Occupational Hazards

With the changing of the seasons, the academic year came to a long-anticipated end.

Before he knew it, Lin Yuchen was packing his bags in preparation for the expedition Professor Bai had invited him to join. Summer expeditions like this were extremely high-profile events. Only well-respected professors were invited to take part, and they brought with them only ten to fifteen of the best and brightest students.

Needless to say, the sites they would be visiting were on the cutting edge of the archeological world. That almost always meant they were overseas, since most of the Empire's homeland had already been explored. This world, however, was full of continents great and small, hot and cold--who knows how many. And each of them harbored untellable marvels ripe for exploration.

Lin Yuchen had put together a group of decent students to accompany him on the expedition. At the top of the list was Qiu Shujie, his favorite student. The rest were all young men and ladies with good test scores whom Lin Yuchen had never once caught sleeping during his lectures--this last criterion alone cut the pool of potential students in half, by the way. The day they were scheduled to depart, he met them, along with Professor Bai and many others, at the city harbor.

"Professor Lin, good morning," Professor Bai said as soon as he saw Lin Yuchen.

"Good morning, sir," Lin Yuchen replied respectfully, "I'm glad to be here today."

"And we're glad to have you. And I see you have brought that prodigy along with you as well." He motioned towards Qiu Shujie.

"Nice to meet you, Professor," Qiu Shujie said.

That day, she had on a plaid skirt, a white blouse and a somewhat oversized safari hat. Her only luggage was a backpack and a medium-sized suitcase.

A few of the other students introduced themselves to Professor Bai, hoping to curry favor. This kept him distracted for a while, but before long another crowd joined them by the side of the water. At the head of this crowd was a tall man wearing baggy trousers. He had bushy hair, not too long, a bit of stubble under his nose and was wearing a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.

Beside him was another man, whom he had just now been conversing with. Though dressed similarly, he was shorter and slightly paler, with thin, dark-brown hair.

"Ah, Professor Lin, I'd like for you to meet Professors Kang and Jia."

"Hello," Lin Yuchen mumbled while bowing.

"Professor Kang here is also an archeologist. He accompanied me to one of the unexplored underground realms last year, where we found a number of ancient books from the Fourth World. Professor Jia, here, is a botanist. The Great Western Continent is very rich in biodiversity, especially flora. So when he heard where we're going he asked to join us, and I just couldn't tell him no."

Professor Kang turned to Lin Yuchen, "I read your article in the Archeology Gazette, and I was quite impressed. You don't look like you have much to you, but on that account you must have some talent. I look forward to working with you."

Lin Yuchen nodded with a poker face. He didn't know whether or not to take that as a compliment. He had met Professor Kang before (they were colleagues after all), but the two had never exchanged this many words.

To Professor Kang, Lin Yuchen was a dime-a-dozen professor. Anyone can get famous if he makes a lucky find, he thought, looking at Lin Yuchen's face, but until this guy really proves his talent, I won't be expecting much from him.

They were all suddenly interrupted by the sound of a loud ship horn. Looking out over the water, Lin Yuchen saw a giant iron boat steering towards the dock. Two flags were fluttering over it. One was the Imperial flag, and the other, a flag bearing military insignia. When the boat came to a stop, a bridge was set up connecting it to the dock, and a number of armed men in uniforms stormed out.

At their head was a tall man whose black uniform seemed to be shining under the bright sunlight, almost like it was made of a slick black rock.

"Captain Song, it's good to see you," Professor Bai turned to him and said.

"Song Qizheng," Lin Yuchen called his friend's name, "Funny seeing you here."

"Hey, I'm the one who should be saying that to you," the Captain replied with a laugh, "I've been providing Professor Bai's military escort for three years now. I'm glad you have finally gotten a chance to join us."

"Yeah," he replied, "And the ship? You're a Captain in the Capital Guard, not a Navy Captain, right?"

"Actually, this is a commercial ship. It isn't owned by the Navy. But law requires us to fly military insignia over any ship that is carrying Imperial soldiers. Also, it looks a lot cooler with the military insignia."

Now that he mentioned it, there weren't any visible guns or cannons on the ship. Just three tall metal smokestacks. He was right about it looking cool, too.

It was beginning to look like everyone who was going had arrived, so they began loading onto the boat. There were a good fifty people from academia, counting both professors and students, and about two or three times as many soldiers, plus a couple dozen crew members and other menials. The boat also had two captains and a team of navigators.

Thankfully the boat was very large. It had more than enough room to fit all the people and luggage. The students were split into male and female and assigned rooms with bunkbeds--about four to a room. The soldiers slept in similar rooms, while the professors and military officers were given private rooms. Although Lin Yuchen's room was markedly more cramped than his apartment, he considered it much better than sleeping in one of those bunkbeds.

Lin Yuchen couldn't help but wonder why they had so many soldiers following them. He understood that the government placed incredible value on expeditions like this, but never in his experience had he encountered true danger while digging for artifacts. He had never been to the Great Western Continent before, however, only heard stories about it. Even so, it was a fact that there were much more dangerous places to be in this world than that Continent.

He brought up his curiosity to Professor Bai and Song Qizheng while the three of them were eating lunch in the dining room.

"Yes, you're right," the Professor began, "normally we don't take as many soldiers as this to the Great Western Continent, because it should not be any more dangerous a place to be than the Homeland. But recent events have lead to the proliferation of dangerous elements on the Continent, especially in the inland forests."

"Dangerous elements?" Lin Yuchen asked.

"That's right," Song Qizheng continued, "as you probably know, this Continent is connected by a thin land bridge in the south to a smaller, tropical land surrounded several archipelagos of islands. But a brutal war has been raging there for a couple years now. The combatants use guns and bombs and other mechanical weapons quite indiscriminately, and not even the Emperor's Army can control them. We can only contain them there, but several countries have become no-go zones. Anyway, the warfare has taken a toll on the thick jungles; many of them are burning as we speak. Those jungles also happen to be home to some really nasty monsters: pythons, centipedes, spiders and so on. They have begun escaping to the north. The Continent is vast, though, and the beasts are small in number, so the chances of encountering one are negligible, but not zero. Just in case, I decided to bring more soldiers this time."

"Oh, is that so?" Lin Yuchen suddenly wished he had been told that before he agreed to come along.

"Professor Lin, please set your heart as ease," Professor Bai said, "I wouldn't have asked you to come along if I thought there was truly a danger to your safety. I understand that your overseas experience is rather limited. And obviously we would never do anything to intentionally risk the students' lives, but all archeologists have to realize at some point or other that the very nature of the work means there is no lack of 'occupational hazards'."

Lin Yuchen only nodded.

"And if anything does threaten us, it will be in for a world of pain," Song Qizhen said, as he pulled a rather large, gray pistol from his belt and slapped it onto the table.

Lin Yuchen looked at the weapon with wide eyes. He didn't come into contact with weapons very often, but still, he had never imagined one could look like this. It had a thick, square barrel about a foot or two in length, and two triggers, one high and the other low.

"What is this?" he said.

"This, believe it or not, is an artifact from the Fifth World," Song Qizheng explained, "General Feng gifted it to me upon my most recent promotion. It shoots two kinds of bullets, hence two triggers. The one is smaller and better for rapid fire, but the second is good for piercing armor or other thick surfaces. The Fifth World really had some brilliant engineers. It has a number of latent attributes as well, owing to its incredible age."

"Wo-ow." Lin Yuchen was genuinely amazed. With a thing like that to defend the expedition, he was beginning to feel much safer.

"And even if firepower isn't enough, every soldier has a sword on him. These soldiers have been training in the martial arts from a young age. Yuchen, you can place your trust in me and my men. I can guarantee your safety and that of your students."

Their conversation went on for a while, but eventually tapered off and the party broke up.

With nothing but the waves to keep them company, Lin Yuchen and the others passed several weeks in what seemed to be the blink of an eye. Before they knew it, the boat was pulling into the harbor of Xigong City. This metropolis of several million was one of the major trade hubs in the West, and almost an obligatory stop on the road to any expedition on the Continent.

As Lin Yuchen and the others were crowding off the boat and onto the thin, creaking wooden docks, they were greeted by a small party of men in business suits. Professor Bai and Captain Song brushed past Lin Yuchen and, walking up to one of them, bowed and exchanged niceties, which Lin Yuchen couldn't exactly hear because he was a couple of feet behind them and the dock was naturally a very loud place.