NOVEL FROG 035. A Small Matter
- A Small Matter
"There's a lake... Cough, cough! What's this smell? It's so pungent..." Qiu Ran was choked by the smell and couldn't help but ask.
"Idiot, in this freezing cold outer world, a lake emitting a faint glow, could it be a normal lake?" Nuo Mi crouched down, touching the snow on the ground.
"Tire tracks."
Li Aozzi noticed:
"The traces are fresh, a convoy passed through not long ago—it looks like one vehicle separated from the group."
"Is it the White Fang gang?"
"Not sure. It could also be other wanderers."
Li Aozzi shook his head. Such things were hard to determine. He took out a short knife and blade from his backpack, attaching them to his waist.
"We can't drive over!" Nuo Mi said: "There's a landslide here, we can't drive further, let's get closer on foot."
"You stay here and watch the car. We'll go."
Li Aozzi gave instructions, then camouflaged the vehicle and set off towards the lake with Nuo Mi on foot.
The outer world storms were too strong, and the soil was unstable. Even with a map, it was useless. Wind could move mountains into valleys overnight.
Judging by the tire tracks, there weren't many people, possibly wanderers looking for warm areas to escape the cold.
After a few hundred steps, they saw the truth of the glowing lake: from the distant hills, ten pipes the size of trucks extended from the mountain mouth, continuously discharging dirty, hot wastewater. The water poured down from dozens of meters high, various garbage, waste, sludge, and body remnants naturally washed up and piled along the shore, forming a dike.
"Damn it... Frost scum!"
Nuo Mi cursed:
"Look over there—what is that?!"
Li Aozzi followed her pointed finger: near a rock, several discarded containers were piled up, clearly marked with a conspicuous yellow-black radiation symbol.
"Radioactive waste."
Li Aozzi said:
"So, it's a Frost waste discharge pipe, no surprise. There was a once prosperous country that dumped nuclear waste into the sea."
"Those bastards, scum, worse than pigs and dogs, heartless and despicable! It's because of things like this from the Four Nations that the blue planet turned out this way!"
Nuo Mi gripped her wrench, seething with anger:
"I spit on their so-called human rights and industrial development, necessary sacrifices—people of the Four Nations prospered by sucking the blood of all the blue planet's people... and they call us Rose Army terrorists, 'Purify Society' Frost, Tianhuan, Red Arrow, each and every one of them, the biggest terrorists are the Four Nations!"
Li Aozzi didn't deny it. Nuo Mi's words were harsh but not wrong.
He checked the surroundings. Someone had been here, rested briefly for warmth, and then left.
"Someone was here, sitting on that scrapped TV set. They must have just gone into the wastewater, leaving a puddle of vomit with blood clots... probably went into the wastewater looking for food."
Following the footprints on the ground, Li Aozzi soon found a corpse, next to a self-assembled car.
It was just a wanderer. He vomited everywhere and, in agony, shot himself in the head.
Li Aozzi stabbed the corpse's eye socket to confirm the kill, then searched the body. The gear was in terrible condition, worse than his own.
Nuo Mi stood behind him, cautiously surveying the surroundings.
Fortunately, he had no companions. Nuo Mi climbed into the assembled car and rummaged through it, finding only a tattered "Children's Stories" book and a short paintbrush.
After flipping through it, Nuo Mi threw the book out. One page, depicting a gentle female illustration, was covered in various disgusting marks and yellow-white stains... Nuo Mi didn't need to guess what the book's owner did with it.
Hearing Li Aozzi analyze the cause of the man's death, Nuo Mi muttered:
"What could he find to eat there... Stupid fool."
"Dead is dead, don't be so harsh—this car still has 42 liters of fuel, go get the barrels and siphon the fuel."
"Got it." Nuo Mi rubbed her hands, ran back to the car, grabbed the siphon and barrels, and collected the remaining fuel from the vehicle.
"So, did you find anything on the body?"
"I found a letter. His name was probably Benny? Dixon. He heard from a friend that his mother was killed by bandits, so he wanted to join the Rose Army for revenge. There was also a ring made from a pull tab, a keepsake from his mother."
Since it didn't trigger a quest, Li Aozzi crumpled the letter and threw it away. The pull tab ring was meaningless junk, so he tossed it into the wastewater lake.
[Your actions have reduced Nuo Mi's affection for you by 3]
"Hmm?"
Li Aozzi glanced at Nuo Mi. She looked expressionless, yet seemed to care about such things.
Though the affection was reduced, Li Aozzi didn't mind.
After all, Nuo Mi was just a temporary teammate he tricked into joining, ready to be discarded when no longer useful.
"Benny... what a pitiful guy. But the Rose Army doesn't have time to deal with outer world bandits."
Nuo Mi shook her head:
"Once we defeat the Four Nations, everything will be better."
"Every nation's rise comes with the blood and tears of others. From ancient times to now, empires have never been sacred." Li Aozzi shrugged.
"Then let's smash all these empires to pieces, tear them apart, trample them underfoot." Nuo Mi said.
"And then?"
Li Aozzi casually said:
"Then you'll find that to manage the power to overthrow empires, you must create an even stronger, more stable imperial regime. Repeating the cycle—history proves that humans are humans, they never surpass history."
"I can't think that far."
Nuo Mi shook her head:
"I'm just a stupid fool. The instructor always said I'm often mediocre, just a little wildcat who knows how to fight."
"But even a wildcat like me can't tolerate the world being like this."
"I don't know if others will make better choices, maybe there will be tyrants, new officials, and the world will be worse—but I'd rather make mistakes hundreds of times than maintain the status quo."
She gazed ahead, her single eye filled with determination:
"Under this red-black sky lies a world buried in white snow and yellow sand, a world full of despair."
She turned to Li Aozzi:
"Don't think of all this as irrelevant. This is our world. Whether it's me or you, aren't we part of this world?"
"This isn't some reckless game. For us outer world people, the Rose Army, no, all who resist the Four Nations, are our faith."
"In fact, anyone with eyes knows fighting the Four Nations is impossible—but we do it anyway. Even if only using teeth and nails to cause them pain, this struggle proves one thing:"
"We, the creeping survivors of the outer world, are just as human, just as alive as those in the Four Nations who sit in warm rooms, eating bread, watching TV, and reading books."