Chapter 112: Chapter 100: What a Big Chicken

All was quiet at the Naval Base.

Amidst the worried gazes of the crowd, Flora Bloom took Caleb’s hand and boarded a military vehicle that Milton Adler had assigned to her.

Irvin Holden was in the driver’s seat.

It took them over three hours just to get off Navy Avenue. Flora Bloom took out some cherry tomatoes, bread, and milk, handing them to Irvin Holden and Caleb for breakfast. As she ate, she glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror with a faint smile.

After a strange GURGLE, a vigilant Irvin Holden glanced into the back. Cynthia Grant, hair in a mess and dressed in casual clothes, was climbing out from under the seats.

"Finally decided to show yourself?" Flora Bloom continued to eat at a leisurely pace, glancing at Cynthia Grant in the back.

Cynthia Grant’s eyes widened, her voice jumping an octave. "You knew I was back here? Why didn’t you say something sooner?"

Flora Bloom shrugged. "You wanted to play, so I let you play."

Cynthia Grant sat fuming in the back seat, a displeased look on her face. "I’m hungry. Give me a tomato."

Flora Bloom shook her head with a sigh. Ever since she’d met Cynthia Grant a few days ago, she knew the girl was straightforward and wore her heart on her sleeve, though she was also far too impulsive.

Throughout the journey, Cynthia Grant ate tomatoes, then crackers, then drank milk, then moved on to chocolate and potato chips. She basically snacked her way to their destination.

Flora Bloom took out a tablet to look at the map Edwin Warren had given her, which showed villages in the suburbs known for raising chickens. When they arrived at the first potential location, they found that the village, let alone chickens, only had two or three zombies.

"Caleb, is the old man here?"

Caleb shook his head. "Not here. The old man is nearby, but he’s not in this exact spot."

Flora Bloom got out of the car, her axe a blur as she moved. She quickly dispatched the few zombies and dug two Crystal Cores out of their heads. After washing them clean, she tossed them into her space.

"Let’s go. We’ll check the next village."

There were only three villages in the suburbs of Azuregard City. Two of them were adjacent to each other, very close. After getting back in the car, Flora Bloom had Irvin Holden drive to the entrance of the neighboring village and stop.

"It’s not here either, sis."

Flora Bloom got out and walked a lap around the village entrance. This place was even cleaner; there wasn’t a single zombie.

’A regularly inhabited area couldn’t possibly be free of zombies. Either a High-level zombie is commanding them to lie in ambush, making them seem absent, or there’s a powerful evolved creature nearby, scaring the zombies away from its territory.’ This reminded her of when she encountered Vert and the golden cicada at her university in Janton.

After all, Zombie Crystal Cores had the same effect on evolved creatures as Crystal Cores had on humans.

Of the three villages, the two adjacent ones were empty. That only left the village across the way.

Flora Bloom returned to the car. "Caleb, concentrate. See if you can pinpoint where the old man is. Is it here, or over there?"

Flora Bloom pointed a finger first at the empty village behind them, then at the one across from them.

Caleb closed his eyes, and a strange, unique energy field began to radiate out from him.

Within Caleb’s energy field, Flora Bloom suddenly felt a slight resistance affecting her own superpower. Though it was faint, with her keen spiritual power, she knew she wasn’t mistaken.

She had originally thought Caleb’s superpower was a mental type, something like a GPS, but a power that could impede other ability users was clearly not that simple.

"Sis, the old man is over there! There are lots of big roosters and big white geese there."

Flora Bloom raised an eyebrow and looked toward the village across the way. The gate at the entrance was half-open, with a small stone path leading inside.

"Let’s leave the car here. We’ll go on foot. You two stay behind me. There might be evolved creatures in the village, so don’t get too close or make any noise." 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Flora Bloom led the way to the village gate, slipping quietly through the opening.

The small stone path was flanked by two uneven rows of fruit trees, and the ground was dotted with weeds. As they went deeper, they saw that every house was empty, long since abandoned.

Suddenly, Flora Bloom heard a chorus of "CLUCK CLUCK CLUCK" from nearby. She walked over and saw five hens nestled in their straw beds inside a chicken coop, clucking away.

Flora Bloom’s sharp eyes spotted several eggs underneath them. It seemed they were hatching chicks.

Cynthia Grant, holding Caleb’s hand, stepped into the coop before Flora Bloom could stop her. The hens inside were clearly two or three times larger than average domestic chickens. Instead of being frightened by the visitors, one of them gently pecked at Cynthia Grant’s outstretched hand.

It seemed the virus had caused these domestic chickens to grow in size, but they hadn’t developed intelligence. They still retained their pre-evolution docile nature and weren’t aggressive toward humans.

Caleb even reached under one of the hens, pulled out two smooth, round eggs, and presented them to Flora Bloom like a prize.

"Sis, for you. Eggs."

Flora Bloom felt a headache coming on as she looked at the duo, one big and one small. She took the two eggs and put them away in the farmhouse courtyard inside her space.

’There are still several empty pens in my space’s farmhouse,’ she thought. ’Can’t let these hens go to waste.’ So, she also walked into the coop and, one by one, moved them into her space.

As soon as the five hens entered the farmhouse courtyard, they ran into one of the pens on their own, each finding a nest and settling down. With a thought, Flora Bloom moved the eggs they had been incubating from the coop into the nests with them.

Flora Bloom was already looking forward to the first batch of chicks hatching in her space. When the chicks grew up, the chickens would lay eggs, and the eggs would hatch into chickens—an endless, self-sustaining cycle.

’Once I’m further along in my pregnancy, chicken soup will be a must. Even as a superpower user, I’ll be weakened for a while after giving birth, and my Superpower Level might become unstable. I can’t go without nourishing soups.’ The thought of the thousand-year-old Lingzhi in her space gave Flora Bloom a bit more confidence. ’If I get the chance, I need to collect more medicinal ingredients like that to store away. Things like ginseng and sea cucumber are great in chicken soup. They replenish energy and blood, which is incredibly beneficial for pregnant women.’

"Come on out. Finding Old Lynch is the priority," Flora Bloom urged the other two after collecting the five hens.

Flora Bloom carried Caleb out and handed him to Irvin Holden.

"Caleb, where is the old man? Can you still sense him?"

Caleb closed his eyes and concentrated again. After a moment, his eyes lit up, and he pointed with his little finger.

"Sis, over there! The old man is shouting for help over there!"

Flora Bloom hurried in the direction Caleb pointed but froze in place the very next second.

She wasn’t just frozen still; she was frozen, afraid to move.

Behind her, Irvin Holden and Cynthia Grant were also staring with wide, shocked eyes, their legs seemingly nailed to the ground, unable to move.

"That’s a huge chicken!"

"Don’t move. I don’t think they’ve seen us yet."

Before them, five roosters, each about the size of Caleb, were gathered around a well, making low "RUK RUK RUK" sounds as if they were communicating.