As the time approached noon, the sun began to shine brightly, and the dim light finally became a bit dazzling.
The highway patrol has now arrived at a large area surrounded by dense forests, which are the most common poplar forests in the north. The highway passes through this forest. At this time, there are some chopped tree roots entangled on the road.
The dense forest extends to both sides of the road, probably several kilometers away.
Although it is only September, the withered yellow leaves have already fallen off in large numbers and piled up on the ground. The wind blows and makes a "rustling" sound, as if some invisible animal is walking on it.
The 12 patrol members approached here extremely carefully. They did not divide into two waves to patrol the left and right sides of the road at the same time as before, but concentrated on one side.
"Everyone, be prepared," Captain Xu lowered his voice, "This is the most dangerous section of the road. There are more than 30% of attacks on this road. If you appear on this section of the road, the monsters will lurk in the forest, waiting for opportunities to attack us. .”
"Then why didn't these poplar trees be cut down?" a freshman couldn't help but ask.
Alas, Shen Rui shook his head, beginners always have a lot of problems.
Captain Xu was indeed very dissatisfied, but he could suppress his temper and still said gently: "Cut down the poplar forest? It doesn't exist. A small fortress like ours with 80,000 people does not have such a large engineering capability."
The freshman seemed to want to fight to the end and continued to ask: "Then we can still ask for help from the Dabao?"
"Big fortress? This is not the past era. In the apocalypse, every fortress has to take care of itself. Who will care about your life and death? It's too late to compete with each other for population resources. How can there be great efforts to help us clean up the danger? Zone? If you can afford to hire someone, that's fine. But do you have the money?" Senior He suddenly scolded.
When the freshman heard this, he lowered his head and did not dare to continue talking.
At this moment, a "buzzing" sound came from deep in the woods.
"Is it you again?"
Everyone was shocked. The voice didn't sound like it was coming from a human being, but it happened to be in human language.
A patrol member walking at the front turned to look at Captain Xu, who nodded at him.
Then the patrol member quickly ran to the road, took out a sheepskin bag from his horse, and could faintly smell an extremely sweet smell.
Honey?
Shen Rui thought so.
The patrol then came to the jungle and said respectfully: "Great King of the Jungle, this is our offering this week. Please protect our caravan as always."
As he spoke, he carefully hung the sheepskin bag on an old poplar tree.
Then he backed away, and the other patrol members followed suit.
All the freshmen were surprised, including Shen Rui.
After everyone waited patiently for several minutes, they saw a swarm of palm-sized wasps "buzzing" from deep in the jungle and rushed to the sheepskin bag.
Among them, there was the largest wasp, which was about the size of an average person's forearm. He stepped forward and smelled it, then nodded with satisfaction.
"Yes, the king has accepted your offering this time, and you can enter the jungle."
After saying this, it let many wasps grab the bag and fly into the dense forest again.
This, is this paying tolls to the aberrations?
Shen Rui felt that his outlook on life had been greatly impacted. There was no mention of this anywhere in the books, and no teacher ever told them to bow to the monsters in order to survive!
Sure enough, the gap between reality and books is always huge. It is better to have no books than to believe in books. The reason why this sentence makes sense is that not only may you die quickly, but you may also implicate many people.
If you don't study, you are just stupid.
The book only says that aberrations are cruel, and that aberrations are the enemies of mankind and the biggest opponents in the apocalyptic world.
"What, are you surprised?" Captain Xu looked back at the six freshmen with strange expressions, shook his head and said, "I said before that monsters are also intelligent. Since they are intelligent, they can communicate.
It’s not monolithic. Research on aberrant social communities has always been a cutting-edge topic. We, the people, are just making practical use of it.”
"A bag of royal jelly can be exchanged for a week of bee swarm support. Not only will these kings of the jungle not attack our caravans, they will also help us drive away small alien waves. Before we are unable to clear these dense forests, befriend them.
Being a local snake is also one of the wisdoms of survival."
"But," Wang Feng suddenly said, "Aren't you afraid of being blamed by Shangfeng for doing business with strange monsters like this?"
"What's to blame? Which peak are you talking about? What the castle owners want is that the monthly trade volume does not drop, and they want that the number of casualties does not increase. As for what means you use and what process you take, they won't care.
," Captain Xu shook his head and said, "As for the higher levels, they will only take action when they encounter an irresistible crisis in the fortress. They usually have no time to take care of these small things."
"That's it." A special light flashed in Wang Feng's eyes.
The 12 patrol members began patrolling in the dense forest. Occasionally, a wasp flew over their heads, seeming to monitor their every move.
The danger in the dense forest is obviously much greater than that in the wilderness.
Sometimes, it's a poisonous snake disguised in a tree that suddenly drops down to attack.
Originally there were very few venomous snakes in the north, basically just some vipers. However, after the mutation, the non-venomous snakes in the north, such as cauliflower snakes, also began to mutate into terrifying venomous snakes.
Sometimes, another seemingly ordinary sparrow suddenly pecks at me with its sharp beak.
Obviously, compared to the previous fields and wilderness, in this dense forest, the monsters can use the cover of the trees to get closer to launch attacks.
Shen Rui saw at least three attacks, which the patrol members almost couldn't handle, but other people came to help deal with them.
No wonder the freshman wanted to cut down this dense forest. His original intention was certainly correct, but the reality was that it was not possible to achieve what he wished.
As for taking a detour and opening a new road, one can imagine how costly it is.
As for the patrol members, the scope of their patrols is also much smaller. They only clean up within 1 mile on both sides of the road. It is not like cleaning up 10 miles in one go in the wilderness.
However, just like this, it still disturbed some existences in the dense forest.
Not long after, Shen Rui faintly heard roaring sounds coming from deep in the dense forest.
"No, retreat immediately. Patrol members will retreat alternately." Captain Xu shouted through the intercom.
The freshmen panicked for a while, but Shen Rui quickly turned his horse's head and ran towards the direction he came from.
He knew very well what he was capable of, and now was not the time to show off.
The others were not slow either. They turned their horses around one by one and began to retreat.
The patrol members escaped from the dense forest one after another, ran to the road, got on their horses, and began to flee.
There are only 12 people, not everyone can escape.
"Ah," screamed three times in succession, which meant that three patrol members did not escape.
The team members who were fleeing along the road couldn't help but look back.
They immediately saw who their opponent was this time!
I saw a giant wild boar that looked like a small elephant!
Those sharp fangs and thick earth armor were shining with a ray of yellow light!
No wonder the experienced patrol members also suffered some injuries.
"These monsters are getting stronger again." Captain Xu fled at the end, shaking his head and sighing.