Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Boom!
An explosion was heard in the distance.
The motorcycle elevated high into the sky. It was rushing towards the predator crowd when it wanted to elevate up and sweep through them when an unknown force smacked it hard. With a loud bang, both motorcycle and human exploded in pieces.
“I knew it,” Garen muttered, staring at the flames from above the wall.
It did not take long for East Perrin and Malone to climb up. Seeing the flames, they were silent with a grim expression in their eyes.
“We are surrounded completely. The predators are taking their time, devouring and digesting people from the other towns first. We’re no different from animals waiting in the slaughterhouse,” Garen sneered. “That guy was delusional to escape in the first place, he was seeking death.”
Malone and East Perrin were dead silent.
The noisy crowd below went silent. They now know that Carter did not make it. Any remaining glimmer of hope seemed to vanish now. Carter still failed to escape even when using a Mech’s power furnace as his motorcycle engine – his death may helped to vent their spleen, but it was still somewhat tragic and sorrowful.
Turning back, Garen saw that East Perrin seemed to still be in a daze without any reaction. He scoffed.
“Go down and keep an eye on the people, be careful of them feeling resigned and abandoning themselves as despair would only increase their radiation level! With the increase in the levels, they can turn into predators. This is a way to avoid death, and this would not be the first time for anybody to do so.”
East Perrin had yet to recover from her daze. Not only did the betrayal of her deputy of many years hit her hard, but the fact that she could barely see a trace of hope made her mentally exhausted. She did not know what to do.
Smack!
Garen smacked her hard on the butt.
“Go!”
East Perrin came around and glared at Garen.
“You just asked for a fight!”
“You can’t beat me anyway,” Garen said lightly.
East Perrin knew Garen was not just sitting around waiting for death, once again she held onto this glimmer of hope to live on, then quickly made her way downstairs to watch out for her people. Although the people of Leo Town were slightly more cooperative, but if someone like Caster betrayed, there might just be a second Caster…and a third Caster.
Malone looked at Garen deeply. Even he would not know how to escape in such a situation, but this young man…the look in his eyes was not despair, but tenacious and perseverance.
Turning around, he followed East Perrin down.
At a time like this, Garen’s unknown past did not matter. Under such extreme circumstances, even if there were other plans and if it did not work, they will all die anyway.
Other than believing in Garen, they did not have many choices left.
Even finding explosives to blow up and perish together was not a plan, the town did not have many explosives.
As the both of them left, another duo came up to Garen — a male and female with strong physiques, looking strong and courageous.
“Uncle Malone asked us to come assist you, just give us the orders and we’ll help!” The guy said in a loud voice.
Garen nodded.
“Just let one-third of the people to guard above now and let the others rest. They simply won’t survive with just two shifts.” Garen started giving orders immediately. These two were also the first step for him to understand the authority power in this town.
However, he would not care less if he had power over the town, what could he possibly do with a town of thirty, forty people at most?
“Alright.” The man went to pass the word to Malone.
Garen looked at the woman left behind.
“Go gather all the high radiation food in town, I’ll need it.”
“Got it!”
The woman nodded.
“Once you’re done, update your leader East Perrin. I shall go have a rest. Oh, bring me some food, please.” Garen added.
The woman seemed reluctant to do so, but headed down anyway.
Garen had one last glance at the distance before going down. According to the predators’ nature, they would not attack at nighttime. He felt at ease, the ten people above the fence should be sufficient to guard the town for now.
Not wanting to greet people, he asked East Perrin to arrange a room for him to rest.
After eating a plate of gooey mashed potatoes, he was full. Closing the door so that people would not disturb him, he held onto his Energy Machinist’s key and his Willpower gradually slowed down.
He could feel the key emitting small vibrations towards his head. It was just what Celine had said about the function of the black box which would always send out transmitting signals.
“I still have no idea how long do I need to wait to get the Mila Cells…” Garen let out a long sigh. If he could choose, he seriously did not want to use the uncontrollable Distortion Seed. The best plan was using a Biochemical Pool which is controllable, and a Distortion Seed to increase its radiation rate. With that, he would be able to form the perfect controlling formation strength. He read this in an Energy Machinist training book once and after all sorts of theoretical calculations, he was sure this would work.
“I should go find an Energy Machinist Imprint first, or else I can’t even produce the most basic cannon fodder. Without the imprint, designing our own cannon fodder beings would cost a great deal. I need at least a large-scale quantum computing power constantly calculating for three months straight. That would be the lowest level of computing power. An Energy Machinist’s computing power in terms of biochemical models would be much stronger compared to a quantum computing power.”
An Energy Machinist Imprint was considered as a completed biochemical organism model which only needed raw materials to continuously produce cannon fodder using the Biochemical Pool. For example, calculating the experiment bench process, the model made through the imprinting process would act as the model. Once the raw materials were added in, the next batch of cannon fodder could be produced already. The efficiency would be extremely high.
Not only that, some popular Energy Machinist Imprint went through rounds of improvements by Energy Machinists; as compared to the new cannon fodder he developed himself which reached decent levels regardless of saving of raw materials, power, speed, maintainability, or the stability of its form.
That was why Energy Machinists will purchase the Energy Machinist Imprints that they require personally, then make further improvements from its basic core, unless they were those from the Federation of Energy Machinists who were always running experiments in the laboratory.
It was safe to say that every capable Energy Machinist was also a chemist, biologist, and a geneticist.
The melodious sound of the robotic female voice sounded again.
‘Please select your trading point.’
Garen had entered the rainbow-like cylindrical tunnel once again and right in front of him was a piece of translucent panel which was displaying the possible trading points nearby.
Garen could see his own spot that was marked with a clear red spot while there were another three points nearby. Two of them were slightly brighter, whereas the other one was slightly dimmer as if it was going to blow out any moment.
He tried to connect his Willpower to the brightest spot.
‘Jade Workshop: This is a private space. The owner is Energy Machinist, Harbin Jasper. Entrance fee is one Crystal.’ The feminine voice explained.
Garen smiled bitterly as he looked at himself. His hand rummaged around for a bit and quickly came across the black key which clearly showed his current financial status, which was a zero.
‘Your Spar Stones are not sufficient. Please come back after reloading.’
The robotic, feminine voice said again.
Garen tried to find another spot but all the others needed a cost of one Crystal and there were no other free trading points around. He actually just wanted to go the free trading point from earlier on but unfortunately, the timings were not fixed, and are only open from time to time.
He tried the third spot last, the one that was getting dimmer by the second.
‘Coco Biochemical Shop: This is a private space, anyone may enter anonymously. Entrance fee is not needed.’
“Fortunately I still have somewhere to go.” Garen sighed in relief. He wouldn’t have known how else to produce an Energy Machinist Imprint which has the most complicated Willpower structure. In reality, it was equivalent to using an Energy Machinist’s Willpower as the main material, add on a few other items and a precise computing calculator would be built.
Some people might think that just a mere change in Willpower would not change a thing.
Yet the earliest computer was actually just a combination of various metals and other sorts of material then assembled together. If there was no structural assembling, the computer would just be a bunch of separate raw materials without any meaning to it.
After selecting the trading point, Garen instantly felt his body accelerate and soon, he was flying through the rainbow tunnel once again before reaching the entrance.
The glowing white light was not as dazzling as before.
Garen landed on the ground lightly and began eyeing the surrounding environment.
It was a brown, empty wooden hut but with a store layout. Dimmed lightings hung on its walls. As its yellow light shone down, there was an odd sense of tranquility.
There was an L-shaped counter, but not much of the things could be seen behind its glass. The store should be the size of a small basketball court but there were only three customers in it including Garen. The customer in front was talking to a little girl behind the counter, but they did not seem to have reached a common ground. The customer turned and shook his head slowly before disappearing, obviously fed up and left.
The red-haired little girl behind the counter tugged on her ponytail, but her pretty oval face seemed to look disappointed. She has on a light brown apron as a uniform. Tall and slender, her physique matured well with a slim waist and full chest.
The other customer seemed to be just browsing and had no intentions of buying. The entire store screamed of loneliness.
Garen walked a few steps to the front and looked at the awards hanging on the side of the wall that was framed by wooden frames. There was also a huge silver bull’s head with two sharp horns.
