Chapter Thirty-Five: The Dog

The kobold miners worked efficiently, and before long, a massive underground ice cellar was successfully constructed in front of the house. Descending from the entrance, a staircase led directly to the ice cellar. At the bottom lay a vast, excavated chamber, its walls and floor embedded with blocks of ice placed there by Jia Zhengjin. At this moment, it resembled a gigantic refrigerated warehouse with countless air conditioners running, the temperature astonishingly low.

Most importantly, these blocks of ice were set into place using sandbox game abilities, meaning they would never melt. Jia Zhengjin stored all the raw meat, fish, coconuts, and various edible wild fruits from the warehouse wooden crates in this ice cellar—anything considered food. From now on, he need not worry about the shelf life; the spoilage rate would be greatly delayed.

After dinner, he stayed busy, using the resources gathered by the kobold miners during the day to construct a simple toilet. After testing it, he was thoroughly satisfied! Tina was equally delighted by the arrival of the toilet. It meant she no longer had to step outside the house in fear to find a spot in the terrifying forest.

The next day, Jia Zhengjin did not immediately hire more kobolds. Instead, he joined the kobold miners in resource extraction. By afternoon, they had successfully upgraded the kobold nest to level four!

Now the fifth level was within reach, surely achievable before the night of the full moon. And with the raw meat preserved, there was no concern about spoilage; even if the current stock was used, more could be quickly gathered to recruit a werewolf.

The fourth-level nest unlocked a new unit: Kobold Soldiers. Though their name differed from Kobold Warriors by only a single character, their nature was quite distinct! Kobold Soldiers were robust kobolds, rigorously trained. Though their attributes were slightly lower than the warriors, they possessed equipment slots, just like the kobold chieftain. Unlike the warriors, these soldiers could use weapons and gear handed to them by Jia Zhengjin, and wouldn’t be limited to their default bone spears even if loaded with stone spears.

As soon as this unit appeared, Jia Zhengjin knew he was in luck. He immediately recruited a new kobold chieftain and, spending a large amount of raw meat, brought in thirty kobold soldiers. Using all available resources, he crafted a “shoddy crossbow” for each soldier, and equipped each with a set of leather armor.

A legitimate kobold crossbow squad was soon assembled! Leading them out to hunt, traps became unnecessary. Whenever a group of alien creatures appeared, crossbow bolts rained down in dense showers.

“Amazing!” In just half a day, the harvest surpassed previous trap-based hunting results. This meant acquiring raw meat would be much easier in the future! With the speed of meat acquisition increased, there was no need to worry about other issues. Jia Zhengjin decisively expanded the number of kobold miners to forty, further doubling the mining speed!

“When the kobold nest reaches level five, all resources will go into making more crossbows and a full set of iron armor,” Jia Zhengjin thought. “A massive squad of kobold crossbowmen, clad entirely in iron armor with incredible defense, could easily hunt much larger alien creatures! Even encountering another Highland Tiger wouldn’t result in total annihilation. With a dense rain of arrows, the enemy wouldn’t even get near the crossbowmen!”

With about five days left until the full moon, the most important task was resources, resources, resources!

Forty kobold miners worked tirelessly day and night, no longer needing to retreat early into the nest at night. With thirty fully armed kobold soldiers guarding the base, there was no immediate threat nearby. Even if danger arose, the soldiers’ crossbows could repel enemies, or at worst, provide cover for the miners to retreat to the nest.

“Tina,” Jia Zhengjin said one night, watching her sit in the classroom, using charcoal to sketch her family from memory on the billboard. He knew she deeply missed her family after being separated for so long. Gently wrapping his arms around her slender waist, pressing his cheek to hers, he whispered, “Don’t worry! Once we recruit a werewolf at the full moon, and place more kobold miners and soldiers at the base, I’ll be able to accompany you in searching for your parents. Only with a strong enough force can we safely leave the forest. So don’t be sad. Soon you’ll see your family again—just hold on a little longer!”

The understanding between Jia Zhengjin and Tina grew by the day, so even when she couldn’t comprehend his words, she grasped his meaning. She nodded softly, burying her face in his broad, warm chest.

After holding his adorable companion for a while, Jia Zhengjin reluctantly let her go. “Come! Before bed, let me teach you a few everyday phrases. Let’s try to help you converse with me in Chinese as soon as possible. Once you’ve learned Chinese, it’ll be your turn to teach me the language of this world, alright?”

Tina understood Jia Zhengjin’s intention and nodded obediently.

“Good!” Jia Zhengjin had Tina sit upright, then took a piece of fiber cloth to wipe the sketch from the billboard, and wrote with charcoal: “Today I want to eat meat!”

“Today I want to eat meat!” Though her pronunciation was far from perfect—so off the mark it seemed it might never be right—there was no helping it.

Jia Zhengjin knew that, given Tina’s learning ability, this was already the best result. So he smiled and praised her, then explained, “Today and I, you already know what they mean. Want to eat means wanting to eat something…” He patted his stomach and mimed eating.

Tina immediately understood and copied his gesture.

“Meat!” Jia Zhengjin drew a piece of meat on the billboard. Though his drawing was mediocre, it was recognizable enough.

“Meat!” Tina promptly repeated after him, grasping the meaning of the word.

“Meat!”
“Meat!”

After repeating it several times and making sure Tina remembered, Jia Zhengjin drew a fish on the blackboard: “Today I want to eat fish! Fish! This is fish!”

“Fish…”

“Very good! Today I want to eat fish!” Jia Zhengjin smiled at Tina.

“Today I want to eat fish…”

“Today I want to eat coconut!” He drew a coconut, “Coconut!”

“Coconut!”

“It’s coconut, not coconut!”

“Coconut!” But Tina’s accent was difficult to correct.

“Never mind! Coconut it is!” After a few tries, Jia Zhengjin gave up. As long as he could understand what she meant, that was enough.