War Truck in the Apocalypse

Chapter 16: North-northwest

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

‘What was there in the north-northwest [1]?’

Shen Cong used a rope to tie up the plastic rabbit to prevent it from ramming itself to death. Then, he climbed to Titan’s roof, picked up his binoculars, and looked north-northwest. 

There were only barren rocks there. Aside from them, there was nothing else. 

The plastic rabbit was tied up, but it continued struggling nonstop. The attraction of whatever was in the north-northwest was clearly very strong. But what was that attraction? Why was the plastic rabbit able to sense it while Shen Cong himself did not sense anything?

Could it be the smell that came from a doe?

Shen Cong thought about it for a while before he decided to explore the north-northwest direction. Once he put on Sky Lifting Pillar 1.0 and equipped himself with his Activity weapons, there were not many mutated monsters that could pose a threat for him. 

He put a metal chain on the plastic rabbit’s neck, and as if he were taking a dog out for a walk, he got ready to exit the truck. 

When he was about to leave Titan, a thought struck him, and he picked the newly made fang javelin. 

Once the plastic rabbit landed on the ground, it started rushing north-northwest like a rabid dog. The chain tightened to the point that it became a straight line. If it were not for the fact that the rabbit’s strength was just too weak, Shen Cong would have stumbled. In fact, he nearly did it anyway. 

They traveled like that—the rabbit charging forward madly, while the human remained wary of his surroundings. 

It was like a scene from I Am Legend, where Will Smith brought his dog around. Shen Cong let his plastic rabbit lead him around the barren world. 

Of course, if the chain was not present, Shen Cong and his rabbit would be even more similar to Will Smith and his dog. 

The plastic rabbit dragged Shen Cong for 700 m to 800 m, and Titan, who had gotten smaller in the distance, soon disappeared from sight. Shen Cong used his binoculars to observe the situation ahead, but he still did not notice anything abnormal. This meant that the object that attracted the plastic rabbit was at least 1 km away. 

1 km was the limit of the inspection area Shen Cong had set for himself. 

If he went past that area, his sense of safety would decrease drastically. Hence, when the plastic rabbit dragged him forward by another 100 m but he still did not notice anything, Shen Cong resolutely grabbed the plastic rabbit’s ears, lifted it, and went back. 

He could not risk it. 

His sense of safety was directly linked to Titan, so he could not be too far away from it. 

“Grr… Grr…”

The plastic rabbit twisted its body furiously, but Shen Cong was completely indifferent to it. This was just how he was like. Once he made his decision, nothing could change his mind. 

He quickly went back. 

Bang!

When he returned to Titan, he shut the external armor, and his sense of safety came back to him. He tied up the plastic rabbit and stopped paying any attention to it. He went straight to the driver cab and began concentrating his mind to guide Titan in absorbing Activity to repair its dynamical system.

Shen Cong intended to restore Titan’s dynamic power as soon as possible. Then, he could drive his truck forward to answer his question. He would only feel safe with Titan serving as his backup. 

*****

The sun rose and the moon vanished. 

On the 25th of July, with the help from a gas lighter in lighting up a fire, Titan’s engine finally released a loud rumble after remaining silent for two weeks. 

Its dynamical system had finally been fully repaired. 

Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!

The newly repaired engine sounded even more dreary than before, giving off a restrained but explosive feeling. 

Since the operating system had not been fully repaired yet, Shen Cong switched to manual gears. Even though automatic operations were Shen Cong’s greatest change in Titan, he retained its manual gears. In truth, most of Titan’s functions had manual operations in case something happened to the automatic ones.

He moved a monitor screen that was still damaged to the side and brought out the steering wheel from under the driver cab. He set it on the rotating shaft, which he had kept around. Then, he removed the board below his feet to reveal the accelerator, brake, and clutch. After that, he opened the sunroof situated at the windshield so that he could set up the rearview mirror. 

The truck was ready for manual control. 

Shen Cong stepped down on the accelerator and released the clutch. Titan roared and began moving slowly. 

Once the yellow sand and shattered stones were swept away, the ground became incredibly difficult to traverse because there were many potholes. Even with Titan’s tyres, which were 1.5 m in diameter, the stones still managed to hit its undercarriage a few times, which made it spend some Activity to block the damage. 

If they ran into huge stones or large potholes, Shen Cong would choose to either circumnavigate or use the bulldozer blade to scoop away the stones or to fill up the potholes. 

They pushed forward in a domineering fashion until they reached the 1 km border that the plastic rabbit had dragged Shen Cong to that day. 

He brought out the plastic rabbit with its cage and placed them by his side. 

Whichever direction the plastic rabbit charged to, Shen Cong would drive Titan there. He was going to treat the plastic rabbit as a compass. 

With the plastic rabbit leading in such a strange fashion, Titan pushed forward by 3 km north-northwest from its original spot. 

Then, Shen Cong started slowing down. 

He saw a broken down car not far away. It was partially buried under stones, but from its broken down frame, Shen Cong could tell that it was an SUV. 

‘A car?’

This was the first time Shen Cong had seen a car aside from Titan since he entered the post-apocalyptic world. He was incredibly curious. When he saw that Wuwei had been reduced to ruins and that the earth had been covered by shattered stones and yellow sand, he thought that the world had been destroyed until everything on the surface had been wrecked. 

Only Titan had managed to live through the apocalyptic storm because it had been granted Activity. 

Shen Cong had been prepared to head to Anfei to test his luck when it came to searching for diesel fuel. While on the way, he would also see if he could find any survivors. 

He did not expect that he would run into a car that had been reduced to scrap metal out of nowhere. Until that moment he had never seen even the remains of a single car, so he had thought that all of them had been destroyed during the apocalyptic storm. 

He immediately parked his truck, put on Sky Lifting Pillar 1.0, equipped himself head to toe with weapons, and got out of the truck. Once he was certain that there were no dangers around him, he cautiously approached the remains of the SUV. 

They were indeed just remains. The parts that were revealed above the shattered stones were just the undercarriage and the frame of the chassis. The SUV had lost every other structure, and the level of erosion on what remained was rather severe. 

‘I don’t have enough steel for Titan. Let’s see if I can get any here.’

After thinking about it, Shen Cong brought out some rope and tied it to the remains of the SUV before he drove Titan to drag the SUV out of its stone grave. The buried part was the right side of the car’s head, and there were still some components inside. 

This delighted Shen Cong. He immediately ignored the plastic rabbit that was still using its head to ram against the metal cage. He quickly began hacking away at the remains of the SUV and removed a huge pile of scrap metal. 

Once he was certain that the SUV no longer had anything else worth recovering, he returned to Titan and continued moving forward. ‘It’d be good if I ran into a few more cars. The major repairs have already used up quite a lot of components in my inventory.’

It was as if the world wanted to make up for what Shen Cong used for Titan, since before long, he saw the remains of another car. This time, it was a large coach, which was partially buried under shattered rocks. 

Shen Cong removed a pile of components once more. 

Then, he continued moving forward. However, the further he went, the more he found that something was off, because he was running into more car remains. Previously, he had not seen even one car, but now, he was running into them on every corner. It was as if the cars had all been blown to this place. 

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‘What’s going on? Is this place a vehicle recycling plant?’

After seeing a square formed by the remains of cars stacked up together, Shen Cong could no longer remain calm. There were more than fifty scrapped cars here, and they lay on a flat piece of land all askew. There were also the remains of other cars scattered further ahead. All of them were rusted, making it seem that the place was truly a parking lot used to recycle discarded cars.

“Grr… Grr…”

The plastic rabbit’s reaction pulled Shen Cong back from the edges of shock. The plastic rabbit was no longer using its head to knock against the metal cage, but was just staring in one direction. 

It lowered its body and roared drearily in a manner that resembled a growl. The blood on its head had made its eyelids stuck together, and in front of it was just a dark monitor screen, but Shen Cong had a feeling that the plastic rabbit was staring at something ahead of it.