Webnovel Author In The Apocalypse World

There was no need to worry about outages, nor did he have to pay extra fees to the Pyeongseong Safe Zone to have an ability users to come by periodically to recharge.

Kim Haru had been curious about how the charging system worked in the safe zone and had even asked about it once. The prices had left him speechless.

The cost for water wasn't too bad—water-type ability users were fairly common among the elemental-type abilities. While ordinary people couldn't afford to use water at their leisure time, it was much cheaper compared to electricity.

Lightning-type ability users, on the other hand, were a mutation of the five elemental abilities—metal, plant, water, fire, and earth. Their numbers were scarce, and the strongest one was always wandering outside the safe zone, never returning. As a result, the cost of using electricity was outrageously high.

It could be said that the farming system saved Kim Haru a large sum of money.

When Jang Dojang found out that Kim Haru's shop didn't require official purchases of water and electricity and that the refrigeration units, cash registers, and other equipment were running normally, he was extremely curious. However, he knew his boundaries. Such matters were clearly confidential, so he didn't ask any questions.

He simply reported the situation to the safe zone commander.

"As long as Mr. Kim doesn't take any actions that could harm the safe zone, there's no need to intervene too much," the safe zone commander mused for a moment before instructing, "However, I recall that there's an empty house on Yongwan Street. Check to see if its owner will return. If not, requisition it and move the patrol team from the Second District there."

That way, they could protect the Green Basket Vegetable Shop more efficiently and also keep a close eye on it.

Jang Dojang agreed.

...

When the Green Basket Vegetable Shop opened, it was a quiet affair, in line with Kim Haru's personality. There were no grand festivities—he simply opened the door and hung up the "Open for Business" sign.

At that moment, the farming system's shop interface also updated to display "Open for Business," allowing Kim Haru to directly access the cash register and view the day's sales details. However, until he actually received the crystal cores from the sales, the earnings wouldn't be tallied into the system's gold balance.

The shop had only been open for a short time when people began arriving, calling their friends to come along.

It was exactly the group of ability users who had received the news earlier at the safe zone gate.

These ability users, who regularly dealt with mutated creatures, were incredibly sensitive to the mutagenic virus content in the food at the Green Basket Vegetable Shop. Without anyone needing to explain, they immediately recognized the produce as top-quality. In no time, they were scrambling and fighting over it, nearly starting a brawl over who would get a single leaf!

Seeing this chaotic scene, Kim Haru quickly handed over control of the shop to Hwa Jian and hurriedly left with Jang Dojang.

He was afraid of getting surrounded by the crowd.

"Sir, where to next?" Jang Dojang asked.

"The research institute," Kim Haru replied. After all, he had been appointed as an official consultant. Now that the authorities had helped him set up his shop, it was time for him to contribute something in return.

"Understood." Sure enough, Jang Dojang's face lit up with excitement when he heard the destination.

Both of them had clearance to enter the research institute, so they navigated their way smoothly to the plant research lab that Kim Haru had seen on his last visit.

Lee Kang, a mid-level researcher at the plant institute, had grown up in a simple farming family before the apocalypse. After the world collapsed, he awakened plant-type abilities and, by chance, was recruited by the safe zone commander to join the research team. He was now in charge of growing cabbage.

However, the results of Lee Kang's team weren't promising. No matter how much they changed the water source, soil composition, or fertilizer ratios, all the cabbages they grew mutated.

Sometimes, the leaves became so tough that they couldn't be eaten at all. Other times, the cabbages turned colors that clearly indicated they were poisonous. Some of them even grew aggressive, swatting at people with their leaves if anyone came too close, or they simply wilted and died, with no chance of revival.

There was only one time when they used pure rainwater to grow a batch of cabbages that were edible, and the virus content inside had even dropped to Level A. However, these cabbages were incredibly small. They were supposed to be large Napa cabbages, but they ended up smaller than regular bok choy.

Even so, Lee Kang thought that the seeds produced from these slightly higher-quality cabbages would at least maintain that standard, if not improve. But to his dismay, the next batch turned out even worse!

After repeated failed experiments, Lee Kang, who wasn't a professional researcher to begin with and lacked the patience to endure thousands of repetitive trials, began to have doubts.

The entire world was now infected with the mutagenic virus. Could it be that normal food simply no longer existed? Maybe the future of humanity wasn't in cultivating unmutated crops but in increasing human resistance to the mutagenic virus.

If humans could evolve to absorb the mutagenic virus or become unaffected by it, there would be no need to research normal vegetables at all, right?

As these thoughts crossed Lee Kangs mind, he suddenly received a large cabbage leaf.

It was delivered with the utmost care by several ability users, a perfectly normal, virus-free cabbage leaf!

In that instant, all of Lee Kang's wild thoughts vanished!

Human evolution? Never mind how long it would take for humanity to evolve to that point—even if humans did reach that level, would they even still be human by then?

No, the real path forward lay in researching normal vegetables!