Chapter 2 Transcending the Apocalypse - Part 2 "Yes, I am a member of the resistance." Tang...
***
In the 22nd century, humanity launched World War III in a struggle for resources. This war lasted for 63 years, and the human population plummeted to 200 million.
Due to the pollution caused by war, the surface of the earth is no longer suitable for human habitation. Humans have no choice but to hide in underground cities. However, places are limited, and two-thirds of the humans are abandoned. They are corroded by toxins and radiation on the surface and mutate into poisonous people.
As underground resources are depleted and underground city facilities age, it is becoming increasingly difficult for humans to live underground, making a return to the surface an urgent necessity.
In the 27th century, scientists in the underground city conducted human experiments on death row inmates, injecting mutagens containing mutated animal genes into their bodies, creating orcs.
These orcs were highly developed and adapted to the extremely harsh environment on the ground. They were sent to the ground to collect resources for humans, but their mutated genes also caused them to be reproductively isolated from humans. For two centuries, they were enslaved by humans like mules.
Fearing becoming orcs, the crime rate in the dungeons began to drop dramatically, but in order to replenish the orc population, wrongful convictions began to occur.
As relatives and friends were forcibly taken away under false pretenses, the people gradually began to complain, leading to arguments, protests, riots, and suppression. Large numbers of humans were arrested and forced to become beastmen.
The orcs' resentment towards humans is growing stronger.
They began to frequently kill the guards, fled to various parts of the earth, and sporadically established their own villages and towns in the wilderness.
In the mid-29th century, an underground scientist believed that orcs were the correct evolution of humans, and that evolutionary history proved that only creatures that adapt to their environment can survive. So he voluntarily injected himself with a new type of orc mutagen and fled with a large number of researchers.
This mutagen allows orcs to inject their unique genetic toxins into humans through biting with their fangs, causing humans to mutate into an intermediate state that can combine with them.
These intermediate humans, who retained the stability of human genes and could also interbreed with orcs to produce offspring, were called sub-orcs.
From then on, the reproductive isolation between humans and orcs was broken, and the first orc born through pure natural reproduction was born. The orcs cheered collectively, and a wave of mutation fever also arose among humans.
However, the birth of a large number of deformed and mentally challenged orc fetuses soon shattered the orcs' dreams. Their chaotic genetic sequences were ultimately less stable than those of humans. As the number of generations increased, the orc offspring slowly regained reproductive isolation. The only solution was to continuously integrate human blood as a genetic binder.
The mutation craze quickly subsided, and the humans, having regained their senses, began to seal off the underground city, only to have it breached by the orcs driven by the desire to reproduce.
Dungeons fell one after another, and large numbers of humans were captured and forced to become companions of orcs.
In the 30th century, the world's human population was reduced to only one million.
The sharp decline in human numbers led to a slump in the orc population as well. In order to seize the last humans, orcs around the world launched a civil war and were divided into three major federations: East, West, and North.
The remaining humans took advantage of the orc civil war to launch a nuclear counterattack against the orcs. This great war resulted in heavy losses for both the orcs and humans, and the Earth's environment, which had barely recovered a little, deteriorated again, causing great suffering to the orcs living on the ground.
Finally, in order to catch their breath and for the sake of both sides' development, the orcs and the remaining humans made a "peace pact":
Each dungeon must deliver one hundred humans to the orcs annually.
The orcs are providing resources to humans and have stopped attacking dungeons.
The world thus entered the era of contracts.
***
In the 33rd century, under the scorching sun, a motorhome modified from black iron armor travels through the vast desert.
Upon hearing the sound of the wheels, a gerbil that had been munching on a cactus immediately burrowed into the ground. The RV stopped, the door opened, and a man wrapped in tattered black cloth staggered out of the driver's seat.
The sun was scorching, and the air itself seemed to ripple with heat. The man endured the excruciating heat, squatted down, and began cutting the cactus on the ground.
The man's five fingers were wrapped in a tattered cloth. His hands trembled, but he skillfully used a dagger to remove the thorns from the cactus, then peeled off the outer skin with another cut. He immediately tore off the black cloth from his mouth and began to bite into it.
The cactus was bitter and astringent, but the man ate it greedily and with relish. After finishing one cactus and relieving his hunger, the man then began to harvest the other cacti next to him with trembling hands.
The gerbil emerged from underground, its small, dark eyes staring at the man for a moment before glancing in another direction as if sensing something, and then quickly darting back into its burrow.
The man was so focused on cutting that he didn't notice a tall figure appearing on the horizon not far away, slowly becoming clearer in the undulating air.
The figure suddenly stopped moving. He had spotted the man and his RV. He stood silently in the scorching air, watching the man for a long time, before starting to walk towards them.
1200 meters, 800 meters, 600 meters, 500 meters...
"Warning! Orc spotted 500 meters southwest! Warning! Orc spotted 500 meters southwest!" The RV suddenly emitted a piercing alarm: "Scanning it, 2.23 meters tall, no animalistic features detected, race cannot be determined."
The man who was squatting on the ground cutting cacti shuddered and immediately turned his head to look in the southwest direction. When he saw the orc, his dark pupils shrank sharply, and he turned and climbed towards the cockpit next to him.
"You can even encounter orcs in this desolate desert?" The man cursed as he quickly started the RV and sped off without a second thought.
The distance between the RV and the orc suddenly increased.
The man glanced at the barely visible orc figure through the rearview mirror and breathed a slight sigh of relief. This RV was a modified armored vehicle. Although it looked big and clumsy, it could reach a top speed of 150 km/h, easily outrunning even a medium-sized orc.
"Brother Kai, could you remind me earlier next time?" The man complained to the artificial intelligence while driving, completely forgetting that he had reduced the warning range to 500 meters in order to save energy.
Ignoring the man's scolding, the artificial intelligence asked him in a gentle, electronic male voice, "Xiao Tang, shall we activate AI driving?"
AI driving consumes a lot of computing power, so the man always drives himself to save electricity. Just as he was hesitating whether to hand over the car to him and then go get the gun, he heard the alarm again.
"An orc has been discovered 500 meters southwest. It is being scanned. It is 2.62 meters tall and has been detected with animalistic features. Analysis results: 98% probability of tiger, 2% probability of leopard, and the level is high."
"A high-ranking orc?!" The man was startled by this assessment; this was the first time he had encountered a high-ranking orc in all his years of wandering.
"How could a high-level orc be here?!" The man gritted his teeth and slammed his foot on the accelerator again, pushing the RV to its maximum speed.
"Brother Kai, analyze the probability that he will catch up with us..."
Before the man could finish speaking, a loud "boom" came from the top of the RV, and the whole RV shook. The man immediately frowned and looked up, knowing that the orc had jumped up.
Fortunately, the RV was a modified armored vehicle and there were no dents.
The man reacted quickly, turning the steering wheel sharply with both hands, and the heavy RV drifted in an arc across the desert, the immense inertia nearly throwing off anything on the roof.
The RV nearly overturned due to the excessive spinning, but fortunately, the desert ground had enough friction, and the side of the RV hung in the air for a while before landing heavily.
The man gripped the steering wheel while intently watching the surveillance footage on the glass, trying to spot the orc, but all the screens were empty.
Had he been thrown off? The man's heart pounded, and he called out to the car's AI, "Brother Kai, scan..."
"Bang!"
The right window shattered suddenly, and the impact of the glass made the man immediately raise his arm to protect his head. When he lowered his arm, an orc was already sitting comfortably in the passenger seat next to him.
The man remained silent.
"..." The orc remained silent.
"..." AI also remained silent.
After a long while, the man exhaled slowly and gently; the tense atmosphere had almost made him forget to breathe.
The RV slowly came to a stop, and the man regained his composure. Resigned, he turned to look at the orc next to him.
He was stunned when he saw it.
The orc had reverted to its beast form and returned to human form, revealing itself to be a boy of about seventeen or eighteen years old.
The boy had deep-set eyes and a high nose bridge. Although his features were striking, he still had a childish look. He had waist-length golden curly hair and a pair of heterochromatic golden-green eyes. He was so handsome that he was almost bewitching.
He even wore a thin gold totem necklace around his neck and small, stylish silver stud earrings on his earlobes...it was rather gaudy.
The boy appeared to be a military academy student, wearing a white vest, dark green trousers typical of the military, and tall leather boots that, though covered in dust, were clearly high-end.
As the man sized him up, he was also sizing up the man, but the man was wrapped in a smelly, tattered black cloth from head to toe, with even his fingers wrapped in strips of cloth, so there was really nothing to see.
Seeing the man looking at him, the orc boy suddenly smiled, his cat-like golden-green heterochromatic eyes narrowed, and his eyebrows curved.
The man turned his head and looked ahead in disbelief. The sun shone on the desert, and the air was so hot it felt distorted. He turned his head again to look at the orc. Yes, he was indeed a beautiful young man.
It's weird, very weird.
If a ferocious beastman broke through the car window and crawled in, the man would actually be calmer. But if a smiling, handsome young man appeared instead, the man would feel a strong sense of disconnect.
"Hello." The orc boy spoke up, his voice clear yet slightly deep, as if he were still going through puberty.
The man noticed that the orc boy leaned slightly closer to him, his nose twitching, clearly sniffing his scent.
Orcs are extremely sensitive to smells.
Alarm bells rang in the man's mind. He subtly retreated to the other side, but the orc boy seemed to have caught his scent. His heterochromatic eyes, one gold and one green, suddenly shrank and narrowed, like a cat's.
"...Hello." The man replied helplessly, his voice hoarse and unpleasant.
"Humans?" the boy asked.
"……yes."
"I'm sorry, I originally thought you were a deformed orc." The orc boy apologized to him, looking at the man wrapped in tattered black cloth. He never expected that a fragile human could appear alone in such a harsh desert environment.
The man remained silent; he was wrapped up like that to protect himself.
"Then... what is your name?" the orc boy continued to ask.
The man then noticed his choice of words, "you"... is that so polite?
After a brief hesitation, the man slowly answered him, "Tang Bufan."
"Tang... Bufan." The orc boy repeated the name with some difficulty, gleaning some information from it: "You're from the Eastern District Dungeon?"
This desert is located between the Asian and European continents, so the man may have come from the East District Underground City or the West District, but the name Tang Bufan clearly indicates that he is a human from the East District Underground City.
After a moment, Tang Bufan nodded in agreement: "...Yes."
"Then you..." The orc boy hesitated for a moment, then looked him over carefully: "Are you from the resistance faction?"
Since the beginning of the Contract Era and the arrival of peace, humanity has gradually divided into three factions: the Beastmen's Faction, the Neutral Faction, and the Resistance Faction, which hates the Beastmen. The Beastmen's Faction humans are well protected by the Beastmen when they come to the surface, while only the Resistance Faction is left to wander in the wild in such a sorry state.
Tang Bufan tightened his grip on the steering wheel. He knew that the protesting humans would be forcibly assigned to orcs as mates and forced to reproduce for them.
But... Tang Bufan looked at the orc boy's handsome, almost bewitching face, and his noble, high-ranking orc status, and really didn't think he would be interested in him.
So I mustered up my courage and nodded.
"Yes, I am a member of the resistance faction."
A note from the author:
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