Born a Couch Potato, I Till the Wasteland

In the apocalypse, Wen Ren Su was forced to become a couch potato after suffering irreversible injuries while protecting her teammates.

Her grateful teammates thoughtfully arranged a cushy support job for her. But during one trip to search for supplies, they resolutely threw her into a horde of monsters as bait, gathered the supplies, and left without a second thought.

Wounded in body and spirit, Wen Ren Su was ready to leave this rotten world behind, with a thousand curses for it in her heart. In the blink of an eye, she transmigrated to a wasteland world.

Wen Ren Su: Maybe my curses weren't devout enough...

Beneath her clothes, faint black lines spread across her new body, sending pain through her nerves. According to the memories she'd inherited, these were the first signs of mutation after contamination.

There was no cure for contamination. Once the lines spread across her entire body, her mind and body would eventually be consumed by violent, evil thoughts, turning her into a contaminant whom everyone in the wasteland wanted dead.

Wincing from the pain in her head, the utterly defeated couch potato curled up on a floor covered in thick dust. Then a System calling itself "Turning Trash into Treasure" popped up and began chattering at her, launching a mental attack.

It accused her of lacking responsibility, ambition, and shame, and even called her a total scumbag who was trying to kill the System and achieve the feat of taking two lives with one corpse.

Wen Ren Su: ...A silicon-based life form has no right to accuse me.

But the System was so noisy she couldn't get any peace. Unable to keep lazing around, Wen Ren Su became a scavenger in the wasteland and started feeding the System.

As she kept feeding it, she went from scavenger to farmer. Buds sprouted, grass grew, flowers bloomed, trees took root, and fields were planted around her shelter. She even managed to raise contaminated livestock!

Rumors spread that she was the strongest person outside the safe zone, able to take down an S-rank contaminant all by herself!

More and more survivors came to join her. The shelter grew from a settlement into a city, and the people who survived named it Dawn Haven.

Reader's guide:

1. A lightly ensemble-style story, with my own take on the wasteland genre. There may be Lovecraftian elements. This is self-indulgent writing, so don't expect rigorous research.

2. A slow-paced, slice-of-life survival story with no romance, centered on surviving on one's own.

3. The setting is entirely fictional. The logic and values follow the story. Please don't compare it to any real-world species.

4. Please don't imitate anything done in the story in real life. Obey the law, and be kind and peaceful.

5. Since this is self-indulgent writing, bring your own hazard warnings for anything else that bothers you. Know when to stop, keep the peace, and thank you, everyone.

Theme: A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step