Weakness of the Heart of Iron

At the mountain peak. Beside a mounded heap of earth, Rou Rou planted a crooked wooden sign into the ground. A line of words was written on it. Written in the language of this world: [He stepped forward for his comrades, writing a legend of courage with his life.] [—Teddy] Beneath this name were the signatures of all the members of the White Bear Knights. She had many memories of it, yet she couldn't summon ornate rhetoric, nor could she sum it up in just a few words. "In your next life, I hope you can go see our world..." "Oh, right. If you get a choice, try to pick one with dark circles around its eyes... Their lives are the coziest." Reaching out a bear paw to gently pat the mounded dirt, Rou Rou mumbled softly under her breath, then braced her bulky frame to slowly rise before the grave marker. A gentle breeze blew, swaying her white fur and the grass beside her on the ground. The distant morning sun had already risen, casting a sparkling golden glow across the forest. She wanted to sing a song before leaving, but couldn't think of which one to sing. Staring at the epitaph on the wooden sign, Tail rubbed her chin in thought for a moment before suddenly spotting a blind spot. "Wait." "If we put our names on it too, will people misunderstand and think we're buried underneath as well?" "Eww, don't tell ghost stories at a time like this!" Rou Rou, who had just been feeling sad and heartbroken, didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "Hmm... it really does feel a bit weird." Sesame Paste's expression was somewhat subtle as she touched her index finger to her lips. "It feels almost like... we raised a massive death flag." Tail suddenly adopted an eerie, spooky look and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Speaking of ghost stories, have you heard that one...? One day, a girl went to a friend's funeral, only to look at the gravestone and realize her own name was carved on it—" "All right, all right, please stop!" Rou Rou clapped a hand over Tail's mouth, causing the latter to let out strange, muffled squawks. The playful clamor washed away some of the grief. Looking back at that crude marker, Sesame Paste crouched down gently and planted a small flower she had brought from the foot of the mountain beside it. Since this was a fully realistic virtual reality game... In a few years, colorful wildflowers would probably cover the entire slope, right? As long as the server didn't roll back... Standing up from the ground, she looked toward her companions and smiled. "Time to head out." Seemingly forever brimming with energy, Tail wriggled free from Rou Rou's arms and pumped her fist with vigor. "Oh! Let's charge!" ... Because of a single newspaper, the entirety of Boulder City was gripped with panic. Meanwhile, Hal, the mastermind who had stirred up all this turmoil, was riding high—or rather, strutting with smug satisfaction. "Print more! Run another twenty thousand copies of yesterday's issue! Right now, our readers aren't just tavern idlers or vagrants roaming the streets—they're well-dressed citizens and inner-city nobles!" He sat on the windowsill of the newspaper office, holding a bottle of champagne, pleasantly buzzed in the early morning as he barked orders at the editorial staff, reeking of alcohol. Yes, a bottle. And a large one at that. Yet it was all worth it. Just the day before yesterday, the circulation of *Survivor Daily* had been hovering around six thousand. The moment yesterday's headline hit the streets, every copy in the city sold out in an instant. Not only that, but subscriptions had doubled. Now the entire city was hanging on his every word. As for House? Just a sore loser who could only throw shade over the radio; he didn't care about him in the slightest! Tearing his gaze away from the staff, Hal looked toward Fang Chang standing in the editorial office, a brilliant grin spreading across his face. "My dear friend, those two photos you brought were simply perfect! Why don't you just join our paper as a reporter? Speaking from my years of experience in the industry, you're an absolute genius!" *Years of experience, right...* Fang Chang remembered that just a month ago, this guy had still been a well-mannered royal prince. In the span of a few short weeks, he had been corrupted into this boisterous, loose-lipped blowhard. For a moment, he couldn't tell whether it was the newspaper or this city reeking of copper that ruined people. Clearing his throat softly, Fang Chang said, "You'd be better off thanking our Administrator... I'm merely a delivery boy at best." "Haha, of course I must thank him too—allow me to offer the esteemed Administrator my highest respect, second only to the Spirit of the Sand Sea!" As he said this, Hal took another swig straight from the bottle. Fang Chang felt he wasn't being genuinely respectful; he was just making up an excuse to drink. Still... He didn't really have the standing to mock him. It was like how plenty of players constantly shouted about Thunder Bluff, but very few actually liked Tauren. Fang Chang had been the very first player to start addressing him as "respected Administrator," and by now, it had become a customary player verbal tic that enhanced immersion. As for actual respect? Perhaps there was a touch of admiration. After all, if one wanted to find someone so upright, selfless, and wholly devoted in reality, one would probably have to flip open a history book and look up Zhuge Liang's *Memorial on Deploying the Army*. But genuine, heartfelt respect toward an NPC in a game? That was indeed going a bit far. "A salute to the Administrator!" Fang Chang offered a brief toast, clinking his glass against Hal's bottle with a grin, took a tiny sip, and set it aside. "Is it really a good idea for you two to be drinking first thing in the morning?" Dolly complained quietly with her arms crossed. Everyone in the editorial department was burying their heads in hard work. Fang Chang was one thing—he didn't work for the paper anyway and only dropped by occasionally to "do quests." But Hal... Wasn't he the editor-in-chief, at least? "Doesn't matter! Even if I'm hammered, I can still arrange words in a dozen permutations to craft exquisite prose... *hic*." Hal let out an alcoholic burp and wobbled over to sink into a chair. "I've made up my mind—this war is an opportunity! In the future, *Survivor Daily* won't just be Boulder City's newspaper; it'll be the best-selling publication in the entire River Valley Province, maybe even the whole wasteland!" Fang Chang cracked a joke. "Grow bigger and stronger, forge new glories, right?" Hal's eyes lit up through his glasses, and he snapped his fingers with his free hand. "Exactly what I mean!" "I'm afraid that might be a bit tricky. The wasteland doesn't even have a unified currency." Hal chuckled. "Haha, someone will solve those problems eventually. I believe they will." Watching him ramble drunkenly, Fang Chang smiled, shook his head, and prepared to leave with Dolly. Just then, Hal suddenly spoke up. "Actually, there's something I don't quite get." "What don't you get?" Seeing Fang Chang stop, Hal continued, "That Shu Yu fellow told me... this is crucial for us to defeat the Legion." "He's not wrong. What's the issue?" "A pretty big one. Why does the esteemed Administrator believe a mere newspaper can solve the problem? Around here, what ordinary survivors say doesn't matter in the slightest. They can barely even scrape together a meal," Hal expressed his confusion. This place was actually quite similar to his homeland. In the kingdom of the Sunset Province, all power belonged solely to the supreme monarch. And here, all power belonged to the city lord who never showed his face in public. So what if the Legion's airship had terrified the populace? Even with everyone trembling before that four-hundred-millimeter main cannon, the city lord hadn't stepped forward to utter a single word, had he? "True," Fang Chang did not deny it. Hal asked curiously, "Then what's the point of running propaganda for them? Of course, this is just my own curiosity... They love a good spectacle anyway, so even without the Administrator's instructions, I'd keep running follow-up reports." "The point is mobilization." "Mobilization?" "Yes. We're fighting a war of survival, and it concerns more than just our own lives. While we can't dictate the city lord's decisions, we can prompt those who want to survive to do something before it's too late." "Whether they are stevedores at the trading post, assembly-line factory workers, mercenaries risking their lives for coin, or factory owners, bankers, and whatever else... Boulder City certainly has its masters, but ultimately, it is made up of these people." Looking at the tipsy newspaper president, Fang Chang paused briefly before continuing. "This city is like a rusted machine. We need to set it in motion—move it as much as we can, awaken as many as we can..." "And that is the meaning of mobilization." Hal pondered for a moment, a contemplative look surfacing on his drunken face. "I see..." "I think I understand what you're planning to do." Leaving the newspaper office, Fang Chang noticed Dolly walking beside him, staring at him with curious eyes. "What's wrong?" "How do you know so much?" When she asked, her tone hovered between surprise and admiration, perhaps a blend of both. "Maybe because I'm from a vault?" Fang Chang said half-jokingly. "A vault, huh..." Dolly clasped her hands behind her head and looked up at the sky, lost in thought. Then, as if struck by an idea, she turned to him and asked, "Since you know so much, do you look down on those of us outside the vault as stupid?" Fang Chang froze for a second, then chuckled. "How could I?" If anything, he admired these wastelander folk for living on with tenacity and optimism two centuries after civilization had collapsed. Browsing through with rose-tinted glasses was one thing, but if he actually had to live in this world... He felt he would probably go insane. Not because his mental fortitude was lacking, but because he had a clear assessment of his own limits. Never mind war, apocalypses, or wastelands—just having money and being unable to buy anything would probably cause his sanity gauge to plummet. Dolly stared into his eyes for a moment, then the corner of her mouth curved upward slightly. "Oh. That's good, then." Her emerald hair swayed gently as she tossed out that ambiguous remark, and she skipped ahead with light steps. *?* Watching the girl suddenly turn cheerful, Fang Chang couldn't help falling into thought. *Is being called smart really something to get that happy about?* *She's way too easy to appease.* ... Dawn City, Army Command. A frontline battle report compiled with Xiao Qi's assistance lay on the wooden command table. Because a stable communications network had not yet been established, Chu Guang could only monitor frontline developments via the official website forum. The "communications network" built upon the morphogenetic field operated entirely across an unrelated parallel world, guaranteeing a seamless connection under any circumstances. "...A forced march of over thirty consecutive hours, infiltrating the defense zone in dispersed squads, five consecutive strikes across fifteen kilometers, wiping out nearly a full century... Are you certain this was carried out by a unit of only twenty men?" Crucially, only a handful had suffered non-lethal injuries, with zero fatalities! Vannus's face was painted with shock. Frankly, he didn't quite believe it. Inflating battle reports was standard operational procedure for frontline units; he had firsthand experience with that. Still, it was understandable. The battlefield was constantly shifting. If an enemy stayed down for three minutes and no one retrieved him, it was tallied as a kill; if someone dragged him off, it was counted as wounded. No one could realistically hold binoculars and a stopwatch to count how many seconds a given hostile lay motionless. As an outstanding commander, the primary requisite was the ability to discern fact from fiction in frontline intelligence, deduce the general tactical situation from murky data, and direct men who "might still be alive" to carry out orders that "might be achievable." If one of his subordinates had submitted such a report or made such claims over the radio, his immediate reaction would have been that the man was talking out of his ass. And yet— This battle report had been brought in by the Administrator himself. This lord was no ignorant civilian when it came to warfare. Word had it that in the early days, he had charged into battle wielding a Nitrogen Power Hammer and had personally blown the charge whistle. Later, as the Alliance gathered more talents, he gradually stepped back from the front lines to the background, leaving behind a trail of miraculous legends. In Vannus's assessment, had this man been born in the Legion, he would at least be on par with generals like Klaas or Griffin. As for why he hadn't reached the higher rank of corps commander or supreme marshal, that was merely because an ordinary person's merit could only carry them as far as general. Vannus was not the only one astounded. The other officers in the command center all wore expressions of sheer disbelief after reading the ridiculously spotless battle report. "...To be precise, only twenty-odd have arrived so far. Over a hundred more and the logistics train are still en route, expected to arrive within three days." Saying this, Chu Guang couldn't help a sigh of emotion. "Never mind you finding it hard to believe; I was just as shocked when I first received this report... But I can assure you, its authenticity is beyond question." The players exchanging updates on the forum cross-verified one another, and the report Xiao Qi had assembled for him represented the final, verified consensus. It was also the closest thing to the truth. Seeing the Administrator put it that way, the officers stopped questioning the frontline report and turned their discussion toward countermeasures. "...According to frontline reports, the *Heart of Iron* is suspected of suffering an engine failure. Visible scaffolding can be seen along the hull exterior, along with maintenance crews conducting repairs." "At the same time, they've increased their ground deployment, landing roughly a thousand troops. It appears they intend to use Ruigu City as a base for a prolonged stay." "However, their methods aren't particularly sophisticated—just the same old intimidation tactics. They've dispatched soldiers to extort nearby survivor settlements, demanding grain, livestock, and labor for the airship, while using dinars to hire mercenaries and marauders as auxiliary forces... Consequently, local survivors harbor substantial grievances." Looking at the map hanging from the stand, Chu Guang continued, "I've communicated with the frontline commander, and our thinking is largely aligned." "In the first phase of the campaign, we will strategically unite local survivors and tactically whittle down their effective strength through guerrilla warfare." "If we can achieve our target of reducing their numbers by over twenty percent in this first phase, we might force them to withdraw from this region... or push them toward more radical measures!" Here, Chu Guang paused and swept his gaze over the officers present. "If it comes to the latter, the battlefield will likely no longer be confined to a hundred and fifty kilometers away. We must prepare for the worst. Simultaneously, before the final decisive battle, we must find an effective method to bring down that airship!" Chu Guang suddenly turned to the brooding Vannus. "Are you familiar with Captain Macklen?" Vannus started, then offered a bitter smile. "I was only a chiliarch... and a chiliarch of a clone cohort at that." "To attain the position of captain before the age of forty, that man has a limitless future in the Legion... He would have no reason to pay any heed to a nobody like me." Though the Legion was famous across the wasteland for its massive clone armies, the status of officers commanding cannon fodder was mediocre at best. Air fortresses like the *Heart of Iron*, in particular, belonged to an entirely separate system from the army. Even if they crossed paths face-to-face, Macklen probably wouldn't spare him a second glance. Chu Guang gave a slight nod without dwelling on it. "Mm, looks like we can drop any option of negotiation." Not that he had harbored such illusions in the first place. "The real issue is that troublesome deflector shield," Wrench, commander of the First Corps, said with a furrowed brow. "If we could rig up a very low-speed bomb and drop it onto them..." Vannus shook his head. "If it were as simple as you make it sound, they wouldn't even have made it out of their own doorstep, let alone flown here from the West Coast." "The anti-aircraft machine guns lining the hull are more than enough to intercept any target approaching at low speeds, to say nothing of how poorly explosives penetrate armor in open air... At most, you might damage its engines." Those rows of parallel propellers weren't particularly high-tech, and knocking out a few wouldn't be difficult. Yet even if every last one was shot off, it would at most be akin to popping a bicycle tire or throwing a tank track—it wouldn't inflict substantive damage. "Doesn't that monster have any weaknesses?" Wrench couldn't help asking. Vannus went silent for a moment before speaking. "A weakness? Of course it does." Chu Guang asked immediately, "Where?" "The belly." Vannus pointed to the underside of the airship in the photograph. "...This is the bomb bay. Compared to other sections, the firepower density here is at its lowest. I once heard that a group of survivors gave them considerable trouble using a dense cluster of barrage balloons. Though in the end, that settlement was still leveled." Silence fell over the command center. A staff officer contemplated for a moment before suggesting, "A weakness on the underside... If we position anti-aircraft artillery directly beneath them and fire up, could we deal effective damage to the airship?" Vannus shook his head. "I couldn't say for certain, but I doubt their ground forces and the airship's spotters are blind." An officer from the First Corps clenched his fist. "Then let's figure out a vertically launched boarding craft! We can lie in ambush directly below them and strike upward like raiding a bird's nest! We have the finest light infantry—once we storm inside that fortress, we'll beat that thing into submission in no time!" Vannus sighed without answering. This time he didn't even need to refute it; Wrench beside him couldn't resist scoffing. "And what if they drop bombs straight down?" "Exactly! Besides, what even is a skyward-launched boarding craft? I've never heard of such a thing!" Watching the officers bicker back and forth, Chu Guang also fell into deep thought. Right then, a call suddenly came through to his terminal. "Excuse me, I need to take this." Leaving those words behind, Chu Guang turned and stepped out the door, leaving the floor open for the officers to continue their debate. The call was from Luka. The moment his upper body appeared on the VM screen, he spoke with urgent eagerness. "My Lord, the Boulder City Hall summoned the head of our liaison office this morning!" "That Dulong?" "Yes!" "What did he say?" Facing the Administrator's inquiry, Luka replied with an intrigued look. "He said quite a lot... For instance, he asked if we needed assistance. He also mentioned that because we absorbed part of the Tide for them at the start of the year, they ended up with a substantial surplus in the munitions stockpiles prepared for it... If we're interested, they're willing to sell them to us at a fifty percent discount." While this was undoubtedly good news, the terms offered were so generous that Luka couldn't be certain whether a massive trap lurked within. Thus, the moment he received word, he immediately placed a call to Chu Guang. Chu Guang was caught off guard as well upon hearing this, asking reflexively, "Is that fifty percent off market price, or fifty percent off procurement cost?" "Fifty percent off procurement cost... Furthermore, Dulong added that if our funds are insufficient, they can extend another loan specifically for arms procurement." *Holy shit?* *There's a deal this good?* Disbelief was written all over Chu Guang's face. Bringing Boulder City onto the Alliance's war chariot had been his idea, but this speed... wasn't it a bit too fast? It seemed that the four-hundred-millimeter main cannon had delivered quite a shock to the "civilized folk" living within the massive walls—enough that they couldn't even be bothered to prioritize profit. Without the slightest hesitation, Chu Guang said at once, "Have them deliver it immediately! As much as they have, I'll take it—the sooner the better!" "Also, remind them that weapons meant only for dealing with the Tide aren't enough. We can manufacture rifles and artillery ourselves; what we need are weapons genuinely capable of damaging that airship!" At that moment, Chu Guang suddenly recalled the discussion among his officers and added without the least bit of modesty: "Especially high-altitude boarding equipment!" "If they can help our troops board that airship, even better!"