066. Frost-Pted's Shame

  Liu Wenzhong and the soldiers settled into the abandoned factory, rep their situation to headquarters and also notifying the Andre Merary Security Group.

  Like other tries on Terra, Yanxia used professional meraries provided by security panies for tasks like this one. Since missions could st for over a decade, it was far more cost-effective to use tract soldiers than scripted ones who would be missed if somethi wrong.

  As tract soldiers, Liu Wenzhong and his men had signed a 15-year trailitary service with Yanxia. They could bring their own ons or choose those provided by the Yanxia military, but the tract did not specify any particur deployment location.

  As professional tract soldiers, Liu Wenzho a bit uneasy about the current situation. Although they were teically perf tasks in a game, the amount of time and effort they were putting in made him feel like they were being taken advantage of.

  While his soldiers modified the facility, Liu Wenzhong gathered some of the army's administrative persoo discuss real-life matters.

  "Don't you all think it's strange? Qiqiao work, Yanxia... No, in fact, all the member nations of the Federatioo be ag oddly?"

  Liu Wenzhong poihis out, looking at the expressions of those around him before tinuing:

  "It's just a game world, yet the Federation is beiremely cautious. Even the official entities that trol the game data are only providing limited onry and making the testers pay for most of it themselves—like they're afraid of harming the local civilization."

  "Well, it's eleic migration, isn't it? Would you drop a nuke on your owory?" Staff Officer Chris Ann said dismissively. "That's not something we o worry about—the higher-ups will hahat."

  "No, I'm talking about a more practical issue." Liu Wenzhong knocked oable. "Shouldn't the time we spend w in the game be ted as work hours?"

  "Oh?" Deputy Zhao Xingzhe raised an eyebrow. "You're trying t it out so the Federation has to pay for extra days, right?"

  "The pany takes the biggest cut anyway, and we're doing the work, fighting directly otlefield. It's only fair."

  This wasn't a troversial issue. Everyone was just trying to make a living, and the pany could hahe arguments with the Federation. However, the opic was more serious.

  "We still don't have enough people." Liu Wenzhong rubbed his temples. "Even though our bat training and tactical level give us an absolute advantage over the Frost-Pted forces, right now, we're just ag like firefighters—remember, each of us only die three times. After that, we 't log in for the day, which trao a month of in-game time. By then, the pizza in the oven will be cold."

  "We need people on the frontlines, but don't fet, the characters we're trolling have their own lives and families." A soldier pyer rubbed his eyes. "Acc to orders, we should still keep in touch with our 'families' to maintaiionships. This way, wheime es, we might not have enough people for the battle."

  "That's why we he merary lise. We should recruit some local Granat boys fistics work."

  "Earlier, you said you didn't trust Li Aozi. Now, suddenly, you trust the Granat locals?"

  "That's different." Liu Wenzhong knocked oable again. "Haven't you read the intel? Li Aozi is a Frost-Pted native. He's only supp Granat's independence because he opposes the Frost-Pted gover."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I haven't seerailer, but you think about it logically." Liu Wenzhong remihem: "The intel shows that Li Aozi ersecuted and falsely accused by the Frost-Pted gover, f him to flee the try. After he destroyed the Abyss Humanitarian anization, Tianhuan immediately requested a GTB iigation, Red Arrow decided to raise i rates, and Zhengxu provided military aid to Granat—don't you think that's too much of a ce?"

  The soldiers immediately caught on.

  "Granat's independence might really have the support of other nations." The deputy pondered for a moment. "Is that why you want to keep your distance from Li Aozi?"

  "The game's officials are ed about the pyers, but we 't be. Our primary task is to ehe safety of the eleic migration zone while maintaining friendly retions with the virtual world's natives."

  Liu Wenzhong said seriously:

  "Stability is the most important thing. The migrants won't engage in endless fighting. Li Aozi seems odd to me—someoh only a vocational school education should not know how to create a persona, market himself, and still support a y's independence while being globally wanted."

  Li Aozi's personal charisma was undeniable, but charisma mainly came from first impressions.

  Liu Wenzhong deliberately avoided watg the game pany's promotional video to maintain objective, indepehinking.

  In fact, he had correctly deduced part of the situation. His reasoning was logical: Li Aozi did indeed receive support and aid from other nations, though he had ear himself.

  Liu Wenzhong's calm analysis made some of the soldiers who had seerailer start rethinking the issue.

  "You're right. Until we firm Li Aozi's background, it's best to keep our distance." Chris Ann thought for a moment and then added: "But we do o level up. The soldiers don't have main csses, impnts, skills, or specialties. In bat, we're at a big disadvantage. If we could gain the supernatural powers Li Aozi offers, it might greatly enhance our bat capabilities."

  Though opinions varied, they agreed on this point.

  Liu Wenzhong said:

  "We still have to make tact. I've already sent people to find Li Aozi… But for now, we haven't seen any real dispy of Li Aozi's strength. Humans are humans, limited by individual capacity. Let's not get our hopes too high."

  Every anization requires those at the top to make decisions while those below do the legwork.

  Valianke, Yakos, and Mohad Lin were sent to find Li Aozi. They had the coordinates of the NPC's st known locations provided by the tester, so they should have found him quickly, right?

  —Indeed, each time they reached where Li Aozi had st appeared, he had suddenly jumped dozens of kilometers away. By the time they caught up, they saw that Li Aozi's arget had appeared 1,200 kilometers away at the border, leaving them stunned.

  The three unlucky men, driven out of the factory by Liu Wenzhong's orders, ended up running, cyg, and braving minefields, even entering a Frost-Pted security force along the way.

  Finally, after hours of arduous travel, battered and bruised, they arrived at the new location in a captured truck.

  They jumped out of the trud immediately saw a burning military helicopter crash into a mountain valley. A crowd of Granat civilians had already gathered, carrying baskets and pushing carts.

  The three men exged gnces. Valiaepped forward, activated stealth mode, and casually asked one of the nearby farmers:

  "Hey, old man, what's going on here? Aren't you afraid of a helicopter falling from the sky?"

  "Afraid of what?" The farmer asked in fusion. "Frost-Pted pnes fall from the sky all the time. We're just here to collee parts. The gover pays a high price for them."

  "Pnes fall often?"

  The three men tiptoed to peek into the valley, and what they saw immediately shattered their previous uanding:

  Silver-gray wreckage piled up like corpses, f a mountain.

  It was a graveyard for aircraft!

  Mighty, terrifying heavy fighter jets were now like fallen princesses of a dead kingdom, reduced to shackled prisoners and decayed skeletons, their once-proud Frost-Pted snowfke insignia now covered in white frost, standing out starkly.

  Heavy strategibers, once majestic like white swans, y shattered, discarded like trash, half a dozen of them strewn carelessly iches, waiting to be buried by the wind and snow.

  Fmes, once fierce, had beeinguished by the blizzard, but the wrecked transport pnes, like giant dead men, remained frozen ihe bodies of several female agents were buro skeletons, slowly freezing in the snowy winds of the wilderness.

  White frost pted the bones.

  None of these pnes had appeared in Granat's airspace. Without a doubt, they had been shot down before even reag Granat. Many of the aircraft looked like they had been smashed apart by rocks. The instruments hadn't beeroyed by explosions and were still intact, making them highly valuable—no wohe local farmers were camping out here.

  Amid this stunning visual shock, a shared question arose in the hearts of the three soldiers:

  "How were these pnes shot down?"

  They quickly got their answer.

  A series of sonis echoed through the sky. Moments ter, ane transport pne was brought down, joining the others buried by snow, dying in the mountains and valleys of Granat like all the other invaders, in the ugliest possible way.

  "Hooray!"

  "Kill those Frost-Pted bastards!"

  "Thank you! Bahamut!"

  The Granat farmers cheered enthusiastically. The three soldier pyers followed their gaze—and there, high in the sky, they saw a red-and-bck armored figure h. He slowly desded, and the crowd surged forward to greet him, but the tall figure in red-bck armor raised a hand, and the people obediently stopped io avoid overcrowding. However, nothing could diminish the fervor and admiration in their eyes.

  The figure's helmet opened, revealing the handsome face that the three soldier pyers reized—although they'd seen Li Aozi's appearan the trailers, seeing him in person was deeply shog.

  "I never imagined a man could be this beautiful, beautiful enough to make you fet his gender or identity." Yakos marveled.

  "So that's Li Aozi. He's even more handsome without the filters." Mohad rubbed his . "He gives off a good vibe, doesn't seem like a bad guy at all. Very approachable."

  "Let's try talking to him first," Valianke suggested.

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