As I break the lock on the door, the man goes on and searches for a bottle of rubbing alcohol. As he finds a bottle, my first aid ability tells me that using it is not advised, but I keep it to myself. At least he doesn't look like he will try anything as he unbandages his wound and begins to pour the alcohol over his clearly infected arm. The alcohol washes away the yellow, infected pus. The man takes a fresh bandage out of his backpack and wraps his arm, but even if I did not have my first aid ability, I could see the arm is beyond saving.

  I tell the guy, "Grab your gun and don't make any sudden moves, or you won't like the outcome." I lead him down the stairs and out of the building. As I watch him disappear into some corridors, I let myself relax again. Luckily, my outlaw act was good enough to make him think I had a combat-oriented class. While my class is good for self-defense and ambushing, someone with a combat class could easily win against me.

  I go back up to my trolley to finish looting the last floor—the top floor—where I find the automatisation classroom. There are several machines I don't have a clue about. I press a button, and a green ball drops, taken by a pneumatic claw that then gets dropped into a container with other green balls. It's neat, but nothing really useful to me, so I move to the back of the large classroom. It seems they turned the entire attic into one workshop, but I do find something else of interest: a hydraulic setup. This thing was probably meant to teach how to work with hydraulics, but now it will become spare parts.

  I put the hydraulic cylinders on the trolley and take it back to the bottom floor, where I then go to the lunchroom. I find the kitchen and try the door to enter, but it's locked. I look around and find a card reader on the wall. I decide to take it—we might be able to use it for the bunker door, and if not, it goes into the recycler. I go to the serving window, climb into the kitchen, and press a button to open the door.

  Inside the kitchen are many large canned goods. These would have been used to feed hundreds of people in the school over several days, so I begin loading up the trolley. First, there's a six-pack of 3-liter cans of peeled tomatoes, then another six-pack of diced carrots. With two of those on the cart, I begin to look through the individual cans.

  The first can is pumpkin purée—I put a couple of cans on the trolley. The next two are both mushrooms—the first one is just regular canned mushrooms, so I take a couple of cans. The second type is garlic-marinated whole mushrooms—I've never heard of that before, but I do like garlic, so onto the trolley it goes.

  I find several more, like canned peas—I take a few. Then there's canned chili (with beans)—good for a quick meal, I grab several. Canned chili (without beans)—I take a few of these as well.

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  Sadly, the tortillas have started turning blue, so I leave them behind. However, there are several bags of all-purpose flour, so I'll try to make some myself. Lastly, I take the bags of pasta and one large bag of dry rice.

  After thoroughly looting the kitchen, I leave the school. Once outside, I use Scavenger's Intuition and go to the last place I will loot before heading back to base.

  While walking to the newly summoned building, I run into a large group of lizardmen rushing into a hail of gunfire. If I want to reach the summoned building, I will have to get through both the hail of bullets and the horde of lizards. I then make the decision to not even bother and go the other way, heading in the opposite direction of the summoned building.

  After walking for two hours, I find a quiet place and sit down on a can of tomatoes. I take an MRE out of my backpack and read what is inside: cheese vegetable omelet. That sounds good. I open it up.

  Inside, there's a box with the omelet. The next item I pull out is French vanilla cappuccino instant powder. The next bag has dehydrated granola, milk, and blueberries—that sounds great. I thought MREs were bad.

  I unpack the last few items from the bag: crackers, apple butter, and salsa verde. Never heard of either, but it's worth a try. There is also a small pack of candies. I open it and take a piece of gum, but before I take it, my first aid skill advises me to put it back. I do as it recommends.

  The last thing in the bag is a cinnamon scone and a spoon. I rip open the heating bag, open the omelet box, and find another bag inside. I place the omelet bag into the heating bag along with the salsa and the scone before pouring water into it and closing it up.

  While it heats up, I make the granola. I add the water to the bag, close it up, and give it a shake to mix it all together. I open it back up and use the spoon to eat. It's not bad—I might have added a bit too much water, but overall, pretty decent.

  I look at the still-steaming bag and decide to eat the crackers first. I open the vacuum-sealed package and immediately break the crackers, but they are still large enough to put the apple butter on. The apple butter is actually rather good, and the cracker is an okay addition.

  Next, I make the French coffee and take a sip. After the last two, it's pretty disappointing—just kind of weak, I’d say. But the taste isn’t bad enough for me to throw it away.

  By now, the omelet has cooled down enough to eat. I take out the pack and open it. The omelet seems a bit weird—like it was made from gelatin—but otherwise, it seems okay. I use the spoon to break the egg up, and when it begins to look a bit more normal, I take a bite.

  The moment it touches my tongue, I spit it back out.

  "What the fuck was that? That's not food—it just isn't."

  I take the bag and throw it against the wall opposite me. Big mistake. Now it’s leaking, and the smell hits me—foul. I have to move away from it.

  A couple of feet further, I sit back down again and begrudgingly open the last two items. I put the salsa on the remaining cracker and eat it. It's decent but not something I would choose to eat again.

  Lastly, the scone. I take a bite and immediately have to take a drink of the coffee to get it down. It’s so thick, but not the worst scone I've had.

  Now thoroughly disappointed and disgusted, I wait half an hour for Scavenger's Intuition to recharge and make my way to the next building.