Chapter 410, Prisoner

Chapter 410, Prisoner

The wind and sand finally stopped.

Fortunately, they survived.

At this time, the wilderness was in a mess, with many huge pits on the ground, and one-third of the transport vehicles in the convoy disappeared.

At the same time, some were twisted and deformed as if they were hit by a heavy hammer. Some guys who were not completely dead wailed in these twisted and deformed steel, and those who survived looked like they were in a state of distraction.

Not long after, when the communicator on his waist sounded again, the cowardly young mercenary finally came back to his senses, and a burnt smell appeared in his nose.

Realizing something, he suddenly pulled up his leg, and a piece of flesh stuck to the steam boiler was torn off like this.

The source of the smell was here.

It was not so painful, but it was precisely the lack of pain that represented a big problem.

He hurriedly turned off the steam boiler and used the yellowed linen to wrap the wound on his calf.

This was the best way he could deal with it at present.

This kind of burn was not unfamiliar to him, and he also knew what it would bring. The best way to deal with it now was to turn around and go to those profiteers to buy a bag of expensive spore powder, but he couldn't afford the price of breach of contract. Even if he had to bite the bullet, he had to send these guys to their destination.

Now he could only pray, pray that he could get through it, pray that he could survive.

The rats soon started moving again.

Those guys who were not dead and were still wailing were ignored for the time being.

The subsequent journey was extremely difficult for the young rat mercenary. In the previous random shooting, he broke one side of the glass on the grille observation port of the crawler transporter he was driving.

Every time he moved forward, the black gravel in the wilderness would be carried by the strong wind and poured into the broken grille observation port.

Such a breeze could not damage the structure of the crawler transporter, but it could fill his hair with black gravel.

His condition was getting worse and worse. Even through the bandage, he could smell a disgusting stench from the wound on his calf.

He didn't feel any pain, but he felt weaker and weaker.

The worst situation had occurred. He might really need to buy some spore powder from those profiteers.

Fortunately, not all the news was bad.

They arrived at their destination.

Gradually, a high and dark mountain appeared in the sight of all the ratmen. This was their destination and the third super iron mine discovered by the ratmen on the Black Iron Star.

A new ratman city will be built in this dark mountain.

The first two super iron mines have entered the full-speed development stage. They support the starports of the second second fleet of the ratmen and the two planets of the God-inspired Fortress.

And this dark mountain, the third super iron mine discovered by the ratmen on the Black Iron Star, will support the construction of the third fleet of the ratmen and the unfinished starport on the Black Iron Star.

It's not easy to get to this point, and it will take some time.

First, a camp that can roughly smelt steel is needed, and then the camp is gradually expanded into a magnificent 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 even a hundred years, or even a century. This is already an incomparably long time for the rats.

Going to the starry sky, the life span of the rats has increased a little, but it is only a little.

Before leaving the Shenqi Star, ordinary rats may only live for eight to twelve years in their lifetime, and now, this number has increased to twenty. Of course, this is an average value.

The life span difference between rats is exaggerated to an outrageous extent.

This depends on the environment they are in and whether they are qualified to enjoy those truly precious things, but these are the privileges of the respectable rats, rat bigwigs, big businessmen, and bureaucrats, for those ordinary rat freemen.

Their lives are not long, and it is not easy to live to the age of twenty.

This city will take at least a generation of rats to build, and this number may even continue to increase.

Such a scale is almost unimaginable for ordinary rats.

At this time, these rats sent to this wasteland are the starting point of everything and the trapped prisoners.

They will never be able to leave this wasteland for their entire lives, working and giving birth, working, and realizing the grand vision step by step, although until they die, they cannot intuitively know what they are doing.

For them, the meaning of life is to earn those shiny pieces of iron, to live, and to try to prove that they live better than other guys.

So they are prisoners, prisoners of this city that has already started to build.

The huge steel city, no longer buried deep underground, is a steel city that is built bit by bit, with countless rats surging in it. Their entire lives, or several lives, generations, everything, survival and death, will be trapped in these steel giants.

All they need to pay is a little shiny metal.

Endless steel formed the bones and flesh of the ratman fleet, and also the bones and flesh of the ratman empire.

After successfully unloading the goods, the young ratman mercenary obtained a certificate engraved with steel.

This was a must-have for him to exchange for his reward.

This time, after one rotation, he was able to get a fairly good reward, 100 blood gold coins.

Of course, if he didn't have this certificate when he turned back, then the situation waiting for him would be different.

Those ratman bureaucrats are not good guys. They are all unimaginably greedy guys. They will not be stingy with every opportunity to suck your bones and marrow.

His condition is getting worse and worse. Some turbid pus has been flowing out of the wound on his calf.

He can only pray.

Pray that he can go back smoothly and alive.

Before setting off, he didn't think that this errand would be so dangerous.

These ratman mercenaries, although they are called mercenaries, actually don't have much combat ability. They are more of a group of unlucky people who are forced to wander in the wilderness.

For example, 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 on the day his brother came of age.

He wandered alone in that small settlement.

Even the hideous scar on his face was just a scar left in the fight with his brother.

Every day he wandered in the crowded ratman tavern, and with a few young ratman boys who were also driven out, he stole the steam trains that traveled to and from the settlement every day.

Their small settlement did not have any other specialties. The reason for its establishment was only because two tracks intersected next to their settlement. Almost all the decent jobs in the settlement revolved around this intersection and the steam trains that traveled to and from this node.

Maintaining the tracks, cleaning the trains, providing accessories, replenishing food and some turbid water.

His father was a track maintenance worker, and his elder brother was going to inherit his father's job and his father's name, the new hammer rat in the steel bush, and become a respectable track maintenance worker.

And he was the pickpocket who hung out in the tavern.

He took the stall where the steam train stopped, climbed onto the carriages carrying various ores, tried to fill his dirty leather bags with ores, and finally fled in a hurry before the guards on the train noticed him.

This was what he did every day.

It was not decent to do such a thing, nor was it so safe.

From time to time, young guys were beaten to death on the spot because they were caught by the guards.

Looking at the bodies of his companions hanging high on the station gate, he was also very scared for a while, but in this small town, a guy like him had nothing else to do except doing such things.

If he didn't steal the train, he would have to endure hunger.

Compared with hunger, death seemed to be nothing.

In fact, such a life was not boring.

After all, each train that arrived could bring different things. Most of them were dark iron ore. Even if a bag was full of iron ore, it could only exchange for one or two white mushrooms.

If he was lucky enough to encounter trains carrying black gold, good copper ore, or even blood gold, he only needed to fill half a bag to stay in the tavern comfortably for several days.

During his time stealing trains, the best harvest was a piece of blood gold fragment with beautiful patterns engraved on it. He pierced a hole in it and hung it around his neck.

Originally, his life should have continued 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, who was also the owner of the rat bar and a big man in this rat gathering place, was in a very low mood.

He poured mushroom wine into his mouth one cup after another, and told them some stories about his youth.

He said that when he was young, he left this small gathering place of ratmen and came to a place called a city, where he worked as a ratman mercenary.

When talking about the place called the city, the face of the ratman was particularly excited.

That day, he asked the ratman a question.

"You are so powerful, you must be there, that? You must be living comfortably in that city!"

But what he got was the ratman's laughter.

The next day, he climbed onto the carriage of a steam train again skillfully, but this time he did not come down again.

Burying himself in the dark iron ore, he followed the steam train to leave the small settlement.

In this way, he arrived in the city with curiosity and expectation, and stumbled and became a ratman mercenary.

He was lucky. Thanks to the hideous scar on his face, his journey as a ratman mercenary was not bumpy. In the huge ratman city called Blast Furnace, he helped the ratman gang collect debts, groped in the sewers for special mushrooms, and broke into the wilderness to hunt ferocious beasts.

Only in the second year after coming to the blast furnace, he was praised by a rat gang leader, so he got this job.

There are spore powders for sale in this camp.

But he doesn't have that much blood money.

In order to join the rat gang, he gave 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 steel thorns, he was always very curious. He was curious about the rat engineer who was the biggest in the settlement, the rat engineer who was terrified just by mentioning his father, a railway trackman, and even he was polite to the rat man, but why didn't he have a name?

He just wanted a name.

Those decent guys all have names, but this rat man has no name.

Until he came to the blast furnace.

He saw all kinds of things.

In the past, he often felt bad because he lost to his brother and failed to inherit his father's name of Hammer Rat.

But after coming to the blast furnace, such thoughts have not arisen for a long time.

Compared to the blast furnace, the steel thorns are too small.

The railway maintenance worker is also nothing.

He longs to get his own name in the blast furnace and pass his name down from generation to generation in the blast furnace.

But it's not easy.

This is just a goal for the time being.

But it's good to have such an idea. After all, only something you desire can give you the motivation to climb up.

But it's not easy.

The stench is almost unable to suppress the wind and sand in the wilderness.

Everything in his eyes gradually blurred.

Unknowingly, the young rat mercenary has fallen to the end of the convoy.

It must stop, he pulled the pull rod of the crawler vehicle hard to stop.

This old crawler transporter slowly stopped in the wilderness.

All this was not discovered. No one in the departing ratman convoy noticed that a tracked transporter was disconnected. They left with a roar, as if they did not want to stay in the wilderness any longer.

The young ratman mercenary was left behind.

There was silence all around, except for the whistling black sand.

Curled up on the cold metal seat, in the rustling wind.

Whispering in a low voice.

"It's so cold, so cold!"