Fantasy Game: Infinite City

In an endless, hot and dry desert, an off-road jeep is traveling through the sand dunes. The heat waves are eroding everything in the desert.

The jeep moving through the sand dunes was like a high-speed moving oven, scorching the driver and passengers inside, making their skin temperature almost the same as the scorching body of the car. Fortunately, the jeep was not ordinary, it was modified for this extreme hot environment, and the driver and passengers inside did not feel anything wrong with this level of high temperature.

However, they were not so lucky with the snacks and drinks they brought with them.

"Ugh! These potato chips are all hot! The ice cola has turned into hot cola, and it smells like Chinese medicine."

"Phew... the smoke is burning my lungs. This place is indeed ridiculously hot. But it's normal. After all, apart from us, no one would choose to enter the desert at this time."

The two people in this jeep are Han Zu and Gloria. After resting in the abandoned city for a few days, this morning, using a teleportation facility in the abandoned city, Han Zu teleported this modified jeep, along with him and Gloria, to the edge of this deserted desert. After driving for several hours, they arrived at where they are currently.

"You look like a terrorist."

Han Zu's current attire was actually not what he was wearing. He just put a windproof scarf on his head, leaving only his eyes exposed, and then wore sunglasses, bare-chested, wearing khaki work shorts and flip-flops. He really looked like a terrorist, not to mention that there was a golden, antique revolver in the central armrest of the jeep.

"I think you could get a...what's that gun called? It might be more like it."

"Me? Aren't you dressed strangely too?"

Although she was joking about Han Zu's outfit, Gloria's outfit was actually not that abnormal either, because apart from wearing a sports bra on her upper body and not wearing a Middle Eastern-style headscarf, Gloria's outfit was no different from Han Zu's.

"By the way, how do you smoke with this hood on? Smoke through the hood?"

"No, I made a row of small holes at the mouth, just enough to put the cigarette holder in."

"How long will it take us to get there? We've been driving for at least four or five hours, right?"

"It is estimated that we will reach our destination in two or three hours."

"Fortunately, I listened to you and didn't bring any messy equipment. Otherwise, this temperature would definitely damage a lot of parts."

Gloria lay on the reclined seat, trying to let the shadow inside the car cover herself, hoping to feel cooler, but the temperature in the entire car was actually about the same, so Gloria gave up the idea.

Although the scorching heat did not cause any adverse reactions to Gloria, it made her feel sleepy. However, because she had already had a good rest, and the sound of the tires rubbing against the gravel made Gloria unable to sleep, she could only chat with Han Zu intermittently. However, Han Zu seemed to be affected by the heat. He basically only answered Gloria's questions and did not speak actively. After a while, Gloria also felt bored, so she turned on the car radio in the jeep and planned to listen to some music. Although this was deep in the desert, because the jeep had been modified and installed with a high-power signal amplifier, the car radio could still receive radio signals from some countries on the edge of the desert.

A desert-styled but remixed local music sounded on the radio. The weird, mysterious, and dynamic rhythms blended together. Although it was a piece of pure music, this uncommon style still made Gloria's ears bright and she was much more energetic. Even Han Zu was attracted by this song and turned up the volume of the car radio.

"Why did you choose to get a jeep instead of flying here directly by shuttle? Wouldn't it be faster that way? Are you worried about the people of the Ferdinand family?"

"Almost, but not completely. It's more because before coming here, I always had a premonition that I couldn't put into words. I always felt that our trip would not be smooth. I always felt that in addition to the Feidenan family, if there is really something at the second coordinate we are going to this time, there might be other people. This is also the reason why I didn't bring any equipment this time except this jeep."

"Indeed, if it is as you imagined, a jeep that has only been modified to withstand high temperatures will not attract any attention even if it is thrown into an uninhabited desert. After all, there is nothing in the car except some snacks and your antique."

Speaking of that antique, Gloria was bored, so she took it out from the central armrest box and opened the cylinder, only to find that there was not a single bullet in it. She turned the empty cylinder to pass the time. Gloria asked why Han Zu brought this antique revolver.

"With the two of us now, this gun is completely useless, right? Even if it can be used, the enemies we are facing probably won't be hurt by the bullets fired from an old antique, not to mention that it doesn't have any bullets at all."

"This is not for the enemy, it's for ordinary people."

"Ordinary people? What do you mean?"

"Although this place is deep in the desert and no one passes by here more than 90% of the time, some locals who have retained ancient traditions or adventurous young people always ride camels and follow experienced guides to try to cross the desert. Although I don't know their specific routes, just in case someone deviates from the route and goes deep into the desert, we can use this antique to scare them away."

"So you are doing this in case you run into someone and scare them away with your ability, which could lead to a bigger mess and possibly leak the news of our presence in this place to the spies of Infinite Company or the Ferdinand family? But it's rare for a jeep to appear in the deep desert where no one goes, right? Even if we want to pretend to be lost tourists, wouldn't this antique become a flaw that exposes us?"

Shaking the golden revolver in her hand, Gloria put the antique back into the center armrest box.

"On the contrary, this is all thanks to the local conditions and customs of several small countries nearby."

"What do you mean?"

"In the desert nearby, there is a group of bandits who specialize in robbing tourist groups or archaeologists who come for scientific research. Because they are basically the indigenous people of the surrounding small countries, they are more familiar with the desert than outsiders. In addition, their whereabouts are elusive, so it is difficult for law enforcement agencies to catch them. Therefore, once they encounter those bandits in the desert, almost all tour groups, scientific research teams and the like will happily give them money."

"But even if they readily handed over their finances and supplies, they would probably be silenced, right? And if we encounter someone who shouldn't be killed, do we have to..."

"What are you thinking? Do I look like some kind of heinous person?"

"Like, and didn't you say it yourself when you were on the shuttle..."

"Uh... OK, blame me. What I mean is that although there are some vicious guys among these bandits, they are only a minority. Most of these bandits are actually oppressed and have no choice but to hide in the desert as bandits. They were originally ordinary people and did not deserve to die. So most of the bandits only want money, not life. If they see a scientific expedition team or a tourist group in distress in the desert, they will even provide food and water and send them to a safe place. Of course, the valuables on their bodies will definitely be left to them, but in this case, I think most of the people in distress should also volunteer. After all, for ordinary people, property is not as valuable as life."

"So if we run into an ordinary person, we should pretend to be robbers like this?"

"Correct."

"What if we encounter robbers?"

"Ha! That depends on whether they can open their eyes or not."

At this moment, Gloria patted Han Zu's thigh and raised her chin to look at a certain location not far away. Han Zu followed the direction of Gloria's chin and saw the reflection of a row of mirrors. Through his visual ability, Han Zu was able to confirm that it was a convoy consisting of five vehicles, two pickup trucks in the front, a medium-sized truck in the middle, and two jeeps in the back. There were four to five people sitting in each jeep, and in addition, there were people operating the vehicle-mounted machine gun on the cargo box of the pickup truck.

"What do you think they do?"

"From their appearance, they look like bandits, but they could also be rebels or something like that. There are indeed a few small countries around the desert that are not very peaceful."

"Will the rebels be heading our way?"

"Not necessarily. After all, in a sense, there is not much difference between the rebels and the bandits."

"There are 20 armed forces. There are four people in each of the two pickup trucks, each with a mounted machine gun. There are eight people in the two jeeps at the back, two in the trucks, the driver and the co-driver."

"Is your pulse so useful? I think it's even better than when my perception ability didn't malfunction!"

"The scope is not as exaggerated as you said. By the way, there are more than a dozen people in the cargo box of the truck. They should all be tied up."

"What weapons did those people have?"

"It doesn't matter. It poses no threat to us anyway."

"Then he is not from the Ferdinand family or the Unlimited Company."

"Then we..?"

"They came over, so I looked at what they wanted to do and played with them. I also wanted to move around a bit because I was tired from driving all the time."

Soon, someone who had already spotted their convoy drove up next to them. I don't know if he was the bandit leader or the leader, but he gestured a few times with the pistol in his hand, signaling Han Zu to stop the car, and said something incoherently. There was no translation equipment, so Han Zu and Gloria couldn't understand what they meant, but they knew what they meant by thinking, so Han Zu stopped the car slowly.

Except for the truck, the other four vehicles in the convoy surrounded Han Zu's jeep in the middle. A guy wearing local clothes and holding a pistol got out of one of the pickup trucks. This guy walked up to Han Zu's window arrogantly, knocked on Han Zu's forehead with the muzzle of the gun, said something in gibberish, and then made a gesture to let Han Zu get out of the car.

Han Zu and Gloria got out of the car. The man circled around them twice, then stopped in front of Gloria, looked at her figure, then showed his disgusting teeth, smiled a few times, and then shouted to his men in the pickup truck. After they got out of the car, they walked to Gloria, pointed their rifles at Gloria, and said something, as if they wanted to take her to the truck. Gloria didn't move, so someone pointed a gun at Gloria.

"You can tolerate this?"

"I thought you were going to play something?"

"These guys don't seem to have any brains, and their gibberish is incomprehensible, but they are definitely not good people. Look, his other men have already started taking the snacks from our car."

"You're the boss, you say it."

"Well, then... kill them all?"

"Row."

Just when one of the men, who was full of lust, was about to reach out and touch Gloria's butt, he suddenly felt his arm lighten. He looked down and found that his arm had been pulled off by Gloria and thrown behind the sand dune nearby.

“@#@#%￥@!!!!!”

The other bandits reacted and raised their guns to shoot at Gloria, but when the bullets hit Gloria, they bounced off directly, and a lot of sparks of friction appeared.

While Gloria was removing parts from the guys and twisting their necks, Han Zu lit a cigarette and prepared to go to the truck to see who was tied up inside. However, just as Han Zu took two steps, the leading bandit jumped onto the pickup truck, pointed the machine gun at Han Zu's head, and opened fire without hesitation.

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"

However, after a round of shooting, the smoke and heat wave dissipated, and the bandit leader who was operating the vehicle-mounted machine gun was horrified to see that the person he had shot did not have even a scratch on him, except for the windproof scarf on his head that was torn by bullets.

"Why did you say you had nothing to do with him?"

At this moment, Gloria saw what was happening, stopped what she was doing, dropped the two bandits she was currently beating, and jumped behind Han Zu's jeep, hiding in the shadows behind it.

“Hoo-boom~~~~~~”

"Buzz~~~~"

"AAAAAAAAAAAA~~~~~!!!!!"

After a series of unbearable noises, Gloria poked her head out from behind the jeep and looked towards Han Zu's position. He was looking down at his flip-flops, rubbing something on the sole of his shoes on the charred sand dunes.

Except for Han Zu's jeep and the truck, three of the other four vehicles were missing, one was burned to only half of the frame, and the sand on the ground nearby was burned black.

"Is everything resolved?"

"Well, they should be ordinary bandits, perhaps engaging in human trafficking or kidnapping for ransom. However, based on the local customs and practices, I am more inclined to believe that they are the former."

"Didn't you say you weren't going to be so high-profile?"

"No way, they are courting death."

"Yeah, then let's see who's on the truck?"

"Let's go up and have a look."