Chapter 975 Gathering Place
Fortunately, with Aiden's explanation, the guards finally let them in. Of course, even though they said they were letting it in, they also said...
"If you dare to do anything dangerous, we will shoot you immediately!"
At the beginning, everyone didn't quite understand why the atmosphere in this gathering place was so tense, but when they walked into the gathering place, they immediately understood the source of the tense atmosphere.
I saw dozens of corpses piled up in the open space inside the gathering place. Some guards were holding firewood and gasoline nearby, and some people were crying in pain...
"It seems that we lost a lot of people here last night."
Takagi Saya observed carefully, and then spoke in a low voice. Her expression was somewhat stiff, but it was normal if she thought about it carefully. After all, in the situation of Blood Moon, not everywhere has the power of the Tribunal. Especially the larger the gathering place, the more likely it is to suffer heavy losses.
"Well, that's interesting."
Duanmu Huai stood there, turning a blind eye to the frightened looks cast by those around him, and just looked around curiously. These survivors occupy a large factory as their base. From the outside, it should be a food processing factory. Well, in this way, it is understandable why people in this city choose this place as a gathering place.
“Why is it so expensive?”
Just as Duanmuhuai was curiously looking at the gathering place, Joel's voice came from not far away. He turned his head and saw Joel arguing with a man who looked like a guard, with a red face. He looked very impatient.
"What's wrong?"
Duanmuhuai walked over curiously and asked. Seeing his arrival, the guard's expression changed and he didn't speak. Instead, Joel complained.
"The things in this gathering place are too expensive. I originally just wanted to exchange for some stored dry food, but I didn't expect that he actually asked me for a hundred bullets!"
As the apocalypse approaches, money will of course have no role. As for bottle cap currency, it is even more nonsense. According to Aiden and Joel, general transactions in this world are barter. For example, you have medicine and I have food. Both parties need each other and can exchange a little.
Joel came to the gathering place this time to buy some dry food for himself and Ellie, and to buy some supplies. But what he didn't expect was that what this gathering place mainly needed was energy reserves such as gasoline and diesel, and then medicine... And there were also some equipment and parts for repairing machinery that Joel searched for on the road. There is demand, but the demand is not very big.
If Joel hadn't been lucky enough to get a few boxes of cigarettes and other wasteland hard currency, the other party might not even be willing to look at Joel.
"Even if you say so, our requirements in this area are indeed not high."
Although the guard was a little timid when he saw Duanmu Huai, he still fought hard and argued with reason. After all, this is the end of the world, and every resource is almost life-threatening. How can it be easily traded?
Joel argued with the other party for a long time, but the guard refused to let go. After all, the medicines Joel needed were hard currency, and cigarettes could only relieve boredom, but medicines could save lives...
"It's useless for you guys to argue here."
Duanmu Huai stood aside and listened for a while, and felt that this was actually no different from bargaining at a roadside vegetable stall: "This dish is too expensive for one dollar and a half, give it to me for one dollar," "If you don't sell it for one dollar, at least one dollar for three dollars," etc., he decided to lose it. interested.
"Since we can't agree on the transaction price, is there no other way?"
"Any other way?"
Joel and the guard, who were arguing endlessly, were stunned when they heard Duanmuhuai's proposal, while Duanmuhuai nodded.
"I remember that Aiden is not that... a wanderer or something. He can accept some commissions and be paid... Can't you do the same? Since we can't agree on the price, do you have anything? You can leave the task to him. If he helps you with it, wouldn’t it be okay for you to give him some medicine as a reward?”
"This..."
Upon hearing this, both the guard and Joel were stunned. The former thought for a moment, then looked at Joel and then at Duanmuhuai.
"If this is the case, then I really have a task for you. If you can complete it, then we can provide you with some supplies you need."
"So generous? It's dangerous."
"Of course it's dangerous."
The guard didn't make any nonsense, but nodded.
"When you entered the gathering place, did you see those corpses?"
"Yes, I saw it."
"Actually, they were originally charged with an important mission..."
Soon, the guards also explained to Duanmu Huai and Joel that it turned out that after the apocalypse, this gathering place had been gradually expanding, and many refugees had also been gathered. But there is a problem, that is, their energy supply is not much. The entire food processing plant does have several backup emergency generators, but there is not enough fuel.
Before this, the gathering place sent people to nearby gas stations and other places to collect fuel, but now the surrounding gas stations have also been collected.
However, the scouts dispatched by the gathering place brought good news. They discovered a fuel pipeline that had not been damaged and an oil product warehouse on the other side of the city. Although it is only a small warehouse, if we can occupy it and open a transportation line to the food factory, then the fuel problem of the gathering place can be solved for a long time.
So a team of people gathered at this gathering place to try to capture the oil warehouse and open a road. However…………
It ultimately failed.
The reason is simple, not enough time.
If this world didn't have a blood moon every seven days, then if they pushed forward slowly, they might actually succeed. But unfortunately, a blood moon craze breaks out in this world every seven days. Under such circumstances, there is no way for the gathering place to advance slowly.
But if they want to speed up, they don't have that much power.
The end result was that they did not have time to open the road to the oil warehouse before the blood moon arrived, so they suffered heavy losses.
So…………
"If you can open the road to the oil warehouse and eliminate the zombies occupying there, then we can indeed provide you with supplies."
"This..."
Joel frowned when he heard the guard's request. He knew that it was impossible for him to do this. Of course, if you asked him to go there and get a few barrels of fuel back, it would be more or less... although it would be difficult.
"Hmm..."
On the contrary, Duanmuhuai thought for a while after listening.
"Okay, no problem."
"Huh?"
I have to say that both Joel and Ellie were stunned when they heard Duanmuhuai's answer.
This is obviously their business and has nothing to do with the Tribunal, right?
Soon, Duanmu Huai summoned everyone and explained to them.
After listening to Duanmu Huai's explanation, the survivors were quite unbelievable, of course, from their perspective. They do hope to get some support from this gathering place in terms of supplies, but - to put it bluntly, this is also their own business. Like Joel and Ellie, they need supplies to continue their journey, so they naturally have to take risks. This is Of course.
But...the Inquisition doesn't need to take risks with them, right?
"We do need supplies, and at present, this is also very important to us, but..."
Gaocheng Saya frowned and looked at Duanmuhuai.
"Mr. Duanmu, the Inquisition does not need these supplies. Is your help purely out of... goodwill?"
"Of course not."
Duanmuhuai shook his head.
"The duty of the Tribunal is to protect the continuation of mankind and eliminate all existence that threatens mankind. For this gathering place, at least for now, it is one of the fires for the continuation of human civilization. Since they need help, then The Inquisition will naturally be willing to assist them because of its duty. Of course, the choice of how to do it is up to us.”
Speaking of this, Duanmuhuai glanced at Gaocheng Saya.
"Just like you, for the Tribunal, it is our duty to save you. After all, civilization and existence can only continue as long as humans survive. Do you understand?"
"That's...okay, I think I can understand it, it's just a little..."
It has to be said that the survivors were very surprised when they heard Duanmuhuai's answer. You know, in this era and in this world, such big words as saving mankind are almost impossible to hear. Almost everyone is fighting for their own interests. Organizations like the Tribunal are really unimaginable to everyone.
Of course, more importantly, the Inquisition didn't just talk the talk, they actually did it.
However, these survivors didn't know that the reason why Duanmu Huai did this was, on the one hand, it was indeed the responsibility of the Tribunal, and on the other hand, he was chasing rabbits. After all, he didn't know where the main plot of the world was, so he started to do tasks one by one. Go ahead, maybe you’ll find the main thread as you go along.
The commander of this gathering place also talked with Duanmu Huai just now, and the two parties have reached an agreement. From the current point of view, this should be the main mission of this gathering place. Open up transportation channels, occupy oil product warehouses... Well, how can I put it, the wasteland is really troublesome.
Duanmu Huai scratched his head when he thought of this. If it were a normal fragmented world, at least he could find a core civilization point. There was no place like this world, which was almost in tatters. He didn't know where there would be a core civilization gathering place. If not, then he... …………
Hey, so this is the only bad thing about sandbox games. There are branch lines everywhere and no main line.
Duanmuhuai felt as if he had just crawled out of the shelter, looking at the devastated radioactive wasteland outside, with a bewildered look on his face like "who am I, where am I, and what am I going to do?"
What's more, you don't have a BB boy to guide you, right?
You can’t be obsessed with picking up trash.
"Forget it, after all, side missions are also missions. Do it or not."
Duanmuhuai thought about it for a while, then asked directly, while the survivors discussed it and finally agreed to participate in this mission. After all, the boss of the gathering place has said that if they can really complete the task, all good things will be given to them. Duanmuhuai seems not to want it, but they still need some capital to walk in the wasteland. What's more, this kind of mission would definitely be suicidal in normal times, but now Duanmu Huai is taking the lead - they have seen the combat power of the Tribunal, so it would be useless if they don't embrace it, right?
So everyone discussed it, if you don't enter the tiger's den, you won't get the tiger's cubs, so let's do it!
(End of chapter)