Chapter 19 - Dealing with the locals

Unsurprisingly, we didn't manage to sleep for the whole night, thanks to some idiots that somehow thought that it would be a brilliant idea to attack us, or at least that's what I think they thought when they charge inside the building. Sadly for them and luckily for us, the raiders attack us when Vito was still awake, thus as soon as they charge inside, they met a very angry super mutant. Before I could even aim my weapon at them, my green friend punch one of them in the face sending the poor man to the floor, before quickly grabbing his other friend. At this point, it was pretty clear that these two died for nothing, then again if I was in Vito's place maybe, just maybe the situation would have been different.

The two poor raiders that found their death was so broken that even a mole rat seemed richer than them. One even had a stick as a weapon for god's sake. Despite everything bad about them, the good things if I could call it like that were three jets, which made me steel my decision to never touch any kind of drugs in my life, even better, I would not even deal with these things.

Getting rid of the bodies wasn't exactly easy, however, we still had to do it, unless we wanted to wake up again, this thought with a wild radioactive creature coming for a quick bite. While I would have rather burned the bodies, Vito told me that sometimes, it was better to offer the bodies to wildlife, than to waste.

"Are you sure that the coyotes will not attack us?"

"While these things are wild animals, that doesn't mean that they are dumb. Not even close, instead, they would see that we aren't worth the effort and simply let us go past their den, add the bodies that we are carrying and you have free passage through their territory. "

"Does this method work with other wild animals? Or is it just for some animals like the coyotes?"

"To tell you the truth, before the war, you might have been able to escape if you threw food at the wildlife, but now? Other than the coyotes, everything else would probably kill you alongside whatever you gave them. Thought our first interaction with that deathclaw made me think that maybe, just maybe these things aren't exactly bloodthirsty creatures, instead, they are simply protecting their home."

As soon as we arrived close to the den, at least eleven rather big coyotes emerged from within the cave growling and showing their sharp teeth at us as if they were daring us to attack them. Instead of antagonizing the poor dogs, Vito and I threw the bodies to the ground, after we stripped them of any armor, making it easier for the wildlife to eat them. Once the bodies were on the ground, Vito suggested we go back and walk over the mountain through a shortcut that would take us to the other side.

It didn't take us long at all to reach a cave when out of nowhere a gunshot forced both of us to stop. As soon as we stopped five raiders, most likely from one of the tribes that inhabit the Mojave walked from within the cave while a sixth one was aiming a rather bad-looking weapon from up on a small hill. From within the group of raiders, a man slightly taller than me wearing one of the worst-looking leather armor I ever saw walked forward, stopping just short of a meter away from Vito and me. The man tried to intimidate us, but one single look at Vito made him back away a meter before he start shouting at us.

"Give us everything you have on you or else!"

"Or else what?"

Before the man could react, Vito stepped in front of him grabbing the back by the neck, raising him to his eye level. At the same time, I raised my assault rifle and aimed at the "sniper" and before he could fire at Vito, a bullet hit his head, giving him a painless and quick death. The other four raiders looked mortified by what just happened, but sadly, for them, neither Vito nor I had any desire to let them get out of there alive.

In all honesty, it was beyond me to understand why these six idiots would even attack us. While they were slightly better equipped than the other two that tried to attack us last night, these six were not an upgrade, maybe it was their greed or maybe it was the drugs, who knows? Nevertheless, in the end, being dead was a better life for them than what they were doing here, at least that's what I believe.

After we took whatever valuable things these raiders had on them, we pilled the bodies a few meters away from the cave, leaving them to end up as food for the wild animals while we continue making our way toward the nearest town or settlement, before continuing towards the Mojave Outpost.

"We should have checked the cave. Maybe we would have found something valuable inside."

"Kiddo, I take you to know how to read right?"

"Yes?"

"Then didn't you see the name written on that wooden sign? "

"Prospector's den, no? What's so special about it?"

"It means that the cave is part of the prospector's guild, they belong to the NCR, meaning that once the NCR finds out that the cave has been cleared and that we were the ones to do it if something was to be missing, we would be the prime suspects. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not end up as a prisoner for those guys."

I didn't think about that, and while it was true that I had almost zero knowledge about how the NCR deals with criminals, I wasn't exactly keen on finding out either, just like Vito just said, it was better to have a friendly reputation with them than to become their enemy.

An hour later, we reached what looked like a small town and just as we were about to approach it, we heard the voice of a man shouting for us to stop.

"You two! Come this way !"

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