The earth is beautiful.

Countless dazzling green patches dot the mountains and plains. The sky is pure blue, and it only takes one look to cleanse one's soul. On a clear night, you can even see the starry sky set like jewels in the dark satin. There is also the blue sea and the colorless pure water, which are beautiful colors that cannot be described in words.

Jack licked his chapped lips with his tongue, but there was almost no saliva on his tongue, and the action of licking his lips not only had no effect, but broke the wound that had just been scabbed, and a trace of salty taste was like a dying maggot, writhing unwillingly on the taste buds on the tip of the tongue.

Jack comes back to his senses from the myths that his ancestors have passed down from generation to mouth. The thick canvas cloak was pulled a little higher, but that only turned the direct sunlight into the stuffiness of the cloak.

Looking up at the gray and red sky, even with the sunglasses, this brief glance still made Jack's eyes hurt.

There is obviously a thick layer of dust in the sky, in Jack's knowledge, dust can cover everything, but it can't cover the scorching sun, it seems that he has heard that there is something wrong with the atmosphere, but this is not Jack's concern, he just wants to know how to keep the atmosphere from problems, and be able to see the beautiful earth in the story of his ancestors with his own eyes one day.

It is precisely because of this dream that he is always laughed at by others that Jack braves the scorching sun and the danger of being attacked by those vagrants and mutated animals, patrolling the settlement every day, so that those scientists can study the lost technology with peace of mind.

"Damn, a few pieces of moldy dry bread and a small bowl of stinky water every day actually make us dry in the sun for more than ten hours. It's not human. ”

Culomb behind Jack grumbled as he ripped off the sun-wrinkled scalp from his bald head.

Even though he had been with Culomb for a while, every time he saw him do this, Jack's scalp tingled, as if it was his own scalp that had been ripped off.

In this era, because of the existence of a large amount of radiation, not only animals are mutating, but even people are constantly mutating, but the speed is different and the degree of mutation is different.

Unlike Jack's grandparents, who lived in underground facilities and were exposed to relatively little radiation, Coulomb's family has lived in the ruins of a city severely affected by radiation for generations, and the two generations of variation and the accumulation of radiation from Coulomb himself have made his body tissues very different from those of others.

In fact, each mutant person is very different, and all kinds of mutations will not always bring benefits, some people have lost their eyesight, some people have lost their fertility, and some people seem to have terrible energy, and their lifespan is only one-tenth of the normal standard.

Coulomb's luck is not bad, his main mutation is on the skin, which can automatically fall off after accumulating a certain amount of damage to protect muscle tissue, but on the contrary, he has a large demand for food and has been in a state of not having enough to eat for a long time.

"Don't complain, keep your eyes bright, if you can find something good, or an animal that you can eat, you can enjoy it when you go back."

Jack spoke up. In fact, the so-called enjoyment is only to get a few more mouthfuls of clean water and eat a few more pieces of mutated animal meat, as for the real enjoyment of wine and women, it is rare for people like themselves to come into contact.

But Culomb seemed to be a little too excited today, and was easily stimulated by this sentence, and even though there were only two of them around, he still leaned into Jack's ear and whispered, "There are some good things in this neighborhood that are trampled on, or we can go farther, maybe we can really get good things." ”

"Far away? How far do you want to go? ”

There was a hint of nervousness in Jack's tone. They are neither hunters who specialize in killing mutated animals, nor are they warriors who are good at killing, and they say that they are patrolling at risk, but the territory they patrol is a relatively safe area that has been cleared. Even if they encounter something in this range, they don't need to go up to fight hand-to-hand, they only need to desperately run away and bring the news of the attack back to the settlement, and the other problems will naturally be solved.

Once you get out of this safe area, you may really be able to find something good, but more likely, you will become a good thing that you will be found by mutated animals or homeless people.

Culomb rubbed his baby-like scalp, "Do you know that guy Inigo?" I heard that he walked around not too far last time, and he was lucky enough to pick up a pistol that was still full of bullets. After coming back, not only did he show off for a while, but he also used the money from selling guns to lie on the woman for three days. ”

Jack had indeed heard about it, and hesitated for a while, but finally couldn't resist the temptation of the offer, "Then we can't go too far...... And it's not for women, it's for helping scientists......"

"Alright, alright." Culomb squinted his eyes and chose a direction, "If you can find something, you just say that the goal is to find a woman for you to do, and others will treat you as a hero." If you find nothing and die outside, everyone knows that you died for the good of all mankind, and they will only take you for a fool. ”

Jack opened his mouth, but finally decided to save some saliva, he had never won an argument on this issue, and he obviously felt that he was justified, but in the face of the facts, these truths never played any role.

Before the war, this area was a large comprehensive scientific research base in a sparsely populated area, and it was not directly hit by a nuclear bomb attack, and for a long time after that, the surviving people were in the city or in the place where the food was stored to grab supplies, such as this most valuable, but unusable, inedible scientific research base has been the most intact preservation.

The settlement that Jack and the others relied on was built on the basis of this scientific research base, but it only occupied a small part of the entire base.

Although it has not been damaged by many people, countless mutated animals have settled here, and in the long-term confrontation, humans who lack the support of technology and productivity have not had much advantage. It can only be excavated little by little, which is not only for safety, but also for human beings to face up to their own capabilities.

Some legends arouse jealousy and envy because people subconsciously think that they can hardly do it. But as a mutant who has been dealing with mutant animals since childhood, Coulomb has enough courage to expand his subconscious bottom line. And Jack, who is closer to the body and mind of ordinary people, is cautious enough.

Culomb's initial goal was to find a weapons development area ten kilometers away, but Jack raised strong objections and chose the accommodation area closest to the safe area, although the accommodation area had been rummaged through by many brave people, but at least the risks and rewards were within Jack's acceptable range.

There were originally two wide roads from the current location to the accommodation area, and it would be quick to reach them by walking all the way, but the two did not dare to go there. The most important point of the rule of survival in the last days is that you should not expose yourself to a wide field of vision at any time. And according to the hunters in charge of cleaning up the mutant animals, these two roads are completely occupied by a staggering number of rats - the little rats, which are nearly a meter long and can easily bite through 5 millimeters of steel plates, also know that the fastest way to walk between several places is to take the big road.

The route they eventually chose was to pass over a clearing on the edge of the safe area and parallel to the road, which had once been a garden, but after the death of the plants and decades of repeated cleaning by mutated animals, the most fertile land had become a wasteland that even rats could not look down on. But because of this, combined with the wide field of vision, it is a buffer zone between humans and mutated animals.

In this buffer zone, there are several diversion canals for irrigation, although they have been badly damaged and have accumulated thick mud inside, but as long as you keep your body down and observe carefully, you can pass through most of the buffer zone relatively safely.

The two people who can live in this era have alertness and survival skills that are not inferior to those of the special forces in the past, which are forced by the environment that can kill them if they are careless. And the two who have been working together for a long time also have a tacit understanding when they should do something on their own.

Jack's vision is greatly affected by the sunglasses, while Coulomb is fully adapted to the intense sunlight and ultraviolet rays, and is tasked with looking up from time to time to look around.

Along the way, he reached the end of the aqueduct, and Coulomb carefully observed for a while, and after making sure that there were no mutated animals coming out to bask in the sun, he just wanted to climb out, but was pulled back by Jack.

"There's the sound of rats." Jack lowered his voice and took out a steel pipe more than half a meter long from his back.

Coulomb also listened attentively, and could faintly hear some rustling sounds, and after more than ten seconds, a mutant rat poked its head out of another aqueduct only forty or fifty meters away from the two of them, and after swinging its head from side to side to observe, it completely strung out and ran away from the two of them.

"Damn, I've never heard of rats ambushing." Culomb cursed in fear, "If we continue to mutate like this, not only in size, but also in these ghosts, they will definitely have brains smarter than us." ”

Coulomb says that the rats are smarter, rather than attributing what just happened to me, because there is already so much evidence to prove it. When they first started fighting the rats here, these guys would only rush at the muzzle of the gun with all their might, but it didn't take long for them to learn to recognize weapons, and they would charge directly at those with cold weapons, and they would sneak up or dodge when they had guns. Later, the rats have been able to outflank in a roundabout way, divide their troops to attack, and lure the enemy into deep and other simple tactics. Now he has actually learned to use land to set up an ambush. If this continues like this, in a few years, it will not be too surprising that rats will exchange fire with people.