Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland

"It is impossible to change Aikang Town with the power of one person."

"Whether it's me or Tian Xin Li Zheng."

Lu Meng said so.

At night, a group of people from Shandi gathered together. They gathered around a bonfire, sharing food with each other and keeping warm by the fire like drifters they met on the road. However, if others heard the topics they talked about, they would only feel They are crazy.

The Iron Guard soldiers who came with the Ember Order include people from all over the world. Those who are from Skun will not be shocked by the walls of this abandoned city. Whether it is Skun Town or their royal city Admark, in terms of solidity They were not inferior in any way - but compared with the scope and breadth, they began to feel at a loss. After all, even Karalia, the most prosperous city in the Shark Kingdom, may not be as good as an ordinary city-state of the United City, let alone the past. Imperial city and mining capital.

The soldiers in the swamp did not feel this way, but since they entered the city, they have been attacked by wild people no less than ten times in just one day. This was accompanied by local technology hunters. It is difficult to imagine other teams going deep alone. Condition.

Even the dense forest in the swamp used to have an order of gangsters and gangsters, but it was not as chaotic as this - at least at that time they were under the jurisdiction of the leaders of each gang, and there was still a bit of balance between them.

It's not like the wild people wandering among the ruins, knowing that they are outnumbered but still going forward to die.

Chad revealed the answer for everyone.

"I'm afraid those people have long since been unable to survive. The population here is not a wealth but a burden." The former Aikang Town native spoke calmly, as if he was telling a commonplace thing. "Now Aikang Town is about to enter winter. Although it is not the coldest time yet, the original ecology has been broken. Almost every family with an excess population has to pick out a wild man to come out to 'forage'... Just pay it back if you can find it, most likely you will die outside, in fact, you will be looking for a way to survive. "

He himself had been one of them.

However, after experiencing the career of a technology hunter, this past has been forcefully covered up. If he didn't take the initiative to mention it, it would be difficult to find the remaining shadow on his body.

Speaking of it now, people know that they have never left.

"Then what will happen if there are no extra people at home before winter?" someone asked curiously. After leaving the depression lagoon, they found that the former technology hunter was getting closer to everyone, and he was not as avoidant as before. He seemed to be keeping a distance, and now he had more communication and got along well, "Would it be better?"

"It will be like this in the beginning." Without waiting for Chad to speak, Lu Meng had already taken over the words for him, "But if they don't reserve enough supplies, they will become someone else's before they are all consumed. Target—or, conversely, hunt others.”

No need to choose specially.

The whole family are outlaws.

The man thought of something and looked at Chad and stopped talking; Chad looked at Lu Meng with a hint of surprise, and finally nodded gently to indicate that he was right.

What surprised Chad was not how confident Lu Meng's tone was, but the naturalness in the other person's words, which was just like what he had just said, as if he had personally experienced or witnessed it.

Obviously, judging from the performance of the resident technology hunter, this Red King should be like most people, and it is his first time to come to the Ai Mine.

"Well... what are you doing with a bowl and not drinking." Lu Meng was about to continue speaking, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the apprentice Lu Dai who had arrived halfway, sitting there in silence and dumbfounded. "It will get cold later."

"Oh, it's okay." Lu Dai took a sip along the edge of the bowl as if he had come back to his senses, "I always feel that eating and drinking in such an atmosphere is not a good idea..."

Don't tell me, she didn't know until she arrived that these people toasted the bread by the fire and then soaked it in the soup. After the charred dough and dense pores absorbed the soup, it became soft and fine. When it rises, it is filled with the aroma of meat.

She only regretted that the stove had been turned on too much before she came, and the dry food in her stomach swelled up after just a few drinks, making it impossible to eat more.

"Such sympathy is meaningless. The two mouthfuls you save will not reach the stomachs of the people who are really hungry." Others continued to discuss, Lu Meng whispered, the firelight reflected on his On the face, "On the contrary, if the food cannot be sold, we villagers in the swamp will be worried... Instead of worrying about these and being tied up, we should think about how to let everyone eat the same things as us."

Rudai paused.

She never thought about this.

As a teacher, Wolfe has never cared about moral education, and Lu Dai himself feels that as long as he acts with the simplest kindness, it is enough... But it seems that the world is complicated, and it is not so easy and simple to be a good person. .

Sometimes, you have to go against your gut instinct.

Then, it is inevitable to be regarded as stained.

Even doing evil.

the wicked……

"I understand." Lu Dai nodded firmly.

"What do you know now?" Lu Meng frowned in confusion, "What I want to ask is, what happened to the teaching materials I asked you to prepare before."

There was a strange tenderness in the other party's eyes.

"No, it's nothing." Lu Dai turned around with a guilty conscience, "That's what you said. To be honest, I still have to sort it out. It's all too basic..."

This was a commission given to her by Lu Beiyou before she came here, saying that she wanted a set of systematic teaching materials that she had studied and used until now.

Mechanics do print books, but they only care about writing and not teaching. Therefore, even if the knowledge is written on paper, it is not difficult to obtain as long as you have money, but there are still few people who can really learn it, so apprentices still have to be recommended for guidance.

This is ultimately a problem.

The "curse" of knowledge.

With the knowledge reserves of mechanics and the isolation of the end of the world, they can't imagine what the level of general education in the entire continent is.

Many questions that are common sense to them may be like a mystery in the hands of outsiders.

It's like even if you have written down the steps of how to peel a banana clearly, some people don't know what a banana is.

It's like talking to a deaf person.

A book full of traps and "easy to prove" is undoubtedly not suitable for beginners. This is one of the reasons why the "Holy Fire" of Oakland Church has a wider influence and spreads farther than the end of the world. Those priests and missionaries have been telling believers about this book over and over again for thousands of years, and they wish they could chew it up, spit it out and put it together again.

This is not too demanding. The total number of serious mechanics may be only a few hundred. They are too busy with their own research, so naturally they can't compete with the monster of the Holy Kingdom.

When Lu Dai heard the nameless man's request, he was first wary of whether the other party was asking for Nan Ding, and then thought that the female doctor didn't need such an introduction, and then asked with interest whether he wanted to learn it himself.

But he got a strange answer.

Compulsory education.

Lu Beiyou said so.

Lu Dai was very puzzled as to how the other party could connect two unrelated words together. It is well known that education is a privilege and a luxury, and others can't get it even if they want to.

The so-called obligations are things that everyone avoids, such as military service, labor, taxes... and the duty to serve the master.

As an apprentice, Lu Dai himself knows this very well.

When these two are combined...

She really got a taste of it.

Could it be a word usage habit in ancient language? It seems that the teacher asked her to follow the nameless one, which can really open up her mind.

Lu Dai was not so resistant.

And this requirement is not difficult. Lu Dai's own path to study is not that of a genius player. Although she has talent, she takes a more meticulous and solid route. For this reason, she has worked with Wolff a lot.

Many of the most basic questions, she has chased the mechanics in the city to ask, so she has only been able to get a lot of face since she was a child.

After that, the road is open to all.

Now that she has gone through some things, especially the feud between the mechanic and the scholar, Lu Dai can't help but feel a sense of crisis. She has long wanted to reorganize her past notes to lay a solid foundation instead of blindly advancing - after all, no matter how hard she advances, she can't surpass her teacher and his abnormal senior brother in every sense.

It's just a matter of convenience.

But as Lu Dai herself said, because it's too basic, she is a meticulous person who would rather have nothing than something sloppy. She couldn't finish it in the Lagoon Town, so she asked Shi Cha to specially bring a pack animal to carry her information.

Prepare along the way.

"As soon as possible, maybe it will be useful soon." Lu Meng nodded, ended the topic, and rejoined the discussion.

Lu Dai agreed on the surface, but in his heart he concluded that it was actually because the nameless person admired the "culture" of mechanics but was embarrassed to say it out loud. This situation often happened to her herself... Even if she didn't sort it out completely, just preparing the results of her first few years of study in order, it would take half of her life for half of the people to learn.

How could she be so anxious?

After all, Lu Dai was still a little proud of her ability.

Although she could only mutter to herself.

On the other side, the leaders by the fire had already talked about the people they saw on the wall before entering Ai Mine Town.

Ai Mine Town, the shield guard organization.

However, compared with the soldiers of the general city-state, what surprised people was that these so-called "shield guards" were dressed in tattered clothes. Although they looked like uniform uniforms, they had obviously been passed down for several generations. There were holes and patches on every joint, and the color was washed gray and white.

As for weapons and equipment, they were even more horrible. The only thing that could be praised was that at least everyone was equipped with a weapon... but the crossbowmen among them were obviously elite, and the iron arrows were all new.

Such troops, let alone from the perspective of the people of Shan now, even in the past tribal period, the equipment and warriors of large clans like Beifeng and Baimei were much better and more spirited, after all, they had to guard against beast disasters and foreign enemies.

They have also fought hard battles.

To this day, they are still an important armed force in Shan that cannot be underestimated.

Even if they are replaced by the most decent shield crossbowmen, they have seen the Cangcui Crossbow Team, even if they have never used long-range, they can see at a glance that the other side's posture of holding the crossbow is loose. If they clash head-on with the crossbow team, a round of exchange on the plain can wipe them out.

The only thing they can rely on is the city wall.

How can such a team be used to defend a city-state?

"Because, their purpose is not to defend Ai Kuang Town at all," this time it was the anti-slavery Bo who spoke, "I don't know if you have noticed that the gate we came in through is the opposite."

"And in Ai Kuang Town, there are no steps to climb the city wall. It has been demolished."

"Shield Guard, Shield Guard... It is the shield used by the coalition to block the town of Ai Mining, not the shield used to protect this ruin." Bo looked at Chad, "At the beginning, this garrison should still be the coalition forces of the major city-states, but after so long, if I am not mistaken..."

"Most of the current shield guards are from Ai Mining."

"That's right." Chad did not shy away, "Joining the shield guards, or joining the technology hunters... is one of the few ways out for us wild people."

One is to leave home.

The other is to guard against their compatriots.

To go to the depression lagoon, you must first get through the shield guard defense and then swim across. The waterway you have to walk through is farther than the routes in other directions. Chad once estimated that if he were to do it again at that time, he might not be able to succeed.

If they had not taken the crude oil transportation pipeline and the legendary mysterious trail on their return journey this time, it would be even more impossible to reach Ai Mining so quickly.

"That's not surprising..."

The population of the Mine Town has dropped sharply from the original to less than one-third now, and after a catastrophe that has not yet ended, it is possible that only one in ten of them will survive. If everyone despairs, it will be a sweeping force.

At this time.

Hope and opportunity are the pressure relief valve.

The road to joining the Tech Hunter is bleak and life-threatening. The Lagoon can't bear all the "refugees", which is more like a dead end for ordinary people; but becoming a shield guard is different. As long as you are ruthless, dare to take action, can please, and have connections... there are no rigid requirements to join.

The number of people required is even greater.

In order not to be replaced by others and be driven back to the ranks of the wild people, the new shield guards can only abandon everything, even if they can only live on the city wall for the rest of their lives, but they still guard against it and dare not make any mistakes.

Offer absolute loyalty.

In the impact of riots, it doesn't matter how much the shield guards are consumed, because they can be replenished from each other.

This is an eternal fratricide.

Until everyone dies.

For the coalition forces, it was much easier to control an orderly organization that depended on them than to control the entire city-state themselves.