However, that didn"t mean Kamoda didn"t have citizens living there. In reality, Kamoda had a large amount of common folk living and growing their population in this district. It was just they had learned to hide whenever a large-scale battle royale began, and they would also try their best to not get close to the dangerous parts of the district. Luckily, the battle royale usually didn"t last for too long. As long as they endured until it ended, they would be able to return back to their homes and live their normal lives again.
However, not every person who lived in the Kamoda district had this mentality. Some bolder commoners were quite fearless when it came to matters of war. The only reason they were living in Kamoda was to reap any sc.r.a.ps of war.
The Lawless Lands had always been scarce on resources. If anyone was asked what was the most valuable scarps on the Lawless Lands, everyone would say with certainty that it was mechas and mecha parts, even second hand ones were quite pricey.
It was because of this fact that a new type of job quickly gained prominence in the Lawless Lands, mecha scavengers. Their grounds for scavenging were the large battlefields that frequent battles, and Kamoda was such an area.
The higher the risk, the higher the reward. In order to earn more money in the Lawless Lands and for their family members to live better lives, even if they fully knew doing this was like reaching their hands into the jaws of a tiger, these people were still willing to risk it every time.
A group of refurbished mechas were hidden in the bushes, carefully watching the area in front of them. In that flat plain in front of them was a brutal battlefield. The mechas from both sides were battling for their lives. There were already quite a few destroyed mechas on the ground…
That was all money!
The people in the hidden group of mechas couldn"t help but look at the mechas like they were gold. They were now waiting for the last dregs of those mechas to finish fighting before they would sneak out and do their thing.
Finally, one side of mechas couldn"t hold out against the relentless battering of their opponents, and they made an instant decision to stop fighting and escape. The victorious mecha army seemed to be in a killing craze as they actually continued to chase after them. Not long after, there were no longer any moving mechas in that area.
The youngest of the group hiding behind the bushes couldn"t stay put any longer when he saw this scene. Right as he was about to stand up, he heard his leader"s stern voice coming from their mecha commlink channel. “Don"t move.”
“Ah?” The young man was perplexed.
“Wait for a while and see if any of the mechas moves,” reminded his leader.
In the area in front of them, the seemingly wrecked mechas might not be completely dead. The mecha operators working under the lords were all quite strong. They were the strongest within the Lawless Lands. As long as they hadn"t died, they would still have plenty of battle strength. They were scavengers and not mercenaries. Everything must be done carefully to reduce the chance of them dying to the minimum.
The young man understood this point and stopped his mecha from moving to wait.
After another five minutes pa.s.sed with no mecha moving, he finally heard their leader shout out in the commlink channel, “Move out.”
Around 6 or 7 mechas got rid of their disguises as they quickly rushed towards the targets they had their eyes on.
The young man had his eyes on a mecha that was relatively intact. As long as he brought back the mecha, he wouldn"t need to work one bit for three years. Of course, for safety purposes, they would first completely dismantle these mechas, change them into parts and sell the parts separately. That way wouldn"t expose the fact that they had scavenged them from a battlefield.
Right as they were trying their best to take the mechas with them, they suddenly heard their leader nervously shout, “Quick, hide. Mechas are coming.”
After hearing those words, they didn"t think for a second as they instantly tossed aside the mechas and quickly rushed towards their original hiding spot. Only the young man was there shocked, standing motionlessly. The shout made him panic for a moment, but only made him hesitate for a short while. After seeing everyone else tossing aside the mechas, he also followed suit and ran back to their original hiding spot.
Right as he finished hiding himself, he saw three mechas appearing from the edge of the horizon.
“It"s fine. It"s only a small mecha formation.” The leader breathed a sigh of relief in the channel. Even if they were discovered, they were still able to handle three mechas.
Becoming a mecha scavenger wasn"t something anyone could do just because they wanted to do it. The requirements for such a profession were high to work in this field. A person must at least be a mecha operator. Otherwise, no one would team up with them, leaving them to scavenge by themselves. Although working alone came with its perks like not splitting the profits, it still had a major problem, the problem of not having any channels to sell the goods. For a lone scavenger to sell their spoils, he would have to ask for help from a scavenger organization. However, the price they quote such lone scavengers were scarps compared to the actual value. With such exploitation running rampant, it wasn"t worthwhile for a person to risk their lives and to work alone.
So, over time, no one worked alone anymore.
“Boss, there seems to have been a small mecha battle below. There"s still fire and smoke coming from there. It probably ended not long ago.” After acquiring the situation on ground, Luo Lang reported it to Ling Lan.
“Let"s go down and take a look.” While coming down here, Ling Lan hadn"t met up with any mecha armies from any of the factions. She also hadn"t seen any battlefields. And now, she finally saw one, she would most definitely go down there to carefully examine it. Perhaps she could acquire some useful information.
Three mechas slowly landed in the plains below them.
Luo Lang and Li Lanfeng each chose a destroyed mecha. They knelt down to carefully examine them while also not forgetting to take photos of them.
“If I"m not wrong, the mecha I"m looking at should be one that works under Lord Zhen.” Li Lanfeng compared the color and shape of the mecha and the symbol on the chest and arms to the database and reached this conclusion.
On the other side, Luo Lang immediately reported, “The one beside me should be from Lord Demon"s faction.”
“It seems Lord Zhen and Lord Demon"s mecha teams encountered each other and fought each other.” Ling Lan looked around and saw around 17 or 18 dilapidated mechas on the ground. If it was actually a war with large numbers of mechas, the final number of mechas destroyed wouldn"t be so low. The only possibilities were that this was a battle between two battle teams or more accurately two weak battle teams.
“It seems the large-scale battle royale is real.” Luo Lang sighed.
“That may not be the case. It could also be just for show,” Li Lanfeng didn"t agree with him.
“A show? But so many people died,” Luo Lang was confused.
“The person of power only looks at the big picture. Plus, if there are enough benefits for them, sacrificing some p.a.w.ns are worth it,” Li Lanfeng said calmly.
Luo Lang frowned slightly after hearing those words. He didn"t like those types of plans. But, he decided to not argue with Li Lanfeng about that, so he piloted his mecha to look towards another direction. He then saw through his screen some ashes.
“Ah, there are ashes here. It was blown here,” Luo Lang said joyfully. “It seems that there are still people alive who flew towards that direction.” The direction Luo Lang pointed towards was indeed the direction the mechas escaped towards.
‘Leave, leave…" The young man hiding in the bushes kept repeating those words in his head. He was frustrated because he didn"t know why the three mechas were taking their sweet time. It was clear that there wasn"t anyone alive in the wreckage.
At that moment, Ling Lan"s gaze fixated on a destroyed mecha. No matter how she looked at it, the pose it had was odd.
Li Lanfeng saw the direction Ling Lan"s mecha was looking. She was looking directly opposite of Luo Lang. He thought for a moment and then piloted his mecha, landing beside that mecha Ling Lan was looking at.
Li Lanfeng knelt down and looked carefully. He smirked slightly. “It seems there are traces here as well.”
“You see it too?” Ling Lan said plainly.
“Yeah, the traces are quite obvious.” Li Lanfeng made his mecha stand up.