Warlord

Warlord – Chapter 18

The Z7 base was unscathed even after ten days…

Zero caught Old Jack"s attention with the intelligence. As a result, Old Jack closed the access to the base for ten days and suspended the mining operations. They didn"t want to catch the attention of the creature because of the noise emitted by the mining. Also, Old Jack ordered strengthened guarding of the base"s entrance for 24 hours and curfew time.

But nothing happened in the past ten days. Old Jack lifted the martial law. Zero was somewhat uncertain. The direction of the humanoid creature"s movement pointed to the base. So he didn"t know how it could disappear. However, he was aware that Old Jack couldn"t stop the mining operations for more than ten days and it was the maximum limit. That"s why Zero didn"t get involved when Old Jack announced the end of curfew.

Additionally, Zero personally partic.i.p.ated in the operations to check the traces of suspicious organisms around the base. End of the curfew time was normal in this case.

The base resumed its original operations.

Moreover, the tasks related to hunting the group of wolves around the base wasn"t active anymore. Most of them had immigrated, and the rest were killed at the hands of the "unknown creature". As a result, there was no threat to the security of the base. Zero resumed his original life too. He was working as a bodyguard to Leah, practised in the training field for two hours and partic.i.p.ated as a member of the guard. He had been living in the base for the past two years, so he was familiar with the life of the new era.

After his meritorious service in the completion of the task to the Silver Tree City, Old Hack let Zero examine the hibernation capsule. Unfortunately, he couldn"t find valuable information from the capsule.

The only clue that he could find on the hibernation capsule was the word engraved in English.

Halson!

It looked like a name no matter how you looked at it. Zero used the computer of the base to query the name. There were hundreds of people named Halson in the search results. This clue that he had found didn"t mean anything.

The only thing he could do was to change locations and move around to find a clue about his own past and origins.

The land plates of the world had changed after the Catastrophe. There were no more oceans but a single polluted sea. The six plates had changed too. Some of them had connected while the others had collapsed. There were only three land ma.s.ses left after the Catastrophe.

The continent where he lived right now was called Nakasu. (中洲 - google it, the author has named the continent after a red light district in Tokyo)

Original Asian-European plate and Americas had collided and formed into the largest continent of the world. The ruling system of the old era was gone too with the changes. The continent was ruled by conglomerates and large companies such as Parker.

Z7 Base was located on the edge of the Nakasu continent. The place could provide little to no information to Zero. If he wanted to get more information he had to go to the centre of the mainland.

However, he didn"t leave because of Leah.

The girl was very similar to the shadow of the girl from his dream. That"s why he couldn"t leave the girl. It seemed to him that he could forget the brutality of the world and forget about his past if he stayed by her side.
…

…
Zero came to Leah"s lab. Old Jack was present in the lab too. He was aware that Leah was researching a serum which could alleviate the level three virus. The success of the research wouldn"t only benefit Z7 base by helping them to heal the people who are infected but also gain economic benefit by selling the medicine.

A light flashed, and smoke choked out of the test tube. Even thought Zero wasn"t a scientist but he was aware that the test had failed.

Old Jack patted Leah"s shoulders while the girl cried. Old Jack"s eyes fell on Zero: "There is a mission for you."

Zero nodded as he left the lab with Old Jack.

Zero appeared in front of the work area half an hour later.

The doors to the mine were open, and there was a person by the doors.

Zero had received a reconnaissance mission.

Some miners had found traces of jing worms in the depth of the mine.

The jing worms looked like maggots, but their body length could increase up to twenty meters. The worm’s body lacked certain elements, so it liked to swallow metal minerals. Because of the strong gastric acid in their stomach, the useless materials that they swallowed would be excreted like a mud.

Because of their special hobbies, the jing worms had become the natural enemies of any mine. Moreover, they were as.e.xual. If a jing worm took a mine as a nest then within a year, they would colonise the mine and make it useless to humans.

The jing worms didn"t have good eyesight. However, their skin was comparable to strong armour and had good resistance to blasts. It was very hard to kill them.

Zero"s task was to detect the traces of Jing worms at the bottom of the mine. He needed to collect some small jing worms. Moreover, he had to find their paths and other useful information that could give the base more understanding about the traits of these worms. Old Jack would use this information to judge whether to ask support from the Parker headquarters or give up on the mine.

The risks related to the information was relatively low. The reward wasn"t high either. He would get 20 dollars after the completion of the task.

He used Old Jack"s tub to go to the bottom of the mine. A miner called Nick was accompanying him. There were natural copper ores on the walls of the mine as they went deeper. However, they began to detect the body fluids that were left as residue on the walls of the mine as they went deeper. The grey liquid was clearly left by the jing worm. The liquid acted as a lubricant which helped the worm to move rapidly.

The worm made the pa.s.sage that they were pa.s.sing through.

Zero rubbed the wall with his hand. He asked Nick to go back to work. So he had to go down the pa.s.sage to confirm the information.

Were the jing worms going through the mine or were they going to settle in here?