Chapter 5: Black Mountain Refuge City
The blonde woman in charge leveled her gun at Jimmy and said coldly, “Your backpack contains two long coats lined with metal mesh, nine bottles of purified water, five cans of unknown contents, five packs of crackers, ten compressed ration bars, and one hollow cylindrical object made of silicone.”
Jimmy’s mouth fell open. Judging by his stunned expression, the blonde had gotten every item exactly right.
Finn found it strange that this pretty girl with short golden hair somehow knew what was inside Jimmy’s backpack.
Jimmy didn’t have a storage space, so he had packed everything he needed for this wasteland expedition into his backpack. Finn, meanwhile, kept all his equipment, weapons, supplies, and tools inside his storage space, ready to retrieve whenever he needed them.
“H-How did you know?” Jimmy finally managed.
“Hmph.” The blonde gave a cold laugh. “I have reason to suspect that the two of you are smugglers. Put down the backpack. We’re inspecting it now!”
Then she gave Finn an odd look. Her delicate brows drew together, as though she couldn’t make sense of something.
X-ray vision? A mutant?
Those two possibilities flashed through Finn’s mind. The Pioneers’ records did mention that radiation had caused genetic mutations among the wasteland’s inhabitants, with a lucky few developing superpowers.
And the reason the blonde seemed puzzled by Finn was probably because she couldn’t see through him.
Finn cultivated the Fire Profound Divine Art, and profound energy constantly circulated through his meridians, protecting his entire body. It naturally blocked certain forms of supernatural perception.
Before Jimmy could remove the backpack, the shotgun-wielding man stepped forward and yanked it off him. He unzipped it and began searching through its contents.
Anger burned in Jimmy’s eyes, his face full of resentment. But with three gun muzzles pointed at him, he had no choice but to swallow his fury and let the shotgun-wielding man search his bag.
The shotgun-wielding man emptied the backpack and pulled out an instrument resembling a Geiger counter to test everything for radioactive contamination.
The moment he switched it on, it began beeping nonstop. Every item from the backpack made it beep furiously. Even after he moved it away from the bag, the device continued shrieking.
Finn knew exactly why.
He and Jimmy had walked out of a nuclear blast zone not long ago. Of course their residual radiation levels were off the charts.
The Nine Revolutions Resurrection Pill was still active inside Jimmy’s body, protecting him from radiation damage.
As for Finn, it was only one tactical nuclear warhead. He could take two or three of those without a problem. He could even use the energy released by the explosion to cultivate.
A little radiation was nothing. He could use it to disinfect himself and kill off any mites while he was at it.
After taking a nuclear blast head-on, Finn felt refreshed from head to toe. Every harmful bacterium on his body had probably been wiped out.
Of course, Finn could withstand low-yield nuclear weapons without trouble. But he would still have to avoid something with an enormous yield—such as the Tsar Bomba, the hundred-megaton hydrogen bomb nicknamed Big Ivan.
If Finn happened to be standing at the exact center of a Tsar Bomba detonation, he would still suffer very, very serious injuries.
It might take him a full two or three days to recover.
“You two… came from the nuclear blast zone?” the blonde asked, tilting her head. Far out in the desert, the faint, hazy outline of a mushroom cloud still hung on the horizon.
“No. We took a detour,” Finn replied. “Nuclear explosions are terrifying. Obviously we stayed far away from it!”
Meanwhile, the shotgun-wielding man continued pulling items from Jimmy’s backpack and inspecting them one by one. He took out several bottles of water and some compressed rations before finally retrieving a cylindrical silicone object and holding it up for a closer look.
The cylinder had a plastic outer shell and was mainly made of soft, milky-white silicone. It was hollow, with ridges lining the inside.
“What is this thing?” the shotgun-wielding man asked in confusion.
Finn, of course, knew exactly what it was.
It was a fleshlight.
Finn glanced at Jimmy. The young man’s face had turned bright red, and he refused to meet Finn’s eyes.
Having his sex toy dug out of his bag and waved around in public was utter humiliation.
It was like buying a full-size silicone sex doll, only to have security unpack it in front of a packed train station while the crowd took pictures, turning you into an internet laughingstock.
“Could it be some kind of gun suppressor?” the shotgun-wielding man wondered, holding the sleeve up.
“I’ve been to Ironatom,” said a burly man with an assault rifle. “There’s something similar in the Cool Prophet Relics Museum. Even the people in Ironatom have no idea what it is.”
Finn thought to himself that this wasteland’s industrial base was clearly underdeveloped, and civilization had been in decline for so long that people no longer recognized something like this.
Sometimes, the smallest detail revealed the bigger picture. With careful observation and a little thought, one could infer the technological level of an entire world from a single fleshlight.
More importantly, though, Finn had picked up a valuable lead.
The Cool Prophet Relics Museum in Ironatom had a similar object. He might be able to find information about the World Nucleus there.
The shotgun-wielding man stuffed the bottled water, canned food, and compressed rations back into the backpack, then said to the blonde, “Olivia, all of this is heavily contaminated. None of it is safe to consume.”
“Then they probably aren’t smugglers.” Olivia nodded. “No one would be stupid enough to haul a heavily contaminated bag across the wasteland on a bicycle. Give it back.”
The shotgun-wielding man acted as though he hadn’t heard her. He slung the backpack over one shoulder and turned to leave.
Jimmy immediately panicked. He was unarmed, and without the backpack, he had no equipment or supplies left. It also contained his spare clothes, toothbrush, towel, multipurpose dagger, and folding knife.
“Come on, man, give me my bag back!” Jimmy shouted frantically.
“Hey, Sam! I said give it back!” Olivia snapped. Her brows furrowed, but her gun remained trained on Finn.
She had a nagging feeling that the man she couldn’t see through might be the most dangerous person there.
Sam turned around, holding his weapon in one hand and the backpack in the other, looking every bit like a street thug.
“Miss Justice, just because the commander transferred you to West Sector Seven doesn’t mean anyone here has to follow your orders. The purified water in this bag will still be drinkable once we get someone from the Radiant Path to purge the radiation. Giving it back to these two out-of-town nobodies would just be a waste.”
“We’re the Refuge Security Force of Refuge City, not bandits roaming the wasteland.” Olivia lowered her weapon and said firmly, “Maintaining order in Refuge City is our duty. You don’t get to break the law.”
“The law?” Sam burst out laughing, doubling over so hard that the shotgun dipped toward the ground. He laughed on and on, as though he had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
“What’s so funny?!” Olivia shouted angrily. “West Sector Seven’s death rate stays so high because you people refuse to do your jobs. You’re members of the Refuge Security Force, yet you rob travelers! Give him back his bag!”
“You think this is still East Sector One? The only reason any of us joined the Refuge Security Force was to put food on the table.”
Sam ignored her and turned away.
“Sam, the three of us split the water evenly. I want the cans of beef.”
The other two gunmen ignored the furious Olivia as well and began discussing how to divide their loot.
“That’s my bag! Give it back!” Jimmy roared. He trembled with rage, his fists clenched tight.
But when the burly rifleman glanced at him and lifted his weapon, Jimmy immediately deflated and fell silent.
“Hey. You three.” Finn, who had remained quiet until now, finally spoke. “Give him back his things.”