The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 268

Chapter 268

Instead of agreeing with Nicole, Zeph actually looked a little guilty.

“No.”

He wasn’t into sweets, so he held a cup of coffee instead. “Honestly, I feel like I haven’t been helping you enough.*

He was talking about the farming inside the storage space. Planting crops was exhausting physical work, but because of the time difference inside the space, he could never stay there long enough to help her much.

Which meant Nicole had been handling everything by herself.

Zeph didn’t know exactly how the storage space worked, but he knew it couldn’t possibly be easy.

That was why he took over almost all the chores at home and left her with barely anything to do.

The work he did was obvious and visible. Hers wasn’t.

“Nicole,” he said softly, “if you ever need help, tell me.”

“Okay.”

There was something comforting about being with someone who noticed when you were tired, cared about how you felt, and still respected your boundaries. 1

At some point during these past few months together, the emptiness Nicole had carried around for years had quietly faded away.

After returning to her apartment, she pulled the heavy curtains shut, turned on the lights, and curled up on the couch with a book.

She suddenly craved something salty and spicy, so she grabbed a bag of spicy jerky strips and snacked while flipping through a medical textbook.

By nightfall, the temperature had finally dropped below 113 degrees. Right on schedule, the temperature- regulating clothes returned to their perfect 77-degree comfort. 1

Life suddenly felt comfortable again.

Nicole raised another strip of jerky to her mouth when her eyes abruptly widened.

A giant cockroach crawled slowly across the floor.

It was about the size of her thumb, and judging from its body shape, it wasn’t even fully grown yet.

That made no sense! She had sealed every drain in the apartment and covered every balcony gap with mesh, so where had it come from?

1/3

+15 Bonus

Nicole instinctively reached for a slipper, ready to kill it.

Before she could move, Ash shot across the floor like a bullet.

Crunch!

The rabbit swallowed the cockroach in one bite.

Nicole froze.

Cockroaches carried every kind of bacteria imaginable. Was Ash trying to die after fighting with his wife, or was he simply fearless because he was too stupid to know better? 1

Before Nicole could stop him, the cockroach had already been torn apart by sharp rabbit teeth and swallowed whole.

At the same time, Ash began glancing around eagerly, clearly searching for more food as he hopped

toward the kitchen.

Nicole grabbed a flashlight and followed behind him.

Sure enough, another loud crunch echoed through the room.

This time, it was a fully grown cockroach nearly twice the width of a thumb.

Another cockroach sensed danger and spread its wings to escape, only for Ash to leap into the air and

smack it straight back down.

Nicole suddenly remembered the cockroaches from her previous life. Endless swarms had covered the ground back then, while giant flying roaches smashed wildly into walls and people alike.

The memory made her skin crawl.

The extreme heat had only just begun, yet the cockroaches were already growing this quickly.

The thought of what those things had probably been feeding on made her stomach twist.

She reminded herself not to touch them. Those things are crawling with germs.

Ash wasn’t the only one hunting. His bad-tempered wife, Snowy, soon joined in.

The rabbit couple rampaged through the apartment hunting cockroaches and managed to catch another five or six before finally settling down, though they still looked unsatisfied afterward.

Nicole worried the rabbits might get sick from eating them, so the first thing she did the next morning

was check on them.

To her surprise, not only were they perfectly fine, they looked more energetic than ever and were already running around foraging with their babies. 1

Right on time, Zeph called her over for breakfast.

2/3

+15 Bonus

Suddenly, Poppy screamed from inside the apartment.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify