Plastic, at the rear of the crowd, tightened his clothes and quickly moved forward, hoisting the fallen elderly person onto his shoulder, and began counting the people.
When he realized that seven people were already missing, he understood that if they continued searching, the group of more than two hundred might not last until reaching the Land of Hope.
But even if they had to keep searching, what else could be done? His territory with clean water had been seized by another tribe.
Different tribes varied widely, and some could find powerful weapons in the Land of Promise, and they somehow learned how to use these weapons.
Those weapons that emitted red lights would kill whoever they shone upon, and as long as a tribe possessed these weapons, their territories were particularly large.
In the Land of Hope, one could find not only weapons that emitted red light but also various useful items. It was said that one could even make food. However, each tribe kept these useful things very well hidden, not letting others know.
As Plastic thought of this, he looked down at his still-bleeding abdomen. His sister had been killed by a weapon that emitted red light.
Every time he thought of his conjoined twin sister's deformed head being blasted by the red light, a heartbreaking pain seared through his heart.
However, at this very moment, as the leader, he had no time to grieve, because protecting his people and ensuring their survival was more important than anything else.
After walking for about two more hours, Plastic looked up at the gradually darkening sky and pulled out a horn made from a tin can from his chest and blew it forcefully. This was the signal to rest.
Nights in the wilderness were extremely dangerous; no one knew what might emerge from the black smoke, so they could only travel by day.
After a brief search, everyone gathered inside a relatively sturdy cement building with a roof. Under Plastic's command, they began collecting various plastics to light a fire.
Although there was a lack of other materials, fortunately, flammable plastics were abundant everywhere.
After piling up various kinds of collected plastic garbage, Plastic used his knife to scrape a piece of dark red rust from the exposed rebar.
He placed the rust on the plastics and then took out a small packet of powder from his chest, pouring it onto the rust, followed by rubbing two iron rods together quickly. Accompanied by a hissing sound, the rust began to smoke and ignite.
The heat from the rust ignited the trash, and a bonfire with black smoke rose in front of them. The warmth of the bonfire drove away the cold, and even though it was foul-smelling, those nearly frozen didn't mind, wishing to get as close to the fire as possible.
But everyone tacitly refrained from scrambling for warmth, with the workers aged 12 to 23 always being closest to the center, surrounded by women, then children, and finally the elderly on the outside.
"Bring the food," ordered Plastic. Today's fallen bodies, stripped of clothing, were impaled with rebar and brought over. Accompanied by the crackling sound of burning hair, it wasn't long before the small cement house began to fill with the scent of cooking meat.
Although the tribe had been driven out with no food, fortunately, people died every day. Those who starved to death became food. When there was no food, people would go hungry until someone starved to death and once again turned into food. Hunger and death formed a delicate balance between them.
As for food, it was, of course, also distributed according to status: the chairman and employees naturally ate the best, followed by the women capable of bearing employees, then the children who could grow up into employees, and finally, the scraps and leftovers would be left to those old employees who were considered valueless.
Even among the older employees, there were rules. The younger ones ate first, and there was an unspoken rule: those over 35 had no right to eat and were fit only to starve and become food themselves.
However, fortunately in the wilderness, life was difficult for everyone, and no one in their tribe had ever lived past 35. This had to be said, was quite a happy circumstance.
Wood, crouching in a corner, gnawed on a meaty rib bone like a mad dog, not releasing it even when a tooth snapped off, and whenever someone approached her, a beast-like growl would emanate from the depths of her throat.
It wasn't until she had licked the bone clean of meat and sinew that she crawled up from the ground, yet even so, she was still hungry, she wasn't full.
Seeing that there was nothing left to eat, she extended her arms to the ground, attempting to satiate her hunger with the collected water in a pothole.
Just as she was wiping the corner of her mouth, ready to stand up and go back to turn that rib into a handy weapon, a sudden intense fear enveloped her whole body, and she stood frozen like a statue.
Her eyes mechanically shifted slowly towards the left. Outside the dim window, a pair of eyes was staring at her!
Clearly, outside the wilderness, it wasn't only the Wild Men and cockroaches that lived, but also their higher-ranking predators.
Suddenly a hand landed on Wood's shoulder, Plastic's hand. His tall body stooped, clutching a spear fashioned from an exoskeleton's metal arm.
"Shh, it's okay, don't be scared, close your eyes, the wolves can sense your fear," Plastic said, his arm muscles tensing slowly like a spring.
However, in the next second, another pair of eyes appeared outside the window, and then another pair. Set upon set of blood-red eyes greedily peered in through the breezy openings, not just a lone wolf—this was a pack!!
Soon, the deformed bodies, rotting skins, and patchily furred wild wolves were illuminated by the firelight, revealing their faces. Cold sweat slid down Plastic's cheeks; he knew they were in big trouble now.
The employees who had eaten the best until now proved their worth at this moment, each grabbing a weapon, protecting others behind them, and bellowing loudly as they roared intimidatingly at the wild wolves.
Just as Wood was tightly following behind Plastic, another hand suddenly touched her shoulder, yet this one had sharp claws and exhaled a repulsive stench from behind her neck.
A wolf had circled around to her back! Surrounded by fear, Wood stiffly turned her head, and in the next second, saw the rotted-face of a wolf opening its bloodied mouth toward her throat.
Accompanied by a shrill scream, in the next second, all the wild wolves fiercely opened their jaws and lunged at the crowd.
At this critical moment, with a uniform whooshing sound, all the wolves' heads oddly twisted to the left, their brains splattering as their bodies convulsively fell to the ground.
Donning Battle Armor, Sun Jack, alongside the several dozen drones floating by his side, emerged from the pouring rain, and at this moment, in the eyes of all the Wild Men, Sun Jack seemed like a god descending from the heavens.