Warlord – Chapter 83
Zero opened his eyes and jumped up. He quickly used his foot to sweep and stir soil and dust to extinguish the bonfire. He heard the gunfire and roars of the monsters. It meant the distant battle was approaching them. A trouble that he didn't want. Now, he had only two options. First was to avoid the trouble and second was to solve it out as soon as possible.
He was listening to the sounds of the battle. The situation seemed to be detrimental to the humans. Zero decided to help them out. There were no rules that said you shouldn't help or support your same kind in the wilderness unless both sides had hostile relationship.
Zero woke up Monica and asked her to stay in the tent with Lala. He was like a ghost as he moved towards the battlefield. The fight was occurring about a kilometer away from his camp. Zero observed the battle from distance. Troops were firing while they were fleeing away from a group of wolves. The group had two SUVs and several wagons. The main wagon seemed to be covered by a thick waterproof cloth. Zero speculated that they were shipping something.
More than a dozen guards were using automatic rifles and machine guns as they constantly tried to repulse the attacking wolves. The caravan seemed to have bad luck as they were facing a large group of mutated wolves. According to Zero there were about two to three hundred strong wolves that were attacking caravan.
Although the fire from the guards temporarily suppressed the attack of the monsters but guards wouldn't be able to protect themselves with dagger or machetes after the ammunition was exhausted.
Zero felt that something was wrong as he observed for a while. The attack of the monsters seemed to be way too regular. It was known that wolves are social animals. As a result they are more organized in their attacks in comparison to other beasts. However Zero observed that the attack of the wolves were more than organized. They were attacking in waves like a well-trained army. It seemed as if they were being controlled by something.
Zero remembered the group of zombies from Silver Tree City that he had faced two years ago. At the time, those zombies seemed to have formed a society with hierarchical structure. Zero saw the march and offense of the wolves and couldn't help but think about the word EVOLUTION.
The evolution didn't just manifest itself in terms of strength. By chance it would manifest wisdom too. The latter(wisdom) is much more valuable than the former. Zero couldn't imagine what kind of world would come out to be in case the zombies, and other monsters acquired wisdom. It was guaranteed that in that case the lands belonging to humans would shrink further and the world would become more brutal than it was now.
Zero decided to let go of these thoughts. He was neither a philosopher nor a politician. He decided to let these big topics to be discussed by those that should be worried by them. His aim was to resolve the crisis. He made a circle towards the rear of the mutated wolves.
Campbell used his sleeve to clean off the sweat from his forehead. He sincerely prayed to God to get him out of this trouble.
He was fifty years old that year. However according to the standards of the wilderness he was considered a man in his prime age. Although his hair was white and his muscles had become rigid but he was still as energetic as a youth. It was for this reason than Campbell was one of the best adventurer merchants on this coastline.
After the catastrophe the world had become very dangerous. However there were many rich people who were willing to spend money to operate their business across the coastline. The adventurer merchants were the people who wandered from base to base as they accomplished the shipping of goods.
Many companies or bases didn't have independent transportation, logistics and shipment systems except the large conglomerates such as Parker in this turbulent era. As a result the adventurer merchants began to fill the gap. They would bring materials and goods from long-distance for trade between companies. Some of them would even risk to get dangerous creatures from the southwest and sell them to the people who could afford. The merchants who were selling creatures were called monster brokers.
Campbell was a successful monster broker.
Humans always desired to control or own the best of everything. The people with money and wealth loved stuff like that. In this turbulent era there were quite a many rich men and women who desired to own dangerous monsters as pets. Every year there would be quite a few of those people who were even killed by their own pets. But Campbell's business had never stalled or came to halt as there always was a demand for exotic monsters.
This time Campbell had acquired quite a good monster from the southwest. He decided the monster was a real treasure. He believed that he would be able to sell it for a very good price. Of course, not everyone would be able to afford the creature. Campbell couldn't control his greed so he was planning to go to City of the Eternal Night to sell the rare monster to the Dark Council. He knew that those council people would be interested in researching the rare specie from the deep southwest.
Campbell knew that the team who had captured this monster was almost decimated. Moreover, no one had heard of this monster before and Campbell even had named the monster. As greedy as he was, Campbell didn't plan to directly go to City of the Eternal Night but planned to take a tour along the way. He was planning to show the monster on bases and earn money from the 'circus'.
His next stop was going to be Titan City which was not far from their current location. Since they had departed the southwest, Campbell hadn't neither eaten nor slept well. So he was planning to hurry over the night and reach Titan City as soon as possible.
Campbell was in a very risky business. Naturally he had the defensive strength to protect himself and his goods. In fact, he wasn't an ability user. But he had rented the services of mercenary group called 'Arctic Fox'. The leader of the group was a war veteran. There were few third and fourth-order hot weapon specialization ability users and perception domain ability users. Campbell wasn't worried about anything ass long as they did their jobs properly.
But tonight, they faced a group of hungry mutated wolves. Campbell never thought of wolves as anything of value. Actually, these monsters could be killed by few bursts of gun shot.
However, the battle was extending and it made Campbell's heart sink. He was flustered.
Campbell didn't dare to walk through the dangerous wilderness because of his courage but greed!