Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 515 The Convoy Returns
"So, you released this information to make those hunters your guinea pigs?" Zhulong looked into Nagano Soya's eyes and said calmly.

Nagano Soya did not deny it. After a few seconds of silence, he said, "To solve a problem, you must first discover it."

“In fact, two groups of hunters set off for the no-man’s-land a month ago in search of treasure,” Nagano Soya said.

"Isn't the treasure map still missing this last fragment?" Sun Hang asked, puzzled.

“That’s what I felt was off earlier,” Nagano Soya sighed. “In fact, with only one last fragment missing, the treasure map was already incredibly complete, so much so that I once thought the last fragment was unimportant… But now, when I finally got that last fragment, I found that adding it actually felt extremely abrupt and discordant; it seemed superfluous no matter where I put it…”

Nagano Soya picked up the fragment, his mechanical prosthetic arm hovering above the table, and continued, "But after I took the fragment away, I found that the treasure map, which was originally very complete, looked increasingly strange... increasingly strange... as if something was missing."

"Could there be something wrong with these fragments?" Sun Hang asked. "After all, human memory can be biased."

"No, these fragments are sealed deep within the hunters' memories. Their daily brain activity will not touch these fragments. Only under deep hypnosis, through a series of suggestions and inducements, and through 'profiling,' can these fragments be 'extracted' from their memories..."

“Perhaps it’s a problem with the profiling?” Sun Hang said again. “Profilers vary in skill level. If you encounter someone who isn’t very competent, it’s normal for the extracted fragments to differ from the original, isn’t it?”

“It’s quite normal… but if the profiler’s skill level is lacking, I would have realized this problem when I was piecing together this treasure map…” Nagano Soya’s expression was very solemn. “But in fact, every fragment is perfect. Although they come from the memories of thirty-two people, they are so precise that they seem to have been cut from the same map. Look at these lines, these curves and the missing ovals, they all fit together perfectly… If the profiler’s skill is insufficient, such a high level of matching accuracy cannot be achieved.”

“I think I understand what you mean.” Sun Hang nodded. “It’s like you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle. You only have one piece left to complete it, but when you get the piece, you find that it can’t fit into the last gap. To get a complete puzzle, you have to shuffle the original puzzle pieces that are already 96.875% complete and rearrange them, right?”

“That’s right.” Nagano Soya nodded.

Sun Hang walked around to the other end of the table and looked at the remaining thirty-one fragments spread out on the table.

He discovered that these originally chaotic abstract lines, after being arranged and combined, actually transformed into a pattern that resembled a satellite photograph, with houses, streets, and rivers clearly visible.

"Can you pinpoint the precise coordinates from satellite images?" Sun Hang asked.

“It’s difficult. This treasure map is over fifty years old. In those fifty years, the abandoned cities in the no-man’s land have changed beyond recognition…” Nagano Soya said. “Of course I checked the satellite images from back then and used artificial intelligence to analyze them. There are a total of eight locations with a similarity of over 60%, and the one with the highest similarity is only 73.5%.

“Then the search area has already been narrowed down considerably?” Sun Hang said.

“Not necessarily,” Zhulong said. “Back then, when the towns in the Hexi Corridor were expanded, in order to speed up the urbanization process, many towns adopted the same building modules. A large number of blocks looked like they were carved from the same mold, with a very high degree of similarity. If it weren’t for years of disrepair, changes in terrain, and the onslaught of sandstorms, we could probably find dozens or even hundreds of similar locations.”

"Tsk..." Sun Hang couldn't help but smack his lips.

“Mr. Zhulong is right. These eight locations may all be wrong. The real treasure location may not even be 50% similar... But I still hold a glimmer of hope and have sent out investigation teams to the two locations with the highest similarity,” said Nagano Soya.

"How much did you pay those lab rats?" Sun Hang asked.

“Zero.” Nagano Soya’s mechanical prosthetic arm formed a ring with his thumb and forefinger. “All I need to do is spread the word about the treasure’s location and offer free supplies and equipment to the hunters. Countless people will be willing to embark on this journey… For those who are stationed in Yumen, they are absolutely unwilling to miss the opportunity to become rich or famous overnight. Even if that opportunity is likely to be a deadly trap.”

"How can someone be so stupid?" Sun Hang couldn't help but complain.

“No, they’re not stupid, quite the opposite, they’re very shrewd… they’re just gamblers,” Nagano Soya said. “Using their own lives as stakes… that’s the only valuable asset they have.”

"I don't see the shrewdness in that," Sun Hang shook his head. "Isn't this just being sold out and then having to help them count the money?"

"Do you know what the survival rate is for an average hunter who stays in Yumen for twelve months?" Nagano Soya asked.

"How many?"

“Less than 60%.” Nagano Soya sighed again. “In other words, if a hunter doesn’t earn enough money in Yumen to live a comfortable life in his later years, then a year later, more than a third of the hunters will become skeletons… or, a ghostly skeleton wandering in the no-man’s-land, or a ghostly creature.”

“Most free hunters don’t have an easy life,” Nagano Soya said. “The price of being unrestrained is heavy… Not to mention top metropolises like Chunming City and Shen City, even in Chang’an, the price of commercial housing in non-core areas has risen to nearly 30,000 yuan per square meter. And these hunters risk their lives to travel back and forth in the no-man’s land, and the average reward they can earn is only enough to buy three to five square meters of housing… You and Zhulong are among the top hunters in the entire Xiazhou Continent. You can hardly imagine how difficult the lives of the lower-level hunters are.”

"Doesn't the federal government provide living allowances to those infected? Even if those hunters leave the official agencies and choose to become freelance hunters, this allowance won't be canceled," Sun Hang asked.

“That subsidy can only provide them with a decent meal in a place like Yumen,” Nagano Soya said. “They can certainly live a respectable ‘life’ back in inland cities, but as an infected person, how likely do you think it is that they can live a normal life again?”

Sun Hang: "..."

"You have a government-issued luxury house in Tianfu City, right? The logistics department delivers all kinds of living supplies to your door regularly, and all kinds of equipment, vehicles, and even some personal hobby expenses are reimbursed. You can drink fresh buffalo milk every morning, and your refrigerator is full of high-grade beef from premium ranches. If you can't cook, you can apply to the management department for a butler and a maid... But for free hunters, if they rely solely on this subsidy, they can only live in a cramped room of a dozen square meters, carefully budgeting every day, even having to think twice before drinking a beverage. And because of their infected status, it is much more difficult for them to find a normal job than for ordinary people... What you call living, they can only call surviving."

Nagano Soya spread his hands and continued, "Some people choose to survive, but others choose to take risks... gambling with their lives and abilities. As for me, I'm just someone who provides the gambling table."

"Have any of the hunters you sent out returned?"

"not yet."

Have they contacted Yumen?

“Signal interference has always been severe in the uninhabited areas of the Hexi Corridor. Even Yumen often cannot contact Longcheng, let alone the deeper areas.”

"So, this group of people has lost contact with us."

“That’s how it is for now,” Nagano Soya said nonchalantly. “They are just the first two groups of hunters I’ve selected. As long as I’m willing to release these ‘suspected locations,’ even more people will set off from here—” Nagano Soya was halfway through his sentence when the old-fashioned telephone on the corner of the table suddenly rang.

He reached out to answer the phone, but Sun Hang had already taken the initiative and pressed the "hands-free" button on the phone.

"Boss, one of the hunters we sent out earlier has already returned to Yumen!" A young man's voice came through the phone.

"Where are they now?" Nagano Soya raised his eyelids, glanced at Sun Hang, and asked in a deep voice.

"The convoy has just entered the abandoned city... but something's not right..."

"Something's wrong?"

“We tried calling them on the radio, but there was no response,” the young man said. “The windows were all closed tightly, and our men couldn’t see anything inside the car.”

"Where are they now?"

"We just drove past the intersection of 15th Street. We weren't going fast, maybe only 20 miles per hour. There were a lot of signs of fighting on the vehicles. Three of the four tires on the lead vehicle were blown out... To be honest, boss, given the condition of their vehicles, I think it's a miracle that they were able to drive back from the no man's land."

“Organize a group of hunters to meet them,” Nagano Soya said. “Be as careful as possible.”

"Ok."

After hanging up the phone, Nagano Soya looked at Sun Hang and the others, smiled, and said, "If you also want to join in the fun, please do so."

“I always felt that you were trying to use me,” Sun Hang said.

“You could have chosen to stand by and do nothing… no matter what happened.” Nagano Soya shrugged. “Those free hunters might not be as strong as you, but they’re more than capable of handling minor situations.”

……

……

Yumen, an abandoned city on the ground.

A dozen or so free hunters and roughly the same number of mercenaries strode through the ruins, their excitement palpable. From their conversation, Sun Hang learned that Nagano Soya had already released information about the treasure map months ago, but the "precise locations" were known only to those he had chosen.

Nagano Soya did not choose to hide the fact that there were multiple suspected locations on the treasure map. Therefore, even the hunters who were not selected in the first two batches were still full of hope—maybe those who were selected first went to the wrong locations.

In matters that are purely a matter of luck, the order of events becomes less important.

Sun Hang and his two companions trailed far behind the group, maintaining a distance of about 100 meters.

“I have a bad feeling,” said Zhulong.

"You mean... the convoy that came back?"

Zhulong nodded: "It's hard to say whether what comes back is still human."

Not long after the crowd left, the "battered" convoy came into their view.

Leading the charge was a Toyota SUV that had been modified to the point of being almost unrecognizable from the original. Thick protective steel plates were welded to the hood, roof, and both side doors, and a thick layer of barbed wire covered the windows. A shovel bucket, originally used for clearing a path through the rubble, was fixed to the front of the vehicle—but now, the bucket had been cut in half, along with the front of the vehicle, which had been fitted with protective steel plates. Through this horrifying gap, the heavily modified engine was vaguely visible.

The engine was covered in a black, gooey substance; it was unclear whether it was leaked engine oil or congealed blood.

On the protective steel plates of both sides of the vehicle, there are deep claw marks and traces of acid corrosion. The barrel of the vehicle-mounted machine gun on the roof has been twisted into a metal braid, and two stiff human fingers are still hanging on the machine gun grip.

"Stop the car!" A fully armed mercenary stepped forward, raising his left hand. "Stop the car! We are from 'Spring Breeze'!"

The convoy did not slow down and continued to drive slowly.

The crowd tensed up. The mercenary who had stepped forward lowered his hands, raised the assault rifle hanging from his chest, and aimed at the driver's seat.

The inside of the car window glass seemed to be coated with something, making the entire glass appear dark and blurry, making it impossible to see what was happening inside the car.

"Stop the car! I'm repeating myself! Stop the car immediately!" the mercenary shouted. "Or I'll shoot!"

The screeching sound of the calipers rubbing against the brake discs filled the air as the convoy slowly came to a stop less than five meters away from him.

The mercenary breathed a sigh of relief, lowered his gun slightly, and walked over.

[P.S. I've had an acute attack of gastroenteritis these past two days, with vomiting and diarrhea, so I'm not feeling well. These chapters might be a bit short, please forgive me.]

(End of this chapter)