Chapter 22: Guns!
Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
There was an intense battle in the wilderness as the private army had not expected to encounter wolves. The wolves were extremely fierce and cunning, and it seemed like they had been waiting in ambush.
At first, the troops thought that they could scare away the wolves by just firing their guns, but it turned out they were wrong. The wolves did not panic this time when they heard the gunshots!
By the time the wolves appeared in front of them, the private troops were shocked to discover that these wolves were even bigger than they had imagined. They were the size of bison!
Wait a minute! After these wolves attacked the factory, they waited in the only possible path that the private army would have to pass through. Why did it seem like they had been targeting these private troops from the very beginning?
However, the private troops were trained soldiers. Before the casualties started piling up, they fell in and began to defend. Comparing the firearms of humans with the sharp teeth and claws of an animal, firearms would still come out on top in the end!
The private army had dealt with the wolves on more than one occasion. In recent years, they had slowly started pulling back on their plans to encircle and keep the wolves suppressed after being instructed to do so by the people in charge. Of course, this also gave the wolves some respite.
For some reason, as Ren Xiaosu listened to the gunshots, he found the cracks to be so pleasant that his adrenaline started pumping. The gunshots excited him.
He didn’t go and take a closer peek at the battle. All he knew was that if the wolves and the private army were fighting now, it would be safe for him to go to the factory.
Ren Xiaosu ran like a cheetah through the wilderness. For the first time, he could get a complete sense of his newly obtained strength and dexterity.
His muscle fibers tensed up and relaxed over and over again. This sort of feeling could only be described as invigorating.
When Ren Xiaosu neared the factory, he finally slowed down. He hid in the darkness and approached it quietly. Ren Xiaosu was surprised to see many of the refugees’ dead bodies lying around. It seemed like they had wanted to escape back to town but were caught by the wolves one after another.
Only a minority of them were lucky enough to escape at the expense of their companions.
Ren Xiaosu painstakingly examined their wounds. They looked like they had been bitten in the neck by the wolves and died immediately. However, the wolves did not feed on their corpses and seemingly left in a hurry.
Ren Xiaosu thought for a while. He did not enter through the main entrance, instead climbing his way up a pipe on the outside of the factory building. Each time he passed by a window, he would scrupulously check if there were still any survivors inside.
When Ren Xiaosu got to the top floor of the building, his heart sank. It didn’t look like any survivors remained in the factory. The wolves had already swept through the entire factory, sparing no one.
‘Where are the guns hidden?’ Ren Xiaosu wondered. The factory managers would definitely not place them where it would be easily accessible to others.
Ren Xiaosu broke the glass window on the top floor and jumped into the building. He looked around and saw that the hallway was full of bloodstains and corpses. The large factory felt like a purgatory.
All of a sudden, Ren Xiaosu realized something was off. All of the corpses looked like they had been running in the same direction when they were alive, as though something was guiding them towards it.
What would attract people to run towards the same place at such a crucial time?
Ren Xiaosu came to a conclusion. That place would either be the location of the weapons storage or a hiding place.
He followed this path all the way until he ended up in the basement. Was this... the emergency shelter?
The more he walked forward, the more corpses there were. Ren Xiaosu could imagine what the scene looked like when everyone was trying to escape in panic from the wolves. They wanted to escape to a safe place, but they were not fast enough to outrun the wolves.
Ren Xiaosu arrived at an iron door. Indeed, everyone was escaping towards this place because they wanted to get in. No matter how much the wolves had evolved, they were still only flesh and blood. It would still be rather difficult to break through an iron door several inches thick.
Ren Xiaosu wondered if anyone was still behind the iron door. He hesitated for quite a while before he raised his fist and knocked on the blast door three times.
Someone behind the iron door shouted happily, “Is that the private army? You’ve finally come to rescue me. I’ll open the door right away!”
The rhythm of the knocking was obvious and could not have been made by a wild animal. As such, the person on the inside mistook Ren Xiaosu as a soldier from the private army that had been sent to rescue him.
With a loud grinding sound, the iron door burst open and revealed a middle-aged man on the inside. He had a leg wound, and his pants were stained red with blood. Even as he opened the door, he was standing on just one leg.
However, the moment the door opened, both parties took action. Ren Xiaosu bent low and prepared to rush him. When the middle-aged man saw that the person in front of him was not a soldier, his first reaction was to raise his pistol!
The atmosphere grew tense. Ren Xiaosu stopped in front of the middle-aged man because the black muzzle of the pistol was pointed right at his forehead.
“Hehe,” the middle-aged man laughed. “So it’s a little burglar who wants to take advantage of the situation, eh? I recognize you; you’re Ren Xiaosu from town.”
Ren Xiaosu also recognized him. The middle-aged man was the factory manager, Wang Dongyang.
“I recognize you too,” Ren Xiaosu said as he straightened up as though nothing had happened. “Why are you the only person in there? No... you were the first person who fled here, and you closed the door immediately while keeping everyone else outside!”
Ren Xiaosu felt a sudden chill pass through him. No wonder there were bloody handprints all over the outside of the iron dor. So it turned out that it was because of the refugees’ crazy thumping on it. When the iron door was closed from the inside, it was impossible to open it via normal means from the outside.
Wang Dongyang laughed and said, “You don’t need to bother yourself with such matters. If you carry me back to town now, I’ll spare your life.”
“And what if I refuse to carry you back?” Ren Xiaosu started laughing as well.
“Then I will just kill you with one shot. After that, I’ll lock the door again and continue to wait for the army to come and rescue me. I’m a resident of the stronghold, so they will definitely come and save me,” Wang Dongyang said.
“You must be afraid that I’ll tell everyone how you sold out everyone here and left them for dead, right?” Ren Xiaosu continued to laugh and say.
Wang Dongyang sneered at him. As the pistol gave him tremendous courage, he had no fear at all. “How do you know that?”
Ren Xiaosu pondered for a moment. “The father knows his son the best.”
Wang Dongyang was confused. Then factory manager grew infuriated. “Do you think I won’t kill you?”
“I also know another thing,” Ren Xiaosu said calmly.
“What?” Wang Dongyang had a bad feeling about it.
“I know you didn’t disengage the safety on the gun, and it’s too late for you to do so now.”
Wang Dongyang’s pupils suddenly contracted. He had originally thought that it was the private army who came, so he didn’t really think too much of it. But when he saw that it was Ren Xiaosu, and Ren Xiaosu had rushed in so decisively, he did not have enough time to disengage the safety.
He had thought that he could easily frighten Ren Xiaosu because he felt that a refugee like him would not have seen a gun before or know how it worked. He thought that he would only feel fear with one pointed at him.
However, Ren Xiaosu knew more about guns than the majority of people in Stronghold 113!