Chapter 3
Wanderer, Buildings, Goblin!
“Hurry up and get up, buddy. We’re leaving!”
Sensing that someone was patting his shoulder and speaking loudly, Tang Zhen suddenly woke up from his half-conscious state. Then, his muscles tensed up and he quickly opened his eyes.
At this moment, he still maintained the alert state before he fainted. He held the sharp bone spur in his hand firmly in front of his chest.
Once he noticed something wrong, he would stab out the sharp bone without hesitation.
However, when he saw the situation in front of him clearly, he slowly retracted the sharp bone in front of his chest and looked at the person in front of him warily.
It was a young man in ragged clothes. He had a delicate oval face and looked harmless. He was smiling at him.
The young man was about 1.75 meters tall and in his early twenties. Although his face was sallow and his hair was dry and messy, his eyes were very bright and bright.
Tang Zhen noticed that his clothes were very tattered and covered in holes. This thing that should have been thrown into the trash long ago was now draped over the young man.
He wasn’t the only one dressed like this. The clothes of the people nearby were also the same, giving people the feeling that they had entered a refugee camp.
The style of the clothes was also very strange. The visual impact was very strong, making him vaguely think that he had returned to the old society of the past.
However, when he thought of the monsters he had encountered previously, he also knew that even if he didn’t return to the past, he was definitely no longer in his original world.
What exactly was this place?
Seeing Tang Zhen looking at him in a daze, the young man lowered his head and searched in his pocket for a while. He took out a small half of a coarse grain steamed bun covered in dirt and grass and handed it to Tang Zhen. “Are you hungry? Eat quickly!”
You want me to eat this thing?
Tang Zhen looked shocked. He looked at the half eaten steamed bun in the young man’s hand and guessed that it had been stored in the young man’s pocket for at least three days, causing it to be a little dried and deformed.
Tang Zhen really couldn’t swallow this kind of food. Moreover, the situation was unknown. Out of caution, he could only refuse the young man’s good intentions.
The young man retracted his hand and revealed an expression that said, “You’re stupid if you don’t eat something!” He carefully placed the steamed bun back into the tattered pocket.
From the looks of it, it was very precious.
Tang Zhen touched his pocket. His cell phone was still there. Tang Zhen immediately felt much more at ease.
He moved his shoulder. It still hurt a little, but it had been cleaned and applied. Then, he wrapped it with a rag.
Turning his questioning gaze to the young man, the other party nodded and smiled. “You were scratched by a monster and had to be treated as soon as possible, so I helped you bandage it when you were unconscious… Uh, there’s no need to thank me!”
Tang Zhen looked grateful and nodded to thank him.
Regardless of whether the other party’s treatment was effective, it was at least better than doing nothing.
He got up and looked around. This time, Tang Zhen looked very carefully.
He realized that he was in the simple camp he had seen before he fainted. There were more than ten lousy tents made of various materials nearby.
There were many people moving around the tent. They were wearing tattered clothes and looked pale like the young man in front of them.
Beside a fire, Tang Zhen saw two middle-aged women throwing a handful of wild vegetables that had just been picked and had not even been washed into a broken pot of boiled water. Then, they placed two pieces of broken dry bread. After stirring with a stick, the pot of food was completed.
Tang Zhen, who had witnessed the entire process, curled his lips slightly. To be honest, in Tang Zhen’s opinion, even dog food was much more delicious than this.
But even so, there were still many people fighting over the food.
After the woman removed the lid, she shouted for everyone to come and eat dinner. Then, many people surrounded her with various containers.
The woman gave everyone a spoonful of “soup”. Then, the people who obtained the food ran to the side and slowly drank it.
They ate very sweetly, as if this was a supreme delicacy. They even licked the bottom of the bowl clean, not caring if there was sand.
Seeing this scene, Tang Zhen was very shocked. Why did they appear so miserable? Were they really refugees?
But on careful look, they didn’t look like refugees. Then why had these people fallen to such a state?
In the crowd dressed like beggars, there were more than ten “foreigners” of different skin colors. This also increased Tang Zhen’s confusion.
“Hurry up and eat, or you won’t be able to get anything!”
While Tang Zhen was in a daze, the young man who handed the steamed bun reminded Tang Zhen and quickly ran over.
He took out an enamel jar from the broken bag and scooped a portion of wild vegetable soup with fine sand floating at the bottom of the jar. He drank it happily.
Tang Zhen noticed that there seemed to be words on the enamel jar. Looking carefully, the words were “serve the people!”
Damn, what was going on?
“Who are you guys?”
Tang Zhen finally couldn’t help but ask the young man drinking the soup.
“Who are we? We’re naturally some people who teamed up to explore the wild building. Is there a need to ask?”
The young man drank the soup in big mouthfuls and was a little disdainful of Tang Zhen’s question.
Suppressing the doubts in his heart, Tang Zhen asked indirectly for a while before finally understanding his current situation.
This was a very strange world. There were no countries or regimes. There were locust-like wanderers from various races everywhere, as well as buildings of various sizes.
The wanderers were the people in front of Tang Zhen. 50% of the wanderers in this world were humans, and the remaining 50% were said to be various foreign races.
The wanderers had no fixed residence and wandered around. Their goal was only to survive.
From a few days ago, these wanderers in front of him had gathered here in twos and threes. They had heard the news and rushed over, preparing to explore a wild building that had just appeared.
Tang Zhen had appeared in front of this crowd yesterday evening, but he directly fainted at that time. Everyone treated him as a wanderer who was also preparing to participate in the wilderness exploration, so no one noticed him at all.
Wild buildings were one of the most magical existences in this world.
The so-called wild building was an ownerless building that would suddenly appear in the endless wilderness. There were many useful resources inside, but it was also filled with danger!
Every time a wild building appeared, it was a huge opportunity for the wanderers.
Speaking of wild buildings, it had to be said that the representatives of powerful factions in this world were the buildings!
In this world, the wanderers were like rootless duckweeds, wandering in this endless wilderness.
They would pick wild vegetables, hunt wild beasts, explore wild buildings, and resist monsters together, hoping that they could join a certain building one day and obtain protection.
However, there was no lack of wanderers in this world. They were like weeds, coming one after another. Many people had no chance to enter a building from life to death.
If the humans in this world were divided into levels, the residents of these buildings were probably the highest-level existences.
Building was a general term. It represented an official gathering place that had obtained the recognition of the laws of this world. It was also a place with magical power.
According to the young man, as long as one obtained an item called a “cornerstone”, anyone could build a building out of thin air.
After the establishment of the building, as long as the residents didn’t leave the building, they wouldn’t be attacked by various monsters like wanderers.
At the start, the height of the building wouldn’t exceed four floors, and the area was only about two thousand square meters and there would be a cornerstone platform inside.
It was said that the lord of a building and the residents could use the monster’s brain bead to sacrifice to the gods on the cornerstone platform. This way, they had a chance to obtain magical power and items.
If there were extra cornerstones, they could also upgrade the building!
The more times it leveled up, the higher and larger the building would be, and the more magical abilities it might have.
The young man said that he had once seen a very powerful building. It consisted of five structures that were more than a hundred stories tall built together. They were surrounded by tall walls, and many residents lived inside!
When the monsters attacked the building, a transparent shield would actually appear out of thin air and lock the building inside to avoid the harassment of the monsters.
However, not all buildings were established by humans. A considerable portion of buildings were established by foreign races. They had never been willing to easily accept humans into living inside, and they even attacked and seized the buildings established by humans.
Among the information described by the young man, more than half of it was hearsay. It could be said to be half true.
But even so, Tang Zhen was stunned. As the young man described it, huge waves rose in his heart.
This was really a messy world, but it was also extremely magical. Why was he here?
“Perhaps it’s because of that glass ball…?”
Tang Zhen vaguely guessed in his heart, but he couldn’t be sure.
An hour later, everyone finished eating. Then, someone started to put away the tents.
They took out strange weapons and slowly walked in the direction of the rising sun.
At this moment, Tang Zhen already knew that the young man who helped him bandage his injuries and send him dry food was called Qian Long.
At this moment, Qian Long was also holding a sharpened iron rod. He followed the team with a serious expression and sized up the surrounding grass warily.
Seeing that everyone looked like they were facing a great enemy, Tang Zhen couldn’t help but become nervous. After touching the bone spur on his belt, he casually picked up a stone and held it tightly.
The team didn’t walk far when a low roar suddenly came from the grass. The sound was strange and miserable.
The wanderers who heard the roar first panicked for a few seconds. Then, they aimed their weapons in the direction of the sound. A few of them even shot out sharp arrows.
The entire process only took a few seconds, showing the battle skills of the wanderers.
The dense wild grass was rudely separated as more than ten green-skinned humanoid monsters about a meter tall and shaped like short water jars pounced at the wanderers with strange cries.
They looked dirty and ugly, like maggots crawling out of a feces pit.
Looking at the familiar ugly shape of the monster, Tang Zhen momentarily had a ridiculous illusion that he had transmigrated into a game world.
Because the appearance of this monster was very similar to the monsters in many games—goblins!
Among this group of monsters that looked like goblins, there was a monster with a very funny appearance. There was even a crude arrow stuck in its head. It let out a strange cry mixed with pain and excitement. At the same time, it waved a big bone club covered in bite marks.
“It’s the green-skinned goblin. Everyone, attack together!”
The leader of the wanderers shouted and tried to mobilize morale. The wanderers also attacked.
For a moment, various weapons flew around at a low altitude, making these short and fat monsters cry out repeatedly. However, these monsters were also ferocious, forcefully charging up against the attacks of the wanderers.
Their red eyes were filled with greed, as if these wanderers were delicious food and they were predators.
Under the temptation of food, these monsters suffered many attacks, but they refused to retreat.
However, compared to the number of wanderers, the number of goblin monsters was not advantageous.
Not long after the battle began, the goblin monsters finally couldn’t resist the dense attacks of the wanderers. They abandoned the corpses with a sad cry and crawled into the grass.