Chapter 446: Plain Brutal

With such an exciting prospect, countless youngsters who lived in tents or the lairs and could only barely live by eating earthworm meat and synthetic food every day, had no job, and could see no future started to become restless.

But they had to be approved if they wanted to go out of the city to hunt and colonize territories.

If normal people who had not awakened to supernatural abilities went out into the wild, their mortality rate would be incredibly high.

They would have a straightforward death if they were bitten to death by monsters, but what if they were severely wounded and were even crippled? Who would pay the medical fees?

Also, they had to pay taxes to hunt monsters. There was a lot of emphasis on planning when it came to developing the wild. They had to work with the related departments who set up the city’s offensive actions. They could not develop the wild as they pleased all over the place. Otherwise, even if they were able to temporarily develop a place, it would be very easy for monsters to take it down, and they would just end up wasting valuable resources.

Most of the pathfinder squads formed by normal people could not reach the standards in fighting strength and equipment, so it was only par for the course that they could not pass the assessments of the related departments.

But the piece of paper telling them that they failed could not stop the young adults from wanting to obtain success and reach the peak of their lives.

Even though the Survival Committee repeatedly mentioned the dangers of colonizing the wild, over the past year, there were still countless unlicensed pathfinders, who snuck out of Dragon City to enter the wild and set up multiple developing lands.

One of the pathfinder squads was really lucky. They randomly chose a col to set up a fort, and for a full three months, they never ran into any high-grade superbeasts. Normal monsters attacked them countless times, but they just gritted their teeth and used guns and basic martial arts to send them away.

Besides, the speed of Dragon City’s development was much faster than what everyone expected. Quite a number of mega corporations fancied this col, because it was located at a relatively important position tactically. The mine exploration team from Universe Corporation even discovered a crystal mine near the col. Hence, the col that was not interesting to anyone before became really popular and worth mountains of gold.

Logically, since the pathfinders did not pass the test and could not show a professional license, they could not be seen to possess full rights over the land.

But once the government thought about the reality of the situation and learned that these pathfinders had stubbornly survived for three months and beat off wave after wave of monsters to protect this land of theirs, it changed its mind. The group had also suffered terribly for their bravery. One-third of the pathfinders had died, and another one-third of them were heavily injured. Every person in the developing land wore bloodstained medals.

Besides, most of the unemployed people did not have suitable positions in the city. They had to rely on running outside the city to find their own ways of survival. The government should be encouraging the spirit of wanting to become better, or at the very least, not criticize it.

If they did not acknowledge the results of the pathfinders’ fight, the millions of unemployed young adults might turn into ticking time bombs.

After considering many factors, in the end, Universe Corporation reached an agreement with these pathfinders and spent some money to pay them a “humanitarian support fund”. In truth, it was a “land collection fee” that allowed them to buy the land near that of the pathfinders.

They then made arrangements to hire all the pathfinders, which offered them a fixed salary.

After that, Universe Corporation helped them get all sorts of licenses and permits, and they managed to settle the problem of legality with a lot of time and effort.

When the news of it spread out, all the unemployed young adults in the city became even more excited. Countless people howled and rushed out of Dragon City to repeat this success story.

Of course, there were only a few lucky ones who managed to set up developing spots in the wild and last until the Red Dragon Army or mega corporations found them.

Most of the developing spots were razed down by the monsters within a few months after they were built.

It was also due to the pathfinders not having a smooth line of supplies and their tense minds and bodies forcing them to give up on their own.

Millions of unemployed young adults were driven by their ambition, and plenty of them ended up as incomplete skeletons in the wild, perhaps even the feces of monsters.

However, this tragedy did not stop others from walking to their death with a smile.

They lived in a world where zombies appeared and monsters ruled. Compared to staying in a dark and damp basement for the rest of their lives and eating earthworm meat cans while watching superhumans command the world with all sorts of admirers praising them, death was really not something worthy of fear.

Even more terrifying than death was being poor and unsuccessful for the rest of their lives.

Unlicensed pathfinders were a gray area within the law.

The Survival Committee could not provide enough job positions, so they could only turn a blind eye and let the young adults find their own path to survival.

Theoretically speaking, this was, of course, not legal.

But as long as they managed to set up a base and last long enough as well as produce visible changes to the environment around them, the Survival Committee would tacitly acknowledge that the pathfinders had full rights to that territory, and when the government started developing this area, they would provide sufficient compensation to the people.

Basically, regardless of whether it was the collection fees or the pathfinders joining mega corporations, both could provide them with a life with no worries, so they could live stable and dignified lives.

But on the other side of assuming responsibility for their own profits and losses was responsibility for their own survival.

When Dragon Citizens fought defensive wars in the city, they were considered to be protecting their homeland, so whenever they killed a monster, their achievements were recorded. If they continued raking in achievements, they could exchange them for all sorts of resources.

If they were injured, they might even get medals and enjoy being treated like heroes or martyrs.

But if they went out of the city without permission, they could not get any achievements for hunting monsters. If they wanted to bring monster materials back to be sold, they would have to pay the highest tax, and if they were killed by monsters in the wild, they would not get any compensation.

However, nothing could be done about it.

If the Survival Committee had to give compensation money to all the unemployed young adults who recklessly ran into the wild and were eaten by monsters, Dragon City’s economy and finances would have broken down long ago.

In any case, the forward operating base set up by Soaring Dragon Constructions could be considered as the “regular army”.

And the developing land of the pathfinders was the “guerilla army”.

When the regular army mentioned the guerilla army that did not listen to their commands and often did whatever it wanted, they would naturally be filled with disdain and even grumble about them nonstop.

However, while they might complain about them, they were not far away from each other. Since something as dangerous as a monster horde had showed up, they should still check up on their situation.

Even if the unlicensed pathfinders’ developing land was taken down by the monsters, they should still retrieve their bodies so that their corpses would not be strewn all over the wild or turn into monster excrement.

This was related to the dignity of all humans.

“Do they have superhumans? How’s their equipment status?” Meng Chao asked.

“There were three superhumans among them. The strongest was a two-star superhuman, I think. The others were normal people who had gone through militarized training. Their shooting was pretty good, and they had sufficient ammunition as well.

“As for heavy equipment, I think they had two armored cars and some offensive drones. The Red Dragon Army has been switching out its equipment, so the second-hand equipment is getting cheaper,” Manager Jiang said.

“Many of the unlicensed pathfinders think that they can rule the wild once they’re armed to the teeth. Hmph, with their useless junk, they can handle Demonic Halberd Pigs and Iron-armored Rhinoceroses, but if they run into the kings of Nightmarish Beasts and Hell Beasts, they’ll just die!”

Meng Chao ignored Manager Jiang’s complaints. He thought that as long as this developing land did not run into a large monster horde, they might just be able to persevere.

He decided to go over and take a look.

Manager Jiang thought about it and asked a superhuman at the peak of Earth Realm to lead an armed Dragon Fang Commando squad to go with Meng Chao for a look.

The developing land of the unlicensed pathfinders did not possess the ability to carry out large scale development.

In truth, they intended to just last for a while in the wild. Once Soaring Dragon Constructions’ forward operating base continued expanding, they could sell the developing land and the area around it to Soaring Dragon Constructions and turn from a “guerilla army” to a “regular army”.

Hence, both sides had some degree of contact with each other and Manager Jiang knew their precise location.

An armored vehicle with more than twenty Dragon Fang Commandos headed south for around twenty minutes. Then, the ground started becoming muddy and bumpy.

Ahead of them was a lush jungle.

Hidden in it were multiple fatal marshes. But they also had really fertile humic material, so they were very suitable to be turned into a gene farm for etherealized plants.

There was a fence and metal webbing in the jungle. The ground around it had intersecting tire tracks.

There was also a huge wooden plate at one point. A yellow smiley face was sprayed on the plate, and beneath it were two words.

[Happy Farm]

This was the name the unlicensed pathfinders had given to the developing land.

However...

Meng Chao used maglev to rise more than ten meters into the air and saw fierce plums of black smoke at the edge of the jungle.

He could also smell a pungent, bloody stench.

He sighed and returned to the ground.

“It’s most likely that they’re all dead,” he said. “Everyone, be on guard, there might still be monsters inside.”

The group entered the jungle cautiously.

Soon, they saw an airtight building that was partially hidden underground. It looked like a silver eggshell.

There were all sorts of monster carcasses around the building.

Just as Meng Chao expected, a fierce battle had happened here.

But the battle situation was against everyone’s expectations.

They did not see a single human corpse.

Instead, it seemed like the humans had been slaughtering the monsters one-sidedly. They could see the broken limbs of monsters all over the place.

Meng Chao knelt down on one knee in front of a relatively complete monster carcass and dipped his finger in a bit of monster blood. Then, he rubbed his fingers against it.

Based on the viscosity of the blood, the creature had died just a moment ago.

“That’s strange.” Meng Chao frowned and mumbled to himself. “There are dozens of Bloody Moon Wolves, Ghost Leopards, and other feline-type monsters here. Plenty of them are already at the level of Nightmarish Beasts.

“By the looks of it, their original territory was occupied by the Tyrant Mammoth, so they were forced by their circumstances to search for a new lair in a human settlement.

“But they were... killed smoothly by really fierce and brutal methods.”

Meng Chao now had Master Level Injury Examination.

He could then tell that the monsters were all killed within just a few minutes by one or two humans.

He could even tell the general gist of what happened by the distribution of monster carcasses on the ground. First, the fierce monsters had confidently launched an attack on the human settlement. They dodged the humans’ shower of bullets and believed that they would be able to have a bloody feast soon after.

But against their expectations, they encountered a human-shaped beast that was ten times more brutal than they were. In an instant, the predators ended up as prey. Their desire to kill was completely destroyed by fear, and they fled, but they did not manage to escape from the shadow of the God of Death.

Their stomachs were torn open. Their spines were crushed. Their limbs were ripped off. Their eyes were gouged out. The person had even grabbed their upper and lower jaws and yanked them apart. This was an absolutely cruel killing method, and even Meng Chao broke out in cold sweat despite the fact that he was a veteran fighter from the apocalypse.