Volume 3, Chapter 54 – Would You Like Some Titanium Alloy Today?

Dense footsteps sounded from the other side of the wall.

The noisy shouting quickly drowned them out.

“There’s blood here.”

“Behind the door is…”

“A restroom!”

“Open it and check.”

“Careful. I’ll poke the door open with a stick first.”

After a burst of confusion, Anran heard the door being pushed open.

Then came several loud shouts.

“Holy shit! This is…”

“That’s the boss!”

“The boss’s head is stuck in the toilet!”

“Boss, are you okay? Boss Jin!”

In the middle of all their frantic scrambling, Anran tossed a High-Energy Explosive in through the window.

Enjoy this big surprise.

With the tool bag on her back, Anran darted to the wall. A thunderous blast erupted behind her, but she did not even look back as she vaulted over it and fled.

The nonstop notifications told Anran that the explosive had paid off handsomely.

The alley behind the restaurant was fairly secluded, but because of the chain of explosions, this whole section of the old city had already descended into total chaos.

The booming blasts made the residents, who had only recently lived through a war, deeply uneasy.

The police station’s phones were practically ringing off the hook, and the Security Department received the reports almost immediately as well.

Add to that the noisy swarm of goons nearby.

Anran did not dare assume she was safe here.

She quickly set down the toolbox and took out another folded backpack from inside.

Since the self-destruct robot had already been used up, Anran had stuffed everything else into the new backpack.

She tossed the toolbox into a pile of trash, took off her coat while she was at it, made a slight change to her outfit, and slipped into the chaotic crowd at the first opportunity.

There were no cameras here, and chaos was everywhere. No one noticed that a travel-worn little figure had suddenly appeared among them.

Anran stayed cautious. After running with the crowd for some distance, she ducked into another remote alley, disposed of her cap, gloves, and mask separately, and successfully changed back into her female appearance.

Reаd оո ΚаtRеadіոɡCafе

Now she looked nothing like she had ten minutes earlier.

Even if Little Gold Tooth rose from the dead, he would have had a hard time recognizing her.

Especially with the pitiful-looking makeup on her face, which made Anran look rather ridiculous.

Anran hurried along the street, looking just like the panicked people around her who were fleeing the old city.

It was already close to eleven at night, but there were still plenty of people on the street.

Everyone was scared.

Scared that Morningstar’s people had come again.

Because of that, Anran was actually quite curious what Morningstar, whose public standing was already on the verge of collapse, was thinking. Had their brains gone haywire?

Or were they planning something they could not let anyone know about?

Police cars sped past her. Not long afterward, Anran even saw armored vehicles bearing the Security Department’s insignia rushing over.

The disturbance she had caused really was no small one.

Since they already knew Morningstar had sent quite a few people over to stir up trouble, the Security Department had become even more alert.

Anran could only apologize silently. In truth, getting rid of Little Gold Tooth was a good thing for both the police and the Security Department.

With such an unstable factor around, who knew whether he might pull some bizarre stunt at a critical moment.

The trip back went smoothly, and Anran finally returned to her residence.

The instant she gently turned on the light, Aila, who had been sitting in the corner against the wall, opened her eyes.

From her earlier conversations with Aila, Anran had learned that Aila had two sleep modes.

One was Deep Sleep mode. Unless the preset time had been reached or there was some special external force waking her up, she simply would not wake.

The other was the Alert Sleep mode Aila had just demonstrated.

Even while dormant, as long as a sound source exceeded a certain threshold within a certain distance, Aila would wake up immediately.

For Aila, sleep was unnecessary to begin with. Its only purpose was to save energy. Anran still remembered charging Aila before she was awakened.

It really did feel like a few hours of charging could keep her running for dozens of days.

Originally, Anran had not wanted to disturb Aila, so she had kept her movements as quiet as possible. But Aila still woke up, which meant she had set that threshold very low.

“Anran, you’re finally back!” Aila jumped to her feet.

She walked toward Anran with a face full of delight.

She’s really becoming more and more human.

Watching the expression that surfaced on Aila’s face without conscious effort, Anran could not help thinking that.

Rеаԁ оn KαtReαdіոɡСаfе

It was actually rather strange. After all, Aila’s core was still robotic. She was only covered in a layer of bionic tissue. How exactly was she able to produce facial expressions?

I really want to study her in depth.

Just as that thought crossed her mind, Anran realized someone had wrapped their arms around her waist.

Aila had spread her arms around her and given her a gentle hug.

“I thought you weren’t coming back!”

“…”

Anran froze.

Before leaving, she remembered telling Aila to watch more TV and read more books, to watch well and learn well.

Thinking about it that way, it really did feel as though she had been about to abandon Aila and never return.

It seemed she had accidentally planted a flag for herself too. Fortunately, she had good luck on her side. Nothing unexpected had happened during this operation.

Everything had gone smoothly.

“I just went out to take care of something. Once I was done, I came back.” Anran patted Aila’s hair.

Aila let go, and after a moment’s thought, Anran said, “Would you like some titanium alloy for a midnight snack today?”

“Yeah, yeah └(^O^)┘”

At the mention of titanium alloy, Aila’s eyes instantly lit up.

Most of the time, steel made up the bulk of her regular meals. Occasionally, she would improve her diet with some copper.

As for titanium alloy, after eating it once, Aila had completely memorized the taste.

“Tastes like chicken, nice and crunchy!”

But titanium alloy was fairly expensive. One meal for Aila cost anywhere from dozens to over a hundred Bilu, so Anran did not dare let her eat it often.

The main issue, really, was that Anran had no idea what use those metals had for Aila after she ate them, so she remained fairly cautious on that point.

Aila herself did not know either.

She only felt deeply satisfied after eating metal.

Anran set down her backpack, removed the makeup from her face, took a shower, and changed clothes. Her Charm, which had dropped to 2, returned to 7!

She really was like a lotus rising from clear water, naturally beautiful without need of adornment!

After preparing 0.5 kg of clean titanium alloy for Aila, Anran headed into the kitchen to make herself a late-night meal.

She had gone out around dusk and had not had time to eat dinner. After the tense, intense battle, she was already starving.

Rеαԁ oո KαtRеаⅾiոɡСаfе

Calling it a late-night meal was generous. In truth, she only made some pastries. Anran did not know how to stir-fry dishes, and for the moment she did not have the time to study cooking either.

Only after coaxing Aila to go to sleep did Anran finally turn off the lights, lie down on the bed, and begin calculating the gains and losses from this attack.

She first reviewed the course of her actions and found no risk of being exposed.

Letting out a breath of relief, Anran opened the game panel.

Before going to find Little Gold Tooth, she had had 5,300 Free EXP. Now, however, it had skyrocketed to over 27,000.

The biggest contributor was Little Gold Tooth, who alone had provided 1,500 EXP. The other underlings had contributed 20,000 EXP altogether.

Grinding monsters to level up.

Sure enough, no matter what kind of game it was, fighting monsters always gave the most EXP the fastest.

Especially for players, the risk of fighting monsters was not that high, while the rewards were enormous.

Not only did they get EXP, they could also get loot.

When Anran thought about how, if she ever became a Boss in the future, there would definitely be a whole crowd of players thinking about killing her every single day, she instantly felt filled with motivation.

How could I possibly just croak so easily?

Before I die of old age, I have to become the kind of existence that makes players tremble in fear!

EXP was the most direct gain from this operation. To go from Basic Mechanic Lv11 to Lv12 required a total of 50,000 EXP.

Anran had crossed more than half of that in just a few hours.

But the pace would definitely slow down from here. Even if she kept making self-destruct robots nonstop, she would only be able to earn a little over ten thousand EXP a day.

Still, Anran was already very satisfied. Compared with the players still grinding away like laborers, she felt happy as an angel.

As for the losses from this attack, the most valuable things were just the two self-destruct robots. Everything together had cost only a little over 1,000 Bilu, a perfect example of winning big with a small investment.

What Anran had staked was her own life.

And she had succeeded.

…

The next day.

After washing up, Anran arrived early at Nine Songs’ training camp.

At the squad’s quarters, Anran had barely pushed open the door when she sensed that something in the room felt off.

Li Zhuying was reading a book. Daogu was sprawled on the sofa as though no one else existed. Anna was playing with throwing knives. Chu Yuan was chuckling to himself.

Meanwhile, Feilian was frowning as he faced off against an unfamiliar NPC.

“Let’s all improve together, let’s all improve together!” the middle-aged man said with a grin.

Rеаⅾ оn КatRеadіոɡСafе

Feilian’s tone was unfriendly. “See yourself out.”

“You really aren’t very polite.” The middle-aged man gave a theatrical sigh.

He turned to leave, but when he passed Li Zhuying, he suddenly stopped. “Outlander, any interest in joining my squad? As long as you’re willing, I can put in a request with the higher-ups. Compared with Feilian’s, my squad is ranked fourth at the very least.”

“Yajin!” Feilian glared angrily at the middle-aged man.

“Heh.”

Yajin ignored Feilian’s shout and instead looked at Li Zhuying with great anticipation.

At that moment, everyone in the room turned their eyes toward Li Zhuying.

Including Anran.

A live wall-poaching scene was really unfolding right in front of them!

Li Zhuying was not completely unmoved. She calmly closed the book in her hands. With that scholarly air about her, no one would ever have guessed that she had been reading an erotic novel.

Although Feilian was furious, he was also extremely anxious inside.

It had not been easy to get two new people into the squad, and one of them was even an Outlander. If she got snatched away just like that, how was he supposed to restore the squad to its former glory?

“So? Come over to my side. My squad’s monthly allocation is several times what Feilian’s gets, and unlike this lot, my members aren’t unreliable. Every single one of them trains hard and is a skilled veteran in battle!” Yajin gestured at Anran and the others.

“…”

What do you mean, unreliable?

Anran was instantly displeased. The look she gave Yajin turned distinctly unfriendly, but he ignored it outright.

Under everyone’s gaze, Li Zhuying finally spoke. “Sorry, I have no intention of changing squads.”

“Huh?” The confident Yajin was immediately startled. He hurriedly pressed, “Why? You should know my squad…”

“It’s simple. I just don’t want to train, and I don’t want to switch squads.” After saying that, Li Zhuying stopped bothering with Yajin. She reopened her book. She had just reached the part where the older sister grabbed the younger sister. Who had time to waste on this sort of nonsense with them?

Come to think of it, the erotic novels on No. 1886 were actually pretty well written.

“You…” Yajin glared at Li Zhuying in irritation. He wanted to shout a few things, but he was afraid Feilian would laugh at him.

In the end, he could only say bitterly, “She’s just an Outlander. I hope you, Feilian, can return to the top five soon. If you keep staying at the bottom like this, you’ll be eliminated!”

With that, he strode out.

“Heh, that’s none of your business.” Since Li Zhuying was not leaving, Feilian was instantly in a great mood and directly switched to a mocking tone.

Standing by the doorway, Anran very reluctantly moved aside to let Yajin pass.

After all, she was a civilized person, wasn’t she?