Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 332 - 10: The Courtyard

"Equipment, supplies, they give you whatever you want, but unfortunately, I wanted to bring that fat guy along, and Dubhe Tower absolutely refused," Wang Xiyi said while starting the car.

"In my view, if you really try to bring that fat guy into the Surrendered Area, he would probably choose suicide," Ye Jiu, in the passenger seat, shook his head. "That kind of fear isn't something you can fake."

"I feel like we've made a wasted trip to Chunming City this time. Apart from learning that there might be a rule-based creature in the Surrendered Area, we didn't get any useful information at all," Wang Xiyi said, gripping the steering wheel with one hand while her other hand fished out a nutrition bar from the armrest box, skillfully tearing open the aluminum foil packaging with her teeth and putting it into her mouth.

According to the "information" provided by Li Junwen, Dubhe Tower offered the team two types of specially-made food targeting the trait "hunger"—one is a modified version of the super high-calorie nutrition bars Wang Xiyi had been eating; the other contains the same calorie content as normal food but includes special rations that regulate neurotransmitters and suppress appetite.

"Rule-based creatures, ah rule-based creatures..." Ye Jiu, dressed in heavy armor, would move slightly and the sound of metal plates rubbing against each other would ring out. "Have you ever dealt with rule-based creatures?"

"Bao Si, does she count?" Wang Xiyi asked.

"...Barely, I suppose."

"Then I've dealt with them," Wang Xiyi said.

"No, Bao Si is human, not a creature," Ye Jiu shook his head repeatedly. "But then again, she could lead such a huge mountain by the nose... she only inherited part of the power of a rule-based creature. I can't imagine what a real rule-based creature would be like."

"It's just what rule-based creatures look like. For instance, if the rule is 'death,' then you die," Wang Xiyi rolled her eyes at him.

"If we are really going to face a rule-based creature called 'hunger,' these special little snacks feel totally useless," Ye Jiu said.

"I never expected them to be useful anyway," Wang Xiyi pressed down on the accelerator, and the car slowly sped forward.

"In any case," Candle Dragon's voice came through the intercom, "'Hunger' is certainly better than something like 'death', 'dismemberment', 'burning', and so on. At least it won't be directly fatal—someone as ordinary as Li Junwen managed to return to the civilized world alive, so I think our chances of survival can't be worse than his, right?"

"That makes sense," Ye Jiu nodded in considerable agreement, his armor emitting a clangor of metal sounds.

"It's more about you guys," Ye Jiu turned around, looking at Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu in the back seat. "You both are going on a mission for the first time, directly heading into the Surrendered Area where the enemy might be an extremely rare type A creature... Tsk, many Hunters spend their whole lives without achieving such a feat, yet you both got it on your first try. Do you have any thoughts?"

"No," Ling Xiao replied expressionlessly.

"I... I don't know what I'm supposed to feel," Jiang Yu's tone was a bit uneasy. "Are type A creatures really that formidable?"

"Not necessarily formidable, but certainly the most eerie," Ye Jiu said. "Speaking of which, do you not know anything about the classifications of creatures?"

Jiang Yu shook her head.

During this period she had been undergoing various physical evaluations and hadn't had the time to attend the appropriate training courses... in fact, her understanding of creatures was even less than the group of temporary investigators who underwent onboarding training with Sun Hang.

"If we have time on the road, you really should catch up on your studies," Ye Jiu said.

Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao were included in the team for two reasons: firstly because they both volunteered for this action, and secondly because the available combat strength in Tianfu City was quite stretched thin.

Eternal Night has descended for a while now, incidents of creature attacks have occurred in various counties and cities... the Disaster Response Committee wishes they could split a Hunter into eight pieces for use, and the various departments in the Research Institute and Investigation Bureau are all working overtime to the brink of explosion, with cigarettes, coffee, and strong stimulants now considered strategic materials on the same priority level as drinking water.

According to the original plan of the Disaster Response Committee, after the initial chaos subsides, aid will gradually be sent to the Shuzhou Region from all over the federation... but unfortunately, just after the comprehensive assistance plan was initiated, trouble erupted in Lake Baikal City.

At least thirty percent of the manpower and resources originally allocated to Shuzhou had been diverted northward. Not only that, but reinforcement plans from all regions have also been entirely postponed—the events in Shuzhou and Lake Baikal City indicate that the "second large-scale active phase of creatures" might have already descended, and those in the know are almost universally uneasy since no one knows where the next "calamity-level" creature might strike.

Quite a few observant ordinary citizens have also sensed the impending crisis... there's no need to check what people are saying in online forums; merely opening the stock trading app and seeing several consecutive days of limit-up in the military and energy sectors is enough to realize the seriousness of the situation.

Moreover, food and pharmaceutical copyright prices have also started to trend upwards—even though official media repeatedly advises the public against hoarding supplies, as soon as the canned goods and bagged rice in one supermarket are bought out, similar products city-wide soon start showing signs of shortages.