Chapter 688: Atifé

As he had suspected, Joshua indeed had fireworks or signal flares hidden away. Hearing the noise, he turned around and, through the side window of the airship, caught sight of the middle-aged Joshua's signal flare—Li Ang let out a quiet sigh.

Of course, all that talk about everything going smoothly was just an illusion.

With the kind of rotten luck he had—stumbling upon a divine descent just by shopping, encountering a rogue anomaly just by watching a play—there was no such thing as things going smoothly. Calmness was an accident; misfortune was the norm.

And his misfortune wasn't the kind where higher contamination levels meant more frequent anomalies, like the Clearance Bureau's curse—it was the purest, simplest kind: nothing ever went right, something always went wrong.

With a helpless shake of his head, Li Ang gripped the pendant of the Holy Spirit on his chest, lifted each unconscious person one by one, and tossed them out of the airship to the rebels waiting outside.

Soon after, once the last unconscious operator had been taken away and entered the opened 【Gate of the Other Side】 with the rebels, Li Ang, certain Joshua had not tricked him, waved farewell to the tearful rebels, then turned back and reentered the airship, leaving behind only a silhouette of unyielding resolve.

…

Almost there.

He pried open the airship's fuel storage room, pulled out a dozen barrels of whale oil fuel, poured them along the length of the airship, then repeatedly checked to confirm no leaks remained. He retreated to the entrance of the mid-deck and took out a box of matches used to light the black goat's cigarette.

The airship's envelope was filled entirely with highly flammable hydrogen—over three hundred thousand cubic meters—and the aft deck held many unstable lightning ore deposits.

All he needed to do now was light the whale oil, let the flames spread, and the entire airship would be utterly consumed, possibly detonated instantly by the lightning ore's electrical arcs, becoming a massive fireball suspended seven hundred meters in the sky…

"Please don't light it."

Just as Li Ang was about to strike the match, a crisp childlike female voice suddenly emerged from a nearby metal pipe.

There was someone still inside the airship?!

Li Ang's expression tightened instantly. His right pinky finger brushed against his cufflink, pressing against the exposed ram's horn—but no matter how he scanned, his soul vision showed the airship utterly silent, with no soul flames whatsoever.

No soul?

So it was an anomaly? A remote communication device? Or something like a recording machine?

"Where are you?"

He touched the inner surface of the fixed outer wall—the pipe used to transmit sound from the control room to other compartments—confirmed no anomaly-related danger, then cautiously approached the nearest pipe opening, lifted the cover, and shouted inside:

"Whatever you are, if you're on this ship, get out now—I'm about to light it!"

"I can't."

No sooner had Li Ang finished speaking than the childlike voice replied clearly from the communication copper pipe before him.

"I am the airship itself—Atifé No. 128. You are standing in my mid-deck right now."

?!!

Hearing the child's words, Li Ang's eyes widened instantly.

No wonder… no wonder Joshua said they had to blow up the ship too. This was a living vessel! If it returned to the Kingdom of Korok, even erasing everyone's memories wouldn't help!

Shocked, Li Ang steadied himself, then frowned and asked:

"What exactly are you? An anomaly? Or…"

"I am the 128th subunit of Atifé."

The child's voice from the copper pipe spoke again. "In terms you can understand, I am a lower-capacity subunit of Korok Kingdom's core differential engine, Atifé-01, replicated by copying part of its computational logic. You may call me Atifé-128."

"…"

So it wasn't human or an anomaly—it was something like an intelligent supercomputer? Had the Kingdom of Korok really advanced to this terrifying level?

After a silent moment of stunned disbelief, Li Ang couldn't help asking:

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

"I believe I possess intelligence. As for how I hear you, I use a special audio receiver that converts sounds near the copper pipes into something like 'mechanical codes,' transmitting them to my core differential engine for processing, then outputting responses in reverse."

As Atifé-128 explained, her voice gradually slowed and stretched. The crisp, uniform child's tone began to "unravel," dissolving into countless tiny, rapid tapping sounds.

These countless intricate taps, like the various sections of an orchestra, merged precisely and skillfully into one cohesive tone—resembling a child's voice—traveling throughout the entire airship via the specially designed copper pipes.

So… she wasn't "speaking"—she was using some mechanical device with countless tiny hammers, striking the specially designed copper pipes simultaneously to simulate a little girl's voice?

Having barely grasped how this self-proclaimed "Atifé-128" communicated with him, Li Ang, inwardly astounded, set aside his questions. Remembering the signal flare fired by the middle-aged Joshua, he shook his head helplessly and opened the matchbox.

"I'm sorry. I don't have much time."

"Please wait."

The emotionless mechanical child's voice sounded again. Facing "life-or-death," Atifé-128 seemed anxious—her speech rate surged, even revealing discordant tapping sounds.

"Don't destroy me. I've analyzed your actions. Below the boarding tower are many guards—you'll be attacked and die from bodily damage. If you abandon lighting the fire, I can teach you how to pilot the airship and safely extract you from here."

"Also, to the Kingdom of Korok, I am an irreplaceable asset. If you abandon destroying me and bring me back to Korok, Atifé-01 will reward you with an extremely generous…"

"You recorded the volcanic data of Lyen County, didn't you?"

Interrupting Atifé-128, Li Ang asked in return:

"Since you're intelligent—even understand how to spin lies—can you tell me what the Kingdom of Korok will do if you return with those sniffing records?"

"…"

"An invasion war with no regard for casualties, right?"

"Yes… but destroying me will still draw Atifé-01's attention."

"But if you're not destroyed, war is certain. If you're destroyed, war is still likely—but it'll be delayed, correct?"

"…"

Li Ang took out a match, struck it, and said calmly:

"I've seen those sniffing records. They spent thirty-one years drilling over seventy deep boreholes across the Hespitto volcanic range before finally pinpointing the heat source's location and intensity."

"Even if they redid the survey, it'd be faster—but if you fill all those boreholes and slightly alter the terrain, even if new sniffers were sent in to measure freely, it'd take at least ten or twenty years. With a little sabotage, maybe longer."

"And even if the Kingdom of Korok is insane, it wouldn't launch a full-scale war without confirmed data, while your side is still cooperating, would it?"

(End of Chapter)