Jumping down from Bubu Wang’s back, Su Xiao walked to the pile of ashes. The ashes were already cold, indicating they were left long ago.
Scattered bones lay beside the ashes. The answer was obvious: intelligent creatures were active nearby.
Picking up a broken bone from the ground, Su Xiao noticed a row of tooth marks on it. These marks came from flat-toothed creatures with strong biting force, capable of breaking bones to suck the marrow within.
Knowing how to make fire and cook food, the tooth marks on the bones indicated they were created by different creatures, suggesting they might live in groups.
Su Xiao hesitated, wondering whether he should track these creatures. They might have food and clean fresh water.
Just as Su Xiao was pondering, a short, sharp scream echoed from the distant valley.
The scream abruptly stopped, indicating the person who screamed had likely perished.
Without food, Su Xiao wouldn’t last long. Rather than hiding, it was better to try his luck.
Following the direction of the scream, Su Xiao quickly ran into the valley.
The vegetation in the valley was low, allowing visibility from a distance.
Su Xiao reached the vicinity of the scream, yet there were no other creatures around.
After searching nearby for a while, Su Xiao found a broken sword in a bush.
Picking up the broken sword, Su Xiao’s eyes narrowed slightly. This was a remnant of a Blue-quality weapon, indicating the previous screamer was a Contractor.
Not far from the broken sword, Su Xiao also spotted a patch of bloodstains.
There were slight signs of a skirmish nearby. Su Xiao deduced that a melee Contractor fought an unknown enemy but was quickly defeated.
A few drops of blood extended further away. After a moment of hesitation, Su Xiao swiftly tracked the blood trail.
Initially, the bloodstains were dense, but they gradually became intermittent. Ten minutes later, the trail completely vanished.
It was Bubu Wang’s turn to shine; to Bubu Wang, the scent of blood was like a lighthouse in the shadows.
The tracking began. Following Bubu Wang’s direction, Su Xiao proceeded forward.
Unbeknownst to Su Xiao, he was unknowingly and inadvertently heading out of the Red Soil Area. Once outside, survival would still be challenging, but not as difficult.
After tracking the bloodstains for an hour, Su Xiao stopped, lying on a slope as a tribe appeared in the distance.
Indeed, it was a tribe located in a small basin, with dozens of low triangular wooden tents at the center. The tents were covered with dry grass, and a roughly carved withered wood stood in the center of the tribe. It resembled a vine-like creature, likely serving as a totem, indicating civilization beginnings.
Dozens of human-like upright creatures strolled between the tents. These beings resembled primitive people, but with black-red skin, faces painted with different patterns, and some with animal teeth through their noses.
Unlike primitive people, these natives were tall, the shortest standing at about two meters, with some as tall as two and a half meters.
"Tulu Kaba Na (unknown language)."
"Bu Bu Bu Bu~ (unknown language)."
Lying beside Su Xiao, Bubu Wang’s ears perked up, seemingly hearing someone call it.
"Idiot, lower your head."
Su Xiao pressed Bubu Wang’s head into the grass. Hungry as it was, Bubu Wang discovered in surprise that eating grass wasn’t a bad option.
Eat grass when hungry, munch on grasshoppers when craving, drink dew when thirsty...
Within the basin, two red-skinned natives were discussing something, growing increasingly heated until they began shoving each other.
The conflict arose over a pair of blood-stained jeans.
Clearly, the jeans weren’t produced by the tribe, indicating Contractors were captured by these natives. Su Xiao had already seen captured Contractors, and there was more than one.
Two headless and eviscerated bodies hung before the tents, seemingly being prepared for drying.
Su Xiao speculated these two were Contractors and that the previous screams likely came from them.
Not far from the two bodies was another Contractor, still alive but punctured with several bloody holes, though not fatal soon.
This Contractor was stripped bare, with a look of despair on his face.
He was doomed, tied hand and foot, and skewered horizontally on a wooden spit. The source of thɪs content is 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭·𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘦·𝘯𝘦𝘵
For some reason, Su Xiao found the figure increasingly familiar.
Ignoring the blood on his face, Su Xiao smacked Bubu Wang on the head. Wasn’t this Umbrella Brother?
After freezing with Black Hawk, Umbrella Brother surprisingly didn’t die upon landing, which was already a miracle.
Suo Xiao considered himself unlucky, but it seemed there were always others more unfortunate.
Umbrella Brother was the true embodiment of misfortune. Before entering the survival trial, a special contract depleted his emergency Paradise coins.
Before entering any Derivative World, Reincarnation Paradise charges 100 Paradise coins for Contractors to grasp the language.
Umbrella Brother wouldn’t make such rookie mistakes; it was merely an accident. He gloriously became the only Contractor without a parachute among 500.
Without a parachute, being ejected from a plane was bad enough. Worse, he was attacked mid-air.
Umbrella Brother wasn’t weak. Relying on his solid skills, he dispelled the layers of ice just before landing, pinning Black Hawk beneath him.
Although he almost died from the fall, Umbrella Brother tenaciously survived, a moment enough to move everyone.
Unfortunately, the misfortune didn’t end. Umbrella Brother and two other Contractors landed successively, with the unfortunate coincidence that he had previous conflicts with those two Contractors.
The battle royale began. Just as Umbrella Brother was about to shake off the two Contractors, the red-skinned natives made their flashy entrance. That brief scream was Umbrella Brother’s outcry against fate’s injustice.
What ensued was straightforward: the three Contractors were defeated, two died on the spot, processed into dried provisions, and Umbrella Brother was stripped bare, becoming tonight’s meat dish for the red-skinned natives.
A red-skinned native was rummaging through a bag near Umbrella Brother, which belonged to the two dead Contractors.
The native pulled out two small bottles from the bag, sniffed them, and laughed. They contained salt and pepper. Though unfamiliar with the pepper, the native recognized the salt.
Witnessing this, Umbrella Brother nearly fainted from anger. How could those two bring seasonings while surviving?
Umbrella Brother’s voice was weak, prompting the red-skinned native to look at him.
"When you roast me tonight, use less pepper. I don’t like it."
The red-skinned native obviously couldn’t understand, delivering a swift kick to Umbrella Brother’s face.
These red-skinned natives exhibited a kind of ferocity and brutality. They viewed everything other than their kind as food.
Umbrella Brother’s request for less pepper was denied, and he even received a kick.
Su Xiao witnessed the whole scene but didn’t intend to rescue him. The red-skinned natives couldn’t be spared, for a simple reason: they had clean water, which Su Xiao clearly saw earlier.
Peaceful communication was impossible, so he would use his blade to negotiate.
Su Xiao lay flat on a slope, his stomach rumbling with hunger, yet he remained still. It wasn’t the right time yet.
Bubu Wang, who had been near Su Xiao, was nowhere to be seen, with its passive skill "You Can’t See Me" in effect.
Dusk was approaching. Some natives hunting outside were returning, and Su Xiao made a rough count: there were 43 red-skinned natives in total.
These natives were peculiar, all adult males with no females or children.
This scenario suggested one thing: this wasn’t a large gathering place for the red-skinned natives but possibly a temporary camp while hunting.
Another possibility was that the natives formed a small tribe that had been exiled by a larger tribe, and their women were taken away.
Su Xiao leaned toward the latter conclusion. Judging by the surrounding signs, these red-skinned natives had been living here for at least a few months. It was unlikely for a hunting expedition to last that long.