Three days later, in the early hours of the morning, a long line of trucks was parked outside the north gate of Orchid Town. There were more than fifty vehicles in total, and the carriages were covered with dark green canvas. From far away, you can smell the putrid smell emanating from the car.
If you lift the canvas, you will see densely packed corpses of mutated creatures stacked on top of each other, including corpses of corpse dogs, living dead, and other common creatures in the wilderness.
Due to the unpleasant smell, the corpse removal team usually leaves in the middle of the night to avoid complaints from the town residents.
Under the starry sky, parked on the dirt slope in front of the convoy was an old dune vehicle. Most of the red and white patent leather had fallen off. The surface of the vehicle was pitted and the fenders were also somewhat twisted.
There were two young men sitting in the car, one sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a black tarpaulin military uniform and the epaulettes of a second lieutenant. The other one looked a few years younger than the former one and was wearing an ordinary khaki military uniform without the epaulettes showing his military rank.
This young second lieutenant is none other than Chen Xing, and the young man beside him is the driver Xiao Yang introduced by Xiao Wu.
Fifteen minutes later, the convoy was fully equipped and slowly moved forward with the lead car. The dune buggy immediately started and walked in front of the convoy. Originally they were following in a group, but when they followed behind, the stench hit them head-on, making them very uncomfortable.
The strong light from the front of the car illuminated the red soil in front. From time to time, one or two small figures appeared, burrowed into the soil, and disappeared. It was the most common red-haired rat in the Red Earth Continent. It lived in the wasteland and lived on grass stems and shrub leaves.
The wilderness at night is dangerous, but that's for the individual traveler. A convoy like this has many people and is so powerful that wild creatures dare not approach it easily. Of course, things like insect-turned wolves or zombie kings generally don’t go deep into the hinterland of human-controlled areas.
Chen Xing pulled down his big-brimmed military hat, closed his eyes and fell asleep. The scenery in the wilderness is nothing to see, the same red earth, dead grass, and bushes. Night is even more boring, just endless darkness. The distant horizon is like the black mist that fills the sky, ruthlessly devouring the starry sky.
"Woooooooo..."
The noise of the engine lingered in my ears, and my body shook with the uneven terrain. Chen Xing couldn't fall asleep at all, and couldn't help but think of the scene in his previous life, fifteen years ago, when he left Orchid Town for the first time.
At that time, he was miserable in Orchid Town, washing dishes for several months before he could collect enough fare to go to Longshi Town with the corpse transport team. The distance between the two places is more than 1,500 kilometers, and we can only walk three to four hundred kilometers in a day. Sometimes it rains and the roads are poor, so it will be delayed for a while.
It took me seven days to reach Longshi Town. Since he didn't have much money, the team captain paid him half for the fee and half for help, so he took him with him. Naturally, there was no seat. He was sitting on the roof of the truck. There were corpses underneath and the stench was unbearable. When he first arrived in Longshi Town, he vomited whenever he saw meat for half a month, which shows how deep his psychological shadow was.
After another nine years of procrastination, he was promoted to squad leader by his mercenary group based on his level 3 danger perception. Now, less than half a month after his rebirth, he has already taken the position of captain of the third team of Orchid Town and holds the rank of second lieutenant. He is still a well-established person who eats royal food. It can be said that times have changed and he is completely different from the past.
To be precise, his status improvement in the past half month has already exceeded the nine years of hard work in his previous life.
This is a cruel world, but it is also a world full of opportunities. A strong person drinks nectar, while a weak person eats coptis every day.
His starting point this time was more than one and a half points higher than in the previous life. Although subsequent development may not be so rapid, it is still a good foundation. After recruiting the team members and building the underground water station, you can make money for a period of time and improve the three attributes.
Generally speaking, the effect of attribute improvement is not very obvious in the early stage. As the saying goes, no matter how skilled you are, you are still afraid of the kitchen knife. When the attribute is lower than fifty, this sentence is basically true. But after reaching 50, traditional weapons will gradually lose their effectiveness.
Higher muscle density, greater physical strength, faster speed, and stronger psychic protection will make hot weapons tickle or slow down the camera several times. Sniper rifles and rocket launchers were all turned into fire sticks. Not to mention bullets, even if you use cannons at close range or use missiles to explode, it won't have much effect.
At that time, the battle between the strong will evolve into a simple close combat, and only the psychic weapons created by the master craftsmen can play a certain role.
While he was thinking, he was pushed gently, and then he heard Xiao Yang's voice.
"Captain, there are refugees ahead."
Chen Xing raised his big-brimmed military hat, sat up straight, and looked in the direction Xiao Yang pointed. In the wilderness a few hundred meters away, a group of refugees were dragging their families and carts across the path of the convoy.
"Slow down and stop." Chen Xing said. This kind of problem is better left to the corpse transport team to handle.
As soon as he finished speaking, a shout came from behind through the loudspeaker.
"Get out of the way, get out of the way!"
Then I saw two dune buggies turning out of the convoy, speeding towards the refugees, and firing into the sky.
"Da da da!" Hearing the gunshots and shouts, the refugees dropped their belongings in panic and fled in all directions.
Not long after, loaded trucks roared past. The heavy wheels ruthlessly crushed the packages and luggage scattered on the road, leaving only a mess and a large cloud of acrid black smoke.
Refugees are the lowest level of existence in this world, do not have the most basic human rights, are between humans and animals, and are not recognized by the "Human Continuation Management Committee". Some people regard them as rats in the wilderness and slaughter them arbitrarily. Some people regard them as people and collect and manage them.
For example, Wang Bo treats the refugees as livestock and kills them whenever he wants, while the mayor, Shade Sinclair, is willing to recruit them and develop his own town.
In fact, most people still regard refugees as human beings like themselves and will not kill them easily. It just seems disrespectful most of the time. For example, the mercenaries responsible for the safety of the corpse transport team did not shoot and kill them randomly, but just drove them away roughly.
Among the refugees, except for some tribes who live in the wild all year round or live in seclusion in the mountains and forests, most of them are "dishonest", "criminal" and "unemployed".
Under the Survival Convention proposed by the Commission for the Management of Human Continuity and signed and ratified by authorities around the world, the death penalty is abolished in any national system. Those in power could not pass laws to put anyone to death, only exile.
But the funny thing is that there is a huge paradox in this law. Exiles have no human rights and can be killed at will without any protection for their lives. However, there are still some subtle differences here. For the truly strong, it doesn't matter whether they are refugees or citizens, at least in terms of survival, there is not much difference.
Such a policy is obviously biased towards the strong, but it is also in line with the purpose of the Human Continuation Management Committee - the continuation of human civilization. Because in this cruel world, only the strong can survive better.
After this small episode, the team continued moving forward. Then, until noon the next day, nothing special happened. At lunchtime the convoy stopped. Although Chen Xing was very reluctant to get close, out of politeness, he ran over, said a few words to the caravan captain, took out two packs of cigarettes, and asked Xiao Yang to distribute them to the driver and the accompanying mercenaries.
Seeing them squatting next to the truck eating, talking and laughing, oblivious to the rancid smell, Chen Xing only felt a little nauseous. After returning to the car, it took more than ten minutes for him to regain his composure. But I couldn't eat meat either, so I could only eat some vegetable noodles and drink some soup.
In the afternoon, Chen Xing, who was walking at the front of the team, saw several three-wheeled motorcycles parked on the slope in the distance. Looking through the binoculars, there were seven or eight men carrying guns and wearing colorful cloth robes.
"What should I do?" Xiao Yang subconsciously lowered the speed of the car and asked.
"Don't worry about them." After Chen Xing finished speaking, he put on his big-brimmed military hat and continued to take a nap.
Sure enough, when the convoy approached, the group of people immediately turned around and dispersed. In most cases, Wilderness Raiders are not interested in corpse transport teams, and their numbers are too small to defeat the convoy. The next day, I met a small group of similar people. When they saw the convoy coming, they ran away immediately.
But on the third day, I ran into some trouble...
"Be careful, there is a group of red monitor lizards!" As the shout came from the intercom, the entire convoy stopped quickly. It was so fast that some vehicles collided.
"Boom boom boom..."
About ten minutes later, the ground began to shake slightly, and as time went by, it became more and more obvious. The tiny grains of sand were beating as if an earthquake was about to come.
Not long after, huge figures gradually appeared on the uneven soil slope ahead. The dark green scales sparkled in the sunlight, glowing with a metallic sheen. Flat head, thick limbs, long tail.
The red soil monitor lizard is the most powerful herbivorous group animal in the wasteland of the red soil continent. It is constantly looking for food, growing and reproducing during migration. They are huge in size. An adult monitor lizard is twenty to thirty meters long from head to tail and three to four meters tall.
They are gentle by nature and will not harm other creatures unless attacked or thwarted. However, due to their large size and the need to maintain formation, once they fall into them, they will soon be trampled to pieces.
In the wilderness, even a pack of insect-turned wolves would not dare to rush into a pack of monitor lizards. Their scales are very strong, their skin is extremely tough, and they have a thick layer of subcutaneous fat that is difficult for cannonballs to penetrate.
Any armor made of monitor lizard skin would cost thousands of gold coins. However, hunting of monitor lizards is prohibited in the Ambergris United Kingdom. Because the monitor lizard group is the most important link in the biological chain of the Red Earth Continent, involving the ecology of the entire continent. Only by obtaining a "Lizard Hunting Permit" issued by the royal capital, Ice Blue City, can one hunt the specified number of monitor lizards.
Anyone who poaches will be considered treason and exiled to the edge of the Black Death Forest.
After waiting for about twenty minutes, the red monitor lizard group slowly left. The convoy made some repairs on the spot and continued to set off.
