Chapter 462 - 397: Korsan Base
Chapter 462: Chapter 397: Korsan Base
Korsan Base was a mountain village located no more than fifty kilometers from Argent.
The village’s high, commanding terrain and natural fortifications made it easy to defend and difficult to attack. The mountain villagers were all farmers, each one physically tough, with a rugged and hardy disposition.
Furthermore, the village was situated on the mountainside, with abundant resources in the mountains and a grain processing base at the foot of the mountain. It hadn’t suffered much turmoil when the apocalypse arrived.
On the contrary, because the villagers had always been strong and healthy, every single one of them had now awakened as a superpower user.
After following Lex Cross to Argent, Oscar Owen hadn’t stayed. The power distribution among Argent’s major families was complex, and Oscar, who had originally hoped to make a name for himself there, found himself suppressed and stifled by the various factions.
So, he decided to leave.
Of the group that had come with him to Argent—including his mother, Lianne Kendall, and the Water Ability User, Jane Monroe—only the three of them remained in the end.
After the three of them left Argent, they dodged zombies and scavenged for food. While being chased by a horde of zombies, they encountered refugees from Korsan City.
The group consisted of both superpower users and ordinary people, all helping one another to eke out a difficult existence within Korsan City.
But the city was under constant threat of being besieged by zombies. After several late-night attacks by zombie hordes that resulted in heavy casualties, they decided to relocate again.
The place they moved to was the present-day Korsan Base.
The people of the mountain village weren’t as simple as farmers in an ordinary rural area. They lived by fishing and hunting, and also grew various fruits and vegetables in their own farmyards.
As a result, they rarely went down the mountain to interact with outsiders.
When Oscar Owen and his group first arrived on the mountain, they were all covered in dust and grime, riddled with injuries. The mountain folk mistook them for zombies and nearly killed them on the spot.
So they found a flat piece of ground outside the village to set up camp. They would periodically go down to the grain production base at the foot of the mountain to haul back rice and grain, which they traded with the villagers.
After more than two weeks of friendly negotiation and coexistence, the mountain folk finally accepted their presence.
Zombies weren’t deterred by long or difficult journeys.
They would usually head toward places with a strong human scent. If there were higher-level zombies among them, they would even marshal their forces and attack systematically.
Although the mountain folk were hardy, they didn’t understand many of these things. Once, when two teams totaling more than a dozen villagers went down the mountain to gather supplies, they were surrounded by a zombie horde. Just when they thought they wouldn’t make it back, Oscar Owen led his people down from the mountain and fought desperately against a fire-breathing zombie within the horde, ultimately defeating the zombies.
From then on, Oscar Owen’s status in the village rose like a boat with the rising tide. He also helped the mountain folk plan the cultivation of the forest land and incorporated the factory buildings and grain production base at the foot of the mountain into his territory, in addition to their own village.
Under Oscar Owen’s leadership, everyone methodically developed their productivity. Planting, hunting, and military training—nothing was neglected.
In the territory at the foot of the mountain, a two-hundred-person team of superpower users patrolled in shifts every night, communicating with their own set of secret signals.
If any problems arose, the sentries would sound an alarm for the entire mountain village.
On several occasions, survivors fleeing from Korsan City arrived. They were first placed in temporary residences at the foot of the mountain for quarantine and observation. Only those deemed trustworthy were eventually allowed up the mountain to live with the villagers on the mountainside.
Over time, this unremarkable pre-apocalypse mountain village gradually expanded from its original four or five hundred people into a community of two thousand.
This group of two thousand was led by Oscar Owen, a Middle-level Second Level Wind Ability User, with the original village chief’s son, Titus Wade, a Middle-level First Level Fire Ability User, as his second-in-command. The rest of the two thousand had all awakened as superpower users over the past five-plus months; there wasn’t a single ordinary person among them.
It was very much a case of carving out a mountain kingdom.
An army of two thousand superpower users was a formidable force anywhere in the apocalypse.
Oscar Owen was now confident that even if he led his people back to Argent, he would absolutely be the strongest faction among its population of hundreds of thousands.
’But Argent is too complicated; I don’t want to wade into those muddy waters,’ he thought. ’Life in this mountain village is carefree, and I’m the one in charge. Why would I go back to that place just to ask for trouble?’
On this day, the sky was gray and hazy, but it was business as usual at Korsan Base. At the foot of the mountain stood massive, solid palisades made from giant logs. The patrol teams and sentries changed shifts every four hours.
Oscar Owen, meanwhile, had taken a few people with the highest Superpower Levels to fish in the river behind the mountain.
In the apocalypse, the virus’s harm wasn’t limited to humans; it affected animals, plants, and aquatic life as well.
The fish, shrimp, and clams in the river had all grown enormous, and many of the once-small and delicious creatures had become highly aggressive.
Thanks to the mountain’s natural geographical advantages, they didn’t fear zombie sieges. Instead, the delicious aquatic life posed an even greater threat to them.
"Big Mr. Owens, this is the protective suit with gloves and boots that my dad made for you. It’ll be safer for you when you go in the water!"
A simply dressed girl with two pigtails and rosy cheeks handed a protective set with a metallic sheen to Oscar Owen.
Oscar Owen accepted it and thanked her gracefully, "Thank you, Fisher. Please thank Mr. Goldsmith for me too!"
Fisher gazed at Oscar Owen’s elegant, handsome face and his upright posture. ’The way he’s smiling gently at me... a mountain girl like me has never seen anything like it,’ she thought.
’The men from the mountain are rugged, powerful, and coarse. But Oscar Owen is different. He’s handsome with a fine build. He doesn’t have the brutish muscles of the mountain men; instead, he’s well-proportioned without looking frail.’
"Hehe, my dad said there’s no need to thank him. You’ve done so much for our village, so this is only right! Um, he also, uh, wanted to ask if you have time to come over for a meal after you’re done today."
Oscar Owen put on the protective set Fisher had given him. The suit had a metallic sheen and felt heavy in his hands, but it was surprisingly soft when he put it on.
It was like an elastic metal, and once on, it seemed to completely seal him off from the outside air.
By now, winter had set in at both Argent and Korsan City, and the weather was frigid. The moment he put on the protective set, it insulated him from the bitter cold, and Oscar Owen felt his body warm up instantly.
Fisher’s father, Winston Goldsmith, was a Gold Ability User, and a High-level one at that. He had lost a leg during a previous zombie siege while saving Fisher and other villagers. However, after being bitten by a Middle-level zombie, getting reinfected, and running a fever for three days and three nights, his superpower had surprisingly advanced by leaps and bounds.
He became the only High-level Superpower User on the mountain.
However, due to his physical disability, Winston Goldsmith couldn’t easily participate in the mountain’s activities. Instead, he used his superpower to reinforce everyone’s equipment. He had even set up a forge at home and, after purifying various metals, had actually managed to create some simple protective gear.