Chapter 353: Finding 'Family'

The Great Wall Project has been flourishing steadily. After setting the ghost images for the Great Wall around the outer perimeter of the towns, Jun let the laborers fill the required materials on their own and left them to their jobs.

He started to focus on the neighboring capital city that was teeming with threats. The citizens capable of fighting in the frontlines have already accepted daily quests to kill carriers in the city. With the current threat level, each expedition had to have around fifty fighters in order to hunt safely. 

Jun let the others fight the easy battles and hunted evolved carriers on his own. Things were much better and easier this way. He doesn't have to worry about others while fighting with his all.

On the other hand, the Black Haven Elites would always act as the spearhead for every operation, keeping everyone safe and maintaining momentum.

Sometimes, he would look back and gaze at the people fighting the hordes behind him. All the familiar and new faces were giving their all with every charge they did. Still, he could only feel emptiness, watching everyone trying so hard to fight and protect the people they love.

Among the familiar faces who were fighting, one face who always had a smile on his face was missing.

Edward left two days ago to search for his family and asked for a temporary vacation. After not receiving any news about his family from General Corwin, he decided that it was best to take action himself. Together with his blind follower, he joined the Northern Expedition in search of his family.

Jun dodged another Hunter lunged and started another clash with a pack of Rank 2 Hunters. If he leveled up the proper way and had the same stats as everyone, he would have already become shredded meat with the organized quick attacks of the enemies.

Unfortunately, he wasn't like the others. 

With the help of the improved Time Perse, he was able to use the skill for a longer time. The energy reduction cost per second became a great help and a great synergy for his newly obtained skill Time Lapse.

He consumes 0.5 energy per second every time he moves inside the stopped time. Inside the zone, everyone's consciousness was retained but anyone with a lower energy level than the user cannot move.

Normally, he doesn't have to use Time Lapse when fighting evolved carriers since they have higher energy levels than him. However, some Hunters turned out to be experienced killers and don't want to waste energy. Those were the times that he needed to use such skills. 

Time Lapse was a great skill for wasting an opponent's energy, especially if they were human. With all the treasures he already ate, he doesn't believe that there would be any other person who had a higher energy pool than him.

After dodging a couple of times, Jun was able to find the right moment to counter-attack and started killing the pack of Hunters.

The last Hunter sensed that it couldn't win and decided to run away in the opposite direction. After clashing and dodging, Jun and the carriers actually changed sides. The Hunter didn't notice someone from behind the horde paying attention to it.

Jun wanted to chase after it but saw a fireball struck the Hunter directly on its face. The Hunter's face became charcoal as the skin and flesh were heavily burned.

On the other side of the horde, Lynnana rode her pet dog while sending fireballs using a fire staff. Regular carriers can't do anything with her advance, and the evolved carriers that came from other directions were being slaughtered before they could even come closer.

Lynnana started chugging on all kinds of refreshments to keep her energy regeneration high. She flashed a playful smirk at Jun, then winked at him. Afterward, she tapped the neck of her pet dog and the two continued clearing the horde.

"Family... Mother... I know that you're already capable of surviving on your own. Should I even look for you?" Jun looked up to the clear sky. "Do you even want me to look for you?"

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The Northern Expedition was already halfway on their journey and except for the rapid consumption of rations, there have been no problems so far.

Even if there are wicked groups who wanted to mess with them, they have to consider fighting a group of hundreds of thousands of people. No matter how brave they were, it was impossible to win that kind of battle!

The greatest threat they had was food, followed by wild mutated animals. Unlike humans, mutated animals didn't care for their safety and charge wildly, causing chaos all around the marching civilians.

The north was mainly farmland and had large distances between cities. It was one reason for the government choosing to risk and move here. They were hoping to gather all kind of animals and be able to breed them, while also secluding themselves from the millions of population in crowded cities.

Hidden inside the marching group, one young man with slightly grown hair looked left and right, searching for something in the sea of people. A man around his late twenties, wearing sunglasses, followed casually behind him.

It was Edward and Matt in the middle of the marching people. Edward didn't waste any time after arriving and immediately started searching for his family. Every time that the caravan stopped to let the people rest, he would double his efforts in searching. 

For two days, he continued searching without resting. The dark layer under his eyes continued to grow and he had no plans to stop,

There were moments that he doubted whether he already passed them and just didn't notice them due to not paying attention.

There were times that he wanted to shout just to attract everyone's attention, hopefully chancing to locate his family. Still, he kept his reason and slowly swept forward.

Matt Rojan just kept following Edward obediently, without saying a word. He was blind and could only see the surrounding two meters around him. He could increase the range of vision, but that would upset the balance he achieved with energy consumption and regeneration. Though he was blind and his world is filled with darkness, he knew for a fact that his savior was in a much darker place than him.

As a lone man even before the start, he didn't have to worry about anything. His feelings were already sorted out, and anything that comes after could easily be dealt with.

During their stay here, there were already several mugging attempts against him, but they all failed. No matter how many people tried to gang up on him, he always manages to escape and even injure some of the assailants.

This caused them to come under the radar of the military. Edward explained his reason for being here, and they were let off with a warning. Even then, a soldier was placed on their part of the caravan to prevent any similar situations to occur.

The caravan stopped moving and the survivors on the front became boisterous.

"Why are we stopping? Another fight with a horde again?"

"It's because we're passing another major city. There are probably several groups of refugees going to be added to the total numbers."

"Then what about our food?"

Hearing the situation take a strange turn, the designated soldier immediately came to patch things up. "Everyone, please rest for now while the situation is being dealt with. After the army clears all the enemies in front, we would be moving again. Every stamina you could gather back can help us move faster."

"Hey, look! What's that?!"

In the distance, a pack of rabid dogs appeared and watched the caravan. With visual confirmation alone, their numbers could easily reach a minimum of fifteen and a maximum of twenty.

After several seconds, one of the askals barked, and the others beside it wildly dashed forward, creating small dust clouds in their wake.

The rabid dogs weren't fully corrupted but were showing signs of mutation. Their slightly large build, together with the malnourished, yet agile bodies were obvious signs of mutation enhancements. 

"It looks like they're charging right over here!"

"Or they are just excited about seeing humans again?"

"Mister Soldier Guy, do something! Call some backup! Are we just going to wait whether they are friendly or not?!"

The soldier didn't know what to do. The government's plan to fortify the front and only distribute a small number of defensive forces on the middle and the back has turned to bite their ass. Everything worked out so well, but their luck only lasted until the third day. 

If there was anything that the survivors learned by now, it was that fighting animals were far riskier than fighting carriers. Carriers have a lot of weakness and have predictable attacks, unlike animals who often rages when getting backed into a corner or when about to be killed. 

When fighting wild animals, a golden rule was understood. Kill them as fast as possible!

The soldier walked out to the outskirts of the caravan and radioed for backup. He checked the number of bullets he had and gulped upon noticing that his current magazine wasn't even full. He searched his inventory for another magazine and found another one that is also half full. 

"Fuck me." The soldier cursed and sighed, before kneeling and posturing to snipe the targets. "Please slow down, please stop... I don't want to shoot you guys. Believe me, I have far better uses with my bullets than using them to you guys."

The dogs were still 300m away but everyone was already holding their breaths, waiting for the indiscriminate shooting from the soldier.