Twelve deer skins were all the stock that the refuge had, out of which three were obtained by Chu Guang after outmaneuvering Old Leech and trading with the Yu Family.
There were no faults to be found with the quality of the deer skins, in terms of both their color and completeness, they were considered top-notch. After so thought, List finally nodded reluctantly.
"Deal,"
The two parties exchanged their goods.
Before leaving, List shook hands with Chu Guang, managing to squeeze out a sowhat pleasant smile on his face.
"Goodbye, my friend. If we see each other again, it should be in springti."
Chu Guang also smiled faintly.
"We’ll always be here, take care."
"You too."
Suddenly rembering sothing, List added,
"Oh, by the way, I’ve heard that to the north of the city overpass there’s a Looter Tribe, I think it’s called Blood Hand Clan, with about sixty or seventy people. Settling down here doesn’t seem like a good idea. Even if they mostly raid northwards, it’s just a matter of ti before they discover you... Anyway, be careful. Till we et again!"
Leaving these words behind, List then departed with his Comrcial Team.
Chu Guang watched as the Comrcial Team disappeared into the woods, then turned and went back inside the Enclosing wall of the Outpost Base.
Of course, he knew this wasn’t a good place to settle down.
If he had had a choice, Chu Guang would certainly have chosen a more manageable place to make a ho, preferably one suitable for farming, mining, and where the surrounding feng shui promised safety from dangers.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t Civilization; three tiles away from a 3 luxury 2 resource start didn’t an you could just restart from the top right corner. The refuge had been built two centuries earlier, and even if one regretted it, it was too late now.
Back inside the wall.
Chu Guang looked at Yu Hu, taking out a white chip from his pocket and handing it to him.
"Thanks, you’ve done a big favor."
Seeing Chu Guang take out the chip, Yu Hu’s face changed and he quickly waved his hands.
"No, no, what are you doing? I can’t accept this."
While saying this, he suddenly rembered sothing, searching in his pocket and pulling out a piece of aluminum foil the size of a thumbnail.
"Right, my brother’s illness has already healed, Father told to return the leftover dicine to you—"
Seeing that the man stubbornly refused to accept it, Chu Guang sighed and took the chip back.
"Alright, since you insist, I won’t be polite with you anymore. But you keep the dicine, I don’t lack it."
After so ti, he finally managed to convince the forthright young man, and watching him disappear into the forest, Chu Guang thought to himself that maybe he should sell so more dicines.
From the rumors, didn’t other dium-to-large refuges seem to do more business with dicines?
After all, larger refuges often have their own dispensary, and so were even said to have vast reserves of dicinal supplies.
Of course, rumors on the Wasteland were taken with a grain of salt.
Even in an era of information overload, one couldn’t ensure the veracity of every piece of news, let alone here.
During these past days, the players had been quite diligent, earning an average of 5 to 7 reward points per day, which added up to 22 points.
Having handed over the task of assembling a generator to the players, Chu Guang turned and went back to the refuge.
When he opened the System and entered the Administrator’s Log page, a pale blue popup window appeared in front of him.
[Subquest completed.]
[Reward: 100 reward points.]
Faced with this sudden reward, Chu Guang was stunned.
Well now.
He’d dragged out this side quest for so long, he only rembered that the Outpost was missing a generator but had forgotten about the quest reward altogether.
"I’m rich!"
Chu Guang was thrilled, his feet had barely found their footing inside the refuge when he spun around and walked back outside.
"I’ve got to wash my face outside first!"
Advanced Blind Box!
This thing can’t be handled carelessly!
...
To the north of Linghu Wetland Park, at approximately 1.7 kiloters away,
a group of n clad in beast skins, faces painted with red and black pignts, looking wild, were progressing south along the ruins of the elevated road out of the city.
They grasped oddly-shaped iron pipe rifles in their hands, but instead of slinging the guns over their shoulders, they held them as if ready for battle, approaching with nacing intent.
Mutant rats on the road scurried away, and occasionally, mutant cockroaches the size of small dogs charged at them, only to be stomped to death or have their heads smashed in with a buttstock.
However, this did create quite a commotion.
Moreover, due to this group’s poor discipline, their banter and jokes could be heard from a great distance away.
Players who were transporting stones from the construction site quickly noticed them, imdiately ditching their ore carts by the roadside to hide, with themselves following suit.
"What kind of people are these guys?" Hovering nervously over far-off group, "Construction-Youth-With-Brick" whispered, "Ten n, and they’re leading three dogs... I’ve got a feeling—they don’t seem like good folks."
"I have the sa feeling... They kind of look like Looters." "Edge Shoveling" also watched nervously, clutching the small blade in his pocket.
Although it didn’t offer much reassurance.
"Damn, are they really prompting a siege event?! Did Dog Plan buy a forum house?!"
"Analyze it rationally... he’s heard what you just said."
"Plan is my daddy!"
"Shh, you two stop talking," "Debt Giant Eye" looked at his two teammates and whispered with a lowered voice, "Old Brick, go send a ssage."
"Damn, why ain’t you the one going?"
"I’m of the Intelligence System! Who the hell can I outrun? Be careful, a Strength Type can still make a long run."
"Then why not Shoveling?"
"His Perception System is crap for this! Stop wasting ti, go, reporting valuable intelligence has rewards, don’t you rember?"
Hearing about the rewards, Construction-Youth-With-Brick finally agreed to move.
His heart pounding fiercely, he hid behind a billboard, took a roundabout route of about two hundred ters, and only when that group of n had vanished from his sight did he break into a sprint into the forest.
When he arrived at Outpost Base, the rookies were busy chopping trees, the veteran players were carrying back ga, and others were idly opening their stands at the market entrance, contemplating what to cook for lunch.
A scene of serenity.
Ignoring his pounding heart, the one who ran to the entrance, Construction-Youth-With-Brick, bellowed.
"Looters! There are Looters coming to attack!"
Hearing his shout, the people near the enclosing wall looked bewildered, unsure of what was happening.
"What? Looters?"
"Where’s the Manager? Quick, go and report to him!" The youth panted heavily, hands on his knees as he spoke in bursts.
"I’m right here," Chu Guang erged from inside, water still dripping from his brow, looking seriously at the players in front of him, "You ntioned Looters?"
"Yes! There’s a squad of them, exactly ten people! They’re coming this way along the northern elevated road, each person ard with a gun, and they’re leading three dogs!"
Chu Guang’s expression changed slightly and he imdiately issued orders to the players beside him, no longer concerned about the lottery.
"Get all residents near Outpost Base back here, now!"
"Yes!"
Several players ran off, their faces full of excitent rather than worry, actually sowhat thrilled.
A siege battle!
They never imagined the planners had set them up for such a big job!
However, they did not know that at this mont, a certain planner had an even bigger headache.
Chu Guang strode to the weapon shop and scooped up the dozing proprietress, tossing her over his shoulder while casually grabbing her two walking sticks with his left hand.
"Hey! What are you doing, in broad daylight—" Xia Yan, startled by this sudden action and just awakened from her nap, blushed and struggled, but Chu Guang ignored her.
"Shut up."
After dumping the guy next to the elevator on the first floor of the infirmary, Chu Guang handed the walking sticks back to Xia Yan, who was leaning against the wall, gaining her balance. He stared at her befuddled face and spoke seriously.
"If the fighting reaches the door, get into the elevator and wait there. I’ll co to take you down. If I don’t show up, don’t make a sound. Just hide quietly."
The elevator leading underground required the Manager’s authorization to start, and for the ti being, Chu Guang had locked down the lift. After all, it was his escape route.
Xia Yan vigorously nodded, seemingly not that panicked, at least not as flustered as when facing him.
"I understand... Wait, what do you an, ’get to here’? Who’s coming here?"
"Looters—"
Before he finished speaking, a gunshot cracked in the distance, followed by two more in quick succession. Judging by the sound, they were roughly two to three hundred ters away.
Chu Guang’s expression tightened, and his blood started pumping faster.
Looters!
They had arrived!
...
Outside the North Gate.
The Looter column moved forward with guns in hand, noisily jabbering and advancing toward the North Gate while firing at fleeing survivors.
Their weapons varied greatly, from revolvers picked up from traders to semi-automatics snatched from rcenaries, or crude DIY pipe guns.
Regardless of the type of weapon, it wasn’t easy to land a shot from two hundred ters away in this jungle terrain.
Indeed, after a few shots rang out, not a single person fell. The survivors near the Enclosing Wall scurried back inside the gates, leaving only a few wooden stalls at the entrance damaged.
However, the outco of a battle didn’t depend on the number of people killed in combat but in completely demoralizing the opponent to give up resistance.
These Looters knew this all too well.
The art of fear had been refined to its utmost by them.
The barrage of gunshots and the suppressive fire it generated was devastating to the morale of non-professional soldiers.
A Survivor Base that could muster thirty people might only have a third capable of combat, at most half.
There was no need to kill the fleeing survivors on the spot; these rats would scurry away, bringing the plague of fear back to their lair and completely crushing their will to resist.
In a small Survivor community that had been looted, fewer than one in ten would die in a firefight.
Perhaps these people would muster the courage to fire back symbolically from behind cover, but it wouldn’t take long for their morale to crumble and for them to flee through other exits.
At that ti, elders, kids, and won would be left behind, and the fleeing youth would stand no chance against the hunting dogs they brought with them.
The eventual fate of these Survivor Bases was often one of two outcos.
Either they were slaughtered.
Or they beca slaves!
"Hahaha! Look at those cowards fleeing like rats at the sound of gunfire!"
A muscular man with his arms bared laughed boisterously as he fired his 9mm pipe rifle, his fierce face glowing red.
As a Centurion of the Blood Hand Clan, his na was Badger, bestowed by the clan leader. Most of his nine subordinates were either kin or confidantes.
Tribe lineages among Looter Tribes were usually very chaotic—they produced nothing, revered violence, and lived by looting and extortion, so there were no traditional family concepts, no spouses or partners.
Take the Blood Hand Clan, for example. If a newborn boy was strong, he would be accepted into the clan; all others were slaves, either laborers or breeding tools. This often resulted in half-siblings with different fathers or mothers.
These kin often stuck together like wolves, and the bravest among them would be appointed as Centurions by the clan leader. Their kin benefitted too, becoming old Looters or Elites with more rights to dictate their spoils of war.
"Hehehe, still Blue Jacket? Looks like we’ve got so fun waiting for us inside!"
A tall, skinny man let out a sinister laugh in response, cocked his shotgun, and continued firing at the cover along the Enclosing Wall.
"Sa old rules, kill all the old and the young, lop off the n’s index fingers and tie them up."
"Boss, what about the won?"
"First one through the door gets first pick. We are only staying for two hours, take away whoever is still alive after that."
"Ao ao ao!"
Fifty ters distance!
The other side still hadn’t returned fire!
A cruel smile ford on the corner of Badger’s mouth.
He knew exactly what these survivors were thinking; they were just waiting for his n to co out from the forest so they could use their cover to open fire.
Without a doubt, these people were already clutching their guns, lying behind the cover of the enclosing wall, waiting.
However...
Would he be so stupid as to let his n rush forward?
"Let’s start a fire, give them a boost of excitent!"
"Roger that!"
The Looter at the very front crouched down and lit a Molotov cocktail in his hand. Under the covering fire of his comrades, he took a running start and hurled the Molotov cocktail.
The fla traced an arc in the air and landed right onto the three-ter-tall cover of the enclosing wall.
The sparks shattered in all directions, and soon the rusty cover was ablaze, red-hot from the intense fire.
Then ca a second, and a third. The fire on the wall quickly joined together, leaving hardly any place to set foot on.
However, what surprised the Looters was that the expected screams did not arise, nor did anyone fall from behind the cover.
It was as if...
These covers had been unoccupied from the start?
Badger frowned slightly, feeling that sothing was not quite right.
Had these people given up on resisting already?
That couldn’t be...
At least put up a symbolic counterattack...
The sliver of confusion quickly turned into contempt.
However, just as he was about to command his n to move forward and blast open the wooden door with dynamite, a sharp whistle suddenly sounded from the woods.
It was like so sort of signal for an attack!
Almost instantaneously, a dense barrage of gunfire rained down like droplets, coming from both sides.
’Swish-swish’, ’swish-dah’ - bullets flying chaotically nearly grazed scalps, scaring Badger enough to imdiately hit the dirt behind a relatively thick tree stump.
Acknowledging marksmanship?
Nonexistent.
But flesh and blood feared the random spray of bullets.
He called out at the top of his lungs.
"Everybody to cover!"
"Spread out and retreat one hundred ters to regroup!!"
"Quick!!!"
-
(Thank you "Call Little Baozi", "Crippled Kevin", "Capable Man" for the chiefs’ rewards~~~~~
Brothers, we’ve broken ten thousand on first subscriptions!! Love you guys!
I will keep writing vigorously! Suddenly evolving from the 2K party has been a bit of an adjustnt, it’s not that I don’t want to burst into action, I’m really out of juice QAQ.)
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