These NPCs Are Too Realistic!

Blackwater Lane, inside an inconspicuous residential building. Sitting before a telegraph machine, Mehta meticulously tapped out a telegram against the manuscript in his hand, reporting the local situation to his superior far away in Snake State of Brahma Province. [At 12:12 p.m. today, Alliance ground forces successfully landed at Evernight Port. The local garrison has been driven back, holed up in the northern urban district and the Blackwater Lane area. Calculating from the day the Alliance suffered a nuclear strike and declared war mobilization, barely a week has passed from logistics mobilization to troop landings. This efficiency is truly terrifying, completely overturning our prior analysis of their wartime capabilities.] [Beyond the mobilization of the Alliance's homeland, the South Sea Alliance has acted entirely at their beck and call throughout the war. Furthermore, the Far East Enterprise issued a war declaration at the exact same time following the Alliance's declaration of war, and kingdoms across Sunset Province have responded as well. Not only is their hard power terrifying, but their soft power is equally daunting! Unless strictly necessary, conflict with them must be avoided at all costs. Even if conflict proves inevitable, great care must be taken not to cross their bottom line!] [Additionally, referencing the series of measures implemented after the Alliance entered Boulder City, I judge that they are likely to take similar action in Evernight Port, winning over the populace by cleaning up public security and cracking down on organized crime. When that happens, a storm of blood will inevitably sweep through Blackwater Lane!] [Therefore, acting on my own initiative, I have scuttled and destroyed all twenty tons of "cargo" into the sea, and ordered subordinate organizations at all levels to maintain radio silence and lie low to await an opportunity.] After sending the telegram, Mehta let out a long breath. He hid the radio in a secret compartment beneath the bed, and at the same time pulled out a palm-sized wooden box from it. Inside this wooden box lay documents proving his identity, as well as several personal belongings he had brought from Brahma Province—such as pamphlets of the Family Association and photographs of Mahatma Zayed. Recalling the wonderful times in Snake State, Mehta cast a reluctant final gaze over them, knelt on the floor, and kowtowed deeply before them. Then, with resolute determination, he took out a lighter and burned them all to ash. Light and shadow always went hand in hand. If someone stood in the sunlight, someone had to bear the darkness. Keeping these things was a liability. That was true both for himself and for the Family Association. Yet at this very moment, he failed to notice that the entire scene was being watched by a subordinate standing at the doorway. Seeing his boss actually burning the photograph of Lord Mahatma, the young man held his breath. He had come to deliver documents, never expecting to witness such treasonous blasphemy. After an internal struggle, he made no sound. He merely snapped a photo in secret, reined in his wildly pounding heart, and backed away from the doorway without a word... Leverage! He had caught his boss red-handed! ... At the same time, in an urban district adjacent to the harbor, a squad of Jungle Corps players clad in K-10 heavy exoskeletons was on patrol. When the squad reached the seaside, one player suddenly stopped in his tracks, broke away from the formation, and squatted before the guardrail. Staring at the fish floating belly-up on the sea surface, he muttered in utter bewilderment, "Weird." The squad leader walked over to his side, looked at the back of his head, and asked, "What's weird?" The player pointed to the fish on the water and said, baffled, "Look, there must be tens of thousands of them... I don't recall us bombing the fish when we landed, did we?" To avoid civilian casualties, and also to enjoy the thrill of close-quarters combat, they had barely used naval gunfire, mostly leaving any armored units they encountered to aircraft. The captain gave him a peculiar look. "What's so weird about that..." Just a few dead fish... well, okay, maybe not just a few. He lifted his eyes to gaze at the undulating sea, his brow knitting slightly. One after another, fish floating belly-up formed a continuous blanket amid the waves, displaying bizarre varieties of every shape and color. Still, he wasn't an angler, so he couldn't recognize more than a handful. "...That is pretty weird." Did someone use electric shock to fish? That didn't seem to have anything to do with them, though. "Right? I bet there's some kind of side quest here..." As he spoke, the player squatting by the sea reached out curiously and nudged the nearest fish, wanting to see if these belly-up little creatures were still alive. Yet to his surprise, the moment his index finger brushed against the slimy scales, the belly-up fish twitched violently as if jolted awake and shot straight toward him with a flap of its tail. Startled, the player hastily scrambled up to dodge the fish lips snapping at his nose, but he was still splashed with a foul fishy stench from the wet tail. "Holy crap! These damn fish can fly?!" Watching the fish thrashing its tail wildly on the ground as it tried to "swim" into the street, the player's face lit up with the expression of having discovered a new continent. This fellow didn't seem to realize it was a fish at all, actually trying to mimic humans walking and squeeze onto the street. The captain standing beside him, however, yawned, completely losing interest in his squadmate's new discovery. "If this damn thing has a side quest, I'll take your last name—" Before his words could finish, the thousands upon thousands of fish floating on the sea suddenly snapped awake at once. Amid a synchronized chorus of flapping sounds, they slapped and leaped out of the water, raining down upon the shore. As if driven by some sense of mission, or imagining themselves to be land-dwelling creatures, they leaped out from the ocean that was suffocating them. In an instant, tens of thousands of fish were flopping along hundreds of meters of shoreline. They gasped desperately for air, but before long, they breathed out their final bubbles. The robust fish died first, followed by palm-sized clownfish, and finally the tiny shrimp huddled in the crevices. Witnessing this unbelievable spectacle, not only were the patrolling players stunned, but even the remnants of the Southern Legion hiding in the alleys waiting to take potshots were utterly dumbfounded. "...What the hell is going on?" The squad leader muttered blankly to himself. Just as he was about to report the situation here to Brother Chicken, he saw a crowd of Bolo people coming from who-knew-where, swarming forward all at once. Most were local dockworkers and laundrymen, along with fishermen employed by Wilante fisheries. Some carried wooden buckets, others held fishing nets, and people had even brought out pots, pans, and bowls. "Quick! The fish are still alive!" "Don't grab my net! That's mine!" "Damn it, get out of my way!" "I called dibs on this one! Don't any of you dare touch it!" Within mere moments, the shore was packed with jubilant Bolo people. The clamorous, squabbling scene of picking and sorting was as lively as a festival. Though normally terrified of death, whenever there was a windfall to grab, they discarded all regard for their lives. Perhaps they remembered they were allies of the Alliance, or perhaps they recalled that these noble people never used force against the unarmed, or maybe some other messy thought crossed their minds—whatever the case, it made them temporarily forget that a war was still underway. So many fish would be enough to eat for days! "Wait, don't grab them yet! Holy crap, does none of you realize there's something wrong in the head with these fish?" the captain shouted, half-laughing and half-exasperated, but not a single person listened to him. Watching the fish get picked clean in a feeding frenzy, the player who had first triggered the "side quest" stood with his mouth agape, speechless for a long time. Mother of God... These NPCs are way too realistic! ... The minor episode along the shore did nothing to slow the progress of the overall war. By twelve noon, fighting across the various districts of Evernight Port had essentially drawn to a close. Under orders from Myriarch Stanford, the Southern Legion's nearly twenty thousand garrison troops and over a hundred thousand military personnel had completely withdrawn toward the northern district, preparing to regroup and contest control of Evernight Port against the Alliance once more. However, upon learning of a string of developments—such as Triumph City having "fallen" and the Enterprise declaring war on the Southern Legion—the morale of everyone, including Stanford himself, plummeted to rock bottom. At the same time, all the sectors evacuated by the garrison, including the northwestern district, fell under the Alliance's control. Though a handful of diehards still hid throughout the city awaiting opportunities to fire on patrolling players, their sporadic gunfire failed to coalesce into any real threat and was swiftly snuffed out in the streets. Midnight Chicken Slaughter and the rest of the Jungle Corps players had originally braced themselves for a protracted counterinsurgency campaign, but that urban pacification battle never materialized at all. Most of the Wilante here remembered what these garrison troops had done in the past. Consequently, when these lackeys of the Southern Legion attempted to win support from their fellow countrymen, the eyes looking back at them held only disappointment and derision. If you knew things would turn out like this, what were you doing back then? As for the soldiers of the Wilante Expeditionary Army, the residents of Evernight Port welcomed them into the city with near-deafening cheers. Particularly in the northwestern district where they had once fought and resisted, people even lined both sides of the streets with fresh flowers to welcome their returning kin. Walking down the familiar street, a Wilante veteran carrying a Scythe assault rifle slung over his shoulder shouted up toward a roadside window, "Haha, Braitz, you bastard, you're still here!" The man in his fifties leaned against the windowsill and smiled down at the veteran standing in the street. "I'm not going anywhere. Someone has to remember what happened on this street. But how come you've switched to being an Alliance soldier?" The veteran wore a proud expression. "I told you I'd come back! The ones who ought to get lost are Tyr and the pigs he keeps, not me!" Seeing his cocky demeanor, the old man by the window grinned and flicked an index finger at him. "Hahaha! My salute to you! By the way, how's Philip? Is that fellow doing well?" The veteran curled his lip. "He's old—so old he only knows how to talk big. Said if it weren't for his arthritis, he'd definitely come fool around with us." The old man laughed. "Sounds like something he'd say. So is that coward back to his old trade?" "No, he stopped messing with those gold bracelets. He hooked up with a fellow from the New World and opened a bank... That partner of his is a good man. Thanks to him, we had houses to live in once we came ashore." Seeing that chatting with his head tilted back was tiring for his old friend, the old man patted the window curtain and called down, "Let's not yell across the window. Come up to my place and talk—I'll open a good bottle of wine." Hearing that, the Wilante veteran hastily shook his head. "Can't do that. Our officers don't allow us into civilian homes." The old man was stunned. "Not even at an old friend's invitation?" "Discipline is discipline, no exceptions allowed. We'll catch up when I get time off." Leaving those words, the veteran made a parting gesture and rejoined his formation. From the curbside not far away, watching the harmonious scene, a battalion commander from the Enterprise's 100th Mountain Division took a drag from a Rick 5 cigarette from Goblin Tech, narrowed his eyes, and smiled. "They picked a good time." The adjutant beside him tilted his head. "What good time?" "Just before dawn, when the night is about to end, they reached out a helping hand to the Wilante who have had enough of the Wasteland Era. But most crucial of all, they let the Wilante achieve their final liberation themselves..." The battalion commander curled his lips into a smile. Perhaps the Wasteland Era truly was coming to an end. If the setting sail of the Pioneer had merely shown him the signs of dawn breaking, then right now, he was witnessing the first light of daybreak rising on the horizon... Just then, the sound of a broadcast resonated in the distance. It seemed the brothers of the Jungle Corps had successfully secured the radio station and put it to work. "Survivors of Evernight Port, I am the commander of the Alliance's Jungle Corps..." "One week ago, your Legion Commander Tyr detonated a nuclear bomb on our doorstep, and that is why we stand here armed today." "Do not be afraid, however. We bear no grudge against the Wilante people, nor do we have any interest in your land. Once we capture the culprit responsible, we will withdraw from here immediately." "I believe that not just us, but you too have had more than enough of that reckless bastard. If you are willing to fight alongside us, we welcome you to stand with us. If you are not yet ready, we will not force you—just don't do anything foolish..." Unlike Brother Fang Chang, Brother Chicken wasn't skilled at flowery speeches, and most of the other brothers in the corps were the quiet, reserved sort. Still, he laid out what needed to be said clearly. After all, the brothers on the forum had helped brainstorm for them. Such as establishing three basic rules with the local populace, the Three Disciplines and Eight Points for Attention, and how to report any knucklehead who violated regulations. In addition, he appealed to people of insight from all walks of life in Evernight Port to step forward and shoulder the task of rebuilding order together. Not just the Wilante. That also included the other races living in Blackwater Lane. Just as they had done in the Falcon Kingdom, they would select trade representatives from various industries, and then return local political authority to the hands of the local people once order was restored. Though his words were straightforward and utterly devoid of euphemisms, the meaning was conveyed crystal clear— They had come not in the name of conquest, but in the name of liberation. And after hearing those booming, unadorned words, the anxious faces and fearful eyes gradually turned into cautious optimism. That was enough. Midnight Chicken Slaughter had never fantasized that a single speech would win the locals' complete trust. Time would prove everything. Their promises were not empty words. At the same time the broadcast looped repeatedly, a detachment of heavily armed soldiers surrounded a hospital near the governor's mansion. They were soldiers of the Kant Battalion of the Wilante Expeditionary Army's 1st Division, named in honor of Kant. As for their battalion commander, it was Kuluan—the former Evernight Port customs officer who had lost a leg and later resigned—who had first proposed establishing the Wilante Expeditionary Army. It was worth mentioning that after learning of his intention to return to the battlefield, Yarman had generously donated a bionic prosthetic limb to him. Now, not only was he no longer lame, but he could easily leap over three meters high... if the need arose. At this moment, he was following the lead of an enthusiastic Evernight Port citizen toward the hospital entrance. The citizen was a Wilante man, enthusiastically explaining as he walked, "It's right up ahead, sir. I reckon they're in the hospital basement. There's a door down there that was never used—it should be the entrance to an underground bunker." Glancing across the empty hospital lobby, Kuluan turned his head to look at him. "Are you sure?" "I'm sure," the man said with pride, his bulbous red nose gleaming. "I saw Ya Hui run inside with my own eyes, and Myriarch Willoughby was right beside him... If you're an Evernight Port resident, you definitely know who those two are." "His Honorable Excellency the Governor and the commander of the garrison guard," the young man beside Kuluan whistled, grinning. "I certainly haven't forgotten those bastards." "They don't even deserve to be called bastards—at most, they're running dogs of bastards," Kuluan said, chambering a round into his rifle and waving to the brothers behind him. "Take them alive." "Yes, sir!" Hearing their commander's order, fierce grins spread across the Wilante soldiers' faces as they strode boldly through the door. Finally, they could settle scores with these sons of bitches! After swallowing so much humiliation before, their hearts felt extraordinarily gratified right now. Not long after the soldiers went in, following a deafening explosion and a few sharp cracks of gunfire, pig-squealing cries for mercy echoed out of the basement. "I surrender! Don't shoot!" Flanked and supported by two soldiers gripping his arms, a disheveled, soot-covered Ya Hui was dragged out of the hospital. Behind him followed Myriarch Willoughby, looking just as battered. Compared to Ya Hui, Willoughby looked distinctly worse off, blood oozing from his leg. Perhaps hoping to put on a display before the Governor, the fellow had seemingly lost his mind and tried to draw his weapon to resist. His superior, however, had clearly been far more sensible, shouting surrender the moment gunfire rang out. Looking at the two men crumpled like dead dogs, Kuluan felt not a shred of pity, only disgust. Standing on the sunlit street, Myriarch Willoughby lifted his head, finally getting a clear look at Kuluan's face with his bruised, swollen eyes. He froze for several seconds, then furrowed his brow, squeezing out a half-dead rasp. "You... have I seen you somewhere before?" Kuluan lit a cigarette and said nonchalantly, "Probably at the harbor." Hearing that, Willoughby's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He glared at him furiously, squeezing words through chapped lips: "Why did you betray the Marshal—" "I should turn that question back on you: why did you betray the Marshal?" Kuluan looked at him impassively, as if looking at a pest. Under that stare, Willoughby felt all the strength drain from his body. None of his usual official arrogance could surface; he could only flush red and stammer in protest, "I... betray? When did I ever betray the Marshal! Don't you dare slander me!" Kuluan said, "The moment you pointed your guns at your fellow Wilante. The moment you became a dog under the heel of power." Willoughby's lips turned pale with rage. He tried to raise a finger to point at him, but the soldiers flanking him pinned him down firmly, preventing him from budging. "Aren't you the same? You became a dog for the Alliance!" "Say whatever you like. You're free to claim a horse and a donkey are the exact same thing." Too tired to argue with the man, Kuluan dropped his cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it underfoot. "It's time Katnode Prison housed some real criminals instead of just poor aliens who can't pay their fines." "The residents of Evernight Port remember everything you've done. Once we finish discussing the new rules, the law will naturally deal with you." Brought out from the underground bunker alongside Governor Ya Hui and Myriarch Willoughby were a whole host of bureaucrats and staff from the governor's mansion and the garrison guard. Kuluan didn't make things hard for them. He simply placed them into separate rooms, instructing them to write down their resumes, current posts, and daily work contacts truthfully. This was not only a requirement from the Alliance, but also practical experience the latter had tested in Golden Gallon Port. Evernight Port's order still needed these people to maintain it, and he would select the trustworthy portion among them to help local residents transition from the old regime to the new. As for entrusting this task to him, a mere battalion commander, he felt it was partly because he was a local, and partly a sign of the Alliance's trust in him. Kuluan didn't care much about trust or lack thereof, however; once this war ended, he planned to discharge from service anyway. Having assigned the tasks, he felt an immense sense of relief. His adjutant slung an arm over his shoulder and joked, "Now that you've finally sent that pair of bastards, Ya Hui and Willoughby, behind bars, do you feel that sweet rush of vengeance?" Kuluan smiled faintly and said, "Vengeance is still a long way off. The ones who killed Kant weren't those two bastards, but the person holding their leashes behind them." This war had only just begun. Evernight Port was merely the first colony they had liberated. Waiting ahead were twenty more colonies, covering a total of 2.7 million square kilometers along the western coast of the Great Desert! And even the homeland of the Southern Legion... seventeen settlements, including Avent City. These accounts had to be settled with the Southern Legion once and for all. Bidding temporary farewell to his comrades, Kuluan walked alone toward the northwestern district. To welcome their arrival, and also to express gratitude that the Alliance had not carried out extensive bombing on the harbor city, the locals had laid fresh flowers along both sides of the streets in return. Gathering a bouquet of tulips symbolizing glory from the roadside, Kuluan walked to the entrance of the radio station and gently placed them beside the open picket gate. "I'm back." The Wilante never abandoned their heroes, even if they were strangers to one another. Leaving the bouquet behind, Kuluan nodded slightly in salute, tightened the strap of the rifle slung across his back, then turned and walked away, melting into the sunset extending down the street behind him...