Chapter 410, Prisoner
The wind and sand finally stopped.
Fortunately, they survived.
At this time, the wilderness was in a mess, with many huge potholes on the ground, and one-third of the transport vehicles in the convoy disappeared.
At the same time, there were some that were twisted and deformed as if they had been hit by a heavy hammer. Some guys who were not completely dead were wailing in the twisted and deformed steel, and those who survived looked like they were unconscious.
Not long after, when the communicator on his waist rang again, the timid young mercenary finally came to his senses, and a burnt aroma appeared in his nose.
Realizing something, he pulled up his leg fiercely. A piece of flesh stuck to the steam boiler and was torn off like this.
The source of that fragrance is here.
It’s not that painful, but the lack of pain is a big problem.
He hurriedly turned off the steam boiler, and at the same time used the yellowed linen to wrap and bandage the wound on his calf.
This is already the best solution he can make at present.
This kind of burn is no stranger to him, and he also knows what it will bring. The best way to deal with it now is to turn around and go to those profiteers to buy an expensive pack of spore powder, but he If you can't afford the price of breach of contract, even if you bite the bullet, you still have to send these guys to their destination.
Now I can only pray, pray that I can get through it, pray that I can survive.
The rat people soon started marching again.
Those who are not dead and are still wailing are ignored for the time being.
The subsequent journey was extremely difficult for the young rat-man mercenary. In the previous random shooting, he shattered one side of the glass on the grille observation port of the crawler transport vehicle he was driving.
Every time we move forward, the black gravel in the wilderness will be picked up by the strong wind and poured in along the damaged grille observation opening.
Such a blow could not damage the structure of the crawler transport vehicle, but it could fill the hair all over his body with black gravel.
His condition is getting worse and worse. The wound on his calf can smell a nauseating stench even through the bandage.
There was no pain, but he felt that he was getting weaker and weaker.
The worst-case scenario has arisen. He may really need to buy some spore powder from those profiteers.
Fortunately, not all is bad news.
They have reached their destination.
Gradually, a bulging mountain and a pitch-black mountain appeared in the sight of all the rat people. This was the destination of their trip, and it was also the third super iron found by the rat people on the Black Iron Star. mine.
A new Skaven city will fall in this dark mountain.
The first two super iron mines have entered the development stage at full speed. They support the second fleet of the Skaven and the star ports of the two planets of Shenqi Fortress.
And this dark mountain, the third super iron mine discovered by the Skaven on the Black Iron Star, will support the construction of the Skaven Third Fleet and the unfinished star port on the Black Iron Star.
It’s just not easy to get to this point and it will take some time.
First of all, we need a camp that can roughly smelt steel, and then gradually expand this camp into a majestic steel city, a super city that integrates mining, smelting, and production capabilities.
This is not a project that can be completed in a short time. It may take twenty years, or a hundred years, or even a century. This is already an incomparably long time for the rat people.
Walking into the starry sky, the life span of the rat people has increased a little, but only a little.
Before they came out of the God Qi Star, the average rat man might only have eight to twelve years in his life. But now, this number has increased to twenty. Of course, this is an average value. .
The lifespan gap between the Ratmen is ridiculously exaggerated.
This depends on the environment and whether you are qualified to enjoy those truly precious things, but these are the privileges of decent rat people, rat people big shots, big businessmen, and bureaucrats. For ordinary people, As far as the rat people are concerned.
Their lives are not long, and it is not easy to live to the age of twenty.
This city will take at least one generation of rat people to fall, and this number may even continue to increase.
Such a scale that is almost unimaginable to ordinary rat people.
At this time, these rat men who were sent to this wilderness are the starting point of everything and they are also the trapped prisoners.
They will never be able to leave this desolate land, work to give birth, work, and realize the grand vision step by step. Although they cannot intuitively know what they are doing until they die.
For them, the meaning of life is to earn those shiny pieces of iron, to live, and to work hard to prove that they live better than other guys.
So they are prisoners, prisoners of a city that has begun to build.
The huge steel city, the steel city that is no longer buried deep underground, is built bit by bit, and countless rat people are surging in it. Their whole life, or several lifetimes, several generations, Everything, life and death, will be trapped in these steel giants.
All you need to pay is a little shiny piece of metal.
The boundless steel has made the bones and flesh of the Skaven fleet, and also the bones and flesh of the Skaven empire.
After successfully unloading the cargo, the young rat mercenary obtained a certificate engraved in steel.
This is what he needs to exchange for his reward.
This time, after one rotation, he was able to get a fairly good reward, one hundred blood gold coins.
Of course, if he doesn't have this voucher in his hand when he turns back, then the situation waiting for him will be different.
Those rat-man bureaucrats are not nice gentlemen. They are guys who are greedy beyond imagination. They will not be stingy at every opportunity to knock your bones and suck out your marrow.
His condition was getting worse and worse, and some turbid pus was already flowing out of the wound on his calf.
All I can do is pray.
Pray that I can go back smoothly and live.
Before setting off, he never thought that this errand would be so dangerous.
These rat mercenaries, said to be mercenaries, actually do not have much fighting ability. They are more like a group of unlucky guys who are forced to wander in the wilderness.
Just like him.
He was born in a settlement called Iron Bush. Just because he was not as tall as his brother, he was driven out of the family by his parents the day his brother came of age.
A man was hanging out in that small settlement.
Even the hideous scar on his face was just a scar left in the fight with his brother.
Wandering in the crowded rat-man tavern every day, he and a few young rat-men boys who were also driven out engaged in the business of stealing the steam trains that came to and from the settlement every day.
Their small settlement has no other specialties. It was established simply because two tracks intersected next to their gathering place, and the decent work in the gathering place was Almost all of them revolve around the intersection of tracks and the steam trains that travel to and from this node. Maintain tracks, clean trains, provide accessories, replenish food and some turbid water.
His father is a track maintainer, and his brother will inherit his father's job and his father's name, the new Hammer Rat in the Iron Bush, and become a decent track maintainer .
And he is the pickpocket hanging out in the tavern.
Ride the stall where the steam train stops, climb onto the carriages carrying various ores, work hard to fill the dirty leather bags with ores, and finally the guardians on the train Before he noticed himself, he ran away in a hurry.
This is what he does day by day.
It's not a decent thing to do, and it's not that safe.
From time to time, young boys would be beaten to death on the spot because they were caught by the guards.
Looking at the corpses of his companions who were hung high on the station gate, he was also very frightened for a time, but in this small town, there is no other way for a guy like him to do other than such things. It can be done.
If you don’t steal the train, you will have to endure hunger.
Compared with hunger, death seems to be nothing.
In fact, this kind of life is not boring.
After all, each arriving train can bring different things. Most of them are dark iron ore. Even if a full pocket of iron ore is filled, it can only be exchanged for One or two white mushroom pieces.
And if he is lucky enough to encounter those trains carrying black gold, encounter those trains carrying good copper ore, or even trains carrying blood gold, then he only needs to fill half of his pocket, which is enough to make him I stayed comfortably in the tavern for several days.
During his time stealing trains, his best harvest was a piece of shiny blood gold engraved with beautiful patterns. He pierced a hole in it and hung it around his neck.
Originally, his life should continue like this.
Until one day, a train guarded by many rat warriors stopped in their small town. The train only transported one piece of cargo.
A huge golden bell.
That night, the Rat Man in the small bar was also the owner of the Rat Man Bar, a big shot in this Rat Man gathering place. He was in a very low mood.
Pouring cup after cup of mushroom wine into his mouth, he also told them some stories about his youth.
He said that when he was young, he left this small rat-man gathering place and came to a place called a city, where he worked as a rat-man mercenary.
When he talked about the place called the city, the expression on the rat man's face became particularly bright.
That day, he asked the rat man a question.
"You are so powerful, you must be there, then? In that city, you live a very comfortable life, right?"
What you got was the rat man's laughter.
The next day, he once again skillfully climbed into the carriage of a steam train, but this time he did not get down again.
Burying himself in the dark iron ore, he followed the steam train and left the small settlement.
In this way, he arrived in the city with curiosity and expectation. After stumbling, he also became a rat mercenary.
He was lucky. With the ferocious scars on his face, his journey as a rat mercenary was not hindered. In the huge rat city known as the blast furnace, he helped the rat people Gangsters collect debts, grope in sewers for those special mushrooms, and break into the wilderness to hunt ferocious beasts.
Only the second year after he came to Blast Furnace, he got the praise of a rat gang leader, so he got this job.
There is spore powder for sale in this camp.
But he doesn't have that much blood money.
In order to join the rat gang, he dedicated all the blood money he had accumulated in the past two years to the rat gang leader.
The convoy was about to leave, and he could only grit his teeth and follow.
When he was in the Iron Thorn, he had always been very curious, curious about the rat engineer who was obviously the largest in the settlement. The rat engineer who was just mentioned by his father, a railway trackman, was terrified. , even he was polite to the rat man, but why didn’t he have a name?
He just always wanted a name.
All decent fellows have names, but this rat-man has no name.
Until he came to the blast furnace.
See all kinds of things.
In the past, he often felt resentful because he lost to his brother and failed to inherit his father's name of Hammer Rat
But after he came to the blast furnace, he had this thought for a long time. It never rose again.
Compared to the blast furnace, the steel thorns are too small.
The railway maintenance man is also nothing.
He longed to get his name in the blast furnace and pass his name on from generation to generation.
It’s just not easy.
This is just a goal for now.
But it’s good to have such an idea. After all, only having something you desire can give you the motivation to climb up.
It’s just not easy.
The stench can no longer be suppressed even by the wind and sand in the wilderness.
Everything in my eyes gradually became blurred.
Unknowingly, this young rat mercenary had fallen to the end of the convoy.
It was necessary to stop, so he pulled the lever of the tracked vehicle hard to stop.
This old crawler transport vehicle slowly stopped in the wilderness.
All this was not discovered. No one in the away Ratman convoy noticed that a tracked transport vehicle was out of touch. They roared away, as if they did not want to spend more time in this wilderness. treat.
The young rat mercenary was left behind.
There was silence all around, and there was no sound except the whistling black wind and sand.
Curling up, on that cold metal seat, in the rustling wind.
A low murmur.
“It’s so cold, so cold!”
(End of this chapter)