As evening fell, Mu Liang and Mino returned to their wooden shelter in the camp.
“Today was such a good haul!”
Mino crouched by the fire pit, happily sorting through their catch—small lizards.
They had
caught forty-five
in total.
Surprisingly,
twenty-three of them were caught by the Three-Colored Lizard
. The rest were captured by the two of them.
Aside from the lizards, they had also caught
three palm-sized rats
.
Mu Liang sharpened his combat knife and casually asked,
“Do you always eat lizards?”
“Yep. If I’m lucky, I might get some rabbit meat once in a while.”
Mino didn’t even look up as she spoke, still focused on their haul.
Today was
an exceptionally good day
. Normally, she would only manage to catch
two or three lizards
at best.
Mu Liang’s sharpening motion paused for a moment.
“Do you ever eat enough to feel full?”
Mino tilted her head in thought, then furrowed her brows in confusion.
“I don’t even know what ‘full’ feels like.”
She had never been full before.
So how would she know what it felt like?
“…”
Mu Liang
fell silent
.
Hearing such a
heart-wrenching
response from the girl, then seeing her
genuinely puzzled
expression made him
unexpectedly frustrated
.
Without a word, he
tossed aside the sharpening stone
.
“What’s wrong?”
Mino blinked her big blue eyes, confused.
“Nothing. I’m going to walk around the camp.”
Mu Liang slid his knife back into its sheath.
He needed to
gather intel
on the camp’s situation and
spread word about the upcoming bandit attack
.
…And
clear his mind.
“Be careful.”
Mino reminded him as she
stayed behind
to process the lizards—
drying them into jerky for long-term storage
.
“Got it.”
Mu Liang grabbed his backpack and
slipped into the shadows
between the wooden shelters.
By now, the
sky had turned completely dark
.
Without moonlight, the
pitch-black environment
was
perfect for him to move unseen
.
The
aroma of roasted meat
drifted through the air. Faint
firelight flickered
from cracks in some of the shelters.
But for the most part, the camp was
eerily quiet
.
In some huts, he could hear the
soft breathing of people already asleep
.
When food was scarce, people moved less and
slept more
to conserve energy.
From Mino, Mu Liang had learned that the
camp had a hunting team
responsible for catching wild game like
rabbits, dryland turtles, and wild dogs
.
The food they brought back was
only distributed to those who worked for the camp leader
.
As for the others?
The leader didn’t care.
Living in the camp required
paying taxes
—a trade for
protection
from the leader and his hunting team.
Living
alone in the wilderness
was far too dangerous.
Wolves could
tear you apart
, or worse, you could encounter
mutant beasts
.
But in Mu Liang’s opinion, the
real reason
people willingly
paid taxes
was because the
leader controlled the water supply
.
Only those who paid could
receive a rationed amount
just enough to keep them from dying of thirst
.
And
one of Mu Liang’s reasons for sneaking out tonight
was to
stock up on extra water
before leaving in two days.
The camp wasn’t very big, but it was divided into
two sections
:
The
inner section
was
surrounded by a wooden and stone fence
—this was where the
leader and the hunters lived
.
The
outer section
was where
people like Mino
, the
taxpayers
, resided.
The
two-meter-high fence
was
no obstacle
for Mu Liang.
He
effortlessly climbed over it
, slipping past the patrolling guards unnoticed.
As soon as he entered the
inner camp
, the
rich scent of roasted meat
filled his nose.
Campfires blazed
brightly
, providing
ample warmth
.
Mu Liang passed by some wooden houses where he heard
sounds best left unmentioned
.
“Tch. In conditions like these, they’re not even worried about getting sick?”
He
rolled his eyes
and
plugged the hole in the wall
he had peeked through.
The leader’s house stood
at the very center
of the camp.
Mu Liang circled around it once and was
genuinely surprised
The house was
massive, over four hundred square meters
about the size of a basketball court
.
“How extravagant.”
Mu Liang smirked, finally
understanding what kind of ‘work’ the people here did for their leader
.
Choosing a
secluded corner
, he
scaled the wall and slipped inside
.
His landing was
silent
, and thanks to the
fire burning in the room
, it wasn’t too dark.
“This must be one of the side rooms.”
He listened carefully to the
muffled voices deeper inside the house
, determining their locations.
After observing for a while, he noticed
seven or eight servant girls
.
He discreetly
followed one carrying a clay pot
, watching as she entered a
guarded room
.
Mu Liang
stayed hidden in the shadows
, activating
Mimetic Camouflage
—at just a few meters away, he was
practically invisible
.
The
guarded room had no windows
. The
only way in was the door
.
Soon, the servant girl emerged,
dodging the guard’s wandering hands
as she
scolded him playfully and walked away
.
Mu Liang
memorized the location
of the
water storage room
.
He then
tailed the servant girl
to a
brightly lit hall
, where
four men were having dinner
.
She set the clay pot on the table but
didn’t pour water
right away.
Instead, she
grabbed a rabbit, slit its throat, and let the blood drip into the pot.
Mu Liang
immediately lost interest in that water
.
Just as he was about to leave to
search other rooms
, the conversation in the hall
caught his attention
.
“You may leave.”
The
middle-aged man
at the head of the table
waved the servant girl away
.
He then
scooped up a bowl of blood-water and drank it down.
As the servant girl left, the
other three men began speaking
.
“Leader, are we really leaving this place?”
“If we ration the water and stop wasting it on crops, we can last a few more months.”
“Watering crops is a waste anyway.”
It turned out
the vegetables were only for the leader’s personal consumption
.
The others barely got any, so
naturally, they weren’t happy
about it.
“Bang!”
The leader
slammed the table
, his voice cold.
“Stay here and wait to die, then?”
He poured
another bowl of blood-water
, chugged it down, then said grimly,
“The underground well has only ten days of water left.
If we don’t leave by then, everyone will die of thirst.”
“But finding a new water source is too difficult,”
one man muttered.
“We could move to Moonlake Tribe. They’d probably take us in.”
Another
nodded in agreement
,
“Yeah, we could join their hunting team.”
But the leader’s face
darkened
, and he
refused outright
.
“No. That’s not an option.”
If he joined another tribe, he wouldn’t even be a
low-ranked leader
.
Having
tasted power
, there was
no way
he would become
someone else’s subordinate
.
“Then where do we go?”
“I refuse to die of thirst.”
“If we don’t find water, I’ll take my family and leave for Moonlake Tribe.”
The
three men grumbled
their dissatisfaction.
“I’ve already sent people to search for water. If they find nothing in five days, then we’ll go to Moonlake Tribe.”
As he spoke,
a flicker of murderous intent
flashed in the leader’s eyes.
“Fine. We’ll wait five more days.”
The three men
finished their meal and left.
Mu Liang remained
hidden in the shadows
, coldly watching the entire exchange.
He hadn’t expected this—
The camp was already on the verge of running out of water.
And apparently, they were even
growing vegetables
—something he
hadn’t expected at all.