Chapter 31: Encountering Marauder! Player's First Battle!

The uses of acetic acid, acetone, and methanol were still quite extensive.

If the shelter outpost wanted to start industrialization in a real sense, then these chemical raw materials were indispensable.

Although these were not useful for the time being, Chu Guang still gave player [WC_really_has_mosquitoes] a reward of 1,000 contribution points, and publicized his outstanding contribution of "using wood as a raw material to successfully produce acetic acid, acetone, and methanol."

It was equivalent to the server announcement in some online game novels.

Looking at the proud expression of [WC_really_has_mosquitoes] and envious expressions of other players, Chu Guang felt that he needed to maintain this fine tradition.

Mhm.

Not just in the game.

He must also post it on the official website!

In the future, he could also set up a Hall of Fame in which he would record "a certain achievement by a certain player on a certain year, a certain month, and a certain day."

This plan could be the solution to the development problem, and this was similar to that of completing a difficult dungeon. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As a poor ruler, cheap honor was the only cost-effective reward he could give players.

After finishing the work, Chu Guang took Night Ten and Mr. Garbage along the viaduct outside the wetland park and continued to explore north.

While searching for traces of prey, they also looked for valuable exploration targets.

​Qingquan City's industrial area was mainly concentrated in the southeast corner of the city, distributed into a fan-shaped expanse along the third-ring line and the second-ring line.

The northern part of Linghu Wetland Park was dominated by residential areas. Many unfinished properties could also be seen along the highway.

In addition to having relatively complete public supporting facilities such as those for education, medical care, and transportation, this area had not formed a large-scale industrial cluster. Only some small, light industry workshops were scattered in the suburbs far away from residential buildings and they were near garbage incineration stations.

And at this time, they were mostly covered by forests.

During the nuclear war, the northern suburbs of Qingquan City were seriously damaged by strategic weapons due to these areas being a collectively huge population base, all the while having extremely low strategic value.

On the other hand, after the complete collapse of order, the huge number of refugees brought a different kind of disaster here.

Supermarkets, convenience stores, markets, and shopping malls were quickly looted by refugees; then the hospitals, schools, office buildings, and even the rest of the shops along the street, as well as residential buildings, of every refrigerator and locker.

No shelter would risk their safety to open the gate to accept them, not to mention that they could not do it. Moreover, the completely paralyzed traffic also made it difficult for these people to leave.

Even today, two hundred years later, one could see a glimpse of the tragedies that happened here, from the bullet holes and broken glass on the wall.

In some showcases, or bedside shelves, even inside trash cans, there were still incompletely weathered skeletons that could still be seen today.

"...This is really miserable."

Looking at the two skeletons, one large and one small hugging together, Mr. Garbage opted to close the open trash can door, as he couldn't bear the sight.

Night Ten's reaction was quite calm. After all, it was not the first time that he followed Chu Guang to travel a long distance. He had grown accustomed to the situation here and even had the air of an old player.

"—Have to admit that the scene design of this game is really well done… It's really like the post-apocalyptic world."

"This is the post-apocalyptic world."

Chu Guang replied indifferently, carefully observing the situation in the shop window, and made a mark on the paper map.

This should be a clothing store.

However, there were only a few clothes left on the shelves, and the two remaining rags that were left hanging were covered with black mold.

Without a doubt, scavengers had turned up here a long time ago.

And more than one batch of them came here.

"... I think we are wasting our efforts," Night Ten sighed. "Clearly, this place has been visited before."

"You can always find something useful… like this stuff." A box of unopened sewing kits was found behind the almost shattered cabinet, and Chu Guang threw it into Night Ten's hands.

The needle should be made of alloy material, and the thread should be made of rayon; oxidation would not pose a problem as long as the package is kept sealed. Let alone two hundred years, it could be used even after another two hundred years.

These gadgets were what the outposts were severely lacking at the moment.

Teng Teng should be interested in it.

Unable to find anything else, the group prepared to withdraw from the store.

However, at this moment, there was a shrill scream in the distance, followed by two gunshots.

Listening to the sound, it seemed to be 5mm bullets.

Chu Guang became alert in an instant. He took off the iron-barreled rifle from his back, hid under the shadow of the wall, and carefully followed where the sound came from.

On the corner of the street not far away, under the diagonal billboard, the man in the gray coat fell to the ground after being shot, he was crawling backward with a frightened face.

Blood oozed from behind him and shed all over the ground.

"... Scavenger?"

After a while, another figure appeared from the street corner.

A gunman wearing an animal skin coat, smoking half of a cigarette, carrying an iron-barreled rifle pieced together with garbage, walked towards the man lying on the ground who was begging for mercy.

There was another man and a hyena following behind him.

This one also carried a similarly shaped rifle in one hand and a hyena leash on the other side, a fire ax hung on his waist.

Chu Guang's pupils contracted slightly.

In less than a second, he quickly determined the identities of the two.

Marauders!

"What's the situation outside?" Night Ten approached in from the side and asked in a low voice.

He thought he was already very quiet, but his concealment skills were still a little weak after all.

"Shhh!"

Chu Guang only had time to make a silent gesture before he saw the mutant hyena with a chain around its neck turning its head and barking twice in his direction.

Chu Guang's face changed instantly.

‘Damn it!'

‘Did this hyena allocate all its skill points on perception?!'

In a split second, the two marauders followed, shifting their heads. They reacted very quickly; they raised their rifles and fired.

Bang! Bang!

After two consecutive gunshots, Chu Guang quickly retracted his head, but soon realized that he was being overly worried.

The hand-made DIY rifles were most likely without rifling.

Firing across the street, it would not be able to hit anything. Just as he thought—those few bullets didn't even touch the door next to him—they all hit the cement road.

"A gunfight?! What's the situation?! Did we run into mutants?!" Mr. Garbage, who was hiding in the shop, didn't panic at all, and even rubbed his hands in excitement.

The same was true for Night Ten, who drew the javelin for the first time.

"Don't panic, I'll take a look first—"

"Look my ass!"

Seeing that these two guys were not afraid at all, Chu Guang felt so frustrated. He freed up his hand to press Night Ten's head and pushed him back.

"They're marauders! Both of them have guns and there is a hyena too! You withdraw from the back door, and we meet in front of the bus stop three hundred meters away from the south—"

"Dear Administrator, why are we retreating? There are just two people and a hyena. We have more people than them!" Mr. Garbage clenched his fists and said, "We can also fight!"

"Yes! We can fight!"

Night Ten also nodded excitedly, picked up the crossbow that the administrator had just dropped, and said with high morale, "Although we only have one gun, we still have a Molotov cocktail... and this two-meter-high lizard. I don't believe that he would lose to a hyena."

Hearing these words, Chu Guang, who was nervous, instantly came back to his senses.

‘That's right.'

‘Why are we running?'

In the past, he was alone in the wasteland, so it was normal for him to run away when encountering vicious bandits.

Now he had weapons and people, why did he still need to run away?

Besides, there were only two people on the opposite side.

Chu Guang's reaction was quick, and he immediately made a decision and pulled the bolt to load the bullet simultaneously.

‘Fu** them!'

"You, take the Molotov cocktail and go over there." Chu Guang threw the device and the match into Night Ten's hand, casually pointing at the diagonally opposite side of the street corner.

"Pay attention to my instructions. As soon as my gun fires, you can throw it!"

The other party didn't know how many people there were on his side, and when they saw someone rushing out, they would definitely chase that person.

Night Ten who took the Molotov cocktail was in a daze for a moment.

"Me? How do I get there?"

"Of course running, or you want me to carry you? Don't worry, their guns are not rifled and won't hit you." Chu Guang stretched out his hand and pushed him.

Night Ten staggered to the door.

Although he was nervous, he gritted his teeth when he realized that this was an opportunity for him to show his skills in front of the Administrator.

‘Screw it.'

‘This is a game anyway!'

Sure enough, just as Chu Guang had predicted, seeing Night Ten rush out of the shop, the two marauders immediately shouted and fired two shots at him.

"Haha, baby, where are you going?"

"Just give up, you can't run away. If you surrender now, I may spare your life!"

Night Ten couldn't understand what these people were talking about, he only felt the bullet swishing past his scalp.

He dared not stop for a moment and rushed into the shop on the other side of the street without looking back.

The pair looked at each other, smiled wickedly, and pressed forward with their guns while letting go of the leash.

There was no gun on that person, so the person was most likely a scavenger.

Killing a scavenger was no different than trampling a cockroach to death for them.

Chu Guang, hiding in the shop, was motionless, waiting quietly for an opportunity.

Hearing the hyena's bark getting closer and closer, he leaned out half of his body abruptly, aimed at the mutant hyena running wildly, and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

It was impossible to dodge at a distance of less than five meters, so the 9mm bullet burst out of the chamber and pierced through the beast's body.

Although Chu Guang was aiming at its head.

Before the hyena could even scream in pain, it fell to the ground, tumbled away for up to two meters, and stopped moving.

The other marauder who rushed to the nearby area was taken aback for a moment. Obviously, he didn't expect the other party to have a gun.

When he came back to his senses, the partner he had been with for many years had died tragically. The expression on his face was instantly distorted with anger.

"I'm going to skin you alive!"

"Joan, calm down! There is more than one person on the other side—"

Before his words fell, a Molotov cocktail was thrown over and slammed on the wreckage of the abandoned car behind them.

The flames quickly rose along with the scattered glass shards.Seeing that the other party had a Molotov cocktail, the marauder quickly avoided, a sudden impulse to retreat arising. However, at the moment, they had no way of escaping, and they fell into a passive situation.

At this moment, one of the marauders suddenly caught a glimpse of a terrifying figure from under the eaves of a street shop with the corner of his eye.

It was a lizard with dark green skin.

In other words, a humanoid lizard.

"Monster—"

Whoosh——!

A cracking sound cut off what he was about to say, and the oncoming javelin pierced his chest directly, nailing him to the burning waste car behind him.

Until the last moment of his life, he still didn't understand why a mutant-like monster would be with scavengers.

He had heard of keeping domesticated mutant hyenas as pets and even of keeping bears and horses, but it was the first time that anyone could domesticate this kind of monster.

This was simply ridiculous!