Free Web NovelChapter 15: Chapter 15: The Hunt from the Monster Boys
"Brother Duan, keep going! Harder! Don’t stop!"
Duan Fei kicked away the Little Fatty clinging to him and noticed that the scars on the other man’s face had actually faded a bit.
After a moment’s thought, Duan Fei knocked him on the head again, then watched with wide eyes as another scar vanished from his face.
Mary, watching from the side, was dumbfounded. After a long moment, she walked over and asked, "Dad, what’s going on?"
"Oh, I spent some time in the East and learned a bit of Qi Gong."
"You’ve never mentioned that before!"
"My mind’s been a bit clearer lately, so it just came back to me."
Mary still looked utterly unconvinced, but the current situation left her no choice but to believe.
Pointing to her own scarred face, she asked hopefully, "Dad, can you try it on me?"
Duan Fei was happy to oblige, knocking Mary to the ground with a few whacks of his crowbar.
After scrambling up and looking in a mirror, Mary nodded in satisfaction. "Amazing East, amazing Qi Gong," she said in admiration. "Pre-nuclear-war technology was truly incredible."
"It is. The human body is amazing, isn’t it?"
Duan Fei was discovering that the ’pre-nuclear-war world’ was a perfect catch-all excuse. You could throw anything in there and not have to worry about the details.
’After all, I’m playing a seventy-year-old geezer. I’ve eaten more hamburgers than you’ve walked roads. What I say, goes!’
"Mr. Smith, me too!" Alice shouted excitedly from the side.
Just as he was about to give the girl a whack with the crowbar, Duan Fei had an idea. He pulled her closer and said, "Could you call me Grandpa?"
"No problem, Grandpa Smith!"
[You sense the girl’s filial affection. It puts you in a pleasant mood. Your damage is reduced by 5 points.]
"Excellent!" Duan Fei nodded in satisfaction, then gave the girl a whack with the crowbar.
’Even though my "Gift of Chaos" (the bug) has turned my damage into a negative value, I’m starting to think this bug could be pretty useful if I exploit it properly.’
Rethinking his theory, Duan Fei realized it wasn’t just his actual daughter who could trigger the filial effect. It seemed others could, too.
Pulling Little Fatty over, Duan Fei asked seriously, "Little Fatty, we know each other pretty well now. How about I call you my little bro, and you call me Dad?"
"What is wrong with you?" the recovered Little Fatty asked in disbelief. "Besides, we need to think of something fast! The Monster Boys Gang is getting closer."
Watching the Monster Boys Gang draw nearer, Duan Fei glanced around and spotted a wrecked car.
He had Mary quickly fetch some gasoline, then took a deep breath and struck the car with his crowbar.
With a sharp CLANG, a patch of rust was knocked clean off, revealing a smooth surface underneath.
Seeing this, Duan Fei nodded in satisfaction. He activated his Spiritual Armor, causing his repair speed to skyrocket.
’It might lower my damage, but it boosts my agility, which means I’m faster, right?’
"It works for that, too?!" Mary was even more astonished. "Dad, is Qi Gong from the East really that amazing?"
"You’re not the only one. I don’t believe it either," Little Fatty said, shaking his head.
By the time the Monster Boys Gang had closed half the distance, Duan Fei had finished his percussive repairs on the SUV. A can of gasoline was quickly poured in, and all five of them scrambled into the vehicle.
But once they were settled inside, they looked at one another and realized no one seemed to know how to drive.
"Don’t look at me. I don’t even remember how to drive," Duan Fei said.
"I’ve only gotten as far as the second part of the driving test," Little Fatty immediately chimed in.
Cuihua held up one finger, indicating he had only passed the written portion.
The young girl, Alice, shot the three men a look of disdain, then squeezed into the driver’s seat. She skillfully started the engine, shifted gears, and slammed on the gas, immediately putting distance between them and the Monster Boys Gang.
They sped down the street until the road gave way to a sea of yellow sand. Alice, maneuvering expertly through the desert, flipped a middle finger at the Monster Boys Gang behind them and shouted arrogantly, "Come and get me, you little shits! I’m gonna smash your balls so flat that in your next life, you’ll only be good for getting bent over from behind!"
"Is that really something a twelve-year-old girl should be shouting?" Little Fatty yelled, clinging to a handle in the back. "How come she can say that, but I get bleeped out when I try?"
"Maybe the system thinks that in a post-apocalyptic world, that’s a perfectly fine way for a twelve-year-old girl to say hello!" Duan Fei shouted back.
"What the hell kind of ’hello’ is that! So why can’t I do it?"
"Maybe the system thinks your IQ is lower than a twelve-year-old’s."
"You son of a bitch, you’re just getting back at me for not calling you Dad!"
"You know it, and you’re still not changing your tune!"
"Screw you!"
Seeing their prey begin to flee, the Monster Boys on their motorcycles grew even more excited.
A true hunter doesn’t get angry at the ferocity of their quarry. They simply thank nature for its gift, for delivering such excellent prey right to them.
The green-skinned Monster Boys began to howl. They stood up on their speeding motorcycles, violently tore off their armor, and bit their own fingers, using the red blood to paint mysterious totems on their chests.
Raising their weapons, they fired wantonly into the air around them, yet not a single bullet struck the SUV ahead.
This wasn’t because of poor aim; they simply had their own unique aesthetic.
In their eyes, the people in the SUV were not comrades, but prey.
And for this prey, they would use the most primitive methods to capture them and kill them, as a sacrifice to the Gods.
Gunned their engines, one by one, the motorcycles hit ramps amidst the Monster Boys’ excited howls, soaring into the air and over the top of the SUV.
The green-skinned Monster Boys riding on the back leaped from mid-air, slamming their bodies heavily onto the roof and hood of the SUV.
They were tall and powerfully built, their dense muscles allowing their hands to latch onto the roof like hooks. No matter how Alice sped up or swerved, they wouldn’t fall off.
As more and more Monster Boys landed on the vehicle, Alice floored the accelerator, but the car couldn’t gain any more speed. Being forced to a stop seemed inevitable.
In this situation, Cuihua made his move.
He kicked out the windshield, leaped through the opening like a wildcat, then swung himself around to hang onto the front of the vehicle.
He reached back, and Duan Fei tossed him the crowbar. Cuihua caught it in a reverse grip, jammed it into the gap between a Monster Boy and the car roof, and pried upwards with all his might.
The exquisite application of force created a small lever. One by one, the cumbersome Monster Boys were flung off by Cuihua, tumbling onto the ground behind them.
These mutated Monster Boys had hides as thick as leather. Rolling off a speeding car only gave them a few scrapes. The minor pain only served to further stimulate their feral nature, and they began chasing the SUV on foot.
He gestured to the car again, and Little Fatty immediately pulled out several rods and tossed them to him.
Cuihua connected the rods, assembling the short pieces into a three-meter-long staff. The moment a Monster Boy got close, he cracked them in the corner of the eye. The intense pain forced them to stop and recover, able only to watch as the vehicle sped off into the distance.
A quarter of an hour later, the pursuing motorcycles suddenly turned away, making Cuihua, still on the roof, sigh in relief.
’Beating them is simple enough,’ he thought. ’It’s just exhausting.’
But when he turned his head and saw the scene before him, his eyes widened, and he shouted in alarm, "San—"
"Sandstorm’s coming!" Little Fatty yelled from inside the car.
The car immediately swerved. Cuihua leaped from the roof back into the vehicle, but the sky-blotting sandstorm appeared all the same, swallowing them in a sea of yellow sand.
