Alien Relic Hunter

"I forgot to introduce myself. I am the leader of the Hunting God Hunting Group, Ke Lan." Ke Lan stretched out his hand towards the other party, "This is the chief pilot of the hunting group, Valentina; this is Qin Zhao, a trainee hunter who just joined the job recently."

"Ke Lan? You...are you the person in charge of the development of this new S-class ruins?" Thirty-three finally showed a look of astonishment on his face. He first wiped off the oil and blood stains on his hands with his apron. Only then did he hold Ke Lan's hand.

"right."

"When we first met, you were much younger than I thought." Thirty-three said, "As an old Chinese saying goes, heroes are born out of youth!"

Like Ke Lan, he is an Asian with black hair, black eyes, and yellow skin, and he is also of Chinese descent with the highest proportion of Asians.

"Hehe, thank you."

"Although I have seen the news about you, there is still a big gap between the real person and the video." Thirty-three said seriously.

The video he mentioned naturally refers to the "black material" secretly filmed by the Morgan consortium.

"The clarity of the video... the AV quality is not an exaggeration, haha." Ke Lan said.

Official channels have never released his personal information. All leaked information came from the Morgan consortium in the form of "rumors." Although most people on the Ark have seen the video, among them There are really very few shots of Ke Lan's face, and even if there are, they usually pass by in a flash. Coupled with the blurry image quality after video compression, if you are not an acquaintance, you will not be able to recognize him at all.

"Shouldn't you be in Fleet Zero? Why are you back?" Thirty-three suddenly asked - as a ruin hunter, he is still paying close attention to news related to Yagunaktor, especially this " The new S-class ruins suddenly appeared next to the Ark.

"I came back to do some errands and happened to pass by here. I was too busy on the road and didn't have time to eat, so I thought I could do it nearby." At this point, Ke Lan suddenly laughed, "By the way, where is our fried rice?"

"Do it now." Thirty-three said, taking the piece of bacon off the hook, pulling out a sharp kitchen knife, and smoothly cutting off a strip of meat with a nearly square cross-section.

"By the way, is this meat really that expensive?" Ke Lan asked curiously, sitting on a chair.

"Yes." Thirty-three nodded, "If you know Zhuo Ligetu, you also know that I am not a completely alone relic hunter. I have a fixed small team, which is composed of brothers who survived together. They One of them opened a breeding farm, specializing in raising high-end livestock that are supplied to dignitaries. At his place, a pig can be sold for more than 400,000 credits."

"How much is the profit? If the profit is high, why don't I raise pigs too!" Ke Lan said half-jokingly.

"The space, equipment and feed are not cheap, and the profit from a pig is only about 5%."

"That pig can earn more than 20,000 yuan. Isn't this much more comfortable than exchanging lives for money outside... By the way, your piece of bacon comes from his farm."

Thirty-three nodded: "According to my method, it takes almost two kilograms of fresh meat to make one kilogram of bacon, and it has to be the best plum meat from the pig, plus various seasonings and processes... this The price is not expensive.”

"This uncle is right... Although it is really expensive, if we go to the slaughterhouse to buy it ourselves, the same amount of black pig plum meat will cost about the same price." Qin Zhao, a senior foodie, whispered. Said to Ke Lan.

"You have eaten?"

"No..." Qin Zhao suddenly shook his head like a rattle, "I have never eaten black pork, but I have seen black pigs running... I used to like to watch all kinds of food videos when I couldn't sleep at night. , then open a pack of spicy chips or potato chips and imagine them as the delicacies in the video..."

Plum pork is actually the meat from the shoulder blade of the pig. There is only one piece of plum meat on a pig, and the total weight is only five or six pounds. This is a very tender piece of lean meat, but the inside of the meat has grid-like vertical and horizontal lines. With staggered fat textures, the top-quality plum pork looks the same as expensive snowflake beef. The marble-like white lines are simply like a work of art.

If a black pig raised according to the "traditional method" can be sold for 400,000 credits, then the small piece of plum meat above its neck is estimated to account for one-tenth or even more of the value of the entire pig.

After all, in the eyes of those rich, if you want to eat, you have to eat the best.

The price given by Thirty-Three is indeed not expensive, and can even be said to be quite affordable.

"But I can treat you to this meal." Thirty-three said, raising the knife in his hand, the dark brown bacon was cut into countless square dices of the same size in the blink of an eye, and poured into a white porcelain bowl. "But I also have a request——"

"Do you want to participate in the exploration of 'Yagunaktor'?"

"right."

"I originally planned to invite you, but I didn't expect to have a big meal in vain." Ke Lan lightly tapped the table in front of him with his nails, "What about your old comrades? Do they want to come together? ?”

"I will contact them later. If anyone is interested, I will bring them along. If they don't want to come, I won't force them." Thirty-three replied, "Our team formation is entirely voluntary. There is no Forcibly say it.”

He rubbed a thick piece of fat meat around the large iron pot so that the inside of the pot was covered with a crystal clear oil film. Then he poured the rice that had been cooled and hardened into the pot and quickly turned it over. Stir-fried.

"You have to use cold rice for fried rice. If you use hot rice that has just come out of the pot for frying, it will be difficult to separate the rice grains. Instead, the rice grains will stick together, and the taste will be worse." He seemed like When he was talking to Ke Lan, he seemed to be talking to himself.

"I've heard of this trick, but I've rarely cooked much myself, let alone fried rice." Ke Lan said, "Although I have invited you to participate in this exploration operation, there is still one thing I want to do. I want to ask you."

"What's the matter?" Thirty-three did not raise his head, but focused all his attention on the ingredients in the pot. Onions, ginger, garlic, MSG, soy sauce and other seasonings were added one by one, and an alluring fragrance gradually Floated out of the small window.

"Why do you want to be hunters?" Ke Lan stared at Thirty-Three's profile and said word for word, "You spent the first half of your life in the wilderness, and you have been fighting with those ferocious indigenous creatures and Fighting with various biochemical weapons left by the Alphas... The initial establishment of the Velociraptor Team should have been eighty-five people, right? But in the end, including you, only eleven people survived to retire."

Thirty-three's eyes twitched imperceptibly. He did not answer the question immediately, but continued to concentrate on stir-frying the ingredients in the pot.

"You can spend the rest of your life peacefully on the Ark... I have investigated your backgrounds and found that you are completely different from the two people I know. The entire Velociraptor team has been recognized as a combat hero, and no one is You were judged to be 'missing', and the pensions issued by the military were not withheld or delayed at all... Even if you don't work, you can live a very comfortable life with this honor and this money."

Ke Lan continued: "But why do you want to become ruin hunters? I'm very curious... Logically speaking, after fighting for most of your life, it's time to take a rest, but you actually ran into the wilderness again... Could it be, really Is it because you are too busy?"

"Aren't I just resting like this?" Thirty-three was not angry because of this question, but laughed.

He lifted up the heavy pot. Compared with the huge volume of the iron pot, the fried rice at the bottom of the pot looked only a small ball - of course, this was just a visual illusion. When the fried rice came out of the pot, When it was shoveled out, it was still full of three large iron basins.

Most of the people who come to eat here are rough people who work hard, and their appetites are not small. The tableware is naturally much larger than that of restaurants in residential areas and commercial areas. Ke Lan conservatively estimates that if this pot of fried rice is used in a hotel, If you put it in an exquisite bone china rice bowl, it can hold at least five or six bowls.

It's said to be tableware, but it's actually three small wash basins used for washing...

Fortunately, the two girls I took with me this time, one is from the military and the other is a foodie, so there will be no waste of food.

"Here, you ordered fried rice." Thirty-three handed three iron basins out of the window, "To tell you the truth, I am a soldier. Apart from fried rice, I only know how to fight and have no other talents."

"Is it true that the fate of a soldier is to die in battle? There are many soldiers in history who returned home with honors." Ke Lan said, "Besides, cooking fried rice well is also a skill. There are so many people who have no talents. You are not living and working on the Ark. There is absolutely no need for you to engage in such dangerous work."

Ke Lan was still testing. Although Thirty-Three's first impression was that he was not the kind of person who is easily stimulated and loses his mind, but some things should be asked clearly... Wait until he finds the problem in the ruins, then It's too late.

"Do you really want to know?" Thirty-three turned off the fire, turned around, and faced Ke Lan.

"think."

"Okay, you're right. After fighting those things for half a lifetime, we do feel tired and tired." Thirty-three said slowly, "But we are also curious...what is this thing?" What kind of planet is this, what kind of problem is Alpha Civilization, and what kind of enemies are we facing..."

"..."

"We want to know the answers to these things, but the Ark can't give us the answers, so we can only find them ourselves." Thirty-three paused and said, "So we became relic hunters."

"Because of curiosity?"

"Yes, in addition to curiosity... there is also some reluctance." Thirty-three sighed, "Since you have investigated our background, you should also know that we were almost wiped out in the last mission."

"Ok, I know."

"The mission record has been modified. What we are facing is not a group of mutated indigenous creatures at all... Although the Velociraptor team is not the strongest force on the Ark, it is not forced into such a predicament by a group of beasts." When saying this, Thirty-Three's momentum changed for a moment, but quickly returned to its original state, "Our enemies are a group of monsters created by the Alpha civilization."

"Seed of erosion?"

"No, it's not those things." Thirty-three shook his head, "Because of the confidentiality regulations, I can't tell you more details. But since then, I have become extremely curious about this dead civilization. ...It's not hatred, nor resentment...I just want to know how the civilization that created such a powerful monster came to perish."

"So that's it."

"I know curiosity kills the cat. But I don't feel like I can do that by letting me lie down in the ark until I can walk."

"It's understandable," Ke Lan nodded with deep understanding, "A large part of the reason why I chose the profession of ruin hunter was also out of curiosity... Ha, of course, the main reason is that the income is higher than being a wage earner."

"Then with your current net worth and income, why do you continue to stay on the front line?" Thirty-three suddenly turned from defense to offense and asked Ke Lan, "You have much more resources and choices than us... … You can be a 'general' instead of a pawn."

"Ha... I have no choice but to do it. In fact, I don't have many choices." Ke Lan gave an expression that could barely be called a bitter smile, "Forget it, let's not talk about it for now. You can clean up the store. Come on, after dinner, I will take you to the hunting group headquarters to register for the corresponding procedures... It will take you an entire afternoon just to fill in the pile of documents and forms, and this is something you have no choice about."

…

…

Research institute, headquarters, a biochemical laboratory.

A young researcher wearing full protective clothing is carefully using a syringe to draw out the contents of a sealed test tube. On the experimental table in front of him is an experimental glove box with a petri dish inside. There was a piece of irregular flesh that was squirming slightly.

Behind him stood a senior researcher who was also wearing a full protective suit. A little further away, there were two "security personnel" holding shields and holding automatic firearms in their hands.

"Professor, professor... do you really want to do this? This... this is against the regulations!" After completing the previous step, the young researcher turned back and said to the person standing behind him with some embarrassment. .

"We have tried every attempt that does not violate the regulations without making any progress." The person known as "Professor" said, "Science must have a spirit of adventure, otherwise, mankind and the times will stagnate."

"But……"

"Don't waste time. The survival time of this specimen is at most four minutes. Don't waste it!" the professor said sternly with an emphasis on his tone.

"Yes...yes..." The young researcher put the syringe into the experimental glove box and clamped it with a robotic arm.

"For the first time, the experiment of implanting the active cells of the Seed of Erosion into the 'special sample clone culture' has begun..."

The robotic arm moved slowly, aiming the needle of the syringe at the squirming irregular mass of flesh.

The young researcher held his breath, found the correct position, inserted the needle into the meat at an even speed, and then started to push the syringe's plunger.

The professor standing behind him opened his eyes involuntarily and grasped the back of the chair tightly with both hands.

[P.S. Thanks to book friend 160628222829339 for the 100 starting coins. 】