Underground Forest.
A team of twenty was cutting down trees.
Because the Underground Forest was so dangerous, the minimum size of a collection team had been increased from ten people to twenty.
A boy who looked to be about fourteen or fifteen, a layer of fuzz on his upper lip, swung his axe at a vine.
The hovering vine trembled slightly, the blow only managing to break its skin.
"Pfft." Seeing this, an old man standing nearby chuckled.
"What are you laughing at!" the boy snapped, embarrassed and annoyed.
The old man smiled and said, "Whose kid are you? Not even an adult yet, huh? First time out here chopping things?"
The boy’s face stiffened, and he didn’t reply.
The Qin Alliance had a rule that the Hunting Teams and collection teams only recruited adults. Due to the unique environment, the age of adulthood for both men and women had been lowered to sixteen. He was fifteen, one year shy of becoming an adult. He’d only been squeezed onto the team through connections, and this was his first time out with them.
The old man chuckled, not exposing the boy’s secret. Situations like this weren’t uncommon in the Qin Alliance.
Many families had children stuck in that awkward fourteen- or fifteen-year-old phase. The Gated Community was traversing worlds so quickly that waiting a year or two would mean missing all the opportunities.
Kids these days developed fast and matured early. Plus, with training at the Martial Arts Arena, their bodies grew quickly; many of them would shoot up in height over just a few short months.
So, many parents lied about their children’s ages to get them onto the teams.
Everyone had a tacit understanding.
Age wasn’t the issue, as long as they could pull their weight.
The old man pointed at the vine. "With a vine like this, if you want to cut it, you have to go for the root."
"The root?" The boy’s ears perked up, his clear eyes filled with confusion.
The old man hefted the sickle in his hand, crouched down, and grabbed the vine with one hand. With the other, he hooked the sickle around it, pulled, and tore.
The wrist-thick vine was sliced clean through.
"Besides, you’re using the wrong tool. An axe is for hard wood. For soft stuff like this, you need a sickle. Here, try mine."
The old man pried the boy’s fingers open. The pads of his fingers brushed against the old man’s rough, hard calluses as something dark and hard was pressed into his palm.
The boy looked down, tightened his grip on the wooden handle, and crouched. He grabbed a vine, pulled back hard, and the sickle’s blade bit into the vine’s body.
The old man’s eyelid twitched. He quickly grabbed the boy’s wrist. "You reckless little brat! You didn’t pay any attention to how I did it, did you? If you’d put any more muscle into that, you would’ve sliced right into yourself."
After that, with the old man’s hands-on guidance, the boy quickly got the hang of the work.
Watching the boy’s focused profile as he worked, it overlapped with a youthful, vibrant face from his memories. The old man was lost in a trance for a moment and let out a soft sigh. ’If my grandson were still alive, he’d be about this boy’s age.’
"Everyone, keep working. We’ll be hauling the vines back in a bit. Don’t wander off, just work in this area. It might still be dangerous around here. If you see anything, report it immediately," the collection team captain’s voice sounded from nearby.
About half an hour later, the sound of rolling wheels came from behind.
A patrol team pushing a Car-Mounted Crossbow passed by. One of the members walked over and spoke familiarly with the collection team captain. "Remember to send a message right away if there’s any trouble. Our patrol teams are all in the area; a squad should pass by every ten minutes or so. If you run into danger, your lives are the top priority."
The collection team captain smiled. "Alright. You all stay safe, too."
The boy swung his axe, chopping off a small piece from the base of the vine before him. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. He had already returned the sickle to the old man.
The tool was useful, but it belonged to someone else.
He looked up, and suddenly his pupils dilated. "Huh?!"
...
"You saw it here just now?" Qin Ziwu asked, a Long Spear in his hand and a gray cord tied around his waist.
The boy spoke quickly, his voice unusually loud as if he was afraid they wouldn’t believe him. "I was standing right here, and I saw something standing behind that crack up ahead, like a person. It was just staring at me. After I shouted, it took off running."
"What did it look like?"
"A bit like a Kamen Rider."
"Hm? Huh!?" Qin Ziwu turned his head. "Do you have any idea what you’re saying?"
"I do, sir! I’ve seen Kamen Rider before," the boy said, nodding quickly.
Qin Ziwu’s lips twitched, his brow furrowed. "Which way did it run?"
"Backwards. Straight back," the boy said, pointing forward.
Qin Ziwu led the team cautiously forward for some distance and found that there were indeed footprints where the boy had pointed.
Moreover, many of the surrounding plants were broken, evidence that the target had fled in a hurry after being spotted, and it had moved quickly.
"’Like a Kamen Rider, humanoid, and intelligent... Could it be another sapient humanoid species?’" Qin Ziwu muttered to himself.
"I think it’s possible," Deng Guang said. "Just like those Fishmen. There are a lot of insects in this region. Do you think it could be related to them?"
"An Insect Man? Possible. Many Kamen Riders are based on insects." Qin Ziwu’s eyes narrowed. "If there’s another intelligent species in this Underground Forest, then everyone needs to be careful."
A beast and an intelligent species are two entirely different things.
Qin Ziwu said, "Where there’s one, there are likely more. Have everyone get ready and be on alert."
Raising his spear and turning around, Qin Ziwu’s hand fell to his waist.
His five fingers gripped the whip’s handle. The soft whip coiled around his waist shot out, straightening abruptly like an awakened snake!
It left a long afterimage as it sliced through the air in an arc, striking the back of a stone pillar behind him.
"SWOOSH—"
The dense woods shook.
A pitch-black figure leaped nimbly out.
The soft whip suddenly lengthened in mid-air, extending another five or six meters!
It was a fatal miscalculation.
The black figure that had charged out never anticipated that the long whip, which seemed to have already reached its maximum length, could extend a second time.
In an instant, the soft whip coiled around it like a living snake.
Qin Ziwu flicked his wrist. A section of the snake-like whip broke off, transforming into a rope that bound the creature.
"THUD."
The target crashed to the ground, rolling over several times.
But it still couldn’t break free from the whip-rope.
"Is this a grasshopper that became a spirit?" Qin Ziwu muttered, staring at the humanoid black shadow on the ground. Its head looked like a grasshopper’s, magnified countless times, with two large, oval eyes on either side that were particularly striking.
On either side of its torso, a pair of grasshopper-like arms were bound. There were small, white spikes at its backward-bending joints.
"CHIRP CHIRP—"
The Mantis Person let out a series of urgent chirps.
Not far behind it, another figure shot out from the dense woods.
It was so fast that no one present could react in time.
"One got away." Qin Ziwu looked down at the Mantis Person on the ground. He didn’t approach rashly, instead waiting until his Twin-Tailed Cloud-Probing Whip had grown a new tail before flicking it again, adding another layer of rope to the bound Mantis Person.
...
...