Volume 3, Chapter 2 – Anran really is a conscientious NPC

The day after the war in Twinmoon City ended, Anran planned to move back home.

Only, that seemed a bit difficult. Those people from the Morningstar Resistance had trashed her home so thoroughly that aside from a bed that had escaped most of the damage, everything else was unusable.

This had made Anran furious for a while, to the point that she even wanted to whip their corpses.

She also could not go back to Colin’s Repair Shop.

Thanks to Stowe and the others’ efforts, although they had failed to kill Anran, they had at least smashed up every place she could go, leaving her temporarily homeless and getting a tiny bit of revenge.

In the end, thanks to Eudora’s kindness, Anran settled into the second floor of her house.

As a surgeon, Eudora was rich.

So rich that Anran envied her.

“Still only a little over 2,000 Bilu. I’m so broke.” Sitting on a small stool in the little garage next door, Anran sorted through her belongings with a miserable expression.

A large backpack held her weapons and blueprints.

She had also finally salvaged some wearable clothes from her wrecked house. After washing them, she hung them on the drying rack outside the little garage, where they fluttered in the wind.

Since she had worked at Colin’s Repair Shop for less than a month, Anran had not earned much money at all.

“Damn that Morningstar Resistance!”

Anran cursed bitterly.

Her top priority was to board a spaceship and head to a planet in the Sea Blue Forest.

A small portion of Pirate Princess Anran’s resources was hidden there.

The Sea Blue Forest lay more than a hundred light-years from the Ailan Cluster where No. 1886 was located. For ordinary people, an interstellar jump over that distance would cost several hundred thousand Bilu.

“…”

1…

2…

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A full two zeroes short.

Anran burst into tears. She would have to work as an ordinary repair worker for the rest of her life to save enough for the fare.

No, she had to find a way to increase her income.

Before she could get rich, cutting expenses was also necessary.

And she could not neglect improving her strength.

If she wanted to break out of this place, Anran felt she could not let all the things in Colin’s Repair Shop go to waste.

Although Colin had been saved, his right leg was ruined. It would be very difficult for him to continue mechanical work in the future, and he would not be using those things anyway.

“I want to haul that equipment back and keep it in the little garage. I don’t know whether…” Anran asked Eudora.

Eudora seemed to have become Colin’s spokesperson. Colin, who had just been dragged back from death’s door, was still lying in bed, his face pale as paper.

“Mhm.” Eudora gave an affirmative answer.

Anran immediately set out with her backpack, all excited.

With those things, she would be able to turn blueprints into real objects.

Though the war between the Security Department and the Morningstar Resistance had ended, there would definitely be bigger developments to come from it.

That war had come too suddenly and ended too suddenly, leaving too many suspicious points.

Early in the morning, discussion of the war was everywhere.

The citizens who came out of their houses were still badly shaken, gathering in small groups and whispering among themselves.

Some said the Security Department minister had commanded brilliantly and successfully repelled Morningstar.

Some said Morningstar’s people had acted too hastily, and by the later stages lacked sufficient manpower and thus were defeated.

Some also mentioned that when the battle reached its fiercest point, a troop had suddenly attacked the data center, blasting the forty-plus-story building to pieces.

Even the nearby signal tower had not been spared.

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The data center and signal tower had both been blown up?

Those two buildings were in the exact opposite direction from where Morningstar had attacked from, and they were also far from City Hall. Why had Morningstar deliberately targeted them?

That question circled in Anran’s mind, and before she knew it, she had walked near Colin’s Repair Shop.

A day had already passed, and the Security Department had cleared away all the corpses near the repair shop.

Anran pushed over the signboard propping up the front entrance, then lifted the rolling shutter. Sunlight instantly poured through the messy repair shop.

There was still a large pool of blood by the door leading to the workshop.

The workshop was even more chaotic, but fortunately most of the equipment was still usable.

With Anran’s own strength, there was no way she could transport so many things by herself, so she had no choice but to spend money hiring a truck.

While waiting, Anran grabbed several sacks and stuffed every usable item in the shop into them.

Be diligent and thrifty. Waste nothing.

Even Anran herself marveled that she had truly inherited the fine virtues left behind by the ancients!

She had all the bearing of an ancient gentleman.

“Clang!”

As she casually dropped a piece of metal into a sack, Anran suddenly heard a noise from the front room.

The moment she stood up, she heard a flustered voice outside: “Holy crap, what happened here? It looks like locusts passed through.”

“…”

Anran froze mid-step. The smile on her face stiffened, and the hand gripping the corner of the sack slowly loosened.

“Bang!”

Locusts?

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Who are you calling that!

Her smile gradually vanished.

Her smile vanished completely.

…

“Is someone here?”

Zhou Jieyu scratched the back of her head.

In fact, she had come to find Anran and claim her quest reward.

After running around for an entire day, she had finally made it back to Twinmoon City.

Unlike the last time she came, the atmosphere in Twinmoon City had changed enormously. A checkpoint had been set up at the city entrance, and Zhou Jieyu’s gun had almost been confiscated. Luckily, after her identity had been verified, the gun was returned to her.

That gun had cost her several days’ worth of money to get. If it had been confiscated, Zhou Jieyu really would have wanted to cry without tears.

After entering the city, Zhou Jieyu had headed straight for Colin’s Repair Shop.

It had to be said that she was lucky. If she had arrived a little earlier or a little later, she would not have run into Anran.

And if that happened, unable to contact Anran, she could only look around helplessly in complete confusion.

Tap, tap…

Anran walked out of the workshop.

Their eyes met.

Zhou Jieyu paid no attention at all to Anran’s icy expression. She had been worried Anran would not be here, so the moment she saw her, she rushed over excitedly.

“I’m here to claim my quest reward!”

Zhou Jieyu looked at Anran with eager eyes.

Heh.

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Anran let out a silent heh to herself.

As expected of a player, laying bare her desires so directly in front of an NPC.

Although she was very displeased by Zhou Jieyu’s “like locusts passed through” remark, the quest had already been issued, and Zhou Jieyu had run straight into her here, so Anran had no choice but to hand over the quest reward. At this stage, she could not ruin her reputation over a single player.

A blueprint for the [1886 Hermit Pistol].

The favorability and EXP had already been automatically distributed.

When Zhou Jieyu saw that a blueprint had suddenly appeared in her inventory, she was overjoyed.

She was not a Mechanic right now, but even if she could not use the blueprint, in the early stage of the game, when prices were relatively high, she could still sell it for more than a hundred Bilu. In one go, she had earned back most of what she had handed over to Anran before.

(Relative to mechanical blueprints, recipes were cheaper. The things Anran sold Zhou Jieyu in the early stage were more moderately priced.)

Thinking about it that way, Anran really was a super conscientious NPC!

The quest rewards were generous, and the things she sold were cheap too.

She was just a little… fierce?

“Vroom, vroom…”

A car suddenly pulled up outside.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll get back to work,” Anran said.

“Wait,” Zhou Jieyu called out.

“What is it?”

“Um, if I want to find you in the future, will you still be here?” Zhou Jieyu asked. She had a feeling this NPC was not simple. If she clung tightly to Anran’s thigh, she might get some unexpected gains.

“Emmm…”

Anran pondered for a moment. This player was kind of dumb, and a high-quality customer like this could not be let go so easily. So she told Zhou Jieyu where she was currently staying.