Chapter 5
After three consecutive days of digging potatoes, Shi Nuo finally stopped after bringing back over two hundred tubers in his small buckets. With the basement and the refrigerator, he didn’t have to worry about storage for the time being.
The reason he stopped was that after digging up so many plants, he realized that the potatoes weren’t fully mature yet. Many of the tubers on the fibrous roots were small, clearly still growing.
He had dug up enough to last for many days, so he thought it would be better to wait another ten days or so for them to grow bigger before digging again. He would then have a larger harvest.
The weather on this planet wasn’t prone to extreme changes, so there shouldn’t be any drastic shifts within ten days to half a month.
He searched the northwestern area every day and found that readily edible wild plants with plentiful fruit and decent taste weren’t densely distributed. It was only because the wilderness was vast, and he was the only one harvesting them, that the quantity seemed reasonable.
He was afraid of venturing too far and encountering danger, so it was better to restrain himself and wait patiently.
If he could harvest five or six hundred large potatoes, and as long as they didn’t rot in long-term storage, eating three a day would be enough for over two hundred days. Combined with the dried wild vegetables, he could survive for half a year or even longer.
Generally speaking, the extreme cold or heat on resource planets didn’t last very long.
Understanding this, Shi Nuo finally felt less anxious.
Gurgle—
The water in the small pot bubbled and boiled. Shi Nuo picked up the basin and poured out the water in which he had soaked the potato pieces. There weren’t many potato pieces left at the bottom of the basin, and he poured them all into the pot.
He had only cut up two potatoes. Soaking them in a basin of water was a technique he had discovered in the past few days. If there wasn’t enough water, the liquid from the potatoes wouldn’t be diluted enough. Although the paralytic effect disappeared after stewing or boiling, the taste was unpleasant.
As long as they weren’t cut, whole boiled or steamed potatoes didn’t have the issue of the liquid.
Taking a block of solid oil from the refrigerator, Shi Nuo cut off a thin slice and put it in the pot, then carefully wrapped and stored the remaining oil.
He was reluctant to stew large pieces of meat with the potatoes. This solid oil was animal fat and would make the boiled potatoes taste more fragrant.
He had two blocks of solid oil, five-centimeter squares, ten pieces per block. He now had eight and a half pieces left.
In addition to the solid oil, he also had two square containers of liquid oil, six pounds each, one of animal fat and one of vegetable oil. He had used quite a bit from both, but neither was as fragrant as this poultry fat.
The oil was diminishing day by day, and he was becoming increasingly frugal. He could find vegetables and staple foods in the wild, but not oil, unless he managed to catch some prey and render fat from the meat.
Twenty minutes later, Shi Nuo ladled out a large bowl of potato soup, a thin layer of oil floating on top. He had already seasoned the cold vegetables.
This was a new type of wild vegetable he had found. It didn’t need to be blanched. After soaking and washing, it was crisp and refreshing, perfect for cold dishes. However, it was relatively rare; he had to search for a long time to fill a bucket.
Today’s breakfast was relatively substantial, and Shi Nuo ate with satisfaction.
After finishing breakfast, Shi Nuo opened the front door and stood there for a moment. He had noticed the slightly overcast sky when he woke up, and now the clouds had thickened, but it wasn’t raining.
He thought for a moment and then picked up the two small buckets from inside the doorway, activating his optical brain with his voice to lock the doors and windows as he walked out.
The round-leaf and red-stemmed wild vegetables were most abundant near the house. Even though he dug them up every day, new ones grew continuously, so he didn’t have to worry about running out.
He wanted to dig up two buckets quickly before it rained.
Unconsciously, he had become accustomed to working. He felt uneasy if he didn’t bring something back to store.
He pulled up handfuls of wild vegetables by the roots. Shi Nuo was now quite adept at this task, and even his palms weren’t as fragile and delicate as before.
At first, when he dug and pulled vegetables, his palms would become sore. If he accidentally brushed against a branch or rock, even a slight bump would hurt. He had many small cuts on his hands.
There was a handheld medical device in the house. Initially, he would habitually use it for any injury, no matter how small. Later, he became accustomed to the cuts on his hands and only used it when he bled. After all, the wound treatment solution in the device was also finite.
He knew that some wild plants had medicinal properties, but he couldn’t distinguish them. Even with the identifier, it would take time to search, analyze, verify, and record.
So, after learning how to do manual labor, he tried his best to avoid injuring himself. External injuries were easy to treat, but infections or fevers were a concern.
The wind blew from afar, making the tall grass ripple like waves.
The wind carried grass seeds and dust. Shi Nuo squinted, shielding his eyes with his hand. When the gust passed, he quickly gathered a few handfuls of round-leaf vegetables, picked up the two almost-full buckets, and walked back.
The clouds in the sky grew heavier, the light dimmed, and the wind carried a distinct fishy scent, damp and cold.
Compared to the last rain, the temperature outside had dropped significantly, and Shi Nuo felt a bit chilly.
Roar—
A roar came from the distance.
The sound was loud and powerful, carrying a clear warning.
Unlike Alphas with their beast forms, Betas and Omegas, although not as strong as beastmen, had coexisted and evolved for millennia and had developed an understanding of beastman habits, even possessing a certain sensitivity and intuition towards wild animals.
This roar was filled with rage and conveyed a lot of information.
Shi Nuo could vaguely discern the beast’s location. It seemed to be coming from across the river.
The color drained from his face. The roar was so clear even from such a distance; this beast, or group of beasts, was clearly powerful.
In his fright, he felt his vision sway, and he almost lost his balance. Then he realized it wasn’t him; the ground was shaking.
It felt like a massive creature, or perhaps a group of beasts, was running in the distance.
Shi Nuo’s eyelashes trembled, his upturned eyes filled with tears, his legs weak.
Then, another roar, even more oppressive and soul-shaking, pierced the air, making his heart clench as if gripped by an invisible hand.
The entire wilderness fell silent.
For a long time, there was no sound, and the ground stopped shaking. Shi Nuo finally broke free from the extreme pressure and shock.
Tears streamed down his face, leaving it cold. He steadied himself and hurried back to the house, his legs weak.
The wind grew colder, and drizzle began to fall. Shi Nuo entered the house and immediately locked all the doors and windows.
The river was at least a hundred meters wide. The fact that the house had stood for so many years without being destroyed meant its location must have been carefully chosen. Those beasts likely couldn’t cross the river.
But Shi Nuo still huddled in his bedroom. The small space felt much safer than the living room.
He drew the curtains, shutting out the light. Afraid of attracting beasts, he didn’t dare turn on the lights.
The temperature control system was running, raising the temperature in the bedroom by three degrees. The temperature was comfortable, not too hot, a stark contrast to the cold wind and rain outside.
Taking off his clothes, which were covered in grass clippings, Shi Nuo quickly burrowed under the covers. Only after wrapping himself tightly did he feel able to breathe.
He didn’t know what kind of beasts were on the other side of the river, but they were definitely dangerous. Judging from the sound alone, they weren’t small, and there seemed to be more than one group.
Perhaps two groups of beasts were fighting over territory, a common occurrence.
He tried to reassure himself, but he couldn’t shake the memory of the second roar, its authority and undeniable threat making his very soul tremble. It was no ordinary beast.
Perhaps it was the king of this wilderness.
But his intuition filled him with dread, bringing to mind another possibility: it could be some kind of alien beast.
Some unique planets bred unique species. These massive, strange alien beasts were not only resourceful but also intelligent. Most were cunning and cruel, and some rare species even possessed special abilities.
Whether it was a beast king or an alien beast, Shi Nuo knew that to them, he was probably just a single bite.
He had only seen small animals during his three months here and had begun to relax, never imagining such a great danger lurking across the river.
The rain lasted all night and stopped the next morning. The clouds dispersed, leaving a clear, blue sky as if it had been washed clean.
After the rain, there might be mushrooms, but Shi Nuo hadn’t seen any after the last rain. However, he hadn’t ventured out much then, so it was understandable that he hadn’t seen any.
This time, he didn’t dare go out.
After eating, the doors and windows remained tightly closed, and the ventilation system worked diligently.
Shi Nuo returned to his bedroom and sat against the headboard. He couldn’t resist reaching for the west window, pulling back a corner of the curtain to peek outside.
The river was far away and couldn’t be seen from here.
He had studied the map. The river flowed in an irregular arc from north to west, then turned and passed by the farther south, flowing eastward.
Because of the river’s winding course, the west side of the house was slightly closer to it than the other directions.
Outside, there was an endless expanse of grass swaying in the wind, with no large wild animals in sight.
The sky was bright, seeming much safer than the gloomy rain of yesterday.
Shi Nuo let the curtain fall. He thought for a moment, then opened his optical brain and extended the range of the house’s intelligent system’s scanning function to a radius of one thousand meters.
The scan showed no large animals within one thousand meters.
Those creatures must have been kept on the other side of the river.
Despite this thought, Shi Nuo was still a bit uneasy. He carefully checked the details of the scanning function.
A single large-scale scan didn’t consume much power. However, setting it to continuously monitor the movements of large creatures within a range of one thousand to fifteen hundred meters would reduce the lifespan of an energy crystal by half, providing only one month of power instead of two.
He had a total of one hundred and thirty-five crystals. He had used one since arriving, leaving one hundred and thirty-four.
One hundred and thirty months, which was a little over ten years.
These energy crystals were actually quite plentiful. If he hadn’t become aware of the presence of the beasts, they could have lasted for twenty years.
Twenty years…
The concrete number seemed stark, even cruel.
Shi Nuo fell silent. He knew he would be trapped here for a long time, but it had never felt as real as it did at this moment.
Ten years and twenty years were both a long time. Whether he conserved energy or not didn’t make much difference. His immediate safety was paramount.
