stonecrandall Chapter 63 The Final Sweep
Chapter 63 The Final Sweep
Gao Yuan visibly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that Lu Chen had adopted his opinion.
He is now one of the core managers of the base. Apart from Lu Chen and Shen Qingci, he is the one who is most familiar with the operation of the team and the one who least wants any trouble to happen.
Purchasing the equipment doesn't mean today's work is over; there are still things to do.
The three of them went back downstairs.
Gao Yuan continued to direct the burning of zombie corpses in the square.
Lu Chen and Shen Qingci took half of the zombies with them, partly to clear out the zombies and partly to rescue the survivors.
Just after the military's drone broadcast, five more households in Xiangyang Community hung red cloths on their windows.
These people were probably in a wait-and-see state before, but they finally made up their minds after hearing the drone's broadcast.
Of course, the rescue mission was only secondary; the more important task was to clear out the zombies.
This afternoon, in order to save lives in time, only the zombies in the corridors and fire escape stairwells of buildings 5, 6, 7 and 1 were cleared away. The zombies locked in the rooms were completely ignored.
But now that the entire Xiangyang Community is to be transformed into a formal stronghold, none of the zombies locked in these rooms can be left alive.
Of course, this kind of cleaning task is no longer difficult for Lu Chen. Cleaning each room now will only take a little more time.
They first brought out the five survivors who had hung red cloths.
After these five people were rescued, they were handed over to Gao Yuan for registration and arrangements. At this point, the total number of survivors in Xiangyang Community reached 130.
Next came clearing out the zombies from the rooms. Lu Chen had Tie Zhu lead the way, starting from Building 5 and clearing them floor by floor upwards.
Tie Zhu led the way, carrying a crowbar. Reaching a door, he wedged the crowbar into the crack, twisted his wrist, and the lock snapped open.
Two pillars and three pillars pushed open the door and entered. Two Iron Pillar-level zombies rushed into the room from the left and right. Before the zombies inside could react, two knives had already fallen.
Several large, muscular zombies followed behind, dragging the fallen corpses out and carrying them along the corridor toward the stairwell for later centralized disposal.
Standing in the corridor, Lu Chen watched the three Iron Pillar-level zombies with their clear division of labor, and suddenly an idea struck him.
He simultaneously issued three different sets of instructions to Tiezhu, Erzhu, and Sanzhu: Tiezhu was to pry open the door to 102, and Erzhu and Sanzhu were to each lead three large zombies into 103 and 104 respectively.
The doors to the three rooms were pried open almost simultaneously, and the three teams rushed in at the same time, quickly killing the zombies inside. The entire process, from prying open the doors to clearing the area, took less than a minute.
The efficiency is terrifying!
Lu Chen tested it several more times and found that the three-thread operation was like an assembly line when clearing out single-target, low-threat zombies in the room.
He only needs to stand in the middle of the corridor and handle the screen feedback of three threads simultaneously.
It generally only takes three or four minutes to clear out all the zombies on a floor, and even less if there are fewer zombies on a particular floor.
In this process, Shen Qingci also plays a role. What she has to do is very simple: find zombies of the Dazhuang and Tiezhu levels!
Upon arriving at a new floor, she would use her supernatural abilities to scan every room beforehand, and if she spotted a target, she would immediately inform Lu Chen.
When Lu Chen cleared buildings 5 and 6, he only cleared the corridors and fire escape staircases. He didn't touch any of the zombies inside the rooms, so there must still be some zombies of the "Big Strong" and "Iron Pillar" levels hiding inside.
Half an hour later, all five buildings were cleared!
Lu Chen captured six more burly zombies, all of them were tightly bound with nylon ropes, their mouths stuffed with cloth strips, and were dragged back by two burly zombies as a "reserve force".
They then went to Building 6.
The situation in Building 6 is similar to that in Building 5; there are still several rooms on each floor where zombies have not been cleared.
But the rewards here are even greater. While clearing the fourth floor, they discovered an Iron Pillar-level zombie.
When they reached the 11th floor, they discovered another iron pillar.
After capturing them alive, Lu Chen immediately used his supernatural abilities to control them on the spot.
At this point, the number of Iron Pillar-level zombies under his command increased from 6 to 8.
At the same time, the two weakest Big Strong-level dogs in the team were replaced.
Of course, the two large, strong-level animals that were released from control were not killed; they were re-tied up and put back into the reserve team.
In Building 6, besides the Iron Pillar class, there are 4 Strong class. Including the 2 that just retired, the total number of Strong class in his reserve team has now increased to 13.
Lu Chen calculated that if he continued to clear out the zombies like this, it wouldn't be long before all his reserve zombies would be replaced with strong, muscular ones. At that point, even the term "cannon fodder" could be removed from the tactical options... The lowest-level substitutes would be strong, muscular, or at least.
After cleaning Building 6, Lu Chen stretched at the entrance of the building.
He raised his wrist to check the time. It was a little past 5 p.m. The sun had already sunk behind the western buildings, and only a few dark red rays of light remained on the horizon.
The fire in the community square had been completely extinguished, and Ning Tieshan was leading people to use shovels to shovel sand to cover the remaining ashes.
The red moon will rise in less than an hour.
"Let's go! Today's work is finished. As for the remaining buildings 1 and 7, just finish them by 9 a.m. tomorrow, so as not to delay the rescue later." Lu Chen stretched his shoulders.
If we're really in a rush, it wouldn't be a problem to lead a team to clear out Buildings 1 and 7 right now; it should only take half an hour at most.
But before dinner, he had something even more important to do: to strengthen his body once more with the meteorite imprint!
The meteorite imprint is fully charged. If we don't use it now, all the gratitude points will be wasted during the pre-dinner thanksgiving event organized by Gao Yuan later.
There are only three meals a day that can reliably generate gratitude points; wasting one means one less meal.
Shen Qingci naturally had no objection to this. The two led the zombie horde back up the fire escape stairs.
When Gao Yuan saw the two return, he immediately came to greet them and report.
The incineration work has been completed. All the zombie corpses from the three buildings have been dragged down and burned clean.
The bodies piled up at the entrances of each building in the community were all thrown in and burned when the fire was at its strongest, so the entire community looked much cleaner now.
"Great! Tomorrow, let's try to clear out the zombie corpses in buildings 2 and 4 next door, and also put the collection of supplies on the agenda." Lu Chen said as he walked back.
"No problem. We have plenty of manpower right now. We can collect supplies not only from buildings 2 and 4, but also from building 1." Gao Yuan said as he walked behind Lu Chen.
Lu Chen nodded.
Gao Yuan added, "However, as the number of people increases, if it develops into a base with hundreds or even thousands of people, I think we need to re-plan both the accommodations and the management of supplies."
"Right now, everyone is being squeezed into the rooms temporarily, several people crammed into one large dormitory room. This model can handle about a hundred people, but it won't be able to work with any more. And the comfort level is also average, so it won't be easy to keep the survivors in the future."
Lu Chen thought about it and agreed.
If the number of people at the later outposts really grows to several hundred or even a thousand, a more systematic planning scheme will indeed be needed. "So, do you have any ideas?"