Chapter 9: Harvest
"Well, then, let's go."
After separating from the seven companions carrying a package full of snake meat on their backs, Ah Yi waved his hand and headed in the other direction of the lakeside, judging by the analysis of footprints and excrement on the ground, that there might be a group of big guys ahead, which should be enough to meet the village's food needs.
Chasing the footprints, the team had gradually moved away from the lake. It would be a beautiful place without the presence of those dangerously gigantic creatures, a misty riverside, a verdant lake, and a light and agile bird, like a fairyland in a picture scroll, which should have become a utopia for the soul.
Zhou He felt a little regretful, if he could, he thought about whether he had the opportunity to leave a place for himself here, maybe he would be tired of the world one day, old and decrepit, how comfortable it would be to be able to enjoy his old age in such a beautiful place?
The team stopped advancing, interrupting the reverie in his mind that was shaping a utopian dream, Ah Yi sent Ah Jiu out to investigate, what should be going on in front of him. Ah Jiu's relatively petite body is like a sensitive monkey, stepping naked. The rocks exposed on the mountain wall, grasping the hanging vines on the mountain wall, quickly climbed a low cliff, and then leaned against the pine trees growing on the cliff wall, and observed with a small telescope.
Ah Jiu on the cliff slope made a gesture to indicate that 'the situation is not good', which was his guess, because he observed Ah Yi's expression After seeing the gesture, the calm face seemed to be twitched by an invisible hand, and the facial muscles twitched uncontrollably.
"There's a lot of it."
Ah Jiu, who came back from the cliff slope, showed a solemnity on his unchanging cold face, which Zhou He rarely saw, he had wondered if this young guy had lost control of his expression because of facial nerve necrosis, but no.
"It's a ghoul."
Ah Yi said to everyone, looking around at everyone, with a hint of hesitation on his face: "They are facing the wild boar herd." ”
"Ghouls?"
Someone exclaimed, his expression was full of surprise and shock, as if he realized something, and his face became ugly: "Why did they appear again?" ”
"It's another wave."
Ah Yi nodded.
"Let's go catch waterfowl? Or find a big bear sleeping in a nest. ”
Someone hesitated and said, "If there are too many wild boar herds, it will be too difficult for us to transport them back." ”
"It's a strange hunting ground after all, and there may be something we don't know."
Someone followed suit with a relatively cautious suggestion.
Ah Yi touched his bald head and fell into deep thought, his heart should be very uneasy, but after a while he called everyone to climb the low cliff. In a very short time, his words were answered, and everyone climbed up the cliff slope, looking out at the pine forest with a relatively open view ahead.
They had already begun to fight, and more than six hundred ghouls had crossed over from the other side of the hill and encountered a herd of wild boars foraging······ It was a giant boar the size of a giant bull, with tusks about the length of an adult African bull elephant's teeth, like two sharp curved blades. There are eight of them, six of which are relatively small, less than two meters tall, and should be in the growth stage, but they are already surprisingly large compared to their normal size.
"These prey, they must be snatched down."
Ah Yi clenched his right hand into a fist and waved it vigorously: "Later, when they are all almost dead, we will go up." ”
As he spoke, he slammed his fist into the trunk of the birch tree beside him. Zhou He could feel the irritability and restlessness in Ah Yi's heart, was it because of the group of ghouls in front of him?
"This hunting ground is about to be taken over by them······ The surroundings will certainly not be spared. ”
Ah Yi thought sadly. They are always able to chase the breath of human beings little by little, rob them of their living environment, and drive them to a desperate situation. Like the abominable subspecies.
The snipe and the clam compete, and the fisherman profits.
Zhou He, who didn't know what Ah Yi was thinking, thought of a word, but no, although the wild boar was huge and unaccompanied like the giant bull, their number was still too small after all, and it was difficult to resist the huge number of ghouls. Their charge was as raging as a raging flood, and the wild boar herd was like a boat in the storm, unable to resist.
This is the most primitive battle!
Eight wild boars scurried wildly in the encirclement they had set up, their blade-like fangs constantly flying at the ghouls in front of them, slamming and trampling with their huge bodies, the branches trembling and cracking, and from time to time there was a crisp cracking sound of 'clicking'. The bone spurs on their bodies are also increasing. Those ghouls can always prick the bone spurs out hard before they are torn apart by the giant teeth, and the skin coated with a thick layer of resin can't resist those dense bone spurs... and crazy death-defying ghouls.
"Roar!"
Their screams and roars seemed mournful, perhaps foreseeing their fate, and although many ghouls were torn apart by their fangs or crushed by their hooves, they did not have a deterrent effect on the ghouls from rushing up and killing them.
A wild boar staggered, blood soaked its scarlet eyes, and a red shadow began to appear in front of it, and it was no longer clear that it could not see clearly, but it instinctively slammed forward, but it was a tall pine tree, and its long toothed blades pierced into the trunk of the tree, but because of its own hard swing, there was a crisp 'click', and the long teeth it relied on broke in response. A group of ghouls seized the opportunity and swarmed up, piercing its flesh, neck, and even mouth······
In the end, the weakness fell.
This was followed by the second ······
Final ······ Only the two largest boars remained, stubbornly leaning on their rage, slamming their blood-coated bodies against the enemy in front of them. But the slow movement revealed fatigue and weakness, and they were not in their previous furious state, and they were covered in bone spurs.
"Bang!"
A slight gunshot rang out.
Ah Jiu held the spear, his knees slightly bent, and the soles of his feet grasped the ground hard. Blazing bullets burst out of the barrel of the gun, and with his will, they struck the back of a ghoul covered in skeletal armor, and with a 'bang', like an expanding and exploding watermelon, pieces of flesh with bones splattered in all directions····· The rest of its body twitched and fell,
What a terrible power!
Zhou He's pupils contracted slightly, it must have gone through many updates, the power of these guns is more and more terrifying, no one can escape under such a powerful gun, including those ghouls with bone spurs similar to armor.
"Bang!"
Under Ah Yi's command, they raised their weapons one after another, or rushed down the cliff slope, formed a fire line, and began to shoot at the few remaining ghouls.
The smell of gunpowder smoke that permeated the mountains and forests quickly overshadowed the smell of blood, and Ah Yi tore a few leaves from the branches that stretched overhead, and his fingers kneaded it into a ball, clenching it in the palm of his hand, and green juice flowed out from between his fingers. The pouring bullets, every shot that rang out, made him feel slightly suffocated, and if it weren't for the horde group of ghouls, a lot of consumption would be unnecessary. Weapons are a limited resource for the village, and they can no longer withstand such attrition.
Zhou He raised the gun, no one paid attention to his movements, and his eyes and gaze all fell on the group of ghouls opposite, so he didn't notice that his movements of raising the gun were so smooth and natural, like a warrior who had gone through the battle array. His knees were slightly bent, the butt of his gun was resting on his shoulder, his index finger was on the trigger, and the safety of the gun was open.
Gaze on the target:
"That's it, with a slight push of the index finger, the bullet can be fired in an instant."
Zhou He thought about it, but he was extremely hard, the muscles all over his body were stiff and tight, and no one told him what to do after the bullet was fired, and how to adapt to it.
The muzzle of the gun moved slightly, the target kept shifting, and there was a lack of a feeling, a feeling that would prompt him, make him pull the trigger.
Hunting?
Or is it a hunting game?
He couldn't figure out what it would be like to be able to pull the trigger without any pressure.
"Actually, as long as you push your index finger hard and pull the trigger, you can do it."
He knows what to do.
"Perhaps, I should save some ammunition."
Comforting himself, the corner of his eye observed Ah Yi's movements, and like himself, he did not participate, just watched the battle. But at certain moments, instructions will be given.
The killing is gradually coming to an end.
No species that fears death or fear can resist the power of a weapon that marks human intelligence.
"Bang!"
The last ghoul rose from the ground and was crushed into meatloaf by the boar's massive body, the sound of bones shattering like popcorn. So, this moment became the moment for the victors to reap the spoils of war.
If you are lucky, looking back many years later, I don't know if this scene was burned on oil painting paper, or in film and television. Unfortunately, there are no photographic objects here, and no one has the leisure to think about them.
Stone dust mixed with substances that may resemble sulfur, and the reaction that occurs when it touches the viscous blood creates a wave of heat that rushes to the face. But this will quickly mask the smell of blood.
Many ghouls who are still struggling and not yet dead are found to have their heads smashed alive with guns, or stoned to death. No one is going to waste ammunition against them anymore.
It was a hot scene, the strong men were busy cutting the flesh of the wild boar, and Zhou He had already observed that what he was wearing was roughly the skin from these huge creatures.
"Hurry up!"
Ah Yi urged dissatisfiedly, perhaps because he had no life experience with Ah Yi, although he didn't understand some of Ah Yi's actions, Zhou He didn't question it, he felt that he was not qualified to express his superficial opinions in this strange world. The colossal creatures and human-like ghouls he had never seen before had turned his worldview upside down.
Ah Yi patted his arm, his eyes showing a touch of praise.
Zhou He was carrying a leather bag with more than 300 catties of pork on his back, and his strength beyond ordinary people gave him a touch of dazzling color in this team full of strong men full of powerful men.
Everyone has hundreds of pounds of wild boar skin and meat on their backs, which must be hard, although they are tired, but the strength of the harvest always makes their eyes bloom with satisfaction.
But with so much meat, it is certainly impossible to move it to the village by manpower.
So at this moment, Zhou He suddenly understood why Ah Yi ordered the previous people to leave first. They were not the first to return with their prey, but in a valley that Ah Yi had observed before and judged that it was relatively safe to designate as a meeting point, they used the most primitive methods to make tools for transporting prey from trees and vines.
They cut off a number of giant trees with a radius of 60 centimeters as rollers, chiseled through the central part, and then used the thick cyan bamboo with the mouth of the bowl to pass through several parallel trunks that were the main keels one by one, and cut the bamboo tubes through the holes of the rollers.
In order to make the rollers and vines more resilient, they also dug a pit in the ground, put a layer of impermeable skin on the pit, and drew water from a small stream in the valley, and then dug a hole under the pit, boiled the water with firewood, soaked the rollers and vines in it, and then dried it.
Thanks to a large number of men, the tools for carrying the prey were made in about two hours, and a total of three human carts made of bamboo and wood were moved out of the valley one by one, because they were too large to be placed in the valley.
"I can't rest tonight."
This is what Ah Yi said, you need to travel overnight, and you can't stay here long. No one objected, and most of them seemed to be accustomed to this physical exhaustion, even though they were very tired. After a short rest, the team began to move on. The prey was placed on a human cart, fixed with vines, and then he cried out in a low voice, pushed and pulled, and set off.
Zhou He could vaguely sense the deep uneasiness in Ah Yi's heart, perhaps because of the appearance of those ghouls.
Ah Jiu carried a package full of stone powder on his back, cleaning up the traces left by the big guy at the back of the team, sprinkling stone dust as he walked.
After the dim light in the sky had disappeared, night finally came, and the whole oasis seemed to come alive, and the roars and screams of wild beasts could be heard in the distance, creating a tense atmosphere, and the night was always full of unknown dangers. The group couldn't stop speeding up their steps, and finally set foot on the desolate realm again, out of the oasis full of danger.