Chapter 298 Return with a Full Load

By the time they arrived at the Shelter, it was already past their usual dinner time.

Fortunately, with Sophia here, they wouldn’t have to worry about having dinner today.

It’s worth mentioning that Vikram and his three companions usually didn’t eat with the others.

In territory 2 was equipped with a kitchen, toilet, and bathroom; his members’ daily lives were separate.

Vikram was only responsible for providing ingredients.

However, he wasn’t stingy because of this; except for meat, which wasn’t as plentiful as what he and his two companions ate, everything else was provided according to the exact same standard.

But since today he got the harvest, to celebrate it he had dinner with the other members.

After having dinner with them on territory 2, he returned to his territory.

Vikram began to count the supplies he had obtained today one by one.

"Huh? Didn’t you say it was a factory? Why did you bring back all these cardboard boxes and foam boxes?"

Looking at the boxes covering the floor, Sophia and Divya stood by, helping to organize, and asked in confusion.

Vikram didn’t rush to explain, but instead, he busied himself opening the boxes one by one, which were too numerous to be placed on the floor.

As the food cans inside appeared in Sophia’s line of sight, her eyes immediately lit up.

"Cans?"

"Mm." His hands didn’t stop, Vikram slowly recounted the day’s events to her.

Upon hearing this, Sophia and Divya instantly understood the reason and put on an expression of sudden realization.

Then they hesitated for a moment, their gaze fixed intently on Vikram’s face, trying to discern something from it.

"What do you mean?"

"Your husband worked very hard outside to get some food; what do you mean by looking at me with that kind of gaze?"

Vikram, who was counting the supplies, didn’t tolerate it and immediately glared back.

"I’m checking if you’re lying."

"Is it true that you’re not interested in that woman named Lara, or is it just that there were too many people around to make a move?"

Divya’s tone was a bit teasing, and she scanned Vikram’s face suspiciously.

"Don’t talk nonsense; I didn’t even look at her cleavage directly."

As he spoke, he added internally, ’I only glanced at it with my peripheral vision.’

Vikram felt a bit unnerved by being stared at by those big eyes, "Why are you women’s points of focus so strange? There were so many exciting things on the way, yet after hearing it all, you only care about this?"

Vikram pursed his lips.

"That woman was cleaved by my blade; if I really liked her, would it have come to that?"

Who knew, as soon as he finished explaining, the delicate yet serious face in front of him couldn’t hold back.

Seeing Vikram’s embarrassment, both Sophia and Divya immediately revealed a mouthful of white teeth.

"Hahaha, I was just teasing you! So even your thick skin can get embarrassed, huh?"

"Look how red your face is, like a monkey’s butt; it’s killing me."

Divya clutched her stomach, completely disregarding Vikram’s speechless expression, and collapsed on the sofa, laughing heartily.

She wasn’t that neurotic.

Divya had seen Vikram expressionlessly kill some female Survivors before, so of course, she wouldn’t get angry over something like this.

It was just that Vikram usually teased her from time to time, and she also wanted to tease Vikram in return.

Vikram, feeling his intelligence insulted, his expression hardened, and he gritted his teeth, saying, "Alright, alright, I’m working myself to death outside, and when I come back, not only do I get no reward, but you also want to play with me like this, huh?"

"Then this official can only administer family punishment today on you all."

Divya seemed certain that Vikram wouldn’t do anything out of line, and the smile on her face grew wider.

"Come on, I’d like to see how you administer family punishment."

She provocatively stuck out her tongue, Divya said proudly.

"Oh ho, you said it; don’t blame me later."

With that, Vikram, whose competitive spirit had been ignited, didn’t care about anything else and, mimicking how Divya had disciplined Anjali earlier, extended his palm...

"Slap!"

A clear sound echoed through the living room.

At the same time, Divya had a bewildered expression, and Anjali’s face puffed up.

"Didn’t you say you were going to punish smelly Divya? Why did you reward her?"

"Then I want some too!"

Upon hearing this, not only was Divya, who was hit, stunned, but even Vikram, who was still feeling the lingering warmth on his hand, showed a dazed expression.

The four of them just looked at each other like that, and the atmosphere was silent for several minutes before they came back to their senses.

Divya, whose round bottom had been struck by Vikram’s evil palm, naturally had an expression of shame and indignation; her eyes first glared fiercely at Vikram,

Then she shifted her gaze to Anjali, who had just uttered that outrageous remark.

Seeing Divya’s eyes, which held a hint of anger, Anjali, realizing she had said the wrong thing, immediately hid behind Vikram.

"Smelly Vikram, save me!"

However, this time Vikram did not choose to cover for this little dummy again.

Instead, he pretended to cough.

"Cough cough!"

"Be good, go play by yourself first; I still have things to do here and can’t play with you anymore."

Seeing that things seemed to be getting a bit out of hand and the situation was not right, he expertly used the tactic of diverting trouble to another.

After speaking, he immediately abandoned Anjali behind him and, carrying the supplies sorted from the warehouse, fled this troublesome place as if escaping.

As he ran into the depths of the Shelter, intending to take the elevator down, Vikram vaguely heard Anjali’s moans behind him.

"Didn’t you want a reward? I’m giving you a reward, why are you running?"

"Slap!"

"Wuwu, smelly Divya only knows how to bully me."

Vikram, who had already made a clean getaway, whistled contentedly as he arrived at the third floor of his Shelter. (Previously he also transformed his shelter into a building shape.)

All the supplies sorted from the warehouse were piled up here by him.

Because these food cans had expiration dates, Vikram didn’t even think about it; he could only put them into the warehouse that came with the cornerstone.

The rest of the items naturally could only be placed here.

After piling a bunch of durable supplies in the storage area, Vikram returned upstairs and came to the warehouse again.

The supplies brought back this time were truly abundant.

Canned fruit and canned meat were naturally a given.

During the inventory process, Vikram even found canned vegetables among them.

However, Vikram’s warehouse had fresh ones, so he wasn’t particularly concerned about these.

Out of a total of one hundred and three tons of canned goods, what pleased Vikram the most was the quantity of canned meat.

Canned meat accounted for half of it.

Things like braised pork, Dongpo pork hock, crispy fried pork, salted fish, luncheon meat, and ham.

Although these canned goods couldn’t compare to fresh meat, for preservation purposes, they were usually packed with plenty of spices.

So, the taste was likely quite good.

The meat supply in Vikram’s Territory was already running low, and now with this wave of canned goods filling the warehouse, his lips curved into an involuntary smile.

At least until he found live livestock, these canned goods would ensure he wouldn’t have to worry about not having meat on the table.

After three months in the Wasteland, the food problem was finally completely resolved.

From now on, when he went out to explore for resources, he would only need to focus on improving his quality of life.

Putting away his thoughts, the remaining fifty tons of canned goods were split equally between vegetables and fruits.

"I can keep the canned fruit, but these vegetables..."

Looking at the bottles and cans covering the ground, Vikram couldn’t help but frown.

Now, the slots in the Territory Core only had room for food and medicine.

But even so, there was still a lot of food on the ground that couldn’t be stored in it.

This gave Vikram a real headache.

After all, a small portion of these canned foods was already nearing its expiration date.

If he didn’t find a way to store these foods in a place like his backpack space, which could perfectly preserve food, spoilage would be inevitable.

"Tsk, the storage slots that come with this Territory Core are still not enough."

Vikram sighed, his first thought was to upgrade the Treehouse Core.

But due to Territory Core requirements, he was unable to do it.

He shrugged, "Anyway, I’m going for the Hospital Ruin, I will think about these all later."

He temporarily piled the unplaceable supplies here, then went to the bathroom for a quick wash, and Vikram fell into a deep sleep...

In the morning Vikram called out the two women, who had been busy with chores since early morning. Sophia also arrived behind them, after playing with Stormy.

Vikram pulled out two weird looking fruits and handed them to the two women.

"Stinky Vikram, what is this now? Devil Fruit?" Since Anjali has seen One Piece anime on Earth, only devil fruits have weird shapes.

Compared to Anjali’s wild guess, Divya was more direct. She without hesitation, without questioning anything, chose to trust Vikram unconditionally.

She started eating it.

While Divya was still feeling the effects of the fruit, Anjali had a look of suspicion.

"Stinky Vikram, what trick are you playing now? This isn’t some naughty devil fruit that makes me obedient and at your mercy after eating it, is it?"

It was clear that Vikram, who usually liked to be teased her, especially in food matters, suddenly giving her such a fruit immediately made her think of such things.

Although Anjali said this, there was not a trace of unwillingness on her face.

"Honestly, if you want to play a little game, you could just tell me directly, why go through all this trouble?"

After eating the fruit, Anjali licked the remaining portion from the corner of her mouth, her face flushed with undisguised shyness.

She closed her eyes, spread her arms, and said, "Come on, you scoundrel, who told me to eat your aphrodisiac? Now I can’t resist, can I?"

"Aphrodisiac your head." Sophia was fed up with Anjali’s weird thinking.

She gave Anjali a direct flick on the forehead and said with a speechless expression, "Don’t you feel any changes in your body? This is good stuff."

"Now that you mention it, it does feel like something."

Although the data reflected by the Survival Platform was not as detailed as the Plant Life System’s, basic physique values could still be seen.

"Eh? No way?"

"It increased by ten points at once, what’s going on?"

Watching their physique values skyrocket like a rocket, a hint of surprise flashed in both women’s eyes.

"Vikram, this fruit of yours... it shouldn’t be a product dropped in the Wasteland World, right?"

Divya immediately noticed the difference in this item.

"Hmm, it’s something from my Pay-to-win version of Survival Platform’s shop."

"No wonder." Divya nodded, an expression of ’I knew it’ on her face.

Logically speaking, any item that involves physique enhancement, even if not placed in a bag, would have a very conspicuous appearance.

The most common crystals were white-glowing crystals.

Although this item rapidly increased physique, it didn’t look like a high-level item at all.

Anyone who didn’t know would truly think it was some kind of high-end fruit.

"It’s better not to let too many people know about this. Currently, Survivors on the Wasteland are scrambling to improve their physique, and one fruit can increase it by ten points."

"If other Survivors found out, our territory would definitely be trampled."

Feeling the gradually surging physique within her, Divya said.

"Don’t worry, for now, only you three and I have used it. As for Ron and the others, I’ll have to see the situation later to decide whether to give it to them."

"So Sophia has also eaten it," Divya asked.

"Yes, in short, when it comes to physique, our territory will not lose to people from other shelters."