"You have a good group of brothers, not a bit worse than us Adcardo, all men."
Mitch also sighed, "When I was on the battlefield before, I often watched my brothers die in front of me, over time I got used to it."
Even Pira, who was usually the least serious, didn’t make any funny faces now, the atmosphere became a bit heavy.
Lin Miao turned his back to organize his expression for a moment, fearing he’d laugh out loud in public, which would damage his image.
There were still quite a few Adcardo people surrounding Silver-haired Natural Curl and Pandora, continually comforting the two, leaving them bewildered.
Especially Pandora, she was the group member with the best English, able to understand what these NPCs were saying, but her indifferent expression made the others think the kid was scared silly.
Even Silver-haired Natural Curl, who couldn’t understand what they were saying, could roughly grasp the situation, but he wanted to retort, aren’t these NPCs too sentimental?
Next comes Lin Miao’s favorite loot distribution segment.
Originally, Panam and the Adcardo people intended to take the lion’s share, preparing to quickly deal with Night Wanderer’s follow-up troops and immediately support Mann and Lin Miao.
As long as any step missed a beat, the rest would be their home ground, no reason not to take a big share.
But, they used seven lives to take out Paul plus more than twenty Night Wanderers, by the time Adcardo and Mann came over, they didn’t even see a trace of people.
How could they even start a conversation?
They indeed suffered losses, 2 critically injured, 7 lightly injured, how could that compare?
Finally, both sides totaled up.
The biggest loot this time, five tank wagons, Adcardo drives away one wagon, half a tank of Chun Er exchanged for cash, and the remaining four tank wagons plus 3.5 wagons of Chun Er all belonged to Lin Miao.
But Night Wanderer’s remaining vehicle parts went to Adcardo, firearms and weapons to Lin Miao.
Of course, there’s also the matter of corpses, just bad to say it openly, Lin Miao simply said to move all the bodies to his side for burial.
Adcardo wouldn’t ask why, everyone is mixing in Evil Land, no one’s a fool, but if these bodies were ordinary passersby, Panam would definitely speak up, but Night Wanderer...
If Panam didn’t destroy them herself, that’s already giving them face.
Although everyone complains about how scavengers operate, disassembling dead cyberware is something everyone does in private, just not as blatant and reckless towards innocents as scavengers.
They probably didn’t expect that even Night Wanderer’s corpses were Lin Miao’s assets.
Woohoo~ What a big gain.
Market price of Chun Er is five times gasoline, calorific value is 1.8 times the latter.
Just 3.5 wagons of Chun Er is worth 518K, adding in four secondhand tank wagons surely pushes it to 550K, not counting the money from forty or fifty corpses, firearms.. tsk tsk tsk....
A cheerful Lin Miao generously hands Mann 40K, gives an extra 10K as a tip, and of course, for confidentiality.
This makes Mann’s team, who already had a good impression of Lin Miao, like the guy even more.
After picking up the ’loot’, it was dusk, everyone departed, preparing to meet up at Adcardo’s camp.
On-site only a heap of vehicle wreckage and black marks from explosives remained, plus blood all over, telling of a fierce battle that took place here.
This is Evil Land’s daily life, likewise Night City’s daily life.
"Panam.... what’s this..."
At the camp gate, Sol looks at the five imposing tank wagons parked at the camp gate, completely dumbfounded.
"Sol!" Calling out the name, Panam’s pitch rose a little, excitedly she spoke with confidence, "How about it, we made a big profit this outing and also killed that dumb Night Wanderer leader Paul Jones! Night Wanderer really suffered a big defeat at our hands this time!"
Even without Panam saying, Sol knew the intensity of the fight by looking at the bullet holes and gun marks on the tank wagons.
His tone serious, "How many of us died?"
Panam pursed her lips, voice somewhat unnatural, "None died, nine injured."
"Nine?" Sol didn’t believe this nonsense, but he glanced at those disembarking from the vehicles, saw familiar faces, didn’t miss anyone, even Mann’s team came back intact.
"Yes, just nine." Still, Mitch came to smooth things over, "It’s our friends’ side that suffered heavy losses, they fought Paul’s main force, by the time we arrived there were only four of them left, but Night Wanderer was wiped out."
That’s undoubtedly good news for Sol, not losing any Adcardo lives suffices, nothing’s more important than family lives, benefits’ issues can be discussed later, at most the tribe takes a smaller share.
He originally wanted to tell Panam to discuss such matters with him next time, but seeing her understood it was pointless.
Sol wouldn’t agree to risk tribe members’ lives, Panam disagrees with him.
He chose not to mention things that would make people unhappy, instead turning to everyone in the camp, announcing
"Since so, let’s have a party to celebrate Panam and our friends’ successful operation, also to thank them for their contribution to us and... to mourn for the sacrificed."
He didn’t ask about the loot distribution, discussing interests at such a time would certainly ruin the mood, better to use a lively atmosphere to wash away sorrow for the deceased.
Though the one who should be most sorrowful was actually laughing inside, as for Natural Curl and Pandora, Panam insisted they stay for the party, they still insisted on returning to the office for recovery and rest. (Because they took on a corpse-retrieval side quest, and limited game time)
Panam could only arrange people to send them and some ’loot’ back together.
While saying it’s a party, it definitely can’t compare with hotels founded in Night City, Adcardo doesn’t have luxurious decorations, nor pretty maids serving, but there are family members who play guitar and sing by the bonfire, there’s alcohol to drink, and stars above the sky.
In midsummer California, far from Night City outskirts, the stars are especially many.
To liven up, Lin Miao even ’took’ out a batch of cans from the car’s back seat, mostly fruit cans and a small amount of meat cans.
The Adcardo people were a bit surprised, but only surprised, they instead felt Lin Miao’s group likely came from some Wanderer tribe.
Since including Adcardo, large Wanderer tribes have their own planting bases and small breeding bases.
They cultivate their own fruits, vegetables, and meats, making them into cans for merchandise or long-term storage is a common practice.
However, these years, biological technology, continent food factories, and other large companies repeatedly force Wanderer tribes to sell their farmland using various tactics, making Wanderers’ survival increasingly difficult.
Large companies use coercion, cut water supplies, even purposely dump toxic waste making farmland poisonous, turning underground springs dystopian.
If you don’t sell, then none shall farm.
No wonder Panam dislikes large companies so much, after all, Wanderers’ emergence can’t be separated from corporate oppression.