Apocalypse Arrives: I Become a Powerhouse by Scavenging
Chapter 21: I Want It All

Chapter 21: Chapter 21: I Want It All

Drowsily, she turned on the faucet and tested the water temperature. Moira Lynch opened her shop while taking a nice, hot shower. As expected, all ten items had been sold, netting her two hundred Gold Coins.

Moira had originally planned to list more items, but she was just too tired. After her shower, she lay down on her bed and was asleep in a second.

’Oh well, listing more items can wait until tomorrow. Nothing is more important than sleep.’

She slept until noon. After getting up and washing up, Moira entered her space to check on the Bone Marrow Cleansing Fruit Tree and Medicine Fruit Tree she had planted earlier.

If they had survived, she would continue buying saplings from the System Mall. If not, she wouldn’t waste any more Gold Coins.

When Moira arrived at the spot where she had planted the Bone Marrow Cleansing Fruit Tree and Medicine Fruit Tree, she was stunned by the sight before her.

Two large, flourishing trees with lush foliage stood before her.

If she remembered correctly, what she had planted a few days ago were two small saplings with scorched yellow leaves and trunks no thicker than her arm, looking like they could die at any moment.

’In any case, as long as they survived, that’s all that matters.’

Moira opened the System Mall and began picking out new fruit trees. The previous Medicine Fruit could restore stamina and prevent illness, but the latter effect required long-term consumption.

Therefore, Moira bought a Medical Fruit Tree and a Healing Fruit Tree from the mall. One could treat illnesses, and the other could heal external injuries.

Then, she also bought a Detoxification Fruit Tree.

She didn’t know what twists the upcoming game would throw at her, so buying the Detoxification Fruit Tree was a good precaution.

As for her last choice, Moira was torn. She had her eye on two fruit trees: the Feiyu Fruit Tree and the Enhanced Fruit Tree.

Just as their names implied, eating one would grant a person a pair of wings for an hour—and the duration could be stacked. The other could strengthen the body, with its effects doubling when consumed with a Bone Marrow Cleansing Fruit.

’Who didn’t dream of having a pair of wings when they were a kid? But the Enhancing Fruit is too good to pass up, too.’

’Only kids make choices. Adults take them all.’

Everyone had just gotten out of the game and was flush with cash, so it was the perfect time to sell a batch of goods.

She had originally intended to keep selling machines, but when she thought of the mountains of offal piled up in her warehouse, she decided to sell that first.

Although the temperature wasn’t rising any further, the heat, which exceeded fifty degrees Celsius, was causing livestock to die off in droves—unless one was willing to run air conditioning for them.

But running AC meant an increase in farming costs, so the price of meat naturally went up as well.

Besides, with the hot weather, the power grids in many areas were already overloaded. Some places were even experiencing water and power outages. No electricity meant no refrigerators, and no refrigerators meant no way to store meat.

Not to mention, many people couldn’t go to work because of the extreme heat, losing their source of income. To save money, they couldn’t even bear to turn on their own air conditioners, let alone their refrigerators.

In any case, the price of meat was now several times that of grain, and the average person simply couldn’t afford it.

Instead of buying meat, people were more willing to buy a little extra grain to hoard at home.

But this didn’t mean people didn’t want to eat meat. Protein intake was still very important for the human body.

Having made up her mind, Moira began listing chicken, duck, and goose giblets, as well as pork, beef, and lamb offal, in her shop.

Moira was going for a high-volume, low-profit margin strategy, focusing on prices that everyone could afford.

It was fine if you didn’t have money; you could also trade for it with other things.

As a shop that sold alien technology, it had naturally attracted the attention of many powerful groups. Some had even assigned people to monitor Moira’s shop 24/7, ready to be notified the moment she listed something new so they could be the first to snatch it up.

Although the machines they had bought from Moira before were all broken, the technology they contained was decades, or even centuries, ahead of Caelus.

So, the moment Moira listed the items, someone noticed. But when they discovered it was just animal offal, they couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

"Why isn’t she selling machines anymore? We had our money all ready."

"She probably ran out. After all, those machines aren’t small. It can’t be an easy thing to bring them back."

"More than the interstellar machines, I’m more curious about how SoySauceDrunkard managed to bring these things back to Caelus," an old man said.

They had already run experiments; players couldn’t bring items out of the game.

How SoySauceDrunkard managed to do it was a very intriguing question.

They had held meetings to discuss this matter. Many believed it was because SoySauceDrunkard had a special talent that allowed them to bring things out of the game.

However, players hadn’t awakened their talents during the first game. Talent awakening began on the day after the first round of the game ended.

He was more inclined to believe that SoySauceDrunkard had some kind of special encounter in the game, which was how they were able to bring items back.

The existence of that shop further supported his theory.

Meanwhile, Moira’s business was unexpectedly good. She had to constantly restock just to keep up with the speed at which people were buying.

Both meat and vegetables were hot commodities. Even the offal that people wouldn’t have given a second glance before was now being snatched up by hordes of customers.

Many people were now offering high prices to buy the currency players brought out of the game, but not everyone chose to sell.

After all, even with money, there wasn’t much to buy in the real world right now. It was better to hold onto the rewards from the game or use them to buy things in the System Mall.

It took about two hours, but Moira finally scraped together fifty Gold Coins. Rubbing her sore wrist from constantly listing items, she opened the System Mall, found the Enhanced Fruit Tree, and clicked "Purchase."

After planting it in her space, Moira curiously opened the shop’s homepage.

The homepage, which had once been lonely with just her single shop, was now bustling with activity.

However, most of these shop names were some variation of "Pass," or they belonged to well-known corporations. Currently, hers, "Don’t Miss It," was the only private enterprise.

It was ranked in the number one spot, making it extremely conspicuous.

Checking the time, Moira went to the gym to begin her daily workout.

As she was about to get on the treadmill, she remembered that the game’s difficulty had increased yesterday. She opened the game forum and scrolled through the posts, and sure enough, it was filled with nothing but complaints.

Some people had even dug up the users who had previously posted on the forum saying the game was too easy. These people instantly became public enemies, hunted down and cursed by everyone.

Almost everyone was denouncing them, as if doing so could somehow make the game go back to normal.