Volume 4, Chapter 33 – Series Quest: Roar from the Abyss

The Morningstar soldier pinned against the wall by Anran was crying so hard that tears were streaming down his face and dripping onto the ground.

Of course, with only that little bit of tears, making the ground that wet would have been very difficult.

The real credit went to his urine.

It splashed all over the place with considerable force. He looked like a very healthy fellow.

But Anran was not pleased in the slightest.

Wow. This bastard actually dared to stand there and piss in front of me. Courting death!

Anran grabbed him by the clothes and, in just a few steps, hauled him over to the shore of Lake Neiya.

As he kept shouting, “Don’t kill me, don’t kill me,” she shoved the lower half of his body into the water.

Splash splash—

Waves immediately spread across Lake Neiya.

This was still a bit tiring.

“Aila, get me an iron rod and two strips of cloth, please.”

“Mm-hm.”

Aila, who had just displayed the strength of a one-punch superhero, tore her gaze away from the equipment inside the container, gathered the tools, and came over.

With the cloth tied, the rope looped, and a quick lift, Aila hoisted the Morningstar soldier into the water like a fishing float, every bit the skillful angler.

“Anran, Anran, is this okay now?”

Aila looked at Anran with wide, questioning eyes.

“Yeah, this is fine.”

Aila had more than seventy points of Strength. Fishing up a person was effortless for her.

As for the man subjected to all this handling, he was already half scared to death.

But with his body tied up and his lower half soaking in the lake, he had no leverage at all and could only sway back and forth helplessly.

“Stop moving around. If you attract one of the lake monsters, you’re finished,” Anran threatened.

But in the eyes of this Morningstar Soldier A, Anran was far more terrifying than any lake monster.

After all, Lake Neiya was so huge. How could a lake monster just happen to come here? Anran, on the other hand, was very much real and was torturing him right now.

“What are you taking all this equipment and medicine for?” Anran asked, poking Soldier A’s cheek with a strand of lakeside waterweed.

“…”

Anran poked him again. “Looks like you don’t want to talk. Aila, spin him around twice.”

“Okay.”

So Aila tugged the “fishing rod,” and Soldier A found himself drifting through the water.

The blood flowing from his wounds immediately stained the lake.

Fear.

Trembling.

His legs kicked nonstop.

Soldier A had thought Anran alone was already terrifying enough, but somehow this little girl, who was about the right age to be his daughter, was even scarier.

Was there no justice left in the world?

Cold.

The lake water suddenly felt so cold.

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Soldier A’s head was growing dizzy. At that moment, Anran stopped Aila and turned back to him.

“You going to talk or not?”

“…”

“Then wait a second!”

Anran turned around, went back to the container, and took out several incendiary rounds, pouring the flammable liquid inside directly onto the surface of the lake.

Then she lit it.

Whoosh—

Flames surged upward in a ring, and Aila cooperatively lowered Soldier A right into the middle of it.

“Y-you, you two devils!” Soldier A said, his teeth chattering.

Aila scrunched up her little face. “Anran, Anran, he’s insulting us!”

“Then let’s turn up the heat a little more!” Anran made as if to go fetch something else.

Soldier A finally gave in. He shouted at the top of his lungs, “I’ll talk, I’ll talk! Put the fire out! I’m about to be cooked!”

“Fine.”

Anran had Aila lift Soldier A back out again.

This feeling of being hauled here and there against his will was probably what people called humiliation.

“We have a secret base over in the Vike Mountains. It’s a Resistance laboratory, and all this stuff is for that lab,” Soldier A said.

The Vike Mountains?

Anran thought back. It was a massive mountain range in the central-western part of Canyon Continent, stretching north to south for over a thousand kilometers, with its highest peak rising over five thousand meters.

“Where in the Vike Mountains?”

Soldier A pulled a miserable face. “I can’t explain the exact location, but I remember the route.”

Damn.

This guy was being slippery.

Anran narrowed her eyes.

“How far is your assembly point from here?”

“A little over forty kilometers.”

Anran asked again, “Do you know what this laboratory does?”

“I don’t know the specifics. I only know it has two departments: an Equipment Department and a Biochemical Department.”

Biochemical Department?

The moment she heard that name, Anran’s heart suddenly skipped a beat. She thought of Sandi. Morningstar seemed to have some kind of drug that could forcibly boost strength. Could that be something developed by this laboratory?

Anran pressed on. “How many people are in the base altogether?”

“The higher-ups stationed more than three hundred people there. Because it’s a secret base and it’s located in the rugged terrain of the Vike Mountains, there aren’t that many defensive measures set up,” Soldier A said.

Weapons, ammunition, all kinds of precision equipment, and medicinal plants. It sounded like they had built this base on a large scale.

“And what does that Biochemical Department do?”

Soldier A shook his head. “I don’t know the details. Those people in white lab coats don’t let anyone go near the experiment area. But at night, you can hear low growls coming from inside.”

“Animal growls?”

“Doesn’t really sound like it. I’ve never heard an animal make noises like that before,” Soldier A said, shaking his head.

A strange kind of beast?

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Just as Anran was thinking that, a game notification suddenly sounded in her mind.

“You have triggered [Faction Affiliation Quest] [Roar from the Abyss]. Accept?”

[Roar from the Abyss] [Series Quest]

Quest Description: The secret base hidden in the Vike Mountains is one of Morningstar’s concealed fangs. A ferocious beast lurking in the abyss is roaring, and the day it breaks free of its cage is drawing near. It is the countdown to death.

[Infiltration I]: Infiltrate Morningstar’s Vike Mountains base. Reward: 5,000 Free EXP.

[Infiltration II]: Infiltrate the base’s Biochemical Department. Reward: 8,000 Free EXP.

[Trace the Source I]: Kill Dante, the head of equipment development at Morningstar’s Vike Mountains base. Reward: 30,000 Free EXP, Burst Round Blueprint.

[Trace the Source II]: Kill Rainer, the head of biochemical development at Morningstar’s Vike Mountains base. Reward: 35,000 Free EXP, Reconnaissance Quadrotor Drone Blueprint.

[End the Roar]: Kill the unidentified ferocious beast. Reward: 7,000 Free EXP per kill. If total kills exceed 10, additional reward: Lig Alloy Blueprint.

[Strike from Behind]: Expose Morningstar’s secret to the public. Reward: 5,000-20,000 Free EXP based on completion.

[Deadly Rhythm]: Destroy Morningstar’s Vike Mountains base. Reward: 150,000 EXP, Gene Enhancement Potion [Blue] x1, Low-Level Intelligent Chip, Talent: Exclusive Craftsmanship (manufacturing-type crafting efficiency increased by 10%).

Quest Rank: B-A

Repeatability: Unique.

These quest rewards!

Anran’s eyes went wide.

Just the things listed on the panel were already tempting enough, not to mention all the various kill rewards.

“W-why are you looking at me like that?”

Soldier A noticed Anran staring blankly at him, her eyes fixed on him, frowning one moment and delighted the next. Panic rose in his heart. Had this woman thought up some new way to torment him?

“Who the hell would stare at you for no reason? Stop flattering yourself, will you!”

Anran shot Soldier A a look of disgust. “Aila, wash him again.”

“Okay.”

Aila instantly swung the rod, and Soldier A began drifting around in the water again.

“Anran wouldn’t look at you!” Aila muttered.

“Ow, ow, ow, stop shaking me!”

Anran was still considering whether to accept the quest. The risk was high, after all. The difficulty fluctuated between B and A rank, and Soldier A’s fussing immediately soured her mood.

Irritated, she picked up the Crimson Blade from the ground.

“Don’t kill me, don’t kill me! I already told you everything! Don’t kill me!” Soldier A started struggling.

“Tch—”

Anran looked at him speechlessly. You really have zero self-awareness at all.

You certainly weren’t soft-hearted when you were killing other people.

“What made you think I’d spare you just because you finished talking?”

Anran curled her lip, raised the Crimson Blade, and stabbed.

“Ahhh!”

Soldier A let out a scream. The Crimson Blade pierced through his clothes and abruptly skewered a square device hidden on him, destroying it on the spot.

“You think I didn’t know you were up to something?” Anran laughed.

It had already started using Mechanical Interference.

“You!”

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Soldier A’s expression changed drastically. “Even Lake Neiya’s monsters aren’t as vicious as you are!”

“I don’t like the sound of that. Compared to some emotionless monster, I—”

Glug glug glug—

Just as Anran was speaking grandly, bubbles suddenly began rising nonstop from the water not far from Soldier A. Her words cut off abruptly. Beneath the bubbles, an enormous shadow surfaced at once.

“Aila, let go of the rod right now!” Anran shouted.

“What—”

Before Aila could release her grip, a huge column of water erupted from the lake, and a gigantic gaping maw appeared out of nowhere, swallowing Soldier A together with part of the iron rod.

Screee—

With one hand still gripping the rod, Aila ended up in a tug-of-war with the lake monster.

Level 19 Aila had 78 Strength.

For a moment, she was actually locked in a stalemate with the monster.

“Anran, Anran, I caught a big fish!” Aila shouted excitedly.

Emmm—

The monsters of Lake Neiya really were just a kind of grotesquely deformed giant fish, huge in size, immensely strong, and equipped with excellent teeth!

And their flesh was delicious too, making them great ingredients for cooking!

Smack!

Anran stepped forward and seized the iron rod.

With 28 naked Strength added all at once, the balance broke immediately, and the big fish was dragged over.

Splash—

Just as it was about to be hauled onto shore, the fish released its bite and dropped back into the lake, splashing Anran and Aila with water.

“…”

Annoying.

“Anran, Anran, the fish got away!” Aila sounded disappointed.

“It’s fine. Even if we’d caught it, I can’t cook anyway, so it wouldn’t do us much good. Besides, I don’t want to touch a fish that just ate a person.”

Anran comforted Aila.

So be it if Soldier A died. She had already gotten most of what she wanted from him anyway. The only surprising thing was how amusingly he had died.

Life really was full of surprises.

The focus now was still that quest. Accept it or not?

The quest was very difficult, and Anran was not confident at all.

If she died, that would be the end of everything.

But if she succeeded, she would firmly secure her status as an elite mob in the “beginner village,” and might even be able to look ahead to becoming a minor BOSS.

Better observe first.

Anran called out to Aila and went back to the containers to gather their belongings.

Because it had rained earlier, the muddy ground was full of tire tracks.

Anran and Aila followed those tracks all the way forward.

The two of them moved very quickly.

A little over forty kilometers was no obstacle at all. In their eyes, rough terrain was no different from smooth concrete roads.

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Halfway there, Anran saw two more vehicles heading toward the pier.

Did they notice something was wrong?

But it was not a big issue. There was no video evidence, no audio evidence. The other side had no idea who had done it.

And an incident at the pier would draw Morningstar’s attention, giving her more opportunities.

“This is Anran. There are Morningstar people at XXX Pier by Nord Biotechnology Company on Lake Neiya. Make arrangements!”

Anran sent this message separately to Zhou Jieyu and Li Zhuying.

The pier’s location was listed on the ship. And if they really could not figure it out, they could just ask someone from Nord Company.

OK.

After sending the texts, Anran did not switch off her phone.

Hopefully those two would come through.

Depending on how things turned out, she could “dote on” them properly later.

…

“Squad One has completely lost contact.”

“Squads Two and Three are already on their way back. Squad Four has just reached its destination.”

In an open clearing, Anran saw more than a dozen cars arranged in a circle.

The person standing in the middle was presumably the one in charge of this Morningstar cargo operation.

From that position, a single shot could send him straight to heaven.

And with a surprise attack using the bombs she had looted from the corpses earlier, she might even be able to wipe out these several dozen people in one go.

Thinking that, Anran made a calculation. There were more than forty people in this camp. They had split into four squads. If each squad had over twenty people like Squad One, then this operation had deployed roughly 130 to 150 personnel in total.

If she was not mistaken, that meant about half the people from the secret base had come out.

There were four routes in total.

Anran lay hidden in the grass a little longer, and finally, something happened in the camp.

“What? Government forces are already on the way?” The person in charge showed a look of shock. “Damn it, how could they get here so fast?”

Although they had long expected the news to leak, according to their estimate, by the time the government forces arrived, they would already have retrieved the goods.

“This won’t do. Squad One will have to stall them a bit longer. If we leave now, we might end up with nothing at all.” The man in charge frowned tightly, his face full of worry.

Why did everything lately feel like it kept going wrong?

“Tell the others on the remaining routes to hurry up. If it really comes down to it, we’ll have to give up.”

Rustle rustle…

While eavesdropping, Anran suddenly heard movement up ahead. She raised her head and saw someone walking over while unfastening his pants.

Holy shit!

Anran moved like lightning. She rushed over, clamped a hand over the man’s mouth, and dragged him far back.

With Aila pinning his arms, the man could not move at all.

After hauling him a long way off, Anran punched him in the stomach and said, “Quick, tell me which directions Squads Two, Three, and Four went. If you don’t, I’ll make you keep holding it until you die from it!”

“…”

Morningstar Soldier B’s pupils contracted violently.

Y-you, you devil!