Embers Ad Infinitum

The mountains on the north bank of the Red River Wasteland are vast, with a variety of aberrant creatures and old-world military bases and research centers. You can always find something valuable.

Because many of the roads here have been destroyed and cannot be repaired, and the environment is very complex, it is difficult for the army of the "Primary City" to enter on a large scale and can only explore in small groups, so it has become a paradise for relic hunters.

I don’t know how many people come and go here every year in an effort to survive. Advance camps of different sizes have naturally been formed in several places in the mountains to provide food, clean water, weapons, ammunition, bandages, fuel, batteries, etc. to the relic hunters trying to penetrate deep into the mountains. necessity.

At the same time, these forward camps also provide a safer rest space for the returning ruin hunters, so that their common diseases and minor injuries can be treated in time.

As long as you provide enough supplies, even if you are seriously injured, a helicopter will take you back to the First City for emergency treatment - resources in this area are said to be related to the military.

The camp that the "Old Adjustment Team" arrived at was the one that went deep into the mountains. Many areas in front of it were no longer accessible to vehicles and could only be traveled on foot.

Jiang Baimian glanced at it and took in the general appearance of the camp:

It is built based on an ancient castle in the old world. The outside is a circle of stone walls, and the inside is divided into a five-story main building and auxiliary rooms scattered around.

There is a relatively spacious square here, which should have been used to train soldiers in ancient times, but now it is full of cars.

Jiang Baimian noticed that in addition to the dense green plants on the outer walls of the castle, there were also a large number of bullet holes and obvious signs of fire.

All this shows that this place is not so stable.

After driving into the castle and finding a place to park, Jiang Baimian led Shang Jianyao and the others through the sparse relic hunters and entered the "Kos Bar" located on the first floor of the main building.

It is said to be a bar, but most of the time there is no alcohol here. Occasionally, if you are lucky, a caravan will bring some private wine to sell.

Long Yuehong just made a casual observation and found that most of the ruin hunters used this place as a restaurant. The only man sitting in front of the bar had a sticky cup instead of wine.

The man looked to be in his early thirties, with a messy beard on his face. It looked like he hadn't shaved for several days.

And the fact that they were not dense enough also showed that the man had tidied up his appearance in the past.

At this time, he was drinking the contents of the cup, making chewing sounds from time to time, while looking down at the broken watch in his palm, his face full of sorrow.

"What happened?" Shang Jianyao walked over, pulled up a stool, and asked familiarly.

The man glanced sideways at him, twitched his lips and said:

"Are you new here?

"For that giant white wolf?

"I advise you to give up. There are plenty of opportunities in the mountains. Don't be blinded by the high rewards."

Jiang Baimian also sat down and asked as if thinking:

"Is this the lesson you learned?"

The man with brown hair and green eyes changed his expression slightly and fell silent.

After a few seconds, he sighed and said:

“It’s an obvious thing.

"If you want to seize opportunities in the mountains and ensure your own safety, hunters need to form a team, just like you. There are very few loners here, and they are often terrifyingly powerful."

Before Shang Jianyao could ask further questions, the man took another sip of the contents of the cup, chewed it twice and said:

"And I have no companions anymore..."

When he said this, his voice was low and deep.

Bai Chen pursed his lips and asked softly:

"Did they die under the claws of that giant white wolf?"

The man put down the cup and covered his face in his hands. After a while, he said:

"We determined the movement pattern of the giant white wolf, and thought we could hit it with a tranquilizer gun outside the range of its weird charm.

"But, but, it discovered our presence at some point, and actually changed its route temporarily, detouring to the place where we were hiding...

"Then, then, can you imagine the result?"

Speaking of which, the face of the man whose palms had been put down was full of panic and fear, as if he was still immersed in that "nightmare" and unable to wake up.

Seeing that no one from the "Old Tune Team" responded, he twitched the corners of his mouth and said in a somewhat crazy and panicky voice:

“I don’t know how I escaped, maybe the giant white wolf’s appetite has been satisfied.

"I will never forget the way they looked at me, strange, hateful, and indifferent, as if I had become a servant of the wolf."

Huh... the man exhaled and said:

"Later, I plucked up the courage to go back there and found this watch. It was Saatchi's most precious possession, and it had been broken into this state..."

He didn't say any more, as if he didn't want to admit that his companions might have been wiped out.

Jiang Baimian, Shang Jianyao and others looked at each other, and a thought came to their minds:

Is that giant white wolf capable of sensing human consciousness?

Therefore, the ambush of this group of ruin hunters was easily broken.

"This is unfair." Shang Jianyao suddenly said.

This time, Jiang Baimian probably understood what he meant:

Awakened humans cannot sense beasts, but aberrant creatures can detect human consciousness.

The man was stunned for a moment:

"What's unfair?"

"It's unfair to humans." Shang Jianyao answered truthfully, but only the second half of the sentence was said.

The man actually agreed deeply:

"Yeah, why can a beast be so strong and have such weird abilities?"

He glanced at Jiang Baimian and others again:

"Those who actually encountered the giant white wolf and came back alive have given up, but there is a steady stream of confident newcomers, such as you."

At this time, he saw Gennava and was stunned and said:

"You brought a robot... then I wish you good luck."

It is common knowledge among some ruin hunters that robots can resist similar special effects.

Jiang Baimian did not answer this sentence and asked instead:

"Can you share with us the activity patterns of the giant white wolf that you have summarized?

"We will provide payment."

"This is a good deal." The man laughed to himself and said, "We'll talk about it later when we go out. There are many people here."

"Okay, what's your name?" Jiang Baimian asked.

She puts on makeup to make herself look ordinary.

The man replied nonchalantly:

"Waite."

It was as ordinary as a fake name... Long Yuehong cursed in his heart.

At this time, Shang Jianyao asked curiously:

"What are you drinking? It tastes good."

Waite pointed to the boss at the bar:

“The stuffed meat here.”

The boss was an elderly man with gray hair. Hearing this, he raised his head and said:

"The most common harvest in the mountains is all kinds of prey, which are delicious, distinctive and not dangerous. They are all taken away by the nobles. The remaining ones are either of poor quality, sour and smelly, or have some problems with themselves. , not suitable for regular consumption, and cannot be sold at a high price.

"But it's all meat anyway, so I bought it, made it into a paste, added some plants from the mountains, and cooked it into something like this. It smells very fragrant, but doesn't taste that good, so it will satisfy my cravings."

Jiang Baimian asked thoughtfully:

"There should be people who buy this kind of meat specifically to eat, right?"

"When there is a choice, there are very few, but many people don't have a choice." The boss answered concisely.

During the brief silence, Long Yuehong remembered something and asked quickly:

"Is there an office of the Hunter Guild here?"

When Waite heard this, he laughed:

"How come?"

"Why not?" Long Yuehong expressed confusion.

Waite pointed outside:

“In the past ten years, this place has been destroyed twice, and I don’t know how many people died. The reasons were due to the attacks of a large number of ‘careless people’ and the migration of aberrant creatures.

"How dare those clerks from the guild come here? It only takes half a day to get out of here anyway. I can relax a bit when I go to the First City to hand over tasks and take over tasks."

Thinking of the various marks on the outer wall, Long Yuehong didn't ask any more questions.

Waite pointed at the boss again:

"It's not impossible. Who would be willing to open a bar here?"

"I'm already old anyway," the boss responded calmly.

Waite turned to Shang Jianyao and the others:

"The Gray Earth people... just arrived here recently? No wonder they don't know these things."

"Yes, yes." Shang Jianyao didn't hide it at all and asked directly, "Have you ever seen a ruin hunter named Felin Tong? He is as tall as him, with gray hair and dark brown eyes. He likes to use Shotgun.”

"He" refers to Long Yuehong.

Felinton is the relic hunter who knows about the situation of the Mirror Sect according to Terrence, the second boss of the "Black Shirt Party".

While Waite shook his head, the bar owner replied:

"He went after the giant white wolf. I don't know if he can come back."

"Yeah." Jiang Baimian nodded gently, and at the same time, a person walked in from the door of the bar.

The man was thin and dark, about thirty, less than 1.7 meters tall. He was wearing a long black T-shirt with patch marks and dark blue canvas pants.

This was actually an acquaintance, the relic hunter who first told the "old investigation team" the information:

Wang Fugui.