Chapter 286: 286 Arthefi

Just as he had guessed, Watching Watching Qiaoshuya was indeed hiding something like fireworks or a signal flare. After hearing the commotion and turning back, Leon couldn't help but let out a soft sigh as he caught a glimpse of the signal flare fired by the middle-aged Watching Watching Qiaoshuya through the porthole on the side of the airship.

As expected, all that talk about everything going smoothly was nothing but an illusion.

With his own shitty luck—where he could run into a Holy Spirit descent just by going shopping and encounter an out-of-control anomaly just by watching a play—the possibility of everything going smoothly simply didn't exist. Stability was the exception; bad luck was the norm.

Moreover, this kind of bad luck of his wasn't the "Bureau of Cleaning" style of misfortune where "the higher one's own corruption value, the easier it is to encounter anomalies." Instead, it was the purest form of bad luck, where nothing he did went quite right and something always went wrong...

After shaking his head helplessly, Leon reached out and gripped the Holy Spirit pendant on his chest, picking up the people who were still unconscious one by one and sending them out of the airship, handing them over to the rebels waiting outside.

A short while later, once the last unconscious operator had been taken away and had entered the opened 【Gate of the Other Side】 along with the rebels, Leon, having confirmed that Watching Watching Qiaoshuya wasn't playing any tricks, first waved goodbye to the teary-eyed rebels, then turned and walked back into the airship, leaving everyone with nothing but a "death-defying" back view.

……

Almost there.

He pried open the airship's fuel storage room, took out a dozen barrels of whale oil used as fuel, poured it all the way along the long, narrow airship, and after checking repeatedly to ensure nothing had been missed, Leon retreated to the entrance of the middle cabin and took out a box of matches used for lighting cigarettes for the Black Goat.

The airship's gasbag was filled entirely with flammable and explosive hydrogen, estimated to be over 300,000 cubic meters, and the tail cabin also contained a large amount of unstable lightning ore.

Next, as long as he lit this whale oil and let the flames burn all the way through, the entire airship would be completely incinerated, or even instantly detonated by the electric arcs from the lightning ore, becoming a giant fireball suspended 700 meters in the air...

"Could you please not light the fire?"

Just as Leon was about to take action, a somewhat crisp voice of a young girl suddenly came from the metal pipe beside him.

There was still someone on the airship?!

Upon hearing the sound, Leon's expression tightened. The little finger of his right hand immediately brushed against his cuff, pressing against the exposed goat horn. However, no matter how he checked, the airship in his soul vision remained completely silent, and no soul flames appeared.

No soul?

So it was an anomaly? Remote communication technology? Or something like an answering machine?

"Where are you?"

He reached out and touched the inside of the fixed outer wall, the pipe used for transmitting sound from the control room to other cabins. After confirming there was no danger in terms of anomalies, Leon cautiously found the nearest pipe opening, opened the cover, and shouted into it:

"Whatever you are, if you're on this ship, you'd better come out quickly. I'm about to light the fire!"

"I can't come out."

After Leon finished speaking, the crisp answer of the "young girl" immediately came from the communication copper pipe in front of him.

"I am the Arthefi No. 128 airship itself. You are currently standing in my middle cabin."?!!!

Upon hearing the "young girl's" words, Leon's eyes widened instantly.

No wonder... no wonder Watching Watching Qiaoshuya said the ship had to be blown up too. It turned out this was a living ship! If it were really allowed to return to the Kingdom of Kroke, it would be useless even if everyone's memories were altered!

Leon, greatly shocked, steadied himself, then frowned and asked:

"What on earth are you?! An anomaly? Or..."

"I am the 128th sub-body of Arthefi."

The young girl's voice from the communication copper pipe sounded again.

"To put it in a way that is easy for you to understand, I am the core difference engine Arthefi 01 of the Kingdom of Kroke. I am a lower-level sub-body with low computational capacity, replicated by copying a portion of my own operational logic. You can call me Arthefi 128."

"……"

So it was neither a person nor an anomaly, but something like an intelligent supercomputer? Had the technological level of the Kingdom of Kroke developed to such a terrifying extent?

After a silent pause, Leon, shocked beyond measure, couldn't help but ask:

"Do you have intelligence? Can you truly communicate with me? How did you hear me speaking?"

"I should have intelligence. As for how I heard you, it relies on a special sound-receiving device that can convert the sounds near the communication copper pipe into 'mechanical codes' like this, transmitting them to the core difference engine I use to process information, and then outputting them back in reverse."

Following Arthefi 128's explanation, her voice began to slow down and stretch out. The originally crisp and uniform young girl's voice slowly "dissipated," turning into countless tiny, dense, and microscopic tapping sounds.

And these countless complex tapping sounds, like the various sections of a symphony, combined cleverly and precisely, uniformly forming her voice that resembled a young girl, spreading throughout the entire airship along the specially made communication copper pipe.

So... she wasn't "speaking," but using some kind of mechanical device with countless tiny tapping hammers to "tap" the specially made communication copper pipe at the same time, simulating a voice like that of a little girl?

After barely understanding how this ship, which called itself "Arthefi 128," was communicating with him, Leon, while secretly clicking his tongue, still had a belly full of questions he wanted to ask. But at the thought of the signal flare fired by the middle-aged Watching Watching Qiaoshuya, he had to shake his head helplessly and then opened the matchbox.

"Sorry, I don't have much time left."

"Please wait a moment."

The emotionless mechanical child's voice sounded again. Arthefi 128, facing a "life-and-death crisis," seemed somewhat anxious. Her speaking speed was significantly faster, even revealing somewhat discordant tapping sounds.

"Please don't destroy me. I have already analyzed what you have done. There are a large number of guards below the airship tower. You will be attacked by them and then die due to physical damage. If you are willing to give up lighting the fire, I can teach you how to operate the airship and carry you away from here safely.

In addition, for the Kingdom of Kroke, I am an irreplaceable and important asset. If you are willing to give up destroying me and take me back to the Kingdom of Kroke, Arthefi 01 will definitely give you extremely generous..."

"You recorded the volcanic data of Laien County, right?"

After interrupting Arthefi 128, Leon asked in return:

"Since you have intelligence, and even know how to make empty promises, can you tell me what the reaction of the Kingdom of Kroke will be if you are allowed to take those sniffing records back to the Kingdom of Kroke?"

"……"

"A war of aggression regardless of casualties, right?"

"Yes... but if you destroy me, it will likewise attract the attention of Arthefi 01."

"But not destroying you will 100% lead to war. If I destroy you, even if it leads to war all the same, it can delay the time the war breaks out, right?"

"……"

Leon took out a match and struck it, saying calmly:

"I have seen those sniffing records. They spent a full 31 years drilling over seventy deep holes in the Hespito volcanic group before they finally determined the location and intensity of the heat source recently.

Even if it were to be measured again, it would be much faster, but as long as those deep holes are filled and the terrain is slightly altered, even if new sniffers are let in to measure at will, it can at least be dragged out for ten or eight years. If a little trouble is caused, it might even be dragged out longer.

And even if your Kingdom of Kroke is crazy, it wouldn't go so far as to rashly start a war at any cost when the specific situation is still uncertain and the Kingdom here is still cooperating, right?" ===== CHAPTER 287 =====