Volume 12: Yaguna Kotor Chapter 581: A Different World
"Will we...will we die?" When the hunter from the Gray Bird Hunting Group tightened the straps on the outside of the protective suit, the "volunteer" suddenly asked in a trembling voice.
"Not necessarily." The hunter from the Gray Bird Hunting Group looked at him and said, "There are many situations in which the drone may not come back. Don't think too much about it. It will be teleported back immediately after arriving at the destination. How big of a deal can it be? It only takes a few seconds, and six million is in hand. This kind of good thing is something that other people can't even ask for."
"..." The volunteer bit his tongue hard and took two deep breaths, trying to calm himself down... However, the amplitude and frequency of his legs shaking were increasing. If there were no two hunters supporting him, his legs would have gone weak and he would have fallen to the ground.
"Calm down." Ghost Owl glanced at the two of them and frowned. "The more you fear death, the easier it is to die. If there is something on the other side of the transmission channel, you might be able to run back if you move quickly. But if your legs are so weak that you can't even run, who can you blame ?"
"But, but... I can't control it... I don't want to be like this, my body just won't listen to me..." said the volunteer with a sad face.
"Give them both an injection." said the Ghost Owl.
The "shot" he mentioned was naturally the injection of stimulants. After the hunters of the Grey Bird Hunting Group injected the contents of the syringe into the two men's bodies, their conditions were obviously much more stable, but their breathing became more rapid.
"I...I want to go to the bathroom." At this time, another volunteer spoke up.
"Just poop in your protective suit." The hunter next to him patted his back, "Don't worry, you won't get your crotch wet."
The protective suits worn by the two men were designed based on combat space suits. Even if the other end of the transmission channel was a vacuum space with a temperature of thousands of degrees Celsius, this suit could ensure that they could move in that environment for more than sixty minutes... As for the excrement disposal device, it was the most basic configuration of this type of protective suit - after all, there was no place in space where you could take off your pants to relieve yourself.
"It's almost time." Ghost Owl glanced at the watch on his wrist and turned to look at Ke Lan.
Ke Lan didn't say anything, just nodded slightly.
The two volunteers walked towards the black fog accompanied by four hunters... rather than saying they were accompanied, it would be more appropriate to say they were escorted. The expressions on their faces were almost exactly the same as those of the people who were pushed to the execution ground in the documentaries of the old era.
"Remember! Your mission is to find out the situation in Block No. 1. Try to write down everything you see, hear and feel as much as possible—" Ghost Owl said in a deep voice.
The four hunters had let go of the two volunteers. They looked at each other with tense faces, then began to slowly walk towards the black fog.
"Old dog, do you think they... can come back?" Layton had already put down the laptop in his hand, tilted his head, and asked the hound in a voice that only the few people around him could hear.
"It's hard to say. Besides, you should know more about this issue than I do." The Hound's eyes were focused on the two volunteers. "Don't you know the performance of those four drones? ... And these two guys, their protective suits don't even have shield generators."
"But drones are inanimate objects, and they use pre-set automatic programs. They have poor adaptability and are definitely not as good as living people in complex situations," Layton argued.
"It seems that you still hope that these two can come back alive." Thirty-Three glanced at Layton and said in a tone without any emotion.
"As a member of the exploration team, I definitely hope that they can come back alive." Layton stared at Thirty-Three with some doubt. "If even these two people can't come back, won't the exploration of Block 1 have to be shelved?"
"From your personal perspective, do you hope that these two people can come back?" Thirty-Three asked again, "Twelve million for two lives... I think this price is too high. What's more, they may not die."
"Too high?" The Hound raised his eyebrows, looking a little unfriendly.
"The one-time pension for the Raptor Squadron is 120,000 for each ordinary soldier, double for non-commissioned officers, and quadruple for lieutenants. The families of the dead can receive 15,000 points of 'security money' every year. This money can be received for ten years, which adds up to 150,000..."
As soon as Thirty-three said this, Hound's eyes changed immediately. His facial skin twitched slightly for a few times, and then he stammered, "At least your people can still get the money. At least one-third of my brothers who died in battle were marked as 'missing'. Damn it..."
"Was it because of this that you were expelled from the army?" Sanshisan asked calmly.
"Otherwise, those people in the Field Corps know they are in the wrong, and they dare not mention this to me until now... If those brothers who died hadn't entrusted their families to me, I would have..." The Hound suddenly paused here, clenched his fist and punched Layton's shoulder hard, his tone suddenly became weak: "Fuck..."
"You can scold me all you want, but why the hell did you hit me?" Layton touched his shoulder armor with some heartache - the Hound was wearing full metal gauntlets, and just one punch directly shattered the newly painted surface on Layton's mechanical arm.
"Give you some battle damage paint," the Hound said gruffly.
On the other hand, Thirty-Three was observing the hound's actions with great interest. After the two men finished their quarrel, he spoke up, "So, the rumor that you almost started a mutiny is true?"
"What rumors, true or false, are all things of the past, let's not mention them... Nick is dead, and the living relic hunter is called 'Hound'. Of course, if you want to get close to me, you can call me 'Old Dog'. I'm a very generous person and won't mind." Hound waved his hand, obviously not wanting to continue this topic.
"The Colonel Nick I heard about is not someone who would compromise easily." Thirty-three continued.
"I've already told you that Nick is dead. Now there's only the Hound!" The Hound said impatiently, "Besides, what else can you do if you don't compromise? Are you really going to rebel? They entrusted their families to me before they died in battle, and then am I going to take their families to a dead end?"
"You became a relic hunter to feed those people?" Sanshisan's eyes changed slightly, and his originally calm but somewhat stiff tone softened a little.
"Otherwise... I am too lazy to think too much now. As long as I can make my own people live a better life..."
Thirty-three didn't respond. He turned his head and looked in the direction of the black fog.
The figures of the two volunteers had been swallowed up by the black fog. Although from the perspective of Ke Lan and others, they could still vaguely see the blurred outlines of the two people, in fact, the two had already entered the transmission channel.
The hunters remained silent, staring silently at the two figures becoming completely transparent and disappearing.
Anyone who has experienced teleportation several times knows that when the figure at one end of the channel disappears completely, it means that the person or object that entered the channel has reached the destination.
Many people held their breath - among this group of hunters, the vast majority hoped that the two volunteers would return safely... but the vast majority also believed... that they might not return at all.
"Meat detective" has always been a "profession" with a very high mortality rate during the exploration of ruins. Not to mention S-level ruins, even for A-level, B-level, or even C-level ruins, the average mortality rate of "meat detectives" is over 50%.
In the face of the "safety measures" set up by the Alpha civilization, human protective equipment is rarely of any use, not to mention that in order to save costs, many hunting groups will not equip the "meat scouts" with any good equipment - in their eyes, the "meat scouts" are just cannon fodder used to wade through mines.
"I guess it's in danger." Just as Layton finished speaking, another "battle damage paint" appeared on the elbow of the mechanical arm. The Hound glared at him fiercely: "Shut your crow mouth!"
"Thirty seconds have passed." Ivan glanced at the timer and said in a deep voice.
A total of twenty-one seconds passed from the time the two volunteers entered the black fog to the time their figures completely disappeared - that is to say, the time required to teleport from the core power room to "Block No. 1" was twenty-one seconds. If the two had returned immediately after reaching the other end of the passage, they should have appeared in front of everyone by now.
"They're not dead yet?" Layton muttered softly.
"I told you to shut up!" the Hound cursed, "Do you really have to put the barrel of the recoilless rifle in your mouth?"
"It's also possible... because there is no obvious danger at the other end of the passage, so they didn't choose to return immediately." Ivan tapped the timer panel lightly. "It's been one minute."
At this moment, two phantoms suddenly appeared in the black fog and gradually solidified at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"They're back!" one of the hunters exclaimed.
"It doesn't seem to be missing any limbs." Ghost Owl folded his arms across his chest and said in a muffled voice.
The Hound and Layton, who had almost started a quarrel, looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
It also took the two volunteers twenty-one seconds to return from Block No. 1. As soon as they came out of the black fog, they quickly ran towards Ke Lan and the others.
"How is it? What's the situation over there?" The Hound walked up quickly, grabbed one of the men's shoulders, and asked hurriedly.
"The exit of the passage seems... seems... not... not inside 'Yagunakotor'!" said the volunteer breathlessly.
"The exit is not inside 'Aguna Tor'? How do you know for sure? Tell me in more detail!" The hound was startled and shook the other's shoulders vigorously.
"I, we...we seem to have been teleported to the wilderness." Another volunteer said. He simply sat down on the ground and kept rubbing his legs that were about to cramp. "Lots...lots of indigenous creatures. Our landing point was more than 200 meters away from the return point. We almost...almost couldn't make it back."
"What wilderness? What indigenous creatures? Explain yourself clearly!" Layton shouted.
"No hurry, let them take it easy first." The Ghost Owl raised his hand, and two hunters from the Gray Bird Hunting Group immediately walked up and helped the two men remove their heavy equipment - the linings of the two sets of equipment were almost soaked with sweat, and the limbs of the two men were twitching violently, as if they were electrocuted.
After the two men trembled and drank most of the bottle of water, Ghost Owl walked up to them and said word by word: "Repeat what you saw in chronological order, and try not to miss any details."
"Okay, okay." One of the two volunteers nodded. "After we landed, we found that we were in a barren plain..."
"The barren plains?" Layton was about to ask, but was glared at by the hound: "Don't interrupt, let them talk."
"Yes... it's a plain with land and sky. There are radiation clouds and the sun in the sky..." The volunteer continued, "That place should be outside of 'Aguna Kotor'... but we don't know exactly where it is."
After he finished speaking, he began to breathe heavily, obviously not knowing what to say next for a moment.
"Is there any landmark terrain?" asked the ghost owl.
"No, it was a plain with no end in sight... But about one kilometer away from the destination, there were a large number of indigenous creatures gathered. They seemed to be eating... But we didn't see clearly what they were biting. Fortunately, they didn't notice us, so we quickly ran into the black fog..."
"Can you recognize the species of these indigenous creatures?" Ivan spoke this time.
Both volunteers shook their heads and said, "We have never seen this kind of native creature, but it looks a bit like... a wolf on Earth."
"Wolf?" Ivan was stunned for a moment and said to himself, "There are at least twenty species of native creatures on Alpha that are similar in appearance and size to wolves... You two wait a moment."
Ivan said, pulling out his tablet and finding a dozen pictures of wolf-like creatures: "Is it one of these pictures?"
The two still shook their heads.
"Have you ever paid attention to the sky? And the sun... Is there anything unusual about the sky and the sun?" Ghost Owl asked.
“I didn’t pay much attention… but it should be exactly the same as the sky in the wilderness,” said a volunteer.
"Where are the drones? Have you found the drones that were sent out before?" Leighton asked.
"No……"
"Mr. Ke Lan, what's going on?" Ghost Owl turned his head and looked at Ke Lan. "From the descriptions of these two people, they were indeed teleported to the outside of 'Aguna Kator' - to an unknown corner of the wilderness."
"But judging from the feedback from the console, the destination has not changed." Ke Lan shook his head, "It is inside this battleship. Moreover, if it is to be teleported to the outside of the battleship, the energy consumed cannot be that little."
"So how do they explain what they saw ?"
"Is it possible..." Ke Lan hesitated for half a second and said, "Is there a hidden world inside the battleship?"
