Chapter 691.1: The Mega Coincidence |
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Almost as soon as the peak logout period hit, a thread that blew up discussion was pushed to the top of the forum’s front page.
Night Ten: Big news! There’s an event at French Fry Port the day after tomorrow! (lol)
Ever since Clearspring City was cleared, the developers hadn’t rolled out any new gimmicks for quite some time. So the moment people heard there was an event, no matter where it was or how far away, everyone instantly got excited.
Sideline Slacking: What kind of event?
Spring Water Commander: Wait, aren’t you still in Dawn City?
Eye Owe Money: Exactly! I saw you yesterday with that Academy NPC!
Night Ten: Doesn’t matter! My bro’s in French Fry Port, so I’m basically there too. (lol)
Battlefield Cheerleader: Damn it, stop screwing around and tell us what’s actually going on!
Escaping Mole: Finally someone with actual information. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Spring Water Commander: Interesting. So they’re clearing away the nuisances first?
Ample Time: Yeah. If the identity of the attacking force would be awkward for the Federation Navy, then there’s really only one possibility.
Spring Water Commander: You mean the Torch Church is making a move?
Ample Time: Most likely. That’s the only way to explain why the Federation would plan an exercise like this and leave such an obvious loophole. After all, if it were the Army or the Xilande Empire, forces that have nothing to do with the Southern Archipelago Federation, even if they suddenly attacked French Fry Port, it wouldn’t really be the Federation’s problem, would it?
- From that, I can even infer that whoever is about to strike French Fry Port, whether people or monsters, may very well be the same group that sank the Golden Coast ship before, or at least used the same weapons… and that’s probably one of the reasons they’re being so sensitive.
Elf Wang: What do you think it’ll be? Those winged Mutant Humans we ran into in Brocade Lake Municipality before? ( ╹ -╹)?
Ample Time: Why couldn’t it be something that swims in the sea? Didn’t that NPC Huang Guangwei and his submersible already hint at it? There are aquatic Mutant Humans active along the southern coast.
Sisi: That makes sense. Aquatic Mutant Humans do seem pretty likely, though the mobility of those big ones might be an issue.
Spring Water Commander: Heh, I thought it was some huge event. I’m out, lol.
Escaping Mole: So we already know what’s going to happen? (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)
Garbage: Holy crap, did you already collude with Light, or what?
Irene: Confirmed, they read the script in advance. (¬_¬")
Tail: Ohhh! Spread the word! Dori got NTR’d by the devs! (///ω///)
Ample Time: HUH?
The thread quickly derailed.
Still, most players didn’t really object to Ample Time’s analysis.
Up till that point, Wasteland Online’s expansion updates had been fairly logical. There hadn’t been any trashy plots where popular NPCs randomly turned evil or where they became good out of nowhere.
In other words, players could use in-game intel to analyze the next version’s main storyline, even preemptively guessing the big pits the developers had dug.
Based on the available information, it was almost certain that the event two days later, would be a Mutant Human attack, and one coming from underwater!
At that very moment, Chu Guang was sitting in the shelter, silently watching the discussion unfold from start to finish, feeling a surge of admiration. Although the logic was a bit stretched in places, from a game-design perspective there was nothing really wrong with it.
From a player’s viewpoint, the deepest analysis they could reasonably reach was the tactical level.
As the administrator, and the sole planner of their game, Chu Guang naturally focused more on the strategic layer.
“… If the Torch Church really plays the Mutant Human card, it looks like they don’t have many cards they can play in the sea.”
Seeing the faint smile on Chu Guang’s face, Little Seven, sitting atop his pen holder on the desk, tilted its head in confusion. “How are those two things related?”
Chu Guang picked up his milk tea, took a sip, and said calmly, “Clearing away onlookers means they’re worried about being seen. That suggests they’ve probably used this card more than once. If they had other options, I doubt they would keep risking unnecessary exposure by doing the same thing over and over.”
If that was the case, it wasn’t hard to understand why those utterly unscrupulous lunatics had been acting so abnormally cautious toward the survivor factions of the South Sea.
The survivors there were the only key they had to extend their reach into the ocean and break their strategic deadlock.
They needed Coral City as a research base, and even more so the Hive at the Heavenly Court Space Station wreckage.
The problem was that their strength in the ocean was simply too weak.
Bullying a few civilian ships might be easy, but once they faced the Southern Archipelago Federation’s warships, those mutants controlled by neural interference devices would be nothing more than a joke.
That was, after all, a survivor power that had developed for two full centuries. Even if it couldn’t compare to the so-called fallen Empires, they were still mighty powerful.
At the very least, it was far stronger than the New Alliance’s own starting point, which relied entirely on picking up trash.
Precisely because of that, the Torch Church had adopted a gradual infiltration strategy toward the survivors of the South Sea, going so far as to use precious neural interference devices as bait.
Yet just as the Torch Church was pouring resources into absorbing the survivors, the New Alliance’s sudden intervention introduced a variable into their plans.
It seemed the players’ series of actions in the Baiyue Strait had truly made the Pathfinder in charge of the region anxious.
The corner of Chu Guang’s brow curved upward in interest as he interlaced his fingers on the desk.
The feeling was intriguing.
Even though he hadn’t yet met his opponent, he could already roughly guess how many cards they were holding, as well as their strategic goals and weaknesses.
The only remaining suspense was whether the players’ prediction would turn out to be accurate.
If they really had guessed right, if the mastermind behind the impending assault was indeed the Torch Church, and the attacking claws were the aquatic Mutant Humans they had been breeding around the Death Coast…
Then before the battle had even begun, they had already won a third of it.
Thinking about it, the smile at the corner of Chu Guang’s mouth grew even more pleased as he raised his teacup and took another sip. “Very interesting.”
Perched on the pen holder and swinging its legs, Little Seven quietly watched Chu Guang without saying a word, admiration glittering in its eyes. It didn’t know what exactly was happening, but it felt like its master had somehow won again without doing anything at all…
…
On the deep blue sea, a flagship rose and fell with the waves like a lone leaf.
A merchant dressed in luxurious attire stood at the railing, gazing at the foamy white wake split by the ship’s prow, letting out a long, lingering sigh.
Looking back on his busy life, Mojave felt it had been quite eventful.
As an insignificant nobody, he had witnessed the Army’s continent-spanning grand expedition against the Great Rift Valley, and personally lived through the Falcon Kingdom’s war of annihilation against the other kingdoms of the desert.
In the meantime, the distant River Valley Province had erupted in the vast Bonechewer Clan’s uprising, united survivors had formed an unbreakable New Alliance. The oppressed residents of Boulder Town had banded together to topple the mountain weighing them down, and the Poro Province, with its thousand races and thousand gods, had once again seen a change of dynasties…
A lot really had happened over the years. Those events seemed isolated from one another, yet also appeared to be strung together by some unseen chain of causality.
Perhaps the fact that he was standing here now was also the result of some invisible cause.
He never should have indulged that greed to make a killing.
If he hadn’t lingered at Silvermoon Bay for so many days and drawn the attention of the Xilande Empire, but instead taken the money he earned selling furs and begged that sour-faced captain to take him on another run, then even if he didn’t strike it rich as he dreamed, it would still be better than what was happening.
Staring at the two cargo ships drawing closer to the Baiyue Strait, Mojave’s face looked like he was about to be led to the execution ground.
Captain Achim patted him on the shoulder and flashed a bright, sunny smile. “Broaden your horizons. Don’t look so grim. Once our troops land at the port, you can pick whatever you like there, people, goods, money. You’ll get more than from a single trading run.”
“Yes… honored sir.”
Mojave forced a smile uglier than crying, but when he thought of his likely miserable end, even that tiny bit of composure collapsed.
He was unwilling to accept that years of careful business would end in such a stifling death.
Clenching his teeth, he finally couldn’t help but try to persuade the captain to pull back from the edge of death. “I don’t doubt you could crush your enemies like ants, sir, but have you considered one thing… how do you plan to bear the New Alliance’s wrath?”
“Wrath? Who cares about the wrath of a bunch of gophers?” Achim dug at his ear, flicking the wax into the sea with disdain. “The moment they refused Duke Garawa’s demands, they should’ve known they would pay for their arrogance and stupidity. Besides, we’re just taking back what belongs to us, with a little interest on top.”
The Empire spanned vast lands, fertile fields stretching for thousands of miles, blessed by a thousand gods, and bound in brotherhood with the Army.
In their eyes, a mere New Alliance was nothing to be afraid of.
