Right at this moment, a comparatively slimmer mutant came running towards him. This person’s entire body was covered with grayish-white feathers. He had a sharp mouth and bird-like feet, with wings that grew out of his back and suggested he was perhaps capable of flight. This second person let out a soft growl: “Number two, things are gonna work out better this time, right? This demon hunter is pretty tough. Number four died by her hands.”
“Don’t worry, number three. I’ve already looked carefully into this matter. She came to the wastelands by herself so there is no chance that any other demon hunter will appear here. Do you really think this woman is strong enough to fight against our master, all by herself?” The horned man’s eyes flickered with murderous hatred. “This woman killed a number of our friends. Let’s make her death a slow one.”
The winged mutant let out an owl-like hoot of laughter.
She had dared to journey deep into the wastelands by herself? She dared to try and hunt down their master by herself? What a foolish woman!
……
The endless sands of the wastelands danced in the air, rising upwards into the sky and towards the setting sun as a wild wind blew through the wastelands. It was dusk now. The wastelands were at sea level and the blazing red sun was slowly sinking down past the horizon. A squad of vehicles suddenly emerged from the horizon in front of the sun, looking almost like a mirage generated by the foul, twisted air.
The land in front of the convoy already looked quite different from the lands it had left. All sorts of completely random buildings and ruins were intermingled together in layered rings, and all sorts of ancient refuse and garbage could be seen everywhere. A number of enormous, ancient metal buildings looked as though they were planted in the sea of sand. They looked almost like giant shipwrecked ships that had sunken halfway into the sea.
Slyfox was in the leading, fastest vehicle. He turned his head and hollered backwards, “Everyone, slow down a bit. We’ve entered the mission area. The geography here is pretty weird and there’re a lot of ruins here. Be careful, all of you!”
“Got it!” the mercenaries all simultaneously barked out energetically.
Woola noticed that Cloudhawk had actually started to doze off a bit. He opened his massive maw and gave Cloudhawk a hard bite on the thigh. Cloudhawk reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and he very nearly fell off the ugly iron lizard.
“Woola, what the hell!” But Woola only barked right into his face.
Mad Dog was using a tattered piece of cloth to polish his snow-bright machetes, a crude cigarette hanging from his lips. He mumbled indistinctly, “Ruins like this are the perfect place for mutabeasts to hide… and there might be sweeper units hiding here as well. Starting now, you need to keep your eyes peeled.”
Cooke offered Cloudhawk a lit cigarette. “Want a smoke?”
Cloudhawk shook his head. “I don’t smoke.”
Cooke smirked. “You don’t smoke? You flippin’ pansy.”
Cloudhawk was too proud to take an insult like that lying down. He angrily grabbed the cigarette and took a very deep puff. The crude ingredients Blackflag Outpost used to produce cigarettes instantly assaulted his lungs, making him feel as if a ball of fire had just flown into his throat and was burning him from the inside. Cloudhawk coughed so loudly that he nearly passed out for lack of air.
“HAH!”
“Rookie’s completely useless.”
“Drink some water and calm down.” One of the kinder mercenaries tossed Cloudhawk a canteen of water, who lifted it to his mouth and gulped it down without even thinking. Alas, it seemed as if the canteen were filled with acid, not water. Cloudhawk’s face instantly turned beet-red and he immediately spewed all of the liquid out.
Motherfucker. This was moonshine!
The mercenaries slapped their legs as they roared with laughter. Ever since this kid joined their ranks, he had provided them with endless amusement. During this past month, they teased him rather mercilessly whenever they had nothing better to do.
Right at this moment, a voice rang out from the leading vehicle. It was one of the mercenaries calling out: “Careful, careful! There’s something up ahead!”
The mercenaries instantly went on full alert and Cloudhawk hurriedly pulled out his staff. A group of animals had suddenly appeared to the front and left of their convoy. There were roughly twenty of the creatures, each roughly the size of a wolf-dog. They had red eyes, fur that looked as tough as steel, and they were running at incredible speed towards the convoy.
“Dire rats!” The words came unbidden from Cloudhawk’s lips. These creatures were, without question, the dire rats that described in the mission description. These things really were astonishingly large. Although they still looked like rats, they were nearly as large as ordinary rotwolves. Cloudhawk had never seen such enormous rats before.
So they finally found their targets! Two of the mercenaries drew their short bows and let fly two arrows. Two of the dire rats let out miserable screeches as they collapsed to the floor. When the other dire rats saw this, they seemed to understand the danger they were in and all of them turned to flee in another direction.
“Hah!”
“You aren’t running anywhere!”
Two of the vehicles accelerated after them. One of the enormous mutant rats was struck head-on and crushed beneath an enormous tire, its innards bursting out of its body. The mercenaries continued to accelerate, managing to crush a few more of the dire rats. The feeling of flesh being crushed beneath their vehicles was absolutely intoxicating for them.
“Chase’m down!”
“Crush’m all!”
Two of the iron hedgehogs were already far ahead of the rest of the convoy, and they managed to crush and kill seven or eight of the dire rats. No matter how fierce and savage the dire rats were, they were still made of flesh and blood; how could they possibly resist being crushed by these metal monsters? Maybe this mission wouldn’t be as tough as they’d thought!
But just as Cloudhawk was thinking this, he suddenly heard a startled cry from up ahead.
“Watch out!” One of the iron hedgehogs suddenly lost its balance, kicking up an enormous storm of sand as it flew into the air, flipped over, and then came crashing to the ground. Fortunately, the mercenaries seated atop the iron hedgehog were all very nimble. As soon as the vehicle lost its balance, they immediately fled and so avoided being crushed underneath.
What the hell had happened? Why had a perfectly fine vehicle suddenly flipped over?
The other four vehicles came to a halt. Cloudhawk pulled out a cloth and used it to cover his face, protecting it from the blowing sands. Black tri-bladed staff in hand, he disembarked and followed the other mercenaries over to find out what was going on.
“Slyfox, Mad Dog, look here. This…”
Cloudhawk squeezed in to take a closer look. The overturned iron hedgehog was planted firmly into the ground, its two front tires apparently smeared with some sort of incredibly corrosive green liquid. The tires had been almost completely melted and even the metal parts had suffered severe damage. This vehicle was more or less completely wrecked.
“Acid! One of those mutant rats probably had acid blood inside it. The mission report didn’t say anything about acid rats!” Slyfox began to frown as he scanned the surroundings. “Screw it. The geography here is very complicated and we won’t be able to drive this car any further. Let’s find a safe place to spend the night. We’ll finish mapping this place out tomorrow.”
The mercenaries couldn’t help but all mutter at the bad luck of it all. As for Cloudhawk, he was simply amazed. These mutant rats were incredible; their blood was apparently so acidic that it could corrode even metal. If any of it fell on him, his flesh and bones would probably all rot away. Hell, even a single drop of that acid would be enough to ruin him!
Cooke walked past Cloudhawk and patted him on the shoulders. “All sorts of weird critters in the world these days. Let’s go!”
&nbs
p; 40 A Trap
The blue skies were clear and devoid of all clouds, but sand continued to descend upon the world like snow. The golden rays of the fiery sun filled the wastelands with light, causing the grit to crackle and pop under the heat. The brutal heat baked the ground so much that cracks could be seen everywhere.
The searing heat of the sun was many times more intense than it had been during the Ancient Times. The vast majority of creatures that lived in the Old Times would be unable to survive such temperatures, but those weaker creatures had long since been transformed into dusty, dry bones. The only creatures that could survive were those that had already adapted to this new, brutal environment.
Mad Dog let out a bestial howl as he swung his two machetes. Two of the giant rats next to him were instantly chopped in half and a large amount of foul, corrupted blood sprayed out of their bodies.
Right after he had dealt with those two, another one suddenly charged him. Mad Dog dodged sideways, avoiding the giant rat’s furious charge. Cloudhawk seized the moment to nimbly charge forward, giving the giant rat no time to flee as he thrust his tri-bladed staff into its head.
“Careful!”
“Another acid rat!”
Cooke led the bigfoot cavalry in a hasty retreat from the front lines, with a large group of giant rats chasing them. One of the rats looked somewhat smaller, but it was rounder and its skin had an oily green color. Anyone who took a closer look at the rats would be able to notice that it looked rather different.
Acid rats were a type of special mutated rat. They contained numerous acid sacs inside their body and normally would slowly build up and store powerful acid within those sacs. When they needed to fight, they would be able to spit acid up to several meters at their targets. The worst thing was that not only did they have acid sacs in their bodies, their skin was covered with large amounts of acid as well. Any ordinary weapon used to stab one of them would be instantly corroded and rendered useless, and the acidic blood spraying from the wound would also be enough to cause enormous harm to anyone splashed by it.
One of their iron hedgehogs was ruined yesterday by one of these creatures!
Pff. Pff. Two globes of acid came flying at them! Cloudhawk and Mad Dog hurriedly dodged, and the two giant rats they slew just moments ago were hit head-on by the acid. Their tough fur and flesh quickly began to steam and hiss as they melted into puddles of bile, leaving only the bones behind… but a few moments later, even the bones started to melt.
Mad Dog howled, “Kill it, quick!”
Cloudhawk switched the tri-blade staff from his right hand to his left hand and pulled out his revolver. Just as the acid rat was about to attack a second time, Cloudhawk shot it straight in the mouth. It was a lethal strike. The creature instantly slumped to the ground, its entire body starting to dissolve as the acid began to pool around it and corrode a hole in the ground.
Now that the acid rat was dead, Mad Dog had nothing else to worry about. His machetes rose and fell as though he were chopping vegetables and he instantly chopped four of those enormous rats into mincemeat. Woola came bounding over as well to help and soon the giant rats were finally and completely disposed of.
Cloudhawk wiped the blood off of his tri-bladed staff. As he was doing so, Cooke came riding over on his bigfoot bird. “Slyfox found a cave for us. We’ve already swept the perimeter clean. We can go hide there for now.”
Mad Dog and Cloudhawk followed Cooke towards the cave. It was a vicious battle and a number of them were injured. The mercenary company looked a bit bedraggled.
Mad Dog’s irascible temper was thoroughly aroused. He crushed a large rock to pieces beneath his boot and began cursing loudly. “The mission report was complete bullshit. They estimated around two hundred rats, but there has to be at least five hundred of the little fuckers!”
Not only were these giant rats tough to deal with, there were several times more of them than had been reported. Right now, they couldn’t even be sure exactly how many of the creatures existed.
Rather tired, Cloudhawk slumped against the entrance to the cave as he inspected his revolver. He had expended a total of three bullets. He reloaded the revolver and re-holstered it on his waist.
This location offered them a good vantage point, allowing them to clearly see everything in the area up to a distance of ten kilometers. From here, the ruins in this place looked like giant centipedes that slithered on the ground, forming a large number of squat “mountain” ridges.
From here, he could see a large number of strange buildings and destroyed statues. One squat mountain was particularly eye-catching; it looked almost as though it had been sliced through by an enormous shearing knife, leaving behind a smooth, slick surface on top. However, right on top of it was a sharp pyramid roughly ten or so meters long that “grew” out of the mountain in a strange manner.
The metallic pyramid was severely corroded. In both material and form, it looked very different from the other buildings of the Ancient Times. It looked more like it had been created in another world before being planted here.
“Weird, right?” The bear-sized Cooke walked over to Cloudhawk. “This place is a classic example of dimensional overlap. Supposedly, long ago our world suddenly began to suffer from dimensional overlapping for some strange reason. The clash of dimensions resulted in the destruction of the old civilization and changed our world. All sorts of strange things were brought into our world. That thing over there? It’s a good example of something from another world. That’s why it looks so bizarre.”
“How do you even know these things?” Cloudhawk looked skeptically at the man. “You are just making this stuff up.”
“Bah! Two years ago, when I was out on a mission, I encountered a bunch of weirdoes who called themselves “seekers”. They were the ones who told me all this. Hell, I don’t know if any of it is true either!” Cooke lit a cigarette as he sat down and offered one to Cloudhawk as well. “World’s gone to shit. Doesn’t really matter, I suppose. Cig?”
Cloudhawk now had a little more experience than before. This time, he took a much smaller puff on the cigarette but still ended up coughing a few times. “Seekers? What are seekers?”
“No clue. Bunch of crazy dudes that spend all their time searching for the “truth” and the “answer”. All they want is to bring back the civilization and technology that was lost to us ages ago. Still, they seem to be pretty influential in the wastelands.” Cooke shook his head and tossed another canteen over to Cloudhawk. “You’ll find all sorts of weirdoes in the wastelands. Nothing to be surprised over.”
“True. Nothing to be surprised over.” Cloudhawk took a sniff, first verifying it was water before he took a large gulp from the canteen. A cool, refreshing feeling permeated his body.
“Come to think of it, you didn’t do half-bad just now. I didn’t expect that you could fight, kid.”
Cloudhawk responded rather irritably, “You guys spent a month beating the shit out of me every day. Is it really that surprising that I learned a few tricks?”
Cooke began to roar with laughter. “Not bad, kid. You hid it from everyone. Let’s spar a bit once we get back home.”
Cloudhawk snorted. “I’ll knock your teeth out.”
“That’s a pretty ballsy claim. I’ll remember it!”
“Everyone, gather around!” Slyfox summoned everyone to him and then proclaimed: “This mission is more complicated than we expected. We have no idea how many rats there are, but judging by the current situation, there has to be at least five hundred of the little bastards. This place is too big; there’s no way for us to scout out the entire place.”
The mercenaries began to mutter and curse. Mad Dog said irritably, “Then have you come up with an idea? You can’t seriously expect us to fight against this many giant rats.”
Slyfox was the first captain of the Tartarus mercenaries and was also their principal mastermind. Generally speaking, it was his job to find solutions to any thorny problems they encountered.
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“A very stupid idea.”
“A stupid idea?”
“There are twenty-five of us. So long as we can avoid fighting more than forty of those giant rats at once, and so long as we can avoid making any major mistakes, we won’t suffer any casualties in battle.” Slyfox hesitated a few seconds before continuing. “I’ve already scanned the local area. There’s a couple of flat-topped mountains in the area around us with very few places for the rats to hide. We still have plenty of water, and we can eat most of the ordinary giant rats. In my opinion, we can fight and win a war of attrition against them.”
“Starting now, we aren’t going to go any deeper into this place; the only thing we’re gonna do is hunt down small packs of those giant rats. If we encounter large swarms of them, we’ll figure out a way to split’m up and then trap them in batches. We’ll slowly wipe’m all out in a safe, stable manner as we advance… and in the end, we’ll find that rat king!”
So the plan was for them to slowly wipe out the rats through attrition? After they killed a few hundred of the critters, they would then come up with a way to kill the rat king? This really was a pretty stupid idea. But, it also was a potentially effective one.
Cloudhawk let out a yawn. It looked like they were going to be busy.
The Tartarus mercenaries were elite wastelander warriors. Each of them had their own unique skills, giving them tremendous power and flexibility as a group. Slyfox made a few special arrangements and ordered the entire company to move.
Woola was given a very important task. They were going to depend on his sense of smell to find the various rat packs, which the mercenaries would then bait into traps and wipe out in batches.
By the end of the day, they had slain over a hundred of the giant rats. The total value of that much rat meat alone was quite significant. As for the mercenaries, they had suffered no casualties at all. This result was an absolutely dazzling achievement!
The Wastelander Page 31