Volume 3, Chapter 29 – Now, Only She Herself Was Worth Trusting

In the end, Zhou Jieyu did not lie down after all, but she still leaned against the cover in grievance, clutching her pistol tightly and refusing to let go. She also stopped taking part in the fighting.

The guard captain, having stolen a brief moment of respite, turned his head and immediately saw Zhou Jieyu “slacking off.”

His brows instantly furrowed.

“What’s going on with you people?” he demanded.

“She’s hurt,” Anran replied.

“Hurt?”

The guard captain carefully looked Zhou Jieyu over from head to toe. There was blood on her shoulder, her brows were tightly knit, and she wore an expression of “pain.”

The injury did not seem too serious, but it was also possible that her shoulder blade had been hit.

For the sake of internal harmony, the guard captain said nothing more.

Because although Zhou Jieyu was slacking off, Anran and Leading the Charge had already shot and killed one of the people on the other side.

“Bomb! Get down!”

A sudden shout tore through the night, and Anran instinctively hit the ground.

A deafening boom split the sky the next instant.

The violent explosion came with a blinding flash. What the other side had thrown over was not just a grenade, but a flashbang as well.

Once the people from Morningstar realized they had been exposed, they stopped hiding anything. In order to break through the line as quickly as possible and inflict casualties on the guards, they started using grenades outright.

There had been thirteen guards in total. Two of the unluckiest poor bastards died on the spot.

Those with slightly worse luck were struck in the knee by flying debris from the blast and were no longer able to get up.

“This is troublesome.” The guard captain’s frown deepened.

He was not some loyal subordinate of the retired official.

He took money to do a job; professionally speaking, he was very committed.

A lot of the time, he did live up to his identity as a hired guard.

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But if the situation was truly impossible, if the enemy was simply too strong and no amount of sacrifice could stop them, then he would also choose to abandon his reputation and retreat.

There was a lovely wife at home spending her nights alone, so he absolutely had to guard against some other man moving in.

The guard captain’s professional principles were starting to waver.

Anran did not know that yet.

But she also knew the situation had become difficult.

There were still 6 people left in this wave of the Morningstar Resistance.

And there were still 4 more waves to come.

The guards had already taken losses in the second wave. At most, they would only be able to hold out until the fourth.

Boom—

Morningstar began throwing grenades, and the guards stopped holding back as well. Dense gunfire combined with the occasional exploding grenade. The six people on the other side did not last long before they were completely wiped out, but the guards also lost another 2 men, leaving only 8 healthy fighters.

“Your face…”

Leading the Charge looked at Anran as he spoke.

“Is there a problem?” Anran asked in confusion.

“There’s blood,” Zhou Jieyu said.

Blood?

Anran reached up and wiped at her cheek.

Only then did she suddenly feel a burning pain.

When she held her hand in front of her eyes, she saw that her fingers were smeared with blood.

A bullet had grazed her.

HP: 186/200

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Stamina: 134/168

Her digitized body attributes made Anran feel even more pressed for time.

She did not know whether this much stamina would be enough to hold out until dawn.

“Gather the brothers’ bodies together. We can’t leave them exposed out there like that.”

The guard captain gave the order.

The others moved to collect the corpses.

Anran immediately said, “Time is tight. The enemy’s next wave of attack will be here very soon. What we need to do right now is fortify our defenses as quickly as possible. We can’t waste time on this.”

Leading the Charge followed up at once. “That’s right. The Morningstar Resistance still has 4 more waves of attack coming.”

The guard captain’s brow suddenly lifted. “How do you know that?”

“We were informed from above,” Leading the Charge replied.

The guard captain let out a cold laugh. “What kind of intelligence organization is that capable? To know the exact number of attack waves in an operation like this, one that clearly requires adapting on the fly. To be honest, I’ve been suspicious of your identities from the very beginning.”

Anran said nothing.

“Although your identification looks genuine, the whole thing is just too suspicious.”

He continued his analysis. “Maybe you aren’t with Morningstar, but you’re definitely not from the Security Department either. Even if the Security Department intercepted Morningstar’s information and wanted to send over a special operations team… heh.”

The guard captain smiled.

His gaze swept over Zhou Jieyu and Leading the Charge one by one.

The meaning in that look needed no explanation.

Basically, there was no way they would send a bunch of misfits like this!

“(▼ヘ▼＃)” Zhou Jieyu immediately glared back in defiance, but the guard captain ignored her completely.

Leading the Charge, meanwhile, fell into thought.

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“Aside from you, those two don’t look like they’re from the Security Department at all,” the guard captain said. “So tell me, who exactly are you people?”

As he spoke, the guards had already begun to edge closer.

Anran narrowed her eyes.

The wound on her cheek kept stimulating her nerves, keeping her fully alert.

This mission really was quite interesting.

Morningstar in front, a bunch of pig teammates dragging her down from behind. Sure enough, if she wanted to complete this mission, she could only rely on herself.

Those simple methods would not work.

For EXP, for points, all of this virtual data could be sent indiscriminately into the crematorium.

As long as the retired official survived in the end, that was enough.

“Before that, I need to remind you of something. Morningstar’s third wave of attack has already arrived.”

Anran calmly stated that fact to the guard captain.

The guard captain smiled and shook his head, clearly unconvinced.

“You only have one life. Don’t wait until you’re about to die to regret it,” Anran continued.

Here, she was a “player” too. Mere “NPCs” could not shake her in the slightest.

Anran’s unwavering words made the guard captain sink into thought.

Then he raised his head. “I’ll believe you for now. Fall back first.”

The second half was addressed to his men.

So the whole group quickly retreated, with Anran and the others kept in the middle under guard.

This block had already been blasted to pieces, and there was barely any cover left. They could not stay here any longer.

At this point, Anran noticed something minor. The computational power of this device was clearly severely limited. Aside from the key characters, there was not a single resident anywhere in town.

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Even so, this device from Nine Songs was still extremely impressive. There was no way the technology on No. 1886 could produce something like this, right?

She filed that away for later.

Anran had a very good memory and could remember many things.

Her intelligence was not particularly high. She was probably just better at remembering things, calmer, and more inclined to record and analyze.

The guards did not take Anran and the others to meet the retired official, but their final destination was still his residence.

It was a large estate beside the public park.

There was a courtyard, a large house, and smaller houses for the guards to live in.

Anran and the others were taken to one of the smaller houses, one suitable for confinement.

“No matter what, I still don’t trust you. So you’ll have to stay here for the time being. If you’re innocent, then once your identities are confirmed, I will naturally let you out.”

The guard captain then said to one of his men, “Take their weapons.”

Anran felt helpless. Sure enough, they were going to confiscate their weapons after all.

“We could have worked together quite well.” Anran scratched at the swaying flaxen bangs in front of her forehead and stepped two paces to the side.

Her faintly blue eyes were also full of helplessness.

“What do you mean by that?” the guard captain asked.

“I have to complete the mission, so I’ll just have to ask you all to go die for a bit.” Anran suddenly pulled out a fragmentation grenade and threw it.

“Get back!”

The guard captain’s expression changed drastically in horror.

Anran had already darted through a door beside the small house.

And she brought Zhou Jieyu along with her.