Chapter 25: Scavenging

"Ptooey! Ptooey! Ptooey!"

The game assistant, having heard nothing from Liang Yi for a while, had begun to suspect that the test subject had actually died. Fortunately, after waiting for two minutes, it saw Liang Yi emerge from the flying foam, spitting out particles. Her clothes and body were covered in bits of foam.

"You scared the life out of me!"

Liang Yi shook herself, causing a fair amount of foam to fall off, though the majority remained stuck to her.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

As soon as Liang Yi had entered, the two dogs had begun barking incessantly. One of them, driven by the intensity of its lunges, snapped its chain and charged violently at her.

"Damn it!"

Seeing the dog rushing toward her, Liang Yi abandoned all pretense of composure. She turned and bolted, simultaneously pulling the "Fatal Dagger" from her backpack, intending to test its lethality at the first opportunity. More importantly, she needed bones. She certainly couldn't bring herself to kill a human just yet, so she would start with animals. A carcass she killed herself would surely yield higher points.

The scrapyard was massive, but the paths were choked with neatly stacked piles of refuse—cardboard, plastic bottles in mesh bags, and stacks of steel rebar—making movement difficult. To make matters worse, the stench grew more pungent the further she ventured. Liang Yi initially tried to hold her breath, but without professional training, she couldn't last long. Furthermore, the effort made her gasps for air deeper and more desperate, leaving her head spinning and triggering involuntary dry heaves.

The dog trailing her, however, was clearly accustomed to the environment and remained in hot pursuit. With no other choice, Liang Yi endured the nausea while scouting for a suitable spot to make a stand. Just as she felt the dog closing in, she didn't hesitate to push over a large, upright foam board. The dog, seeing the obstacle, executed a graceful leap, clearing the board with ease and charging straight at her with jaws agape. Liang Yi happened to glance back at that exact moment, her eyes widening in horror. Her foot caught on something, and she fell hard to the ground.

"Woof! Woof! Woof!"

The dog, sensing a perfect opportunity, accelerated, lunging at her with ferocious intent. Liang Yi could hear the animal’s heavy, labored panting right against her ear, sending her heart racing. At the critical moment, she grabbed a bundle of steel rebar and used it to pivot, narrowly dodging the dog's savage pounce. She then snatched up a piece of scrap metal from the ground with lightning speed, holding it in front of her just as the frustrated dog lunged again.

*Bang!* The dog’s teeth slammed into the metal, causing it to yelp in pain. Feeling the animal's warm paws pressing against her stomach, Liang Yi gritted her teeth and drove the dagger deep into the dog's soft underbelly.

"Awoo!"

The dog managed only a single pained howl before collapsing to the ground. Its body twitched twice, then went still.

"Hah... hah... hah..."

Liang Yi dropped the scrap metal, gasping for air. She kept a tight grip on the dagger, her ears ringing with the relentless barking of the second dog. *It’s a game. This is just a game. Killing a dog is nothing.* She kept repeating this to herself as a mantra. *Just a game. Killing a dog is fine; eventually, players might have to kill each other, so I need to get used to it.*

Having steadied her nerves, Liang Yi stood up and nudged the carcass with her foot. She looked at the dagger in her hand and marveled at how effective it was—truly worthy of its name, and incredibly swift. She looked at the dog's body, recalling that the system awarded points based on how close the remains were to being pure bone. To get more points, she would have to skin and butcher the animal. As someone who had never even killed a chicken, Liang Yi felt she needed a moment of mental preparation.

Checking the time, it was exactly three o'clock. She decided to scout the scrapyard first. She didn't know which raw materials were useful, and she lacked the space to haul too much back. She would have to be selective and pick only the best. After a moment of thought, she decided that whenever she found potential salvage, she would put it into the "Creation" workbench to see what it produced.

As she began to scavenge, however, she realized all her previous worries had been for nothing.

"Game assistant, what does it mean when I put an item in and it turns gray?"

Liang Yi had placed the scrap metal she used to block the dog onto the workbench, but instead of anything appearing in the synthesis slot, the item had turned gray. She repeatedly took it out and put it back in, but it remained gray, leaving her no choice but to rely on the assistant.

[You may view the gray image to understand the reason.]

Hearing this, Liang Yi re-inserted the metal and checked the image.

[Scrap metal with 80% degradation; useless.]

Seeing these words, Liang Yi fell silent. Anything found in a scrapyard was bound to be useless or heavily damaged. Yet, she reasoned that if everything in the yard were usable, she would be rich beyond measure.

As she continued to search, she found herself growing accustomed to the stench; the nausea and dizziness began to fade. The surviving dog nearby continued to bark incessantly. When Liang Yi wandered close while searching for items, she accidentally locked eyes with it. The dog paused for a second, then resumed barking, rattling the chain that tethered it. The other end of the chain was secured to a window's security bars, which shook violently with the dog's struggles. It looked as though the bars might give way at any moment.

If the dog broke free and lunged at her, she would have no room to run. She had killed the first dog because it threatened her life, but this one, while loud, was not currently a threat. After two seconds of hesitation, Liang Yi, unable to bring herself to kill it, heaved a large iron cage over and spent considerable effort trapping the animal inside. She used a piece of rebar to jam the cage door shut.

With the dog contained, she no longer feared being bitten. She stood with her hands on her hips, pointing at the animal. "Shut up! If you bark again, I'll kill you!"

Her threat was useless; the dog kept barking. But now, without the fear of the dog escaping, Liang Yi was able to search for items without restraint, eventually uncovering several high-quality materials.