locust crisis
Speaking of accompanying disasters, Ye Miaomiao was no longer sleepy. Last time, she suffered a great loss from the accompanying disaster. This time, she dared not underestimate the accompanying disaster based on her experience in the game.
Judging by the time, it’s the eighth day of the drought hell, and there should be some signs.
Ye Miaomiao pretended to listen attentively.
"Do you know the fluorite from the oasis?" Fang Yan's words immediately reminded Ye Miaomiao of the beautiful, faintly glowing waste at the top of the cave. "You left this afternoon, and I wanted to stay and work a little longer. I found a lot of fluorite falling off, and on the exposed sand, there were a few insect eggs stuck to it. I crushed a few on the surface, and unsurprisingly, there were more inside."
Ye Miaomiao got goosebumps when she thought of that scene——
"Oh no! It's probably an insect plague! It could hatch at any moment, and the residents still stranded in the central area are in danger. I have to lead a team over to check!"
"Don't worry," Fang Yan reassured her. "After discovering the bugs, I immediately used the area loudspeaker to notify the residents to return."
He was powerless to prevent Old Li's death in the last disaster. This time, with his experience from his previous life, he was able to discover the disaster in advance, which would surely prevent many people from getting hurt, Fang Yan thought to himself.
At this moment, Central District.
The three brothers of the Chai family were happily picking apricots in the apricot orchard.
This apricot forest was a paradise they discovered after accidentally lifting a vine.
There are no apricots in the territory. These sweet, large apricots will definitely fetch a high price! I remember envying the people who got to pick cantaloupes yesterday and buying them for 15 points each! Today it's their turn.
This is not picking fruits, this is clearly picking up money from the ground!
Therefore, even after hearing Captain Fang's voice on the loudspeaker, they were reluctant to leave.
The bag isn't full yet!
"Are you really okay?" the youngest of the brothers said worriedly. "It's so quiet outside. Could they have all left? Why don't we go too?"
"What are you afraid of!" the second brother sneered.
He took a package thrown to him from a distance. The person who threw it was none other than his eldest brother: "This is the last one, hurry up and pack it up and leave!"
"Alright!" The second brother quickly opened the package. "If we fill these up, we'll earn at least 200 points, which will pay back Zhang Dahai's 100 points. He's also leading a team of old, weak, and disabled people! They're having a harder time than us. Even though we've been separated from the team, we're not ungrateful."
"If we have the remaining 100 points, we can buy a refrigerator. Life will be much better in the future! If there's any left, we brothers can save it and buy an air conditioner. This weather is really too hot!"
"If I miss today, I don't know when I'll be able to earn these points again!"
The boss scolded him: "Hurry up, we'll talk about it when we get back." As he said that, he kept picking fruits in his hands.
Hearing this vision of a better life, the third brother briefly put aside his hesitation and couldn't help but speed up his hands.
The sky had grown darker and darker at some point, and the three of them didn't think much of it at first, thinking it was getting dark by the time it got dark. Then someone realized—we were underground, and there was fluorite above us, so how could it be getting dark?
Then he looked up, and a scream echoed throughout the central area.
When Ye Miaomiao led the team there, the central area had become much darker. For some unknown reason, rustling sounds of crawling could be heard all around.
The team members quickly turned on their flashlights, finally dispelling the chill. They slowly walked towards the "oasis."
"No!" Ye Miaomiao suddenly said at this time.
She stopped and noticed something unusual.
In the old days, the Central District wasn't just teeming with resources, but at least food was within easy reach. Even if residents were overly frugal, fresh fruits and vegetables would still grow every few days.
But after walking for so long, not only did we not encounter any edible fruits and vegetables, even ordinary plants were rarely seen.
Her vigilance reached its peak.
"Keep going, and pay attention to activating the props."
The team continued to move forward, but this time at a slower pace. The deeper they went, the darker the cave became. For the first time, Ye Miaomiao missed the useless beautiful fluorite so much.
Just then, a scream was heard from not far away.
At some point, a group of locusts hiding under the vines were awakened and suddenly rushed towards the light source.
Huge yellow bugs came pouring in, the walls were covered with shadows of their wings, and their sharp mouthparts rushed towards everyone, attacking like crazy.
"Protect yourself and attack!" Suddenly, Ye Miaomiao shouted calmly and took the lead in activating the skill Arrow of Judgment.
She did not aim at the target and draw her bow to shoot the arrow. In fact, even if she had the skill to do so, the dense swarm of three or four hundred locusts here would be enough to overwhelm her.
Ye Miaomiao wielded the flames of her arrows, burning or stunning many locusts. When a team member was injured, she quickly switched skills and shot arrows at them to heal them.
Under Ye Miaomiao's calm control, the team members who were caught off guard quickly calmed down.
"The strongest shield!"
Unable to use modern weapons, the team members relied on props and special skills gained through achievements, and relied on their usual training and tacit understanding to cooperate quickly.
The front row provides a shield to prevent locust attacks.
"Fire Sword Technique!"
"I am the God of Medicine!"
"Poison!"
After all, these were team members who had been training for a long time. With the coordination of defense, attack, and treatment, they caused considerable damage to the enemy while their own team was safe and sound.
However, since we are outnumbered, it is inevitable that some of us will be bitten by locusts.
"They're poisonous!" the man yelled. "The bites are really numb and itchy! Everyone be careful!"
The team members became more vigilant, and after a while, they finally killed all the locusts.
The newly added medical personnel in the team rushed to rescue the wounded, and the remaining people were still in fear.
Especially Ye Miaomiao, who was afraid of insects, looked at the ugly corpse on the ground, her stomach churned, and she felt that she was really brave and fearless just now.
"If it were a big bug, it would be fine. I could just shoot them in the head. But these little bugs are really terrifying. You never know when they'll bite you for no apparent reason." The man who was bitten was about to cry. "I have such high defense, but a bite took away five health points. You can imagine, these things are really serious."
Hearing him say this, another person also became worried: "Is this a companion disaster? If they attack the city, how can we prevent them from attacking?"
Ye Miaomiao didn't have time to comfort everyone.
She looked at the abundant spoils on the ground: various ores, rubber, and other high-quality raw materials, even a small blueprint dropped by the Locust King. But she was worried—there was no food.
She thought of a more pressing question, and didn't have time to think for herself. "Go save them first, and collect the spoils later. Find the place where the scream came from."
.
The next morning, E E E quickly posted an announcement in the residents’ group and on Taoduoduo – “Regarding the locusts that accompany disasters”, which caused a sensation among everyone.
The three brothers of the Chai family were lying on the hospital beds, one next to the other, looking more miserable than the other. They truly deserved the title of brothers in distress.
"Xingzi will sell it for you," Zhang Dahai put the 282 points on the bedside.
The boss struggled to pull out a hundred-dollar bill and took the rest.
"Why bother?" Zhang Dahai said helplessly. These three brothers were good in every way except their stubbornness. "The central area is swarming with locusts right now. They're enough to bite you like this! If we combat players don't have the strength of the Hungry Hungry team, we won't dare go out anytime soon."
"If you don't go out, you'll earn less money. You three brothers are all taking the combat route, but we have life players in our team. Sister Wu can make iced drinks, Xiaosha goes with them to the beach, Grandma Rui can make some basic summer clothing, and Shi is also learning."
"We're not short of money. If you get injured and need treatment, take this money. Don't rush to pay it back."
Zhang Dahai put the points back into Boss Chai's hands.
The three brothers stared at him with their eyes wide open, causing Zhang Dahai to touch his nose. He was only considering what might happen next and was not accepting the money for the time being, but he didn't say he would never accept the money!
"I was thinking, 'There's no more fruits and vegetables in the central district, and there's no food in the locusts' spoils, so food should be extremely scarce. We're starving... but the price will probably go up a bit, so take it for now."
The three of them were lost in thought. Suddenly realizing something, they nodded in unison. "You're right! We remember vaguely hearing the Lord say the same thing while we were lying in the car."
The second child suddenly felt annoyed and heartbroken: "Then should we not sell our apricots?"
Keep it for yourself, keep it for a few days and sell it when the price goes up...
"If I don't sell it, I won't get a penny." Zhang Dahai said with a smile, "But I kept half of it. I thought if you don't want it, I'll have to take it too."
The three brothers finally felt relieved. Fortunately, someone came to the rescue. Since their family had gotten the better deal, it wasn't a loss. Although the two groups were separated, watching over each other in the apocalypse had become their instinct.
"Thank you, Brother Dahai. When the three of us get better, we will definitely come to thank you!"
.
If Zhang Dahai was playing the normal version of Civilization, he would surely be a hegemon, but unfortunately he encountered the difficulty of the real-life doomsday version.
The lack of food that he keenly sensed was exactly the acute problem that Ye Miaomiao had been worried about before.
It's already a drought disaster, making farming difficult. If the central region, the only source of food, is also hit by a locust plague, where will we find food? What will we eat?
There were still more than twenty days until the end of this disaster. Fortunately, Ye Miaomiao had stored enough food. She could only pray that the next disaster wouldn't be too fancy and force the farmers to work hard.
Three days passed like this, and Ye Miaomiao went to the underground planting warehouse to check every day.
The vegetables grew quickly, lush green filling the planting troughs and prospering. Bees also moved in, but since there weren't enough flowers, Ye Miaomiao had to use the honey in her inventory to feed them.
Every day, food is produced from the planting warehouse and taken out from the warehouse. It is unexpected yet expected that Hungry Hungry Hungry can maintain a very peaceful state.
However, usually only one or two territories were breached, but when I woke up this morning, there were a series of reports of breached territories that lasted for three minutes.
The locusts did not leave the central area to attack the territories. Only three days had passed and they would not die of starvation. How come so many territories were destroyed?
Ye Miaomiao could only think of one reason: a fight over food.
Sure enough, a lot of disputes and insults emerged on Taoduoduo.
Many vagrants were immediately assigned to hungry places, and their words confirmed Ye Miaomiao's guess.
This cast a shadow on everyone's heart.
What was even more horrifying was that on the morning of the twelfth day of the drought hell, everyone received a notice—
[Special information detected... This associated disaster... has been changed from Locust Crisis (Intermediate) to Locust Survivor (Advanced)]
Please note that
This associated disaster is a high-level chain disaster, which is very likely to cause... uncontrollable development... Please handle with caution.]
[Testing... Warning! Warning! Detected that the associated disaster violates the rules of civilization... Testing completed, determined to be in compliance with the rules. The verdict is as follows—
Accidents always happen; it's an unavoidable fact. The unfortunate encounter of a civilization-destroying disaster is in line with the law of accidents. Happy gaming!
What was the difference between a locust crisis and a locust swarm? No one knew, but judging by the gloating tone of the system notification and the distinction between "intermediate" and "advanced" levels, everyone knew the answer.
"This shitty game is trying to kill me!" A scream came from somewhere in the silent air of the early morning.
The tearful accusation made everyone realize what was going on – what did it mean that their bad luck conformed to the law of accidents? So, all of humanity was unlucky!
Cleared the game? Not at all!
Fang Yan also sat up from the bed with his lips tightly pursed. How could it be possible! There were clearly three more rounds of intermediate disasters before the high-level disaster... Impossible, the descendants of the ancient insects... He had never even heard of them!
This is not a good sign...
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