloodthirsty Spear across the back, a scavenging bag cleaned and ready at his feet.

Prepared. Moving out.

Destination: the forest twenty li north of camp.

It was the nearest resource point around the ruined town — and the most appropriate one. Other directions existed of course: southwest fifty or sixty li lay broken hill country. West thirty-odd li appeared to have another small town, and the highway ran that way — following roads usually led to settlements and eventually cities. East was open flatland with sparse distant trees and building outlines too far to read cleanly.

Before the disaster, this town had probably been surrounded by mechanized farmland. After ten-odd years, those traces were invisible.

He set off northward at an easy pace. Within a short while he had reached the well — which had been invaluable these past days. Without it, the dew collector's five or six hundred milliliters each morning would have left him permanently thirsty.

The well water had cleared nicely now, silt well-settled. Drinkable — nothing like mountain spring water, granted. Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue had tasted it, wrinkled their noses, and gone back to using it only for washing. Which meant more for him.

He drank his fill there, then crossed the highway rift and kept going north. Both sides of the road were lush with wild grass — dandelions everywhere in full bloom, past their tender stage now but still edible with roasted meat to balance them.

'I wonder where those three Ability Users actually live.' George scanned the open country as he walked. Nights when he'd been out hunting, he'd occasionally heard the meowing. South, maybe?

The thought drifted away. He was in good spirits. The landscape felt genuinely peaceful. Especially the forest — from a distance it was richly green and full, like a scenic painting. Before the disaster, was this a tourist destination?

Probably not a natural forest — more like a plantation or managed woodland. Or even a golf course, maybe, given the gently rolling silhouette he could see inside the tree line.

And as he got closer, more details emerged. The forest wasn't large — and behind it, there was another small town. Most of the buildings appeared to be standing intact.

Which was, at a glance, deeply unsettling.

George trusted that feeling without any hesitation.

He immediately changed direction, left the road, and broke into a jog heading east. He kept that pace for two kilometers before the sense of wrongness finally faded.

Then he frowned.

'Really? We spawned next to a Four-Star Rat King. And now twenty-plus li north of camp, there's another Four-Star entity just sitting there?'

'This difficulty setting is not normal.'

'Were those meowing ones lying to me?'