Does This Game Really Have Bugs??

Legion General Headquarters in Sunset Province. When word arrived that the 4th Legion's command post had been completely wiped out by the Alliance's airborne forces, Griffin stood frozen before the strategic map. His head buzzed with a sudden roar, his mind going momentarily blank. He had anticipated that operations might stall or hit setbacks due to their strained supply lines. He had also considered the possibility that the Alliance had ignored his stalling tactics from the very start, and that his ultimatum would never buy them thirty days. Yet never in his wildest dreams had he imagined his frontline forces would collapse this swiftly—so fast that their preparations over the past month now looked like a complete joke. Snapping back to his senses, Griffin turned toward the communications officer lingering nervously by the doorway, his voice stiff and cold. "The ones who took the 4th Legion's command post... were the Alliance's airborne troops? That Burning Corps?" The communications officer moved his rigid neck and nodded. "General Sovt said so over the telephone..." Moreover, according to reports from the Falcon Kingdom's 1st Flight Squadron, their pilots had indeed spotted Alliance transport planes heading directly toward the 4th Legion's command center. To ensure their airborne drop succeeded without a hitch, the Alliance had even scrambled nearly eighty fighter escorts. That centurion named Akante claimed he and his men had shot down over seventy enemy aircraft... though by all accounts, it sounded like blatant boasting. Griffin was silent for a moment before pressing on. "What else did he say?" The communications officer clamped his mouth shut, not daring to utter a word. Before hanging up, Sovt had flown into an emotional rage over the channel, cursing Griffin up and down and even calling him a "damned skunk." Those words were obviously unfit to repeat in a setting like this. Griffin did not push further. He drew a deep breath, forcing himself to remain calm. He had indeed miscalculated. He had never expected the Alliance to be so brazen and aggressive, launching a surprise assault on the 4th Legion's command post before Hill 330 had even been secured. Any sane commander would know that a command center was never manned solely by a handful of staff officers giving orders; it was always backed by an attached cohort of elite troops for direct support. To overwhelm a fully prepared infantry cohort using paratroopers alone, an attacker would need at least two cohorts or more. Yet the Alliance refused to play by conventional military logic. At the risk of feeding an entire cohort into a meat grinder for nothing, they had hurled their paratroopers straight into the hornet's nest. Even more incomprehensible to him was that at the very same time the Alliance seized the frontline command post, Hill 330—held by that very directly attached cohort—had fallen as well! "What on earth was deployed on Hill 330?" a staff officer standing nearby asked with furrowed brows, voicing the identical question gnawing at Griffin's thoughts. "We don't know. Frontline communications haven't been restored. The last message received from General Sovt indicated they intended to pull back toward the 5th Legion and requested that the 5th and 3rd Legions take over Defense Sectors 40 through 49... after that, there was only silence." The communications officer shook his head, speaking in a rapid burst while casting a cautious, frightened glance at General Griffin. Griffin's face was as dark as stagnant water, like a terrifying tempest brewing behind his eyes, threatening to detonate into thunderous fury at any second. Yet Griffin did not take his anger out on an insignificant orderly. After a prolonged silence, the battle-hardened general finally spoke in a low, measured voice. "What time is it?" The officers around him exchanged tense glances. No one dared answer. Seeing that everyone was looking toward him, the adjutant had no choice but to bite the bullet despite the dread churning in his gut. "Reporting, sir! The time is ten twenty-one!" Griffin's Adam's apple bobbed. "Twelve hours..." He looked across the assembled officers. "Not even twelve full hours." When no one responded, he continued. "Ten thousand men deployed across a twenty-kilometer front. All I asked of them was to hold for a short while, avoid collapsing in a panicked rout, and use the defensive positions along the way to make life difficult for the Alliance. That was why I intentionally gave them one hundred and fifty kilometers of strategic depth... And Sovt's answer to me is twelve hours? Yielding one hundred and fifty kilometers of depth in twelve hours!" "Even if you dumped ten thousand pigs into those mountains and told the Alliance and the Enterprise to catch them, they wouldn't be rounded up in under a single damned day! Useless trash! Absolute fucking waste! A bunch of swilling hogs who know nothing except gorging themselves!" At first, Griffin's tone and volume had remained restrained, but as his emotions surged, his voice grew louder and more furious. His right fist slammed down onto the strategic map with a dull thud. The impact sent a metal cup skittering off the edge of the table, clattering onto the floor and spilling water everywhere. The officers stood in dead silence. The staff officer whose boots had been soaked didn't dare make a peep, standing as still as a statue. They understood all too well why Griffin was in such a towering rage. In this single battle, they had lost not only the 4th Legion, but also nearly fifty kilometers of front line stretching across Sectors 40 to 49—along with a strategic depth of a full hundred and fifty kilometers behind it! If that fool Sovt had held out for even three days—hell, even two—they would not be in such an agonizingly vulnerable position. Now, a gaping hole had been punched clean through their lines. Forget about pinching off the salient and trapping the "driven nail" inside a pocket; that damned nail was about to be hammered right into their faces. "It could be that the clones have never fought a defensive engagement—" Desperate to quell Griffin's wrath, the adjutant tried to offer an excuse through cold sweat, but Griffin cut him off mid-sentence. "Those pigs haven't fought a defensive battle, but have you lot never fought one either?!" Spitting a string of curses, Griffin steadied his breathing and forced himself to regain his composure. Collapsing so fast was primarily the frontline command's fault, but his own headquarters bore no small share of the blame. Still, now was not the time to debate who carried the heavier burden of failure. He understood clearly that he had no time left to hesitate. A moment later, he issued a crisp order. "Notify all frontline units: execute Plan No. 2 as scheduled!" Hearing those words, astonishment rippled across the officers' faces. Plan No. 2 meant falling back to defend Oasis 2, drawing the Alliance onto the Falcon Kingdom's native soil to fight a decisive battle. That meant abandoning Oasis 3, which they had secured with so much blood and effort. Though Griffin had previously floated the possibility that they might have to abandon occupied territories if the Alliance's offensive exceeded expectations, almost no one had believed it would actually come to pass. After all, they still held a force of one hundred thousand troops in their hands. Even in the worst-case scenario, pulling back to the central regions of Oasis 3 to rebuild a defensive line should have been more than enough. Giving up the entirety of Oasis 3 was an unthinkable concession. Taking this step would plunge them not only into a strategic dead end, but into an administrative quagmire as well. If command back home learned that they had surrendered every scrap of ground gained in Sunset Province, the resources and reinforcements allocated to their theater would dwindle to a trickle. Whether from the perspective of the Grand Commander or the Marshal, no one was going to throw endless resources into a failing venture. "...Staying here will only see us cut off and encircled. If we withdraw to Oasis 2, we still have a chance to launch a counteroffensive." Pausing for a second, Griffin suddenly remembered that they still had a Sabre out on a sortie. He turned to the army aviation liaison. "Where is Yukar? Has our Sabre returned?" The officer snapped to attention, an anxious tremor in his voice. "...It previously flew beyond communications range. Its last signal was detected near Oasis 8. There has been no word since." Though the guarded phrasing seemed to leave a sliver of hope, anyone in the room could tell that the odds were vanishingly slim. The reason was simple. A jet fighter's fuel capacity could never support a patrol of that duration. If it hadn't returned by now, there was only one possible explanation. Griffin shut his eyes in agony. Not only had their lines been shattered, but they had also lost their sole Sabre. Even if total combat casualties amounted to less than a tenth of their force, anyone with eyes could see that they had already lost half the war... *** Position G53. Resting on his cot in the field hospital, Battlefield Guy had just finished the dinner Miss Penny brought by when Korwei dropped in to share the "dire news" from the adjacent sector. "...The 4th Legion has been wiped out. The entire front across Sectors 40 through 49 has collapsed, and Alliance tanks have already driven straight into our rear." "Useless bastards... I thought their bumbling during the day was foolish enough, but I still underestimated their talent for humiliation. They couldn't even survive a single night!" Korwei spat curses, his voice thick with fury. Yet hearing this tirade, Battlefield Guy, whose nerves had been stretched taut, let out a quiet sigh of relief. *Not bad...* *Looks like no one suspects me.* His guildmates had fed him so many kills earlier that an uneasy feeling had been gnawing at him. Seeing how rapidly the other corps were progressing in the neighboring sector on the official forums had made him so nervous he could barely swallow his dinner. Now, however, it seemed his worries had been entirely groundless. Thinking it through, it made sense. Looking at his conduct all along, there was nothing suspicious about him. Spies who ruthlessly struck down their own comrades existed, sure, but a spy who butchered his own allies without so much as blinking was genuinely rare. Not to mention that aside from eating like a horse and spending plenty of time in the latrine, he displayed no suspicious traits whatsoever. He acted more normal than an ordinary grunt. If even he was an undercover rat, then everyone in the Legion was a traitor. Having quietly listened through Korwei's venting, Battlefield Guy took advantage of a pause in the officer's breathing to ask, "Does command have new orders?" Korwei didn't bother hiding it and answered bluntly, "Plan No. 2." Battlefield Guy: "Plan No. 2?" Korwei gave a succinct explanation. "Simply put, we abandon Oasis 3 and pull back to Oasis 2 to reorganize our defense... For now, it's the only viable option. Alliance armor has ripped open our pocket. Since the pocket can't be cinched shut, we have to throw it away." Battlefield Guy desperately wanted to say, *You don't have to keep it simple, feel free to lay out every detail—even if I don't understand it, I can memorize it.* Yet he quickly realized that his superior was only a centurion-turned-tribune; Korwei couldn't possibly know the full strategic deployments of Plan No. 2. Pushing for more would yield nothing useful and might arouse suspicion. Being able to discover the enemy's broad strategic movement was already a massive win. The boys in the Burning Corps would naturally find a way to squeeze the finer operational details of Plan No. 2 out of that big fish they had netted next door. And so Battlefield Guy maintained his persona of Pangolin, the ruthless man of few words, and answered crisply, "Just tell me what I need to do, sir." A warm smile appeared on Korwei's face. "You don't need to do anything right now. Your sole task is to rest and recover as quickly as possible... Ah, I almost forgot to tell you the good news." Seeing the cheerful look on his face, Battlefield Guy asked, "Did you get promoted again?" Korwei chuckled. "Not me. You." Battlefield Guy blinked. "Me?" Korwei nodded and cleared his throat. "In light of your outstanding performance on the front line, my superior intends to transfer you to the Officer Corps as an advisor, assisting instructors in training our legion's frontline officers. Blame those useless bastards in the 4th Legion—headquarters now deeply questions the combat effectiveness of our front lines and has ordered retrainings for grassroots officers across all units... If those worthless gluttons possessed even half your skill, we wouldn't be suffering this disgrace!" At that point, Korwei couldn't help spitting a few curses in the knotty tongue of the Human Alliance language. Hearing this assignment, Battlefield Guy breathed another inward sigh of relief. The 4th Legion had been stationed right next door, their nearest position less than ten kilometers away. If Griffin had ordered them to cover the retreat, his stint as an undercover operative would have likely ended in combat against his own faction. From the looks of it, though, the dog developers didn't want him getting his hands on that power armor so easily; it seemed his undercover gig was going to continue for a while longer. "If we leave, what about our positions here? Are we just abandoning them?" Korwei fell silent for a moment before offering an ambiguous reply. "Some will pull back. Some will remain." Battlefield Guy was taken aback for an instant. Yet he caught the drift almost immediately. Among the frontline forces were many officers promoted from the Retinue Army, including his own adjutant, hornblowers, standard-bearers, and others. They would never receive the order to retreat. Instead, they would be left behind alongside their clone troops to dig in and delay the pursuing Alliance forces, while creating the illusion that the Legion hadn't withdrawn. A flash of realization struck Battlefield Guy. *No wonder I was suddenly reassigned from frontline combat to the 5th Legion's Officer Corps.* The 7th Century was almost certainly one of the sacrificial units designated to hold the rear! What surprised him, however, was the conflicted emotion that surfaced in Korwei's eyes as he spoke. Back in River Valley Province, this guy had never given a damn about the lives of auxiliary retinues. Having embedded himself in the Legion for so long, Battlefield Guy knew better than any other player that in the eyes of most Wilante, other races were merely stepping stones on their path of global conquest—consumable assets only slightly more flexible than clone cannon fodder. Korwei, a pureblood Wilante, had never been an exception. Why was he suddenly growing sentimental now? While Battlefield Guy was puzzling over this, Korwei looked out the window, his voice laden with complicated feelings. "I don't believe their sacrifice should be taken for granted. They may not be Wilante, but they are soldiers all the same..." Turning back, Korwei looked down at the bedridden Pangolin. "However, some things are beyond my power to decide. I hope you can understand." Battlefield Guy nodded. "Yes, sir. I understand." *Is he worried I'll feel bad for my subordinates at Position G53-7?* That worry was entirely unnecessary. He knew full well he was an undercover player; he wasn't about to get so emotionally invested in cheap NPC subordinates he'd known for less than two weeks. If those guys were smart, they'd toss down their weapons and surrender when the Alliance arrived. If they thought they were invincible just because they had won a few easy skirmishes under his lead... Then let them witness the true might of the Alliance Army. What Battlefield Guy didn't know, however, was that his sensible, obedient attitude only deepened Korwei's inner guilt. Losing comrades in arms was never an easy pill to swallow. Korwei knew that pain intimately. Take his previous commanding officer, for instance—Rachel, tribune of the Air Marines. Though they had only been nodding acquaintances, Korwei had still felt gloomy for days after learning that Rachel hadn't evacuated with Maclen, but had fallen heroically in battle at Ruigu City. "In any case... I bear no disdain for those of other races who fight alongside me. Warriors willing to unite beneath the Legion's banner to restore order are a far cry from the wastelanders who let themselves rot in chaos. But orders are orders. Everything must serve the greater good." Adjusting his officer's cap, Korwei softened his tone and added, "Get some good rest. I'll come check on you before we depart." Battlefield Guy nodded quietly. If there wasn't any more explosive intel, he figured he should log off soon to share the piping-hot news with the boys... *** While the Legion high command in Sunset Province was sweating bullets over the collapsing front, countless forum lurkers and goofy netizens in another world were closely tracking the latest progress of this "National War Event." Although most frontline players hadn't logged off yet, someone would always disconnect—either intentionally or by accident—to deliver firsthand reports to the spectators and non-combat lifestyle players waiting on the forums. When the community learned that the closed-beta players had obliterated an entire Legion division in under half a day, the entire forum blew up. **Dominating Tenderness:** "Holy crap! Badass!!!" **South Wind and Song:** "Wiped out a whole division in half a day?! That's gotta be fake, right?!" **Armor Hero:** "Honestly, it sounds absurd. Even if ten thousand guys lined up single-file to feed kills, it'd still take a few days, wouldn't it?" **Solitary Rover:** "+1, not to mention those ten thousand men were scattered across 3,000 square kilometers of gravel desert." **Lightning King Professor Yang:** "See, that's where you don't get it. Modern warfare is about organizational discipline and logistics; it's long past the old era of firing lines. Winning a decisive engagement at the right time and place matters far more than racking up a body count." "And if you ask me, the reason the Legion crumbled so fast is precisely because their tactical frontage and strategic depth were stretched way too thin. Across 3,000 square kilometers of desert, there are only so many usable roads; the terrain is comparable to Afghanistan. Which unit moves down which road when, where logistical resupplies need to arrive and at what time, whether an outpost twenty kilometers away belongs to friend or foe, where artillery should fire... all of that requires coordinated dispatching from a centralized command system." "Without a unified frontline command post, relying solely on general headquarters to air-drop written orders makes effective coordination completely impossible." With his articulate breakdown of the Legion's defeat, Professor Yang's explanation managed to thoroughly convince quite a few clueless netizens. Yet some remained skeptical of his armchair expertise. **Cheerful Netizen:** "Stop talking out of your ass. How many divisions have you ever commanded?" **Lightning King Professor Yang:** "Ahem, isn't this game all about bullshitting on the forums anyway... You call me out, but how many have you commanded, smartass?" **Lord Proud What Can You Do:** "Lol, full of shit, the lot of you. I said it before: there isn't a single normal person on this forum!" **Tyrannosaurus Warrior:** "Can some generous big shot please gift me a gaming helmet? Please! T.T" Everyone chattered excitedly about the frontline situation, some cheering in awe and others crying that it defied science, turning the thread as lively as a holiday festival. Yet despite the flood of armchair analyses, interest in the war's progression was soon eclipsed by a post from a certain pilot. According to that player, he had handed his Dragonfly transport over to the ground crew before heading to the mess hall to grab a bite. When he walked out, he saw the plane—which was supposed to be parked in the hangar—taxi out onto the runway and take off entirely on its own! At first, no one believed him. Even the players stationed at the airfield suspected he had staged the whole stunt himself. Electrical shorts had happened before, but a plane with an electrical short taxiing onto a runway and taking off all by itself was a first. Besides, its takeoff maneuver had looked way too polished; nobody could fly that smoothly without hundreds of flight hours under their belt. **Brother Levin:** "Weird... That shouldn't be possible, right? After that previous short circuit incident, we specifically redesigned the nose wiring." **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Your tech is lacking, bro. Just wait—once I find some free time, I'll rally the factory boys and look into building some big planes ourselves. (Funny)" **Brother Levin:** "Give me a break. (Eye-roll)" **Brother Toilet Cable:** "Exactly! Factory 81 builds real aircraft! You coffin-makers can sit this one out!" **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Fuck your mother! Now I really have to show you what I'm made of." **Tail:** "Ooooh! Are you gonna build a Gundam?" **Ye Shi:** "Don't laugh, he actually built one once... and in the end, we had to dig him out of it. (Funny)" **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Piss off! That was an accident! Besides, that thing was never meant for a human pilot... But speaking of that transport, we actually saw it." **Gui Gui:** "Yeah, we did! And I saw something poke out of the cabin and punch straight through the cockpit of a Hawk that got close." **Feng Qing:** "?! That overpowered? (Shocked)" **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Yeah. The planes that got hit acted like they were possessed, immediately whipping their noses around to shoot at their own wingmen... What's crazier is that those two cursed planes flew surprisingly well, pulling off an Immelmann turn in midair like true aces!" **Ye Shi:** "Does the Falcon Kingdom have pilots like that?" **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Like hell they do. I doubt they ever faced real opposition before encountering us. Their only advantage was slightly better hardware." Still, he had to admit that a few enemy pilots did have real skill; even he had found them tricky to deal with. Just then, another of the Alliance's ace pilots chimed in. **Luo Yu:** "Ahem, can any big bro come... pick me up?" "Holy crap! Luo Yu! You finally came down?" **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Where are you? Wait, where did you crash?" **Elaina:** "Can you still find your VM? If not, just buy a new one; we won't bother with the hassle. (Funny)" **Luo Yu:** "Dammit! Stop talking like I'm dead! I'm still alive! (Raging)" The thread instantly detonated, racking up dozens of replies in seconds. **Ye Shi:** "???" **Jieyan:** "Holy shit! You're actually alive?!" **Fang Chang:** "Yeah, that truly defies science... By the way, what kind of bug is this now?" **Luo Yu:** "Fuck! It's not like I crash every single time! It's only once in a while, okay?!" **Kuang Feng:** "(Smirking face)" **Luo Yu:** "Though speaking of bugs, I honestly don't know if this counts as one." **Fang Chang:** "Let's hear it." **Luo Yu:** "Well, I was in a dogfight with their Sabre when a Hawk suddenly cut in. I thought I was a goner, but instead of firing at me, it dumped an entire magazine into the Sabre." **Gui Gui:** "Oh, oh, oh! That must be the one! One of the Hawks broke off earlier and followed our transport." **Luo Yu:** "A transport? Didn't see that..." **Lao Bai:** "Where is your parachute?" **Luo Yu:** "Somewhere near the Golden Lizard Kingdom, I think. Not sure about the exact coordinates... I'm still drifting down in the sky. I snapped a photo, but there's no signal to upload it." **Makabazi:** "Hahahahaha." **Fang Chang:** "Can you see the Heart of Steel?" **Luo Yu:** "Can't see it... but I see a lot of mountains. Might even be nearing River Valley Province for all I know." He immediately followed up with another line. "Oh, right. That Falcon plane seems to have come down nearby too. Looks like it ran out of fuel... Strange thing is, the pilot didn't eject. Went down with the aircraft." **Fang Chang:** "Yeah, that must be pretty far off. You've strayed all the way to the border of Sunset Province at least." **WC Really Has Mosquitoes:** "Keep an eye on your surroundings once you land. We'll send planes to sweep near Oasis 8; we should be able to find you." **Luo Yu:** "Thanks, boys! T.T" **Fang Chang:** "Don't mention it. Mostly, we're just curious about what the deal is with that Hawk. (Side-eye)" **Ye Shi:** "+1. Otherwise, Mosquito would've told you to just teleport back to town by killing yourself. (Funny)" **Luo Yu:** "..." *These guys...* *Are way too pragmatic!* At the very same time, peering at the forum screen from the real world, Chu Guang wore an expression of sheer bewilderment. *Good grief.* He spent every day pretending to patch bugs out of thin air on the forums—did he actually summon a real bug into existence? In truth, long before the players started posting, the ground crew had already informed him of the rogue transport. The antiaircraft guns aboard the Heart of Steel had even locked onto it. Chu Guang had simply wanted to see what the transport intended to do, which was why he hadn't instructed Xiao Qi to shoot it down. Now, it appeared the situation was far more complicated than he had anticipated. After pondering in silence for a long while, Chu Guang stared at the holographic screen and suddenly spoke. "What do you think that was?" After a brief pause, a hesitant voice answered beside his ear. "Um... could it be Little Yu's doing?"