Chapter 60: Chapter 61. The Nemesis of the Mutant Leech

The deal is over.

After leaving Wetland Park. Gomu, who looked resentful, finally couldn't help but began to complain loudly.

"It's unbelievable! I've never seen such a stingy blue coat. What about the modesty of a civilized person? What about reciprocity? These greedy gophers!"

"I shouldn't have fantasies about them!"

In the tavern in the trading center of Demonia Town, four out of ten of the most talked about stories are related to the blue coat.

Some people once got big bags of good things from those blue coats because of a few words of flattery, and some people went in with a pile of colorful papers to cheat food and drink, and when they were thrown out, they still had a big bag in their hands. The 'Survival supplies' he prepared.

These blue coats have almost become synonymous with people who are stupid and rich, and stories about them are often inseparable from the word rich overnight. Gomu never imagined that he could pry open the treasures in the shelter with just one mouth like the rumors in the market. It seems that normal business is also a good choice.

However……

The reaction of these people exceeded his expectations. So much so that he couldn't help wondering whether these guys were a group of refugees pretending to be. Will there really be blue coats building houses on the ground? Besides, he didn't see where the refuge was in the end...

The gunman walking in front looked back at him, then at the bulging package on the back of the two-headed bull, and asked in confusion.

"So the deal lost money?"

He has worked as a bodyguard for many years, has dealt with many businessmen, and has rarely seen them lose money.

"It's not a loss," Gomu said angrily, "but I could have earned more!"

"..."

The gunman was speechless, his attention was taken away from him, and he continued to look around for security.

Gomu took out the account book from his pocket, with a heartbroken expression on his face.

10 kilograms of salt was only exchanged for 30 kilograms of bacon. If it wasn't for the fact that there was no plan to go to Boulder City during this trip, even if someone pointed a gun at his head, he would definitely not accept such a harsh price!

But unfortunately, there are no ifs in this world. It is also impossible for him to drag the salt to Boulder City, exchange it for daily necessities and electrical appliances, exchange it for grain at the farm, and then use the grain exchanged at the farm to exchange for meat here. Going back and forth like this, at least to toss him for at least four days, or even a week!

The road in the city is much more difficult than outside, not to mention that winter is coming soon, both humans and alien species are frantically preparing for the coming cold winter.

In the Wasteland, this moment in time is more dangerous than ever. Regardless of the time cost or the risks involved, it is impossible for him to adopt that detour plan. And that man obviously saw this.

Not only the 10 kilograms of salt, but also the ten revolver rifles and two bags of ammunition that he carried on his body were all priced down by that guy with various reasons.

Arms may not be worth much in Boulder City, but any survivor stronghold will not refuse to hoard this kind of easy-to-maintain, durable and cheap weapon. It is more than enough to exchange for 3 to 4 corpses of mutant hyenas. Just hire a butcher Sixty to seventy kilograms of meat can be slaughtered.

That's 70 kilograms of meat! Isn't it too much to exchange 30 kilograms of air-dried meat? If it doesn't work, 20 kg is not a loss! However, that man is only willing to give him 10 kilograms of uncured bacon jerky for each gun! No matter how much he talked, the man only nodded for the sake of friendship and asked him to take an extra kilogram of smoked fish.

The damn groundhog!

"I don't understand very well, but isn't it enough to make money?" The gunman said nonchalantly, "Contentment is always happiness, I always hear people say that."

"Hehe, what do you know? You can't make a lot of money if you are content with yourself."

Gomu didn't bother to pay attention to him, but just waved his pen impatiently, and continued to calculate the account book in a murmur while he buried his head on the road.

"...The air-dried meat needs to be exchanged for at least 60 kilograms of coarse salt. No, at least 80 kilograms is not a waste of time. I have to think about which mine to do this business with."

The gunman glanced at him, then at the cargo on the back of the two-headed ox, and said in a relaxed tone.

"Then you should be devout and grateful. At least I, who accompanied you this trip, am a contented person."

...

130 kilograms of bacon plus 10 kilograms of smoked fish were exchanged for 10 kilograms of coarse salt, 10 revolver rifles, and two large bags.

Lucius himself is very satisfied with this deal. Of course, it was also a coincidence of timing.

As winter approaches, whoever has the food is the father. In addition, the prey has gone to hibernate. Occasionally, the game can be preserved by throwing it in the snow. Salt is not so important.

But when the next spring begins, it will be a different situation. After all, it is a bit whimsical to make air-dried meat in spring and summer, and want to store it until winter without any salt.

But then again, at that time, will the outpost still need to make money by buying food? Lucius didn't think so.

In short, for Lucius, the production cost of 130 kg of bacon and 10 kg of smoked fish is only 60-80 silver coins. Even if it is calculated based on the purchase price of the granary, it is only 140 silver coins. However, at present, players are selling their prey directly to the granary. For the time being, they have not slaughtered their prey and smoked their jerky, so it is more appropriate to directly use the production cost to calculate.

In fact, no matter what price you use, it doesn't matter. After all, Lucius now has another 500 kilograms of the same game currency.

'Money' is really just a number to him as a manager...

...

He dragged these coins into the shelter by himself, and put them in an empty room with no one there. Looking at these shiny coins, Lucius couldn't help but smile with relief on his face.

If only they could be exchanged for chips. Not to mention power armor, buying a plane is probably enough, right?

Lucius just admired his masterpiece for a while, then turned and left the shelter, returned to the surface, and began to ponder over the glass jar he got from businessman Gomu.

Ants the size of fists huddled together in a glass jar, flapping their legs and antennae indiscriminately, looking for an exit. One of the ironback ants facing outwards was the most energetic, and was using its pincer-shaped mouthparts to knock on the inner wall of the glass jar time after time.

However, the inner curved surface of the glass jar is too slippery, and there is no place to bite on it. No matter how strong the bite force is, it will not help. We can only worry about the transparent 'Wall'.

Lucius was not interested in insects, but he wanted to know how this little thing became the natural enemy of mutated leeches. You must know that even the cubs of mutant leeches are much larger than their size.

So, Lucius went to the fishermen by the lake, borrowed a cub of a mutated leech, picked a strong and vigorous ironback ant, and put them both in the same bottle inside.

Something interesting happened.

The mutated leech did not immediately attack the prey in front of it, but tentatively stretched its mouthparts forward.

Seeing that the edge of the mouthpart was about to touch the ironback ant, the mutated leech suddenly shrank back as if it had touched a switch, then twisted its plump and round body, and arched to the other side of the bottle, as if hiding something.

And that ant is also very interesting, and seems to realize that there is a big guy nearby.

However, it didn't panic in the slightest. It neither attacked immediately nor turned around to run away. Instead, it circled the inside of the bottle while shaking the tentacles above its head.

What is this doing?

Could it be...

Lucius, who was squatting on the ground observing, touched his chin, and suddenly a hint of bewilderment appeared on his face.

"I see……"

"It should be looking for companions."

He seemed to have guessed the reason why this kind of ants could restrain the mutated leeches. And just when Lucius was about to further verify his conjecture, players not far away were watching and whispering.

"What is the manager doing?"

"I don't know, it seems to be playing with ants."

"I see that he asked the anglers to get a baby leech. Could it be that he wanted to watch the ants fight with the leeches?"

"Gah, why does anyone have such a strange hobby?!"

Yaya, who was walking towards the granary with the mushrooms in his arms, happened to hear the conversations of nearby players. Her back felt cold and she couldn't help shivering.

Water, leeches?

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How could anyone play with something so disgusting?!

This is too scary...

...

After repeated several controlled experiments, Lucius finally verified his conjecture.

First of all, leeches have no eyes and rely mainly on their sense of smell to find their prey. The same is true for mutated leeches, and because of their more sensitive sense of smell, they are quite sensitive to smells.

After the ironback ant finds its prey, it does not choose to attack at the first time, but like other ants, it immediately releases pheromone to tell its nearby companions that there is a fat sheep here, everyone come and eat together.

Although the digestive juice of the mutated leech can corrode most prey, it is almost ineffective against the ironback ant. Even if it is swallowed whole, it cannot be digested at all, and will be bitten from the inside instead.

Therefore, this fear of natural enemies has almost been written into the genes of the mutated leech, so that when they smell the pheromone released by the ironback ant, they run away almost instinctively, without daring to look back.

"...The case has been solved."

"It's really because of this stuff."

Looking at the translucent jelly-like substance the size of a thumbnail in his hand, Lucius gently squeezed it, a bit like spoiled sago dew. This thing is the pheromone gland of the ironback ant, which grows under its buttocks and can be torn off without much effort.

After removing the pheromone gland of the big ant, Lucius threw it back into the bottle and shared the room with the mutated leech.

This time, the performance of the mutated leech was much braver.

After several trials, it probably felt that the smell of this thing was not quite like its natural enemy, so it finally mustered up the courage, swallowed the prey in one gulp, and then wriggled like waves.

About five or six minutes passed.

The mutated leech cub, which was still wriggling, suddenly stopped moving.

Lucius poured it out of the bottle and cut open his stomach with a knife.

I saw that the ants inside had been suffocated to death, but there was still a piece of meat in its mouth, probably torn from a certain part of the mutated leech cub's body.

This small injury is not enough to kill the leech. What is really deadly may be the formic acid injected into the leech or something else.

"It's not realistic to kill a leech in a nest."

"But if you can apply the pheromone gland extract on your body and pretend to be the natural enemy of the mutated leech... wouldn't you be able to pass the mutated leech's lair without injury?!"

Realizing this, Lucius's face was filled with excitement, and the way he looked at the glass jar changed.

Get rich! 20 kilograms of blue umbrella pants can be exchanged for 2000 chips. If you can pick 200 kilograms...

Of course, 200 kg may be an exaggeration. But 50 kg shouldn't be a problem, right?

It's a pity that these ironback ants are all worker ants, and there is no queen who can reproduce, otherwise they would be able to pluck the wool of the mutated leech nest every day!

"...You need to find a player with high proficiency in gathering skills to do this job."

Lucius's gaze began to wander around the outpost, looking for this lucky guy. Suddenly, his eyes stopped on a player not far from the granary.

Yes!

The moment he saw this little player, Lucius's eyes lit up.

So close. Almost forgot about her!

If I remember correctly, this player named Yaya's talent happens to be 'Toxin intuition', and the blue umbrella mushrooms he sees all glow green! Others have to turn on the light to find it when they enter the cave, but this guy has her own night navigation when she enters the cave, just stare at the green light and she's done, can't she easily get a hundred kg out?

Sensing the sight from the manager, Yaya, who had just completed the punishment task, was all excited. The intuition of the perception department allowed her to predict the danger in advance.

However, just when she was about to rub the soles of her feet and run away, Lucius predicted her prediction and stepped forward to trigger the plot.

"How's your punishment mission going?"

Hearing the voice from behind, Yaya turned her head cautiously, looked at the manager and said tremblingly.

"It's over, it's done... just finished, and 100 kilograms have already been paid."

Lucius nodded.

"It's just finished. From now on, your status level will be restored to a resident. In addition, I have a glorious and arduous task to entrust to you."

If it is normal, Yaya will definitely follow up with a happy face, puff up his chest and offer his loyalty, after all, who would not love hidden missions? Maybe it can increase the NPC's favorability!

However, from just now, her right eye couldn't help jumping, telling her that there might be a big pit waiting in front of her.

"I may not be able to finish it, why don't you find someone else—"

"Believe in yourself, you can do it, and this task can only be done by you!"

Without giving Yaya a chance to refuse, Lucius interrupted her soft beep with a serious face, and continued after a pause of two seconds.

"I'll give you a bottle of special powder and you apply it on your body."

"It can ensure that you can enter the mutant leech's lair without incident. What you have to do is to collect the green glowing mushrooms inside."

Yaya was so anxious that she was about to cry, especially after hearing the words 'Mutated leech nest', she was so scared that she almost dropped the connection on the spot.

"That, that, then can I come out safe and sound?"

Lucius said in an affirmative tone.

"Theoretically yes."

Yaya: "???"

In theory?!

Lucius didn't give her a chance to protest and continued.

"The theory is just for the sake of rigor. Don't worry, the success rate is as high as 90%. Even if you fail, you will die in a special mission, and there will be no punishment other than the resurrection CD."

There is still a punishment! The most uncomfortable thing is to resurrect the CD, okay?

Yaya said pitifully: "Can you also waive the resurrection CD?"

Lucius paused for two seconds, selectively ignoring her words.

"The content of the task is very simple. You have 10 minutes of absolute safety time and 20 minutes of relative safety time."

"Once you're in the nest, don't worry about anything else, avoid those leeches, and gather the blue mushrooms that glow green that you can see."

"How much can be harvested before the end of time. Every kg of blue umbrella mushroom——"

"I will count you 4 copper coins, 5 contribution points!"

......

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