My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 66

by Little Panda

Mutated Octopus

Crabs were seafood—uh, crustaceans—covered entirely in hard shells. Furthermore, with their size increased from mutation, having Ren Chenxi smash them with stones or crystals was truly not as convenient as simply swinging a rod to flip them over.

After applying an R-rank Acceleration Card to herself, Ren Chenxi used her maximum speed to flip all eight giant crabs onto the sandy ground. Taking advantage of the gap while they struggled to turn over, she stepped forward, swinging her iron rod, and systematically smashed all eight legs and the pair of pincers of the crab closest to her. After she finished the first one, other crabs managed to right themselves and rushed toward her again. Ren Chenxi used the same method: flip the crab, break its legs, flip it again, break its legs. One by one, she immobilized the remaining seven crabs until they could only lie foolishly on their backs in the sand, waiting for her to go down the line and smash them to pieces.

Logically speaking, for such large, fresh, and meaty crabs, Ren Chenxi should have treated them more gently—at least leaving their corpses intact so she could take them back to eat! But these crabs had all been hit by the Greasy Card! They were entirely coated in grease and reeked of gasoline. Even if given to her for free, Ren Chenxi wouldn’t want such crabs. After smashing these greasy crabs to pieces and obtaining 8 bottles of system-produced gasoline, 5 2nd-order crystal cores, and 3 3rd-order crystal cores, Ren Chenxi carefully began advancing toward the next location marked with a red dot.

This time, Ren Chenxi still threw a few stones at the red dot’s location, but no crab burrowed out of the sand to attack her. Looking closely at this patch of sand that displayed 13 red dots, she noticed quite a few small holes left on the surface and knew exactly what to expect. Approaching one of the red dots lightly, Ren Chenxi forcefully thrust the iron rod in her hand into the sand and pried hard. Hey, a giant razor clam¹ was levered out.

Such a large, plump razor clam—it was ten times bigger than the king razor clams Ren Chenxi had seen in the past. If she took it back, whether cooked with minced garlic or tossed in salt and pepper, it would definitely be delicious!!!

Ren Chenxi was so excited she almost drooled. Fortunately, she managed to control herself in the end. However, during her brief moment of excitement, the giant razor clam actually tried to burrow back into the sand! How could that be allowed? You’re my dinner for tonight! With another strike of her rod to stop its escape, Ren Chenxi hurried forward, reaching out barehanded to grab the razor clam.

As a result, the razor clam suddenly launched an attack on Ren Chenxi. And the razor clam’s attack consisted of… spitting a mouthful of water at her.

No wonder she had heard Zhang Tongqi and the others say earlier that the attack power of shellfish seafood wasn’t very high. The facts proved it really wasn’t! After the razor clam finished spitting water, Ren Chenxi pulled a large black plastic bag from her inventory. It was a bag previously used to hold crystal cores, and now it was perfect for holding razor clams.

It wasn’t that Ren Chenxi didn’t want to put the razor clam into her inventory; unfortunately, the inventory couldn’t store living creatures. So for all the razor clams on this beach, she could only do her best to pack them into plastic bags and carry them directly back to the base later.

Having caught one razor clam, Ren Chenxi was certainly not satisfied. Furthermore, she found prying razor clams with an iron rod inconvenient, so she swapped the iron rod for an iron shovel. The shovel was slightly shorter than the rod and had a wooden handle, but it couldn’t be more convenient for digging up seafood on the beach. In just a short while, Ren Chenxi had scooped the remaining 12 razor clams into the black plastic bag.

Having obtained 13 super-giant razor clams, Ren Chenxi excitedly began searching the beach for new prey based on the mini-map’s prompts. However, not everything hiding under the sand was a razor clam. Occasionally, Ren Chenxi would still dig up crabs. Sometimes, she would dig up mantis shrimp². For the crabs, she had to chop off their legs and pincers before tossing them into the plastic bag; for the mantis shrimp, she simply had to chop off their front claws.

Before she knew it, the sandy ground under Ren Chenxi’s feet was covered by a shallow layer of seawater, and her original black plastic bag was already full of various kinds of seafood. In truth, the crabs were the largest and took up the most space. To hold that many crabs, Ren Chenxi had used exactly three large plastic bags plus a large iron bucket! Ren Chenxi had also found the iron bucket in her inventory. It might have been casually tossed in there before the apocalypse, or swiped from a hotel kitchen after the apocalypse began; regardless, she still had four more buckets like it in her inventory.

Taking out another iron bucket, Ren Chenxi began shoveling up all sorts of sea snails, abalones, oysters, and scallops in the shallows. The three bags full of legless crabs and the first iron bucket had been left behind in the dry sand area. Since there was no one else around, Ren Chenxi wasn’t afraid anyone would steal her prey. And the sand around the bags had already been shoveled by Ren Chenxi until there were basically no red dots left.

She didn’t know if her luck today was just quite good. According to what the escaping espers from the beach had said before, aside from that 7th-order octopus monster, this beach also had other 5th- and 6th-order mid-level mutated seafood. Yet, having shoveled the beach for so long, Ren Chenxi had basically only encountered low-order seafood. Could it be… none of those 5th- and 6th-order mutated seafood happened to be here today? Or… did they not dare to be here? She had even specifically saved two SR-rank Explosion Cards just to guard against those mid-level seafood!

While Ren Chenxi was puzzled, she glanced at the mini-map again and then noticed a red dot from the deeper sea further away starting to charge toward her position. It was moving very fast. Ren Chenxi quickly applied an SR-rank Acceleration Card to herself and started running swiftly back toward the sandy beach behind her. When she had first used the R-rank Acceleration Card, she noticed she still had 12 R-rank Acceleration Cards left, so after chopping off all the crabs’ legs, she used 10 of them to synthesize two SR-rank Acceleration Cards.

An R-rank Acceleration Card could boost the user’s speed by 10% for 30 minutes. An SR-rank Acceleration Card boosted speed by 100% for an hour. An SSR-rank Acceleration Card, then, boosted speed by 1,000% and also lasted for an hour. Acceleration Cards were a beneficial buff applied to the player themselves, so even when facing a high-order enemy, this buff wouldn’t be affected.

With the 100% speed acceleration buff, Ren Chenxi’s running speed was double what it was before. By the time she sprinted to the spot where she had left the black plastic bags and the other iron bucket, carrying her new iron bucket in hand, the red dot in the sea had already breached the surface and was rapidly crawling toward the beach.

It was indeed that octopus monster, but the only difference was that this octopus monster was not 7th-order, but 8th-order! This damned octopus monster had actually leveled up! And the SSR-rank Explosion Card that she had estimated would deal 30% damage to it would now have its damage reduced to 20%! Three SSR cards, plus an SR-rank Critical Hit Card, would only deal 80% damage to the 8th-order octopus monster. It sounded impressive, but the problem was: how was she supposed to deplete the remaining 20% of its health?! Given her speed at drawing and synthesizing cards, there simply wouldn’t be enough time!

Forget it, if she couldn’t beat it, she would run! Better to hurry and escape to a safe area off the beach, then find a chance to draw more cards later! Ren Chenxi had no time to worry about the three black plastic bags; she could only grab the other iron bucket, turn, and run. With the acceleration buff active, Ren Chenxi intuitively felt she could escape the 8th-order octopus monster’s tentacles. She also had an SSR-rank Shield Card that could last 10 minutes, which she intended to save and use depending on the situation.

Ren Chenxi’s plan was good, but plans could never keep up with changes. Seeing that she was almost off the beach, disaster struck in an instant! The octopus monster, having already chased her onto the sand, whipped out its long tentacles with a swish, slamming them viciously toward Ren Chenxi’s position. Startled, Ren Chenxi immediately dropped the two iron buckets in her hands, quickly pulled out an Invisibility Card, and applied it to herself.

Damn, this octopus monster’s tentacles have got to be sixty or seventy metres long!!!

Ren Chenxi turned invisible in an instant, and the octopus monster lost its target all at once. However, this 8th-order octopus monster seemed able to sense Ren Chenxi’s aura. Even though she was invisible, several of its long tentacles continued to sweep frantically back and forth across her stretch of the beach.

Relying on her speed, Ren Chenxi agilely dodged the octopus monster’s attacks several times. Just as she was about to apply the SSR-rank Shield Card to herself and make a break for it, a few green vines suddenly whipped through the air and tightly wrapped around the octopus monster’s massive tentacle.

These vines were… Mu Ning’s! Ren Chenxi abruptly turned her head and, sure enough, spotted a slender figure with fluttering long hair standing at the other end of the beach.

That lunatic, why did she come running over here?!

Ren Chenxi didn’t even have time to run over to Mu Ning’s side to question her and tell her to flee together. The 8th-order octopus monster beat her to it; its attention was drawn away by Mu Ning, and it began launching an attack against her.

The massive octopus tentacles slammed viciously against the sand—smack, smack, smack—sending large sprays of sand and dirt flying into the air with each strike. Mu Ning used her water-system ability to conjure a water shield around herself. It had only managed to block the surrounding dirt, and before she even had time to attack again with her vines, another of the octopus monster’s huge tentacles smashed her water shield to pieces. Furthermore, after breaking the shield, the tentacle didn’t lose any of its attack speed as it continued slamming straight toward Mu Ning.

Watching the tentacle about to strike Mu Ning, Ren Chenxi threw that SSR-rank Shield Card onto Mu Ning without the slightest hesitation.

Smack! The massive tentacle seemed to strike something invisible in the air. With one blow, the entire tentacle was sent bouncing back.

“Run!” Ren Chenxi roared at Mu Ning, but her voice was quickly scattered by the sea breeze.

Mu Ning seemed a bit bewildered. She had fully prepared herself to be severely injured by the octopus monster, but… nothing happened. She looked up at the octopus monster. The 8th-order octopus’s massive body had completely climbed onto the beach. Just a short distance in front of her, its eight enormous tentacles densely surrounded her.

Mu Ning was puzzled as to why the octopus’s attack had suddenly vanished, but the octopus was even more perplexed than Mu Ning. Seemingly feeling provoked by this tiny human in front of it, the octopus monster simultaneously raised all of its massive tentacles and began frantically and fiercely battering the spot where Mu Ning stood.

Smack, smack, smack! Every strike from the giant tentacles that landed on Mu Ning was blocked by the protective shield. However, the tentacles that solidly struck the sand around her delivered attacks so vicious and swift that they pounded a cratered ring into the ground. Ren Chenxi ran anxiously toward Mu Ning. If this continued, Mu Ning wouldn’t be able to escape at all, and once the 10 minutes were up, her protective shield would be gone!

Whoosh— An SSR-rank Explosion Card shot straight toward the octopus monster’s massive head.

The author has something to say:

Mutated Octopus: “Surprised? Unexpected? This father³ leveled up~”

Xixi: “This sudden wealth… is even more than I expected!”

Wood: “It’s too dangerous outside, so you should just come find me and do quests and achievements all night long~”

Footnotes

Razor clam (zhúchēng), also known as the bamboo clam, is a type of burrowing bivalve mollusk characterized by its long, narrow shell. It is a popular seafood delicacy.
Mantis shrimp (xiāgū), a marine crustacean known for its powerful claws and sweet meat, commonly eaten in coastal regions.
Original: lǎozi. An arrogant male self-referential asserting dominance, literally meaning 'this father'.

Footnotes

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