"So there are such big guys in the ominous signs... I wonder if this thing turned into a Fire Dragon after crossing over or did it become one by devouring the corresponding elements?"
As he watched the Flying Dragon gulp down a corpse in just a few bites, Feng Xue's thoughts uncontrollably fluttered. After all, his information about the ominous signs was still severely lacking. Yet, from the few phantom items he currently possessed, it seemed that the probability of mutation after becoming an ominous sign was quite high.
"However, speaking of which, I wonder if becoming a Kaidan will affect one's own state? Like, if a man turns into a Slit-Mouthed Woman, would he become female?" As this crossed his mind, Feng Xue couldn't help shuddering, cautioning himself inwardly to be very careful when solidifying labels.
While Feng Xue was pondering, the Fire Dragon had already eaten all the corpses outside the giant egg. Raising its head like a chick, it looked around, then let out a piercing roar, flapped its wings, and soared into the sky amidst the turbulent air currents.
Watching the huge figure gradually disappear into the distance, Feng Xue breathed a sigh of relief. He tightened the hood of his suit to maintain Breath Concealment and carefully walked out of the forest. As he arrived at the edge of the giant egg, the technology-filled wall unfolded to reveal a passage just wide enough to accommodate two people side by side.
"Huh..." Staring at the deep passage before him, Feng Xue let out a breath of relief. At least he wasn't mistaken—entering another landfill area didn't require any special pass, as long as you weren't an ominous sign.
Still, he didn't let down his guard. Instead, he braced himself for the possibility of seeing a group of people waiting by the wall as soon as he entered, making his way through the nearly twenty-meter-long corridor.
The scene he imagined of being surrounded by an audience didn't happen. When Feng Xue once again stood in the light cast by the wall, a sudden sense of security enveloped him.
Although he hadn't faced any substantial danger, the mental pressure still left Feng Xue feeling exhausted. Yet, before he could take a breath, a vibration suddenly came from his pocket.
"Detected departure from work area, would you like to bind a new work location?"
Startled, Feng Xue looked at the prompt on his work badge, not knowing where to direct his frustration, but he ultimately suppressed the urge to curse and clicked confirm, starting to choose a new home.
Yes, because he rebound his work location, Infinite City also allocated him a new property.
Opening the map, Feng Xue didn't immediately decide but began to review the general distribution of this landfill area. Compared to the previous one, this area was slightly larger, with a total area close to fifty square kilometers. Unlike the previous landfill area whose manager's gang name was unknown up to the end, the manager of this landfill area grandiosely named their base after the gang, thus Feng Xue could know the name of the gang here by the "Cross Sword Union Base" label on the map.
Based on his experience in the last landfill area, Feng Xue still chose his new home diagonally opposite the manager gang's base. With the Cross Sword Union located in the north of the city, Feng Xue naturally chose an apartment in the south.
However, to his surprise, the first night after the move was unnervingly peaceful. Compared to the previous place where he'd nearly dealt with one or two corpse collections every night, this place was quiet to an excessive degree.
But Feng Xue didn't think that the death rate here could really be that low. Otherwise, where did all those corpses the Fire Dragon had eaten come from?
...
In the early morning, Feng Xue awoke from his sleep. It was now 6:20. He wandered around the still unfamiliar apartment a couple of times before opening the door, ready to take a good look at this landfill area which he hadn't been able to observe closely the night before.
To his surprise, although the landfill area still had the temperament of a Southeast Asian slum, with various corrugated paper and composite board houses all around, it had a completely different prevalence of transportation compared to his previous unit.
Let's put it this way, in the previous landfill area, pretty much everyone Feng Xue saw was on foot, but in this area, there were a surprising number of motorcycles parked at the roadside and even the occasional car.
Although there was still some distance compared to the congested roads filled with cars before crossing over, this was undoubtedly a qualitative difference.
"Just a little over two miles away, and the disparity between rich and poor is this huge? Or is it that the Cross Sword Union here has professions like Mechanics?"
Feng Xue couldn't help but ponder, but since she couldn't just ask outright, she stuck to the plan and kept wandering around nearby.
If one were to talk about the first place to go after reaching a landfill area, it would naturally be the local garbage dump. According to the information she had gotten from Old Li before, each landfill area had its own unique trash day. However, it wasn't until Feng Xue arrived at the garbage dump that she suddenly realized why she hadn't received any corpse collection tasks the night before—
Because today was trash day.
Seeing that the garbage dump was already teeming with people, Feng Xue didn't linger; instead, she found a changing room immediately. She didn't use the storage locker, but rather bought a scavenging set for 100 towers as if renting it. After all, Old Li had said, these storage lockers were not too safe. Instead of leaving her phantom items here and being constantly worried, it was safer to keep them at home.
...
Not long after, Feng Xue, dressed in a scavenging set, reappeared outside the garbage dump, watching the clock that kept moving and observing the Newbie Guides who roamed through the crowd.
Although Old Li was a bit money-hungry, it had to be said that he had provided Feng Xue with considerable help for her initial survival. The Newbie Guide profession itself made it easy to come across various bits of intelligence, so moonlighting as an Intelligence Merchant was nothing out of the ordinary.
Just as she was considering whether to cozy up to a Newbie Guide who seemed easygoing, a piercing buzz suddenly filled the sky.
Even though she had changed landfill areas, the special effects that signaled the imminent downfall of trash were strikingly similar.
Even though she had seen it once before, Feng Xue couldn't help but look towards that deep portal that connected to the Otherworld, even harboring thoughts of "If I could fly, could I follow the portal to the Otherworld?" in her mind.
But this thought didn't last long, as a huge amount of trash started to fall from the depths of the clouds, and in just an instant, Feng Xue felt a strong sense of dissonance.
Because the trash falling from this cloud was fundamentally different from that of the previous landfill area.
How fundamentally different?
The style! The style was different!
Yes, the style.
The trash that had fallen in the previous landfill area, although varied in type and spanning both ancient and modern technologies, included future weapons like EVA plugs and Single Soldier Power Armor, as well as ancient melee weapons like Half-hand Swords and Cross Swords, and there were even corpses of snipers in Ghillie Suits and bombed-out buildings.
But the trash falling here was entirely different. At a glance, there were all sorts of transportation vehicles, from bicycles and small sedans to high-speed trains and airplanes. However, what left Feng Xue speechless was that she even spotted a flying saucer!
Yes, a flying saucer! The kind that often appears in children's science fiction, used by aliens!
"This wouldn't be a transportation-vehicle world, would it? I wonder if I could find a train hero?"