Volume 2, Chapter 25 – The War Correspondent Is on the Move

Inside Little Gold Tooth’s restaurant.

One of the underlings came out of the bathroom, hitching up his pants as he walked.

His gaze landed, by chance, on Wilson and Kane, who had been dumped in the corner.

For some inexplicable reason, the underling walked over to the corner.

His eyes fell on Kane.

He had heard this guy wasn’t dead yet.

Slowly, he crouched down and shoved Kane with his unwashed hand.

Kane swayed a little, but aside from that there was no reaction at all.

The underling stretched his hand out under Kane’s nose again.

Very calm. Very peaceful. No feeling of air brushing against his fingers. No movement whatsoever.

“Boss, boss!” he immediately shouted.

“What are you yelling for? You’re disturbing my rest!” Little Gold Tooth came out of the room unhappily. His eyes fell on the underling, anger lurking in them. “Spit it out if you’ve got something to say!”

The underling felt a little wronged, but he still answered honestly, “Boss, this injured Morningstar guy has stopped breathing.”

“Dead?” Little Gold Tooth swept his gaze over Wilson and Kane.

Both of them were pale-faced now, curled up in the corner.

The underling looked at Little Gold Tooth expectantly.

Little Gold Tooth let out a long yawn and waved his hand indifferently. “Dead is dead. They already ended up like this. Did you really expect that leaving them here with us would save them? Ignore them. Just leave them there.”

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The underling hesitated, then finally said, “Boss, that may be true, but what if those Morningstar people deliberately come looking for trouble?”

Little Gold Tooth clicked his tongue. “What the hell are you worried about? I thought Morningstar was pretty impressive, but who would’ve thought they’d blow up Twinmoon City’s armory and then still fail to fully break through even the outer perimeter after fighting for half a day? That’s just embarrassing.”

“Uh…” The underling scratched the back of his head.

“I think this attack by Morningstar is going to fail. Good thing we didn’t stir up much trouble.” Little Gold Tooth swaggered back into the inner room, seemingly very satisfied with both his own actions and his judgment.

After thinking it over, the underling felt the boss was absolutely right. He had just stood up to leave, but immediately crouched back down again. His hand groped over Wilson’s body a couple of times, then he reconsidered and decided that wasn’t a good idea.

Even if Morningstar might lose, they were still very powerful, so he quickly stood back up and left as though nothing had happened.

…

Standing near her home, Anran felt a little confused.

For no clear reason, she had gained experience twice. The first time, her favorability with Morningstar had also dropped by 100 points. She had assumed the second time would reduce her favorability too, but after waiting for quite a while, she still received no further notification from the game.

So what was the logic behind that?

When Anran reached her front door, she immediately saw that her wooden fence gate had been opened, and so had the door to her house.

A burglar?

Anran’s face darkened. She had indeed been thinking about abandoning this house, but she’d only just left and someone had already broken in right after. How could Anran not be angry?

This house might be junk, but she could still sell it for a bit of money.

If war hadn’t broken out, there was no way Anran would have even thought of simply throwing it away. She was not exactly rich right now.

Click-clack…

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With a round chambered, Anran moved lightly toward the house.

She quickly reached the doorway, pushed open the half-closed door, and at a glance saw her room smashed into utter chaos.

“What the hell…”

The first thing Anran saw was that extremely eye-catching bulky old TV set, the first object she had used for live practice after becoming an Engineer.

Now half the screen had been shattered, broken glass was scattered everywhere, and all kinds of internal components were exposed.

Beside the television, a stool leg had been driven straight into the window. Debris was strewn all over the floor. The only things that had escaped destruction were the bed and the table.

Anran swept the room with her eyes and found no one.

As nimble as a pale-flax squirrel, she darted and weaved through the space, quickly searching the whole house from top to bottom.

No one.

Anran walked out of the kitchen with a livid face.

Goddammit. Even the only water vat had cracked, and all the water had drained away through the pipes.

Her eyes swept around, then suddenly fell on the table in the middle of the room.

There was only one plate on the table, and on it were [Fruit Mung Bean Cake].

“Hm?”

Anran strode over.

“The number’s off?”

There had been ten pieces on one plate. Anran hadn’t touched them. But now there were only two left on the plate.

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Right, and there were another five on the floor. (10-2-1-2)

Three [Fruit Mung Bean Cake] had been eaten by whoever came in.

Anran suddenly thought of the game notification from earlier—

“You successfully killed a Morningstar Resistance…” and so on.

[Fruit Osmanthus Cake] was poisonous. It was very likely that [Fruit Mung Bean Cake] was poisonous too.

The moment she connected those two things, Anran’s expression suddenly turned strange.

The situation might have gone like this: people from Morningstar broke into her house, then two unlucky bastards ate the [Fruit Mung Bean Cake], and then GG.

Why did that suddenly sound so funny?

But the moment she saw her house smashed to pieces, Anran got angry again.

So damn irritating.

As she thought about it, Anran’s expression suddenly changed.

The situation might not be that simple. Just now she had assumed the Morningstar people had entered her house by mistake, but she quickly noticed something wrong.

If it had been a mistake, why was her house the only one on the whole street with its door kicked open?

To confirm that, Anran even went outside to check in person.

Sure enough, something was off.

The Morningstar people had deliberately come looking for her, and the reason she had become hostile with Morningstar in the first place was that incident at the detention center.

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If they didn’t find me here, then where would they go?

Anran’s eyes began to flicker.

…

“Bro, they’re fighting. They’re really fighting.”

Zhou Jieyu crouched in a corner, talking to “Leading the Charge” while sticking her head out to watch the crowd fleeing along the street.

“You should find somewhere to hide first. Otherwise, if you get killed before changing your respawn point, you’ll be sent all the way back to the newbie village,” Leading the Charge analyzed calmly.

“Mhm.” Zhou Jieyu gladly accepted the suggestion. She definitely did not want to end up like those goofballs from Nai Knight’s group.

After ending her call with “Leading the Charge,” Zhou Jieyu retreated deeper into the alley.

The game had a recording function, after all, and at a time like this—

“I might be the only player personally experiencing this war.”

The moment that thought occurred to her, Zhou Jieyu became super excited.

She quickly brought up the recording function and tested it. No problems at all. The picture was crystal clear and completely lossless. Uploading it to the forum was instant too, with no delay and no compression.

At that moment, Zhou Jieyu felt as though she had suddenly transformed into a war correspondent.

Moving through a city roaring with artillery fire, sharing this sudden war with players scattered across the vast universe.

Zhou Jieyu clenched her fist, looked left and right, then chose a direction and dashed out.

War correspondent Zhou Jieyu was on the move!