Wang Qian and Wang Wan, two veteran hunters, and Wang Hao, a junior hunter, were all utterly baffled.
"What are these people saying?"
"Why are they holding their hands out at us?"
"What are they trying to express?"
The language barrier made it difficult for the hunters to understand what the three wanted.
Lin Tang leaned forward and shouted, enunciating every word: "MIS-SION RE-WARD!"
Wang Qian and the other two: "?"
Thin Dog and Demon Fox: "?"
Thin Dog grabbed Lin Tang before he could repeat himself. "No, what are you doing? Do you think they can't hear us because you weren't loud enough?"
Lin Tang froze.
"Fuck. I'm an idiot."
After communicating through gestures for quite a while, the hunters roughly understood that these warriors, who had dared to fight the Raiders at close range, wanted compensation.
As the eldest brother, Wang Qian nodded. "That's perfectly reasonable! They helped us so much, so of course they deserve some compensation. They risked their lives to help us. If they hadn't seen Xiao Hao get captured, why would they have taken the initiative to provoke those strong Raiders? There's no way they did it for nothing!"
"So, we should show our appreciation."
At that point, Wang Qian grew somewhat emotional.
"On the wasteland, people with such a sense of justice are rare."
Wang Wan said, "Yeah, yeah."
Wang Hao asked worriedly, "Dad, you always say that hope is the most precious thing on the wasteland. So these uncles brought us hope, right?"
"That's right, Xiao Hao. I hope that when you grow up, you can be like these uncles and help others as much as you can within your abilities. They're seriously making me cry!"
Overwhelmed by emotion, Wang Qian, this rugged man in his thirties, even shed a few tears.
Thin Dog, Demon Fox, and Lin Tang: (;д)
Thin Dog said, "Why is this NPC crying? Is giving us a little compensation really that painful for him?"
Demon Fox said, "How about we forget it? These NPCs did help us take down the Raider Camp, after all. It's already pretty good that they didn't charge us for fire support. Besides, we've already gotten the most valuable thing. Without them, we might not have been able to take this camp."
Lin Tang stared at the crying man. "Tsk, tsk~ This game's character modeling is so realistic. Look at the pores, the peach fuzz, the blackheads on that NPC's face. Incredible! Every frame is money burning away. I just wonder... is this game actually that realistic?"
Thin Dog and Demon Fox: "?"
They checked their smartwatches and found no mission notification. It probably wasn't part of the game's built-in storyline, just a random wilderness event.
One of the hunters rummaged through his clothes, found a blue-and-white piece of jade, and handed it to Thin Dog.
After clasping their fists again in thanks, the three hunters said goodbye and left.
Wang Qian said, "Let's get back to town quickly. Four Mountains isn't peaceful today. Earlier, I saw Raiders from every camp coming out, like they were looking for someone."
Wang Wan said, "What rotten luck. We got up early today but didn't catch a blood deer. Then, when we weren't paying attention, Xiao Hao got captured by Raiders. Good thing he only suffered a few injuries."
Xiao Hao asked worriedly, "Dad, Uncle, didn't you say that jade was a little strange? Could it bring them trouble?"
"This jade really does have a strange origin. But your father and I have always felt that it hides some sort of secret, so we never sold it to the merchant caravans. Maybe we just weren't fated to uncover it. Those three look powerful. Perhaps they can find out what's special about it. Besides that jade, we don't have anything valuable left on us. We can't exactly give them our hunting rifles, can we? What kind of hunter would a hunter without a rifle be? This rifle of mine will be passed down to you someday."
Xiao Hao did not quite understand, but he still followed the two hunters as they hurried back toward Salt Well Town.
Holding the jade, Thin Dog and the other two all revealed delighted expressions.
"There's a reward! What a pleasant surprise!"
They had not expected to get any reward at all, yet they had ended up receiving something. Although its use was unknown, it looked like a high-grade item. On this resource-starved wasteland, a smooth, delicate piece of jade seemed completely out of place.
"Let me take a look. Based on my totally amateur antique appraisal experience, if this jade were in real life, it could probably go up for auction. Wouldn't it be worth hundreds of thousands?"
Lin Tang played with it solemnly for a moment before reaching his conclusion.
Demon Fox took it from his hand and slipped it into his pocket. "Too bad this is a game. We'll appraise it when we get back to the base. For now, we need to get to work. Six Raider corpses won't be easy to drag back."
The Raiders were tall and muscular, each weighing over 250 pounds.
Even dragging one each was already strenuous. Now they had to bring back six corpses, which would be difficult.
"If only we had a little cart with wheels."
The moment Thin Dog said that, Demon Fox reacted. "The base has one! Let's borrow it from the Lord!"
It had taken them around forty minutes to walk from the base to here. If they jogged the entire way, they could probably get back in thirty minutes at most.
"Lin Tang, your starting speed is slightly faster than ours. Take this backpack first, along with—" Demon Fox took out the jade he had just tucked away and the Black Box containing Radiated Material.
"These two things are our greatest gains from this trip. Make sure to keep them safe."
"Take them back to the base, then push the cart over here. We'll transport all six Raider corpses in one go."
Thin Dog nodded as well. "Yeah. During the hour or so it takes you to go back and forth, Demon Fox and I can hunt around here for a bit."
Lin Tang said, "Okay!"
Lin Tang slung his spear over his back and set off lightly with the important items.
Thin Dog and Demon Fox dragged all the Raider corpses together, found a concealed spot, covered them with leaves, and then went to hunt Mutated Creatures.
Salt Well Town.
Thirty green-skinned Raiders and one Raider Elite faced off against the townspeople fifty meters away.
The two-and-a-half-meter-tall Raider Elite at the front could speak. It had already stated its purpose, and after negotiating with it, Lin Lei, captain of the town guard, understood what they wanted.
Holding a shotgun, he calmly replied, "The Sacred Relic you're looking for isn't here. Leave. Salt Well Town is not a place you can come and go as you please. If you don't retreat, we'll open fire!"
Salt Well Town's guard consisted of fifty people, but only twenty-one had guns. Sixteen were hunting rifles, while the other five were small-caliber pistols. They had a decent supply of ammunition, but against Mutated Creatures like Raiders, with their tough hides and tenacious vitality, their firepower was insufficient to inflict widespread casualties. From fifty meters away, the guns were practically ineffective.
Salt Well Town also had eight hunter households with a total of nine hunting rifles. The Wang brothers had gone out before dawn with two hunting rifles and were not in town at the moment.
Thus, they had twenty-eight guns in total. Combined with the defenses of the stone walls and gate, they could pose a major deterrent to the Raiders.
But these prepared Raiders all carried meteor hammers—large stones tied to sturdy branches. They could swing them from medium range or hurl them with tremendous force for long-range strikes. Anyone hit by one of those hundred-pound boulders would lose the ability to fight on the spot.
They only needed to hold stones over their heads for protection, charge forward fiercely, and start smashing once they got close to pose a serious threat to Salt Well Town.
So if the two sides fought... even if Salt Well Town won, it would have to pay a price.
Of course, if they had twenty-eight rifles, they could turn the Raiders into sieves before they ever got close.
The Raider Elite did not answer. It let out a sharp whistle.
Whoosh, whoosh~
Another twenty Raiders and one elite emerged from the mountains. The Raiders carried thick tree trunks on their shoulders, obviously intended as battering rams.
The moment Captain Lin Lei saw them, cold sweat broke out across his body.
Their wooden gate and stone walls could withstand some small-scale fighting, but they definitely would not hold long against these organized Raiders slamming tree trunks into them.
The Raiders now nearly matched their defenders in number.
But the Raiders' combat power... one of them could easily take on three humans.
Once the gate was breached, the guns would be completely useless.
"Everyone in Salt Well Town, prepare for battle!"
Lin Lei blew the warning horn, and people poured out from every household.
The newly arrived Raider Elite was the leader of the camp that had lost its radiation source. It roared, "Hand over the Sacred Relic!"
With a grim expression, Lin Lei told someone, "Go get the Town Chief, quickly."
The fifty Raiders split into two groups and slowly advanced on Salt Well Town.
The two Raider Elites stood at the very front. They would be Salt Well Town's greatest threat. Once they entered the town, it would become a one-sided slaughter.
In the woods behind them.
Wang Qian and Wang Wan poked their heads out.
"This is bad... Why have the Raiders come to attack us? Have they gone mad? Are they trying to fight us to the death?"
"What do we do? Our Physical Strength and ammunition are both low. If we rush out, we might get chopped up first."
Xiao Hao said thankfully, "Good thing we left early. Otherwise, we'd be trapped in town. Oh, right, Brother Cheng and Brother Wu went scavenging, so they aren't in town either. We're so lucky."
Wang Qian remembered Cheng Shaofeng, who had pushed away a cart full of supplies that day.
"Cheng Shaofeng... seems to have gone somewhere else to live. He took all the supplies and money with him, and Wu Jie left that same day too. I don't know whether he went with Cheng Shaofeng."
"I hope they're safe. They mustn't come back at a time like this."
Before you continue