About 4 kilometers from the city, they could already see many high-rise buildings in ruins, some completely destroyed.
At a glance, this was mostly caused by the shockwaves from the nuclear explosions.
Similarly, the roads were increasingly clogged with cars. Sometimes everyone had to work together to move the vehicles.
Either they all pushed together to force them aside, or they used a towing method to pull the cars away.
After spending two hours doing this, they finally entered the city.
Fortunately, the main roads in the city were wide. Even with many scattered cars, it didn't hinder the armored vehicle's movement much. They just had to detour occasionally.
"Kaito, there's a small supermarket over there. Should we stop and scavenge?"
"Okay."
Upon reaching the small supermarket, it was in shambles, with many disgusting corpses visible.
Mikoto, Momo, and Nezuko couldn't help but frown.
The other ladies had similar reactions.
After entering the city, Kaito wasn't sure if the food was edible, so he used the radiation detector to check. However, before the detector could tell him if the radiation levels were too high, the system sent a message.
[Edible]
Emmmmmm...
So, it's a parent-child activity~!
They wouldn't push them to the brink. If all the food was inedible, how could they gather supplies?
Some instant noodles still within their shelf life were edible, but only those in cups. Some bagged ones were indicated as inedible, others as edible.
The same applied to drinks.
Some were shown as edible, others not.
When he later used the detector to scan them, it turned out the food was indeed contaminated with excessive radiation.
The remaining edible ones were within an acceptable range.
...
Basically, all of them were irradiated. Eating too much... he wasn't sure if it was okay.
But considering the radiation was radioactive, and this area was less affected, it was acceptable that most packaged foods were edible.
Besides, they just needed to eat the food inside and avoid touching the packaging.
If necessary, they could disinfect the packaging before opening it, then take the contents out and separate them.
That was the only option for now.
Anyway, the inedible food was actually very little; the majority was edible.
However, this place had been scavenged before, so there wasn't much left.
After scavenging back and forth for half an hour, the collected supplies included enough water for Kaito and the others for 3 days and enough food for about 5 days.
Eating only two meals a day would stretch it further.
After loading these supplies onto the armored vehicle, they also took several pairs of scissors, knives, pots, pans, seasonings, and other daily necessities. Then they started the vehicle and drove towards the city center.
Convenience stores, supermarkets, etc., encountered later were basically stripped clean.
Occasionally, some mutated stray dogs or other animals would suddenly jump out. Kaito didn't intervene, letting those with direct combat capabilities like Mikoto and Misuzu handle them.
Naturally, after using their abilities, they started to feel fatigued.
"Kaito, some had crystals, some didn't?" They had gutted the creatures and found crystals in the heart area.
However, all the crystals obtained this time were only the size of a baby's fist.
"Hmm, thanks for your hard work."
After Kie used her ability to create water to wash the blood off their bodies, they got back into the armored vehicle. Kaito began searching for houses with luxury villas in the city area.
Why look for such a place? It was because wealthy people might have dug a basement under their villa to build a private shelter.
Sure enough, as time reached the afternoon, they arrived at a super luxury residential complex no less impressive than the Beverly hills building. In the most prominent single-family luxury villa, Kaito found traces of human habitation.
"Stop the car. Momo, can you use your ability to control the plants and get some information?"
Kaito turned around and asked Momo in the compartment.
Momo shook her head, but then nodded slightly, indicating she needed to try.
Kaito helped her out of the vehicle and took her to a place with plants so she could use her ability to communicate with them.
"Husband-sama, the plants tell me that there is indeed a very deep and large basement underground. People were there, but they haven't returned for the past few days."
Momo, who had the ability to communicate telepathically with plants, quickly got the answer she wanted.
As for the address...
This was gradually changed after the previous parent-child activity ended.
Because Sephie intended to marry off all three sisters to Kaito, the mature and sensible Momo was the second, after Lala, to address him as "Husband-sama".
Well, although Kaito had said it was okay to call him "nii-san" first, Momo insisted on using this address.
"Thank you, Momo."
He reached out and stroked her hair. Momo enjoyed it, squinting her eyes slightly.
"Misuzu, drive the vehicle over. Momo and I will go in first and take a look!"
Kaito called out to the others in the distance, then picked up Momo and walked towards the villa.
The villa's main entrance was a heavy steel gate. Kaito climbed over it with some difficulty, then opened the steel gate from the inside and let the armored vehicle drive in.
After observing the surroundings, he confirmed that the people here had left and hadn't returned for several days.
Looking at the scattered supplies near the villa...
Kaito guessed they might have fled?
Or perhaps...
This underground shelter wasn't safe?
Entering the villa.
In the master bedroom on the first floor, they saw an opened wardrobe and the passage leading underground behind it.
After walking down for a distance, they found another steel door, 20 centimeters thick, also in an open state.
Going down about another 10 meters, they finally reached the entrance of the shelter.
There was another steel door here, still open.
Walking inside, the supplies were all gone, leaving only scattered debris and the very luxurious rooms?
"Kaito, why do you think the original owners left?"
"I don't know either. But I observed just now. The power here probably comes from a diesel generator and a large storage battery. Thanks to that, we still have lights. Otherwise, we wouldn't see anything."
"What about the water?"
"The water is cut off."
"..."
Shodai frowned. Drenched in sweat, she desperately wanted a nice, comfortable bath.
Of course, what Kaito focused on most was that this underground shelter had luxurious facilities, comparable to staying in a hotel. It was divided into 3 bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a bathroom, and even a kitchen.
There were no signs of fighting outside, nor any indication of mutated creatures invading.
So why did the original owners leave? And they left taking supplies with them.