Chapter 690: Don't Get Blood on Me

Chapter 690: Don't Let the Blood Splatter on Me

After disembarking from the submarine, Muda led his two subordinates back to the speedboat and headed back toward Ring Island.

They had already stayed too long at Fries Port; if they didn't return for the shift change, it might arouse suspicion from others.

Moreover, before the handover, he needed to have a talk with the brothers on the next shift to make some appropriate adjustments to the patrol area.

He couldn't arrange such a big matter in a single day; he needed enough time to do ideological work with his subordinates.

Recalling the conversation on the submarine just now, the subordinate standing beside him hesitated repeatedly but finally couldn't help speaking.

"Sir..."

"What's wrong?"

"Are we... committing treason?"

This wasn't just his concern.

The patrol brother standing in the cockpit also looked toward the deck, waiting for the officer's answer.

With a complex expression, Muda gazed at the distant rolling waves, pondered for a long time, shook his head, and said firmly.

"No."

"But..." The sailor's face still showed some hesitation, but this time Muda turned back and looked at him with much more determined eyes.

"The real enemies are those who, for their own ambitions, drag us into an abyss of no return—not those who would rather risk their own lives to pull us out of that abyss. They are different from the cultists from Haiya Province; they truly intend to end the wasteland on this planet. Perhaps that is why Mr. Sun Yuechi wrote that letter for them."

"We have never betrayed the survivors living in these waters—not now, and never will."

The two sailors exchanged glances; though their eyes still held confusion and uncertainty about the future, they felt a little better inside.

Whether this counted as betrayal or not, they were already on this pirate ship.

They could only keep sailing this ship onward...

Someone was the first to change the subject, and the other tacitly picked up the thread, relaxing and chatting about other things.

"Speaking of which, what are they eating on the beach? It smells pretty good."

"I saw barbecue and beer... and that golden stuff—is that what they call fries?"

"Damn... they eat better than me." The sailor at the helm smacked his lips enviously, feeling his cravings stirred up.

With all that had happened, he had been working overtime all night, and now he felt both hungry and tired.

Leaning against the gunwale, Muda yawned and said casually.

"If you're so curious, let's go check out their port another day."

"Chief, do you have any of their silver coins?"

"Aren't they planning to trade with the settlements on Ring Island? We can just exchange Federal currency with them."

"Good idea!"

Unbeknownst to them, the patrol boat of the South Archipelago Federation sailed farther and farther toward the eastern sunrise.

No one noticed that the federation, forged by conspiracy, had quietly developed a crack...

On the other side, the official website of "Wasteland OL."

The players who had visited the submarine immediately brought the news back to the forum, sharing it with those sand sculptures who hadn't seen the world.

KillerDagger: "I tell you! That submarine is freaking awesome! Over two hundred meters long, basically an underwater aircraft carrier."

DebtBigEyes: "Holy crap?! It really exists?!"

ConstructionYouthAndBricks: "The sun rises from the west—Tail actually didn't brag?!"

Tail: "Giao! Don't add random settings to me! When did I ever like bragging? (ノ｀Д)ノ"

NightTen: "Wow, when did Brother Guang become so generous!"

Fries Port didn't have internet yet, so the photos couldn't be transmitted back to the shelter in real time, and thus couldn't be synced to the official website.

Fortunately, technology had advanced, and some enthusiastic experts used the brief descriptions from the players who had seen the world, extracted key points, and fed them into AI drawing software. Through continuous training, they actually produced a CG image that looked somewhat authentic.

Looking at those few AI-generated knockoff CGs, everyone got a preview feast for the eyes, but soon new arguments emerged.

ShipyardMasterZhang: "Wait, you're saying this thing can dive?!"

DrinkFootWashWater: "Bullshit!"

HuludaoFishSeller: "I'm just curious how the hell they made a pressure hull with such a large diameter?! And what's the welding process?! If this thing could dive 100 meters in reality, I'll eat it!"

MidnightUmbrellaNoKnife: "Bro, you're crazy—this is a game!"

HungerForce: "Sigh, you accept a five-hundred-meter iron airship, so why can't you accept a two-hundred-meter submarine?"

BowToHungerForce: "Exactly! If they can weld a starship thousands of kilometers long, why can't they weld a two-hundred-meter submarine?"

WardFootOdorWhoLaiWen: "Hiss... to be honest, it might actually be possible! Isn't the Heavenly Court right near the entrance of Vault 70? Chances are their welding technology was recovered from the Heavenly Court space station!"

YaErIWantToGoToTheToilet: "Damn... thinking about it, Vault 70 is basically a heavenly start!"

VoiceLowerIBloon: "How the hell did they turn such a good hand into this?!"

Thinking about how that shelter opened with free research points and population, while they themselves were beaten up by raiders and mutants as soon as they showed their faces, a group of Alpha test players were in tears, sighing with emotion.

Back then, you could even use a fire stick as a divine artifact, unlike now where you can even buy a Gauss sniper rifle with money.

To be honest, it wasn't just the Alpha test players who were sighing; even Chu Guang, sitting in the shelter and peeking at the screen, felt a wave of emotion.

Strictly speaking, these Alpha test players only appeared later; he was the first one to crawl out of Vault 404.

Back then, forget about a fire stick—he started with just a dog, and one with two heads that chased after him biting his ass.

Luckily, the survivors of Bate Street were pretty good to him, especially Xiao Yu's family who took care of him; otherwise, who knows if all that later stuff would have happened.

"To turn such a good hand into this—he's really a talent." Looking at the map of the southern seas, Chu Guang also felt a sigh in his heart.

Although he wasn't on site, based on the players' casual chats on the forum and the summary booklet Xiao Qi made for him, he could roughly understand the whole story.

Although Sun Yuechi was unwilling to admit it, Vault 70 had become the de facto "inner-city nobility" in the southern seas.

Their advantage was probably that they weren't as extravagant and dissipated as the inner-city nobles of Boulder City, and most of them were highly educated engineers and experts with knowledge, experience, and lofty ideals and foresight far beyond ordinary wastelanders.

As for the shortcoming, it was that they might be even more detached from the masses than the inner-city nobles, since the former often moved in and out among the latter.

Even at this point, Huang Guangwei and Captain Chen still believed that things had turned out this way because of the stupidity of the southern sea survivors, not because of their lack of real communication.

If, over the past century, they had been willing to put down the arrogance of the enlighteners and share a little power with the ordinary survivors who had grown up, they wouldn't have ended up with a "federation" that completely excluded the vault.

Coral City, nurtured by the residents of Vault 70, was the first to tear apart in this conflict.

Their predicament was not only due to their dependence on the ocean current power station but also because they were caught between two divided groups.

Staring at that azure ocean, Chu Guang felt more and more regret.

Xiao Qi, sitting on the pen holder at the corner of the desk, leisurely swung her little legs, propped her chin with both hands, and watched Chu Guang's profile. Suddenly, she asked curiously.

"Master."

Withdrawing his gaze from the forum, Chu Guang looked at Xiao Qi.

"What's wrong?"

Xiao Qi blinked and said.

"Since the southern sea is so important, why don't you just take it over directly instead of leaving it to the players to handle on their own?"

Chu Guang smiled faintly.

"They're right there on the ground. They know the situation far better than I do, stuck here and unable to leave. Leaving it to them is the best choice."

"Besides, I want them to change this wasteland on their own initiative, to spark their creativity and passion to the fullest. If they can resolve the crisis in the southern sea through their own efforts and unite the survivors there, that will be far more effective than any number of expansion packs I could release."

"And we only need to give them enough support at the necessary moments."

Of course, he hadn't handed over all the work to the players.

As the administrator of the Alliance, he had his own tasks too.

Not just the ongoing Cohesion Council meetings, but also a series of collaborations the Alliance had recently begun with the Hump Kingdom, among other things.

Construction of a railway from Fallen Leaf City to Petra Fortress had already started. Once completed, the Hump Kingdom would be integrated into the Alliance's overland trade network.

The embassy in Silver Moon Bay had finished negotiations, and embassy staff along with a batch of player-specific hibernation pods were already on their way to Oasis No. 4.

As save points extended outward along the Alliance's railways, more and more players would appear on the route from Dawn City to Fries Port.

The vast majority of these players' in-game actions would have a positive impact on the development of Fries Port.

And all of this was the behind-the-scenes work he did, invisible to ordinary players...

...

While the players were buzzing with heated discussions about the Dolphin-class nuclear submarine and the seemingly imminent new version, distant Silver Moon Bay was also bustling with activity.

The morning bell had only just rung, and seagulls were already circling early above the smokestacks and masts of steam-powered sailing ships.

Boilermen carrying shovels yawned as they stepped onto the decks, while dockworkers with towels over their shoulders unloaded crates of goods from barges of various shapes and styles, handing them over to ground crews who would transport them to the harbor warehouses or the trade market a kilometer away.

The goods here were abundant: precious timber and resplendent silks, spices with peculiar aromas, chests and bundles of gold and silver treasures, and relics left over from the Age of Prosperity.

The ships moored in the harbor were equally diverse—some were small fishing boats you could walk around in a dozen steps, while others were massive oil tankers that took a full minute to run from bow to stern.

As the port with the largest cargo throughput in the entire Rosy Sunset Province—and even the central-eastern region of the Central Continent—it wasn't just ships from the East and West Coasts that frequently appeared here; occasionally, vessels from another continent would also unload their goods.

And so, the bustle here usually lasted from the moment the sun rose until it set.

Whether it was the dockworkers, the pedestrians coming and going on the nearby streets, or the vendors hawking their wares in the market, everyone was putting in their utmost effort to make the jingle of a few more coins in their pockets ring a little louder.

But in this port, where fortunes were born every day, tales of overnight riches rarely had anything to do with the toiling majority.

Take Mogavi, for instance, who had just come into a windfall. Early in the morning, he was already slumped over in a tavern, dead drunk, boasting loudly to the other drunks who had also spent the night drinking.

"You landlubbers who've never been to sea can't even imagine how astonishing it is over there! Bundles of gold are just lying on the beach, untouched. The price of an assault rifle can buy you a priceless blood marten pelt!"

Hearing his hoarse, raspy voice, a drunk at a nearby table took a swig of watered-down alcohol and chuckled teasingly.

"Buddy, we don't need to go to sea."

"Yeah!"

Another drunk chimed in, laughing as well.

"I've got five shops at Silver Moon Bay's port, all rented out to Alliance merchants. The rent they pay me every month has to be carried in sacks. I can sit here and drink all day without worrying about money."

"Same here, pal. I've got thousands of cows and tens of thousands of pigs on my farm in Oasis No. 9. The more those Bluecoats can eat, the more I earn."

Mogavi stared at those guys with glazed eyes.

Good grief!

They're even bigger braggarts than me!

The bartender behind the counter couldn't take it anymore. He slapped a cleaned glass onto the table and snapped.

"If you're all so rich, why don't you settle your tabs first? I'm closing up in two hours."

The drunk who claimed to have tens of thousands of pigs waved a hand dismissively.

"We're old friends here. Same as always—put it on the tab—"

Before he could finish, the bartender cut him off with a glare.

"Don't even think about it! You already owe me 1,147 gold camels. If you don't pay up today, I'll sell you off to the docks as a laborer to work off the debt!"

The drunk's face twisted into a grimace as he pleaded.

"Oh, please, don't send me there! I'll pay you back in a couple of days, I swear!"

Watching those drunks wail, Mogavi rubbed his temples with his index finger, then slammed his fist hard on the table.

"Damn... what rotten luck!"

These penniless losers!

Wasting time talking to them was pointless!

He had been sitting here all night, spinning tales all night, blowing up Fries Port—a place barely bigger than a fishing village—into a gold mine overflowing with treasure.

The reason he was so tirelessly advertising to these people wasn't out of some charitable goodwill or to repay the generosity of those kind folks. It was purely to drum up investment for his next venture.

That port was right on the edge of the Baiyue Strait. Even if he hadn't revealed its location, someone would eventually find it.

Besides, there had been so many sailors and mercenaries on deck back then. He hadn't expected those hired hands to keep his secret—after all, he hadn't shared his profits with them.

Maybe after a round of drinks, those guys would have sold his secret for a pittance.

Since Fries Port would be discovered sooner or later, the smart move was to make the most of the time and information gap to expand his business as much as possible before others trampled down the port's doorstep.

To pull that off, the capital he had on hand was clearly not enough. He needed to rope in some rich but clueless partners.

Ideally, some noble or prince would take a liking to his venture, throw him a huge sum to buy an entire fleet, or even lend him the royal navy to haul his goods.

That way, at least he wouldn't have to grovel to those ship captains anymore.

Unfortunately, his business was just getting started. While his goods might curry favor with the nobility, he himself had no standing to appear at their banquets. He could only haunt the taverns near the port, hoping for a stroke of luck.

Just as Mogavi shook his head and was about to pay his tab and leave, two men in black robes walked in from outside.

The bartender looked up at the door, assuming they were customers, and said politely,

"Sorry, folks, we're closed for business now. Just cleaning up."

The man in front said nothing, only scanned the drunks sitting around drinking, then fixed his gaze on Mogavi's face.

The two exchanged a glance. One of them headed for the door, while the leader approached the counter, pulled out a hundred-yuan bill, and tossed it onto the table.

"His tab is on me."

The bartender was taken aback but quickly pocketed the money and placed the change on an iron tray.

The man, however, didn't even glance at it. He walked straight toward Mogavi.

From the moment those two had entered, Mogavi had been quietly observing them.

Especially when the man pulled out a hundred-yuan bill and generously paid for his drink, then headed his way without a second look at the change—Mogavi's pounding heart nearly leaped into his throat.

Good grief!

I've searched high and low, and now it comes without effort!

This fool with more money than sense—the golden patron he’d been waiting for had finally arrived!

Watching the black-robed man stop before him, Mogavi cleared his throat, pushed back his chair, rose, and extended his right hand in a friendly gesture.

“And how might this esteemed boss be addressed?”

The man in the black robe stared at him expressionlessly, shook the offered hand briefly, then released it and spoke.

“Singh. Someone is interested in your business, Mr. Mogavi. I wonder if you’d be willing to oblige.”

Mogavi was taken aback.

He hadn’t expected this man to be merely an employee, not the principal. Yet upon realizing this, the eagerness in his eyes only grew stronger, not weaker.

“And who might your boss be?”

The man called Singh continued in a calm tone.

“He is lodging nearby. Please follow me.”

Watching the man turn and head for the door, Mogavi saw no issue at all and followed eagerly behind him.

The group left the tavern, walked south along the bustling street for a while, passing several luxurious inns. Each time, Mogavi thought they had arrived, but the two men showed no sign of stopping.

Especially when one of them slowed his pace and fell in behind him, a faint flicker of wariness stirred in Mogavi’s heart.

Still, he suppressed his doubts.

After all, this was Silvermoon City’s territory. Even if public security here was hardly exemplary, outright kidnapping in the streets was rare.

Besides, the two men didn’t have the air of thugs—they seemed more like noble retainers. Having dealt often with royal servants, he trusted his judgment of people.

After about half an hour’s walk, the group moved from the crowded market to a corner of the harbor district.

Two warships flying twin-sword flags were moored at the docks. On the shore stood a dozen burly men, their backs bearing Ripper rifles.

The entire wharf seemed commandeered by these two warships; other vessels kept far away, and even dockworkers and patrolmen avoided the area.

At that moment, Mogavi finally panicked.

Glancing at the man close behind him, he then looked at Singh ahead and asked in a trembling, fearful voice.

“Wh-who exactly is your boss?!”

Singh smiled faintly, stopped, and gestured with his chin toward the ship ahead.

“Lord Aqim is on that ship. Let’s go up and talk.”

Hearing this, Mogavi’s heart plummeted from his throat to the pit of his stomach. He cursed his own misfortune, regretting that greed had blinded him.

The black-robed man stood motionless behind him, clearly with no intention of letting him go.

Not only that, but the dozen or so soldiers with rifles on the dock were all staring intently at his face.

From their menacing posture, if he dared to take even a single step back, they would charge without hesitation and tear him apart.

Seeing him stand frozen, the man named Singh spoke with a hint of impatience, yet still polite.

“Mr. Mogavi, please board the ship.”

“Yes…”

Under that sharp gaze, Mogavi forced a bitter smile. He could only move his leaden legs and, steeling himself, head toward the gangplank of the flagship.

These men were from the Xilan Empire.

Their unreasonableness was notorious throughout Silvermoon Bay. Even the governor of Silvermoon Harbor and the lord of Silvermoon City could do little with them, hoping only that the Alliance’s protection might rein them in.

Mogavi never imagined that he, an honest merchant, would provoke these plague-bearers—and even less that they would break all rules to kidnap him right from the busy streets!

Of course.

He admitted that part of the fault lay with himself. If not for his greed, if not for the alcohol numbing his mind, he would never have fallen for such an obvious trap.

After some hesitation, Mogavi finally shuffled onto the deck and, in a lavishly decorated captain’s cabin, met Captain Aqim.

The bearded man lifted his nostrils slightly, regarding him like a prisoner under interrogation, and spoke casually.

“You’ve been to Fries Port?”

Mogavi dared not lie; he nodded nervously.

“…Yes, my lord. I just returned from there.”

Hearing this, Captain Aqim narrowed his eyes, which flickered like a serpent’s tongue.

A chill ran down Mogavi’s spine. Just as he was about to ask what the lord required, Aqim spoke slowly.

“I need you to do something for me.”

It was a commanding tone.

Clearly not open to negotiation.

Mogavi, his mind racing on how to escape, nodded hastily.

“Please, speak.”

Pleased with the merchant’s attitude, Captain Aqim continued unhurriedly.

“I will give you two cargo ships. You will take them to Fries Port. Just make sure they dock successfully. Leave the rest to us. It’s that simple.”

Mogavi asked nervously.

“And those ships… what cargo are they carrying?”

Aqim stared at him expressionlessly.

“You don’t need to know.”

Guessing what might be on board, Mogavi swallowed hard, forced a smile, and nodded obsequiously.

“Yes! No problem, my lord! I know the people at Fries Port well. Whatever cargo you want to bring there, it’s fine… But the journey is long. Could I go back and pack my luggage before we set off?”

He swore.

If he could just get back to the busy streets, he would run without a second thought. Surely the Alliance embassy would be interested in this information—maybe even assign him bodyguards.

But Aqim only glanced at him blandly, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“Do you think I’d let you go down?”

Under that cold smile, Mogavi felt a chill on his back. He forced a smile uglier than tears.

“I… I won’t go down. Then, my esteemed lord, when do we depart?”

“Right now. The two ships are already waiting on the Boro Sea. I’ll escort you myself.” Aqim pulled out a diamond-studded pocket watch, glanced at it, and tossed it into a drawer.

Suddenly noticing the little merchant’s smile—worse than tears—his eyes flickered. He stepped forward with a friendly air, patted Mogavi’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Don’t worry. We’re just going to retrieve what’s ours. Stick with me, and when it’s done, I won’t treat you poorly.”

Mogavi, torn between laughter and tears, thanked him profusely while cursing him in his heart.

Those short-lived bastards!

Not only were they tired of living, but they were dragging him along too!

He only hoped that when these men died, they’d do it far from him—so the blood wouldn’t splash onto him…