Volume 3, Chapter 60 – A Rat Appears!

The shop opened smoothly.

Although foot traffic was light at first, word gradually started spreading thanks to players like Carlos, and it slowly gained some recognition.

That meant Chen Anran no longer needed to ask Zhou Jieyu to write a “walkthrough post.”

She could just focus on gathering intel in peace.

With that worry off her mind, Chen Anran was free to throw herself back into mechanical crafting.

Once [Poor-Quality Mechanical Leggear] was completed, her combat power would see a massive surge.

With 35 Speed, Chen Anran’s running speed would leave even the cheetah, the king of speed on Blue Star’s land, in the dust.

Her burst speed could make an ordinary person go GG before they even had time to react.

Chen Anran’s Endurance and Strength let her body withstand that kind of speed.

As for those hyper-specialized players who only put points into Speed, even if they had equally ridiculous speed, their bodies would not be able to handle it, and they would end up injuring themselves in all sorts of ways while moving at high speed.

Night of the Stars was just that realistic.

Really, this was also a balancing method.

Otherwise, players in the early game would all dump their points into Speed. With firearms around, all they would need to do was move fast enough to stylishly dodge enemy attacks, then bang bang bang, put a few bullets into the target and kill them.

While Chen Anran was working on the mechanical leggear, she suddenly received a call from Feilian.

“There’s something important. Return to base immediately.”

“Oh.”

At a critical moment, Chen Anran did not drop the ball.

She temporarily set aside what she was doing. The frame of the mechanical leggear had only just been forged, and the most troublesome part coming up was the pneumatic structure, which was not something she could finish in a short while.

Chen Anran put away her phone.

Speaking of phones, this one had been issued to her after she joined Nine Songs.

Otherwise, she would not have been willing to buy one. Players did not need them, and Chen Anran did not really have anyone she needed to contact anyway.

As soon as she came out of the Research Center, Chen Anran headed straight for Nine Songs’ base.

When she pushed the door open and walked in, Li Zhuying had not arrived yet.

Feilian, who was sitting on a stool, wore an expression that was half joy, half worry.

The moment he saw Chen Anran enter, he immediately said, “Wait a bit. We’ll talk after Li Zhuying gets here.”

By now, nobody in the squad called Li Zhuying Monster Mountain Hermit anymore.

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Li Zhuying was shorter and sounded much nicer.

Chen Anran nodded and casually found a place to sit.

Compared with Feilian, who looked fairly normal,

Daogu, Anna, Chu Yuan, and the others were acting very abnormally.

Each of them was wiping down their weapons,

as if they might rush out and fight someone at any moment.

That unusual behavior immediately told Chen Anran that there was a mission again this time, and a very important one at that.

Sure enough.

Not long after Li Zhuying arrived, Feilian announced the news.

“This is a major operation!” Feilian said. “It’s not like those small fry missions from before.”

“According to the intel team, we’ve found one of Morningstar’s bases in Twinmoon City. Conservatively speaking, there should be over a dozen people there, maybe even more.”

“This mission is a coordinated operation involving multiple squads. As long as the mission is completed, everyone will get rewards. But on top of those basic rewards, there will also be extra rewards based on each squad’s contribution. This mission is tied to squad rankings, so if we want to return to glory, everyone needs to give it their all!”

Feilian had started up that motivational routine again.

Chen Anran was not interested in whether they returned to glory or not.

What interested her was the mission reward.

“Ding! Team mission [Assault the Morningstar Base] triggered. Would you like to accept?”

[Team Mission]: Assault the Morningstar Base

Mission Brief: (omitted)

Mission Reward: Base Reward: 10,000 EXP, Nine Songs Bronze Medal.

Kill Reward: 500 EXP per person.

Mission Rank: B

Repeatability: Unique.

Chen Anran’s eyes lit up when she saw the rewards.

10,000 base EXP, plus kill rewards. A kill already gave around 500 EXP to begin with, so did that not mean she could earn an extra 1,000 EXP every time she killed a Morningstar member?

As for that Bronze Medal, she had not gotten it yet, so she had no idea what it did.

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But it probably would not be bad. It was likely something similar to a title.

This was the most generous mission reward Chen Anran had seen so far.

The Heart of Aila mission did not count, because Chen Anran still had no clue what the hell that thing was even useful for.

Come to think of it, [Heart of Aila] was an A-rank mission.

Wait.

Chen Anran suddenly froze for a moment.

Speaking of mission ranks,

she quickly looked again at the rank of this mission.

B-rank!

Why was it B-rank?

The mission to help Aila destroy Morningstar being A-rank made perfect sense.

The difficulty was obvious enough. Since it could make use of government forces, it still did not reach S-rank.

A B-rank meant this mission was already very dangerous.

It could be considered a challenge one full level above merely difficult.

One slight mistake could cost you your life.

But that clearly did not match Feilian’s description of the situation.

According to Feilian, this mission was a surprise assault carried out by multiple squads.

Their side had the numbers advantage, and it was an ambush. Logically, the mission rank should have topped out at C, or maybe even D.

Something was off.

Chen Anran glanced at Li Zhuying.

She had definitely received the mission too, but if Li Zhuying had not noticed that something strange was going on, there was no way Chen Anran could say anything herself. At most, she could remind her teammates to be more careful.

If she spoke up, she had no solid reason at all to make them believe her.

She was still too weak and had too little standing.

“This time, let’s take down a few more of them and fight our way out of that embarrassing second-to-last ranking by the end of the month!” Feilian said.

“The more we kill, the more stuff the higher-ups will reward us with, right?”

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Anna was excited.

Daogu also struck a pose and acted cool. “Perfect. Time to test how this new gun performs in real combat.”

“Leave the logistics to me,” Chu Yuan said with a faint smile.

Neither Chen Anran nor Li Zhuying said anything.

“You two don’t have anything to say?” Feilian asked.

Chen Anran immediately said, “Be careful not to flip the cart. Morningstar Resistance’s last-ditch counterattack definitely won’t be pleasant.”

“Good point.” Feilian nodded, but the others did not seem to care much.

Li Zhuying simply said, “I’ll just follow your lead.”

Recently, she had been plotting out a novel.

Even in the game, Li Zhuying was planning to return to her old trade.

That’s right. In the real world, Li Zhuying was actually an up-and-coming erotic novelist.

The first work she had published was about online gaming.

“All right, then.” Feilian nodded.

He was used to it by now.

Li Zhuying attended every mission and every meeting, but she never offered any opinions.

In Li Zhuying’s view, for this kind of story mission, she just had to follow the NPCs step by step.

She could not be bothered to split her attention.

The meeting ended.

As Chen Anran walked out of the base, she felt rather anxious.

She kept feeling that this raid was a trap set by the Morningstar Resistance. If they rushed in carelessly, it could easily lead to huge losses.

On the main battlefield, the Security Department and Morningstar were trading blows back and forth, but overall the Security Department had still not regained its footing and was at a slight disadvantage.

And in the contest between special forces, Nine Songs had not gained much of an upper hand either.

If either side suffered a major defeat, it would definitely affect morale.

The key point was that Chen Anran herself would also be taking part in this mission. She did not want to walk knowingly into a trap and die for nothing.

If it really came down to it, at worst she would slip away in advance. She could always quit Nine Songs and think of some other way to go up against Morningstar.

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As she walked, the gate of the base grew farther and farther behind her.

And just then, Chen Anran suddenly heard someone calling her name.

“Anran, Anran!”

Chen Anran looked up and saw Zhou Jieyu, cheeks slightly flushed, running over while breathing lightly.

“What is it?” Chen Anran asked.

“I found some news about Morningstar!” Zhou Jieyu had come to turn in the mission.

She had not expected to run into Chen Anran the moment she arrived.

That fast?

She had found information on Morningstar in just one day?

Chen Anran could not help looking at Zhou Jieyu in a whole new light.

Mission submitted.

Zhou Jieyu had found the residences of several Morningstar fighters, gaining 800 EXP.

“There’s another piece of information too,” Zhou Jieyu continued as she turned in the mission. “I got this from another outlander. A friend of his joined Morningstar not long ago and happened to overhear it.”

“…”

A rat had shown up?

Chen Anran was briefly stunned.

As Zhou Jieyu explained, the relevant information was displayed to Chen Anran in text form.

Zhou Jieyu was very excited.

She could get one-fifth of the EXP for passing on information, so this time she gained another 400 EXP.

And Chen Anran was even happier.

This information had come at exactly the right time!

She checked the mission [Assault the Morningstar Base], and its mission rank had actually dropped to C!

The rat had done a great job!

“Keep up the good work!” Chen Anran said to Zhou Jieyu.