CHAPTER 249: CHAPTER 250 MAGICAL REALITY

The sand buggy was quickly stored into the Storage Space, leaving the Little Ice Lizards to keep watch.

Lin Yue donned the Exoskeleton, placing the Alloy Tactical Crossbow and Steel Repeating Crossbow, both ready to fire, at his feet.

The shotgun and M19, two close-range tactical weapons, were also loaded, and finally, he lowered the bipod of the Sniper Rifle, crawling to aim the highest magnification Sighting Scope at the distance.

Less than 2 kilometers away, what appeared in the Sighting Scope was not what he had initially thought, which was a Lizardman unit.

Or rather, it wasn’t solely a Lizardman unit.

"Humans and Lizardmen?" Lin Yue took a deep breath, glancing again.

He didn’t see wrongly.

Through the Sighting Scope, he was puzzled to see Survivors wielding pickaxes to mine, all clad in tattered clothes. No weapons were visible, but behind them, those Lizardmen were fully armed.

The weapons in the Lizardmen’s hands gleamed metallically in the sunlight, completely different from the stone guns and blades he had seen before.

What’s going on here?

Lizardmen forcing humans into hard labor? What kind of fantastical plot was this?

Lin Yue looked more carefully and found that it wasn’t just this small area; there were humans in similar conditions elsewhere too.

Regardless of gender or age, everyone was tirelessly wielding pickaxes under the blazing sun, but there seemed to be fewer Lizardmen than them.

Strange, how could humans be enslaved?

Don’t they have systems?

As long as they shout out in a group or in the world channel on the system panel, surely other humans wouldn’t sit idly by, right?

Lin Yue opened the system panel, finding the group and world channels full of discussions on how to face the disaster coming the day after tomorrow, with some praising him exaggeratedly, and continuously analyzing his combat abilities.

Lin Yue skipped these, directly searching for terms like "Lizardman", "enslavement", "captured", "trapped", combining them logically for sequential searches.

However, the conclusion was that Lin Yue didn’t find any chat content about this matter.

He pondered, deciding to inquire Xing Lingfeng.

He’s experienced and knowledgeable, maybe he has some information?

"Xing Lingfeng, I have something to ask, are you available?"

Almost as soon as he sent the message, he received a reply.

"I’m here, go ahead."

Wow, is he online 24 hours a day? Lin Yue was a bit worried about his Refugee Village; being online constantly isn’t good.

"It’s like this, you guys went to the Underground Ruins before, right? Have you encountered Lizardmen?"

"We’re old acquaintances; it’s always a life-and-death struggle. They’re not that strong, but they have the advantage of terrain knowledge and numbers. We’ve suffered a lot from them."

The other side said quite a bit, which was entirely consistent with what Lin Yue knew.

"Have you ever encountered a situation where Survivors and Lizardmen were together?" Lin Yue got straight to the point.

"Never. We’ve found corpses in a strange large room, and discovered that they are cannibals."

Lin Yue understood that there wasn’t any useful information from Xing Lingfeng to provide.

What Xing Lingfeng knew, he knew, and what he knew, Xing Lingfeng seemingly didn’t know.

Strange, why haven’t these people called for help? Aren’t they detected by others?

Lin Yue’s doubts grew larger.

He asked Liu Kai next and received almost the same information.

As for Fei Yue, there was still no response.

"Puchi! Puchi!" The four Little Ice Lizards on guard in four directions issued warnings to Lin Yue, who immediately picked up the M19 Pistol, also grabbing the shotgun beside him.

However, he quickly put the shotgun down, switching to the Alloy Tactical Crossbow, using Armor-Piercing Arrows.

The shotgun had great power, but a louder sound.

Firing it would draw a lot of attention, likely bringing many Lizardman troops over for trouble.

The M19’s infrared Sighting Scope soon fixed a red dot on the head of a Lizardman emerging from an unknown burrow.

Whoosh!

The silencer minimized the gunshot sound, though not entirely silent.

The Lizardman about to launch an attack dropped dead on cue!

[You’ve obtained a Copper Treasure Chest!]

Got it, got it.

Just a Copper Treasure Chest...

"Sa! Sa... woo!"

[You’ve obtained a Copper Treasure Chest!]

"Sa!"

[You’ve obtained a Copper Treasure Chest!]

...

Twelve in total.

Lin Yue continued aiming.

He didn’t let the Little Ice Lizards take action; there would be plenty of opportunities for them to do so, no need to rush now.

"Sa!"

...

Fourteen Lizardmen fell, only managing to utter a "Sa" before meeting death.

Such is the terror of thermal weapons.

With two bullets left in the magazine, Lin Yue didn’t want to risk getting caught in a bind, quickly loading a new magazine.

As long as he didn’t make any major moves, there would be no reaction from over there.

Whoosh!

Another one.

This Lizardman had been in the cave, seemingly trying to seize the Copper Treasure Chests from its fallen comrades, but Lin Yue wasn’t giving it the chance.

After finishing off this one, the Little Ice Lizards finally quieted down.

Their sensory abilities were crucial to Lin Yue.

After picking up 15 Copper Treasure Chests, Lin Yue once again grabbed the Sniper Rifle.

The mining site remained unchanged.

Lin Yue watched the mining Survivors, still unable to solve the riddle in his heart.

Strange, why? Were they enchanted by some potion from the Lizardmen, now mere zombies?

He increased the magnification to the maximum, carefully observing a Survivor closest to him, and suddenly noticed something unexpected.

Another Survivor came over, greeted him, and the two even chatted with smiles!

Behind them, the Lizardmen acted as if they didn’t see it, neither urging nor using force to drive them.

Hmm? What’s going on here?

Lin Yue was increasingly confused, this was too abnormal.

Weren’t you captives of the Lizardmen? Were you not akin to slaves? Shouldn’t you have been dejected or outrageously indignant?

How could you even smile?

Lin Yue aimed the sight at others, finding none of the imagined misery, everyone appeared relaxed.

Wait.

Could it be...

Lin Yue immediately thought of another possibility.

He took a deep breath, using the Sniper Rifle to aim at the leg of a Lizardman beside some Survivors.

Bang!

The bullet swiftly hit the target!

Even though he couldn’t hear its screams, in the Sighting Scope, the Lizardman was rolling frantically, blood pouring out.

He then looked at the nearby mining Survivors.

After brief surprise and panic, someone squatted down, while another took a cloth-like item, bandaging the Lizardman’s leg!

Lin Yue exhaled.

Indeed.

They weren’t captured or enslaved.

Instead...