Alien Relic Hunter

"They are very strong." Valentina nodded, "Leyton showed me a video of their training match. Their opponent was a wealthy club with three ace pilots, but they were suppressed throughout the whole process. When the opponent attacked, the three ace pilots couldn't even organize a decent counterattack. They only lasted less than two minutes, two of the aircraft were severely damaged, and one surrendered."

"How long do you think you can last if you were their opponent?" Ke Lan asked instead.

"If our teammates were you and Layton, we should only be able to hold on for thirty seconds." Valentina said mercilessly, without any thought of saving face for Ke Lan and Layton.

But what she said is correct. Ke Lan's body has too many limitations. Although the long-range firepower is extremely terrifying, if someone gets close to him, he will instantly turn into fish on the chopping board and be slaughtered by others - for those who have been around all year round. For military pilots who are involved in cruel battlefields, how to close the distance while avoiding long-range firepower is simply a required course in combat. You must know that among those indigenous creatures, there are also a large number of "turret-type" subspecies that are specialized in long-range attacks. The mission of the high-speed mecha units in the field corps is often to cut in from the flanks and eliminate these "turrets" with powerful firepower for the frontal troops.

In game terms, this group of people's "cutting the back row" operation is simply perfect.

Ke Lan had no confidence that he could survive in the hands of these people.

As for Layton, let alone that. Although his operating skills are better than Ke Lan's, he basically has no special skills and is a balanced pilot. Balance means that we can only rely on hard power, and Layton's strength... still hasn't touched the threshold of a quasi-ace...

All serious aces are suppressed by these military pilots, let alone "amateur players" like them.

"Then if it's one-on-one, how sure are you?" Ke Lan asked a different question. He knew very well that in three-on-three, without cheating, they would have absolutely no chance against the military team. Odds of winning.

But when it comes to cheating, Ke Lan naturally thinks of the "humanoid self-propelled cheat" Ze Luo... But if he sends Ze Luo to compete, he has to take the risk of being discovered. After all, that guy's ability is too terrifying. This difference in strength cannot be concealed by "acting" at all.

This kind of competition is no different from online games. The video of the competition will be studied over and over again during review. If someone really discovers Ze Luo's anomaly, it will be more of a loss than a gain.

If Ze Luo's identity is exposed for the sake of winning the mecha competition... Ke Lan weighed it in his mind and finally gave up the idea.

"No more than 30%." Valentina said, "They are stronger than me and more ruthless than me."

"It seems that the champion of this competition should be the military representative team who came out halfway." Ke Lan shrugged helplessly, "Forget it, if you don't talk about this, you haven't even eaten, right?"

"No." Qin Zhao shook her head. Knowing that Ke Lan was going to return to the Ark, she and Valentina were waiting at the airport four hours in advance.

"It just so happens that I haven't eaten either. I was already hungry when I was on the transport plane. I walked around looking for food."

"I have compressed dry food with me." Valentina said as she took out two energy bars from her pocket.

"...Well, it's not like we're outside. You can always find a place to eat."

"Oh." Valentina silently put the energy bar back into her pocket.

"Let's solve the food problem nearby. I remember there is a food street outside this airport. Let's go there to eat and I'll treat you." Ke Lan said.

In the old days, the biggest feature of restaurants near the airport was that the food was expensive and the portions were small. You might have to spend three to four times the normal price to buy food that was half the normal portion or even less, and the taste was average... not only Food, even fast food such as Coke and instant noodles, which are priced the same across the country, will double in price at airports and stations. If you want to eat in such places, you must be prepared to be severely ripped off.

After all, the rents of shops near the airport are very high, and the customers they receive are all transient travelers. There are no repeat customers, so the shopkeepers rip off people without any worries - but this phenomenon has completely disappeared on the Ark. Inverted.

On the Ark, all the hotels close to the airport are basically synonymous with "high quality, low price and high cost performance", not to mention those restaurants and hotels in prosperous areas of high-end neighborhoods, even those open in ordinary residential areas. , the prices may not be as affordable as those near the airport.

For people in the old era, airplanes were an expensive and high-end way to travel. Not everyone could afford a ticket costing several thousand yuan.

In this era, truly wealthy people rarely go into the wilderness. Even if they want to go sightseeing occasionally, they usually use private flying vehicles.

As for the main service targets of the civil aviation industry, the only remaining ones are relic hunters and mercenaries, as well as miners and scavengers who don't have much money in their pockets.

There is absolutely no profit to be squeezed out of these people, and there are still many bad-tempered thorns in the hunters and mercenaries - these guys who lick blood from their knives might just take out their guns and shoot them if they disagree. It's on the table. In this way, any hotel near the airport would dare to rip off customers...

Ke Lan and the two girls walked slowly into this food street that was filled with the smell of oil smoke. It was his first time to come to this airport, but the similar street scene still gave Ke Lan a familiar feeling.

Before he got to know Hound and the others, every time after exploring the ruins, he would go to such a small restaurant to have a good meal - for Ke Lan at that time, a bowl of genuine braised pork , it can definitely be regarded as a top-level enjoyment.

Although these restaurants are cheap, they always stock some high-end products such as real meat and home-grown vegetables. These ingredients are specially prepared for ruin hunters and mercenaries.

A fruitful journey needs a feast to celebrate; a near-death adventure needs wine and meat to suppress the shock; even if they lose their brothers and sisters, many people will go to these places to remember them.

Compared to workers who only order the cheapest food, the restaurants near the airport obviously welcome such diners more.

The first shop at the street corner is a barbecue restaurant. Two rows of four- to five-meter-long open-air grills are strutting across the door. The guys with big muscles and round waists are holding dozens or hundreds of skewers in one hand and putting them on the grills. He rolled it a few times and threw it into the stainless steel basin aside - most of these skewers are artificial meat synthesized with soy protein, not real meat. This kind of synthetic meat is cooked itself, as long as the coating oil is sprinkled with a little seasoning Just heat it up. If you turn it over and grill it like real meat, what you end up with on the table will probably be black and hard charcoal.

"What do you want to eat?" Ke Lan asked.

He just glanced at that barbecue restaurant and skipped it - the only piece of "real meat" for sale in the whole store was hung under the sign with an iron hook, which was half a fan of pork, but those parts were better. All the meat has been cut off, leaving some poor spots, and the meat doesn't look very fresh.

"I don't know." Valentina said. In her opinion, the only purpose of food is to fill her stomach. If Ke Lan hadn't dragged them to the restaurant, she would have been chewing the food in her pocket. The energy is great.

"You decide, I can do it." Qin Zhao said. Although she can be considered a senior foodie, after all, this trip is a treat for her boss, and she feels that she should not make decisions for her boss.

"Uh, how about this one?" Ke Lan pointed to a store ten steps away.

The facade of this store is only about half of that of the first barbecue restaurant. A shaky plastic low door creaks with the breeze, and a sign stained with oil hangs above the low door.

"Old Hunter Restaurant."

Judging from the name, it's either a restaurant run by a retired relic hunter, or a hotel that specifically provides services to relic hunters.

There were several very aged plastic tables and chairs at the entrance of the hotel. The yellowed plastic material even made Ke Lan wonder if it would break if he sat down.

Next to the low door is a half-meter-square window. Inside the window is the stove. The thick exhaust pipe pokes directly out of the round hole above the window, and solid oil dirt falls from the head of the pipe. It fell down, glowing with dark brown light.

A middle-aged man with a strong build but not too exaggerated muscles stood in front of the stove, holding a huge iron pot in one hand, and holding a huge spatula in the other hand to stir-fry—— This kind of cooking utensil is basically only found in military cooking classes. Even ordinary chefs cannot lift this kind of cast iron cauldron with a net weight of 20 kilograms even with two hands.

Seeing Ke Lan approaching with the two girls, the chef glanced at them and said, "There is no room inside. If you don't mind, you can sit at the door of the store."

"Okay." Ke Lan nodded. He originally planned to sit outside instead of running into a cramped room and crowding with a group of men smelling of sweat.

It would be fine if he was alone. The key is that there are two good-looking girls around him. If he encounters a drunkard or a scumbag... he is not afraid of a fight, but he can't destroy other people's shops. Come on.

Ke Lan found the cleanest table and sat down, turned around and asked, "Boss, do you have a menu?"

"No." The chef shook his head, picked up a handful of seasonings very neatly, and threw them into the pot.

"Um...are there any special dishes?"

"I only sell fried rice here. You can decide what you want to fry. You can put whatever is on the table." The chef said, taking a half step back and exposing the vegetable sink on the right.

There were not many things on the table, but there were both meat and vegetables - dozens of eggs stacked on cardboard shelves, half-cut hams as thick as a bowl, various fresh-looking vegetables and fungi, and a piece of meat from the ceiling. The old bacon hanging from the wall has been dried to a black color.

"Then let's have three bowls of egg fried rice, add some shiitake mushrooms and enoki mushrooms, as well as onions, lettuce and potato slices." Ke Lan said. If the hound were here, they would definitely make some complaints - "You have a net worth of hundreds of millions." Now that you’re here, why don’t you just eat egg fried rice from a roadside stall when you’re having a treat?”

"Want chili?" the chef asked again.

"I want it, what about you?"

"Yes." "Yes." The two women said in unison.

"Oh, by the way, that piece of bacon..." Ke Lan pointed to the old piece of bacon hanging on the rope.

"It's authentic black pork, the treasure of my store here. If you want to add it, it won't be cheap." The chef glanced at Ke Lan's clothes from the corner of his eye and said.

Ke Lan was wearing a daily training uniform from the field army, but because of his special status, he had removed his epaulettes and badges - this type of military uniform is very popular on the black market and is comfortable and durable. It is extremely cost-effective and is sought after by many hunters and mercenaries... Although the one worn by Ke Lan is almost brand new, the price will not exceed one thousand credits. His look is just like that of a mid-level hunter or Almost like mercenaries.

Qin Zhao and Valentina are dressed like ordinary civilians, and the total number of their outfits does not exceed 500 credit points.

"How much does this piece of bacon cost?" Ke Lan asked curiously.

"Based on grams, one gram is thirty-five."

"Damn it." Ke Lan sighed inwardly, and almost asked, "Is your fat fat made of gold, or your lean meat made of gold?" - Selling by the gram, could it be that this boss is selling this? A piece of meat as top-notch sashimi in a high-end hotel?

However, this price really aroused Ke Lan's curiosity. He wanted to know what was so great about this bacon that sold for 35.1 grams.

With the idea of ​​paying an IQ tax at the worst, Ke Lan nodded and said, "Then cut it in half."

"Half, that's more than half a catty." The chef raised his head and looked at Ke Lan again suspiciously.

How much money can such a young mercenary have in his pocket? You shouldn't spend nearly 10,000 credits on a meal just to pick up these two girls, right?

"Yes, it's half." Ke Lan said, "If it's less, you won't be able to taste it, right?"

"Okay, but you have to pay first." The boss pointed to the payment code posted by the window, almost covered with oil.

"How much is the total?"

"There aren't many customers like you who buy half a catty at a time. I'll give you a discount. Add it all up, it's seven thousand."

"Okay." Ke Lan took out his mobile phone and planned to pay, but at this moment, a somewhat discordant voice suddenly came from the store.

"Hey, boss, what kind of fairy meat is this? Half a piece is selling for 7,000?"

"By the way, I just asked you the price of this bacon. Didn't you say it's not for sale? Are you afraid that your brothers will destroy your store? Haha, look at that Kaizi outside, looking stupid. It’s easy to kill just by looking at it.”

"I don't sell it to you because I know you can't afford it." The chef and owner glanced at the group of diners and said coldly.

"What do you mean? Are you looking down on people?" A grumpy mercenary stood up immediately. He was more than two meters tall, and his head almost touched the low ceiling of the store.

Behind him, several other people dressed as mercenaries also had malicious looks on their faces.

[P.S. Thank you for the 500 starting coins for the reward. (Brother, your ID is so hard to type. I held it in for five minutes but couldn’t type it out. In the end, I had to copy and paste it in the background.) ...]