Apocalypse: I'm Bound to a Mobile Lottery Shop

Chapter 185: Chapter 185: Handkerchief Tissue

Lily Hart went over to look, but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. She reached out and patted the back of the Lucky Cat’s head.

After a long while, it emitted a series of grinding clicks, as if jammed, before finally spitting out a small card with a description.

The customer eagerly snatched it up and read aloud in a low voice, "Pocket tissues? Erases all the filth in the world?"

He didn’t get it. The description was so profound. What did it even mean?

But that was all it said. Of course, Lily Hart didn’t understand either, so she affected an air of profound wisdom and looked away.

The customer figured that since she was the owner, she must know what it was for. He picked it up and asked, "Ma’am, what are these pocket tissues used for?"

"To wipe things. For example, if this spot here is dirty, you just wipe it," Lily Hart said with a straight face.

She then pointed to a muddy spot on the table they had just made, looking at him with great earnestness.

The customer glanced from the tabletop to Lily Hart, his thoughts plain on his face: ’Do I look like a complete idiot?’

"Go on, try it," Lily Hart urged. She wanted to see how the pocket tissues worked too.

Someone in the crowd, eager for a spectacle, sidled up and pointed to an old, set-in stain on his clothes. "How about you try wiping this for me?"

Everyone thought he’d won a useless little prize, and they all crowded around to tease him.

One man, who clearly had some sort of beef with him, shot him a nasty look.

He pointed at the black birthmark covering most of the man’s left cheek and sneered, "Here, why don’t you wipe this off first."

"With a face like that, you should just hide away in the base instead of coming out here and making a spectacle of yourself! You’re an embarrassment to Auspice Base! Can you even take responsibility for that?!"

The crowd of gawkers stared, wide-eyed. But the owner of the pocket tissues was no pushover.

He tore open the packaging, pulled out a single tissue, and gave a derisive snort, the corner of his mouth twisting into a smirk.

The black birthmark resembled a rooster, its beak just below his eyelid and its rear end near his ear.

As he smirked, the birthmark seemed to come alive, looking just like a large rooster about to peck.

"AARGH—" A pained howl echoed.

Before the crowd could even react, he had tackled the man and pinned him to the ground.

His fists rained down, and the man underneath howled in pain, frantically raising his arms to shield himself.

Sitting astride the man, he took out a tissue and, with gritted teeth, began to furiously wipe it across the man’s mouth.

He snarled, "That’ll teach you to run your mouth! That’ll teach you! I’d like to see what’s tougher—your mouth or my tissue!"

"Mmmph, mmmph..." The man’s head was reeling from the blows. Pinned by sheer strength, he couldn’t break free.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst of it was the series of shocked gasps coming from the crowd.

"Hey! His mouth!"

"It’s gone! It’s actually gone!"

"Oh my god! How is that possible?!"

He didn’t know what was happening. All he knew was that the spot where his mouth used to be now felt like it had been sewn shut...

He couldn’t feel his mouth at all. He tried to speak, but the sound was trapped in his throat, unable to escape!

Overwhelming panic sent him into a violent struggle, flailing with all his limbs.

The owner of the tissues hadn’t expected them to be so effective either. He was momentarily stunned, and his opponent seized the opening.

In an instant, the tables were turned, and their positions were reversed.

The tissue-wielder’s eyes went wide. Staring at the man’s utterly bizarre face, he had to suppress a laugh.

If the situation weren’t so serious, he would have thrown his head back and laughed uproariously, then run a hundred laps around the RV!

His voice was a distorted, trembling muffle. "What are you laughing at?!" He didn’t dare reach up to touch his face, terrified of what he’d find.

Boundless panic and rage threatened to overwhelm him. He raised his fist to strike.

The tissue-wielder didn’t have time to block. In a moment of desperation, he used another tissue and viciously scrubbed at the man’s wrist.

The effect was even more potent than he’d imagined. The man’s wrist vanished completely, and his entire hand dropped to the ground with a wet THUD.

A torrent of blood sprayed out, splattering right across the tissue-wielder’s face. The sight startled everyone; even Lily Hart couldn’t help but take a step back.

"Aah! His hand! His hand is gone too!"

"Those tissues are like a real-life eraser!"

"’Erases all the filth in the world?’ I guess that means it erases whatever the user considers ’filth,’ huh?"

"A prize like that is terrifying..."

The man only snapped out of it when he heard the crowd’s murmurs, staring blankly at the clean, flat stump where his wrist had been.

’My hand... is just gone...?’ In a daze, he picked his own severed hand up off the ground.

He tried to put it back on, but the moment he let go with his other hand, it just fell to the ground again.

After several attempts, he finally accepted his new reality. His eyes were bloodshot, the skin where his mouth used to be pulled taut.

The tissue-wielder felt incredibly vindicated. He shoved the man to the ground, got to his feet, brushed the dust off his clothes, and swaggered away.

As for the man with the severed hand, it was clear he wasn’t well-liked in the base. Not a single person came forward to check on him.

They just stole glances, whispering and gossiping amongst themselves. No one pitied him; no one cared.

Lily Hart hadn’t expected the pocket tissues to be used like that, either. She couldn’t help but sigh.

’I just hope it gets used for good from now on.’

She didn’t watch the man for long. Seeing him shamble away toward the base, head down and cupping his hands together, she looked away.

The prizes that followed were much more normal. There was fruit, some vegetables, and even a cooking pot.

It didn’t need electricity or natural gas, of course. It had a dial that, when turned, would cause it to heat up on its own.

You could use it to boil water, cook instant noodles, have hot pot, stir-fry dishes—it could do basically anything.

Lily Hart thought it was incredibly thoughtful; it knew there was no power here, so it was designed to be completely self-sufficient.

The person who won the pot was ecstatic. He immediately announced that anyone could use it, as long as they paid in Crystal Cores.

Meanwhile, the person who had won the ’mystery box’ fruit tree had dug it up and taken it away, though no one knew where.

Lily Hart saw that business was slowly getting into a rhythm, but there were still very few customers.

In fact, from morning until noon, it had been the same group of people. A few had left, but no new customers had arrived.

She remembered the faces of those who had won high-tier prizes. Taking a closer look, she realized... ’Wait, are all the people who left the ones who won the good stuff?’

The pot winner, the mystery box fruit tree winner, the fruit basket, the black bear doll, the pocket tissues.

Those five had won all of the high-tier prizes this morning, and now they were all gone. It felt both normal and strange at the same time.

’It’s not possible that these are the only people in Auspice Base capable of hunting for Crystal Cores.’

She found someone else to ask the question she hadn’t gotten an answer to earlier. "Does no one else from your base come outside?"

"Why would they?" the woman answered distractedly, engrossed in her scratch-off card.

Lily Hart was taken aback. "To kill zombies? Earn Crystal Cores? Play my scratch-offs? I even have a convenience store and a bathhouse. Isn’t anyone curious?"

The woman glanced up for a second before returning her attention to her card. "Sure, we’re curious. We’ll check it out later."

The response was both friendly and evasive. Lily Hart realized she wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of her. She cupped her chin in her hands and zoned out.

Her mouth felt bored, so she bought some fruit to snack on—some red grapes. They were crisp, sweet, and best of all, she didn’t have to peel them.