Chapter 173: Sorry, Monster Hunter Players, Land Cruiser +1
According to the setting, the meteorological catastrophe on Earth in the Cadillacs and Dinosaurs world occurred in the early 2000s, but the game's release date was 1993. Capcom couldn't have been so prescient as to predict the future.
It's estimated that the programmers who created the background for the first level didn't anticipate that, while they boldly submerged iconic New York buildings like the Twin Towers and the Statue of Liberty, the Twin Towers would have already fallen a standard 'Monkey King' year by the time the game's in-world timeline corresponded to reality.
Since there was an opportunity to recreate a famous scene, Cheng Tian naturally wouldn't miss it. He could even put aside exploration of the setting and plot for a while.
However, that being said, how to get to New York was a problem that had to be faced.
The most reliable paths Cheng Tian could think of were either to travel with the player squad accompanying the protagonist group, or to see if all of Butcher's people had escaped.
In fact, when he encountered the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex's main body during the day, Cheng Tian made an early escape, but among the other two factions remaining at the scene, Butcher's family suffered almost no casualties due to their distance.
Even if Cheng Tian hadn't warned him, Butcher wouldn't have charged at a 16-meter-long, 9-meter-tall top-tier land carnivore with his dual blades. He wasn't that foolish.
At that time, the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex's main body was also eager to eat. After spitting a blast of fire towards the protagonist group, it didn't care if anyone was burned to death. It turned its head and headed straight for the scattered herbivore carcasses.
The Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex was happily feeding there, but just as it was about 70% full, Cheng Tian went to steal its eggs, ultimately leading to its hasty departure and eventual demise.
The Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex's fiery breath naturally didn't wipe out the protagonist group, but it caused them all varying degrees of burn damage, which was particularly troublesome in the wilderness.
There were no healers in the player squad accompanying the protagonist group, so they had no choice but to reluctantly use their portable healing potions to bring the protagonist group's health back up.
After all, the survival count of the four-person protagonist group was directly related to their main quest completion. To be more cynical, it wasn't yet time for them to sacrifice themselves.
As for a crucial part of the main quest, it was to defeat Butcher and stop his poaching activities.
Yes, even after being heavily blasted by the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex and almost turned into roast chicken, the protagonist group still hadn't given up their original goal. Or rather, their desire to defeat Butcher and stop the mastermind, Dr. Mediterranean, had grown even stronger.
Because in their initial understanding, the reason dinosaurs became so hostile to humans was due to poachers' slaughter, and the dinosaurs acquiring such powerful superpowers was definitely because Dr. Fessenden was doing something behind the scenes to make them this way.
The blame for being attacked by the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex was unhesitatingly placed on Dr. Mediterranean's head.
Don't tell me, if the Doctor really knew someone was blaming him for the dinosaur mutations, he wouldn't refute it. Instead, he would directly capitalize on their words to build momentum, then secretly intensify his research on deeply mutated dinosaurs, bringing himself one step closer to world domination.
Hmm, actually, the Doctor's brain was also a bit muddled from playing with himself.
He believed he possessed the most brilliant mind in the world, and dinosaurs had the strongest bodies in the world. All he had to do was combine his brilliant mind with the powerful dinosaur bodies to become the one who ruled the world... A doctor specializing in bio-genetics with a focus on research, whose basis for judging world conquest was merely simple addition. If this were a banquet, he'd definitely be seated at the same table as those people from the Dinosaur Protection Association.
But then again, before, when dinosaurs were just primitive dinosaurs, even without the protagonist group's involvement, the Doctor's ambition was still largely a pipe dream. But now that all dinosaurs have gained superpowers, his ambition truly has the potential to be realized.
However, when the protagonist group and the main quest player squad rushed into the dilapidated camp, deciding to wait there for Butcher's poaching team to return, they never managed to wait for their appearance—
Because under the decision of their leader, Butcher, these people decisively abandoned most of the resources and all the dinosaur carcasses in the camp they had painstakingly built, and instead chose to follow the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex!
Ultimately, Butcher's poaching organization was just a business enterprise that hadn't yet escalated to the desperado stage. So, when they suffered such heavy losses, they didn't think of running away on the spot, but rather tried to recover their losses.
Therefore, the Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex, and the possibly existing Tyrannosaurus Rex eggs somewhere, were the most valuable things in this swamp jungle.
Anyway, even if those dinosaur lovers thoroughly ransacked their camp's resources, they wouldn't take much, and besides, one of their vehicles had been destroyed, so they could always find an opportunity to recover it later.
It was from making this decision that Butcher's poaching organization embarked on the path of picking up what Cheng Tian left behind.
The Crimson Tyrannosaurus Rex's main body was killed by Cheng Tian and his Deviljho. Although most of the dinosaur's flesh had gone into the Deviljho's stomach, a very complete head portion was left behind.
Clearly, that thing wasn't easy to swallow.
Then, after Cheng Tian and his two dinosaurs raided the herbivore nest, Butcher's side quickly followed up, scavenging the fresh dinosaur carcasses inside that hadn't been eaten yet.
And the protagonist group, who had already realized that Butcher's people had abandoned their original camp, could detect various human traces in the jungle with the player squad's reconnaissance abilities, but their foot speed couldn't keep up.
Because Cheng Tian had abandoned using the drill tank to clear the way while he was escaping!
There's a saying, 'looking at a mountain, a horse runs to its death.' This saying is very fitting for the protagonist group and the players. They could find where people were, but their travel speed in the jungle simply couldn't compare to those professionals who made a living from poaching.
The situation immediately became deadlocked.
Butcher's people didn't care what those dinosaur lovers thought; they were very happy with their scavenging. However, as they harvested richly, they also inevitably grew more in awe of the instigator of the scavenging behavior, Cheng Mouren, who possessed "Dragon-Elephant Strength."
So when Cheng Tian, using the Ten Commandments' human perception ability, found them and proposed to use their route to go to submerged New York, Butcher, who had once been "abandoned," immediately clapped his chest and agreed without any hesitation, and his poacher subordinates had no objections either, secretly calling their boss brilliant.
As for the Crimson Deviljho summoned by Cheng Tian using a dinosaur egg... Before boarding the helicopter heading to New York, Cheng Tian, suspended by his Fire Moth Wings, completed a fist bump with the Deviljho's short arms.
Then Cheng Tian directly dissolved the summoning contract, sending it back to the blueprint world of "Monster Hunter"—
From then on, in the intrusive quests of the Monster Hunter blueprint dungeon, there would be a new Land Cruiser, dubbed by players as the "Crimson Gluttonous Demon"!
And Cheng Tian's squad also traveled all the way to New York.
Standing on an unsunken rooftop, looking at the Statue of Liberty and the Twin Towers submerged in water in the distance, Cheng Tian decisively switched to his "Terrain Destroyer" title.