Differences

"Is this the mining district?"

With just one glance, Lu PingAn suspected they had come to the wrong place.

It was laid out like a fortified stronghold.

A ring of black walls, watchtowers, barbed wire, bunkers—it made one wonder whether they had somehow ended up in the wrong era. But if the machine guns inside those bunkers were local products of this world, their destructive power was beyond question.

What was strange, however, was that the gun ports in those bunkers were not aimed solely outward. At least three-quarters of them were clearly pointed toward the interior of the mining district.

The barbed wire, bunkers, and walls were all arranged that way—one side facing outward and the other inward. And the defenses facing inward were clearly much tighter.

"How are things inside?"

As he asked, Lu PingAn's War Eagle was gathering intelligence of its own.

After surveying the area from above, Lu PingAn's face lit up.

He saw heavy vehicles—mining trucks whose wheels alone stood as tall as a person, as well as excavators. In this world, such things were genuine luxuries.

Yet even after the War Eagle repeatedly observed the area, it found very few people.

There were guards manning the defensive positions, but they were clearly not very alert. Groups of three or five chatted and played cards together, while most of their attention remained fixed on the large mine shafts within the district. It was hard not to wonder what exactly they were guarding against.

"Their armed force was nearly wiped out when it attacked us. More than an hour ago, two trucks drove away. They should have been loaded with the last of this mining district's stock."

This mining district clearly had its own armed force, but it was probably only at the level of "just