Apocalypse: I'm Bound to a Mobile Lottery Shop

Chapter 74: Chapter 74: Creating Zombies

He shrieked and flailed his limbs about. "Ah, ah, I feel so energized, so full of life! I feel like I could eat a hundred more people!"

Lily Hart: ’Huh? Does this mean I’m creating conflict between humans and zombies?’

Frost Shaw and Roman Rowe couldn’t understand what the zombie was saying, but they could sense the surging energy within it and its soaring excitement.

The two men shifted their feet slightly, subtly moving to shield Lily Hart protectively.

But inside the RV, Lily Hart was invincible. Only outside the RV could she possibly be harmed.

Lily Hart soothed, "Hey, don’t get so worked up. If you want to eat people, go somewhere else. Don’t do it in front of me. It’s weird... and gross."

The zombie glared at her, waving its hands as if about to attack, and let out a series of guttural growls.

Frost Shaw took a step forward, ready to finish off the zombie, but a look from Lily Hart stopped him.

Only she could understand him. The zombie, Yannick Ward, was saying, "Don’t worry, Boss, I definitely won’t eat anyone here. Heh heh, after taking that pill, my body feels amazing! What should I call you?"

Lily Hart smiled and nodded. "Just call me Boss Hart. If any other zombies ask where you got this pill, remember to recommend me."

Yannick Ward nodded eagerly. He had to spread the word about something this good. Taking one pill felt like returning to the early days of being a zombie.

Full of stamina, brimming with energy, with nothing on his mind but eating people, eating people!

Now that he’d been a zombie for a while, he’d started to slack off, just wanting to lie around all day. The main reason was that humans had gotten smarter and weren’t so easy to catch anymore.

Overjoyed, he waved to Lily Hart and bounced away.

Frost Shaw had a complicated expression on his face. He had watched this listless zombie become radiant and a hundred times more energetic.

’If tens of thousands of zombies possessed these pills, what kind of pressure and threat would that pose to humanity?’

Roman Rowe obviously hadn’t thought that deeply. He just found it amazing and rushed excitedly to Lily Hart’s side.

"Boss Hart, what did you give that zombie? How did it suddenly... come back to life?" Roman Rowe asked curiously.

Lily Hart said playfully, "Just a ’Kick the Bucket’ pill." With that, she winked at him.

Roman Rowe froze. He forgot whatever he was about to ask and just said blankly, "Oh, so that’s how it is..."

"..." Frost Shaw watched their interaction and couldn’t help but facepalm. ’What an idiot. He only thinks about things on the most superficial level.’

’But... isn’t that a kind of happiness in itself?’

It was nearing noon, and the most important thing to do was eat lunch. Adhering to the principles of fairness, justice, and transparency, Lily Hart symbolically asked the two what they wanted to eat.

Frost Shaw said tentatively and hesitantly, "Anything’s fine. Up to you?"

Roman Rowe excitedly offered his opinion, "I want that barbecue we had last time!"

"Okay, stir-fry it is!" Lily Hart decided with finality. ’Barbecue? Do you know how many points that would cost for eight people?!’

Roman Rowe: "?! Then why did you even ask me? Seriously..." He shot her an extremely resentful glare.

After all eight of them were seated, the RV once again received an unexpected guest: Leo Colby.

It seemed that no matter where the RV was, he could always find it precisely, come to buy scratch-off tickets, and never say a superfluous word.

Just silently buying, silently paying with Crystal Cores, and silently leaving.

Lily Hart really liked this kind of customer—no trouble for her. But right now, she was eating...

Not wanting to get up at all, she yelled out, "If you’re buying scratch-offs, help yourself! If you want to buy a lottery ticket, you’ll have to wait a bit."

Leo Colby nodded silently, it was unclear which part he was responding to. His gaze fell upon the sumptuous spread of food on the table.

Eight dishes and one soup, steaming and fragrant. The taste of these dishes involuntarily surfaced in his mind.

His Adam’s apple bobbed. Leo Colby looked away, forcing himself not to look anymore, but he couldn’t control the aroma that relentlessly drilled into his nostrils.

He frowned. He’d clearly won instant meals from the scratch-offs before, even the deluxe version with three meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and a soup.

But compared to the fresh-off-the-wok stir-fry on the table, his prize instantly felt incredibly lame...

He stopped thinking about it and simply took out the scratch-offs he bought last time, preparing to redeem his prizes since he had nothing better to do.

He fed them one by one into the Lucky Cat machine, his eyes occasionally drifting toward the food on the table and Lily Hart.

His impression of Boss Hart had always been limited to words like fair-skinned, friendly, gentle, and decisive.

But today, he added a new, good impression: she had a hearty appetite that could stir one’s own.

Coincidentally, the Lucky Cat spat out a bowl of mixed noodles. He skillfully mixed them, found a spot outside, sat down, and started eating.

By the time he finished, Lily Hart was also done eating. She asked while sipping water, "What numbers are you buying?"

Leo Colby casually recited a string of numbers. Lily Hart gave him the ticket and subconsciously reminded him, "Make sure you don’t lose the ticket. You can redeem it at the machines or here at the shop~"

She suddenly remembered something and said, "There are machines outside Hope Base and Bloomfall Base now. You don’t have to come all the way to the shop."

Leo Colby just said, "I want to."

Lily Hart: ’Fine, fine, fine. The customer wants to choose for himself, no problem there.’

When she looked up again, Leo Colby was already picking out scratch-offs, buying about twenty of them without hesitation.

After seeing Leo Colby off, the surroundings fell silent again, with only the occasional sounds of Roman Rowe playing with the kids.

Lily Hart propped her chin on her hand, frowning in thought. ’Is this the plan Jason Lynch and Hunter Lowell came up with?’

’It’s too childish, like a squabble between elementary schoolers. "Don’t play with him, you’re not allowed to play with him!" Lame!’

’They’re respected Base Commanders, and this is the best they can do? I don’t believe it.’

She blinked, and for a moment, she seemed to see Leo Colby’s figure before her again. A sentence popped into her mind.

"Boss Hart, a zombie horde is heading this way." Leo Colby seemed to have just come to give her a heads-up.

"Huh?" Lily Hart shot to her feet. "A zombie horde? Where?"

Leo Colby was about to leave, but upon hearing her, he raised his hand, pointed in a certain direction, and said softly, "There. Be careful, Boss Hart."

Sure enough, a few dozen zombies appeared in the distance, shambling their way over.

"That’s it?" Lily Hart was dismissive. She instantly activated the ten-meter safe zone and set it to block zombies.

This way, only humans could enter and exit freely, while zombies would be blocked outside.

Frost Shaw seemed to have sensed something. He and Roman Rowe came out of the convenience store and looked toward the zombie group.

Both their expressions darkened. They led the three little ones to the RV. Seeing that Leo Colby was still there, they gave him a perfunctory nod as a greeting.

"There’s a zombie horde," Frost Shaw said.

"Yeah, but not many, just—" Lily Hart looked up again, and the dismissive words caught in her throat.

A hundred meters away, a massive, dense black mass of zombies was surging neatly toward the RV, not even deviating from their course.

Lily Hart was surprised. "Why does it look like they’re using GPS?"

Frost Shaw’s expression was grim. He had a faint guess as to what was happening. This horde was being controlled either by a High-level Zombie or by a human.

High-level Zombies have thoughts and intelligence. They generally don’t launch a horde so easily unless there’s something they want to obtain.

Lily Hart’s situation clearly didn’t fit. There were few people, not even enough for a zombie’s snack. And while she had plenty of supplies, none of it was edible for zombies...

Then there was only one possibility: this zombie horde was being controlled by humans.

There had always been rumors in the apocalypse that the reason zombies could never be completely wiped out was because a major base was creating them.