Reborn in the end of the world, I scavenged in the empty city and bought for free

At the same time, the outer circle "shantytown" fifteen kilometers away from the civil servants' community.

The shantytown that was once bustling and crowded with people now looks like a deserted empty city. Apart from the whistling wind caused by the blizzard, it is so quiet that it gives people a strong sense of repulsion.

Looking around, the roofs of all the shanty towns are a mixture of blue and gray. The snow on the roofs has completely crushed some shanties, and only a corner of them can be seen.

On the top of a mountain not far away stood a young man in a black cotton coat, his scarf almost covering half of his face.

"Zizi... Zizi, Aokiji, how's the situation over there?" After a burst of noisy sound from the walkie-talkie in his hand, a man's voice was faintly heard.

Xu Qingzhi lowered his eyes and pulled the intercom slightly closer to his lips. "I haven't seen any living people yet, nor have I seen the target snow ape, but I always feel that there is a strange feeling here, but I can't explain it clearly at the moment."

"In this weather, we two still need to go out to carry out the mission. It's really hard for us two brothers. When we go back, let Zi Qiu cook a piece of pork head for us to eat. Hey, why didn't the boss come out for this mission? Didn't we agree to come out together?"

Liu Hun on the other side of the walkie-talkie was squatting on the ground, piling up some dry branches nearby, and then using his fire ability to set them on fire.

Because he is a high-level fire-type mutant, Liu Hun can maintain his body temperature at a constant state.

In fact, it's not just Liu Hun. Similar to other high-level psychics, psychics above level A can control the temperature of the body and have a certain adaptability to the surrounding environment and temperature changes. Except for the youngest Xuyang in the hunter team who is still at the level of B, even Xu Qingzhi has recently broken through the level of A. Moreover, the mission this time is mainly to investigate the shantytown case which has always been regarded as an S-level task.

The relocation of people from the shantytowns has been ordered to be stopped. It is not because the government is unwilling to relocate the remaining people, but because these people have disappeared.

There were more than 20,000 people, and the government relocated one third of them on the first day of the extreme cold. Over the following week, more than 7,000 people were relocated. The rest, especially the young and strong men, fled to other places to temporarily avoid the snowstorm. Even so, more than 1,000 people were still stranded in the shantytowns, most of whom were elderly and orphans.

But just four days ago, the last Self-Defense Force sent by the al-Qaeda government sent back information that more than a thousand people in the shantytown had mysteriously disappeared.

These more than a thousand people did not die in the snowstorm, but disappeared mysteriously, because their daily necessities in the shacks were still left at the scene, which means that they did not leave their living area on their own, but more like they suddenly experienced something or encountered some kind of change and disappeared.

But what's strange is that there was no warning of their disappearance and no bodies were found at the scene.

However, the Self-Defense Forces still discovered some strange phenomena while surveying the surrounding area, such as some buckets and clothes left behind by people living in the shanty towns. These things appeared no more than 300 meters in diameter away from the shanty towns.

Xu Qingzhi took a deep breath and then smiled, "The captain must have something more important to do."

Liu Hun curled his lips in disbelief: "What could be more important than an S-level mission?"

Xu Qingzhi said truthfully: "I heard him texting someone this morning, maybe it was Miss Gu."

Liu Hun immediately raised his eyebrows, thinking of the boss's attitude before, so he laughed ambiguously: "Ah, then I understand, it seems that it is not easy for the boss to pursue our future sister-in-law. Since ancient times, heroes have been unable to resist beautiful women."

Xu Qingzhi: “…” He dared to say this behind his back. If the captain heard this, Brother Liu’s training would probably have to be increased several times this month.

Just as Xu Qingzhi was talking to Liu Hun, Xu Qingzhi suddenly saw a black dot not far away, or to be more precise, it looked like a black sunken hole.

However, in such snowy weather, a black hole appearing out of nowhere in the snow seemed particularly strange and unusual.

Xu Qingzhi immediately closed his eyes and activated his perception ability again. Currently, the available range of Xu Qingzhi's perception ability can spread to within ten kilometers, but if he wants to perceive accurately, the range needs to be narrowed to about two kilometers.

He Xiong was only about three or four hundred meters away from where he was now. He was sure that he seemed to sense different life forms near the black hole, but it was hard to say whether they were humans or other mutant beasts, because the life forms sensed by the psychic ability at a long distance were all in a red state in the spiritual world of the psychic.

Xu Qingzhi pursed his lips, then jogged quickly down the hillside. His running posture enabled him to maintain a certain speed in the snowstorm.

"Brother Liu, there is an unknown black hole about 500 meters southeast of the shantytown. I feel something is strange there. I'll go over and take a look."

Liu Hun was still warming himself by the fire. He had not found anything unusual in the area he had just explored. Or perhaps there were abnormalities everywhere, which led to his lack of new discoveries. So he was planning to take a break. However, after hearing Xu Qingzhi's words on the intercom, he immediately stood up, his expression changed from relaxed to cautious. "Qingzhi, don't go in when you get there. Wait until I get there before we act together."

"I know, Brother Liu."

Fortunately, Xu Qingzhi's answer made Liu Hun feel a little relieved, but he did not dare to delay. After standing up, he continued to activate his supernatural powers, and found that the fire was quickly extinguished in the blizzard without the blessing of supernatural energy.

It took Xu Qingzhi less than ten minutes to reach the black hole. From a close distance, the black hole was slightly larger than imagined. It was a hole about two meters wide. The ice layer on top was now more than one meter thick, and underneath was a layer of black soil.

At this time, if you stand near the cave entrance, you can hear the "whoosh" sound of air flow coming from the cave entrance, which shows that the space underneath is very large, otherwise convection would not be possible.

I originally thought there would be a lake under the cave entrance, but I didn't expect it to be an underground cave that looked like it had been opened up.

Just as Xu Qingzhi was lost in thought, Liu Hun arrived. "What's going on? How could there be such a big rat hole?"

Xu Qingzhi looked up helplessly: "Brother Liu, how can a rat hole be so big? The average thickness of the soil here is about two meters, plus the snow on top, the total is more than three meters, which is equivalent to the height of a floor. If it were just mutant rats, there would have been a rat plague here a long time ago."

Liu Hun rubbed his hands and laughed as he walked to the hole. "Well, I was just saying it casually. Of course I know it can't be a rat hole, but...what can make such a big hole? The traces left near the hole don't look like it was dug by a machine. If it was man-made, there would be no need to dig a hole near the shantytown."

"So this is a weird place. It's only a few hundred meters away from the shantytown. There's a well and a small forest a few dozen meters away. Normally, residents of the shantytown would go into the forest to find some usable branches or dig up some wild vegetables."

Xu Qingzhi's inference was not without basis, because just a few dozen meters away there was indeed a small forest about the size of three or four football fields. This was an area that had not been developed when the base was first built. In fact, there were quite a lot of small forests like this in the inner and outer circles. On the one hand, they had not been developed, and on the other hand, there were reasons for deliberately preserving them.

Just now, Xu Qingzhi discovered several vegetable fields that had been dug and tidied near the grove. There were also several plots of land covered with plastic film next to them. These should be the ridges built by the residents of the shantytown.

"You say, a person should be able to jump into such a big hole, right?" Liu Hun touched his chin, slowly squatted down and stretched his neck to look inside.

In fact, you can see that the entrance of the cave extends downward at an angle. It seems that there is no end inside. It is all dark, and there is a constant flow of air mixed with the smell of earth. No one knows where the end of the cave leads to, nor does anyone know how deep it is.

But Xu Qingzhi suddenly said, "This place is less than two kilometers away from the nearby underground city H entrance."

Liu Hun raised his head and gave him a mysterious look, his voice gradually becoming lowered: "Do you suspect that these people entered, no, should I say were taken to the underground city?"

Xu Qingzhi just shook his head: "Not sure, this is just one of the guesses. This hole can accommodate two to three people at a time. It's too hasty for the two thousand missing people in the shantytown to enter the underground city through this hole in a short period of time. Besides, the underground city should have increased patrols during this period. If someone really entered the underground city, we should have received the news long ago."

In fact, Xu Qingzhi's consideration was not unreasonable. It was indeed ridiculous for more than 2,000 people to line up to enter the cave. Those people in the line would have probably frozen to death long ago.

Freezing to death?

After thinking of this possibility, Liu Hun's eyes were filled with astonishment, and he told Xu Qingzhi about his suspicions.

"This possibility seems more likely. If the remaining elderly and children in the shantytowns cannot survive this extreme cold, and something else is targeting the shantytowns and taking advantage of the blizzard to take them into the caves, more than 2,000 people are still too many." The last point is what Xu Qingzhi still can't figure out.

But Liu Hun mentioned this point at this time: "What if there is more than one such cave?"

Xu Qingzhi replied subconsciously: "But I just checked nearby, and there is only this cave... Wait, we haven't investigated the woods yet."

"What are you waiting for? Let's go there now."

As soon as the words fell, the two immediately headed for the location of the grove, and were surprised to find five or six similar caves in the woods.

"There are seven caves in total. Is it possible to transfer the bodies of two thousand people in two or three days?" Liu Hun turned his head and looked at Xu Qingzhi.

Xu Qingzhi pursed her lips, her eyes falling on one of the holes. She could vaguely see something stuck in the mud at the edge of the hole. It turned out to be a child's shoe.

"Under low temperature conditions, corpses decay more slowly and are less likely to smell. There are large undeveloped areas in the underground city, and some areas are still blind spots. The Self-Defense Forces may not be able to patrol deeply."

Even though mutants appeared in the dungeon last time, the base also sent a lot of manpower to carry out the clearing work. Not only the Jiangcheng base, but also Kyoto sent a lot of psychics. The Hunter Association also sent additional personnel to support, a total of eight S-level psychics, thirty-five A-level psychics, plus hundreds of B-level psychics for reinforcement. In the end, at least thirty mutants were cleared out, and those mutants seemed to be a group. After Chen Yanxi killed the leader of an SS-level mutant, the dungeon seemed calm during this period. But even so, under Chen Yanxi's suggestion, the base still sent more patrol personnel to the dungeon. However, due to the arrival of extreme cold, many personnel assigned to the dungeon were transferred to the ground for other support work.

"These are just our speculations at the moment. We can't rashly enter the underground city. It's too dangerous. Let's go back first and report the situation. Everything has to wait for the boss to come back." Liu Hun sighed and looked at the seemingly endless black hole with a complicated expression.

Xu Qingzhi nodded, but then said, "Wait a few more minutes. I want to use my mental power to see if there are any other life forms in there."

Liu Hun didn't say anything, but just stood quietly aside, but in fact he had already tacitly agreed.

Xu Qingzhi immediately mobilized his perception ability and narrowed his mental ability to a range of one kilometer. His originally calm expression turned ugly in an instant.

Liu Hun noticed this and asked after he found that he had opened his eyes: "What's wrong?"

"It seemed like there was something underneath just now, but...it didn't seem to be it." This was the first time that Xu Qingzhi said something so ambiguous.

"What do you mean? What is and isn't? Is there something underneath or not?" Liu Hun couldn't help but ask.

Xu Qingzhi shook his head: "I'm not sure either, because the feeling was only for a moment, as if the thing only slightly woke up. It may also be that the soil layer below is too thick, plus the magnetic field around here is not normal, so my ability is limited."

Xu Qingzhi and Liu Hun exchanged glances. Neither of them was impulsive. Although they were curious and puzzled about what existed in these caves, today's mission was mainly to investigate. Therefore, the two decided to go back and discuss the specific plan with the team.

Shortly after Xu Qingzhi and Liu Hun left, a snow-white monster crawled out from the ground. If you look closely, it seems to be the snow apes that appeared in the base yesterday, but the only difference is that compared to the snow apes, this monster seems to have snow-white fur, but the exposed skin is dark, more like the mutant seen in the dungeon before.