Volume 4, Chapter 16 – Where’s My Base? It Was Huge, and It Was Right There a Moment Ago

“Vroom, vroom, vroom!”

Anran pressed the gas pedal a few times.

Because Nine Songs often had to carry out missions outside, the vehicles they drove were all off-road vehicles.

“Pretty good horsepower.”

Anran patted the steering wheel in satisfaction.

Before leaving, she had even made a special trip to the gas station inside the base and filled the tank.

With a full tank of gas, going five or six hundred kilometers would not be a problem.

If they headed west, they could even drive out of the greater region where Twinmoon City was located.

Presumably, the people from Nine Songs would not notice anything in the short term.

There were no tracking or listening devices installed in the car. It would be interesting once they realized what had happened.

As for the phone Nine Songs had given her earlier, Anran had smashed it long ago.

She had no one she needed to contact anyway.

“Anran, where are we going?” Aila asked.

Anran said, “Let’s head west first. We’ll go wherever the road takes us. As for what exactly to do, we’ll decide after the strangers come back.”

In front of Aila, she also used “strangers” to refer to the players.

“Oh.”

Aila nodded. Bored from sitting in the car, she simply switched on sleep mode.

Anran, meanwhile, played some gentle music and drove on in high spirits.

Seventy thousand in cash, plus this car worth over a hundred thousand. It seemed she was about to escape poverty.

Exciting.

…

“Minister, Anran drove out with her younger sister,” someone reported to Lü Changming.

“She went out? She’s probably just taking her sister out for a bit of fun while she’s recovering from her injuries.”

Lü Changming held a fountain pen in one hand, his gaze falling on the blank sheet of paper in front of him that had already been marked with lines. He spoke with complete indifference.

After discussing things with New Metropolis’s upper echelon for several days and confirming the direction of future operations, Lü Changming, now with some time freed up, once again set his sights on that bounty involving Anran.

If they could eliminate those assassins who were active on the dark web and had grown unbearably arrogant one by one, that would also be a major achievement.

This, that, and the other.

Lü Changming began setting up tactics with great enthusiasm.

When the person who had come to deliver the message saw Lü Changming absorbed in his own affairs again, they could only silently withdraw.

Reаԁ оո ΚаtReaⅾiոgСаfe

…

Night of the Stars.

It had already been ten days since the players went offline.

In the real world, however, barely twenty-four hours had passed, and the official server-opening announcement had already been posted.

From Version 1.01 to Version 1.02.

After a small update, this world had also undergone a few small changes.

First, the game had become even more stable.

Second, multiple planets had been opened as “newbie villages.”

In Night of the Stars, every newbie village offered a completely different kind of gameplay experience.

Finally, there was the most important change: the online trading system for “virtual items.”

The appearance of this system would undoubtedly accelerate the growth of the player base, especially for those “whale” players.

Loves Sunday Most was an old member of the San Diego Guild. Night of the Stars was the third game he had followed the guild into.

As a veteran member focused on pioneering new content, Loves Sunday Most spent most of his time gaming. This was also how he made money.

As soon as official maintenance ended, Loves Sunday Most could not wait to climb into his game pod.

When players logged into the game, there would be an immersive buffering period. This was to prevent the brain from being damaged.

And during this waiting interval, Official Blog Girl would automatically play the previous promotional video for everyone.

In other words, the plot where Anran was easily defeated by the “heroes.”

Anran had no idea that her public execution would last for so long.

“Countdown: 10, 9… 1!”

Beep, beep!

The scene before his eyes was like melting cream, instantly turning viscous before finally solidifying together.

Loves Sunday Most shook his head, dispelling the slight dizziness.

The moment the feeling of standing on solid ground returned, his heart immediately filled with delight.

This was what a true virtual reality game should be!

After logging in, players would appear at their logout point.

When he had received the official announcement earlier, Loves Sunday Most had been doing loop quests inside the base.

Loop quests were complicated and trivial, but the rewards were not bad. More importantly, they could be used to grind favorability.

Favorability.

Heh heh heh…

Reaⅾ оո КаtRеaԁіոɡCafе

Loves Sunday Most opened his eyes.

He should be in the rest area right now.

By his ears.

Hm?

Loves Sunday Most, who had abruptly opened his eyes, petrified on the spot.

What did he see? What he saw was clearly a field of ruins.

Collapsed mountainsides, toppled buildings, and a sunken crater.

He was standing inside the crater.

Where the hell was this?

Loves Sunday Most widened his eyes.

Had the game bugged out and teleported him somewhere else?

If it was another planet, then this joke had gone way too far.

Terrified, Loves Sunday Most immediately opened the map.

Coordinates: Canyon Continent (E8-520, N20-1024).

“.”

“…”

“……”

He must have seen it wrong.

Facepalm.

Log out first.

A few seconds later, Loves Sunday Most vanished from the land.

After another while, he reappeared here.

Stunned.

“Where’s the base?”

Loves Sunday Most heard a mutter from beside him.

He turned his head and saw a player who, like him, had joined Morningstar’s side.

“Yeah, where’s the base? Such a huge base. It was still here before we logged off, wasn’t it?”

Loves Sunday Most’s eyes turned blank.

During those ten days of game time.

Rеаԁ оո КаtRеaⅾіոgСаfе

What kind of nonsense had happened?

Why was the base gone the moment they came back? Where was the game experience in this?

Related posts soon appeared on the forum, and complaint messages were also fed back to Official Blog Girl!

[Did the game bug out? I logged in and found Morningstar’s base directly gone.]

[Damn it, where’s the organization? Where am I supposed to find the organization now?]

[I’m out, I’m out. I’ve really had enough of this damn Morningstar. I’m defecting. I’m reporting to the government army today, and I’m going to tell the government army everything I know.]

[There’s a traitor among us!]

[Try it. If you dare defect, just wait to be hunted down by our San Diego Guild!]

[Don’t be scared, little bro. Our Xilou Guild stands with you!]

[Doomsday, screw your nuts!]

[Get lost, you fertilizer-selling dumbass.]

Tailu slammed the table again in fury. “Doomsday, you damn bastard, just you wait. If Morningstar wins the faction war in the end, I’m going to beat you to death myself!”

Still not relieved, he slammed the table a few more times.

Then he opened the game panel.

[Dear player, hello. Official Blog Girl has already learned the specific situation. After backend verification, it has been determined that the game has not encountered any bugs. All plotlines in Night of the Stars advance autonomously. If you have any other questions, you may continue consulting Official Blog Girl!]

FML.

Tailu stood up and swayed left and right.

Restless.

How could it advance like this?

Why had none of the other newbie villages experienced something like their base disappearing the moment they logged in?

Irritating.

It was as if he had eaten a whole jin of Jinkela fertilizer.

His anger had nowhere to vent.

“Tailu, Morningstar just issued a bounty mission.”

At this moment, the guild’s vice president walked in.

“A bounty mission?”

“A bounty on a Nine Songs NPC called Anran. The reward is 500,000 Bilu, plus 50,000 EXP and the position of Chief of Morningstar’s Special Operations Division,” the vice president said.

“Hiss…”

Tailu sucked in a breath of cold air.

Rеαԁ οո КаtRеαdiոɡСafe

“Take it! Take it! We’re taking this mission!”

“Oh, right.” Tailu sat down. “What did this Anran do? Why is the reward so high?”

“I heard she almost single-handedly killed off all the higher-ups at the Far East Branch base.”

“…”

In other words, the base suddenly disappearing had a lot to do with Anran?

Tailu froze for a moment.

So this was a special plotline laying the groundwork for this mission.

Then this was a big fish!

“Do you have a picture? Hurry up and show me!” Tailu said excitedly.

“There really isn’t one. There’s only some simple information,” the vice president said, shaking his head. “But we know she’s from Nine Songs in Twinmoon City. We just need to send some brothers over to investigate.”

“Good. Arrange for people to go there immediately!”

Five hundred thousand Bilu. Fifty thousand EXP.

Tailu stood up excitedly. Night of the Stars had not yet opened any cash top-up service for the time being. If they got this money, it would allow the guild to undergo a major development push!

All they had to do was kill that Anran, right?

Tailu burst into loud laughter.

…

Skrrt!

As soon as the car stopped, before Anran had even pushed open the car door, she heard the game notification ring out again.

“Hm? Has the game update already ended?”

“Anran, what’s wrong?” Aila asked.

Anran shook her head. “Nothing major. The strangers are back.”

“Oh.”

Aila did not have a very good impression of the strangers.

There was always a crowd of people looking at her with burning eyes. However, the strangers all seemed quite rich, and Anran was counting on them to make money.

The place where they had stopped now was a small town.

They had been on the road for two days, stopping intermittently along the way. By now, they were already more than a thousand kilometers away from Twinmoon City.

“We’ll fill up the tank, then get out and have lunch,” Anran said, stroking Aila’s head.

So comfortable!