Chapter Content
Hunter released his grip and raised his head. His sharp eyes were like bullets, making Li Yu's heart suddenly skip a beat.
"When you used to follow behind Old Lu, I never really looked at you properly." Hunter's two dark mustaches were neatly groomed.
Li Yu smiled faintly. "Weren't your eyes always focused on the road?"
Hearing Li Yu's obviously sarcastic remark, Hunter did not get angry. His mustache twitched upwards slightly. "Kid, don't think you are invincible just because you are holding a sniper rifle."
He pulled a blue Energy Button from his pocket and gently pressed it against his body. A faint blue film instantly expanded across him, covering his entire body in the blink of an eye.
"You have really touched Third Fatty's sore spot. This Energy Button can block attacks below the E+ rank. It is quite valuable, yet he just gave it to me."
Mo Duo's expression drastically changed in an instant. The information he received was that someone would come to pass a message, but this was clearly wrong. Third Fatty had no intention of communicating at all.
He wanted to slaughter Li Yu directly to declare to the outside world who the real master here was!
Firearms capable of unleashing E-rank attacks were already considered extremely precious, and they were generally no longer purely kinetic weapons.
Li Yu's expression remained unchanged as he looked at Hunter, who was now covered by the blue film. He recalled that his sniper rifle seemed to have a D-rank evaluation.
Tsk, tsk...
"So, are you going to make your move?" Li Yu unfolded the towel in his hands, folded it neatly, and hung it up to dry again. Under the blazing sun, it would dry very quickly.
Mo Duo gulped and slowly paced backward. For some reason, he felt that Li Yu was quite different from before. It was not just a slight superficial alteration, but a profound transformation on a deeper level.
Hunter's figure suddenly vanished, turning into a blur. His speed was incredibly fast, yet even so, he did not touch a single piece of the scattered trash on the ground or make the slightest sound.
"Watch out!"
Mo Duo could not help but cry out. His green pupils contracted, slowly emitting a faint glow.
Thud!
About two meters away from Li Yu, Hunter abruptly stopped. His leather shoes scraped against the Ash-Stone Ground, producing a dull thud.
"Hmm?" Li Yu revealed a bewildered expression, seeming to have just reacted. "Why did you stop?"
There was still some distance from the one-meter kill zone he had established for Claptrap.
"It's nothing. I just suddenly remembered that Old Lu used to treat me pretty well. Doing this would really be too unkind of me." Hunter shook his head, offering a ridiculously comical excuse.
As a hunter, he possessed excellent intuition. It was precisely this intuition that had saved his life multiple times and helped him scavenge many good items.
But just a moment ago, he sensed a fatal danger. Even the Protective Shield on his body could not provide him with the slightest sense of security.
"Oh..." Li Yu nodded. He then raised his hand, forming a finger gun and aiming his index finger right at Hunter.
Hunter's pupils shrank, and a sharp pain pierced the center of his forehead. An indescribable wave of danger washed over him, forcing him to blurt out:
"Wait... Do you want to know how Old Lu died?"
Li Yu remained expressionless as jumbled memories surfaced in his mind. They showed an old man with rough fingers, his fingerprints long worn away.
"...Little Yu, even though this radio doesn't work anymore, the parts inside still have some value..."
"Little Yu... I'm going to die... Don't worry about why I'm dying..."
He could not see the man's face clearly. It was very blurry, consisting only of a few scattered memories from his former self.
"Before he died, Old Lu told me not to ask too many questions. I am an obedient child..." Li Yu slowly raised his finger.
"Wait! If you kill me, Third Fatty will be furious. In a fit of rage, it is highly likely he will leave this entire batch of Scavengers in The Junkyard. When Opto-Electric Technology recycles the entire place, we will all die here."
Hunter spoke faster than ever before, clearly unraveling the logic of the situation.
Li Yu's movements paused. He pondered for a moment and frowned; there really was such a possibility.
Killing Hunter was a trivial matter, but Opto-Electric Technology used Black Hole Technology to recycle the entire Junkyard, obliterating everything without distinguishing between man and beast. Without relying on Third Fatty, it would be extremely difficult to leave this place.
He knew very well in his heart that he did not actually have any city-dwelling backers behind him.
Seeing him lower his finger, Hunter breathed a sigh of relief but also looked somewhat surprised. "Did you really not connect with anyone from the city?"
The reason he hadn't mentioned this earlier was because he assumed Li Yu had connections in the city and could leave this place no matter what, meaning the threat of the recycling wouldn't affect him much.
Therefore, he had first tried to use Old Lu's death to save his own life. But this guy Li Yu was much more ruthless than he had imagined, not caring at all about why Old Lu died. So, he had no choice but to take a gamble. Fortunately...
Now it seemed that everyone had been completely wrong. Third Fatty had conjured up an enemy for himself entirely out of thin air.
But even if Third Fatty knew, he probably wouldn't care. He completely disregarded the Scavengers as human beings, viewing them as nothing more than greedy mongrels.
As these thoughts flashed through Hunter's mind, his hands had already detached the blue Energy Button. Since it was useless anyway, he might as well take it off to show his sincerity.
"Give it to me..." Li Yu demanded unceremoniously, extending his hand.
Hunter's movements stiffened. The hand he had just tucked into his jacket slowly emerged again. Forcing a rigid smile on his face, he prepared to hand the button to Li Yu.
"Stop right there..." Li Yu spoke up again. "Throw it over. Oh, and by the way... you cannot come within a meter... no, a meter and a half of me. Otherwise, a bullet will shoot straight through your skull."
"Doesn't that mean I have to constantly pay attention? What if I accidentally forget?" Hunter's expression looked grim.
Li Yu spread his hands and sighed, looking somewhat helpless. "Then I can only say I'm sorry..."
'Sorry my ass! If I'm already a corpse, what use is an apology?!'
Smiling stiffly, Hunter tossed the blue Energy Button over. It felt cool to the touch and bore a lightning bolt emblem, along with a line of small text: Opto-Electric Armament!
"You just stick it on your body to use it..." Mo Duo considerately reminded him.
Li Yu glanced at him, his face devoid of emotion. "I know!"
Mo Duo's expression froze, and he glared at him fiercely. 'I was only trying to be helpful.'
"If there's nothing else... I'll be taking my leave..." Hunter rubbed his hands together, no longer pressing down his hat, and laughed dryly.
"No... you have to help me think of a foolproof plan. I need to safely enter the Shelter Zone without being targeted by Third Fatty, and ideally, I want to take him out too..." Li Yu called out to stop him. After pondering for a moment, he added, "If you move more than five meters away from me, you'll be killed as well."
Hunter's eyes widened, the sharp gleam in them seemingly fading away. "You motherf—"
Before he could finish his sentence, he saw Li Yu expressionlessly raise his hand. He immediately nodded solemnly. "No problem."
Mo Duo couldn't help but chuckle, almost laughing out loud. Li Yu glanced at the fool who clearly didn't understand the situation and shook his head.
He glanced at the pink children's watch on his wrist—11:43. It was almost twelve o'clock, and the first day's System Log was about to refresh.
"You're an idiot, and you can still laugh?" Hunter shot a glance at the gloating Mo Duo and snapped angrily.
"You're the idiot here. We'll see who the real prisoner is." Mo Duo refused to show any weakness.
Hunter laughed loudly. "Hah! You think after hearing all this, that kid will just let you leave safely? Keep laughing. You've already hopped in for the ride, and there's no getting off now."
Mo Duo's eyes instantly went wide. He looked at Li Yu with disbelief in his green eyes and asked cautiously, "We... are friends, right?"
Li Yu grinned, revealing a row of pure white teeth, and held up five fingers. "Five meters."
"Haha..." Hunter couldn't help but burst into laughter. Happiness was always built on the suffering of others. If others didn't suffer, how could he be happy?
......
[Avatar: 1 (Deploying - Resident Evil World)]
[Day 1: Red Queen Base is a beautiful place. You found the unconscious Ryan, took the ring off his finger, and put it on your own. Then, you smashed the T-Virus Antidote vials one by one.]
[Acquired White Title: Mr. Steal Your Girl. Acquired Green Title: [Plot Disruptor].]
Red Queen Base... Li Yu hadn't expected his Avatar to be dropped directly into the Red Queen Base this time. He remembered that the events at the base took place over the course of just twenty-four hours.
In other words, if things went quickly, he could recall this Avatar by tonight. Even if the Avatar survived to the end and escaped the Red Queen Base, it likely wouldn't last long against the Umbrella Corporation.
It seemed the survival time this round wouldn't be very long...
However, the Avatar's initial behavior was utterly outrageous. Why destroy the T-Virus Antidote? Wasn't he afraid of getting infected himself? And why take Ryan's ring? Surely he wasn't thinking about wooing Alice...
He suspected that this was the work of that so-called [Act Randomly] talent...
Thinking of this, Li Yu grew curious. Were these events just a few lines of text in the System Log, or were they genuinely happening in some real location out there?
"...Hey, oh great lord who holds my life in his hands, were you even listening to my suggestion?!" Hunter called out impatiently.
Li Yu's vacant eyes refocused as he shifted his attention away from the system panel. Looking at the highly suspicious Hunter, he said calmly, "Sorry, I spaced out for a moment. Say it again."
Hunter: "..."
"It's like this..." He pondered for a moment before speaking again. "Third Fatty doesn't know that you don't have anyone backing you. We can easily use a fabricated figurehead to keep him in check."
"A fabricated figurehead..." Li Yu subconsciously narrowed his eyes. "Will he believe it?"
"That depends on how you play it..." Hunter shook his head. "It naturally wouldn't fool him in the long run, but it can restrict him in the short term. We just need to convince him that the person backing you has no interest in this territory."
"Tell me..." Li Yu didn't continue on that topic, but instead asked, "Could I kill him with a single shot?"
Hunter's pupils dilated and his Adam's apple bobbed up and down. Mo Duo stared at Li Yu in astonishment with his green eyes.
"Don't..." Hunter nearly shrieked, then cautiously looked around and lowered his voice. "Don't court death..."
"Even if your gun can shatter my Protective Shield, it definitely won't kill Third Fatty..."
"Third Fatty is an E+ rank Genetic Warrior. Despite his fat head and big ears, a single punch from him packs over a dozen tons of explosive force. Furthermore... he has life-saving trump cards."
Becoming a Genetic Warrior was the most mainstream path of individual evolution in this world, and the difficulty was extraordinarily high.
Li Yu nodded silently, remaining noncommittal. Hunter cast a palpitating glance at him. How did this previously silent kid who always followed behind Old Lu develop such an arrogant and reckless style? He hadn't inherited even a sliver of Old Lu's low profile.
"But... what happens when the shelter period ends?" Li Yu returned to the previous issue.
Hunter smiled bitterly. "I don't have a solution for that either. You don't actually have anyone backing you, so you can't bluff Third Fatty forever. Once he figures it out, it's still a dead end."
Seeing that Li Yu was about to speak again, Hunter raised both hands in surrender. "I'm just a trash-picking nobody. I really can't come up with any other methods..."
Li Yu frowned, then nodded. "True."
Hunter: "..."
Speechless, he pulled down the brim of his hat and retorted testily, "The only other option is to leave this place. But neither of us has an identity. It's impossible to move an inch out there; getting caught means taking a bullet to the head."
"There's absolutely no way?"
Hunter fell silent. His expression grew somewhat serious, and his eyes seemed to regain their sharp edge. "There is one way..."
"For stowaways on Desolate Sky Star, the only way to obtain a legal identity is to go to the underground boxing arenas. That place offers a path to citizenship, while here... we are just eking out a miserable existence."
Desolate Sky Star bordered the No Man's Land System and served as a frontier planet for the Star Glory Empire. Many space pirates and exiled nobles hoped to acquire identities here, allowing them to enter the Star Glory Empire legally.
He hesitated to speak, frequently glancing at Li Yu, before finally sighing. "Actually, Old Lu lost his life because he sustained severe injuries fighting in the underground boxing rings."
Li Yu's heart skipped a beat. "He wanted to leave?"
"No..." Hunter shook his head. "He wanted to get you out..."
Li Yu fell silent, his body trembling slightly. It was the memories of his former self acting up, causing a few fragmented images to resurface.
"Oh." He nodded, his face devoid of emotion.
Hunter stared at him intently, thinking to himself, 'What a cold-blooded kid. Oh, Old Lu, your kindness was truly fed to a ravenous dog.'
"Are you... okay?" Mo Duo couldn't help but ask, his eyes turning slightly red. For people like them, having someone who genuinely cared for you was an extreme rarity.
"I'm fine. What's wrong with you?" Li Yu looked at Mo Duo in surprise.
Mo Duo: "..."
"Then I'll head back and report to Third Fatty. We'll proceed as discussed?" Hunter probed.
"I'll go with you..." Li Yu shook his head. "I don't trust you."
......
Third Fatty's Metal Apartment was the most valuable item in the entire Junkyard. The key was that it was equipped with a Space Folding Device. A building covering five hundred square meters could be folded down to the size of a briefcase and carried around anywhere.
In a room on the second floor, the pastel pink decor looked rather cozy. However, the assortment of toys hanging on the wall would involuntarily provoke a knowing, meaningful smile.
Third Fatty was panting heavily, his eyes completely bloodshot. Wearing an ill-fitting suit, he gripped his special black long whip. Every swing was accompanied by a crisp, sharp crack.
Crack! Crack! Crack!