Chapter 1807: Underground Camp
Although the commercial street had been buried, that didn't mean the supermarket was unusable. The moment Xu Huo stepped into the commercial street's range, he sensed someone about a kilometer away. As he turned his head, a bullet struck his forehead from a distance of just one inch.
But that was as far as it got.
The next second, the deformed bullet that had failed to break through the Space Ray Barrier fell into the soft sand.
The player on the opposite building turned and ran without hesitation.
Xu Huo didn't chase him. Instead, he continued walking toward the building next to the mall. The main structure of the mall had been buried, but he could enter through this adjacent connected building. The lower floors of this office building were sealed tightly, with sand only covering a partition board in the middle layer.
The moment he stepped into the office building, the items pre-placed inside activated, only to be blocked one after another by the Inviolable Domain barrier.
Whether it was the advance arrangement of someone to lure him away or the placement of these items, it was clear that the players staying here weren't particularly strong.
After a moment's thought, Xu Huo withdrew from the office building. The player who had ambushed him earlier had returned and immediately attacked him with his trait—the sand beneath Xu Huo's feet suddenly sank, swallowing half his body in an instant.
Meanwhile, another person waiting beneath the sand took the opportunity to try to cut off his leg.
Estimating that only these two were waiting outside, Xu Huo simply lifted them up to the building next door and trapped them under several layers of Space Barrier Cubes.
The two players were more shocked than afraid. Only after several failed attempts to break the space barrier did they gradually give up, staring straight at Xu Huo without speaking.
"Don't be so nervous. I won't kill you easily." Xu Huo walked over to the entrance of the underground passage covered by sand and stopped. "I have a few things I'd like to ask..."
But before he could finish, the partition board beneath his feet suddenly opened, and he fell straight down. What greeted him was an automatically constricting item net. As it trapped him, five men rushed out from all sides, wielding poisoned item blades and stabbing at him.
Although they couldn't break through the defense barrier around Xu Huo, these people still crazily hacked at him. Then, with a whistle, the tail end of the item net jerked sharply, dragging him toward a metal cabin installed against the wall.
But the next second, the item net rope was severed. Xu Huo, stopping steadily mid-drag, calmly tore open the item net, brushed the sand off his protective suit, and looked at the ordinary people who were both shocked and terrified. "You can't kill me. All of you, come out. I'm just here to ask for directions."
The two upstairs still hadn't been released. The people standing nearby, even knowing they couldn't kill him, didn't move from their positions.
"Is there no one here who can talk?" Xu Huo raised an eyebrow.
A few seconds later, an elderly man walked out from the adjacent room. He signaled the few people trying to protect him to step aside, then came before Xu Huo, meeting his gaze directly before speaking. "I'm in charge of this small camp. You can ask me anything. If I know it, I'll tell you. Those two kids outside attacked you to protect us. Since you didn't kill them just now, you probably don't want to make things hard for them either. Please be merciful and spare them."
"We still have some food and water here. If you need it, you can take it all."
Xu Huo didn't respond. Instead, he brought the two young players down from upstairs.
The two never relaxed their vigilance and hostility. The elderly man quickly scolded them, making them promise not to attack again.
"But we don't have much food left..." said the thinner one.
"I don't want your food." Xu Huo took a bag of rice and dehydrated vegetables from his luggage compartment. "Does anyone here know how to cook?"
The food placed before them was more effective than any words. Everyone present couldn't help but fix their eyes on the food bag, especially the middle-aged men, whose eyes widened—this wasn't just the craving of hunger for food, but more like a desire etched into their genes, as if in that instant, food surpassed everything else in importance!
Xu Huo's gaze darkened slightly, then he watched the elderly man bow to him in thanks before picking up the food bag.
This group's base camp was in the supermarket below the mall, but the supermarket was already empty. Aside from shelves stacked to one side and treated ventilation ducts, the only other things were small rooms partitioned off directly with shelves.
When Xu Huo went down, all nineteen people living there came out. Almost all of them were elderly, women, and children.
His gaze fell on a strangely emaciated little boy sitting in a wheelchair at the back of the line. Then, seeing the small banner reading "Happy 13th Birthday" hanging beside the bed board behind him, he looked away.
The elderly man handed the food to two women who had come over. When the women opened the bag and saw the food, their faces flushed with excitement, and they hurriedly asked how to arrange it. But before the elderly man could answer, a boy leaning against them drooled as he stared at Xu Huo. "Is there meat to eat?"
The woman covered the boy's mouth in terror, not even daring to look up at Xu Huo. She kept her head down and said repeatedly, "We haven't eaten people. The child doesn't understand, he was just talking nonsense from hunger... Don't kill him, don't kill him..."
Counting the one in the wheelchair, there were three half-grown children here, all probably over ten years old. However, all three children seemed somewhat slow-witted. Their arms were also covered in black markings.
"Go cook." Xu Huo interrupted the woman.
The woman thanked him profusely and left. The children, unable to read the atmosphere, didn't understand the adults' fear and instead actively approached Xu Huo.
"Can't you bring back food from outside?" Xu Huo ignored the children and asked the two young people.
The two had resumed their silent treatment. It was the elderly man beside them who answered. "Those two kids haven't been players for long. It's not easy for them to survive. Besides food, they also need to bring back medicine for the illness, so we've been living on a tight budget."
The elderly man remained composed. After inviting Xu Huo to sit down, he clearly explained their situation. "Originally, there were over forty of us here. More than a dozen died from illness. Now it's just us."
"Is there a treatment potion for Black Thorn Disease?" Xu Huo pulled his stool closer to the table and casually poured himself a glass of water.
The elderly man sighed. "The potion can't cure us. It can only delay the illness."
"We were originally from the CK11 Safe Zone. A few years ago, after the safe zone was destroyed, we narrowly escaped and entered Jade Bird City. If you're asking about the CK11 Safe Zone, I know quite a bit."
"Let's start with the children." Xu Huo said. "Black Thorn Disease affects fertility. Zone 010 hasn't had any children born for a while. That child... he shouldn't be thirteen years old." (Chapter End)