Two men in patched taupe cloaks emerged from the thorns, one of whom poked the dying coyote on the ground with a wooden stick.

"I'm not dead yet. I should have been parasitized by insects. I cut off the leg and the meat from other parts can still be eaten." The man holding the stick turned his head and said to his companion. His voice was low and hoarse, and he seemed to have a mouthful of phlegm stuck in his throat forever.

"Move it smoothly, remember not to peel off the wolf skin intact. The dark season is coming soon. Now the leather at the central market is almost one price per day. This wolf skin can probably be exchanged for a lot of food." Another person said, but he did not do it himself - Ash noticed that a very worn short-barrel flintstorm was inserted between his waist.

This is a powerful long-distance weapon. It uses flint to ignite the black gunpowder filled in the chamber pipe. The impact of the explosion of the black gunpowder will push the projectile or iron sand out of the gun chamber - whether it is range, power, or accuracy, this weapon is much stronger than bows and arrows and hand crossbows.

"This person actually has a flint gun..." Ashes narrowed his eyes and kept thinking in his heart...

If he loses that coyote, he will probably find it difficult to survive the coming three months of dark season. If he takes action rashly, he will definitely not be the opponent of these two people - not to mention, the other party is carrying a flintstone.

Although Ashes himself did not feel the feeling of being hit by a flintstone, he had seen others killing prey with flintstones.

It was an adult fanged wild boar with a hard cuticle layer of piled up from dead skin on its back, covered with several centimeters of air-dried mud. Like this kind of prey, ordinary swords and arrows would definitely not penetrate these two layers of "armor" on its back. However, the guy who used a flint gun fired a shot, and the lead-based projectile smashed the dry mud on the boar's back, tore open the tough cuticle layer, penetrated directly into the boar's body, and finally penetrated out of the boar's abdomen!

Although the power of the short-barrel flint gun in front of me should not be as powerful as the long-barrel flint gun that killed the wild boar in seconds, Ash also knew that his defense was probably not even one percent of the toothed wild boar.

It is absolutely impossible to give that person a chance to shoot... Although the power of the flintstone is terrifying, every time you shoot, you need to reload gunpowder and projectiles. The loading process, even the most skilled gunman, takes dozens of seconds.

Apart from this short-barrel flint gun, the two men did not carry many weapons, only two rusty short swords, one more than one meter long, with a wooden stick with several iron nails on their heads, and a hand axe with incomplete axe blades.

They did not have armor on their bodies, but they were wearing two hard leather vests. With the penetration of the small crossbow of the Ashes, it was estimated that it would be difficult to shoot through these two hard leather vests.

"It's hard to deal with..." Ashes shook his head gently. If he hadn't had time to find other prey, if the flintstone hadn't had the temptation power of that flintstone, he would never have regarded such two people as his targets of attack.

The other party took out a few leaves of cordyceps from his pocket, put them in his palm and rubbed them hard, and then dripped the juice from the broken leaves onto the coyote's wound. Suddenly, the parasites attached to the wound dispersed, revealing the flesh and blood that had been gnawed to the face.

The juice of the cordyceps can drive away parasites, but it cannot kill the insect eggs buried deep in the flesh and blood. The only way to deal with this is to cut off this wolf leg.

The hand axe kept slashing at the connection between the wolf's legs and the torso. The dying coyote had no strength to even moan. Soon, the entire wolf's legs were chopped off by the man and threw them aside.

"Check the incision to see if there are any insect eggs that have been drilled in." The man with the flint gun looked around vigilantly and said to his companions.

"No, these insects have not been parasitized for a long time, and the eggs are all on the surface of the wound and have not yet drilled into it." Another man used the tip of the sword to look through the flesh at the broken mouth, and then applied a handful of wood ash used to stop bleeding on the coyote's wound. After absorbing the blood from the wound, the wood ash quickly formed a black and red paste-like substance, blocking the broken blood vessels at the wound.

"Then let's go quickly. I always feel a little uneasy, as if someone is staring at us." The man with the flint gun urged.

"Boss, are you too nervous? This place is so remote, how could there be someone else?" Another person said, carrying the entire coyote on his shoulders.

"It's true to be careful, and don't you think the wound of this coyote is caused by a trap?"

"You said this... it seems to be true..." The man looked at the wolf's leg that was cut off on the ground. Although the original shape of the wound was difficult to distinguish due to the parasites and could not tell which weapon was caused by it, the wound penetrated the entire hind limb of the coyote. This kind of wound is not something that ordinary beasts can do.

If it was bitten by other beasts, the guy's teeth must be at least thirty centimeters long - the teeth alone are that long, so naturally the guy's body shape can be imagined.

Not to mention that they have never seen monsters of this level in the ruins. Even if there are ones, it is absolutely impossible for them to escape from the mouth of this monster when they are hit by this coyote.

"So I said, be careful..." The man said, suddenly pulled the flint gun out of his waist, took out a gunpowder made of horns, poured black gunpowder into the barrel, and finally stuffed a lead ball wrapped in oil paper into the barrel.

In this way, the flint gun is in a state where it can be fired at any time.

Ashes hidden in the darkness sank in his heart. The other party made this move, obviously realizing his existence. In this way, his chances of success became even more slim.

However, the slim chance does not mean there is no chance at all. Ashes finally decided to follow these two people. It is still half a day away from the "central market" mentioned by them. On the way, you need to pass through several areas with higher levels of danger. There, maybe some turning points will happen...

...

The so-called "central market" is located in the "Imperial Square" in the central area of ​​Reinhardt. Survivors in the quarantine area dragged the wagons of several steam locomotives to the ruins of the square, forming a material exchange area similar to the market. At the beginning, the "central market" was very small, and there were only a few dozen people involved. The specific exchange process was also very chaotic, and even murders and robberies broke out from time to time... But as time passed, more and more survivors came to the central market to exchange things, and the size of the market began to gradually grow, from the first few wands to nearly a hundred wands now... As long as you can take out enough equivalent exchanges, you can exchange anything you can find in the ruins here.

The central market has also become the only place where "order" exists in the second isolation area. Here, robbery, fighting, and murder are prohibited... However, the scope of the order only covers the edge of Empire Square. In the words of the gang boss who controls the central market, that is-
Chapter completed!