GAMMT - Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Delivering a Head
Fu Chuan had been a model student, raised to be prim and proper, but she had a capable and outgoing personality. She'd always enjoyed playing with the boys—basketball, soccer, badminton, tennis, she excelled at every sport. She was even better at video games than most of them.
Her parents were open-minded. Coming from an upper-middle-class family, they had the financial means and didn't hesitate to invest in her development, sending her to learn various martial arts from a young age.
This world was different. She truly hadn't been on guard. Fortunately, after being tackled, her martial arts training kicked in, and she reacted quickly.
Klang!!!
Claws scraped against the bracer on her raised left arm.
The metal bracer, which still carried the faint, musky scent of the guard, was gouged with vicious slash marks. The wolf tried to lower its head to bite, but just then… Bang!!!
Fu Chuan had already drawn the gun she'd looted from the bandit. A bullet blasted into the creature's abdomen. The potent smell of a chemical composite explosion filled the air, accompanied by blue light and white smoke. The Iron-Ridge Wasteland Wolf was sent flying over a meter away. It rolled as it landed, its belly a bloody mess. Even its layer of hardened, metallic skin couldn't withstand the shot.
It couldn't get back up, only clawing at the ground and snarling at her. This time, Fu Chuan was alert. In the beam of her searchlight, she could see in its pupils… Whoosh! Fu Chuan dodged to the side as another wolf lunged from the shadows behind her. She fired hastily while evading.
This time, both sides were prepared. It all came down to reaction time and agility.
Fu Chuan fired with her right hand while dodging, but her left hand made a grasping motion as she chanted an arcane incantation…
Gathering power, preparing.
After a few dodges, bullets ricocheted off the mountain wall, sending fragments flying. But the wasteland wolves were predators, skilled fighters, and they quickly closed in on Fu Chuan, leaping with a couple of lightning-fast zigzags…
The moment one leaped into the air, Fu Chuan violently threw the Arcane Missile she had prepared.
Bang!!
It struck the wolf's body directly.
She had aimed for its head but missed. Still, hitting its body was good enough. The wind element exploded, halting its charge and knocking it out of the air. But its hide was tough. It rolled to its feet upon landing and was about to pounce again, but this time its position was fixed. Fu Chuan's second Arcane Missile was already on its way.
This one hit its head. The skull didn't crack, but one of its eyeballs burst. Blinded, it howled in pain. Fu Chuan continued using kiting tactics, hitting it with three more Arcane Missiles until it was drenched in blood. Finally, as its movements became clumsy and its speed decreased… Bang! A gunshot rang out, the bullet entering through the breach in its armor.
A direct hit, at last.
Thud.
It collapsed.
"Killed Level 1 Iron-Ridge Wasteland Wolf. +20 EXP."
"Killed Level 1 Iron-Ridge Wasteland Wolf. +20 EXP."
Fu Chuan was covered in a cold sweat, her entire body felt numb, and her fingers were trembling. Her hands felt a little cold, and her palms stung. Her affinity with the wind element was still too low, and the wind elements she summoned didn't care who they hit. They spun and attacked, sometimes grazing the skin of her palms. The damage was minimal, but it was still painful.
A chilling, cutting pain.
She took a deep breath and quickly looted the bodies.
"You have killed a Level 1 Iron-Ridge Wasteland Wolf. A piece of fragrant wolf meat has dropped."
"You have killed a Level 1 Iron-Ridge Wasteland Wolf. An iron essence stone and a left wrist guard have dropped."
Fu Chuan quickly inspected the items. The iron essence stone was for forging weapons. The left wrist guard had similar stats to her old one, but since her original had been torn open, she tossed it and equipped the new one.
"Wolf meat?" The wolf meat restored satiety. It was the essence of the wasteland wolf's flesh and blood, and the description noted it could restore a person's stamina within five minutes.
Not bad.
It was a good piece of wolf meat, but she couldn't eat it raw, and it smelled of blood.
She really needed a backpack, a staple for any game character.
Fu Chuan was actually starving, but there was nothing she could do. She could only pack up her things quickly.
These two wolves had clearly come from the entrance behind her, which meant they had already found another way in. She had to leave before they sent more wolves to flank her from both sides.
Fu Chuan quickly found the entrance… and ran right into three more wasteland wolves that had just arrived. Her scalp tingled. She had no choice but to hide behind a rock at the cave mouth, rapidly summoning and condensing an Arcane Missile with one hand while firing her gun with the other, continuing to kite them to keep them at bay. Seeing her mental power drop close to 30 points, she quickly drank a mental power potion.
Her mental power was replenished, rising to 80.
It wasn't enough. It was a drop in the bucket. This was too hard!
And these three weren't pushovers either. After Fu Chuan kited and killed one of them, the other two let out a howl.
Not good!
Fu Chuan heard an answering howl from not far away. She knew she was done for…
Gritting her teeth, she threw out the wolf meat from her pack. As expected, it drew one of the wolves away, and she dashed for the opening it created.
"Awooo!" The wasteland wolf immediately gave chase. At the same time, a dozen more wolves burst out from the paths on either side of the cave, pouncing and howling viciously… Fu Chuan heard the wind rushing behind her. She leaped, clearing a height of two meters, and used her agility to quickly jump onto a tree.
Thump!
The tree trunk was violently struck. The tree, which would take two people to encircle, actually swayed, but the wolves couldn't climb it.
Just as she thought, these prairie wolves hadn't practiced climbing trees. Even if they were physically capable, they didn't know how. Fu Chuan was about to breathe a sigh of relief when she saw the dozen or so wolves frantically clawing and biting at the trunk…
She couldn't understand it. She was just one person; there wasn't much meat on her bones. Why were they so fixated on her? And how did they find the back of the cave so quickly? It was as if they were tracking her scent.
Wait, scent?
Could someone have taken her clothes and used them to cast a tracking spell? Or maybe they used an item like a "Blood-Seeking Demon Key" on the wolves, making them hunt her relentlessly.
But the latter was a higher-level item, costing at least several dozen green coins. Was she worth that? No.
That meant someone had used her clothes to cast a tracking spell.
That was a level-two arcane art, a rather difficult auxiliary precision spell. Who could it be?
She was terrified and tense, watching as the tree was finally chewed through… She jumped down on her own accord.
Suicide by wolf?
Just then.
Whoosh!
A mechanical horse galloped over, jumping with incredible speed and soaring high into the air… Fu Chuan landed perfectly on its back. After she mounted, the mechanical horse's hooves hit the ground, kicking up debris. Fu Chuan used her wristband to command all the other mechanical horses to turn around from the front entrance…
Immediately after, dozens, perhaps nearly a hundred, wasteland wolves heard the howls and gave chase relentlessly.
They were a dense, swarming mass. The wind howled as they raced across the prairie.
Just as Fu Chuan was about to be surrounded, a group of mechanical horses charged out, galloping alongside her across the wasteland. Controlled by her, their metal bodies continuously blocked the wolves' attempts to encircle her.
It was terrifying. The cold sweat on Fu Chuan's forehead was dried by the fierce prairie wind, but she could hear and feel the mechanical horses behind her losing steam.
There were too many wolves! They couldn't be stopped. Once the main pack got within five meters of her, she would be dead for sure.
No, this wasn't working!
Why wasn't the damned Li Corporation responding?
That left only one risky option.
Fu Chuan felt like she was reliving the time her first startup was maliciously bought out by a rich classmate.
Her excellent project and core team had been poached, forcing her to sell the studio. What had she done then? She'd swallowed her pride, jacked up the price, and sold. Then, while fending off his advances and letting him think he had a chance, she found a way out. She quickly secured a more powerful investor, partnered with them on a new project, and squeezed her rival out of the market. After making money from both ends, she started another company, this time more successfully. Later, she invested in her rival's competitor, sabotaged his business from every angle, and stole his market share. She heard that the rich kid was eventually sent abroad by his father, and the family fortune was left to an illegitimate son.
A ruthless glint appeared in her eyes. She reached into her pack and pulled out a communication device she had looted from a bandit, quickly searching for the other party's fixed IP address.
This address should be her destination.
High above the prairie, a majestic eagle soared. It looked down upon the brutal chase unfolding on the ground.
But it was puzzled. Why were these stupid wolves going to such lengths to hunt a single person? There was plenty of other meat on the prairie that was better than one weak human.
However, this human was leading herself into another desperate situation.
The eagle quickly veered away from a patch of forest, knowing it wasn't safe there.
At that moment, within the forest, numerous structures served as cover, concealing many caves. In one of these caves, a rugged man received a communication.
He immediately asked, "Zhang San and the others aren't back yet, and they didn't say where they were going?"
"No, we can't reach them. We don't know if something happened. The Li Corporation has been cracking down hard lately, with tight controls. We told them not to wander off, or they'd be finished if the inspection team wiped them out."
"Cut the crap! Find them! If you find them and there's a problem, kill them! Goddammit, all they do is cause trouble!"
The man exhaled a puff of smoke. Just as he was about to put down the communicator, he received a report from a scout at an outpost!
"Boss, great news! There's a fat sheep outside the woods being chased by a pack of wasteland wolves. He's fleeing blindly right toward us… Damn, this person even has nine mechanical horses! That's at least a million copper coins! And with him as bait, we can gather all those wolves in one place and wipe them all out!"
Hearing this, the man's interest was piqued. He sat up straight and grabbed the pine wood staff beside him.
"Let's go!"
"Activate the machine gun emplacements…"
"Hurry!"
Fu Chuan was nearing exhaustion, but her nerves were stretched to their absolute limit. She knew she was driving a pack of vicious dogs into a dead end, but that dead end was home to a murderer.
That's right. She was leading the pack of wasteland wolves to the bandits' lair.
If she had read about a move like this in a novel before, she would have called the character a badass.
So brave!
Wasn't this just asking for death?
But she had no choice. She had no reinforcements… Gritting her teeth, and fearing that the bandits might just kill everyone, she spotted a sniper in a tree. Before he could fire, she decisively made a feint.
From a great distance, she shouted, "Big brother, big brother, help! Please, save my life! I'm an illegitimate son of the Jingyang Xie Clan! These wolves killed the guards who came to meet me! If you save me, my father, who deeply loved my mother, will pay you! He'll give you a lot of money, a hundred blue coins!!! Please!!"
Her plea for help was genuinely desperate; she didn't even have to act.
This person was truly venomous. She'd blurted out a hundred blue coins, when in reality, that trash father of hers would scheme and test him over a few thousand green coins.
But the problem was, when the bandits heard this…
Damn, this seemed even more profitable than their original home delivery service.
Not only was he delivering his own head from a thousand miles away, but he was also bringing the ransom money.
The bandit leader, Li Kai, narrowed his eyes and put down his cigarette, a shrewd, calculating look in his eyes. "Have someone check it out. Then have him lead the mobs to the traps. If he succeeds, keep him alive for a slow interrogation. If he's lying and has no value…"
Then there would be no 'after.'
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