Chapter 186

Keen Star Mercenary Group, lower-rank mercenary group, sponsored and supported by Yuger Company.

Named entities:

Keen Star Mercenary Group

lower-rank mercenary group

Yuger Company

So newcomers, Yuger Company's security department is also our responsibility! As newcomers, even if you're official members, you have to start from the basics! Got it?

Named entities:

Yuger Company

Security Department

formal member

Understood!

Good! Full of spirit!

And you three! You were just chatting, right? You're in charge of patrolling floors 3 to 6—any issues?

Named entities:

floors 3 to 6

patrol task

No problem, no problem, no problem...

All right, go ahead—report any abnormalities on the channel, stay alert, got it? You also heard the captain's earlier talk; this period is especially tense.

Named entities:

Captain

Understood! Understood! Understood!

Good!

The man in powered armor nodded, turned and left, leaving the two male and one female newcomers watching him go.

No named entities.

Since things are tense, why are we still hiring so loosely?

The tallest of the two men and one woman smirked.

"You said they're just that casual," the second tallest man said coldly.

"Mr. Li, I was thinking about Lin…" "Call me Mr. Yue, Miss Lifu."

Named entities:

Mr. Li

Mr. Yue

Miss Lifu

"Hey, Shilian, time to patrol!" Commander Quan Shui burst into the conversation, his tone more like a supervisor than the old mercenaries.

Named entities:

Shilian

Commander Quan Shui

mercenary group

"Floors 3–6, unless there's some anomalous space in between, I'd guess the lab is underground," Aomo ignored her and turned to Li and Lifu with a new topic: "or maybe it's actually on the surface."

Named entities:

Aomo

Li

Lifu

But I feel the company can't bear the blame for monsters showing up on the surface.

People with overly flighty personalities easily lose their dignity this way.

As for the surface, the anomalous space detector is ready. Li produced a small device out of thin air and glanced at Aomo's briefcase.

Named entities:

Li

Aomo

Thinking of Aomo stuffing that angel-wing helmet into his briefcase, Li felt such a spatial anomaly storage tool must hold even more.

Named entities:

Aomo

Li

Angel Wing Helmet

"I haven't made that many preparations—I'm just filling in for Miss Lucia's assault spot, right?" Noticing the former's gaze, Aomo shrugged.

Named entities:

Miss Lucia

Aomo

They forged identities to join the mercenary group and investigated Yuger Company's experimental data as members.

Named entities:

mercenary group

Yuger Company

This series of plans was crafted by the Gray Raven Agency; for Aomo it was rushed, but the other side obviously made thorough preparations.

Named entities:

Gray Raven Agency

Aomo

"You guys head to the third floor first; I can see someone approaching you from here," the commander warned.

Named entities:

Commander

"Sure," Aomo waved and walked toward the two, "but conducting covert investigation in broad daylight is still a bit troublesome."

Named entities:

Aomo

"What do you have in mind?" Li, standing to his left, asked while fiddling with the device in his hand.

Named entities:

Li

The detection instrument, after external modification, looks at first glance like just a somewhat special mechanical device, so he openly holds it in his hand.

No named entities.

Lifu followed at his right side, her silent and obedient demeanor reminding Aomo of the Mancheng tea house.

Named entities:

Lifu

Aomo

Mancheng Chazuo

But white hair and black hair are ultimately opposites; although Aomo rarely deals with the mechanical faction's ascendants, his excellent intuition conveys a faint sense of threat—the expression of that girl when her gaze turned serious.

Named entities:

Aomo

Mechanical Faction

Ascendants

How will she assist and fight?

Aomo has already seen Li's combat stance in the dream world; it's likely their weapon styles are similar, like firearms—either live ammo or energy.

Named entities:

Aomo

Li

Dream World

That will only be known when the time comes.

Thinking this, he replied, 'Since they all said this period is relatively tense, it's only natural for the company to suffer an attack; if necessary, I could create some chaos and cut the power.'

Named entities:

company

Let's consider it after we find the target; we can't spare manpower right now.

Li said, glancing at a nearby surveillance probe, 'With so many monitors, we don't need to patrol slowly, do we?'

Named entities:

Li

"Who says no? So I thought we could slack off a bit." Aomo replied, typing on the terminal screen.

Named entities:

Aomo

Since we're cooperating, we should also have a contact channel unrelated to speaking.

I can find a strong assistant; she should be good at this.

Li: What price must be paid?

Named entities:

Li

Yuehuanshe: The price has already been paid; she cares far more about this company's secrets than I do.

Named entities:

Yuehuanshe

Commander: Don't rush to call; first scan the building's structure. Li, connect the data; I've started the structural scan here.

Named entities:

Commander

Li

Is the remote-use structural scanner military equipment?

Even if it's military equipment in this world and era, the bigger problem than cost is illegal possession.

Displaying this contraband in front of a mercenary you've known less than a day, the mercenary agency shouldn't have such a loophole.

Named entities:

Mercenary Agency

But if it were legally possessed, what situation would allow an agency to legally hold this contraband requiring qualifications from both military and civil authorities?

Mr. Yue?

Lifu's reminder made Aomo lower his eyes, then slightly nod: 'Sorry, I zoned out.'

Named entities:

Lifu

Aomo

The white-haired girl smiled: 'It's fine, Mr. Li often does that too.'

Named entities:

Mr. Li

"Don't fall behind, Yue Shilian." The brown

Named entities:

Yue Shilian

brown-haired youth

"You're saying that too?" the black-haired youth said, somewhat surprised.

Named entities:

black-haired youth

"Someone said that, but I won't say who."

— One hour later.

Yuehuanshe: "Are you there? Got any good news?"

Named entities:

Yuehuanshe

Zhouri Ningjing: "Can you still bring good news?"

Named entities:

Zhouri Ningjing

Yuehuanshe: "I'm working with a mercenary agency to investigate Yuger Company, currently posing as one of their mercenaries—doesn't that count as good news?"

Named entities:

Yuehuanshe

Mercenary Agency

Yuger Company

Zhouri Ningjing: "You swore in Anmei District—how did you just go straight there?! Weren't you supposed to take it slow in the dream world?"

Named entities:

Zhouri Ningjing

Anmei District

Dream World

Yuehuanshe: "You look so rushed, you don't seem like you want to take it slow. My exploration in the dream world has reached its end, and my partner was also met in the dream world."

Named entities:

Yuehuanshe

Dream World

"How about it? Want to come help? I need someone unrelated who can cause a disturbance—make as big a scene as you like—and also help me cut off the power and backup power."

Named entities: none.

Zhouri Ningjing: "Wait a minute! Yuger Company's data protection is guarded by Ultimate Digimon, and they even have several Million Dragon Beasts—creatures not suited for guard duty."

Named entities:

Zhouri Ningjing

Yuger Company

Ultimate Digimon

Million Dragon Beast

Yuehuanshe: 【Can't take it down?】

Zhouri Ningjing: 【We must take it down! Wait for me to contact a helper! Ten minutes will do!】

Fine, helper after helper……

This is the worldly affairs link that Grandpa first expected from mercenary life.

Aomo, who turned his head back from the light screen, greeted Li sitting on the opposite chair: "Just wait about ten minutes, the helper will come."

Currently the patrol duty has already changed shifts; Li Zheng is discussing action plans with the commander under the pretense of resting, while Lifu is brewing tea at the water dispenser not far away.

This building still has over a hundred and twenty floors of a towering skyscraper; although many people are needed for patrols, given how casually the Rising Star Mercenary Corps hires, manpower is fundamentally not lacking.

After all, there are truly many low-level mercenaries, and they are widely concentrated in this exotic place where plenty of Category: Term can be done to earn a living.

"Ten minutes..." Li murmured softly, the complex light in his eyes flickering, then he looked up: "By then we'll head straight to the laboratory of True Person Dongzi on the eighth underground level."

Half an hour of scanning the building's space, half an hour of investigating researcher intelligence.

Although lacking Zhouri Ningjing's convenient data access, Li, after summoning out of thin air and replacing the white-haired mecha named Super Ke, has hacking efficiency faster than many cyber hackers.

Directly pulled up the employee files that unexpectedly had little encryption, and furthermore pinpointed the location of its laboratory.

As it turned out, just as Aomo had initially guessed, it was located underground, only in a horizontally expanded underground building room.

"Of course, but are you sure there's no problem?"

"What?"

"Do you still remember the first thing I said when I met you? I think you have some mental burden that needs to be cleared at a psychiatric clinic," Aomo said, pointing to his own vision faintly showing red light, "This is the demon's specialized talent for the mind."

By the time of the action, what needed to be said had to be made clear.

"Mr. Li's pressure hasn't lessened, but he has consistently insisted it not affect the mission," Miss Lifu, who approached with a teacup, showed no surprise, instead making Aomo feel he had overthought.

"Let me stabilize my consciousness sea a few more times later," the noisy commander also said over the channel.

Although I don't quite understand what consciousness sea is, the literal interpretation is probably correct; this might be fairly common for them.

"Turns out I was overthinking."

I still thought it was the common PTSD among soldiers……

Although it's not polite, hearing such a bland response, Aomo still felt somewhat disappointed.

"It's not exactly overthinking; if left unattended, a deviation in the consciousness sea will cause serious problems," the commander said, then shifted tone: "Boo hoo, I also want to drink the tea Lifu brewed; there's hardly anyone in the office now, even if Vanessa came it'd be nice!"

The tone sounds pitiful, the content is quite ordinary, judged as Mother Bi Ze, no need to pay attention.

Aomo took a sip of tea, then saw a hand reach out in front of his eyes.

That was Li, who had walked up to him.

"Thank you for the reminder."

"No need to thank."

After the dream, reality returned; they shook hands again, Aomo watched Li sit back down, pulling out from his hand a dark red gun case whose appearance hadn't changed at all, making it conspicuously out of place in the lounge.

So he thought for a moment, then, under the gazes of Lifu and Li who had turned to look, he pulled a two-meter iron coffin from his briefcase.

"Holy crap, what weapon is this!" the commander's tone let Aomo imagine her eyes widening.

It's really strange; although we're not familiar yet, we've become quite used to it because our personalities are too similar to Bi Ze.

By the way, I apologize for thinking half an hour ago that the other person resembled Chairman Thus we output: Thus we output: QiuChuan.

Apologize to the chairman.

"Rather than being surprised by me, you'd better prepare to accept the signal in a few minutes."

Aomo said, glancing at the suddenly lit light screen.

Zhouri Ningjing: 【Great, I've caught a usable little monster! I'll rush over right away to slay those few million-dragon beasts! Watch the screen!

】

Watch the screen?

Aomo silently adjusted the light screen to public mode, enlarged the size, increased the distance, aiming at an empty space, usable in those two minutes later.

A leg covered in golden armor kicked a huge, ferocious dragon-shaped monster out of the light screen, still completely shattering the lounge's space and even causing the whole building to shake.

Golden-armor dragon beasts, combat tyrant dragon beasts, million dragon beasts, steel giant dragon beasts— they successively burst out of the screen, the latter two numbering over ten each, being more of a visual shock than destructive power.

It left the three of them stunned for a moment.

This big… should also count as a monster?

Could it be disguised as a monster attack incident?

The first to react, Aomo thought in his heart.