Demon Hunter | Book 1 Prologue (15) | If Life Was Like When We First Met

Regardless of how many new refugees came from the wilderness or how many refugees mysteriously disappeared, the sun would always rise as usual.

The young man was the same as yesterday. Within the mine bathing in sunlight, the amount of ore he dug up was the same as yesterday. The items he exchanged for were the same as well. The only difference was that the amount of money he owed Crippled Peter went from five to ten cents.

A month later, whether due to having enough to eat, or because the boy became stronger himself, the amount he earned each day increased a bit. As a result, the amount he owed Crippled Peter gradually lessened.

Life in the wilderness monotonously repeated. A year of time quickly passed just like that.

In this era, being able to live monotonously was already a rare luxury. There was no need to fight against the rotting wolves over food, and he also had water without too much radiation to drink; what else could he ask for? As for boredom, that was simply a question of extravagance. Only madmen would rarely think about such a thing.

At first, many newcomers had their eyes on the boy, but the cloth strips around his body scared them away. There were at least ten greatly infectious diseases, and there were no medications that could cure these conditions. In addition, all of these illnesses had a similar trait, and that was precisely rotting. Many people had already begun to make their guesses as to how badly he had rotted under the cloth strips. They even made wagers on how much longer he could live. However, when even the date that the most daring gambler bet on passed, there were four newcomers that were daring and ignorant enough to follow the boy into the darkness. Three of them were never seen again, and the one that returned lost track of the boy. Early the next morning, the refugees found that individual hanging from the tall wooden pole outside Old Hans’ house. The bodyguards in black suits had used their dual-barreled shotguns to fire a total of ten rounds at him, yet he had not taken his dying breath yet. It seemed like on the field of torture, these men in black were quite talented.

From that day forth, the refugee newcomers all knew never to provoke that boy.

Three years passed.

The amount of ore the boy mined had already quadrupled his initial amount, but the amount of food he needed to exchange for also continuously increased, so he never had much savings. The amount of wrinkles on Old Hans’ face had also deepened a bit, and Crippled Peter’s ‘82 playboy also went from fifteen to ten pages.

During the fifth year, the amount of ore that could be mined from the caves began to gradually decrease. The happiness of a simple wilderness life had also reached its limit.

One evening, after he once again received the food and drink from Crippled Peter, Old Hans stopped him. The boy from back then that had now become a man entered into the steel house with Old Hans. The house was full of junk, but there was a bed. There really was a bed, one with a pillow and bedding. Just this bed alone was enough to distinguish Old Hans from everyone else. The youth did not give the bed more than a glance, but rather had his eyes glued to the hand-drawn map hanging from the wall. The map was extremely crude, and there were large patches of blank areas. There were even some areas that were clearly marked as dangerous in red.