Wasteland Queen: My Harvest Power novel Chapter 2

Reina walked into a building and showed her smartwatch at the front desk.

After 500 points were deducted, she got the key to the smallest single room.

She went inside and closed the door.

She dumped everything out of her backpack and started sorting through it, picking what she needed for traveling in the wild.

A dagger, a steel shovel, a protective suit, protective boots, a face mask and helmet, a lighter, a bottle of bug repellent, a small steel pot, and a few nutrition bars.

These were all essentials. You don't go into the deep forest without them.

She left the rest of her stuff—like her sleeping bag, blanket, extra clothes, and shoes—in the room.

If her luck held up, she could stay a few more days and level up her ability.

Reina put on her protective boots and tied her leg and wrist guards. Then she put on the mask and strapped the dagger to her wrist.

There were many mutant insects in the wild. Blood-sucking insects and parasites were the worst nightmare for scavengers.

So full-body protection was very important.

She stuffed the protective suit and the other essentials into her big backpack and sprayed herself down with bug repellent.

Bag on her back, Reina walked out of the camp yard and headed toward the wilderness.

It was already afternoon, so she didn't plan to go deep. She'd just look around the edges for now and wouldn't team up with anyone yet.

As she walked, Reina opened her status panel.

Her ability was a bit special—it came with a built-in display panel that only she could see.

Name: Reina Ashworth

Age: 18

Race: Human

Physique: 10 (A little stronger than an average person)

Agility: 5 (You move like a snail among ability users)

Strength: 7 (Your strength is a joke for someone with an ability)

Energy: 10 (You can barely use your skill ten times. If you run out and don't rest in time, you might pass out)

Abilities: Level 1 Harvesting Ability, EXP: 3450/5000

It might only be Level 1, but it had taken her over two years just to get there from Level 0.

Since the first level-up also required 5,000 EXP, Reina guessed the requirement stayed the same until she reached the intermediate level.

She walked for a long while. People thinned out, and a dense stretch of mutant woods loomed ahead.

Thicker plants meant more danger, but they also meant better loot.

Reina looked around and entered a patch of forest where no one was nearby.

Calling it a forest wasn't completely accurate. It was really a huge area of giant grass and plants, some growing 20 to 26 feet tall.

In this wasteland era, everything was huge and aggressive. Even small grass and vines had evolved hunting skills.

The mutant insects were even crazier. They were bigger and hungrier. Some even attacked humans.

But Reina had learned from history books that before the Cataclysm, these insects were small and weak. Back then, even a three-year-old could crush a bunch of ants.

Now, ants were a hundred times bigger than they used to be. Their bite and poison could kill a 5-foot mutant rabbit on the spot.

Reina carefully dodged a giant spiderweb and soon spotted a huge cluster of mutant bushes.

She didn't even need her smartwatch to scan them; she knew they were mutant shepherd's purses. Each plant was over six feet tall with fluffy white flowers and seeds on top, and the stems at the bottom were thicker than a soup bowl.

But these plants were covered in black mist, making them look creepy. The Contamination Value was probably over 300.

More than a hundred years ago, the federal government had turned the contamination on this planet into data and issued guidelines. For example:

1-10: No contamination.

11-30: Low contamination.

31-70: Moderate contamination (Safe to eat in small amounts).

71-100: High contamination (Won't kill you instantly, but you'll definitely get sick).

Materials under 100 could still be used. Like most of the wood used to build houses and furniture in Greenfinch Base, came from materials like that.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify