It had to be said that Yue Huasha's self-introduction was explosive enough, but Duanmu Huai soon provided a clarification. As a result, the girls didn't spend much effort figuring out the cause and effect. Then they immediately shifted their attention to the Fighting God Tournament—but Duanmu Huai couldn't be bothered to say much about it. He directly handed the matter over to Honoka to explain to everyone, while he himself ran back to the mothership.
"Whew...… what a hassle."
After returning to the mothership, Duanmu Huai let out a sigh. Watching girls play sports was pleasing to the eye, but being gossiped about by girls was real torture. Three women were equal to a thousand ducks, let alone the fact that there were more than three there...
"You're back, Master~~~"
Back in the tactical command room, Mia, who was sitting in front of the control console, greeted Duanmu Huai with a cheerful smile. The personality of this artificial angel had always been like this—it felt as if even if the sky collapsed, her tone wouldn't change in the slightest.
"Yeah, let them mess around on their own. I'm tired."
Duanmu Huai shook his head. He remembered that back when he was in school, there had been so-called school heartthrobs in his class. At the time, lots of female students chased after them and even invited them out to sing karaoke, but that guy refused to go no matter what. Back then, classmates were curious why he wouldn't go, and he said, "Women are really too annoying. You guys don't have it—if you did, you'd know...…"
Before he could finish speaking, he got stuffed into a sack and beaten up.
Good grief, so just because you couldn't afford bread, you wanted us to eat cake instead, huh!
Back then, Duanmu Huai hadn't made a move. Otherwise, that school heartthrob probably would've been beaten to death on the spot.
But now, Duanmu Huai finally understood what that guy had meant. When there were too many women, it really was troublesome. Talking about serious matters was fine, but once they got idle and started gossiping, that enthusiasm could really depress a man to death. It made Duanmu Huai recall going shopping with his mom in the past. Because he was physically strong, he was responsible for carrying things. He watched as his mom and the stall owner haggled for over ten minutes just to save a few yuan. Back then, Duanmu Huai absolutely couldn't understand why women would nitpick over a few yuan for a piece of clothing...…
Of course, aside from making Duanmu Huai carry clothes, the biggest reason his mom brought him shopping was that he was good for bargaining.
If negotiations dragged on and the merchant refused to budge, his mom would call him over and tell him the merchant was being black-hearted. Once the other side took a look at Duanmu Huai—they basically went straight to a 90% discount.
However, his mom didn't use this trick often. According to her, Duanmu Huai counted as a weapon of mass destruction, and using him wouldn't prove her own bargaining ability... there was no sense of achievement.
Of course, if you asked Duanmu Huai, what the hell was this ability even good for...… You get a sense of achievement from grabbing a piece of clothing at a street stall and shouting yourself hoarse haggling with someone? All he felt was depression and embarrassment...… after all, there was a whole crowd watching from the side.
Was it really worth it just for a few yuan...…
"Sigh...…"
Duanmu Huai silently sighed, then pulled his thoughts back.
"Any situation?"
"The first batch of reconnaissance fleets has already returned and is organizing and collecting intelligence right now..."
"Oh?"
Hearing this, Duanmu Huai immediately perked up.
During the period when the mothership was being modified and overhauled, Duanmu Huai hadn't been idle. He had built several more reconnaissance ships and sent them through the Webway to different coordinate points to conduct scouting. After all, having played the game for so long, he was basically crystal clear on what forces existed in which places.
The problem, however, was that Star Sea OL was a dynamically changing real-time game. On top of that, Duanmu Huai's progress was indeed ahead of schedule, so many times, even when he arrived at a place, that faction's storyline might not match what Duanmu Huai had experienced before. But Duanmu Huai wasn't without a way to deal with this problem.
It was very simple—find a reference point.
Just like before when he went to the UNSC. Duanmu Huai didn't know what state the UNSC was in, so he went directly to Reach. After all, Duanmu Huai knew that the fall of Reach was a turning point in the large-scale war between the UNSC and the Covenant. So as long as he kept an eye on Reach and saw whether it had fallen, he could roughly guess how far that faction's history had progressed.
After all, there were plenty of lore-obsessed players in the game who especially loved digging into the histories of other civilizations. Thanks to them, Duanmu Huai was fairly familiar with the past of most of the famous factions and civilizations in Star Sea OL.
So during the mothership's refit period, Duanmu Huai sent these ships out to different target planets, recorded the situation there, and then had them return directly to report to him. After all, the Star Sea was vast and boundless. Even in the game, Duanmu Huai wasn't some hardcore grinder, nor did he have the compulsion to clear every civilization's main storyline. So now he was just combining his memories with some of the locations of civilizations he had seen on the forums before, sending reconnaissance ships out to take a look.
Cast a wide net—maybe he'd snag a big fish.
Of course, this method was a bit cumbersome, but Duanmu Huai had no choice but to be cautious. After all, information transmission and physical transport were different things. If this intelligence were intercepted by some Warp demon, it would be equivalent to handing them a map of the locations of human civilizations for free. When that happened, those civilizations would face the threat of Chaos demons.
So even if it was more troublesome, Duanmu Huai required these ships to only record footage and then bring it straight back for him to watch. After all, with the Webway, round trips didn't take much time. And the ships were crewed only by dolls with limited functions, incapable of doing overly complex tasks...… of course, for Duanmu Huai, that was just right.
If they were capable of doing complex things, that would actually be worrying.
"Organize the intelligence and bring it to me."
"Understood~~~"
As he spoke, Duanmu Huai returned to his seat and sat down. Shortly after, one report after another appeared on his terminal.
"Let me see...… mm, everything's normal, no signs of invasion...… this one's normal too...… this planet isn't inhabited yet..."
Duanmu Huai flipped through the data one by one. Strictly speaking, these reports were all very rough. They didn't conduct further analysis of the planets, just recorded a video to let Duanmu Huai see whether there were inhabitants, whether there was civilization, whether there was war...… mm, after all, they were dolls—expectations couldn't be too high.
You couldn't ask a robot to write an eight-thousand-word graduation thesis, right?
Of course, if a robot could write one, that would turn into a horror story.
"Hm?"
When Duanmu Huai flipped to the third-to-last report and saw the footage on it, he couldn't help but freeze.
On the screen, human cities on that planet could be seen scattered everywhere, surrounded by wreckage and ruins, presenting a miserable scene after war, just like a war-torn planet...…
Oh, by the way, the war planet had now begun to gradually recover. Thanks to the fact that only two or three million people were left on that planet, after the Inquisition rebuilt a dam and provided energy once more, most people had moved into that city. After all, it wasn't strange for a modern city to accommodate twenty million people. Of course, in addition to that, the solar and wind power facilities that Rebecca had sold to them had already been put into use.
In the future, that planet would probably only be able to take the renewable energy route.
After all, even the uranium mines had been dug dry—what else could they count on...…
As for how far they could go, that would depend on themselves. The Inquisition was only responsible for protection, not escort services. Whether they could leave the planet and head into the sea of stars would depend on them.
Alright, I've gone off-topic. Back, back.
Let's see what's going on here. Could it be that a world war turned the place into a wasteland?
Fortunately, Duanmu Huai soon found the answer. In the distance, a group of people were engaged in fierce combat. They held ordinary gunpowder weapons and launched attacks at the other side. On the opposite side, there was a group of guys who looked like iron skeletons, holding laser guns...…
"Holy shit!?"
Seeing this, Duanmu Huai shuddered all over and almost jumped up.
Don't tell me the Necrons have resurrected?!
But after watching for a moment, Duanmu Huai realized that these guys weren't Necrons, just a kind of skeleton-like robot. At the very least, judging from their somewhat stiff builds and movements, they were still different from that bunch of brain-dead Necrons.
"Phew...… scared me. I thought I was about to butt heads with the Necrons this soon."
Duanmu Huai let out a sigh of relief. He really didn't like Necrons. If Duanmu Huai saw Necrons somewhere, the most likely thing he'd do would be to directly issue an extermination order and blow up the opponent's tomb world, rather than stupidly charging in to die.
After all, Lu Xun once said: the moment you see robots, you immediately think of Necrons; the moment you think of Necrons, you immediately think of tomb worlds; the moment you think of tomb worlds, you immediately think of the Miniature King; the moment you think of the Miniature King, you immediately think of C'tan shards...…
Alright, better not think about it.
In fact, situations where Necrons invaded human colonies weren't rare. After all, the Necrons' origins were far too ancient. It was entirely possible that during the thousands of years they slept, humans had already colonized the planet, completely unaware of the existence of a tomb world. It was very likely that Chaos invasions triggered anti-Chaos protocols, or some Necron Overlord suddenly woke up, took a look, and thought, "Hey, I slept for thousands of years and outsiders moved into my home. You think I can tolerate this?"
And then they started fighting.
But these robots were clearly not Necrons. First and foremost, the most important point was that they didn't have the Necrons' signature green glow that made your eyes hurt. Necrons' standard-issue weapons were gauss weapons, which emitted green light. These robots also wielded beam weapons, but theirs emitted red light.
Secondly, the power of these robots' weapons was, how should one put it...… hard to describe in a single word.
Possibly even worse than the Empire's flashlights.
And the reason they appeared so invincible was largely because the human weapons on the other side were even worse...…
Look at those crappy little guns. They probably couldn't even break the defenses of the Orks on the war planet, let alone deal with these robots.
"So this place is having an AI crisis?"
Duanmu Huai watched the entire recording from beginning to end and found that this planet was even worse off than the war planet. Although people on the war planet had been tormented to death by the Orks, at least they still had formal institutions like a security government and regular forces like GEAR. During the Valley Storm operation, they could even hold a review ceremony before heading straight to the battlefield. But this planet, as far as he could tell, didn't even have a decent human government left—only scattered bands of stragglers struggling to survive among wasteland ruins...…
What kind of civilization could screw itself up to this extent...…?
Although Duanmu Huai couldn't figure out what exactly was going on, he had already made a decision.
In any case, he'd know once he went to take a look.
(End of Chapter)