Chapter 590: Capacity Expansion
Chapter 590: Chapter 590: Capacity Expansion
Liam Grant said they had taken care of the Intermediate Zombie.
"Who knows," Nina Jacobs said with a smile.
She could have kept that Puppet Zombie around to continue killing others, just like the three in Crestfall. However, to prevent anyone from discovering the Puppetry Technique, she had already ordered the Aero-Puppet Zombie to end itself.
"Managing to stay alive proves they’ve got some skills," Warren Ramsey said.
"Speaking of which, the number of zombies in the South District has surged," Chase Gallagher chimed in. "Holden and I noticed they seem to be swarming over from South Riven."
Would it really be fine if things kept going like this?
"The situation there has indeed gotten much worse than before. However, the base has already made contingency plans and intends to increase military support in that area moving forward. Everyone killed quite a few zombies over there today, and I will report this to the base."
Ian Chandler began to understand why Nina had chosen to hunt zombies in the South District today. It was most likely to relieve the pressure on the area. She truly had the best interests of the base at heart.
Nina didn’t know why Ian was staring at her with such a moved expression, but it reminded her of the situation in the South District from her past life.
It wouldn’t be long before the South District was locked down. At this time in her past life, the City D Base was still struggling to cope with endless zombie hordes. But now, the probability of the base suffering from a zombie horde had been minimized. Would the City D Base still lock down the South District? At the very least, around this time in her previous life, the City D Base hadn’t dispatched rescue teams to clear the South District on a daily basis.
Assuming Nina was still worried, Ian continued, "If it weren’t for the weather, the South District wouldn’t be hard to control."
The extreme cold not only restricted human activity but also made it difficult to use certain firearms and instruments. To reduce casualties, the various rescue teams had already paired up their members, assigning them into groups of two to prevent anyone from suddenly succumbing to frostbite.
"Your Superpower doesn’t seem to be affected, Nina," Ian said with a blink. Nina appeared unfazed by the cold, and the sheer power of her Superpower hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
"Consider it compensation for Fire Element Superpower Users," Nina replied.
Most Fire Element Superpower Users weren’t afraid of the cold during the extreme freeze, but their Superpowers were heavily impacted. Her Superpower was naturally affected as well; it just seemed immensely powerful to outsiders.
"That’s why we all like sitting next to Elara. It’s so warm," Yvonne Willow and Jessica Vance said, sitting on either side of Elara Dolan.
Elara was a Fire Element Superpower User. After the extreme cold hit, she had become the team’s hot commodity. At night, the girls in Stella would even move their beds straight into her room.
Seeing her teammates getting along so well brought Nina an incredible sense of comfort. Although her teammates in her past life had fought their way through thick and thin together, they had secretly been competing against one another.
For example, Shannon Renner, the weakest of the bunch, had to take on all the logistics just to win everyone’s favor. Wyatt Jacobs frequently clashed with others to show off the strength of his Superpower. Liam Grant often stole credit in both his actions and words to secure his title as the team’s number one... What seemed like a united team had actually been rotting with internal conflicts for a long time. It was just that, in the end, all those conflicts were shifted onto her.
Just then, Yvonne’s words interrupted her thoughts. "It’s about time to restock Mason Quincy’s stall. Business has been pretty good for him lately, and those surplus items from our team have finally been cleared out."
With the extra items sold out, it was now up to Nina to decide what supplies to give him next.
"Tell him to come to my place," Nina said.
She had reviewed the ledger Mason sent over; the selling price of every item was clearly marked. The Crystal Cores he delivered were also impeccably accurate. It seemed she could finally take out some of the supplies from her storage grid to test the waters.
Yvonne didn’t think much of it, simply assuming Nina had more surplus items to clear out. After finishing the handover with Mason that night, he arrived right on time at Nina’s house early the next morning.
"Follow me," Nina said. After Mason greeted Vera Coleman and the others, Nina led him down to the basement. These were the supplies she had just taken out from her storage grid.
"There’s so much," Mason said, looking somewhat surprised.
Milk and milk powder, beef jerky and spicy strips, crackers and bread... There were also daily necessities and winter gear. Although the quantity of each individual item wasn’t huge, the sheer variety of goods covered more than half the basement floor.
"Yeah, it’s just stuff we have no use for," Nina replied. "Just hold on to the Crystal Cores after you sell them."
Since the items came from her storage grid, the system would still count the experience rewards even if the Crystal Cores were collected at a later time.
"Right, right, understood. I’ll take inventory immediately." Mason was slightly thrilled. These were all highly sought-after goods. He could already imagine how bustling his stall was going to be.
"By the way, how big is your spatial dimension?" Nina asked.
"It’s... Do you know how big an NBA basketball court is? It’s about that size, a little over 400 square meters," Mason described proudly.
Because of his goods-trading business, he used his dimension multiple times a day, so its area was already much larger than its initial size. However, Nina pondered for a moment after hearing this and then took out an object. "Take this back and use it. Let’s see how much it expands your capacity."
"Is this... a Mys-Mys-Mystic... Ice Core?!" Mason stared at the object in Nina’s hand in shock. Was she giving this to him to absorb?
"Yes," Nina said calmly.
Mason’s dimension wasn’t small anymore, and it was plenty for his daily needs. However, she planned to leave behind as many supplies as possible for him to sell before she headed to City A.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!" Mason excitedly accepted the Ice Core. So many people in the base fought tooth and nail just to apply for this exact item, yet Nina was simply giving it to him.
"Thank you for thinking so highly of me, Captain Jacobs. Whatever you need from now on, just say the word." He even offered to forgo his cut of the profits.
"Keep taking your cut," Nina told him instead. "That’s the only way our partnership will last."
She had already asked Chase to look into Mason’s social connections and character. Judging from their previous encounter with Michael Miller and his gang, Mason wasn’t a bad guy. Chase’s investigation also showed that he was fairly reliable; although he valued profit, he also valued loyalty. Furthermore, while Mason was doing alright inside the base, he couldn’t survive outside of it. He had a natural fear of zombies and hadn’t killed a single one to this day. This meant the chances of him absconding with her supplies were incredibly low.
After she gifted him the Mystic Ice Core, Mason’s affection score for her had jumped from the seventies straight up to ninety. Once Mason finished taking inventory, Vera warmly invited him to stay for a meal, but he tactfully excused himself.
"He certainly knows the rules. He even knew to put on shoe covers before coming inside," Vera remarked.
"He probably knew there were little ones in the house." Nina was playing with her two little sisters. Watching a paper airplane hover in front of them, controlled by her Wind Element Superpower, the two girls scrambled over each other, trying to grab it.
Leontine Hale even stood straight up. Though she only managed to stand for a few seconds, it genuinely gave Vera a fright. After all, the twins wouldn’t turn six months old for another few days.
"Great athletic genes," Nina praised the little one.
On the soft play mat, Leontine let out a happy HEE HEE HEE as she finally grabbed the paper airplane.