Apocaly Utopi apocaly utop

Chapter 14 corpse

"What was up with Lucky just now?" Emma asked softly, her footsteps echoing lightly as she ascended the stairs, her mind filled with confusion. "Why did she react like that when we mentioned drinking water..."

"Who knows," Jack glanced at the items he was carrying in his hand. "Maybe her family bought a lot of boxes of water, and she’s afraid we’ll find out and try to take them."

That wasn’t entirely impossible. Emma tried hard to recall if she had ever seen Lucky before, but she couldn’t remember a single instance. She fell silent for a few seconds, listening to the faint echoes of their footsteps in the stairwell.

"Anyway, let’s be more careful when we go back down later," Shirley concluded.

As they spoke, the group turned a corner on the stairs and saw a large "38" sign. "We’re here," Emma said, standing at the stairwell entrance. She took a deep breath, pushed open the slightly ajar door, and stepped inside.

The emergency door leading to the stairs was located next to the maid’s room. Walking through the corridor in front of the maid’s room, they entered the living room. As they stepped inside, Jack was the first to exclaim, "... Emma, what do you usually do? This apartment is way too big—wait, do you have a private elevator in your living room?"

Emma glanced around the living room—it was just as she had left it. The elegant, solid wood floor was littered with shards of glass, the sofa was knocked askew, and the place was a mess. Even the boning knife she had used to attack Buck the first time was still lying in the same spot. It seemed no one had been there since she left.

"This isn’t my home," she replied flatly, kicking aside the shards of glass at her feet. "Buck tricked me into coming here. This isn’t his house either. He devoured the original owner and took over, like a cuckoo taking over a nest."

She surprised herself with how calm she was when she brought this up again.

As Emma spoke and walked into the bedroom, Jack flopped onto the sofa. He immediately sank into the wide, soft cushions and let out a satisfied sigh, "Mmm—this is so comfortable. Way better than the towels at the supermarket... Should we take a nap here?"

Shirley let out a scoff.

Listening to the conversation outside the room, Emma smiled faintly. She picked up her pajama pants from the bed and reached into the pocket, finding a card—it was [Buck’s Corpse].

Looking at the simple drawing on the card, and being in this nightmare-like, familiar room, she couldn’t help but think of the pale face that had watched her every night—she shivered involuntarily and quickly put the card away.

The clothes she was wearing were so drenched in sweat that they practically crunched with salt. She couldn’t even imagine how much she had sweated over the past day—she clicked her tongue in disbelief as she quickly changed her clothes. She also found two shoulder bags and packed them with clothes and shoes that would be easier to get around in.

Once she was done, she walked out and saw that the other two were in the kitchen. The bag of rice had already been opened, and Jack was trying to stop Shirley from cooking, "Shirley, it wasn’t easy for us to carry the water and rice up here... No, no, I’m not saying your cooking is bad, it’s just that porridge is too simple, it’s like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut..."

Emma chuckled softly, and the faint chill that had been lingering in her heart began to fade.

Hearing her voice, Jack quickly said, "Oh, Emma’s here. Let’s check the corpse first, and then we can talk about food, okay?"

Shirley’s face darkened as she slammed the pot down with a clang and walked into the living room.

"She’s terrible at cooking," Jack mouthed to Emma behind Shirley’s back, gesturing frantically. "Please don’t let her cook, I’m begging you."

Emma couldn’t help but turn her face away to stifle a laugh. She cleared her throat and said, "... Should I just put him here?"

The other two nodded.

With a flash of white light, a human-shaped shadow fell from Emma’s palm and landed on the floor with a heavy thud.

The excited eyes, the mouth split open to the ears, and the blood-red blade protruding from it... Seeing the corpse again after a day, Emma couldn’t help but shudder and avert her gaze. But then she forced herself to look back, trying to remain calm.

Jack s*ck*d in a sharp breath, "Wow, if this is what you consider handsome, the standards in your world must be different..."

Before he could finish, Shirley smacked him, cutting him off.

Emma didn’t bother to explain, feeling both amused and exasperated as she placed her hand on the blade in the corpse’s mouth. After the incident with Mary Wang, she had realized that her ability allowed her to transform four items a day, not just use them four times. Since it wasn’t yet midnight, and the chef’s knife was at least a weapon, she might as well keep it—with that thought, a brief flash of white light passed, and the knife disappeared into her palm.

Without the weapon, the corpse looked slightly more bearable.

"I checked the room earlier, and he didn’t have any bags or suitcases... I’ve lived here for months, and I’ve never seen him carry any bags around," Emma mustered her courage and simply sat down. In the corner of her eye, the gaping mouth of the corpse remained frozen in its grotesque grin.

"You don’t understand," Jack licked his rabbit-like teeth and said with a grin, "Let me give you a quick lesson!" With that, he actually started unbuttoning the corpse’s shirt collar.

"In the new world, it’s possible for any of us to come across some high-value special items due to chance... No, you don’t need to show me, that kitchen knife doesn’t count as a treasure... Killing someone doesn’t count either." Jack’s hands moved swiftly and skillfully over the corpse’s neck and chest, his eyes shining with excitement—he looked almost like a pervert.

"If you ever get your hands on a few good items, remember, you can’t just casually carry them around in a bag... If you run into someone with ill intentions, they might not just rob you, they might kill you."

Jack kept talking as his hands kept moving. Soon, he reached for Buck’s ear—and then Emma’s gaze followed his pale fingers to a black obsidian earring. She immediately chuckled and said, "That’s not a treasure..."

Before she could finish, Jack had already pulled out the earring—and before Emma could react, a burst of silver light erupted with a *ding*, and the earring fell to the ground. The silver light continued to glow in Jack’s hand, illuminating half the living room.

"... What is this?" Emma leaned in closer, dumbfounded, and finally realized that Jack was holding a transparent bottle containing a swirling mass of silver light.

Jack squinted against the brightness and read aloud, "Ability Polishing Agent... Note: Not suitable for primary evolution..."

Seeing the confused looks on Shirley and Jack’s faces, it was clear they hadn’t heard of this polishing agent either. But even though there were still many unanswered questions, the name alone gave them a rough idea: it probably had some kind of enhancing or upgrading effect on abilities. Emma thought this as she admired the beautiful silver bottle.

Although the item was good, none of the three present were particularly combat-oriented, and they were all still in the early stages of evolution—though Jack would never admit it—so they didn’t pay much attention to it and casually set it aside.

"That’s so strange... I was the one who gave him that earring. How could there be something like this hidden inside?" Emma watched as Jack continued his search and asked Shirley in confusion.

"All special items have a strange characteristic: they can completely integrate themselves into another item at a molecular level—of course, only one item can be hidden within another. When you want to retrieve them, they’ll separate at the molecular level, reassemble, and return to their original form. So, for safety, people usually keep their valuable items close to their bodies," Shirley explained the process as simply as she could, then pointed at Jack and said, "Look."

Emma, who was listening in stunned silence, turned her head dumbly to look.

In Jack’s hand was Buck’s ever-present Patek Philippe watch. As an evolved being, Jack only needed to press a few buttons on the watch face to find what he was looking for; then, a black shadow suddenly slid out of the watch, landed on the ground with a *thud*, and quickly solidified into the shape of a wallet.

Emma, her mouth agape, picked up the wallet and opened it with a sense of near-reverence.

The wallet wasn’t big, about the size of a palm, and it didn’t have the usual compartments for cash—it was more of a cardholder than a wallet. Flipping through it, she found that aside from a single piece of paper, there was nothing else inside.

Using the Ability Polishing Agent as a light source, Emma pulled out the piece of paper.

The three of them leaned in together.

For the first few seconds, none of them could process what they were seeing. After staring at it for a few more seconds, Emma suddenly gasped—she looked up at the other two with a mix of disbelief and confusion, then almost involuntarily looked back down to read the line again.

Yes, it was absolutely true—

Shirley and Jack also realized what it was. Shirley’s voice trembled slightly, "Am I seeing this right? Is this—"

Suddenly, a loud *bang* came from the direction of the emergency door, cutting her off.