Chapter 115 Searching

The three decided to start their search from the nearest crash site.

The first crash site was in the nearby primeval jungle, so it could be said that the data terminal had chosen a decent landing spot. The three roughly tidied up their campsite, leaving the luggage that was difficult to carry under the giant rock. Each of them took the necessary food and water and entered the alien jungle, which was unknown and hidden with secrets. As for the road-opening tools, there was no need to bring them. These three supermen were more than capable of splitting mountains and cracking rocks.

The plants on this planet were more gigantic and magnificent than what Hao Ren had seen on Earth, whether it was trees, shrubs, or grass. The most common thing in the jungle was a kind of large tree with a uniform thickness from top to bottom. The trunk of this kind of plant was often at least as thick as two or three people could embrace. There were no branches from the ground to a height of ten meters, and then distinct and symmetrically distributed strong forks began to appear. Its leaves were wide and dense, and such a giant tree could almost cover a diameter of more than ten meters of the sky. Moreover, dark green vines could be seen wrapped around its dark brown trunk. Every giant tree trunk had vines, which made people marvel—they should have reached some kind of strict symbiotic relationship, so that individuals who could not carry out symbiosis were eliminated by nature.

The oxygen content in the jungle's air seemed to be higher. The towering trees around and the large bushes seen along the way seemed to be producing oxygen at a rate far exceeding that of plants on Earth. Their physiological structure must be very different from that of plants on Earth. Perhaps this is why this planet only has 20% land, but has a higher oxygen concentration than Earth—of course, these are just Hao Ren's wild guesses. His professional knowledge in this area is really pitiful, probably not even as good as his own dog.

The road in the forest was not easy to walk. There was no road at all. Everywhere was uneven ground and thick fallen leaves. Under the fallen leaves were hidden invisible caves or treacherous aerial roots. Hao Ren and the other two felt very strenuous walking here with one foot deep and the other shallow. At this time, Hao Ren was a little envious of Vivian: the vampire girl must be in her element here. The space between those giant trees was open, and she could fly around like a happy bat spirit…

Occasionally, strange beasts or huge birds could be seen flashing by between the nearby trees. These primitive native creatures were quite agile. Facing unfamiliar outsiders, timid native animals would suddenly flee like forest phantoms. Of course, the three also encountered some seemingly quite mighty carnivorous beasts, but these beasts posed no threat at all. They ran away as soon as they met Izhaks: the movement of the great demon opening the way was too loud.

"Boom—" A roar echoed in the forest. Izhaks waved his hand and threw out a ball of compressed air as hot as fire, turning the vines and fallen branches and leaves blocking the road into flying ash. Thanks to the great demon's endless spells and tank-like propulsion ability, Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue were actually relatively relaxed following behind. Nangong Wuyue looked at the hot air surrounding Izhaks and his fierce behavior of constantly throwing compressed air cannons, and stuck out her tongue a little fearfully: "Super violent mage, I'm most afraid of hot air… it's easy to get dehydrated."

A fire-specialized great demon and a water-specialized siren, it was not easy for these two to be in the same team.

"Be careful, don't cause a forest fire!" Hao Ren called out to Izhaks from behind. "The oxygen content here is high, and there's only this one piece of land on the whole planet. You could cause big trouble if you're not careful!"

Izhaks turned his head and grinned while clearing the way: "Don't worry, I'm using magic. Even if these air masses produce flames, they definitely won't spread. By the way, how much longer until we get there?"

"Soon, soon," the data terminal floated easily in the air, displaying a holographic image of the forest ahead, with a red dot marked as the destination already within reach in front of everyone. "Within ten minutes you'll be there."

"This is already the third ten minutes, I really can't walk anymore," Nangong Wuyue muttered. As a siren, her physical strength was not enough for this kind of road condition. At the same time, she was a little worried, "By the way, the new tenant… will he be alright? The cargo container has been dropped here for several days, and it was a forced landing…"

"No problem," the data terminal moved up and down as a nod. "This unit has checked the model of that cargo container. It's a brand-name product manufactured by the New Eden Federation, with strict protection equipment inside. Even if the outer layer is completely burned, it can maintain a stable environment for one month, and the ‘product description’ says, ‘the transported goods are in a state of suspended animation storage.’ This unit estimates that it means hibernation."

"You don't even know what the situation is with the new tenant?" Hao Ren looked at the data terminal strangely. "I thought you knew the inside story."

"Don't you think about what Raven 12345's style is—it's already good enough that she remembered to tell this unit the original carrier company."

Hao Ren thought about it, and he didn't pursue the question any further. Everything would be clear when they found the cargo container. Nangong Wuyue then muttered to herself with a strange expression: "I feel like this is weird… It's clearly sending someone over, why do they keep saying ‘cargo container’?"

Before the data terminal had time to explain the large pile of proper nouns, Izhaks' loud voice came from the front: "Hey, I see smoke! It should be ahead!"

Nangong Wuyue, who was already prepared to act spoiled and refuse to move, immediately perked up when she heard this. She and Hao Ren looked up, and sure enough, they could vaguely see a column of smoke rising crookedly in the depths of the dense forest. But judging from the looks of it, there were no signs of a fire. The three of them immediately quickened their pace. After a burst of fast travel through the forest, the situation at the first crash site appeared before everyone:

The jungle had been cleared out by a violent impact and explosion into a large open space. Within a circular area with a radius of hundreds of meters was a radial large impact crater. The trees on the edge of the impact crater had fallen to the east and west. Charred marks could be seen on many of the tree trunks. In the impact crater, the dark brown soil had been rolled up, and smoldering embers could still be seen in several soil pits. At the bottom of the pit, the appearance of the wreckage could be seen: it was a large mass of metal waste that was no longer recognizable. It could only be roughly judged that it was once an oval, egg-shaped object that was more than ten meters long. Its broken metal stubble was still sparking, and the surrounding air was filled with a pungent smell.

Hao Ren saw a large number of scorch marks and traces of small-scale fires near the impact crater. Obviously, there had been a short-term fire when the crash occurred, but it was possible that the plants in this forest had a natural fire resistance (fiber tubes with high water content, closed and flame-retardant bark, and leaves covered with keratinous protective layers). The short-term fire did not cause a forest fire, otherwise it was really unknown what such a large forest would be burned into.

"This shouldn't be the cargo container, right…" Hao Ren had never seen what a cargo container used for interstellar transport looked like, but he didn't think the large pit here looked like a successful forced landing, so he was a little doubtful.

"It should be the propulsion group and control group of the transport aircraft," the data terminal flew over the wreckage and slowly scanned the wreckage shell with a blue light curtain. "Most of the components have been burned down, including the recorder. It looks like a wasted trip."

Hao Ren looked at the scene after the alien spaceship crashed and suddenly realized a very serious problem: "Wait, Raven 12345 originally intended to let those pit cargo called goblins send the cargo container directly to Earth, right?"

"Yes."

Hao Ren immediately jumped half a meter high: "What do you mean yes?! You're saying she intended to let this thing fall directly on Earth?!"

"I didn't know the transport aircraft would crash before," the data terminal dodged Hao Ren's saliva slightly. "Goblin technology doesn't explode every time, sometimes it also lands successfully… and to be honest, if it really entered the atmosphere on Earth, Raven would personally monitor it and definitely not let it smash directly on the ground like here…"

Hao Ren doubted whether that goddess sister could do this. At this time, he sincerely rejoiced in one thing: fortunately, this thing deviated by more than 800 light-years! Otherwise, if such a thing fell in a human downtown area, he wouldn't have to watch other news on TV for the next six months!

"Forget it, it's a wasted trip, let's go to another place." Nangong Wuyue squatted on the ground dejectedly. "The other place is in the mountains… do we have to climb a mountain?"

Just as Hao Ren and Nangong Wuyue were preparing to leave here, Izhaks suddenly discovered something: "Wait a minute, I feel like there's something here!"