Chapter 7.4 - Great Figure
It really was as K7’s commander said: snipers were welcome anywhere, especially in mercenary groups like the falcons. With long range explosion weapons being rarely seen nowadays, snipers were the main force in suppressing the other side’s firepower. As soon as he arrived in the falcons’ headquarters and stated that he was introduced by K7’s commander, he immediately received the falcons’ enthusiastic welcome. They immediately asked Su to join the falcons.
What K7’s commander failed to mention last time was that he and the leader of the falcons were friends during their youth, and both of them trusted each other with their lives. Even though friends were far fewer than mutated creatures in this era of turmoil, men that have fought side by side still easily developed unchanging friendship. This was why Su, who received K7 commander’s introduction, immediately earned the falcons leaders’ trust.
Su only wanted to accept one or two missions and explore the western region along the way while slowly moving further. He never thought that he would meet such an unusual group of mercenaries.
Su forced a smile. When he turned around, he was able to see a brilliant smile on the leader’s face.
“Actually…” When Su opened his mouth, the entire room immediately quieted down, and everyone looked at him. Ever since Su came to the Falcon Mercenaries’ base, Su hadn’t had the chance to say anything. The Falcon mercenaries’ leader had been talking non stop. When they saw that Su was going to say something, these few and old robust men all looked at him with bright eyes. Their expression contained hope, passion, anxiety, and even more worry about what was to come. Because they lacked a sniper, there would be casualties almost every time the falcons accepted a mission. With the falcons’ current situation, a single casualty meant one less useable member.
The room became more and more quiet, and a rather unsettling atmosphere could be felt. It was no longer just the twelve men in the room; outside the window, several women, elders, and children’s faces appeared outside the window. The women and men seemed similarly robust, they possessed just as much passion to survive, and they loved this piece of land like everyone else. Within the extremely poor wilderness, only the falcons acted so unconventionally and sheltered completely worthless individuals that were old or crippled.
Su suddenly felt that every word he uttered now would be extremely heavy and needed to be seriously considered.
“Actually…” Su’s soothing and soft voice rang through the room, and an echo could almost be heard. “I can be said to be a third level sniper.”
The area exploded with noise, and the men in the room immediately became excited. When they looked at Su, their eyes held much more admiration and respect. This was a truly great figure!
The leader of the falcons simply advanced one level in strength and one level in simple firearms. Other than the leader, no one in this house had ever even seen anyone with three levels of ability. The men and women were all excited, and they were already celebrating for the future. They could now fight under the protection of a third level sniper. However, the leader did not think this way, and instead, his heart immediately fell. No matter what kind of angle you looked at this, there was no way the falcons could make a third level sniper stay. He understood clearly what kind of price a third level sniper was paid for missions in the market.
As expected, Su looked at the falcons’ leader and said, “I came here to see if I could complete some missions along the way. After completing one mission at most, I will leave.”
The leader of the falcons looked at Su, looked at the house full of dumbstruck men, and then looked at the tableful of barbecued meat and the cup of wine that hadn’t been touched. He rubbed his nose, and with a forced smile, he said, “I know the value of a third ranked sniper. For people like you to go on a single mission, even the cheapest price would be enough to purchase the falcons. When you first came, we thought you were a first level sniper… You can also see our circumstances. To be honest, we cannot afford to hire you at all.”
The falcons really were poor. Apart from their weapons and encampment that were still okay, they didn’t even have any water or food reserves. Their weapons were all produced by nearby inhabited lands, and they were staying at a rather shabby manor that couldn’t be considered much. The era of turmoil definitely didn’t lack abandoned constructs.
Su suddenly picked up the glass in front of him and drained it in one gulp!
A wave of fire immediately extended from Su’s throat down to his stomach. Su immediately felt as if his stomach had been bombarded with explosions.
“I owe the falcons a mission,” Su said. His green eye was as bright as jadeite.
The leader of the falcons was left momentarily confused by this sudden turn of events. He mumbled, “But… we truly don’t have money. Even this mutated meat is barely edible. You have to understand that we have more than thirty old members that need to eat…”
“The reward has already been paid.” Su pointed towards the empty cup in front of him.
The leader of the falcons opened his mouth, but he couldn’t speak a single word. Only after a moment had passed did he reach out with his large hand and pat towards Su’s shoulder. “Brother…”
However, his large hand didn’t hit anything and directly landed on the back of the chair. The leader was stunned to find that Su was already knocked out on top of the table and was completely drunk.
The room was quiet for a short period of time. Everyone looked at that third level sniper that had blacked out from a single cup. They then looked at each other in dismay, completely confused by the situation in front of them.
The leader of the falcons was the first one to snap back to reality, and only now did he think of supporting Su. He looked at his large hands, and then he hurriedly shouted for two robust women to bring Su to the female’s room in the back to find a place for him to sleep. Within the Falcon Mercenaries, the women’s bedroom was the cleanest and best place. Even the leader himself slept with the group of crude men.
The leader knew that most high level fighters had matters they wanted to keep private, so he strictly commanded that no one was allowed to look through Su’s things or enter Su’s room. A little girl that wanted to see Su’s face beneath his bandages not only received a strong flick in the forehead, but was also punished with no dinner.
Falcon manor sank into sleep under the curtain of night just like that.
Daybreak was the time when it was darkest. Within the darkness, a dark green eye slowly opened. The green eye seemed to be in a daze momentarily, and then it abruptly lit up!
Su sat up and reached out with his left hand to customarily touch his gun. However, when he reached out, he touched empty air, and a layer of cold sweat immediately appeared on his body.
Su straightened his back. His body seemed to have lost its weight as it popped up as light as a feather towards the ceiling, where he seemed to be stuck in place. In his hand was a piece of ceramic armor plate. This item was extremely light, and it was thin and sturdy as well. If it was thrown out, it could easily separate a person’s head at the neck.
Su hung from the ceiling for three whole seconds, and during that time, he noticed that even though the inside of the room was unfamiliar, there wasn’t a single soul in sight. As a result, he soundlessly descended.
All of his equipment was neatly placed in the room’s corner, and his cloak was folded in a tidy manner on the side. Su then recalled last night’s events and remembered that the leader’s mouth had opened to say something, but he couldn’t hear a single word. His chest then erupted with a explosive-like wave of heat, and as for what happened after that, he did not remember a thing.
Only now did Su understand that for the first time in his life, he had gotten drunk. The feeling of getting drunk was extremely strange, but what was the most incomprehensible was that this sudden intoxication actually gave him a tiny increase in his evolutionary point progress. On its own, this little bit was rather insignificant, but as a part of a whole, it was actually enormous progress, because he finally accumulated six complete evolution points.
He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry right now. Could it be that getting completely drunk every day from now on would be a good thing? Ten years ago, Su might have tested something like this, but right now, forget about the fact that wine was extremely expensive, the rate at which he earned evolutionary points by completing two missions was much faster than doing something like this.
Su silently put on his attire, and then everything in the room was cleanly dealt with. After all traces of his existence were removed, he leapt through the window and disappeared into the boundless night.
Just now, the moment he had woken up, Su suddenly had an extremely uneasy feeling. It was a feeling that was exactly the same as the one he had when he was ten years old. At that time, he had been targeted by a few rotting wolves, and they tracked him for an entire night. Su immediately thought of Li, but Li should not have had any intent to kill him. The feeling he had when he was being pursued by Li was completely different from what he was feeling right now.
Su was almost certain that what was tracking him was not Li, but rather a pack of wolves.
He decided to immediately leave. Anything that could make Su feel such intense danger, regardless of whether it was human or other mutated existences, were not things that this naive group of mercenaries could deal with.
The falcons’ naive and unrealistic ideals in this era of turmoil were like a tiny flame in a world of darkness. It couldn’t light up the world, but instead attracted destruction.
Under the cover of darkness, Su left the falcon manor without alerting anyone. He then began to advance swiftly through the boundless wasteland. The modified rifle hung heavily from his back, giving Su some baseless confidence. He had to properly deal with the pack of wolves in this vast and complicated region. What he had to do first was to clearly determine what exactly was on his trail. What came afterwards was incredible patience and maybe even luck.
The vast world was a paradise for wolves, but it was also Su’s paradise. Wolves had a lot of patience, and so did Su.