A panel materialized in front of him.

[Weapon Name]: GLS Handgun

[Weapon Level]: 1

[Weapon Effect]: Can be loaded with Level 1 bullets. Effective against Level 1 armor, monsters, etc.

He glanced at the panel, then reached into his pocket and touched the brass bullets.

Instantly, another panel appeared, confirming they were Level 1 Bullets.

"Interesting…"

Chen Mang murmured to himself, a thoughtful look in his eyes. He was starting to get a handle on this world. After the apocalypse, it had been given a complete supernatural overhaul, creating the reality he found himself in. He wondered if pre-apocalypse firearms even worked anymore.

Based on what he'd learned from Lao Zhu, it was pointless for an ordinary person to just find a "Train Token." The ones sold at the "Market" were likely ignored, since only Train Captains could go there in the first place, and they already had their Trains.

Even if you had a Token, you needed resources to upgrade the Train. To get resources, you needed slaves. To control that many slaves, you needed enforcers. And to control the enforcers…

You needed a core team.

In other words, you couldn't do anything without a foundational crew.

If…

If I could take over all the slaves on this Train, I'd have a workforce of three hundred. That's more than enough to get started. The problem was, the Train's captain had never even shown his face. Just the guards alone were more than Chen Mang could handle, to say nothing of the heavy machine guns mounted on the roof.

Against a carbon-based lifeform, a heavy machine gun was an instrument of absolute annihilation. He was fairly certain he couldn't survive more than a few rounds.

Meanwhile, back in the cavern, Lao Zhu was swinging his pickaxe, sweat pouring down his face. His brow was furrowed in deep, frantic thought.

He'd surrendered to Chen Mang at the first opportunity, and not just because the man was a good fighter who acted with ruthless decisiveness. It was because of the powerful sense of conviction radiating from him. In his life, Lao Zhu had met many people, and the ones destined for greatness all had that same aura.

People with that kind of intense conviction usually met one of three fates: they achieved greatness, they died a spectacular death, or their spirit was eventually crushed by endless setbacks.

Lao Zhu didn't want to be a slave anymore. He wanted to take a gamble. So he'd approached Chen Mang, and sure enough, the man had immediately started asking about how to get a Train. Normally, a slave would never care about something like that.

And that was precisely his advantage. The other slaves were clueless. Only he, a former vice-captain, knew how this world worked.

As long as… he thought, as long as Chen Mang becomes a captain, I'm guaranteed a spot on his core team. My life would be turned around in an instant. But the biggest problem now is, how in the world do we get a Train Token?

Four hours later—

As Chen Mang was exploring a remote corner of the cavern, the walkie-talkie in his hand suddenly crackled to life with a frantic shout. "Everyone, evacuate immediately! Evacuate immediately!!!"

The voice was so loud it made Chen Mang's ears ring.

The next second, before he could even process it, the slaves in the cavern reacted instantly. Their faces paled as they shoved the ore they had mined into their pockets and sprinted for the tunnel they'd come from.

The mined ore was lumpy and uneven, each piece only about the size of an egg.

That was one unit of iron ore.

Chen Mang had watched as one slave, after an hour of digging, had seen one of these egg-sized nuggets pop off the larger iron formation.

"Run!"

Though he didn't know what was happening, Chen Mang saw Lao Zhu running toward him, his face a mask of pure panic. With a shout, he spun around and bolted back the way they came.

The journey into the mine had taken them nearly forty minutes.

The return trip was significantly faster.

Just over ten minutes later, a crowd of breathless slaves burst out of the mine entrance. They saw their Train parked by the entrance, and beyond it… a black, surging tide of corpses.

"..."

Chen Mang stared, a flicker of shock passing through his eyes. He had thought the Train itself was an impressive sight—nine cars long, painted pitch-black, with three heavy machine guns mounted on top. It radiated a sense of security.

But compared to the endless, swarming sea of bodies in the distance, it suddenly seemed insignificant.

He could already smell the thick stench of rot in the air. The ground itself was trembling faintly from the stampede of countless zombies. They were only a few hundred meters away, and though he couldn't make out their features, the suffocating pressure of the horde was unmistakable.

The guards stood at the wide-open doors of the slave carriages, their faces twisted in snarling rage as they roared at the returning slaves, "Move your asses! Fucking faster!!!"

Not daring to delay, Chen Mang and Lao Zhu sprinted for carriage seven. The slaves from the other tunnels were also pouring out now.

The moment the last slave scrambled aboard, the Train lurched into motion before the doors could even close.

But its acceleration was agonizingly slow. It took several tens of seconds to reach top speed, and by then, it was already too late. The encirclement was complete. The horde wasn't just coming from one direction; it was closing in from all sides.

Rat-tat-tat-tat!!!

Chen Mang sat grimly on the straw mat in carriage seven, listening to the deafening, percussive roar of the heavy machine guns. But based on the sheer number of zombies he'd seen just before boarding, he didn't think a few machine guns would do much good.

To break out of a horde like this, he figured, you'd need two things. First, you'd have to swap the wheels for the "Crawler Treads" Lao Zhu had mentioned—the kind that wouldn't get jammed by bodies. Second, the carriage armor had to be tough. Their slave carriage was just sheet metal; a good swing from a pickaxe would probably punch a hole in it. It stood no chance against a tide of zombies.

He clutched the handgun in his lap, but it offered little comfort now.

The atmosphere in the carriage was thick with tension. Many of the slaves were already breaking down, babbling incoherently, or praying feverishly. With no windows, they couldn't see what was happening outside, but the non-stop thunder of the machine guns told them all they needed to know: things were not going well.

"Boss Mang," Lao Zhu whispered, his face deathly pale and his voice trembling beside him. "I got a look at the situation before we got on. The horde's encirclement isn't seamless. There are gaps."

He took a shaky breath. "But the opening is made of several smaller gaps. We'd have to constantly weave through the horde to escape, like a motorcycle cutting through traffic."

"A Train doesn't handle like a motorcycle; its turning radius is too wide. But… if the captain installed 'Level 2 Auxiliary Omni-Wheels' on each carriage, the Train would be much more agile. That's the only way we'd have a chance to break through."

"But…" he trailed off, his voice filled with despair. "'Level 2 Auxiliary Omni-Wheels' aren't required to upgrade a Level 2 Train to Level 3. From what I know, most captains wouldn't waste resources on them."

"If this Train doesn't have them… we're probably not making it out of this."