Chapter 179: “We’re going to war”
The Great Blue Sea Creator God had acquired a new hobby:
Watching surveillance footage.
And while watching, she couldn’t help but marvel at how technology had truly changed life.
What did it mean to have a surveillance area covering three million square kilometers?
Blue Sea Safe City itself was only a little over a hundred thousand square kilometers.
In other words, once Blue Sea eventually withdrew from Moon Silk, every nook and cranny of the entire Safe City could be covered by surveillance.
And when they reached a new world, they’d be able to blanket the entire place with surveillance as well.
More importantly, these devices could transmit footage from far away back to Blue Sea. In terms of helping Blue Sea explore the outside world, their usefulness had increased by roughly ten million times.
Most importantly, Aether, as the artificial superintelligence, could connect all of them directly to her database.
Who could have thought of surveillance devices disguised as robotic dragonflies?!
If it weren’t for the faint red glow beneath the dragonflies’ compound eyes, it would have been genuinely difficult to tell that every single one of them was actually a surveillance device.
Oh, right. On Moon Silk, they weren’t called dragonflies. They were called four-winged insects.
But it didn’t really matter. Since Blue Sea called them dragonflies, the 38-member research team simply went along with it and adopted the name.
“A dragonfly is an extremely efficient miniature flying platform. Its four independently operated wings allow it to perform extreme maneuvers while in flight, such as turning on the spot, flying close to the ground at low speeds, making U-turns within confined spaces, and hovering.”
“It produces less noise during flight, while remaining highly stable at low speeds. This makes it extremely well suited for remaining stationary at a fixed location for extended periods of time to observe and monitor targets.”
Cheng Qisheng watched the experimental footage recorded by the 38-member research team. The more she listened, the more familiar it sounded.
Four wings, capable of hovering, flying close to the ground, turning on the spot, making virtually no noise during flight, blah blah blah…
Wasn’t this exactly how Old Eighth introduced themselves after equipping their Flight Wings?
Cheng Qisheng felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
Back then, Blue Sea had chosen the wings of a Skywing Dragon as the Flight Wings purely because, after Ruo Buyan’s experiments, they were the only ones that proved to be the best match.
Who would have thought that on a planet where technological prowess was displayed so spectacularly, they would also place such high value on the power of four-winged flight?
It wasn’t that Blue Sea hadn’t had a choice back then.
It was just that when they finally chose, they’d picked the best option.
Cheng Qisheng skipped over all the obscure technical jargon the researchers were throwing around in the experimental footage and went straight to Aether:
“If they can manufacture the materials needed for the four wings of a bionic dragonfly, can they replicate the material used to make the Flight Wings?”
Aether quickly finished checking the data.
“The Blue Sea government has already asked about this as well. They even sent five pairs of Flight Wings to the laboratory. However, Specialist Tupa said that the biological structure of the Flight Wings is extremely intricate, and their overall size is quite large. Replicating them would require a tremendous amount of raw materials.”
Ah.
Cheng Qisheng came back to her senses.
Naturally, there had to be a huge number of bionic dragonfly surveillance devices to cover the entire Broken River Wasteland.
To gain complete control over this land, the entire Blue Sea population had once again mobilized, working together with various items from the shop and the researchers. In the shortest possible time, they had manufactured twenty million bionic dragonflies.
And as everyone knew, Blue Sea could always poach researchers from outside.
Factory equipment could be built on-site at a single command.
The workers on the assembly lines were Blue Sea’s own residents.
But materials such as polyvinyl alcohol, sodium alginate, gelatin, graphene, silver nanowires, and countless others—materials used to manufacture conductive sensing hydrogels, insulating coatings, lightweight structural components, and so on—didn’t just appear out of thin air.
Producing them required crude oil, animal hides and bones—which Blue Sea had no shortage of—coal, silver ore, boron ore, and countless other resources.
Blue Sea had reserves of all those raw materials, but they also needed them for their day-to-day operations. This time, manufacturing the bionic dragonflies had consumed nearly three-fifths of their entire stockpile.
They needed to restock.
There were mines in the Broken River Wasteland as well, but compared with the ores Blue Sea needed, the resources there were both too limited in variety and insufficient in quantity.
After all, why had Moon Silk developed its technology so rapidly?
Wasn’t it because the planet itself was extraordinarily rich in resources, allowing the people of Moon Silk to use them as freely as they pleased?
Cheng Qisheng’s gaze fell on her notebook.
The names of the Three Great Companies were written there in stark, unmistakable letters.
They occupied the best regions on Moon Silk.
And “best” didn’t merely refer to the safety of the land’s surface.
It also referred to the vast quantities of rich mineral deposits lying quietly beneath those enormous stretches of land.
Cheng Qisheng took out a black pen and drew a circle around the words [Zephyr Company].
She looked toward the stockpile of nuclear crystals in Blue Sea’s warehouse.
After counting the crystals earned from the Truth Stone—minus at least five years’ worth of its food—and excluding the crystals Blue Sea’s residents needed for advancing their own supernatural abilities…
Three hundred and fifty million nuclear crystals lay quietly in Blue Sea’s warehouse.
Cheng Qisheng’s mental power swept across the countless crystals.
The [Book of Answers] written by the Octopus City Lord had made the importance of nuclear crystals crystal clear.
They were energy, food, weapons, and a safety net all at once.
The Octopus City Lord’s advice was that once you had nuclear crystals in hand, aside from what was needed for emergencies and the portion required for the “Great Cosmic Travel Fare,” it was best to spend whatever you earned as soon as you earned it.
Cheng Qisheng had plenty of things she wanted to spend nuclear crystals on, too.
For example, Blue Sea’s suspended roads were ready for an upgrade. The Tier 3 and 4 weapons factories could also be upgraded to a level compatible with a Tier 6 Safe City. The pharmaceutical factories and hospitals could be upgraded again as well; at the very least, their floor space could be expanded.
But she’d been forcing herself not to spend the crystals.
Because these nuclear crystals were enough for Blue Sea to spend three hundred million and purchase a weapon from the Safe City Shop called the Sky-Based Projection Device.
Aether had carefully selected it as the weapon most suitable for use on Moon Silk. It was available for purchase by Tier 6 City Lords. Judging from its description, its effect was similar to [Heaven’s Punishment], though slightly weaker.
But it was still enough to destroy a [Company].
Unless absolutely necessary, Cheng Qisheng certainly wouldn’t spend three hundred million nuclear crystals on a one-use weapon.
But whether she could afford to buy something and whether she had enough nuclear crystals to buy it were two entirely different matters.
The Great Blue Sea Creator God could accept a difficult victory.
She could accept a prolonged battle, too.
But if [Zephyr] inflicted more damage on Blue Sea’s residents than she had anticipated, Cheng Qisheng would simply have to say:
—There goes three hundred million nuclear crystals.
Aether gently descended and floated above her head.
Ever since it had started growing a brain, the jellyfish AI had loved sticking close to the City Lord while working. Now, hearing the City Lord announce:
“Blue Sea has waited long enough. We’ve prepared every bit of strength we possibly can. It’s time to begin the real war.”
…
“We’re going to war.”
As usual, Bo Huan had just finished patrolling Moonbreath Town with his teammates. He was taking off his mask and thinking about what to eat for lunch when he suddenly heard the captain say those words as he removed his own mask.
He said it so casually, as if he were announcing, “The cafeteria’s doing a buy-one-get-one-free deal on meat today.”
Bo Huan froze.
“What?”
The captain shrugged. He finished off the grilled sausage he had bought from a roadside stall during today’s patrol in two or three bites. His voice was still slightly muffled as he chewed.
“I got a deployment order from above. The soldiers’ passage has been opened, and anyone who signs up can participate. I guess that means we’re going to war, right?”
For a moment, Bo Huan had no idea how to react.
For the people of Broken River, the prospect of a war involving [Ota] wasn’t exactly unexpected.
After all, no one would believe that [Ota] was willing to remain “holed up” in this tiny little Broken River forever.
It was just… these past few days had been so peaceful and uneventful. The word “war” sounded far too abrupt.
Every morning, he would get up early, wash up, put on his uniform, and head to the cafeteria to have breakfast with his fellow guards.
All the cooks in the cafeteria were Broken River natives. Whenever they saw the guards, they were always smiling. Bo Huan had only been on the job for two days, yet those cooks had already keenly noticed that he preferred saltier food. Whenever they served him a meal, they would deliberately leave him an extra spoonful of salty soup.
His colleagues never bullied the newcomer, either. In fact, they took good care of Bo Huan. They taught him how to drive Moon Silk vehicles, and they would take him along when the guards from different towns competed to claim a medium-sized mutant beast that had suddenly appeared in Broken River.
After winning, they would put on their masks and butcher the beast right there on the spot, dividing the meat according to each person’s contribution in the battle.
Because Bo Huan wanted to hide his true strength, he didn’t fight at full power. Even so, since there were only a dozen or so guards at the station, he still got a leg from the beast.
The mutant beast had been a full three meters tall. The meat from just one of its legs, if turned into cured meat, would have been enough to keep Bo Huan fed for quite some time.
The next day, the captain returned with a sack full of Tier 1 nuclear crystals after taking the Tier 2 nuclear crystal from the mutant beast’s brain.
Bo Huan had assumed that, as the captain, he had naturally claimed the Tier 2 nuclear crystal for himself.
But that wasn’t what happened.
The captain had taken it to the Ota Bank in town and exchanged it for Tier 1 nuclear crystals so that they could divide the spoils among everyone.
As before, the Tier 1 nuclear crystals were distributed according to everyone’s contributions. Bo Huan received more than a thousand crystals.
That night, he lay in the guards’ dormitory, which was thoroughly and tightly equipped so that it wouldn’t be afraid of light leaking out and attracting night beasts. Rubbing the gleaming nuclear crystals in his hands, it took him a long time to finally fall asleep.
Together, they had walked every road in Moonbreath Town.
They treated the biomimetic dragonflies flying overhead as free cameras.
They would sit on the rooftops of the town’s buildings, discussing who could jump the farthest if they leaped from the roof, only to immediately put on expressionless faces and adopt their most aloof demeanors whenever townspeople passed by.
Bo Huan had seen the captain return with a perfectly expressionless face, yet practically radiating smugness, and announce that a certain town was going to hunt down a certain mutant beast—and that he had managed to secure the opportunity for their guard station.
He had also seen the youngest member of the team sit at the guard station’s desk and do his homework during their breaks.
Bo Huan had seen one team member’s child come to visit him, too.
The ten-year-old had an innocent look in his eyes and rosy cheeks, with candies and snacks tucked away in his pockets.
The captain said that all their children attended [Ota]’s schools. Since they were employees, there was no such thing as tuition. The teachers would teach them all kinds of knowledge, as well as how to protect themselves in the dangerous apocalypse.
Although that ten-year-old girl was a little too energetic.
Bo Huan only looked away for a moment, and she had already scrambled up to the ceiling, pulled out a small nest of relatively harmless mutant lizards, and announced that she was going to raise them.
Her father agreed without the slightest hesitation, as though in the middle of an apocalypse, it were perfectly normal for a child to be able to attend school, grow up so innocent and fearless, without a trace of gloom in her eyes, and for the family to even be able to afford a pet lizard.
Bo Huan hadn’t been in Broken River for very long compared with the amount of time he had spent in other apocalyptic worlds.
But this place was different.
He had almost… almost believed that he could go on living like this forever.
The word “war” dragged him back to reality.
It was as though Bo Huan had only just remembered why he had come here, and what kind of mission he was carrying on his shoulders.
It was also as though he had only just realized that he, the captain, Old Li who would hand him fruit, Kansi who was exceptionally good at chess, and Auntie from the cafeteria who always made a point of saving him an extra spoonful of salty soup…
They weren’t people from the same world.
Bo Huan had originally planned to use the wages he had saved up to buy a new combat suit at the beginning of next month—the one the captain had enthusiastically recommended—and then take his teammates out for a huge meal at the most expensive restaurant in Moonbreath Town.
“Hey!”
The captain waved a hand in front of his face.
“What are you spacing out for? Did you hear what I just told you?”
Bo Huan came back to himself, his face pale.
“I heard you. The war… who is [Ota] going to fight?”
The captain said, “I don’t know. Anyway, we’re going to war. The soldiers’ passage only gets opened when there’s a war.”
“Oh, I see.”
In the past, Bo Huan probably would have wondered what kind of organization wouldn’t even tell its own soldiers who they were going to fight.
But his mind was in such turmoil now that he couldn’t be bothered to think about it.
“Are we… all going to be conscripted as soldiers?”
They were guards at a guard station. Technically speaking, they should indeed be called up.
At first, Bo Huan had only taken the guard position because he wanted to use it as a stepping stone to become an [Ota] employee in another position, thereby avoiding the possibility of being sent to the front lines.
In the beginning, he had worked hard toward that goal. Unfortunately, the captain flat-out refused to accept his bribes, and other [Ota] employees never came to Moonbreath Town anyway.
Later, as he gradually grew closer to his teammates, he found that life here felt so good that he stopped trying to climb the ranks and avoid the war.
Now that the war had truly arrived, strangely enough, he didn’t feel much regret at all.
After all, he was a Tier 3 ability user. As long as he was on the battlefield, it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to keep himself and his teammates alive, right?
Just as Bo Huan was thinking this, the captain said:
“No conscription. Didn’t I just tell you? They’ve opened a registration channel for soldiers. Anyone who wants to participate in the war can sign up voluntarily.”
Bo Huan froze.
“Voluntarily?”
“Yeah. I’ve already signed up. If you want to come with me, just tell me and I’ll register you too.”
Bo Huan was still stunned.
“What happens if I don’t sign up?”
The captain gave him a puzzled look.
“What do you mean, what happens? If you don’t sign up, you stay here at the guard station and wait for us to come back.”
Bo Huan: “…You guys?”
“Yeah. I just asked the others. They all signed up.”
Bo Huan’s heart tightened, and he grabbed the captain by the arm.
“No, wait. Didn’t you say it was voluntary? Why did everyone sign up? You’re all going to the battlefield?”
“Of course we are. What, you expect us to stay behind and watch everyone else go to war?”
“That won’t do. I can’t accept that.”
What the captain meant was that after finally getting a chance to fight in a war, there was no way he was going to sit it out. Being a guard was certainly a respectable job, but patrolling the same route every day and only getting the chance to fight a mutant beast once every half a month was simply too boring.
But to Bo Huan, those words struck him like a thunderbolt.
Yes.
In his eyes, this was a war that would be nothing short of a meat grinder. There was no reason to throw their lives away.
But after actually working for [Ota] himself, Bo Huan finally understood why there had never been a single employee in the intelligence reports who betrayed [Ota].
The City Lord had assumed it was because [Ota] brainwashed its employees, or because anyone who developed rebellious intentions was immediately dealt with.
But after living in the Broken River Wasteland for a while as an employee himself, Bo Huan knew that the City Lord was wrong.
[Ota] didn’t keep its employees through threats.
It kept them through generous benefits and meticulous care for every employee.
He should have said, “Yes, I’m not going to sign up. I’ll stay here and wait for you.”
That had been Bo Huan’s original plan.
As an [Ota] employee, he would remain in the rear, stay out of the dangers of the battlefield, and still have an explanation to give the City Lord—that [Ota] had given him a different position, which was why he couldn’t go to the front.
But… but…
Bo Huan stood there, watching the other members of the guard station come in one after another after changing into their clothes.
They wore their masks, making them look intimidating and utterly cold.
Yet their hands were warm as they affectionately patted him on the shoulder, one after another.
“Bo Huan, want to play chess after work?”
“Here, I made this cured meat myself. It’s nice and chewy.”
“Don’t fall for it. That stuff could knock your teeth out.”
“That’s because your teeth are too brittle! My cooking has improved, okay?”
“Oh? Want to throw down?”
“Bring it on! Who’s scared of you?”
The guards soon devolved into a brawl right there in the guard station.
The first time Bo Huan had seen his teammates fighting, he had been startled and tried to intervene. But now, after becoming so familiar with them, he knew perfectly well that this was how [Ota]’s guards entertained themselves.
There was no laughter in the guard station.
Yet beneath his mask, Bo Huan couldn’t help watching them with the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“All right, time to work. If you want to fight, do it after work.”
Seeing that it was time, the captain called a halt to the two of them, then turned to Bo Huan.
“Then I’ll register you for rear-area civilian duty.”
He started to head out first, but Bo Huan suddenly grabbed him by the arm.
The young Tier 3 ability user said, “No. I’m going too. Can we be assigned together?”
The captain paused and looked Bo Huan up and down—the guy who had scored 78 on his entrance interview.
“You sure?”
Bo Huan hesitated for a moment.
He lowered his head and looked at the tactical watch on his wrist.
A few days ago, after the captain learned his birthday, he and the other team members had pooled their Ota Coins to buy it for him.
The watch could monitor a person’s vital signs, function as a map, and communicate with people nearby. Every local guard had one. Only newcomers like them, who had yet to reach P2 asset status, weren’t qualified to buy one themselves.
But receiving one as a gift was perfectly fine.
Actually, that so-called birthday was something Bo Huan had made up.
Only the month happened to match. He wasn’t from this world, so how could he possibly have a Moon Silk birthday?
But this really was the first birthday gift he had received since the apocalypse broke out in his original world when he was thirteen.
It wasn’t just the birthday gift, either.
It was this peaceful stretch of time that hadn’t actually lasted very long, yet somehow felt so long.
As Bo Huan thought about it, he couldn’t help thinking that he must have gone crazy. He had actually changed his original plan of lying low in the rear just for the sake of a few locals.
At the same time, though, he couldn’t help convincing himself that the City Lord was suspicious by nature. If he stayed in the rear, the City Lord might suspect that he had ulterior motives.
When he really thought about it, going to the front lines was actually the right choice. That way, he could give the City Lord an explanation.
He was a Tier 3 Earth-element ability user.
On the battlefield, he had the means to keep himself alive.
And he could even save the local friends he had just made along the way.
Right.
It was only along the way.
His main reason was actually to satisfy the City Lord.
Bo Huan’s gaze gradually hardened. He raised his head and looked at the captain.
“I’m sure. I’m going to war.”
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