Volume 4, Chapter 7 – We Had the Same Idea

Those two teams at the old riverbed had already been exposed. The only question was whether they themselves knew it yet.

Now that Anran was mixed in with the crowd, there was no way for her to notify them. They could only fend for themselves.

Including Anran, there were five people in the fleeing group.

The one leading them was that bearded man.

These four others came from two different places: the third sentry post and the squad that had been sent outside to gather intelligence.

They were not especially familiar with one another.

None of them had the slightest idea that Anran, dressed in a Morningstar uniform, was actually a spy.

“Where are your teammates?” the bearded man asked.

He was using his hands to pry at a wall.

“I couldn’t find them. I made a round outside, and then they were just gone,” Anran said.

“Gone?”

“And my communication device just happened to break too, so I couldn’t get in touch with them at all.”

As she spoke, Anran took out the communication device she had been carrying from the start.

The bearded man glanced at it.

It was indeed the kind they used, so he stopped doubting her.

Anran silently put the communication device away.

She had no idea what the bearded man was doing, so she did not say a single unnecessary word.

Instead, she slowly played along in the drama of separated comrades fleeing together.

Rattle—

Some dust was shaken loose.

Then the bearded man gave the wall a push.

The wall actually slid backward, revealing a whole different world behind it.

They had to disguise it every time they went in or out, but it was secure enough.

Who would have guessed that a whole new world was hidden behind such a broken-down wall?

The wall stood half open. There was no one behind it, and Anran did not see any obvious surveillance devices either.

Maybe they were hidden in the dark, something like pinhole cameras.

“Huh? It got blocked a little. Which idiot jammed a wooden stick against the door?” the bearded man complained.

“I’ve got a knife,” said a dark, skinny young man beside him.

Anran immediately stepped forward without hesitation. “Better let me do it. My knife is faster!”

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“Fine, you do it then. Hurry up. Don’t waste time.”

The man who had spoken just now was not polite to Anran in the slightest.

Staying alive came first. Even though he thought Anran was fairly good-looking, he had no mind to spare for that now.

Anran pulled out her mechanical switchblade.

The bearded man’s eyes lit up. “Nice knife! The workmanship is exquisite.”

“It’s nothing special. I made it for my own use, so I just put a bit more thought into it,” Anran explained. “Actually, I have another one too.”

As she said that, she took out another mechanical switchblade.

The pattern on the handle in particular looked damn good.

“You can make knives too? Did you use the small factory in the base?” The moment the topic turned to knives, the bearded man became interested.

Anran had just been about to ask a few more questions.

But someone immediately snapped in annoyance, “What are you two yapping about? If you’ve got nonsense to talk about, save it for later. Hurry up and chop through that wooden stick, or I’ll just kick the door in.”

“What’s the rush?” Anran pouted. “This is the first time I’ve seen someone this eager to die.”

“Huh?” The man froze.

Pfft!

Pfft!

“Dual-wielding.”

With Lv. 4 Mechanical Interference activated, Anran stabbed several times without the slightest mercy.

She yanked the blades free, pivoted on her feet, then burst forward in a sudden sprint and sent the guy who had just been mouthing off flying with a stab.

He landed in a textbook butt-first wipeout, a perfect flat-sand-falling-goose pose.

Only with added blood effects.

“Y-you—”

Someone’s eyes went wide.

“I—”

Someone else collapsed unwillingly.

“I wanted to chat with you a little longer, but never mind.” Anran wiped the blades with one of their uniforms.

Her gaze fell on the half-open door.

Ahead lay the road leading to Morningstar’s outpost.

Should she go in or not?

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Anran backed off a short distance, then switched on the radio.

“Hello, hello, Anran, respond if you can hear me! Hello, hello!”

“What’s wrong?”

It sounded like Feilian’s voice.

“Listen to me. We’ve been exposed. One of the teams that went to the old riverbed accidentally triggered Morningstar’s alarm device and got pinned down. The order from above is for us to head over there immediately, create chaos along the way, and draw Morningstar’s attention,” Feilian said.

“Chu Yuan and the others have already linked up with me. Where are you right now?”

“I…” Anran looked around.

This was an opportunity.

That was what she thought.

Morningstar’s attention had all been drawn to the old riverbed.

Even if there were still defenses in the other directions, they were bound to be lax.

Faction mission [Infiltration]: reward 10000 EXP and one targeted random chest [Green].

And the requirement was only to infiltrate the outpost.

If she withdrew now, she would most likely lose the chance to complete that mission.

“I’m being held up by a few Morningstar sentries right now. You go ahead first. Once I deal with them, I’ll come over immediately.”

“All right.”

Feilian pondered for a moment, then quickly made a decision. “Get here as soon as you can. We’ll move out first.”

Anran was just about to turn off the radio when a transmission from the command center suddenly barked, “The two teams heading for the canyon, pull out immediately! Stop tangling with Morningstar’s people!”

Beep beep—

A moment later—

Boom!

First came the sound of an explosion flooding the radio signal, and then a voice Anran recognized rang out. “The other side’s pretty tough, huh? Heh, let me kill these little bastards first, then I’ll come join up with you!”

“Berg!”

Another shout rang out.

But there was no more sound from Berg’s side soon after.

Oh ho.

The corners of Anran’s mouth lifted into a smile.

With so many people acting as bait, if she did not make her move now, then when would she?

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At the same time, Berg, having cut off the radio, also wore a sly smile.

He stood up at once. “Move!”

“The boss really is smart!”

“Isn’t this a bit wrong?” Yueya frowned.

“What’s wrong about it?” Berg snorted coldly. “The more you contribute in this operation, the more you’ll get in return. By then, buying your mom a big house won’t just be a dream.”

Yueya said nothing more and followed closely behind Berg.

In fact, the explosion just now had been staged by them.

After taking out a Morningstar squad, Berg learned that Heloise was not in the outpost and also found a side path leading into it, so he immediately came up with this play.

Let everyone else draw the fire while his own squad charged into Morningstar’s outpost.

The group at the old riverbed was being led by Zheng Han.

…

“Stab! Stab! Stab!”

After slinging on her backpack and chopping through the wooden stick, Anran entered the little room.

She first took a turn around it, then delivered several hard kicks to a relatively weak section of the wall. She had meant to make herself an extra exit, but instead one kick sent a miniature camera flying out.

“So there really was one.”

Anran picked up the camera.

She shook her head. Constantly using Mechanical Interference made her mental state decline especially quickly.

After crushing the camera underfoot and tidying up the things on her person, Anran hurried deeper into the cave with a deliberately rushed air.

It was a long, narrow passageway.

There were electric lights on both sides.

But the path was not wide, and under normal circumstances it was probably only used to facilitate sentry rotations.

The passageway connected directly to the central building of Morningstar’s Far East Branch outpost.

The spot where Anran emerged from the passage was one of its corridors.

“Ugh—”

Before she could steady herself, several people suddenly rushed past and knocked her this way and that.

In truth, Anran could have avoided them easily, but she did not want to seem too unusual.

“Hey, shorty over there! What are you doing?”

A young officer with a different insignia on his shoulder suddenly barked at her.

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He was standing at the other end of the corridor, and the moment he saw Anran, he strode over aggressively.

Anran immediately ran toward him in a fluster. “Sir, it’s bad, it’s bad!”

“If you’ve got something to say, then say it properly. What kind of behavior is this, panicking like that?” the young man shouted.

Only when Anran got close did surprise appear on his face.

Even with black ash smeared across her face and the hair under her cap mussed up by sweat, she was obviously a very cute girl.

Since when did our Morningstar have a female soldier this good-looking?

“People from Nine Songs are attacking from outside. All my teammates died in battle!”

As she spoke, Anran’s voice caught.

“What?” The young man was shocked. “There are Empire dogs at the eastern sentry post too?”

“Mhm.” Anran nodded over and over like a pecking chick. “There are eleven of them in total. I only managed to get out alive by sheer luck with my teammates’ help. I overheard them saying they were going to reinforce the old riverbed side!”

So cute…

Get a grip. This is not the time to be thinking that.

“This is important intelligence. I have to report it immediately.”

The young man’s brows drew tightly together.

“You…” He stalled on that “you” for a while, then gave up. “You should go assemble with your Reconnaissance Division first. Once we receive the minister’s reply, we’ll be withdrawing.”

The young man hurried off.

Head lowered, Anran turned and walked the other way.

Good thing the person she ran into was not from the Reconnaissance Division.

Otherwise, she might have been exposed the moment she got in.

Keeping close to the wall and making several turns brought her into the territory of the Logistics Equipment Division.

“Faction mission [Infiltration] complete. Obtained 10000 Free EXP, targeted random chest [Green] x1.”

“Claim targeted random chest [Green] now?”

“No!”

Anran chose no. If she claimed it right now, the chest would suddenly appear on her body.

That would be fucking terrifying inside this outpost.

“Small factory, small factory…” Anran stared at the door signs.

There!

Her eyes suddenly lit up, as if she had discovered a new continent.