Volume 4, Chapter 34 – Who Would Have Thought We’d Actually Escaped

“Pissing yourself from fear is not allowed. If you dare piss yourself, I’ll cut it right off.”

The moment Anran threatened him like that, the captured Soldier B wilted on the spot.

He trembled all over, his whole body twitching, feeling as though his bladder was about to explode.

In the end, he spilled everything he knew like beans pouring out of a jar.

A total of 150 people had been dispatched for this operation, almost half of the entire base’s defensive personnel.

After finishing off this unlucky bastard and picking up another 860 EXP in the process, Anran immediately rushed toward her target—

the route Squad Two had to pass through.

A muddy forest road.

Using the Crimson Blade, she loosened up the dirt. The soft soil was perfect for digging, so she buried the hard, round bombs in the freshly opened pits, set the detonation switches, then sprinkled fine sand over the top the way one might salt a dark-cuisine dish. Once the soil was tamped down a little, the disturbance was impossible to spot unless you looked closely.

And just like that, a delectable explosive roast was ready to serve.

“Aila, in a bit, hide behind that tree. When you see a vehicle get blown up, start shooting at the people inside immediately.”

Anran handed Aila a gun. She had deliberately positioned Aila at an angle to the front, because she was worried that if Aila was not used to handling guns, she might accidentally shoot straight through her.

“Mm-hm, don’t worry, Anran. I’m a really good shot!”

“Do your best!”

Anran patted Aila on the head.

Aila’s marksmanship…

In the game, it really was excellent. In real life, though, that was harder to say.

Aila hid behind the tree, while Anran concealed herself on the other side of the road. Shooting from two different directions would also create the illusion that they had a lot of people.

Anran wanted to throw Morningstar into chaos. Only then could she fish in troubled waters.

Rumble rumble—

The target convoy entered her sight. Anran held her breath, and the moment the first vehicle rolled right over the buried bomb, she detonated it.

With a thunderous boom, Anran pulled the trigger without hesitation, aiming at the driver of the second vehicle.

Glass shattered, blood sprayed.

Squad Two, caught in a sudden ambush, fell into immediate chaos.

“Fall back, fall back!”

“No, we can’t retreat now. Charge through it, push straight ahead!”

“Ah!”

“Ahhh! I got fucking hit!”

Bang bang!

Squad Two failed to mount any meaningful counterattack at all. There were five vehicles total. One was blown apart, two drivers were shot dead, and anyone else who stuck their head out was immediately hit by two bullets at once.

The dense gunfire made it impossible for them to tell how many enemies they were facing. In the end, they could only stomp on the gas and charge forward!

Anran watched the remaining two vehicles speed away. She had no intention of wiping them all out.

Once the vehicles were gone, it was time for a brand-new looting trip.

“Aila, how is your aim so accurate?”

Anran asked while stuffing anything useful into the pack on Aila’s back.

This was something she genuinely did not understand.

Who could have guessed that a little girl barely taller than a rifle would turn out to be a sharpshooter of the hundred-percent-hit-rate variety?

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“I have an auto-aim program. It’s not a very powerful one, but it works pretty well,” Aila answered honestly.

Au-auto-aim?

Anran’s mouth dropped open in shock.

Coach, she’s using an aimbot!

This was way too unfair. Could robots really just do whatever they wanted?

Anran’s own marksmanship had been honed through constant fighting. And in the game, there had at least been support features like red-dot aiming and the like.

She felt deeply struck.

Why had she not transmigrated into an overpowered robot like Aila?

Wait.

Anran’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Auto-aim program.

She thought back to the trade she had done with Gray. The fourth blueprint had been a segment of auto-aim code.

The auto-aim program written into Aila’s chip was probably that exact code, wasn’t it?

A robot paired with an auto-aim program was simply a perfect match.

“Aila, can you write this program out?” Anran asked.

Aila shook her head. “Anran, I can’t. I can use it, but I can’t see the program itself.”

So that was it.

Anran felt a little disappointed.

If she could get hold of that code, then the robot blueprint used to make Aila and the arthropod robot blueprint could both shine in a whole new way.

“But…” Aila suddenly changed tack. “Anran, although I can’t write it out, I can download the code. You just need to use the port at the back of my neck.”

Aila pulled down her collar, then turned her back to Anran. Revealed there, set into her smooth, pale skin, was a piece of metal etched with faint blue patterns.

Anran remembered.

The first time she had seen Aila, because Aila could not talk, Colin had used a USB drive to install a language program for her.

That had been downloaded through the port under this metal panel.

But Anran noticed something off.

The last time she had seen it, there had definitely been no blue patterns on the metal.

Was this part of Aila’s autonomous evolution?

“Is it okay?” Anran asked.

“No problem!” Aila nodded. “Anran, you just need to press it with your finger.”

Anran pressed on it.

The metal panel immediately retracted to both sides, revealing two ports inside.

One large, one small, both leading into Aila’s body.

Anran took out a USB drive. “Aila, then I’m putting it in.”

“Once Anran plugs the USB drive in, I can do the rest myself,” Aila said.

“It won’t hurt, right?”

“No, Anran. I don’t have a sense of pain.”

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“Then I’m putting it in.”

“Mm!”

Anran found the right angle and gently inserted the USB drive into the port.

After waiting about two seconds, Aila spoke up. “Anran, Anran, it’s done.”

Anran pulled the USB drive back out in surprise.

She glanced at it.

The description that had originally read “Blank USB Drive” had now changed to “Auto-Aim Program [Blue].”

It was actually a blue-quality item!

And Aila had even dismissed it as not that impressive. One had to know that on a beginner planet like No. 1886, the highest item grade was only purple, and those were extremely rare. Blue items were already very high-end.

An exception like Aila could not be judged by rarity at all, because she was not an item. She was a being slowly evolving toward life.

Compared to disrupting Morningstar, this segment of code was the greatest gain from this operation.

…

“What? Squad Two was also attacked by government forces, and half the supplies were lost?”

Out in the open clearing, the Morningstar person in charge was now drenched in sweat.

One piece of bad news after another kept arriving.

It left him utterly exhausted.

Squad One and Squad Two had been dozens of li apart, yet both had come under attack from the government forces.

If that was the case, then Squads Three and Four might also be in danger. Even they themselves might not be safe anymore.

Who had leaked the information no longer mattered. What mattered was the safety of the supplies. If this operation failed, punishment was guaranteed.

“Hurry up and contact Squad Four. I’ll contact Squad Three myself. Tell them to move faster. However much cargo they can carry, have them carry it,” the person in charge hurriedly told his deputy.

“Yes, sir!”

…

“Let’s just hope nothing happens on the road.”

Inside a moving truck, Soldier C in the passenger seat, wearing a helmet and gripping a rifle, said this to the tense-looking driver.

“Squad One’s wiped out, Squad Two lost half its men. Fuck that, I don’t want to die here!” The driver’s face twisted viciously as he bit down on a toothpick and spat out the words.

“Wait, something’s wrong up ahead.”

As the truck kept moving, Soldier C suddenly slapped the driver on the shoulder.

“What—”

Before the driver could finish, he saw that a large tree had suddenly fallen across the muddy road ahead, blocking half the way.

When they had come through earlier, there had clearly been no obstacle there at all.

“Shit! There’s definitely an ambush ahead. We can’t keep going. Back up, now!” the driver howled as he tried to turn the truck around, but the road here was far too narrow, and the vehicle simply could not turn in time.

“Move, screw this junk truck. I still want to live a few more years.”

Soldier C shouted and jumped straight out the door.

Even though he had no idea why the enemy had not attacked immediately, staying inside the vehicle was obviously unsafe. Better to get out and try to fight for a way out.

The moment the driver saw Soldier C jump down, he followed without a second word.

“What’s happening up ahead?” someone in the truck behind them shouted.

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“Ambush!” Soldier C warned, running backward without even turning his head.

“Ambush?”

The person who had asked the question turned pale at once.

They were all like startled birds now.

No matter what, the shores of Lake Neiya were under government control.

Before, while they had been hidden in the dark, they had feared nothing. But now their identities were exposed, and government forces had already begun closing in. Who the hell would still dare rush forward and throw away their life?

Hearing there was a government ambush ahead, the people in the vehicles behind them also jumped out.

“Run! What are you standing there for?”

Boom!

A deafening explosion instantly sent countless birds flying into the air.

Soldier C, who had been running in front, had the upper half of his body blasted skyward. Mud and sprayed blood left the people behind him frozen in utter shock.

“Are you idiots? The road up ahead isn’t fully blocked. Hurry and drive through it!”

That slightly hoarse voice was like a thunderclap exploding in a clear sky, instantly jolting everyone into action.

“The vehicles! Get back in, hurry, hurry!”

“Can two legs outrun four wheels?”

No one knew who had shouted it.

The Morningstar soldiers who had originally planned to run on foot immediately scrambled back into the trucks. Only two unlucky bastards were hit by cold shots behind the knee and collapsed on the ground screaming in agony.

But their former comrades no longer had the luxury of caring about them. They hit the gas and shot past the fallen tree.

Bang bang!

Two gunshots rang out right on cue from behind them.

The Morningstar soldiers driving the vehicles slammed down even harder on the accelerator.

In an instant, they were far away.

And at the site of that brief skirmish, only a few shattered corpses remained behind.

Most notably the two men who had been shot behind the knees. Each had a bullet hole in the forehead, their eyes wide open, their gazes seemingly fixed in the same direction, their faces frozen in horror.

But no one was paying attention to that now.

…

“…”

What a pain. Still, there was nothing to be done about it.

By the faint glow of her phone screen, Anran read through the text messages Li Zhuying had sent one by one.

Yes, it was Nine Songs from Twinmoon City that had come.

Although Zhou Jieyu had also wanted to make a move, the Security Department was currently dealing with a fresh wave of attacks from Morningstar and had no room to spare.

The Nine Songs branch in Twinmoon City, on the other hand, had originally come as reinforcements. After all the members of Yaxi City’s political and business circles who had colluded with Morningstar were dragged out into the open, they had been left on standby, which was why they had been dispatched here.

Not a single useful piece of information.

Anran turned off the screen in exasperation.

If she translated the wall of text into plain language, it amounted to Li Zhuying being interested in her and wanting to chat.

She kept her phone on so that the people from Nine Songs could also track her location. Since Anran herself did not know where she currently was, she and Aila were huddled inside a crate, weapons piled all around them, ready to respond to any sudden change.

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“More than half the supplies are gone.”

Looking at the trucks, now reduced by half, the Morningstar person in charge wore an incomparably grim expression. He was doing his best to hide the fear in his heart behind that terrifying stare.

“Move, now. If we delay any longer, we may all end up dead here.”

At his shout, everyone instantly felt as though a burden had been lifted. They all piled into the vehicles at once, and with a single order from the man in charge, the remaining twenty-odd trucks formed into two columns and sped off.

Nearly an hour later, the people from Nine Songs finally arrived at the clearing.

“This Anran really is boldly exciting.”

A muscular woman stepped out and pressed a hand against one of the shoe prints left on the ground.

It was none other than Tao Tao, captain of the Second Squad.

Rumor had it she was a master of Flow Fist and had already cultivated fist force. Tragically, for reasons unknown, her physique had undergone a dramatic transformation, and she had turned into a tall, imposing muscle woman!

“She’s bold, she’s strong, and she really lives by the principle of ‘making life miserable for Morningstar.’ Even though she ran off, from the looks of it Minister Lü is valuing her more and more.”

“Of course. No matter what, Anran was personally recruited by Minister Lü. I just checked the dark web, and Minister Lü has already raised the reward for bringing Anran back to 100,000 Bilu.” Tao Tao smiled as she stood up.

“We’ve already pinpointed Anran’s location.”

While they were chatting, someone walked up.

“Move!”

“Whew—”

At last, they could finally follow.

Li Zhuying wiped the sweat from her forehead.

She was worried sick right now. She had urged them several times earlier, but after being scolded a few times, Li Zhuying had learned her lesson.

“Let’s go!”

Jumping into the vehicle, Li Zhuying gripped the weapon in her hands tightly.

Sigh. If only the friends she was close to had not all been absent from No. 1886, Li Zhuying would definitely have dragged a dozen or so players along to back Anran up!

…

“Thank goodness, thank goodness. We’re finally about to reach the base.”

Over Squad Four’s radio channel, the survivors all let out sighs of relief.

Someone said with feeling, “Who would have thought we’d actually survive!”

“Seriously. The moment I saw that tree, I thought we were finished. I never imagined we’d actually get out. It’s just a pity for those brothers who died.”

“By the way, who was it that shouted for us to get back in the vehicles?”

“Wasn’t me.”

“Not me.”

“Not me either.”

The channel fell silent at once.

Only after a long while did someone sigh and say, “That brother’s shout saved us, but he himself got left behind there. Sigh—”

That one sigh drew out countless others. Life really was like a play.

“We’re here, we’re here. Slow down.”

At last, the convoy reached the entrance to the secret base.

A heavily fortified gate slowly opened. The person in charge jumped down from the truck and shouted loudly, “Quick, quick, quick! I have something important to report to Supervisor Dante and Supervisor Rainer! Where are the two of them right now?”