Chapter 556 - Robbery
At this time, a black man said out of the blue, “I joined because of the Deviant Corp logo. I think it looks really cool. Who designed it?”
Luo Yi looked over to Xu Cheng, looking a bit odd.
Xu Cheng laughed. “See? There’s finally someone with good taste.”
The logo of Deviant was a hand grabbing over the globe.
The African man asked Xu Cheng, “Is there a meaning behind it?”
“Yes.” Xu Cheng laughed and said, “It means being the arbiter, to judge, examine, supervise, protect, and override.”
The man whistled. “Looks like I made the right call joining. I really like the meaning and the icon. But, Luo Yi said only the real core members could have this tattooed on their body. I want to ask, how can one become a core member?”
Xu Cheng: “You just need to get my approval. Today’s the first time for me to meet you all, so we still aren’t familiar with each other yet. But, I have pretty high requirements for people. So, in the following days to come, I will be looking to see who suits our team, and who doesn’t.”
This sounded a bit provocative, and besides Luo Yi, the others all lifted their brows, feeling uncomfortable.
Xu Cheng didn’t care. The people here were all outlaws that have killed people and mostly communicate with their fists. It was normal for them to feel that way when being looked down by a stranger when they wanted to be treated as equals. Besides, Xu Cheng hadn’t displayed what he was capable of yet, so it was normal for these people to be dissatisfied after hearing this.
After the group rested for a bit, they got back onto the road.
As they got into their own pickup trucks, Chris instigated the African man and said, “That guy even said that to you, he clearly means that you aren’t qualified to get that tattooed on you. He obviously looks down on us, and you are okay with that?”
The African guy shrugged his shoulders. “Do you have anywhere better to go? We will just let him ride his ego a bit more. The moment he realizes that this place is tougher than he thought and that he needs us, he won’t be so arrogant anymore. But, I am indeed not comfortable hearing those words from him. What he meant was, we were never this group’s core members? Lol.”
It wasn’t just him that thought this way.
The other people were having these thoughts too. It was their first meeting with the founder of this clan, and they thought they would at least be praised a few words since they were the only few that were willing to join. But, it turned out, the founder didn’t care.
In fact, these people were more hoping that this Deviant Clan could accept them as a core member, rather than have a simple employment relationship.
However, after what Xu Cheng said, it felt as if they were the reacher in this relationship and Deviant was a top tier organization that was hard to join or something. Who would feel comfortable after hearing that?
On the truck, Luo Yi obviously knew what the other people were thinking. He bitterly smiled at Xu Cheng and said, “Big Brother Cheng, right now we should only treat them politely.”
“Not necessary. We want brothers that can really go to hell and back with us, not someone that only cares about the formalities. Very soon, we need to stir some sh-t up and conquer more land to make space for Mr. Hawking, so we don’t have time to play these little mind games with those people. If they aren’t willing to stay, then they can leave,” Xu Cheng said indifferently.
Luo Yi bitterly smiled. “But you still need them though… If we don’t have men, how can we fight a war for territory? It would be hard no matter how strong we are if we are significantly outnumbered…”
Xu Cheng didn’t say anything.
Chapter 556: Robbery (Part Two)
The fleet of ten pickup trucks left the truce zone. The moment they left, a sentry that was responsible for gathering intel picked up the radio and said, “Spotted a fleet of 10 cars, pickups, not much firepower, and they are loaded with a lot of ordinary people. There’s no marking on the trucks or clothing to tell which force they are from, probably new. They don’t seem to be from here. Judging from their clothing, most should be engineers or scientific researchers, we can prey on them.”
In these places, who would dare to say there were no eyes anywhere? There were usually scouts from different mercenary groups stationed in almost every city. Some may also be neutral, and they would record and collect intel, and sometimes, they could just turn around and sell the info to someone and it could easily return north of a couple of million dollars.
And this one is a local that’s responsible for scouting for a small-sized mercenary team that robs for a living, and he would usually be paid a percentage afterward as commission.
No one knew more about the major mercenary groups than the locals. They grew up on this land, and they knew all about what uniform and logo belong to which force, and which force was backed by which force. As for the Deviant Clan, it was indeed new.
Xu Cheng didn’t know that the moment they arrived with so many engineers, their clothing and physique would have already sold out their status as not being mercenaries.
Many roads in this land were actually just compressed dirt after cars had frequently driven over the same trails, not paved at all. So, the moment there were a lot of cars, it would raise a lot of dust, making it very easy to catch attention on the flat and barren field.
Not long after Xu Cheng’s fleet left the city, at about 20 kilometers out, there was a group of local militants on horses that began chasing and surrounding them.
There were over 50 people, and they each carried rifles as they began approaching from all sides.
Sometimes, on a road like this, pickup trucks wouldn’t be able to outrun horses. Plus, with the little hills and ditches, they are definitely not as flexible as the horses.
After several pickup trucks’ wheels were popped by some gunshots, it was impossible for the fleet to keep on running without abandoning some behind. With no other choice, Xu Cheng signaled for all the cars to stop, and they were very soon surrounded by the people on horses.
They pointed their guns at them and shouted. “Put down all of your weapons and slowly exit your trucks!”
Luo Yi and the others immediately raised their hands, and Luo Yi said, “There are civilians onboard, let’s talk this out.”
Those engineers that were originally mentally-prepared for this dangerous mission still couldn’t help but shiver when they were faced with the real deal.
In this land, people would rarely shoot people that weren’t armed. In fact, it was also usually just women and kids that weren’t armed, because once you grow to be a young teen, you would normally be taught how to use a gun and carry weapons.
However, the most annoying thing to people here were the reporters. When spotted, they would usually be killed on the spot.
It also wasn’t Lin Dong’s first time getting pointed at by a gun. The first time was by Saar’s people.
“What are you guys doing here? Who’s the person in charge? Come and speak to me,” on a horse, a man wearing a scarf and sunglasses shook the gun in his hand and shouted.
Xu Cheng jumped off the truck. He was also wearing sunglasses and he shouted back, “These guys are here for construction.”
The construction workers were usually invited in by big countries or mercenary groups to build infrastructure, so normally, people wouldn’t give them a hard time.
The leader of the robbers: “Got any national documents? If I’m not blind, you guys don’t have any flags or logos on your uniform and trucks, right?”
Then, he pointed his gun at Xu Cheng and snorted, “Don’t bother lying. Leave all the valuables behind, civilians can leave, armed people will follow us to serve.”
Serve meant serving in their military and becoming their tools.
Here, whenever an independent military group ran low on manpower due to casualties from war or something, they would go into cities and villages to capture people and force them to join, beefing up the ranks of the group.