Chapter 244: Chapter 244: Yastin, The Vextan Desert

Upon entering Yastin, Evelyn noticed the ground on both sides of the road was pitch-black, and the air was filled with the smell of coal.

As they drove from a side road onto the main one, they came across many vehicles transporting coal. While passing them, Evelyn overheard two people in one of the trucks complaining about the unpredictable weather.

Security in Yastin was extremely tight. After getting on the main road, there was a checkpoint every kilometer.

There were many coal mines here, fenced off with barbed wire or wooden stakes.

They had no intention of going into the city proper. They parked in a lot outside a mine, and Ronan took advantage of the heavy fog to procure two miner’s outfits.

The Snow Rabbits barely made a sound, so it was perfectly safe to leave them in the car. After changing into the work clothes and disguising themselves, the two of them got out and entered the mining area.

The mountain was completely bare of trees. Rows of large trucks were parked in a waiting area, and not far off stood a row of three-story buildings.

The mining area was strictly managed. Patrols came by to check on people from time to time, and armed supervisors with rifles watched over the workers. However, the two of them managed to blend in and get by. There were hundreds of mines here, with coal piled up like mountains.

Evelyn and Ronan even managed to blend in and have a meal at one of the cafeterias. There were fifteen of them in the mining area, and Evelyn estimated that hundreds of thousands of miners worked here. The food was decent enough: bone broth, radish and meat stew, and mixed noodles.

The cafeteria staff were all women, while the miners were mostly men, including children and even some men in their sixties and seventies. Everyone’s clothes, shoes, hats, hands, and faces were grimy and black. To blend in, Evelyn and Ronan had also smeared grime on themselves.

After a few hours of reconnaissance, they had a good grasp of the situation at the mines. Not wanting to delay, Evelyn planned to get to work after dark.

The coal scheduled for shipment the next day was already being loaded. Every day, hundreds of thousands of tons of coal were transported from here to various regions of Westeria.

Yastin didn’t just have coal. Other districts had mountain ranges with logging operations.

She decided against taking the wood. Given the cold, she only planned on taking a portion of the coal anyway.

After dark, the two returned to the mining area. Evelyn took all the coal from the first district and left the others untouched. After retrieving their car, they immediately left Yastin.

Yastin was huge. The drive to the Vextan Desert took three days. They pushed through heavy fog, torrential rain, and crossed mountains and rivers. On the fourth day, they finally arrived at the Vextan Desert.

The desert was a no-man’s-land. Staring out at the desolate landscape, Evelyn felt an unprecedented sense of unease.

The past few days of constant travel had left Evelyn exhausted. She parked the car, and they rested inside for ten hours before continuing their search for the salt lake.

This was Evelyn’s first time in a desert. She had always imagined deserts to be desolate and scorching hot, but this one was just bone-chillingly cold.

Before them lay an endless desert. Evelyn had no idea where the exit or the end was; all they could do was keep moving forward. Occasionally, they would startle a desert hare, which would scamper away in a flash.

On their third day in the desert, they finally found the salt lake. The water was emerald green, the salt flats were snow-white, and even the wind tasted of salt.

The salt from the lake needed to be filtered before it was edible. Evelyn took out a shovel and an electric drill and began to harvest it.

There were no signs of previous harvesting. ’Don’t the people of Westeria get their salt from here?’ Evelyn wondered.

Though Evelyn was puzzled, she didn’t slow down. The electric drill made the work go incredibly fast. They stayed for two days, which was longer than planned. Having harvested a third of the salt from the flats, Evelyn decided it was time to leave.

But Evelyn hadn’t expected that it would take her and Ronan ten days just to get out of the Vextan Desert. Worse, they hadn’t found any oil or other supplies.

By the time they were on the road to Lantir, Evelyn was feeling drained. The constant travel had exhausted her. As they entered the territory of Lantir, the temperature plummeted, and they had already ruined three tires.

Just as they were approaching Lantir, it suddenly began to rain acid. Evelyn didn’t realize what was happening until the tires began to corrode. She hadn’t expected to encounter acid rain again in Westeria. Thankfully, the downpour only lasted half an hour, but it was long enough to total one of their vehicles.

Evelyn’s unease grew. She worried about Officer Graham and his group, and she also feared that some sudden natural disaster would strike Westeria.

Lantir was no different from a pre-apocalyptic city, with its skyscrapers and flashing neon lights.

"If it weren’t for all the signs being in a foreign language, I’d think I’d time-traveled to before the apocalypse."

Evelyn patted her cheeks, trying to wake herself up a bit.

Her period had come and gone while they were in the desert. Evelyn had lost several pounds; her cheeks were hollow, and she looked haggard and miserable.

Lantir was filled with surveillance cameras, making it difficult to do anything. There were guard posts and patrolling soldiers everywhere.

That wasn’t a problem for Ronan, though. They had come to Lantir for one reason: gasoline and diesel.

In a single night, they hit three gas stations and fled Lantir before dawn. Meanwhile, Zaltar, Yastin, and Lantir were all on the hunt for the criminals who had been stealing supplies.

But what kind of criminals could empty out a port, warehouses, and gas stations overnight?

The authorities suspected it was an inside job, while the public believed the authorities themselves had embezzled all the supplies.

「Ten days later.」

Evelyn and Ronan were back in Zaltar. Nothing had changed. Scavengers still picked through the trash, drunks staggered about, and patrolmen continued to use their tiny bit of authority to bully the weak.

The number of patrols in every district of Zaltar had multiplied. People were searched and questioned coming and going, so Evelyn and Ronan could only get out by slipping through the wire fences after dark.

During the trip from Lantir back to Zaltar, Westeria was plagued by constant downpours. The temperature plummeted to thirty degrees below zero, and the drunks in the streets all froze to death.

At night, one could still see stray dogs foraging for food.

It was only after they left Zaltar and entered the forest that Evelyn felt the heavy weight lift from her chest.

It had been over a month. Though their haul was substantial, the journey had been anything but easy on either of them.

Unexpectedly, they came across two huskies in the forest, digging for food.

Upon seeing Evelyn, the huskies immediately bounded toward her, their ’intelligent’ eyes filled with excitement.

Ronan pulled them off with a displeased look, but the two huskies seemed to have latched onto Evelyn. They followed right at her heels, refusing to be shooed away.

When they reached the wire fence at the top of the Earthen Cliff, Ronan secured the Eagle Claw Hook and had Evelyn descend first. But the two huskies started howling and barking, so Ronan had no choice but to knock them out.

"Are we taking them?"

Evelyn shook her head. "They’re too energetic. They wouldn’t be happy on the boat."

Evelyn rappelled down the rope. Just before she reached the water’s surface, she instantly deployed a kayak. Ronan followed right after.

Just then, several patrolmen appeared at the top of the cliff. They shouted a few times, then began opening fire on Evelyn and Ronan.

Evelyn immediately returned fire. One patrolman hacked through the rope on the Eagle Claw Hook, sending Ronan plummeting toward the water. Evelyn frantically sprayed gunfire at the men above.

All the patrolmen fell under her barrage, but Evelyn took two bullets to the shoulder in the process.