Apocalypse Arrives: I Become a Powerhouse by Scavenging
Chapter 14: Pet Food Price Increase

Chapter 14: Chapter 14: Pet Food Price Increase

Moira Lynch took out her phone and started scrolling through posts. The number one trending topic today was, "The Advent of the Game: A Blessing or a Curse?"

It turned out this was because many people were now hospitalized, in a coma caused by a high fever.

Some of them had gotten heatstroke because they were reluctant to turn on the air conditioning in the hot weather, but the vast majority were gamers.

Their body temperatures were frighteningly high, generally reaching forty degrees Celsius, and medicine offered no relief for their symptoms.

Moira Lynch recalled the information the system had provided during her awakening. Three days. She guessed this might be a time limit.

’My wild guess is that a shorter awakening time means a stronger talent.’

Further down the thread were recommendations from experts: since medicine was ineffective, the only recourse was to endure it and try to keep the patient in a cool environment.

Moira Lynch glanced at it a couple of times before losing interest. ’These experts’ recommendations are worse than nothing,’ she thought, ’just a bunch of nonsense.’

She switched to another forum she frequented, one popular with survival enthusiasts. Many people were complaining that food prices were skyrocketing so fast that their money could barely buy any food, if they could find any to buy at all.

Seeing this, Moira Lynch posted a tip: hoard cat and dog food.

’What’s wrong with pet food? This is no time to be picky. In past famines, people ate grass and tree bark.’

’Besides, dog and cat food has meat in it. That’s way more nutritious than tree bark. Pet food is a source of high-quality protein.’

’After all, people pamper their pets these days. It’s not uncommon for pets to eat better than humans.’

Moira Lynch’s comment caused an immediate sensation.

Pet owners might have already thought of it, but it was an easy detail for non-pet-owners to overlook.

Unbeknownst to Moira Lynch, her one comment caused nearly every pet food factory to be swamped with orders that very night.

Even if she had known, she probably wouldn’t have cared, as long as her own supplies were shipped on schedule.

The next day, her six o’clock alarm rang right on time.

Moira Lynch dragged herself out of bed to wash up, change, and eat breakfast.

Overnight, the inflatable pool had filled completely. Moira Lynch absorbed the water into her storage space, then assembled another new pool and started filling it.

All of this took exactly an hour. At seven o’clock sharp, Moira Lynch turned on the Learning Machine for interstellar language and began her daily studies.

The interstellar language resembled a different form of Chinese, so while Moira found it strenuous, she wasn’t completely lost.

After a full morning of studying, Moira Lynch felt as though a whole new world had opened up to her.

She didn’t snap out of her studies until the doorbell rang at noon. Her pet food order had arrived—three full truckloads. One of cat food, one of dog food, and one of pet treats.

And if you think that was all, you’d be sorely mistaken. Another portion had been delivered to an off-site warehouse.

The villa came with its own garage. Since Moira Lynch didn’t own a car, she was using it as a storeroom.

As the workers moved everything into the garage, Moira Lynch overheard their conversation.

From the delivery workers’ chatter, Moira Lynch learned that in just one day, the price of pet food—especially cat and dog food—had skyrocketed, just like human food.

One of the workers said, "You’re lucky you ordered when you did, young lady. If you’d waited even one more day, you would’ve had to pay several times the price for all this, and you probably wouldn’t have been able to get this much."

Moira Lynch handed out sealed bottles of mineral water to the workers. "I didn’t have much choice," she said. "There’s no way I can compete with the frantic aunties and uncles at the supermarket, so I had to find a creative solution."

After the men left, Moira Lynch closed the garage door. She then absorbed everything inside into her storage space, leaving only a small portion behind.

Of course, she had no intention of eating the pet food herself. It was just for show.

After lunch, Moira Lynch took an hour-long nap before heading to her home gym, which was filled with brand-new fitness equipment.

She had never worked out before and didn’t know how to use most of the machines. She was afraid of injuring herself by exercising improperly, which would do more harm than good.

So, she had to rely on downloaded tutorials, following them step by step.

After a busy afternoon, she was drenched in sweat. But besides the exhaustion, Moira Lynch felt an indescribable sense of exhilaration.

She glanced outside. It was nearly dusk, and the temperature was starting to drop. Moira Lynch showered, changed into clean clothes, put on a sun hat, and applied sunscreen before heading out.

First, she went to collect the cat and dog food from the off-site warehouse. The lease was expiring soon anyway; this would probably be her last time using it.

On her way back, Moira Lynch noticed two fully armed soldiers standing guard in front of every supermarket. For some reason, many of the smaller grocery stores were closed today.

Perhaps due to her awakened spiritual power, Moira’s senses were incredibly sharp. She could clearly tell that the rifles in the soldiers’ hands were real, and they were loaded.

She parked her car and approached a large supermarket. Although it was packed with people, the scene inside was orderly—a stark contrast to yesterday’s frenzy.

She checked the price of grain again. It had gone up quite a bit more—rice was now three hundred yuan per jin, and there was a daily limit of one jin of grain per person.

’Looks like the government has made its move. Have some players already woken up?’

Moira Lynch did a quick mental calculation. It was now exactly the third day since the end of the first game.

’As expected,’ she thought. ’This world isn’t short on talented people.’

The reality was just as Moira Lynch had predicted. Some players had indeed awakened their talents, but they were few in number, and all of them were well-trained, strong-willed soldiers.

Due to the purchase limits, Moira Lynch didn’t end up buying much. She couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. After all, if she couldn’t spend her money, it would soon become nothing more than a pile of worthless paper.

Online shopping was no longer an option either; even if you placed an order, sellers weren’t shipping.

Back home, she tossed her purchases into her storage space, turned on the TV, and began watching the news while simultaneously exercising her spiritual power.

This "exercise" consisted of using her spiritual power to do chores: assembling the inflatable pools, cleaning the house, and rearranging furniture.

Her spiritual power was still relatively weak, so she could only move smaller pieces of furniture, and not for very long.

But the most pleasant surprise was that she could now absorb items into her storage space from a distance. Previously, she had to be touching them. This must have something to do with her talent’s mutation.

Additionally, her perception range had expanded from a three-meter radius to five meters.