Chapter 153: Choosing the Next Hunt
The only real inconvenience was the mutated crab.
Even so, it did not actually weigh fifty pounds by itself.
At most, it occupied a little over thirty pounds of the available capacity.
If not for the fact that the mutated crab was obviously a fairly high-level creature, Joo Joowon would have been unwilling to waste such valuable storage space on it.
After thoroughly scavenging the area, Joo Joowon felt that this trip outside had already been worthwhile.
Even so, such precious daylight hours could not be wasted.
He still needed more than four hundred experience points before reaching Level 8.
The sky was still bright and returning home to rest now would simply be too wasteful.
Joo Joowon did not dare provoke zombies whose levels were too high.
At the same time, zombies whose levels were too low simply did not provide enough experience.
He also could not recklessly throw himself into massive zombie hordes.
With the way low level zombies immediately started howling the moment they spotted a living creature, it would be a miracle if they did not attract every nearby elite monster and Boss in the process.
Because of that, Joo Joowon carefully considered the locations currently available to him.
The commercial street.
The number of people there before the apocalypse had been lower than in the food street nearby, so the chances of a Boss appearing there should also be lower.
At the same time, the experience gains would likely be excellent.
The downside was that it was located close to the food street.
The zombie population there could easily snowball out of control, eventually drawing the attention of nearby Boss monsters.
The streets where most of the shops on both sides remained closed.
Most of the zombies there would probably still be trapped inside vehicles.
The rate of experience gain would be average, but the danger level would be relatively low.
There were also very few pedestrians along those roads.
Office buildings.
The advantage was that the environment was relatively enclosed.
The disadvantage was that he had no idea what conditions inside the various companies had been like.
There was no way to know how many employees had been working overtime or how many security guards had been present.
The amount of experience available there would be entirely dependent on luck.
Boarding schools.
The amount of experience there would definitely not be low.
However, elite monsters would almost certainly exist there.
There was also a high probability that Boss monsters had already appeared.
The danger level was extremely high.
The reason Joo Joowon even included schools among his options was because there were no universities anywhere nearby.
The only schools in the area were several private elementary and middle schools.
These private schools were relatively inexpensive.
Most of the students attending them were children who had failed to get into the better public schools and had instead followed their migrant worker parents to the city.
Management at such schools was often chaotic and student numbers were generally quite low.
Schools like these were nowhere near as large as prestigious institutions.
They looked more like improvised operations than proper schools.
Even their playgrounds measured only a few hundred meters across.
If someone stood at one corner of the field, they could clearly see the faces of people standing at the opposite end.
Compared to university students, the chances of students remaining alive inside these schools were probably even lower.
After all, student dormitories and teacher housing were never located in the same buildings.
Even if some teachers had managed to avoid turning into zombies, it would have been extremely difficult for them to reach the students and protect them.
The most likely outcome was total annihilation.
But what if there were still children alive inside?
Children of that age were often immature, but the ones who understood the situation could also be surprisingly obedient and sensible.
If Joo Joowon really encountered surviving children, could he honestly bring himself to abandon them?
He did not want to put himself in a situation where he had to test the limits of his own humanity.
To put it bluntly, adult companions could at least contribute something useful.
But what about minors who did not even possess status panels?
Wouldn’t they simply become burdens?
Although Joo Joowon could easily imagine just how much experience a school would provide, he instinctively rejected the idea of going to places like that.
After pacing back and forth for a moment, he suddenly changed his train of thought.
Schools were not the only places that provided boarding accommodation.
There were factories too.
There were also vocational training institutions.
Factories were not an option.
They were almost always built in remote industrial districts and the journey would simply be too far.
As for training institutions...?
Joo Joowon was extremely familiar with this city.
If someone asked him to name landmarks, he could list them endlessly without even thinking.
But when it came to training institutions, nothing immediately came to mind.
Fortunately, the increase in his Mental Power had greatly improved his memory.
After thinking for a moment, Joo Joowon suddenly remembered a training institution he had passed countless times on his commute to work without ever really paying attention to it.
These kinds of institutions generally targeted adults.
The students attended classes there for a few months or perhaps one or two years before graduating.
Calling them scams would not be entirely fair because some of them genuinely provided vocational certificates.
Joo Joowon himself had even worked part-time for similar institutions in the past.
After searching through his memories, he remembered the one he passed on his route to work.
It was called Etoile Fashion Academy.
It was a training institution that taught fashion design and provided accommodation for its students.
New classes opened twice a year and he had received their flyers before.
The institution itself was not very large.
Joo Joowon remembered seeing on the flyers that they only employed a handful of instructors.