My Players Are So Fierce

Brother Loyalty arranged for a worker from the Carpe family who specialized in weapon testing to examine the “detonator” or explosive stick that the hero made using traditional methods. To be honest, he wasn’t very hopeful about its effectiveness, reaching the level of explosives from WWI or even the 18th century would already be quite impressive.

After all, his armament factory was also just starting out, and they really couldn’t produce many “good things” that would impress people yet.

However, Brother Loyalty was confident in becoming bigger and stronger in this “unique industry” and creating new glories. For someone who could hand-craft Iron Fist, this confidence was clearly based on his own “craftsmanship”. However, no matter how confident he was, it couldn’t change their current difficult situation.

Well, time to clock out for now.

Brother Loyalty thought to himself as he returned to his office, closed the door and lay down on the bed to log off. Taking off his helmet, he glanced at the clock on the wall, exactly 20 minutes until the end of work.

As usual, he lit himself a cigarette first, then waited for his subordinates to come report today’s work results.

This procedure used to be just a formality.

Their department was truly idle when they had downtime, but recently, the frequency and quality of these reports had clearly improved. A few minutes later, today’s reporting staff Mustard Madman opened the door.

He pulled up a chair to sit across from the team leader, and being longtime colleagues, didn’t refuse the cigarette offered by the leader. Through the clouds of smoke, he opened his notebook and said to Brother Loyalty:

“The situation with me, Master Ziwei and Brother Border Town is the same as yesterday, we’re still completing the main quest by searching for refugees in the Cato region as Shadow Intelligence Bureau intern agents.

Today on the way back from escorting refugees we got into a fight with a gang of small-time bandits. We won easily. By the way, Brother Border Town firmly rejected advances from a refugee widow for the 7th time. Also, I’ve reached level 10 now and plan to take the Black Iron trial when I go back.

Master Ziwei and Brother Border Town still need a bit more.

Regarding our profession choices-”

“No need to report on that, choose whatever you want.”

Brother Loyalty rolled his eyes and said:

“I’m not your father, I don’t need to worry about your job changes.

Remember to stop by the armament factory on your way back. I’ve prepared the best quality guns we can make right now and some defensive grenades for you three. Today some bastard brought me a bundle of handmade detonators.

I tested the effects before logging off and they work fine. If you need them, we can add them to the special supplies.”

“Holy shit! Someone who can hand-craft detonators?”

Mustard Madman was startled and instinctively asked:

“What does this person do in real life? Do we need to report this to our brother departments?”

“No need, he’s considered a semi-professional. He definitely has certification and knows the regulations, so continue with your report.”

Brother Loyalty tapped his cigarette ash and said:

“You guys look like you’re planning to put down roots in the Blood Claw tribe area. That’s good too, being far from Crimson Citadel makes it more convenient to do some extra reconnaissance. However, how are our three little brothers performing?”

“They’re doing alright.”

Madman flipped through his notebook and said:

“They’ve officially joined the Kadman People’s Army. Due to their excellent military qualities, they’re very valued by Maxim who decided to promote them to military police to handle military discipline and regulations after the upcoming expansion.

They’re like fish in water in that environment.

When chatting with them yesterday, I heard them complain that the atmosphere inside this medieval army is terrible. From what they said, they want to strictly rectify it. Looks like they’ve also found their share of fun.

This way, we now have people in Transia’s business, military and intelligence circles.”

“We’re nowhere near done yet.”

Brother Loyalty shook his head and sighed:

“From an intelligence gathering perspective, we haven’t even opened up the situation yet, and the manpower issue is becoming increasingly important. The few people we have can’t get a full picture even if we spread them all out, let alone pursue certain truths beneath the surface.

But this task is very special in nature, we can’t deploy large numbers of people into it.

In the current situation, to break through we can only make good use of the resources at hand.

Let’s climb up first.

Perform well in our respective systems, maybe we can get some clues if we can access higher level information.

Alpha Company has hidden many subtle hints in the background story. Without advancing the plot, it’s hard to get valuable information.”

“I actually have an idea!”

Madman closed his notebook and blew a smoke ring, saying to the team leader:

“We can make good use of other players’ strength, like those unique ladies from the Silver Moon Pride team.

Earlier I heard rumors that Lady Aqua often discusses that world’s history with Professor Malcolm, and someone saw her reading those otherworld books we can’t understand at all in the Blood Vulture Halls library.

She wasn’t using a Computation Bead for translation at the time.

I strongly suspect they may have also grown suspicious and are trying to figure out the truth about this game by exploring its history.”

“You really dare to imagine.”

Brother Loyalty criticized:

“You know Lady Aqua’s family background, she’s absolutely not someone we can cooperate with. Even if she’s willing to help, I wouldn’t dare let her go in alone. If something happened, her husband’s terrifying network of connections would leave us in shambles.

So put this option aside.

As for Little Ashina’s help… you can probe indirectly in the game, but don’t even think about real-life contact, her situation is truly special.”

The team leader grinned and checked the time, saying:

“Let’s not talk about this anymore. Come with me later to receive a new colleague. The assistant we applied for will arrive tonight. The higher-ups say they’re an excellent physicist who will definitely discover things that we laypeople can’t notice.”

“Hmm, that’s wonderful.”

Madman also smiled and complained:

“Although playing games every day is quite fun, not producing results has put everyone under pressure. Having someone capable help share our burden is quite nice. I’ll go prepare now, should we book a private room for the welcome dinner?”

“No need, just find any restaurant.”

Brother Loyalty waved his hand and said:

“The funds need to be used where they matter most.” Find the newest release on novel·fire.net

“But I reckon even if you have funds for our current project you can’t spend them, they don’t accept our money in Transia anyway-”

Madman complained:

“Might as well improve our meals instead.”

“Nonsense, I’ve almost spent it all.”

Brother Loyalty grinned and said:

“Several rich brothers and sisters want to self-fund a third-party platform to promote 《Reality Realm》 and serve players. Since we can’t stop this kind of thing, we might as well participate and find a way to gain control.

If information will definitely leak in the future, we need to ensure the leak channels are in our hands. We need to let that information leak according to our plans and steps, to avoid causing unnecessary large-scale panic.”

“Brilliant!”

Mustard Madman gave a thumbs up and said:

“The team leader’s methods are still masterful. But you don’t have experience managing such platforms either, so will we need to recruit more people later?”

“Just let the information team colleagues manage it.”

Brother Loyalty said:

“We’re not really operating it to make money, it’s just for safety considerations. Those rich folks have plenty of capable people under them. We just need to set the rules.

Let’s go, work’s over.

Call over the three ‘slackers’ and let’s have a good meal first, then go to the airport to pick someone up.”

When the four men strolled to the airport it was already evening. They were still discussing how to arrange for the newcomer to enter the game in a reasonable way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion, when Brother Border Town exclaimed first:

“Eh! Why is it a woman?”

“Huh?”

The other three men turned their heads in unison and saw a young woman dressed like an urban office lady in a trench coat, dragging a large suitcase and wearing sunglasses, appearing before them with big strides.

The young woman pulled her sunglasses down slightly and looked around, then quickly locked onto this group of four.

She walked over briskly, her high heels making crisp sounds against the ground, and extended her hand to them openly, saying:

“Are you the contact people for the 《Reality Realm》 project? I’m the newly transferred investigator, codename ‘MoeHaha’.”

“Uh, no need to make it like a spy movie, miss. Our project’s confidentiality level isn’t as high as you think.”

Brother Loyalty shook hands with her and asked:

“Also, your codename…”

“It’s just an online name! Aren’t we supposed to infiltrate a virtual game that’s suspected to be a third kind of contact? So using an online name is quite suitable, right?”

The young woman with the ID “MoeHaha” laughed heartily and said:

“I guess you’ve arranged a welcome dinner? No need! I’ve already found accommodation locally, and the forum’s game test application has also been completed. I should be entering the game in the next batch. We don’t need to meet much in reality, I’ll contact you in-game if I discover anything.”

“Hm?”

The four men looked at each other, and Brother Border Town, the oldest, asked suspiciously:

“How did you manage that? Although our current confidentiality work might seem meaningless to them, we still need to follow the necessary procedures. You didn’t just openly submit an application, did you?”

“Oh my, uncle, although I haven’t been in this line of work as long as you all, I’ve cooperated with your brother organizations before. I know your work procedures. Relax, I got the application qualification through the most ordinary means.”

MoeHaha explained while dragging her suitcase toward the airport exit:

“Simply put, I was ‘invited’.”

“Huh?”

Brother Border Town was even more confused.

But Master Ziwei, who had been playing with an ancient coin in his hand, already understood and said:

“You mean you have friends already in the game?”

“That’s right~ Very smart, I’ll reward you one point.”

MoeHaha grinned and said:

“This itself is a low probability event. I guess the higher-ups sent me over partly for this reason too. After all, compared to those senior predecessors, I’m just an absolute rookie in the field of scientists, with no achievements I can show off.

But I guess this operation will definitely be interesting.

Look, my friend is here.

Do you guys want to hide first?

To avoid making her suspicious of me, that girl’s personality is really troublesome. If she finds out about my ‘part-time job’, I guess our years of friendship would be over.”

“Alright.”

Brother Loyalty made a gesture, and the four men immediately turned and walked toward four different positions, but they could observe the scene of MoeHaha leaving the airport terminal to meet her friend from different angles.

A few minutes later, Mustard Madman exclaimed in the temporarily established communication network:

“I see them, it’s Sister Pomegranate and Little Rich Brother! Just don’t know which one is MoeHaha’s friend… should be Sister Pomegranate. They’re chatting and hugging, must have known each other for a long time.

But this isn’t right, Brother Loyalty.

When we investigated Niu Shiliu’s background before, there wasn’t anyone like this in her social connections.”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Brother Border Town criticized:

“MoeHaha herself said she’s been in this line of work for quite a while. Of course the brother departments would have done information control for her.

Tsk tsk, someone even we couldn’t find information on, looks like this young lady’s rank is quite high. Brother Loyalty, what do we do now?

Head back, or…”

“What’s there to head back about? We’ve already booked the welcome dinner, can’t waste it.”

Master Ziwei suggested:

“Call over the three ‘slackers’, let’s have a good meal tonight. Although we haven’t accomplished anything during this time, we still need to reward ourselves.”

Brother Loyalty didn’t answer.

He was frowning while looking at the message on his phone, it was a game ID that MoeHaha had just sent him, with annotations below the list.

“Suspected foreign intelligence personnel? Damn! I knew this job wasn’t so simple!”

The team leader clenched his fist tightly, staring at that ID on his phone, his heart full of anger.

Damn it!

If I can’t handle aliens, can’t I handle you?

Now all the players in the entire game are our people, you outsiders, go back to wherever you came from!

“Don’t rush to eat, everyone back to the department for overtime. We have new information.”

Brother Loyalty issued orders:

“Focus on monitoring the forum player ID ‘Terra Nova’! Dig up all their information for me! I want to know their grandmother’s name and how many mistresses their father has! After we’re done with this, we’ll go out to eat.”

“Roger!” x3

————————

“I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead! I’ve been discovered, I’m done for.”

An hour later, tragic screams came from a certain laboratory, followed by frantic keyboard typing that continued for several minutes before quieting down.

Then a short young woman wiped the sweat from her forehead while looking at the personal information she had barely managed to protect. Her face, which had somewhat Egyptian features, was full of displeasure and helplessness. She then picked up her phone and dialed an encrypted number.

The call connected quickly, and the young woman yelled at the other end:

“Concrete! I quit! I haven’t even started playing the game and I’m already being targeted. Find whoever you want! I don’t want to miss my chance to play a game that’s ahead of its time because of this mess, and I don’t want to ruin my academic reputation by engaging in espionage work!

I’m not even a damn spy.

I’m just an ordinary, regular entomologist, I don’t want to get involved in your mess.

You annoying bastard!

When you said I needed to repay a favor back then, I knew nothing good would come of it!”

This outburst gave Sister Concrete on the other end of the phone such a headache that she had to cover her ears. Only after the other party had finished venting her anger, which was mixed with fear, did she slowly say:

“Don’t worry, Little Nova, sister has arranged everything for you. Listen to me now, be honest about your identity to them, say you were coerced by a big bad person, push the responsibility onto me, then give them my contact information.

Don’t tell me you’re not interested in this kind of ‘third kind of contact’ that’s already been proven, although you play with bugs, you barely count as a scientist too.

You need to have the necessary spirit of inquiry.

Listen!

Be good.

I’ll send you something in a bit. Put this thing on the helmet you’ll definitely get later, then you can happily play your game with Lumina and those other little idiots.

The rest, I’ll handle it!”

“Are you sure you can handle it? Don’t mess around, okay? This is clearly technology that can’t be achieved in modern times!”

Terra Nova worried:

“You can’t even track this ghost forum now. Come on, I’m really afraid you’ll get yourself into trouble.”

“If I’m not afraid, what are you afraid of? And who says I haven’t tracked it?”

Sister Concrete’s voice was full of a certain indescribable exhaustion. She said over the phone:

“I’ve already confirmed its form of existence… This is quantum communication based on microscopic world theory. Its theoretical and practical level is at least 300 years ahead of us, it’s simply a legendary technological miracle. I won’t let this project go!

But don’t be afraid!

I’ve analyzed the mentality and behavioral logic of those behind this matter. Trust me, They are very eager for all the talent They need right now. They won’t miss out on you just because of some slight suspicion on you.”

“But if you’re so curious, why don’t you submit an application?”

Terra Nova said softly:

“With your qualifications, they would definitely approve you.”

“Wouldn’t that make me no different from those idiots?”

Sister Concrete snorted and said:

“I have my own plans. Don’t worry about it, just do as I say, be good. Also, contact Lumina and the others occasionally to let them not worry about me. I’ll return to the country and reunite with them after I finish this matter.”

After saying this, she hung up the phone, then got up to take a sip of coffee and looked back at the special equipment simulated as a chair on the table in her messy laboratory, connected with many electrodes and data cables.

This thing was clearly far from complete, having only built the most basic theoretical model, but its ingenuity could already be seen.

Concrete Heart, with dark circles under her eyes that could no longer be concealed, squinted at the “work” before her and said softly:

“Brain waves? Ha, such a mature quantum communication system, even encompassing currently completely unprovable parallel space-time and string theory. I hope my little bit of knowledge can help me unravel the truth of all these edges and corners, and more hopefully this thing won’t blow my brain to mush when it’s turned on.

Now I have a direction to try, but I need a more explicit information channel…

My goodness, I feel like an idiot wrestling with god.

But how to make up for the deficit and mess created by making this thing? This is a debt that can never be balanced… maybe just don’t balance it?”

She took another sip of coffee and glanced at her phone, thinking to herself:

“Going back home? It’s probably too late now. There must be eyes around me. They’re not closing the net now just because they’re waiting for me to produce results. Fortunately I cut off contact with those little idiots beforehand, otherwise they’d definitely get dragged in too.

Speaking of which, if I escape back with sufficiently shocking research results, would the ‘family’ be willing to take risks for me?”