Chapter Thirty-Seven: Building a Shelter (Part One)

The reason these beverages had such effects was naturally due to the buffs bestowed by the system. If it were any other survivor, without the system’s help, no matter how much beer and soda they drank, they would never receive such boosts.

Qin Fei ran for a long time.

He only stopped when not even a shadow could be seen behind him. Standing in the deserted street, Qin Fei rested briefly, catching his breath. Yet, because the blood moon had not ended, it was not long before more zombies came rushing from afar.

There was no choice but to keep running.

He had only those two bottles of beer and soda in his backpack, both already drained. The stamina recovery bonus from those drinks was also fading by now.

Without the beverages’ buffs, Qin Fei soon felt his entire body grow weary. He pulled out a cup of coffee from his spatial backpack and gulped it down in one go.

[Coffee: Stamina recovery +20%, cold resistance +5. Coffee keeps your stamina high and wards off the cold.]

Qin Fei had brought these coffees from the world of The Long Dark. Coffee didn’t provide many calories, and the powder was light and easy to carry, so he had kept them uneaten.

After crossing over to the world of Seven Days to Die, his coffee gained the attribute of increasing stamina recovery speed.

That was why Qin Fei had specially brewed a few cups and stored them in his backpack—precisely to handle nights like this.

Zombies possessed near-infinite stamina, but their running speed was still slightly slower than a human’s.

Thus, Qin Fei didn’t need to sprint; as long as he kept jogging, the zombies trailing behind would never catch up.

Dawn was approaching.

As the blood moon faded, the eerie crimson glow in the sky gradually vanished. With a sliver of sunlight breaking through, the zombies chasing Qin Fei instantly slowed from a run to a walk.

He was safe at last!

Qin Fei did not stop immediately, but shifted from running to walking.

After prolonged running in the wild, stopping abruptly could easily lead to sudden death.

The Whitewater River camp had been breached around two in the morning. In the Seven Days to Die world, the blood moon ended at six in the morning.

By such reckoning, Qin Fei had run for over three hours this night.

In fact, his backpack’s coffee was long gone. Nearing six o’clock, Qin Fei persevered solely on his own willpower.

With the blood moon gone, zombies could no longer run, nor did they retain their enhanced tracking abilities.

Qin Fei, relying only on walking, swiftly shook off the zombies that had been following him.

His body was seriously overdrawn, and at last he could no longer hold on, collapsing beneath a tree.

Although he had evaded the horde tonight by running, luck would not always be on his side.

First, the Whitewater River camp’s defenses held until two in the morning, buying him considerable time.

Therefore, his actual escape was not excessively long, and that was with the aid of beer and coffee.

Now, those drinks were gone.

Moreover, there was no camp left to stall the zombies for him.

Most crucially, as the hordes grew more difficult, infected animals might appear in future blood moons.

Zombie dogs, for example.

Zombie dogs were not restricted by day or night—they could attack humans at a run even in daylight.

Their running speed far outpaced a human’s.

One zombie dog could be dealt with, but if he encountered a pack during the blood moon, even a backpack full of coffee would spell certain death.

Thus, Qin Fei needed to find another survivor settlement, or build his own shelter capable of withstanding zombies.

Staying indoors was the best way to survive the blood moon.

If Qin Fei had to build a shelter alone, the most important point was to keep its footprint small.

If the shelter covered too much ground, the area exposed to zombie attacks would increase, and resources like cement and barricades would be consumed exponentially.

Therefore, Whitewater River camp was out of the question—even if he cleared it of zombies, he could never defend it alone.

Gathering another group of survivors to weather the blood moon together? Unrealistic.

Survivors in the apocalypse were already scarce, and most who fled the camp last night were likely already zombie fodder.

Qin Fei chose to place his shelter by a river near the town.

Building close to the river made fetching water easier.

Being near the town also facilitated scavenging for supplies.

He spent a day cutting six logs and burying them by the riverbank. The six logs formed a square and stood over three meters tall.

Square pillars could deter snakes and insects from climbing.

Nails were abundant throughout the town.

Qin Fei nailed iron plates onto the pillars to increase their surface hardness and overall support.

In the riverbed, he could also dig up clay.

Qin Fei mixed this clay with pebbles gathered from the river and spread it over the outer layer of the pillars.

With that, the six supporting pillars for the platform were complete.

Once the pillars were ready, Qin Fei nailed planks mixed with clay blocks atop them.

With the planks in place, the entire platform was finished.

He used a wooden ladder to access the platform; when not in use, he simply stored it away, even laying it flat on the ground if necessary.

Zombies, lacking brains, would never think to stand the ladder upright.

However, such a platform was fragile—just a few zombies could topple it with a bit of pounding.

Qin Fei needed cement to reinforce the pillars, and ideally some rebar and steel plates.

The platform’s planks required no reinforcement—zombies couldn’t fly, so their attacks could only reach the pillars below.

Rebar was easy to find in town.

Having just emerged from the Third World War, the town was littered with bombed-out ruins.

Within these ruins, abandoned rebar could be found.

But cement was much harder to procure.

Cement had to be made on-site and used before it dried.

Qin Fei searched for a long time before he managed to haul a cement mixer from the town.

This was a small mixing device, weighing about fifty pounds. Rare in big cities, but common in rural areas and towns.

It mixed only small batches at a time, so it was useless for building high-rises, but frequently used for home construction in the countryside.

To make cement, aside from sand and soil, the key ingredient was lime.

Qin Fei had no furnace.

He built a clay furnace atop his platform using clay and bricks. The temperature it reached was not high.

It could burn charcoal and lime, but not smelt iron.

Still, it sufficed.

Ordinary stone was difficult to turn into lime, and Qin Fei’s clay furnace wouldn’t get hot enough anyway.

But in the ruins of the town, he could find plenty of grey bricks.

These grey bricks were made mainly from lime and sand, so burning them was essentially recycling.

Using these, lime production was much faster.