Safe City Ch.146.2

Chapter 146.2: Manufacturing a Magic Airship

Inside the Safe City, one quick glance was enough. The Blue Sea residents were all living their normal lives.

The main thing to check was what was happening outside the Safe City.

To the east, a group of Old Eighths was fighting a band of robbers that had entered [Ota] territory.

To the south, another group of Old Eighths was battling a swarm of mutant spiders.

On the roads cleared through the central region, Blue Sea residents were busy transporting ore. But it happened to be break time, and quite a few people had gathered together to watch two residents fight after challenging each other. Cheers and shouts of encouragement rang out all around.

In the sky, Blue Sea people were tearing apart flying mutant beasts that were trying to enter the territory inhabited by Moon Silk residents. Blue Sea currently had the upper hand.

And finally, Cheng Qisheng checked underground.

Zhu Feifan and Ma Yuetian were fighting.

Apparently, they’d dug into a giant earthworm.

The two went back and forth, looking fairly evenly matched.

Cheng Qisheng watched for a while. When she noticed that the two were only getting more and more ferocious, she shifted her attention elsewhere.

Hmm?

Why was there a group of believers that had run so far away, getting quite close to a mutant beast without actually being engaged in combat?

Cheng Qisheng turned her attention toward them and immediately relaxed.

It was the Travel Team.

They were carefully lying prone in the wasteland under blankets, observing a mutant beast from a distance. Someone was even sitting beside them sketching the mutant beast.

What a bizarre thing to do.

But considering it was the Travel Team, that actually seemed perfectly normal.

After confirming that they had plenty of nutrient solution in their backpacks, Cheng Qisheng left them alone.

Her patrol was complete, and everything appeared to be normal.

The Great Blue Sea Creator God hugged her blanket and decided to watch some melodramatic TV with Aether for a while to pass the time.

…

While Cheng Qisheng and Aether were completely engrossed in the melodramatic plot, Yu Bo from Kadan’er Safe City and her subordinates were having a meal in a town that was somewhat more prosperous than the surrounding settlements thanks to its proximity to several mines.

The food was terrible, practically impossible to swallow. But on Moon Silk, where natural food was extremely scarce, this hard, unappetizing stuff was actually quite expensive.

Yu Bo craned her neck and struggled to swallow the food in her mouth. She coughed dryly before saying,

“We really haven’t been able to find an opportunity to get close to the [Company]. I’ll try again. If that doesn’t work, I’ll take a few people, pretend we’re laborers, and apply for jobs as miners at one of the [Company]-owned mines.”

One of her subordinates also craned his neck as he struggled to swallow a mouthful of food. Hearing what their leader said, he suggested,

“Boss, why don’t we just forget it? We’re already making quite a bit of money.”

Ever since the [Ota] Company had replaced the Lord of Broken River, life at the mines had turned out to be somewhat better than they’d expected.

The large mutant beasts had been cleared out by [Ota], while they could handle the small and medium-sized ones themselves. Mining was no longer as dangerous as it used to be, and they were able to extract more ore as well.

Just like the Lord of Broken River, [Ota] collected fifty percent of their mineral output as tax. Yet under [Ota]’s rule, their actual income was far higher than they’d initially estimated.

They no longer needed to set aside a huge portion of their earnings for bribes, there were no longer casualties caused by large mutant beasts, and [Ota] didn’t charge taxes on the machinery used for mining.

They did have to pay the hired workers’ wages, but after doing the math carefully, they were still making a very healthy profit.

The subordinate calculated, “If we keep mining like this for two years, we’ll be able to buy more than fifty Moon Silk fusion guns. If we pool our money together, maybe we’ll even be able to afford a lifetime translator. The translators we’re using now can only be used in a single world.”

“Two years?” Yu Bo shot back. “Do you know what might happen two years from now? What if something goes wrong in the meantime?”

She finished the atrociously unpalatable meal in one go. Liu Tiegou hurriedly handed her some water. Yu Bo drank it and thumped her chest several times before finally forcing the hard food stuck in her throat down.

“Cough! I’ve carefully studied the distribution of forces on Moon Silk, and I can say with certainty that this planet doesn’t believe in the principle of ‘work more, earn more; work less, earn less.’ If you want more, there’s only one way—you have to get in good with the people above you.”

She pointed toward the sky.

“The [Company] is the sky over this land. Even the Lord of Broken River is afraid of it. I’ll bet that if we can get ourselves attached to the [Company], even a little bit of what slips through its fingers would be enough to keep us going for several worlds!”

Liu Tiegou said, “But Boss, we can’t even get close to the [Company]’s employees. Every one of them has their eyes practically in the sky. They only talk to the town mayor or people of an even higher status. Trying to pledge ourselves to them would be way too difficult.”

“That’s precisely why we need to infiltrate one of the [Company]’s mines and work as miners. According to my investigation, the [Company] has a promotion system. Some miners get promoted to supervisors, and supervisors can then be promoted to team captains. With our strength, if we work our way up step by step, won’t it be just a matter of time?”

Yu Bo looked around at her subordinates.

“I heard that every employee of the [Company] has undergone surgery to have a lifetime translator implanted in their throat. Just imagine how wealthy [Ota] must be. Never mind anything else—if we can get our hands on even two lifetime translators, think how much trouble that’ll save us in the future.”

At the mention of translators, everyone’s eyes lit up.

They had suffered more than enough from not being able to understand the local languages in apocalyptic worlds. In the previous world, there had been times when a guillotine was practically hanging over their heads, yet they had thought the locals were simply planning to cut some fruit for them.

The few translators they were using in this world had been obtained only after fighting tooth and nail to get them. Unfortunately, they had no idea what kind of energy these things used, and there was no way to recharge them. At best, they could only be used for a little over half a year before they stopped working.

One subordinate couldn’t hide his envy.

“That’s seriously rich!”

“Of all the apocalyptic worlds I’ve traveled through, the [Company] has it the best. They’ve got high status, nobody dares mess with them, and they’ve got so many resources that they hardly seem like an apocalyptic faction at all.”

Liu Tiegou, however, had a different opinion.

“But if [Ota] is really that powerful, why would they choose such a remote place as their base? They could obviously have gone somewhere much better.”

One of the subordinates said, “Maybe this place was prosperous more than a hundred years ago? Didn’t they all come out of shelters? Who knows what the world would look like a century later?”

Liu Tiegou said, “Even if they didn’t know before the freezing, they know now. So why hasn’t the [Company] moved?”

Yu Bo nodded and, for once, gave Liu Tiegou a rare compliment.

“Tiegou, you’re absolutely right. That is indeed strange. Logically speaking, the [Company] shouldn’t even be interested in a small, remote place like the Broken River Wasteland. But judging from their actions, they seem to be planning to establish a long-term presence here. I’ve never been able to figure out why.”

After receiving praise, Liu Tiegou was visibly more confident.

“Boss, I still think this [Ota] might actually be a Safe City.”

“Think about it. Why would they come to such a remote place? Because there aren’t any other [Companies] in a remote place like this. No one can expose them!”

The other teammates sitting around them burst out laughing.

“Old Tie, there you go again with your Safe City theory. Other than saying it’s a folded city, can you give us any other reason that’s actually convincing?”

Liu Tiegou really couldn’t.

He simply had this inexplicable intuition.

But as for evidence…

If he could produce evidence, why would he call it an intuition?

Yu Bo silenced everyone’s laughter.

“Alright, stop laughing at Tiegou. It sounds completely far-fetched, but it’s still a possibility worth considering.”

Just as everyone chatted and slowly filled their stomachs, the ground suddenly began to tremble slightly.

Everyone’s expressions changed drastically. They immediately grabbed their weapons and supplies and rushed outside.

Their group had survived plenty of apocalyptic disasters, so their first thought was that this could be an earthquake, a sand collapse, or perhaps some enormous mutant beast.

But when they rushed outside, they never expected to see teams of mutant beasts fitted with electric locks, pulling vehicle after vehicle and racing toward the town at full speed.

The town mayor immediately led the guards forward to meet them.

Two [Ota] employees were also hovering in midair nearby. They were dressed in white, and their faces were obscured beneath their masks.

But there was no doubt about one thing:

They were watching this long, suddenly appearing convoy of luxurious vehicles.

—This made the Moon Silk people present breathe a little easier.

By now, [Ota]’s style of doing things had become quite clear.

They didn’t allow anyone—or any mutant beast—to break the rules within [Ota]’s territory.

And with their strength, they really could enforce that.

The Moon Silk people themselves hadn’t realized it yet, but at some point, their attitude had changed.

Before, whenever they saw someone important, they would become anxious, fearful, and apprehensive.

Now, whenever they saw an [Ota] employee, they instinctively felt reassured.

They were assets belonging to [Ota].

Outsiders weren’t allowed to touch them.

At this moment, quite a few Moon Silk people even dared to hide behind buildings and watch the spectacle from a distance.

Several vehicles in the convoy came to a stop, and a group of people got out. They spoke with the town mayor and respectfully bowed toward the [Ota] employees hovering above them.

Seeing this, Yu Bo and her group finally relaxed as well.

“Looks like they know each other. They probably aren’t here to cause trouble.”

As the saying went, when the nest is overturned, no egg remains unbroken.

The convoy was simply too imposing.

Mutant beasts pulled the vehicles, with expensive cars following behind them. There were also squads of local guards carrying weapons, along with heavy thermal weapons being pushed along at the rear.

If a fight really broke out on the spot, even an ability user would have a hard time escaping unscathed under that kind of firepower.

After the two sides talked for a while, the long, wild-looking luxury convoy soon headed in the direction indicated by the town mayor.

Yu Bo gave a meaningful glance to the subordinate who was best at dealing with people.

The subordinate understood immediately. Putting on an expression of curiosity, he slowly approached the crowd.

He wasn’t the only one curious. Several Moon Silk locals who were able to strike up conversations with the town mayor had also gathered around.

The subordinate blended into the group and returned at a jog a short while later.

“Boss, I found out what was going on. This convoy came from the neighboring Tata Wasteland. They’re here under the orders of the Lord of Tata to deliver gifts to [Ota] and celebrate [Ota]’s return.”

“The Lord of Tata?”

Yu Bo’s pupils contracted.

“I know her. She’s always been domineering, and the Lord of Broken River has suffered quite a few losses at her hands.”

She took a deep breath.

“From the information I’ve gathered, the Lord of Tata is arrogant and overbearing. She’s never been afraid of heaven or earth, and she’s never feared death. Yet even she has bowed her head to [Ota]…”

Yu Bo slowly sat down.

She realized that she had vastly underestimated the strength of this [Company].

Perhaps, deep down, she had assumed that [Ota], which was willing to put down roots in a barren place like the Broken River Wasteland, was probably one of the weaker among the various [Companies].

But now, Yu Bo realized she had been wrong.

She wasn’t a local, after all. She didn’t know as much of the inside story as the locals did, and she couldn’t grasp the situation as quickly as they could.

“Looks like [Ota]’s standing on Moon Silk is much higher than I imagined. We can’t afford to keep hiding our abilities anymore.”

“We absolutely have to latch onto this powerful backer. And not just us—we can call in our allies as well and have them pretend to work for [Ota] with us. That way, we’re sure to get even more benefits.”

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