Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 882 - 113: Setting Up Camp

Sun Hang hadn’t yet gotten a response from Cheng Ming when the dust‑covered White Tiger Mecha arrived first.

Unlike its almost pristine condition when it had just rolled out of the bay, the White Tiger’s outer armor was now coated in a thick layer of dust, with many scorch marks where the surface had been burned. A mechanical arm on its back, used for loading ammunition into its weapons, hung limply at the mech’s side, knocking against the shoulder armor with each sway of the frame.

"You look a little miserable like this." Sun Hang raised a hand to shade his eyes and looked up at the White Tiger as he spoke.

"It’s not too bad. I ran into a small‑scale death sandstorm on the way, and two Class C weirds." Nagano Souta’s voice sounded in Sun Hang’s headset. "The mech itself hasn’t taken damage and still retains most of its combat capability."

"You didn’t actually have to come." Sun Hang said. "You should know this bounty is meant to select Hunters for a much tougher mission."

"I know." Nagano Souta said. "But from the moment I sat down in this cockpit, my life went into countdown... Even if I turned back to Yumen, I don’t have many days left."

Sun Hang: "You’re really this fixated on it?"

"It’s not just my father’s obsession; it’s also my mother’s dying wish." Nagano Souta sighed. "You know, I actually feel great right now... At first, when I learned all of that was nothing but my father’s hallucination, I felt a bit empty and lost, but right after that came a sense of relief, like a weight lifted off my shoulders."

Sun Hang suddenly felt that Nagano Souta’s life was a little pathetic.

But the next second he rejected that thought.

Everyone has their own way of living; he had no right to define someone else’s life.

"What are you planning to do next?" Sun Hang asked. "Honestly, I’d rather not have the White Tiger thrown into the fight. That would make the operation much less difficult."

"I won’t make the first move." Nagano Souta made the White Tiger crouch down behind Sun Hang. "You can treat me as reserve firepower holding the line. If things spin out of control, I can jump into the fight at any time."

"And if the weird is hunted smoothly?" Sun Hang asked.

"I originally thought about piloting the White Tiger deeper and deeper into the no‑man’s‑land, using my last bit of time to catch a glimpse of places no one has ever reached." Nagano Souta said. "But later I changed my mind... Can I ask you for a favor?"

Sun Hang: "Go on."

"After I’m dead, please either bring the White Tiger back to Dragon City, or send the coordinates to the Dragon City Defense Army so they can dispatch someone to recover this mech." Nagano Souta said. "I’ve stood guard over Yumen for Dragon City for decades; you could say I’ve done my duty."

"Alright." Sun Hang nodded.

Just as Nagano Souta cut the comms, the mainframe’s voice slipped seamlessly into his headset: "Cheng Ming already knows his mother can receive a free transplant surgery, but he still has not withdrawn from this operation."

"So he really does have another agenda..." Sun Hang muttered under his breath. "Keep an eye on this Cheng Ming for me. Log his every move and report to me every eight... no, every four hours."

"Copy." the mainframe replied.

By rights, a small fry like Cheng Ming wasn’t someone Sun Hang needed to pay attention to at all... but for some reason, his instincts kept telling him there was something off about this Cheng Ming—very off.

...

Sun Hang and the others waited another two days on the edge of the collapse zone before the members of the other convoy finally straggled into the rendezvous point.

The route they chose didn’t have terrifying weirds like the flesh‑eating ants, but the convoy still lost nearly a fifth of its people. Many vehicles bore obvious battle scars on their surfaces, and in the bed of a modified pickup, besides weapons and supplies, were four Hunters’ corpses.

Sun Hang had directly made the intel on the cordyceps weird and the collapse zone public online, so this group of Hunters didn’t rush to scout the collapse zone first thing, but instead started building a makeshift camp nearby.

Calling it "makeshift" was actually being generous—several vehicles parked in a circle, a tarp thrown up in the middle, and that counted as a camp. There weren’t even tables, chairs, or electronic equipment inside; the Hunters did their work and rested in the vehicles, only gathering under the tarp when they needed to eat or discuss the operation.

They really had no other choice—after all, a death sandstorm could appear in the no‑man’s‑land at any time, and aside from the stone forests, it was hard to find a safe place to set up camp. This so‑called camp was more about formality than any real function.

The one saving grace was that Nanhua Town was right next door. Once a death sandstorm struck, the Hunters could just drive straight into Nanhua Town—the cellars and basements left in the town ruins were, apart from the stone forests, the best places in the no‑man’s‑land to hide from a death sandstorm.

The only risk was running into one of those rare death sandstorms capable of reshaping the terrain... It was said that a Hunter team once took shelter from a sandstorm in a cellar, only to find the walls on both sides slowly closing in. In the end, the desperate team was crushed to death inside the cellar—and when another team of Hunters later found them, the coordinates of that town ruin had shifted four kilometers to the south, while the blood and flesh of the dead Hunters had completely seeped into the pores of the concrete foundation.

Sun Hang and Candle Dragon didn’t hide the fact that they were Hunters from Dubhe Tower, and they also made it clear they would not be taking part in the operation. Sun Hang further told these Hunters that anyone who performed well in this operation would have a chance to join a mission with higher pay—but also far greater danger.