Just an hour after Qin Hao left the transport ship crash site, a small group of giant beetles arrived and started an intensive search. Soon, they dug up the buried human bodies.
Kriik!! The leader of the giant beetles with a single bronze horn screeched, and the rest of the giant beetles swarmed up and ate the remains of the dead soldiers.
Krik! The giant beetle leader screamed again, a slightly smaller bug came out from the team. It had a weird shape and its mouth was very exaggerated, looking like the suction head of a vacuum cleaner.
After the bug came out, it began to sniff frantically, and very soon it locked onto the direction Qin Hao and the others were heading.
Crieek! With a call from the giant beetle leader, the small group of giant beetles chased after them, led by the weird bug.
…
At that moment Qin Hao did not know that he was being targeted by the Insectoids. He led Blackie and Lucia toward Coales Valley. As he was not riding on Blackie’s back, Qin Hao’s speed dropped. Coupled with Lucia and the wounded man slowing him down. With Qin Hao’s current speed, he would need three days to reach Coales Valley.
“Qin Hao, why are you here?” Lucia asked while they were on the way.
“Aih, don’t even mention it, High Ground Z3’s lost, and I could not evacuate with the division in time.” Qin Hao sighed, he could not just tell her his heroic deed of staying behind alone.
“You poor soul…” Lucia said sympathetically. She really thought that Qin Hao was left behind, so he could not evacuate in time, but she then added. “But fortunately, it was you. If it was another person, he would not have the ability to survive in Alpha alone.”
“Yeah! I’m quite lucky!” Qin Hao smiled. Not only did he broke through from the Insectoid swarm on High Ground Z3, but he also survived the aftermath of a nuclear attack. If his luck was to be any lesser, he would have been long dead.
“Do you know who this person is?” Qin Hao had nothing else to say, and he was somewhat curious about the identity of this person. After all, there were very few people on the battlefield not clad in military uniform.
“I don’t know, it should be from the research labs. When we boarded, he was wearing a white coat.” Lucia said.
“A researcher? What are they doing on the battlefield?” Qin Hao frowned.
“I don’t know. Maybe collecting samples?” Lucia guessed.
“Hmm…” Qin Hao nodded thoughtfully.
Qin Hao and Lucia chatted as they walked. Due to the wounded personnel, they could not move too fast. Thankfully, Blackie was around, or else the march would have been even more difficult.
Slowly, the sky had turned completely bright, and when Qin Hao noticed the transport ship crashing, it was already four or five o’clock in the morning. But due to the scarce light amidst the dense rainforest, it was only until nine or ten o’clock that it was completely bright.
“Ughh….” With a painful groan, the wounded man on the stretcher woke up.
“Oh! He’s awake!” Lucia immediately went to the side of the stretcher and began examining the wounded man with her equipment.
“Water… I want water….” The wounded man’s consciousness was still a little dazed.
“Water…” Qin Hao took out his water bottle. The water inside it was taken from the water source in the rainforest. Alpha had no industrial pollution, and the water sources were relatively clean. Plus, using the military water filter made it safe to drink.
“Gulp… Gulp…” After a few gulps of water, the wounded man came to his senses.
“Where am I?” the wounded man asked.
“A rainforest on Alpha, about 100 kilometers away from Coales Valley,” Qin Hao replied.
“Who are you? Why I’ve never seen you before?” The wounded man was obviously not hurt in the head, so he remembered very well that there was no Qin Hao on board when he boarded the transport ship.
“I’m with the 106th Mechanized Infantry Division,” Qin Hao said.
“The 106th? Didn’t they already evacuated from High Ground Z3?” The wounded man was pretty well-informed, as Lucia, who was on the same ship, did not know anything about High Ground Z3.
“Oh, I was left behind…” Qin Hao smiled awkwardly.
“Left behind? Impossible! James said he was the last to evacuate. Wait! Are you that Qin Hao?!” The wounded man suddenly stared and asked.
“Yeah, he’s Qin Hao. Do you know him?” Before Qin Hao could open his mouth, Lucia answered for him.
“You actually survived?” The wounded man’s eyes grew even wider.
“Ugh…” Qin Hao did not know how to answer this, so he was supposed to be dead or something?
“Uh… I did not mean that…” The wounded man also noticed Qin Hao’s displeasure, and so he explained. “I heard from James that you were facing tens of thousands of Insectoids alone, and they even nuked the place. It’s really hard to imagine how did you survive all that.”
“What? The fleet threw a nuke at you?” Lucia said was dumbstruck. While she had thought Qin Hao was very strong before, no one would be able to face a nuclear bomb!”
“I was lucky. When the bomb was dropped, I had already run out of the explosion epicenter, and there was a pond near me, so I escaped the shock wave by hiding underwater.” Qin Hao explained.
“I have to say, the Goddess of Luck sure is watching over you. Of course, you are a capable person yourself, or else it would have been impossible to leave High Ground Z3 alive!” The wounded man lamented. While Qin Hao had just briefly explained it, was breaking out from an encirclement of tens of thousands of giant beetles an easy thing to do?
“I haven’t asked, how do I address you?” Qin Hao asked.
“I’m Pang Meng, a research of the front-line command lab,” the wounded man replied.
“Shouldn’t researchers like you stay on the battleships? Why are you in the frontline?” Qin Hao asked with some puzzlement. These researchers had no combat ability at all, isn’t coming to the frontline as good as walking into death’s embrace itself?
“One of my research has reached a critical stage, so I needed to collect some important data.” Pang Meng did not say it in detail, after all, it was confidential. A footslogger like Qin Hao had no right to know, and even if he was Pang Meng’s savior.
“Oh!” Qin Hao did not ask further. He too knew his place, and knowing too much would not do him favors anyway.
“Sir, how’re your injuries?” Lucia, on the side, asked. While Pang Meng was not in uniform, these researchers were all highly ranked.
“Shouldn’t be a problem. In a day or two, I should be able to move on my own,” Pang Meng said. Although he had several broken ribs, after Lucia injected the cell activation catalyst, the recovery of his ribs was quite fast.