The Apocalypse Survival Manual (Three Days Before Doomsday, I Stockpiled Billions) novel Chapter 481

Chapter 481

With only two days left, there wasn’t a moment to waste. Zeph and Nicole tilled the harvested cornfields and replanted them entirely with wheat.

With a seeder and Zeph doing the work, the planting was finished in no time.

The day they wrapped up, Nicole drove to the new district. At the entrance to Oakhaven Gardens, she happened to run into Alex and Isaac, so she offered them a ride.

Traffic between the city and the new district had grown much heavier, and the roads had improved considerably. The drive took just over an hour.

After dropping Alex and Isaac off at the administrative hall, Nicole and Zeph headed for the villa district.

Nicole clicked her tongue. The elite really did get special treatment. The villa district even had paved concrete roads, with landscaped green belts lining both sides.

Even among the upper class, though, there were levels.

Nicole hadn’t noticed it before, but the 500 thousand-point villa occupied the very center of the development. The main house alone covered well over 10 thousand square feet and stood four stories tall.

Add the sprawling front garden and the swimming pool in the back, and it was less a house than a custom-built

estate.

From there, the villas spread outward in concentric layers. The farther they were from the center, the smaller and less extravagant they became, making each owner’s status obvious at a glance.

The outermost two villas were modest two-story homes with small courtyards. Each had three bedrooms and a living room, about the size of an average pre-apocalypse house. The only real luxury was that every bedroom came with its own bathroom.

A concrete walkway ran alongside the house, and beyond it stood the perimeter wall.

The government had clearly realized how desirable the villas would be, so the entire neighborhood had been enclosed behind protective walls.

Because it sat on a corner, the lot had an awkward shape that left behind a triangular strip of unused land, more than 1,000 square feet in size.

Nicole decided on the spot. “We’ll build a wall around the yard and claim that piece, too.”

The villa already had a backyard. Once they enclosed the vacant lot, they would have more than 2,000 square feet of outdoor space.

The neighboring villas were about 100 feet apart. Dividing the extra land down the middle was the fairest approach.

Always thinking ahead, Zeph said, “We’ll build a stone wall around the outside, about ten feet high, and set iron spikes and broken glass along the top. No one’s getting over that.”

Nicole had no objections. They had plenty of stone stockpiled in storage, more than enough to build it.

“We’ll also put glass greenhouses on the roof and in the backyard. They’ll protect the house from acid rain and let us grow crops.”

The acid rain had poured nonstop for two weeks. It hadn’t just destroyed farmland; even concrete walls had been

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eaten away until they were riddled with pits, and thinner sections had been corroded straight through.

That also meant they needed to stockpile clean soil. Otherwise, even with greenhouses, the backyard would eventually be contaminated as the acid rain seeped into the ground.

As Zeph and Nicole planned out their future home, they decided to convert one room on the first floor into a garage, another into a storage room, and the third into Cola’s room. 1

The second floor would have the master bedroom, Puppy’s room, and a study.

Nicole knocked on the wall. “It’s too thin. It won’t keep the heat in.”

Even during polar day, nighttime temperatures were already hovering around freezing, and the daily temperature swings kept growing more severe. Once polar night arrived, temperatures of -30 to -40 degrees would become the norm.

Zeph nodded. “Yeah, and it won’t block sound either. We’ll have to reinforce it.”

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