Book 6 Chapter 7.3 - Seventy Thousand Trees to Ashes
Vibimore was an entirely different city. The region for the rich next to the lake and the slaves as well as natives' residential district had a clear gap between them, all natives who accidentally wandered into this separation chased back. Of course, if it was considered with the olden era's standard, the privileged class community's rich region was no different from slum housing, while the natives' residences were completely trash sites.
Several soldiers walked lazily around Vibimore's surroundings, maintaining a certain amount of vigilance, but not nervous in the slightest. This night was extremely quiet, no different from the past. They also knew their own roles and significance well, mainly to drive away those misbehaving natives or teach those thieving slaves who were so hungry they were driven mad a lesson. If an enemy wished to invade Vibimore, the first thing they had to consider was how they were going to deal with Kebile, and not waste time on mass-produced standard soldiers like them. Only with the existence of Kebile would there be a Vibimore City.
When this troop of soldiers walked past the side of the deep forest, Su silently appeared behind them. He reached out his hand to grab the neck of the last soldier, and then silently carried him into the forest. The five soldiers in front were completely unaware during this entire process. Only after walking several hundred meters out did they realize that the troop was missing a person. However, they didn't treat this as a big deal, assuming that fella went into the forest to piss. Aside from looking around a few times, they didn't even have any intention of stopping, let alone going back to make sure. As for when that person would catch up, or if he would catch up at all, this wasn't something they would be concerned about. Regardless, in this troop, losing a few soldiers without any reason was also quite a normal thing.
From this, one could see that Vibimore army's discipline was extremely lax.
After a brief ten minutes or so of interrogation, Su already understood this. Vibimore had a five hundred or so membered army, three hundred of them elite soldiers who had undergone the standard five ability levels strengthening. These elite soldiers were the core power, while those carrying out patrol were only reserve soldiers. As for individual strength, the elite soldiers, due to their ability coordination, already had strength close to dragonrider subordinates, and were an entire grade stronger than servant soldiers. However, compared to the dragonriders, their equipment was extremely lacking, every person's standard equipment only including an AK automatic rifle, the bullets also only a single magazine. Towards this type of weak firepower allocation, a single dragonrider sergeant[1]'s men could easily wipe out several hundred individuals.
Su thought to himself while placing the military cap on his head, covering his eye-grabbing light blonde short hair. He then tilted the brim of the hat downwards, covering half of his face. Meanwhile, his excessively refined face that didn't seem to harmonize with the surrounding environment at all was already completely hidden beneath closely wrapped cloth strips. Before him, the soldier he had just captured was leaning limply against a palm tree, sound asleep. An insignificant amount of poison was already enough to have him sleep for more than ten days, lasting all the way until hunger or extreme weakness woke him up again. As for the poisonous insects commonly seen in this tropical region, they weren't that great of an issue. The native inhabitants' bodies released a type of strong and strange smell that possessed powerful bug repelling effects.
When he walked out from the palm tree forest, Su already became a local soldier. He was quite a bit taller than the local natives, which was why the military uniform didn't suit him. However, the army had quite a few individuals who belonged to the privileged class' races, all of them those who were completely broke and in need of a bit of money. As a result, Su wasn't really that conspicuous.
Su hung the rifle in a slanted manner unique to army ruffians, swaggering like that towards Vibimore. There was only a wooden wall in Vibimore's surroundings, with many areas collapsed and damaged. The entire city had a total of six sentry towers equipped with light machine guns, but there were no searchlights to support them. At nightime, their range of alert could be said to be extremely limited.
Vibimore was covered in darkness under the night scene, lights only seen from the homes of master residences and the wealthy district. The city only had five large-scale diesel fuel electric generators, the only source of electricity. Without electrical power, there was no modern industry to talk about, so all of the industrial manufacturing stopped at the manual work era.
Su moved through a plantation like a ghost. A vicious hunting dog dozed off right by a palm tree, but it was completely unaware of Su who just passed by its side.
This place's greatest industry was the plantation, able to produce bananas, coffee, and all types of tropical fruits that could serve as food. Under the outdoor environment, everything that was produced carried light amounts of radiation, this grade of food in the Blood Parliament things given to the refugees to eat. However, Su already discovered that the people here, regardless of whether they were natives or of the privileged class, their bodies all carried small amounts of mutated tissues, thus substantially increasing their tolerance towards radiation. The food Vibimore produced, for them, were rare delicious food. Su's thought centers fished out the entire body data of the soldier from just now, starting to analyze it. The results he obtained left Su feeling slightly shocked.
"The mutated tissues are already stable and solidified, able to pass down stable body tissues to the next generation?" Su thought to himself.
This actually meant that the local people already adapted to this environment that carried powerful radiation, and could multiply in this type of environment for generations, establishing a new civilized era. Of course, this was on the premise that the mutated tissues were stably inherited, and that it didn't affect the functions of other human parts too much.
From the bodies of the two soldiers he had captured, the distribution of mutated tissues was extremely homogeneous, thus not placing too heavy of a burden on the human body's normal functions, instead allowing them to have outstanding radiation resistance ability. While traveling here, of the slaves Su encountered, many of them weren't equipped with this type of well-distributed mutated tissues. However, uneven distribution was the natural pattern, that type of rare and precious distribution and stability, in theory, was something that should only appear after countless generations of inheritance and natural selection. Even in this age of turmoil where everything mutated at flying speeds, time was still the greatest hindrance. That was why Su caught a whiff of unnatural scent from the local people's body compositions.
Past the plantation was Vibimore's slum area. There were disordered and messy shacks everywhere, the sewage everywhere gathering into a river. All types of trash was thrown all over the place, almost no road to speak of. The pungent odor that assailed the senses made one feel like suffocating, the entire region like one large landfill.
1. Above private, under lieutenant