Transmigrating into a Wasteland Cannon Fodder Slag A [GL Yuri] - Chapter 10

The roar of the engine cut sharply through the night, drawing the attention of nearby zombies. They staggered out, chasing after the sound of the car.

The vehicle barreled forward without hesitation. The lower-level zombies couldn’t keep up, and those that tried to block the road were sent flying, tumbling far away from the impact.

Yan An held the steering wheel steady, controlling it with precision so the car wouldn’t veer off course or flip, even under the heavy jolts and collisions.

After a relentless drive, they finally shook off the horde. The outskirts of Pingzhou City stretched before them, still a fair distance from the city center.

The place where they’d first started out had been right beside a university, surrounded mostly by factories.

Back then, the school had been built there to encourage development of the new district. But before there was time to relocate those factories, the zombie outbreak had swept through on a massive scale.

If the factory districts on the outskirts held tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of zombies, then the city center would easily have millions.

They were lucky their destination wasn’t the city center but the other side of Pingzhou the military base. 

If they had gone into the heart of the city, there was no telling whether they would ever come back out.

But Yan An’s head throbbed harder and harder, the same stabbing pain she had felt when she first crossed over, like being pierced by hundreds of needles at once.

She forced herself to endure it. Spotting a gas station up ahead, she glanced in the rearview mirror and said to Gu Xia, “We’ll stop there.”

“Will there be zombies?” If she had a choice, Gu Xia wouldn’t go anywhere near them right now.

She was too weak, completely incapable of dealing with zombies on her own.

“There will,” Yan An answered bluntly, but she still pressed her foot down on the accelerator and drove straight in.

Like any other gas station, it had a convenience store and a fueling area, and likely an employee room in the back—nothing visible from the outside.

“Out,” Yan An said, cutting the engine. She grabbed the axe from the passenger seat, gave her head a hard shake, and climbed out, heading toward the store.

The convenience store was the best choice. It offered shelter, and possibly supplies.

But her steps faltered, her body swaying as though she might collapse at any moment.

Gu Xia followed quickly, noticing at once. “What’s wrong with you?”

Of course, it was the price of using her ability too much while fixing the car.

When she had worked on the vehicle, images of its internal breakdowns had filled Yan An’s mind, showing her exactly which parts were broken.

By all rights, this car was the kind of wreck a mechanic would tell you to scrap without a second thought.

But she had forced it back into shape with her repair ability, reviving what should have been junk metal. The strain had nearly torn her mental strength apart.

So this was her C-rank ability’s limit when it came to machinery.

While driving, she had been fully focused, which dulled the pain. But now that they’d stopped, the stabbing ache nearly knocked her unconscious on the spot.

“Just… a little tired.” Yan An gritted through the pain as she scanned the store entrance for threats.

This station usually had two staff at most. Meaning, at worst, two zombies.

But there were two cars parked outside, a van and an SUV. Their owners were nowhere in sight.

Which meant at least five people had come here. Dead or alive? That remained to be seen.

The car engine earlier should’ve drawn out any zombies nearby. So why hadn’t they appeared?

Yan An gave her head a brisk slap. “Sister Guzi, my head’s killing me. If zombies show up, you’ll have to cover me a little, okay?”

Gu Xia: “…Fine.”

It was obvious she wasn’t much of a protector running was one thing, but fighting? Not a chance.

Yan An was only joking anyway. She could already feel her ability slowly recovering.

Her mental energy was like a mana bar: once depleted, forcing it further meant overdrawing from her health.

Even repairing small things cost energy, but the upside was that with this ability, her bar refilled quickly.

It wasn’t something she actively triggered. It was as if her body restored itself automatically.

She couldn’t quite explain the mechanics, but she knew that under normal circumstances, today’s exhaustion should have left her bedridden for three days.

Yet with her C-rank repair ability, she’d probably recover in just a few hours.

Propping herself against the glass door of the store, Yan An was still marveling at this strange gift when…

Bang!

She jolted, heart leaping into her throat.

A bl00d-smeared face suddenly pressed against the glass. Its eyes and nose dripped with bl00d, and its mouth… caked with what looked like flesh and gore animal, or maybe human.

Not two people—no.

One person, one corpse.

They were face-to-face with only the door between them. A single push, and she’d be nose-to-nose with it.

The zombie gave her less than a second to react before it started hammering the glass, desperate to break through.

Yan An stepped back quickly, but Gu Xia’s voice cut in. “Don’t let it keep hitting the door. You’ll draw more here.”

“Got it.”

Yan An smacked her head once, forcing clarity back, then yanked the axe and shoved the door open.

The zombie in its staff uniform was caught between the door and the wall, trapped.

“Gu Xia! Hit it!”

For once, Gu Xia didn’t hesitate. She grabbed a fire extinguisher, and while Yan An held the creature pinned, she swung down with all her strength.

The heavy blow stunned the zombie.

“Nice!” Yan An praised.

But the thing was tougher than it looked. Without a clean strike to the brain, it wasn’t going down.

Yan An never wasted opportunities. With Gu Xia’s hit leaving the creature dazed, waiting for it to recover was not an option.

“Move!” she shouted, pulling the door back just enough. Then buried the axe deep into its skull.

The zombie dropped, finally still.

Yan An opened her mouth to say something, but froze. Figures were sprinting toward them from a distance.

She didn’t think twice. That wasn’t human.

Yanking her axe free, she dragged the corpse outside, slipped inside the store, shut the door behind them, and jammed the handle with the axe.

Within moments, Gu Xia found a roll of tape and began wrapping it around the door handle.

“Guzi, you know you could just lock it, right?” Yan An said dryly, holding up a set of keys from the counter.

Bang!

The approaching zombies slammed against the glass, clawing and pounding as though they could shatter the reinforced panes with sheer rage.

Gu Xia fumbled the lock into place, spotted the roll-down shutter above, and pulled it closed to cut off the view.

Watching her, Yan An chuckled. “Why don’t you drag a shelf over, too?”

If the glass had been breakable, it would have shattered long ago.

Only now did Gu Xia notice the deep claw marks already etched across the panels, proof of failed attempts.

As for how the cashier had turned into a zombie…

Wait.

She froze. She’d just locked them inside with one.

Otherwise, how would the employee have changed?

Her eyes darted to Yan An, who met her gaze with a calm, amused look.

“Relax,” Yan An said lightly. “I checked. There’s no one else in here. The clerk must’ve been infected and changed on the job.”

At first Yan An had thought the same as Gu Xia, but experience trumped assumptions.

A survivalist—no, a hunter, never stepped into a place without first surveying every detail.

Gu Xia realized with a flush of embarrassment: Yan An had known all along and had just been watching her panic.

Swallowing her retort, she admitted silently that she was being jumpy.

She was still just a student. To have survived this long at all was luck; logic and reasoning were one thing, but experience was another.

By now Yan An’s headache had dulled. She got up with effort, carrying a rolled yoga mat she’d scavenged.

She spread it on the floor between the shelves. “Come rest. Once the zombies outside can’t see or hear us, they’ll probably move on.”

Zombies didn’t have intelligence at best, they had a memory span as short as a fish.

Gu Xia obediently joined her. “Just one mat?”

“Then use a rain poncho,” Yan An teased, stretching out and looking at her with a smile.

She was exhausted, her body demanding rest, waiting for her energy to recharge.

While Yan An drifted off, she didn’t notice Gu Xia sneaking water, a towel, toothpaste, and a toothbrush from the shelves to wash up quietly in a corner.

The pounding outside gradually lessened, until silence returned.

Yan An stirred, her heart suddenly racing, a gnawing sense that something was wrong.

“Gu Xia,” she whispered.

Gu Xia looked up from where she sat at the other end of the mat. Yan An beckoned, her eyes fixed on the window, her expression tight.

Through the glass, Yan An saw a beam of light, the glow of headlights.

A car door opened, and someone climbed out, soaked in bl00d, before disappearing from sight.

“Did you see?” Gu Xia asked, straining her eyes. She had no awakened ability, and in the dark she could only make out the gait. It was a man.

“It was Chen Hao.” Yan An’s voice carried unease. Her own power was only support-type. Chen Hao, with his offensive skills and ice ability, would be nearly impossible for her to face head-on.

Before she could say more, a face suddenly pressed against the glass.

Their breaths caught. They froze, staring from behind the shelves.

Chen Hao’s ruthless eyes swept across the store, searching for them. His hand scraped the glass, leaving a trail of frost as ice bloomed across it.

He shoved at the reinforced panel, but it didn’t budge. At the same time, the earlier noise lured the surrounding zombies back toward him.

Forced to deal with them, he retreated.

Yan An finally let out her breath and sank back onto the mat.

Gu Xia knew the extent of Chen Hao’s power, and her voice was heavy. “He knows we’re in here.”

“Yeah.” Yan An smiled faintly and tapped her forehead. “Relax, Guzi. He’s not getting in.”

“You—” Gu Xia hadn’t expected the casual touch.

“What?” Yan An asked innocently, then yawned. “Neither he nor the zombies are coming in. So we can actually get some sleep.”

She patted the space beside her. “Want to lie here?”

Gu Xia pointed at the bloodstains on her clothes. “No thanks.”

Well then. This woman was actually picky now.