Chapter 218
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Chapter 218: Survivors, Shelter, Settlement
Watching the man hesitate, Ink Drench quietly removed her hand from bipolar disorder’s gun barrel.
The barrel rose again, its dark muzzle aimed directly at the man across from her.
“I agree.”
It seemed the man was wise enough to recognize the situation.
The group began moving southwest, with Ink Drench and the man from the settlement walking at the front, about a meter ahead of the other teammates.
Even if this man posed a threat, she could eliminate him in one strike without endangering her companions.
The others followed quietly behind, maintaining their vigilance. Beast Pack released his four wolf-like extraordinary beasts, Wind Whisper continuously gathered information from the air, and bipolar disorder kept his gun trained on the man.
As for Mercury, he was simply walking.
“Can you tell me about Marsh Settlement? I’d like to know more about your people. Of course, only share what you can; if there’s anything you can’t say, that’s fine.”
Ink Drench, leading the group, spoke in an unusually gentle tone, one her teammates had rarely heard from their Captain.
“What do you want to know? I can tell you some things that are safe to share.”
“Alright. I’d like to know when your settlement was established, how you sustain it, and what methods you use to protect your members.”
Ink Drench fired off three questions in quick succession. Seeing the man hesitate, she repeated the first question.
“Ah, you mean the time? I remember Marsh Settlement was formed about twenty years ago. Back then, I was still young. Our original Shelter had been breached, so we had no choice but to seek refuge with these outsiders.”
“Outsiders?”
“Yes, they claimed to come from a place called Hope City. They were smart and strong, so we quickly accepted them as our leaders.”
Ink Drench nodded and asked, “Where was your original Shelter?”
“In Agar City… yes, that’s right. I’ve almost forgotten its name.
“Our Shelter was breached by extraordinary beasts twenty years ago. We escaped through a hidden passage, but the outside was nothing like we’d imagined. We had to run aimlessly.
“It was further south, though I can’t say exactly how far. On foot, it would take about five days. That’s how we got here—running, eating, sleeping, and running again. We just kept running…”
Ink Drench silently noted this information while searching her mind for any familiar details or anything unreasonable.
Unfortunately, neither the Shelter nor Agar City had ever been mentioned to her before.
“What do you usually eat?”
“We eat things that grow from the ground. A few years ago, when there were still one or two elders in Marsh Settlement, they could identify what those things were called. But now they’re gone, and I don’t know any of the names. I just know which ones taste good.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes, when food is scarce, we forage in the surrounding area. It’s dangerous—many people go out and never return.
“I thought I was going to die too…”
“Keep talking. You’re safe with us here.”
“Alright. We mostly eat those things. Sometimes, though, we manage to get strange meat…”
“Strange meat?”
The man gestured vaguely toward the Beast Pack behind him:
"Like those beside him."
"You eat extraordinary beasts?!"
Bipolar disorder was clearly taken aback by his words. As he expressed his astonishment, he began scrutinizing the man’s body for any unusual gray patterns or visible fluff in his eyes…
"He’s fine."
Ink Drench, who had anticipated this, said:
"He shows no symptoms of being Infected."
Bipolar disorder exhaled deeply, and the team moved forward, listening to the man’s account:
"I know what extraordinary beasts are. We don’t eat them; we only consume the processed ones."
"Processed ones?"
As the Captain of a top-tier superhero team, Ink Drench was well aware of the primary ingredient in Hope City’s nutritional paste.
She knew that after several processing steps, the nutritional paste had to be treated with Holy Shield’s ability to completely eradicate the mycelium within. The man before her and his settlement did not seem to possess such a capability.
"Yes, the leaders have special methods. Only the ones they process are safe to eat.
"But they don’t teach us…"
Ink Drench’s brow furrowed slightly as she detected a strong undercurrent of dissatisfaction in the man’s tone.
He seemed deeply unhappy about the preferential treatment the leaders, the people from Hope City, received…
This was something worth noting.
Ink Drench pondered for a moment but chose not to interrupt him. The ragged and unkempt man seemed to have opened up, sharing his grievances in a disjointed manner.
Observing this, Wind Whisper quietly approached Bipolar disorder:
"Your ability can be used like this?"
"Hmm?"
Bipolar disorder neither confirmed nor denied it, implicitly agreeing with his observation.
Her ability was quite fascinating; inducing irritability or gloom in a target was merely the simplest and most basic application.
In fact, by regulating the hormones of intelligent beings, Bipolar disorder could subtly alter emotions and create or eliminate certain desires without their awareness. However, such precise manipulation required time, and Ink Drench had already set the stage for her.
At that moment, the man’s desire to share and vent had gradually intensified over the past hour. Even he didn’t understand why he felt compelled to talk about these things, but he believed that expressing them would bring him some relief.
"Was that how you got Mercury to reveal so many secrets at the last gathering?" Wind Whisper suddenly recalled something from long ago and whispered to Bipolar disorder.
"Don’t ask, don’t know, haven’t heard of it."
The superpowered individual’s expression turned serious, and she pretended to look elsewhere, feigning nonchalance.
It must be said that the members of Marsh Settlement had to travel a considerable distance for foraging.
By midday, the group finally spotted what appeared to be a settlement in the distance.
Nearly three hours had passed since they departed from their temporary camp the previous night.
This indicated that the man beside them had begun his day’s foraging labor before dawn, which explained why he looked as if he were on the verge of collapse, even without a gun pointed at him.
As they neared the settlement, more people appeared on the road ahead of Ink Drench and her companions. They quickly learned of the outsiders’ arrival and hurried back to inform the settlement.
After a while, a small group seemed to be approaching. Finally, Ink Drench saw someone waiting at the entrance of Marsh Settlement.
A middle-aged man wearing glasses extended his hand to her:
"Hello, I am the person in charge here. My name is Zhang Tong."
