"That guy's pretty popular..."
At the edge of the Dawn City square, Myriarch Bannote wore a perfunctory smile and clapped symbolically, watching the power armor step down from the center of the square.
A year ago, he probably wouldn't have taken Chu Guang's "diplomatic platitudes" seriously.
Yet standing here today, he couldn't help feeling a surge of mixed emotions.
Though that fellow had indeed boasted a great deal and painted plenty of pie-in-the-sky promises that smelled far better than they tasted, the intriguing thing was that looking back from the present, every single one of those outlandish pies had, without exception, become reality—or at the very least, was gradually turning into reality bit by bit.
Now that the Alliance's previous phase had been completed, he had promptly pointed out the next direction for the people who had paused to rest.
In a sense, the things he had just spoken of were precisely what the Alliance intended to do in its next phase.
For instance, resolving lingering disputes and letting the Mutual Aid Community, which had already proved its worth, continue to function... In fact, the reason they hadn't immediately plunged into the next war was precisely because of the Mutual Aid Community.
For instance, using Era of Prosperity technologies to recreate grand wonders and revive the miracles of the old era—the space elevator was the most tangible proof of this, and rumor had it they had already successfully brought a company from Ideal City on board.
They were already doing it.
Watching those people strive toward a single goal, Bannote felt a tinge of envy deep down.
The Wilante did not lack power. Holding vast territories, they possessed strength in abundance.
Yet because everyone was pulling in different directions, the Legion had begun disintegrating from within into countless factions large and small who knew how many years ago.
Today's Legion was like a bloated, aging giant: though its gaze remained fierce, its body had grown sluggish.
He had felt this way more than once, yet could never conceive of a solution.
If only the venerable Marshal could also guide the Wilante step by step like this.
Rumor had it that long, long ago, it had been just like that.
It was only that one day, out of nowhere, that revered figure had gradually faded from their sight, hurriedly leaving the road ahead to those who had no idea where they were going...
Just as Bannote's thoughts drifted back to many years ago, a soft cough sounded beside him.
"Mr. Bannote, my apologies for disturbing you so abruptly on an informal occasion like this."
Bannote turned to look and was met with an obnoxious face, his brows instinctively knitting together.
This was Cheng Yan, Foreign Minister of the Alliance and Duke Garava's "lifelong nemesis."
Still, Bannote was not Duke Garava after all; he possessed the basic poise and manners expected of a diplomat.
Especially when he noticed that the Foreign Minister's expression seemed rather urgent.
Realizing this fellow likely needed something from him, Bannote perked up immediately. Not only did his knitted brow smooth out, but a delighted smile spread across his face.
"Well, well, isn't this the Alliance's Foreign Minister? It really isn't easy to get an audience with you. What wind blew you over to me today?"
Catching the sarcastic tone, Cheng Yan's brow twitched.
*This guy.*
*Don't tell me he thinks I'm here to ask him for a favor?*
Before coming here, Cheng Yan hadn't been certain whether Bannote knew about what had occurred on the Empire's west coast four days ago. After all, outside of Silver Moon Bay, the speed of information dissemination across that region had always been a mystery; it had been purely by chance that the Alliance learned of the situation.
Now, however, Cheng Yan was virtually certain that this fellow had no clue what had happened there. Otherwise, he wouldn't be leisurely attending the Alliance's celebrations here—he would have long since been frantically scrambling to wipe his own backside.
Watching Myriarch Bannote blissfully unaware of the catastrophe looming over him, Cheng Yan smiled placidly and shot back:
"You're joking again. Though you never make an appointment, never knock before entering, and always love cutting in line, when have we ever turned you away at the door?"
Bannote's expression soured slightly, and he lifted his chin a bit.
*Is this how someone asking for a favor behaves?*
"Speak, then. What business do you have?" Though he spoke thus, in his mind he had already decided whether he would cooperate or not.
"It's not that we have a problem. You do."
Without beating around the bush, Cheng Yan looked straight at the dumbfounded Myriarch Bannote and enunciated each word:
"Something terrible has happened at your West Sail Port."
...
Across the boundless sea, a fleet of eight cargo ships had approached the east coast of Bolo Province, cruising slowly along the coastline toward the southernmost tip of the landmass.
Three mostly fresh rookies stood at the bow, casually chatting back and forth in a "dialect" only they could understand.
"Damn it! Looks like Dawn City has a celebration going on!"
"Doesn't matter, right? It was the same activities the last two years anyway. I've watched it all on the official website long ago."
"+1."
"But I heard the turnout this year is insane. Last year was only two or three hundred thousand, but this year it blew straight past a million."
"On day two, there's a Wasteland Survival Equipment Creative Expo organized by Goblin Tech. Supposedly they're showing off a ton of super badass new gear."
"Pretty sure that 'badass' needs scare quotes..."
"+10086."
"Hard to say. Besides Brother Mosquito, reliable outfits like Factory 81 and Boulder Armaments are also taking part. People on the forums say the exhibit roster includes a new cybernetic prosthetic designed by Ibers... That guy spent the entire year experimenting on the Strength-type workhorses. This time he might actually pull off something crazy!"
"Fuck! I'm actually kinda tempted now."
"I heard Tengteng's Cabin teamed up with several big fashion design firms from North Street to put on a fashion art expo right in the convention center... Word is the models are androids from Ideal City, and they apparently secured sponsorship from Kangmao Group."
"...Damn it! Does West Sail Port have an airport? Waaaah, I wanna go back to Dawn City!"
"How could there possibly be an airport!"
"Forget it, forget it... There's always next year. Worst comes to worst, we'll go next year."
"True... With the pocket change you've got, even if you went, you'd just be joining the crowd. Better focus on making money first."
The three sighed in unison. Suddenly losing the mood to stay logged in, they turned back toward the cabins one after another, agreeing to meet up later on Ionia.
*Wasteland OL*, this damn game, was great in every way. The freedom and realism were beyond reproach, but traveling across the map was agonizingly slow—there wasn't even a "fast travel" feature.
They had already been drifting on the sea for over a week, and worse yet, they still had another three days to go before reaching their destination. The only things to do on board were either stare blankly at the ocean or drink and play cards with the sailors.
This boring existence had long since drained the enthusiasm they had felt when first setting sail. They really didn't know how that buddy Sisi, who regularly serialized travelogues across the wasteland on the official forum, had managed to endure it...
And while Brother Wolf, Brother Dog, and Brother Guan logged off one after another, their good buddy Brother Eagle remained perseveringly online.
As the sole tryhard of the group, he hadn't wasted a second of idle time over the past few days. With no quests to do, he dragged the NPCs on the ship into teaching him "foreign languages," making small talk out of nothing.
Though his linguistic talent wasn't exceptional, thanks to his Intelligence-type stat advantage, he had actually picked up quite a bit over the course of the week.
As for the Wilante on board, they weren't particularly annoyed by him.
After all, life on the ship was utterly dull.
With nothing else to do, Arman didn't mind chatting with this Alliance friend, picking up a few phrases of "Vault 404 dialect" along the way.
Its grammar was far more complicated than the Human Alliance language, bearing some resemblance to the localized tongues of various nations from the Old Era before the Era of Prosperity.
Moreover, such languages typically had a distinctive trait: strong regional attributes, posing a steep barrier to entry for outsiders who had never lived in that linguistic environment.
By contrast, the Human Alliance language had been artificially engineered through scientific methodology and popularized across the board, making the learning curve relatively gentle.
Of course, this unusual piece of trivia was just something Arman had heard during his travels.
He wasn't a professional linguist, merely a merchant.
Even so, he intended to record this intriguing observation in his diary, along with the bizarre, whimsical ideas proposed by the vault dwellers during their voyage...
"...Actually, I think Snake State is a pretty good spot. It sits right at the southernmost tip of Bolo Province, not too far from either Golden Gallon Port or West Sail Port. Its location is kind of like Cape Comorin next to Sri Lanka... Ahem, I mean, like your Legion's Evernight Port at the southernmost edge of the Great Desert."
In the captain's quarters, [Far-sighted Eagle] stood beside the window, gazing out high-spiritedly toward the coastline when this random thought suddenly popped out of his mouth.
Sipping tea, Arman heard the wild notion from the window and couldn't help a wry smile.
"An interesting idea... but the people here are far too poor. Not every stretch of coastline is worth docking at, and even fewer are suited for building a port."
A prosperous inland market, convenient overland transit, steep bathymetric gradients—there were simply too many indispensable prerequisites.
After losing Golden Gallon Port as a slave trading hub, they had combed through the west coast of Bolo Province for ages before finally settling on a prime piece of land like West Sail Port.
As for building a brand-new port in Snake State down south...
That would depend on whether the Empire had any interest in doing so.
"Lots of poor people? Haha, isn't that perfect? We're here for poverty alleviation!" Far-sighted Eagle grinned cheerfully, pulling his gaze back from the window.
There were plenty of rich folks in Port French Fries, and the same went for Golden Gallon Port, but the business opportunities in those places had already been thoroughly tapped out. To strike it rich there, one needed either economies of scale, a technological edge, or sheer genius and luck.
By contrast, undeveloped land held far more opportunities.
While investing in a port might sound a bit far-fetched for a newcomer, the days ahead were long.
He aspired to become a man like Big Brother Fang Chang—a minor obstacle like this wouldn't hold him back!
Seeing this fellow's over-the-top confidence, Arman pulled a helpless face and grunted perfunctorily.
"There's some sense in that... Once we finish developing the market in West Sail Port, we can go take a look there."
He didn't have much appetite for distant possibilities right now; he just wanted to wrap up the deal at hand as quickly as possible.
To chase that completely unattainable pie Lord Bannote had painted, he had already taken out massive bank loans.
If he couldn't quickly find a venture to recoup his losses, the interest alone on those debts would be enough to drown him and his partner!
Jotting down yet another whimsical idea from the vault dweller into his notebook, Arman tossed it into a drawer, intending to ponder it whenever he remembered. He pinched the bridge of his nose, preparing to take a short nap.
For some reason, an inexplicable sense of dread had plagued him these past two days; he lay awake staring into the darkness at night, yet felt exhausted and listless during the day.
Normally he didn't sleep in the afternoon, but right now he just wanted to close his eyes for a bit...
Barely a moment after his eyes shut, hurried footsteps and a pounding on the door burst through the captain's quarters as the guy named "Brother Dog" dashed in.
"Huge news!"
He was speaking the vault dialect, shouting toward [Far-sighted Eagle] by the window.
Having picked up a bit from Brother Eagle, the startled Arman actually understood what he said, and asked through a yawn:
"What is it? What's got you so frantic?"
Brother Dog blinked in surprise, stunned that this NPC could actually understand him.
Yet there was no time to dwell on that now. Looking urgently at Far-sighted Eagle, he pressed on:
"A rebellion broke out in West Sail Port! And that was four days ago!"
"Four days ago?! Holy crap!" Far-sighted Eagle froze, then gasped in shock, asking hurriedly, "What about now? Has it been put down already?"
Channeling Dog said between tears and laughter:
"How would I know? Depends on whether the local Wilante garrison pulled their weight... But I'd say it looks grim. Rumor has it a massive horde revolted, and local communications still haven't been restored. Chances are it's a total lost cause."
A lost cause?!
Then hadn't they made this entire trip for nothing?!
Far-sighted Eagle's jaw hung open in shock for a long while before he suddenly realized something and immediately asked:
"Wait, how the hell do you know there was a rebellion?"
Channeling Dog rolled his eyes, looking at him as if he were an idiot. "No shit! An offline quest! The Administrator personally popped a window for us; all three of us got it! Go back and check, you might have one too!"
Far-sighted Eagle: "Holy shit! I'm going to check right now!"
A hidden quest!
For a moment, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Watching the two converse at breakneck speed, Arman wore a look of utter bewilderment the entire time.
He had only vaguely caught the name of West Sail Port before losing track of everything else.
Could it be...
something terrible had happened to West Sail Port?!
Seeing Brother Eagle about to leave the room, Arman hastily sprang to his feet and caught his arm.
"Wait, what on earth happened?"
Far-sighted Eagle had no time to explain and hastily pulled his hand free.
"I'm not sure yet. I can only answer you in a bit... Wait for me here."
Arman watched dumbfounded as their figures disappeared beyond the cabin doorway. Only after a long silence did he slowly sink back down beside the table.
What had happened at West Sail Port?
And...
how did they get news from over there?
His head spinning with question marks, Arman grabbed the teacup from the table, brought it to his lips, and took a deep gulp.
For reasons he couldn't explain, that feeling of unease grew stronger and stronger...
...
As it happened, it was quite a coincidence.
The Alliance's Guards Corps had not established a solid intelligence network in West Sail Port; even their informants in Golden Gallon Port and Mammoth State were merely indirect collaborators. Learning of the situation in West Sail Port had thus been a stroke of pure chance.
The affair had originated from a cement transaction processed within the banking system of Golden Gallon Port.
The clerk handling the order had suddenly lost contact with the clients in West Sail Port—on a widespread scale—and promptly reported the anomaly to the relevant regulatory bodies.
At first, the bank in Golden Gallon Port assumed the Wilante had caught wind of something and impounded the cement their clients intended to resell to Mammoth State. Later, however, it became clear things were not so simple.
Shortly thereafter, the Governor's Office in Golden Gallon Port received word from informants in Tiger State: the Empire's imperial capital, Tiandu, had abruptly issued an order authorizing the mobilization of the Lion State regional army.
Given the cozy, submissive relationship between the Empire and the Legion, this mobilization order was hardly likely to be directed at the Wilante, yet geographically it made little sense as a move against the Alliance either.
Piecing together the two intelligence reports arriving simultaneously from different channels, Yodu, serving as the Governor's Chief Secretary, immediately deduced that a serious regional conflict had likely erupted in West Sail Port, and that the situation had probably slipped beyond the Wilante's control.
Not daring to hesitate, he immediately cabled the news to Port French Fries.
Perhaps because the Empire didn't dare report the incident to the Legion, or perhaps because Tiandu itself was completely in the dark about the real situation, Chu Guang actually learned of the crisis in West Sail Port before Ambassador Bannote of the Legion did.
Although the port was thousands of kilometers away from the Alliance, Chu Guang could not simply abandon the people there, whether out of humanitarian concern or numerous other considerations.
Besides, the vault itself was a disaster-relief organization, and they had an obligation to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.
Under the most pessimistic scenario, the more than three thousand Wilante residents living there might have already met with misfortune.
And considering the Legion's usual modus operandi, their retaliation would hardly stop at merely rounding up the ringleaders and accomplices.
Given enough time, they might very well massacre all one million people living there.
If only for the sake of shared humanity, the Alliance had to do something.
Yet that was not Alliance territory after all, nor were there any Alliance military bases nearby.
Dispatching an army was both inappropriate and unrealistic; they could only leverage diplomatic means as much as possible.
Therefore, while Chu Guang instructed Cheng Yan to contact Ambassador Bannote and explain the gravity of the situation, he also had Xiao Qi search for players nearest to West Sail Port to see if a few could be dispatched to investigate the ground reality.
West Sail Port was exceedingly far from any respawn point, so Chu Guang hadn't harbored much hope initially, but to his surprise, he had actually found someone.
Although these four little players were rookies who had only joined the game during the War in Heaven, beggars couldn't be choosers under the circumstances.
Returning to Floor B4 of the vault, after finishing drafting the quest document, Chu Guang immediately sent a real-time communication pop-up to the last player who had logged off to check the quest.
This was a new feature Xiao Qi had developed after the previous update, allowing him to communicate directly via voice call with players who were logged off.
However, because there was no "filter" offline, which might disrupt player immersion, Chu Guang generally avoided using this feature unless it was a special emergency.
"...We have learned through our intelligence network that a severe regional crisis is unfolding in West Sail Port. The vault is a disaster-relief organization, and whether out of morality or duty, we cannot leave the survivors there to fend for themselves.
"Whether Wilante or natives of Bolo Province, they all have the right to survive in this world. We have no standing to intervene in their internal conflicts, but we must minimize the deaths of innocent people as much as possible."
Though thrilled to receive a "phone call" from the Administrator offline, after hearing the full contents of the quest, Far-sighted Eagle's face filled with reluctance.
Quest aside, he was now basically certain that his "poverty alleviation business" on this trip was completely ruined.
It went without saying: if the worst-case scenario had already unfolded, with the Wilante's temper, they wouldn't leave a single soul alive; they'd probably shake the yolks out of every egg in the supermarket before leaving... assuming there even was such a thing as a supermarket there.
If not for the fairly generous reward in contribution points and silver coins, he would have been tempted to jump off the ship and respawn.
"But sir, we are at sea. Under the most optimistic scenario, we won't arrive until noon on the third... By the time we get there, I'm afraid it will already be too late."
Chu Guang fell silent for a moment before speaking slowly:
"We cannot always arrive before disaster strikes the places that need us, but even so, we must still do what we ought to do. And compared to two centuries of waiting, three days shouldn't be too late.
"Remember your identity and responsibility. Do not let personal emotions govern your actions. Do what you can, and minimize risks and harm within your power... In short, do your best."
Perhaps the difficulty of this quest truly was excessive for them.
After all, these four players were still newcomers, perhaps having only recently completed the "Passing the Torch" quest.
Just as Chu Guang was hesitating, Far-sighted Eagle was also feeling cold feet.
Yet just as he was about to back out, a certain person suddenly crossed his mind.
*If it were that guy, he would definitely accept the quest without hesitation and calmly devise a way to break through the predicament...*
Taking a deep breath, Far-sighted Eagle said earnestly:
"Understood... I'll do my best—no, I definitely won't disappoint your expectations. I will complete this quest with flying colors!"
Hearing the sudden surge of resolve in the young man's voice, Chu Guang was briefly taken aback, then smiled.
"Good. I believe you can do it. Go all out.
"This is a mission only you can complete. I'm counting on you!"
After hanging up, Chu Guang let out a long breath, took off the headset, and leaned back against the sofa.
Climbing onto his shoulder, Xiao Qi looked at the side of his face with worry.
"Will leaving it to those rookies really be all right?"
It always felt that kid wasn't very dependable—at least, nowhere near comparable to the few players Master frequently relied on.
Not just in terms of ability, but in every aspect...
Of course, that was merely the conclusion drawn from big data analysis; how things would actually turn out was hard to say.
Compared to Xiao Qi's fretful expression, Chu Guang merely smiled faintly, tapping its forehead with his index finger.
"Nobody is born knowing everything; everyone needs time to grow.
"Let them give it a shot. Foreign Minister Cheng will also follow up on his end."
Chapter 825