Chapter 128 Iron Disease

  【Mariano family Mariano】

In addition to the family’s main residence in Zion, there are basically their family’s buildings or factories in medium and large cities in the Fourth Continent, and their firearms industry is the main pillar of the family.

 The firearms produced by Mariano are recognized by the organization. Each one is a high-quality product and can be sold at a very high price.

The family also needs to hand over a certain number of guns that meet quality standards to the organization every year in exchange for the family's private residence in Zion and business privileges.

To ensure that the firearms industry can operate normally in a diseased world, each firearms factory is supervised by gentlemen within the family, and there are also many quasi-gentlemen who have learned gun skills to patrol throughout the day.

 Three days ago,

 An old factory built in Wendel Town in the early days and about to be decommissioned has encountered major problems.

Wendel was once a small town that relied on mining. In the early stages of development, the Mariano family opened an early factory here because of various problems with materials.

 At present, some classic firearms are still being produced, which are collected by some gun lovers at high prices, and most of the workshop assembly lines have been discontinued.

As the ore was mined out a year ago, the town declined rapidly, and the family decided to close this old factory that had already realized its self-worth.

Just a week before the shutdown, something strange happened inside the factory. A group of ordinary family members who stayed in the town, and even a gentleman temporarily stationed in Wendel Town, were killed.

 Unfortunately, a groom happened to pass by the town by chance and immediately brought the situation back to Zion.

Soon an investigation team from the [Gentlemen's Hall] came here to investigate and characterize the general situation of the incident. They quickly organized it into a task event and brought it back to the hall for processing by the new gentleman.

Since the incident was directly related to Mariano's factory, the staff of the Gentlemen's Hall also came to the family mansion in person to inform them of the incident.

Edmund had some insights during the process of breaking his arm. Since his body had recovered, he took the initiative to handle the matter. At the same time, he also called his former partner, Dagbert, the giant man in the north.

 Juliana did not participate due to health problems.

At that time, Yi Chen was in the task evaluation period, so Edmund didn't call him.

In addition to Edmund's two-person team, there is another team of gentlemen participating together, which is a cooperative mission.

According to the testing conducted by the investigation team, the number of patients in Wendel Town has exceeded double digits, and the source of deaths, injuries, and infections in the town is suspected to have reached severe illness.

 …

  【Wendell Town】

 Before you even enter the town, you can smell a strong smell of crude oil, industrial waste liquids, heavy metals and other by-products. If you open your mouth, you can even taste them.

 The entire town was shrouded in thick fog, with a black substance suspected to be soot floating.

· Factory buildings account for 70%. Chimneys of various sizes are dotted throughout the town. They are all products of the previous era and most of them have been abandoned.

 At present, the whole town is deserted.

There are some strange corpses scattered on the street.

They are all humanoid but not completely human. They have the same characteristics. The stiff flesh covered with corpses is mixed with a large amount of metal components, and even has a barrel structure that can fire.

 The barrel may exist in the fingers, in the eyes, or may be hidden in the mouth or even in some special places.

This disease related to contemporary firearms craftsmanship is not a separate category, but a subcategory of "iron disease".

  Also known as "Iron Disease-Firearm Variant".

 In the early stages of infection, individuals are extremely fond of substances containing iron (or other metal elements) and will swallow metal substances privately to satisfy their desire to eat. They will also wear various metal products with them. The more the better.

 In the middle and late stages of infection, the individual's skin will become obviously ironized, and the gun body structure will begin to appear.

 When he becomes a sick person, his basic form has already been formed. He can pour out firepower arbitrarily and replenish his bullets by swallowing and absorbing metal.

Such patients are quite dangerous. Their iron bodies represent extremely high defenses, and their iron skin needs to be broken through before they can damage the core of their bodies.

In addition to the threat of fire, they can also remove the iron element from the human blood through physical contact, thereby causing rapid death.

 …

but,

The two gentlemen teams that came here have killed all the infected and sick people in the streets of the town.

Only Mariano's factory, the origin of the gun infection, is left waiting for final treatment.

Although it is very old and belongs to the earliest batch of factories established, its scale is not small at all. Due to the continuous growth of the firearms business, the factory has undergone several expansions.

 The time has come to night.

 It has been more than three hours since the two teams entered it.

More than ten minutes have passed since the last shooting. During this time, there was no movement and no one left the factory.

 The situation inside was worse than expected.

The two teams were forced to separate for some reason and hid in different rooms. They did not dare to act rashly until they could figure out a way to "break the situation", and both teams suffered varying degrees of injuries.

  【Staff Breakroom-03】

The fair-haired Edmund and Dagbert are hiding here,

 The door is sealed with a time-sensitive sealing paper.

Dagbert was lying flat on the staff table. His strong and huge body, protected by gentleman's clothes, was still wounded by bullets.

To make matters worse, the bullets left in his body are eating away at his flesh over time, leading him to death.

  Only a bullet hole less than the size of a little finger is left on the body surface.

The bullets shot into the body are accurately lodged between the organs and main blood vessels, constantly absorbing the iron content in the body.

 Seven minutes have passed since he was hit by the bullet. The bullet, which has grown by absorbing iron elements, has even reached 1.5 times its original size.

An ordinary person would have died long ago, but Dagbert relied on his special physique and injected drugs to hold on.

 Now surgery must be performed to remove these bullets at all costs.

As for Edmund, although he was only shot once, he was still in bad condition.

He leaned against the wall and cut open his abdomen with a red-hot sword, cutting out the bullet embedded in the flesh.

 After a simple bandage, he immediately came to Dagbert's side.

 The two looked at each other, nodded slightly, and did not communicate in any words.

Edmund immediately put the sword blade to the lower part of Dagbert's chest, preparing to open the gun and take the bullets out of it.

Snapped! There was a noise at the window.

Edmund turned his head to look and saw that there was a thick branch connected to the outside, followed by something crawling along the branch, until an all-too-familiar face was pressed against the window.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 shall be made by using small, soft branches to damage the corners of the window, and the window frame will be removed without making any sound.

Yi Chen easily climbed into the room along the plants, and at the same time, a colorful figure also jumped into it.

 “William!”

Just when Edmund was surprised as to why Yi Chen appeared here,

 The latter has quickly reached Dagbert's side,

 Two warm and vibrant palms were placed near the bullet holes, and the deformed and bulging bullets were removed one after another by plant roots.

Not only that,

Dagbert could also feel a different kind of vitality being injected into his body through the plants, like new water flowing through his body. As a result, new blood was born, quickly replacing those that had been stripped of iron elements. Waste blood is excreted from the body.

 It’s only been more than two months since I last saw you.

Lying on the table, Dagbert felt that the former teammate in front of him seemed to have reached a higher level, and even looked a little strange.

 (End of this chapter)