Alien Relic Hunter

"Okay, stop talking about those irrelevant things and hurry up. We have to reach the transfer station before dark, otherwise we will all freeze to death."

…

Two hours later.

Ke Lan and the four of them finally arrived at the place marked as "Transfer Station No. S0159" on the map, but what appeared in front of them was a ruins that had long been deserted.

"It looks like it was hit hard by shells." Layton analyzed, "I don't know if there is anything left."

The hound who was the first to rush in had already come around from the other side of the ruins and said: "It's empty. All the underground warehouses have been emptied. It was done by the exiles, and they are the only ones who can loot the transfer station. "

The hound's nose twitched slightly and continued: "There is a faint smell of gunpowder in the air, um... and the smell of blood. It should have happened in the past two days."

"But there is no body, not even the stumps." Ivan emerged from a relatively intact room and shook his head.

"Humans are also a type of resource. Living people can be captured and used as slaves, and dead people can be used as food or fertilizer. Even the mud rubbed off their bodies, those bastards can refine two ounces of oil for you." He said expressionlessly that among the four people present, he knew the exiles best, but the more he knew, the more he hated these people... In order to survive, those guys have completely abandoned the most basic moral concepts of human beings. , cannibalism is simply a normal thing in their eyes.

"There are ruts here." Ke Lan, who was squatting on the ground, suddenly said, "The marks are not shallow, the load must be very heavy, and it went in that direction."

He pointed in the direction of due south.

On the map of Ark, there is an uninhabited land there. There are neither Alpha ruins worth exploring nor resources such as mineral deposits around it. Therefore, there is no transfer station... From this point of view, there is a high probability that there will be A settlement of exiles exists.

"Should we go there? The exiles should regard us as enemies, right?" Layton was hesitant. He was in a very bad state now, and his confidence in speaking was naturally a little weaker.

"I have a way." Hound chuckled, "Fortunately we haven't had time to take a shower on the ship."

As he spoke, he gathered all the Gauss rifles, individual howitzers and other weapons in the hands of the four people, dug a hole and buried them in it, leaving only the two most basic Type 01 rifles, which he then dismantled. The optical sight and various tactical accessories on the Type 01 rifle were all scratched with a stone. Finally, a few tattered rags were torn off from the clothes and randomly wrapped around the barrel and machine. On top of the box.

In addition to weapons, the clothes and equipment on their bodies were also treated similarly, and their faces were stained with sand and water - now they were basically no different from the exiles who had been crawling around in the wilderness all year round.

They walked along the ruts for almost fifty kilometers, and then they found the exile settlement just before sunset.

This settlement located on the leeward slope of the valley is quite large. Hundreds of shacks made of wooden boards, plastic sheets and scrap metal are crowded together. Considering that each shack can accommodate five to ten people, this settlement is at least There must be more than two thousand people.

On the side close to the hillside is a simple farmland. There is a half-man-high fence surrounding the farmland. An exile in charge of overseeing the work can be vaguely seen squatting on a stone with a wooden stick, staring at a dozen people in the field. Hard work with a stooped body.

There is an exit at the front and rear of the settlement, and a sentry tower about seven or eight meters high is built at the exit. However, there are no searchlights installed on the sentry tower - it may be possible to monitor the situation of the entire settlement during the day. At night, the light from the torch would only be able to illuminate a distance of twenty or thirty meters at most.

The settlement's security was very lax. The sentry who was supposed to be standing guard on the sentry tower slipped away without knowing where. The few exiles guarding the exit were gathered in the corner, warming themselves by the fire and playing cards.

"Can you sneak in?" Ke Lan turned his head and asked the hound.

"It should be possible. Generally speaking, a settlement of this size will exchange information with exiles from other places. If there are too many people coming and going, it is impossible for the sentries to write down everyone's appearance." Hound touched himself. Hu Shi said, "It's just that such settlements usually have a core figure, just like the local emperors in the old era. This kind of person is a symbol of absolute power in this settlement. We'd better be careful."

The sky has gradually darkened, and the temperature has dropped below zero, and is still falling. If the person in the wilderness cannot find a place to spend the night at this time, his fate will be to become a lifelike ice sculpture.

"Let's go, move more naturally, don't be so stiff." The hound blew his nose and took the lead in walking towards the settlement.

When they were still fifty meters away from the settlement, the guards who were playing cards had already discovered them, but no one was willing to leave the warm fire and come over to question them - they didn't even look at this group of outsiders. He glanced at it, but focused more on the homemade cards in his hand.

"They actually ignored us..." Ivan whispered, with a hint of surprise and luck in his tone.

"That's because we carry guns... The main task of the guards is actually to prevent the captured slaves from escaping, and we are not slaves." The hound curled his lips and walked into the settlement swaggering.

Ke Lan noticed that almost every shack was filled with poorly clothed exiles. These people were all slaves. They were so skinny that they were almost skinny and bones, and the skin on their bodies had large traces of ulcers—all of them were Radiation sickness patients have to be exposed to radiation at work most of the day without any protective measures. It is impossible to avoid getting sick.

Even the sentries and overseers were equipped with rudimentary protective equipment, let alone these slaves who could not even afford food and clothing.

They stared at the four Ke Lan who entered the settlement with extremely dull eyes. The self-personality of these slaves had long been obliterated by the heavy work, and only the instinct of survival was still driving the zombie-like bodies. Except for food, they have no interest in anything else. In the words of hounds, these slaves are no longer human beings, they are just a group of livestock in captivity.

This should be a settlement with slave trading as its main source of income. More than 80% of the people living here are slaves who are treated as "commodities", and normal exiles only account for a very small part.

"This settlement should have a strong armed force. They will regularly loot Ark's transit station or other weaker settlements, and then train the captives into slaves and sell them to others with trading contacts. settlement in exchange for living supplies and weapons." Hound said.

"Look, there's a shop over there." The person who spoke was Ivan. He was pointing at a shack that didn't look that bad. Ke Lan turned around and saw a wooden board hanging outside the shack with a Charcoal writes things that can be traded.

The hard currency used to purchase goods is not credits or precious metals such as gold and silver, but gray potatoes, a native crop of Alpha Planet. They are similar to potatoes and store starch in fat tubers. They are the most important staple food for the exiles - but compared with potatoes, they taste worse, carry radiation, and contain trace amounts of neurotoxins. The consequences of long-term consumption are radiation sickness and hemiplegia.

One pound of meat of "unknown origin" can be exchanged for five to ten pounds of gray potatoes, depending on the quality of the meat and the radiation content; the 8.8-caliber full-power rifle bullet used in the Type 01 rifle produced by Ark is worth one pound. One hundred and fifty kilograms of gray potatoes; as for a male adult slave who was "strong enough to do heavy work", he only had sixty-five kilograms of gray potatoes, which was not as valuable as a bullet.

The most expensive drug on the price list is a drug called "Xiaofu Ning", which can reduce the radiation content in the human body, inhibit the development of radiation sickness, and extend the life of patients with radiation sickness... The asking price for one pill is as high as Seven hundred pounds of gray potatoes, and only three can be sold a week.

But it is not difficult to understand. Whether it is bullets or other items, as long as they have simple tools, handicraft workshops in settlements can imitate them. Although the workmanship is so rough that it is almost impossible to see, it is at least barely usable. But the drug can only be produced on the Ark. The main way for the exiles to obtain the drug is to attack the transfer stations set up by the Ark across the Alpha Planet - but this behavior is extremely dangerous. If Ark is discovered, it will most likely lead to disaster.

"Do you need anything?" Seeing the four people staying at the door, the shop owner quickly got out of the shack. This was a fat man with a fat body - being able to have a fat body under such conditions shows that this guy's life is good. Must be doing well.

"We are selecting slaves, and they will come to you after choosing them - don't follow us, we don't like to be stared at, and we don't need others to make suggestions." The hound said in an extremely arrogant tone, and demonstrated He touched the Type 01 rifle hung at his side like a gesture.

"Okay, okay, no problem," the fat man nodded knowingly, "Counting from here, from the first shack to the corner over there, they are all my slaves. You can choose whatever you want. Beyond that, there is the one named Li. The territory has been lost, and all his slaves are infected with the disease and will not live long, so every one he buys will suffer a loss."

"I can see for myself." The hound said coldly, then ignored the slave trader and continued to walk forward.

At this moment, Layton suddenly pulled him and pointed the direction of nine o'clock with his eyes.

It was a shack that was bigger than a "shop", almost four or five meters high. From a distance, it gave people the feeling of standing out from the crowd. The outside of the shack was covered tightly with black canvas, making it airtight. Even the door curtain was a thick black blanket with some strange patterns painted on it with white lime.

"What's wrong? Do you suspect that the person living inside is the leader of this settlement?" Hound asked.

However, Layton shook his head: "That's not the key. Look at the glass tube inserted in the door frame, the one that shines... That thing is not a light, it is a crystal tube with a complex structure. Only the Alpha civilization can make it." ...is one of the core components of 'Death Ray'."

"The core component of the death ray? Are you sure? But...the people who ambush are not exiles..."

"I'm sure, but there must be tens of thousands of such transistors in a 'Death Ray'. They might have picked them up somewhere..." Leighton said cautiously.

"Go over and have a look." The hound decided.

"Didn't you say you shouldn't get into trouble?"

"You've already been faced with trouble, how can you hide from it? It's a blessing, not a curse. It's a curse that you can't avoid. Have you heard this saying?"

After saying that, he walked towards the shack, but before he got within ten meters, two men in black cloaks came out of the corner next to them and blocked the hound's path.

"...'Praise the brilliance of the true God, praise the greatness of the true God.'" The two people looked at the four of them up and down, and one of them suddenly said such a meaningless sentence.

The hound's heart tightened: "Damn it, why is there still such a thing? Is this sentence some kind of incision?"

He calmly held the short knife hidden in his sleeve, and at the same time tapped the heel of his right foot lightly on the ground - this was the code previously agreed upon by the hound and the other three: "Ready to fight."

Praise the glory of the true God... Just when the situation was at a stalemate, Ke Lan felt vaguely that these words were familiar...

It's that inscription! There is this sentence on the inscription. Although it is difficult to accurately translate into human language, the general idea is almost like this!

"Praise the glory of the true God, sing the greatness of the true God!"

This is the prayer of Alpha Civilization!

Then the next sentence should be...sacrifice yourself? Or are you dedicating yourself? Ke Lan searched through his memory as much as possible... The next sentence on the inscription, if it were said in similar human rhetoric...

"'I am willing to dedicate everything I have to the victory of the true God.'"

Ke Lan blurted out subconsciously, and even the hounds and the others were stunned for a moment. After hearing this, the two men in black were shocked and backed away!

Oops...is this revealing? Doesn't this have anything to do with that stone tablet?

Ke Lan's hand hidden behind his back has already opened the safety of the rifle. As soon as the hound pulls out the short knife, he will immediately raise the muzzle of the gun and shoot at the two men in black.

As for what to do next, we can only escape from this settlement alive first.

But what Ke Lan and the others didn't expect was that the next second, the two men in black knelt down together, pressed their bodies close to the ground, and said in a trembling voice: "I didn't expect that the person who came was actually the Prophet! We didn't I can welcome you from afar, but I only ask for forgiveness from the Prophet!"

Lord Prophet?

Ke Lan looked confused, what was that?