Apocalypse: Hero of Potato Fields

Tilian Planet Fragment.

Lin Yi was very surprised, and checked with the soldiers the creatures they killed, and the result...

It was true, they were really robots!

What flowed inside them wasn't blood, but a substance that looked like oil, except it was dark blue.

Some robots had artificial organs, while others had only mechanical devices inside.

"What on earth happened to this planet?"

"We have a shelter nearby and a stock of supplies, we'll take you there and share the supplies with you. It's the least we can do."

The local man said.

Lin Yi immediately agreed.

On the way, he used magic to charge the batteries for all the rifles.

Now, Lin Yi's magic recovery rate was astonishingly fast, several times that of a normal mage.

The team quickly reached an inconspicuous building, with a passage leading underground in its basement.

The local man entered a password, and the door opened.

The room inside looked like a workshop, with workbenches, equipment, a few simple beds, and some metal containers.

"This is a hidden shelter, very safe."

The man said as he removed his helmet.

He was a Caucasian man with black hair, appearing to be in his early thirties. His companion was an attractive young woman in her twenties with short hair, who also removed her helmet.

"I'm Zack, and this is my wife Lira."

Lin Yi nodded, pondering for a moment.

"Everyone listen! I don't want them to know we're human, let them think... we're some kind of powerful robots or something. Understand? Now we remove our helmets and activate the translator."

The helmets of the eight team members retracted into their armor, and although the air here was breathable, it was dusty and smelled unpleasant.

"I'm Lin Yi."

"They all call me Piero."

"..."

The soldiers introduced themselves one by one.

"I've never seen weapons like these before. Are they from the system?" Lira asked.

"Yes." One soldier answered briefly.

"But they're energy weapons! They consume a lot of energy. If you can afford them, you must be very wealthy, but why wouldn't rich people travel with mechas?"

"Listen, beautiful!"

Lin Yi's expression became serious as he stared into her eyes.

"No more questions, okay? We're on an important mission, and this information is on a need-to-know basis. We nearly botched the mission by saving you."

He was bluffing.

But the couple believed him.

Zack hurried to smooth things over.

"Sorry, my wife can be really dumb sometimes, I told her to keep her mouth shut."

"Dumb?! It was your fault we ended up in this mess in the first place!"

The young woman cried angrily, hitting the man's chest with her small fists.

She was only 1.6 meters tall, while the man was 1.83 meters, and much older, so they almost looked like a father and daughter.

The two bickered for a while.

The man took a small purple crystal the size of a sunflower seed from the drawer.

"Well, we have some energy food here. Would you like some?"

"No, thank you."

"Then we'll have it ourselves..."

The man said, giving some crystals to his wife, before starting to eat contentedly.

Lin Yi carefully examined the spacious room and concluded—

This could only serve as a temporary resting point, a place to rest and repair equipment after a long journey.

The room was fitted with several workbenches, used for repairing and assembling things that looked like microchips.

There was also a furnace used for metal forging.

Almost all the equipment was homemade, and most of it was already broken.

He also saw a considerable number of spare parts, most of which looked usable.

"Alright, the rest time is over... First, I want to know where you came from and where you're going."

Lin Yi, sitting in a metal chair, asked the half-mechanical couple.

Zack quickly found another chair to sit across from the strange team's captain.

"We are from Rust Fortress, the second messenger squad, which has been besieged for two months. We are outnumbered, so our leader sent several squads to Grate Fortress for help. We are the only two survivors."

"Well... our destination is also to the east."

Lin Yi lied, pretending to make an important decision, deliberately tapping his finger on the chair's armrest, looking like he was concentrating on thinking.

But a few seconds later, he looked up at Zack again.

"We can escort you there, but there's a small condition..."

"Really? Any condition will do!"

"What's about us, or our abilities, what you see, must be kept secret. If you tell anyone else, we'll have to destroy everyone—the whole fortress, understand?"

"Uh... Okay, I understand."

Zack looked shocked, struggling to digest what he had just heard, thinking: Destroy the fortress? Do they really have that capability?

But the man's expression was so fierce that it forced him to take the threat seriously.

Lin Yi nodded, stood up, and immediately his helmet popped out from his armor, covering his head.

"Alright, once we've resupplied, we head out."

"Okay, but shouldn't we return to our mechs first? If we can fix them, the journey ahead would be much safer."

"You mean more dangerous, right? A small infantry squad is less conspicuous, but... as you wish."

Lin Yi pretended to be calm, but inside he was nearly unable to control his emotions.

They have mechs here! If only he could get some for his shelter...

"Thank you!" Zack was extremely grateful.

Lin Yi called these locals half-mechanical people.

He saw the scanner react to a barrel of white, murky liquid, and inquired again.

"What's this, Zack?"

"Uh... I'm not too sure, but I think it's a byproduct from making solid fuel."

"You're not taking it?"

"Why would I? It can be used to make chemicals, but there's no proper equipment here to do that."

"Understood, then we'll take some."

Lin Yi looked at his soldiers.

The soldiers then collected the liquid; they could purify the water, making it drinkable...

Once everyone was ready, the squad left the hidden nest, heading towards the site of the last battle.

Upon arrival, Zack led the way. His wife followed closely behind, speaking little, afraid of saying the wrong thing.

She was very afraid of these strange survivors... she couldn't really say why, but they seemed a bit... foreign... dangerous... and incredibly mysterious.

She and her husband had very expensive artificial organs, but even they couldn't afford more expensive "sensory" organs.

However, noticing these strangers, once they entered the temporary shelter, they smelled the stench and frowned...

Clearly, each of them had sensory organs!

And that wasn't all; she noticed many other strange things...

Meanwhile, the scout holding the scanner calmly said, "About a hundred enemies up ahead."

"Any mutants?"

"No."

"Let's get ready to earn some experience points! Pray for some good loot!"

They really needed some rewards...

Even if it's just ordinary baseball bats or nail-headed hammers, at least they'd get some reward egg shells!

The squad members communicated through the radios built into their armor, so to these half-mechanical people, they just seemed to be walking silently and then suddenly stopping.

Lin Yi activated his speaker and translator.

"There are some enemies ahead. Fall back, don't get in the way."

"Enemies? Alright." Zack and his wife immediately said.

The squad charged around the corner, where the zombies were excitedly tearing apart two metal giants.

They immediately launched an attack on the hundred zombies.

Lira said sadly, "We're too late..."

"Look! Look at them!" Zack quietly exclaimed.

And then the couple watched as eight people turned a hundred enemies into scrap metal in just a few seconds.

In fact, only six people were fighting.

As mages with lower agility, Joe and Piero's shooting skills were not as good as the others.

Lin Yi and the others only needed one shot to take down a mechanical zombie.

The loot this time was quite poor, only fifteen coins and one white reward.

Lin Yi looked at a large, powerful machine that was nearly just a skeleton and asked, "I guess your mech is too damaged to repair, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Boss, we found some Tilian rewards, one green and one white."

"Got it, give them to Zack and Lira."

"Are you sure? You could take them; consider it our debt to you." Zack said after receiving the rewards, which looked like small plastic balls.

"It's more appropriate for you to open them. Maybe you'll get something that will help us on this journey."

"Thank you. Makes sense." Zack opened the white reward and found a small purple crystal the size of a pumpkin seed and a silver cube the size of a grape.

"We've got some good luck! Here, Lira."

"Now we won't have to worry about food for the next few days!" the young woman also said happily.

Her husband then opened the other reward, finding another purple crystal and a second-level energy handgun...

Lin Yi, seeing not much was gained this time, wasn't disappointed.

"How far to the next ruin?"

"I think about... a day's journey, maybe a day and a half to the next fortress."

"Hmm... then let's search around the city, see if we can find some supplies."

"Supplies?" Zack asked in surprise, but his question went unanswered.

The scout had just discovered some mutants.

The drop rate for ordinary zombies was very low, about one percent, but for first-level mutants, the drop rate was closer to fifty percent.

The mutants they found were almost three-meter-tall half-mechanical people, who had undergone partial body modifications.

The first mutant had replaced its legs and lower body with larger, more powerful components.

"Cyborgs! It's Heavy Strikers and Dodgers." Lira mumbled in a panic upon seeing these mutants.

But what terrified her more was—

Following Lin Yi's orders, the squad launched an attack from behind cover, and with a few precise shots, the mutants were dead, and the few zombies lingering nearby were also killed.

This time, they finally got two green rewards and twenty-two coins...