Volume 2, Chapter 21 – Explosions Are an Art Too

It was close to noon.

Anran was still repairing machines.

This time, it was a juicer a customer had brought in.

Aila was squatting beside her, watching.

Anran removed the juicer’s centrifugal filter and was just about to take out the cutting blade when she turned her head and caught, from the corner of her eye, Aila grabbing the filter and trying to put it into her mouth.

Anran quickly seized Aila’s hand. “Wait, you can’t eat that!”

Aila looked up at her and asked in confusion, “Why can’t I eat it?”

“Because people can’t digest steel!” Anran said.

“Is that so? But Dad feeds me this stuff every day.” Aila stared at Anran as she voiced her objection.

“…”

He feeds iron to a little girl?

Then Anran suddenly remembered that Aila was an artificial robot. Eating iron didn’t seem strange at all. What was strange was how she digested it.

Seeing that Anran had fallen silent, Aila picked up the centrifugal filter and tried to put it into her mouth again.

“Wait, you still can’t eat that.” Anran grabbed Aila’s hand again.

“Why can’t I eat it?” Aila asked, puzzled.

Anran explained, “Because it doesn’t belong to us.”

“Oh.” Aila seemed to understand. At last, she put the centrifugal filter down.

Anran quickly moved it to the other side.

Aila lacked common sense. If Anran didn’t keep a close eye on her, there was no telling what outrageous thing she might do.

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If she ate the customer’s juicer, that would be a real disaster.

…

It was only a juicer, so Anran fixed it in no time.

Perhaps because she got bored, Aila wandered off somewhere halfway through.

Anran was happy to have some peace and quiet. She set the repaired juicer aside, leaned back in her chair, opened the player forum, and started browsing.

As soon as she did, she saw the post Nai Knight had made.

“Could it be that the Morningstar Resistance is about to attack?”

Nai Knight’s rough count alone showed at least dozens of armored vehicles, so the real number had to be even higher.

Morningstar was one of the major factions in No. 1886’s main storyline. If it was making a sudden move, it definitely wasn’t something simple.

Once the flames of war reached Twinmoon City, shells wouldn’t care who they hit. If she was unlucky, she might just get blown to pieces.

As an NPC with only one life, Anran cherished her life very much now.

She immediately decided to run. After packing a few things, bringing weapons and pills for self-defense, and snatching a few mung bean cakes from the table, Anran hurried off toward the station.

If she left by vehicle before Morningstar’s army arrived, that would be the fastest way to escape.

Because of players, those special “Outlanders,” security checks for light weapons in the world of Night of the Stars were not all that strict.

But when Anran arrived at the train station, she discovered that something had gone wrong there.

The tracks had been found to have safety hazards, and all trains had been forced to make an emergency stop inside the station.

Anran went to the bus station next, only to find the situation even more absurd.

Someone was causing trouble.

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A garbage truck had been parked sideways across the exit, and no vehicles could get out. Rumor had it that long-distance drivers were defending their rights, and even the police could do nothing about it.

The people of Twinmoon City had no idea that Morningstar was about to attack. They just thought the whole thing was ridiculous.

But Anran had already realized things were going bad. The people Morningstar had planted inside Twinmoon City had already started making their move.

This was bad.

After all that, nearly an hour had passed.

Anran frowned. At this rate, her only choice was to look for those unlicensed cars.

Those drivers operated in the old district.

Not long after Anran stepped into the old district, a tremendous boom suddenly came from the distance.

She turned toward the source of the sound, but didn’t see anything unusual.

Just as Anran was about to turn back, the booms started coming one after another, like a flood suddenly pouring loose.

Something had happened.

Anran’s heart skipped a beat.

Sure enough, in the very next second, a wailing siren tore through the clear sky. The whole city went on alert. Morningstar’s advance troops had arrived.

With the guidance of the defense deployment map, and with the advance troops following blitzkrieg tactics,

the first shell landed with perfect accuracy on top of Twinmoon City’s arsenal.

Boom boom boom.

A chain of explosions.

First came the red blaze, then smoke shot into the sky. Behind the smoke, the flashes of the explosions and the brilliant red firelight reflected off one another, as though someone were painting on a curtain woven from smoke.

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Explosions were an art too.

Anran stared wide-eyed at the scene before her.

For that single instant, the world seemed to fall into absolute silence.

But only for that single instant.

When her hearing returned, screams instantly spread through every corner of Twinmoon City, so loud that even the roar of artillery and the hail of bullets could not drown them out.

Peaceful Twinmoon, in that instant, had suddenly become a city of screams!

Anran turned and left at once. War had fallen without warning, and the option of escaping in an unlicensed car was basically cut off too.

…

[Is it really this exciting? Are we even playing the same game?]

[Why is a major plot event happening before players have even entered the main city?]

[Can I be jealous of you? I can, right? I definitely can, right? That’s 1,000 Bilu! Could I trouble you guys to die a few more times?]

[I think you’re just deliberately making things hard for this Fat Tiger!]

[June 15, sunny. The weather is still so hot today. I’m practically dying from the heat, but nobody is buying me iced watermelon, iced cola, or ice-cold Xiebi… I’ll remember this grudge for now.]

There wasn’t any useful information on the forum. The players’ reach hadn’t extended into Twinmoon City yet, so it looked like she’d have to rely on herself for everything.

But one sentence caught Anran’s attention.

Why was a major plot event happening before the players had even entered the stage?

Weren’t these kinds of plot events supposed to exist for the players?

Anran couldn’t make sense of it at all.

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Pushing through the crowd, Anran looked up and realized that she had somehow ended up back in front of Colin’s repair shop.

Colin was sitting in that rocking chair.

Aila was squatting on the ground, playing.

The two of them were calm, so calm that it felt as though the peaceful Twinmoon City still existed outside.

What the hell?

Puzzled, Anran walked into the shop.

At that moment, Colin lifted his head. When he saw that it was Anran, he said in surprise, “Why haven’t you left yet?”

Surely she wasn’t planning to stay and stand guard over this shabby old repair shop with him.

If that was the case, Colin suddenly felt a little touched.

Anran gave an oh. “Actually, I wanted to ask whether there’s anywhere nearby to take shelter. I’m not very familiar with Twinmoon City.”

“…”

Colin opened his mouth and said decisively, “No.”

“That’s really a pity.” Anran sighed. “I’ll go look around outside first.”

She couldn’t just sit and wait for death. What if there was still some chance to slip out of Twinmoon City?

Even though the chance was small, it wasn’t entirely impossible.

If she really couldn’t find a way, then she’d come back.

Colin watched as Anran walked away.