Jiang Qi had always understood one thing.
In the wasteland, the ceiling of your wealth was never determined by your ability to make money.
It was determined jointly by three things: your strength, your power, and your influence.
No matter how much wealth you possessed, once it exceeded that limit, the excess had to be hidden away and slowly digested over time.
That was exactly the problem Old Tommy had run into.
And Jiang Qi's cooperation with the scavengers was, in essence, his way of expanding his influence while also cultivating a small power base of his own.
He had always known that doing so would bring him returns.
What he had not expected was for those returns to come so quickly.
And the one who brought him that return, of all people, just happened to be Roke.
Before meeting Old Homa, Roke could be said to be the only person in town Jiang Qi truly trusted.
Among the local scavengers, Roke was the youngest. He had only just turned twenty this year, making him half a year younger than Jiang Qi.
When Jiang Qi had first transmigrated here, knowing nothing and being treated like a joke by the other scavengers, it had been Roke who reached out a hand to him and led him onto the path of a scavenger.
Although scavengers always kept their distance while working in order to avoid conflict, and so the relationship between Jiang Qi and Roke had later settled at the level of "acquaintances," Jiang Qi had never forgotten that kindness.
And at the same time, he had always admired Roke's kindness.
In the wasteland, kindness was not always a good thing.
But precisely because of that, it was all the more precious.
That was why, when choosing his partners, the first person Jiang Qi had sought out was Roke.
"My friend, I'm really glad that in the end, you were the one who got it," Jiang Qi said as he took his helmet down from the rack and handed it to Roke.
"This is...?" Roke took the helmet, and just from the workmanship and materials alone, he immediately realized it was no ordinary piece of equipment.
"Gelong D3.2 multifunction industrial helmet," Jiang Qi said. "It has both night vision and air filtration. It runs on a low-grade energy core, and one full charge is enough to keep it going for about a week. If you still have time to go scavenging in the garbage mountains, it'll come in handy."
The moment Roke heard the explanation, his eyes lit up. As a scavenger, he obviously understood exactly what this thing meant.
"Of course, this helmet alone definitely isn't worth as much as that railgun..." Jiang Qi said as he stuffed several low-grade energy cores and two high-grade alloy ingots into Roke's arms. "Mm... this should be about right? No, wait, feels like I should still add a little more..."
"No, no, no, this is enough, really enough," Roke quickly said. "When I got that thing from Old Tommy, I only paid about this much. Besides, you've already given me such a great helmet."
Strictly speaking, if one calculated by market price, a heavy single-soldier weapon in such excellent condition, complete with packaging, accessories, and ammunition, really was worth more than what Jiang Qi was currently offering.
But how valuable something was, and how much money you could actually get for selling it, were not the same thing.
Old Tommy understood that too. So after Roke offered the highest price he could possibly afford, the old man accepted it.
And for Roke, the value of this helmet alone might already exceed that of the electromagnetic cannon.
After all, the former was a divine tool for a scavenger, while the latter was merely an expensive item that could only be exchanged for money.
"Mm... all right. Carrying too much money on you isn't a good thing anyway. In any case, I'll remember this favor," Jiang Qi said, patting Roke on the shoulder. "If you ever need help with anything later, come find me."
"Haha, if you say it like that, I'm really going to take you seriously," Roke said with a broad grin.
"Relax, do I look like the type to fool you?" Jiang Qi shook his head with a smile. "Nothing else, right? Want to sit down and have a drink? I've got some liquor and bread packed from the restaurant, plus a can of luncheon meat."
"Sure. Perfect timing, I haven't eaten dinner yet," Roke said without any pretended politeness.
Wasteland nights were boring. Being able to drink and watch mech fights with someone was already a pretty decent form of entertainment. This wasn't even the first time the two of them had done something like this.
It worked out nicely: one of them wasn't convenient to go out, and the other was a scavenger who couldn't join the nighttime crowds at the restaurant anyway. Setting up a little private gathering in the workshop was ideal.
The two immediately sat down in the workshop's break area. Jiang Qi brought over the food and drinks he had prepared, while Roke skillfully operated his phone and cast the image onto the wall-mounted display inside the workshop.
They opened the mech-fight match recording they hadn't finished last time, and while eating and drinking, they chatted on and off.
The recording they were watching was none other than the full match of one of Glaxia's championship-winning 1v1 duels.
At the moment, however, Glaxia herself had not yet entered the arena. On screen, two other battle maidens with completely different styles were locked in fierce combat.
"Oh, right," Roke said casually between bites of bread, "I heard from scavengers in the neighboring town that a few Hunters have shown up over there recently, and that they might come to our town next. If they really do, I'm definitely going to take a look and see whether they're really as monstrous as the rumors say."
"Hunters?" Jiang Qi asked, puzzled. "What are those?"
"You don't know?" Roke looked at him in surprise.
"Nope. Are they really that famous?" Jiang Qi asked.
"Rather than famous, they're practically wasteland legend-level," Roke said. "Mostly because those people move around like ghosts. Nobody ever knows where they'll appear."
"Really? I've honestly never heard of them," Jiang Qi said, making himself a simple sandwich by夹ing a slice of luncheon meat between two pieces of bread. "Tell me everything you know."
"Sure," Roke said with a nod, and then told Jiang Qi everything he knew about the Hunters.
The Hunters were a mysterious group. Almost all of them wrapped themselves up so thoroughly in gear that they looked like living bundles, and they almost never removed that equipment in front of outsiders.
Even when eating or drinking, they would not take off their helmets. At most, they would only open the section covering the mouth.
Very few people had ever seen a Hunter's real face. Because of that, most people identified them not by appearance, but by their equipment.
Hunter gear was not only complete, it was absurdly luxurious. And every Hunter's equipment was unique and highly personalized.
No one believed that wasteland people could obtain gear that good on their own, so almost everyone thought the Hunters had some kind of connection to the Heavenly Palace—even if neither side had ever admitted it.
Because they had extravagant equipment and were suspected of being linked to the Heavenly Palace, ordinary wastelanders were unwilling to provoke Hunters.
Of course, the Hunters themselves did not seem particularly interested in bothering with other people either.
They were always busy, yet almost no one knew what they were actually busy with.
There was, however, a rumor that whenever unrest in a region became especially severe, Hunters would be drawn there.
And then, the strongest gang or gangs in that area would suddenly suffer severe losses, after which the entire local power structure would be reshuffled.
Because of that rumor, many gangs feared the Hunters and regarded them as a natural disaster in human form.
Coincidentally, the Hunters seemed to have little interest in gang power as well, so most of the time the two sides simply stayed out of each other's way.
That said, there were also occasional stories of people becoming friends with Hunters. According to those people, Hunters were not all that special after all, and most of them were actually quite easy to get along with.
"That's about everything I know," Roke said, taking a drink.
"They sound like a special forces unit meant to keep the peace," Jiang Qi said, rubbing his chin. "Why would they come to our town? Things around here have been pretty peaceful lately, haven't they?"
"I heard they're looking for something, but nobody knows exactly what," Roke said. "Anyway, it definitely has nothing to do with people like us."
"Yeah... true enough..." Jiang Qi nodded, but inwardly, he began to feel uneasy.
An armed group connected to the Heavenly Palace, showing up in the area at exactly this time to search for something...
Could this have something to do with Glaxia?
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 175)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 119)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter79)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter125)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 73
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 55
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 66
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 64
The Way the Umamusume Look at 63
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 55
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 45
Zenless Zone Zero, but Kamen R 31
Multiverse Crossover: The Perf 31
My Cyberpsycho Girlfriend 31
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