Mechanical Alchemist Chapter 37: Mutation

 A group of twenty people entered the Tongzi Tower in a swaggering manner.

 Several veterans have participated in such incidents many times. Before entering the broken building, Sam loudly explained the precautions for action to the newcomers.

 “Check the ammo! Keep the spare musket handy...”

 "Be careful and hit them accurately. Don't throw grenades randomly unless you have to. Otherwise, if the monster is not killed, don't bury yourself!"

 "Also, keep the muzzle of the gun pointed at the ground. Don't point it at the person in front of you. Don't put your hand on the trigger. If you get frightened for a while, it may go off and injure someone. Please help deal with it!"

 “Don’t speak loudly after entering. The aberration monsters in the dark are very sensitive to sound.”

 “…”

Su Lun listened carefully. They were all very practical combat experiences. No wonder Kai would ask newcomers to practice them.

 His eyes glanced at the Tongzi Tower not far away, and his brows furrowed slightly. The lonely rotten building looked like an ugly toad monster lying there. The black holes were like windows, like tumors on its back.

I don’t know if it was an illusion, but Su Lun always felt like something was staring at their team.

 “Is it a human being or a monster?”

Su Lun didn’t understand the source of the throbbing in his heart.

  He knew very well what this feeling meant. There were some clues in his mind that caused his uneasiness, but they were not enough to form a clear thread, so they were intermittent.

 But he didn’t say much, because even if he didn’t tell everyone to be careful, everyone would be very careful in this environment.

 Without waiting for him to think about it, the team had already entered the Tongzi Tower.

  .....

 This building has a large indoor space, a bit like Su Lun’s shopping mall in his previous life.

 The house is completely blocked from external light sources.

 The gas lamps in the team were well lit, but even so, everyone seemed to have entered a dark world, with the lights only enough to illuminate a corner.

Su Lun thought it was okay. After being promoted to a professional, his "night vision ability" has also been greatly improved.

 Even without wearing the crude night vision goggles, he could clearly see the general outline of things in the distance.

 But the other newcomers seemed a little embarrassed. The dark environment made them feel the fear of the unknown, fearing that some man-eating monster would suddenly appear from the depths of the darkness...

At this moment, a gunshot suddenly rang out next to my ears.

 “Bang”!

 The fire illuminated for a moment, and everyone saw a dark figure falling from the rafter not far away.

 Looking closely, it was a big white-haired rat.

 This sudden movement also made all the newcomers tremble. It's no wonder that Sam didn't let them put their hands on the trigger before, otherwise there would be many guns going off after the scare just now.

 From the front, Sam's hearty laughter came: "Oh... you're lucky. This [white-haired rat's ear bone] is a cursed material, worth three thousand liso. I didn't expect to hit it casually. Just the materials..."

 Monsters living in a distorted environment have a chance of producing "cursed materials" in their bodies, but the probability of producing materials from ordinary monsters is very low. Usually only elite monsters, beast kings, etc. have a higher probability.

Su Lun had a flash of thought in his mind as he listened.

 The cursed material appeared on the first monster. Is it a coincidence, or what?

 The veterans looked at the nervous expressions of the newcomers and said with a smile: "Hey, guys, don't be so nervous. This [white-haired giant rat] is just the most common monster in the sewers. One shot in the head will kill you." They can kill you. But you have to be careful, they will jump up and bite your bird off..."

 “Hahaha...”

 The old birds seem to have long been accustomed to it, and this action is much safer than hunting in the wilderness.

 After all, this is the old city of Linton. There will not be hordes of monsters, even deformed humans, only one or two here and there.

 There are more than twenty of them and they have absolute firepower advantage, so there is no need to be too careful.

 Kai put the gun on his shoulder, his expression looking very relaxed. At this time, he also said: "Everyone, get ready, the monsters in this building should be coming."

 After shooting, the sound of the gun immediately attracted the monsters in the darkness.

 But as the veteran said before, sporadic monsters do not pose much threat to the team.

 The rest of the trip changed from hunting monsters to a shooting game.

 The sound of gunshots will attract monsters in the dark, which saves everyone the effort of searching every room.

 Not long after, two [distorted humans] that may have been seen by witnesses appeared in the darkness, and they were beaten to a pulp by everyone.

Su Lun saw this monster twice when he was outside the city. At that time, he was alone and the surrounding environment was complicated, so it was difficult to deal with it. But the lone monster is a living target for the team.

 Everything went well except for one unlucky guy who missed the mark and broke his leg.

 Furthermore, the harvest is good.

 They found that the probability of the monsters in the tube building producing "cursed materials" was indeed much higher than outside the city...

  .....

 In less than an hour, everyone on Green Street cleared out the tube building, and then came to the entrance of the "cave" that the old man mentioned earlier.

 This is not a collapsed hole, but there are obvious signs of construction.

 Looking a bit like the entrance of Su Lun’s subway station in his previous life.

  This time the cleanup operation was so smooth that it was a bit boring, probably because it was not enough fun. Looking at the entrance of the cave, an old bird asked: "Captain, do we want to go down and take a look?"

 Kayi looked at the entrance of the cave and frowned slightly: "I remember the last time these caves were cleaned on a large scale was ten years ago. The casualties were quite large that time. I don't know what the monsters down there look like now. That’s it..."

 Obviously, he seemed to recall some bad memories and shook his head: "Going down to the cave requires stronger equipment and more manpower. We are not prepared this time, there is no need to go down..."

 Today's harvest far exceeded expectations, and it also gave Kai a bad premonition.

Su Lun blended in with the crowd without being too high-profile.

 Throughout the entire cleanup process, he had no chance to shoot. Often the monster would be killed by a concentrated fire as soon as the monster appeared. No matter how the marksmanship is, if dozens of guns are fired in a volley, there will always be a hit. This is the advantage of having more people.

 Now that he heard Kai say he was going back, he felt pretty good. The faint palpitations in his heart also made him feel that something might happen if he continued to explore further.

 At this moment, probably whatever comes to mind comes to mind.

 Suddenly, his eyes caught a human-shaped black shadow emerging from the entrance of the subway station.

 Su Lun's pupils shrank suddenly, and he shouted in his heart: "So fast!"

 Deformed human beings?

  No, this is definitely not the speed of a normal [distorted human being]!

 Furthermore, that thing can actually climb the wall!

 “Be careful!”

At almost the same time, Kai also shouted urgently.

 Obviously, he also discovered the black shadow that jumped out.

Before he finished speaking, a gunshot was heard, and then there was a mass fire.

 Although the monster was fast, it was still hit in the leg by the bullets scattered in the sky. Then another round of fire covered the monster, which could climb the wall like a gecko, and was beaten to the point where it could not move.

 However, before everyone had time to be happy, suddenly there was a scream of horror from the crowd: "Ah!"

Su Lun heard the screams coming from behind, and when he turned around, the musket in his hand was already spitting out tongues of flame, all in one movement.

 Bang!

 The shotgun hit the long mouthpart selected from the ceiling, and the screaming gang member also fell from the air.

 Everyone looked at the smoking musket in Su Lun's hand, and their eyes were all shocked, probably because they were surprised why he reacted so quickly. But everyone's eyes were instantly attracted by other things. Looking at the half-broken mouthpart on the ground that was struggling like a broken snake, everyone's face turned pale.

 This is a scarlet mouthpart as thick as a bowl, with dense circles of tines squirming in the red meat, which makes people suffer from trypophobia.

  Sam bravely moved closer, used the gun to flip the mouthparts whose nerve endings were not dead, swallowed his saliva and asked, "What kind of monster is this?"

 All the old birds also expressed doubts, and no one knew them.

 “I haven’t seen it either.”

 Kai's face became very serious, he looked at the beaten corpse and the half-mouthed part, frowned and said: "This monster is definitely not simple, even an out-of-control professional will not be so fast. ."

Had it not been for Su Lun's quick shooting, one of them would have been dragged away alive by the monster.

 Kayi looked slightly solemn, looked at the "cave entrance", and said: "Something's not right. This kind of monster has never appeared in the sewers of the city before... I think we'd better get out of here first. Say it again."

 Sulun's omniscient eye gave him super strong eyesight, and the moment he saw the monster, his name was revealed.

 【Variant aberration monster】

 Detailed explanation: A deformed human being affected by a special environment; its weakness is the same as that of humans, and it can kill quickly if it hits the head and heart.

 But at this moment, he was not interested in guessing what caused the monster's mutation. Since there are two monsters here, it also means...

 There may be more in the cave!

 “Let’s go!”

Kayi obviously realized that he could not stay here for long, and just wanted to ask everyone to leave.

 But at this moment, suddenly, a piercing scream sounded.

 “啾~”, “啾~”, “啾~”

 The next moment, several incendiary bombs lit up all around.

 The strong light illuminated the entire Tongzilou space. The monsters hiding in the shadows seemed to be frightened and hid in large and small caves.

Everyone on Green Street took a closer look and saw that a group of guys with various mechanically modified prosthetic limbs had surrounded them.

 Sam recognized the person and shouted angrily: "Steam Party! Damn it, we were ambushed!"

 Su Lun's expression turned cold when he saw this. Only then did he realize where his previous sense of crisis came from.

 It turns out it’s not these monsters, but these guys from the Steam Party!

  He glanced at the entrance of the "cave" and then at the blocked exit of the Tongzi Tower, and murmured in his heart: "This is a good place for an ambush..."