Chapter 1871 - 1870: Mercenary

"Does this city entry permit have any conditions?" He Ao asked quietly.

"You need to fill out a bunch of identity documentation and have someone vouch for you," Anke took a deep breath, "It’s no big deal for a caravan, but it’s hard for ordinary people to obtain, unless you are a mercenary or someone with a special status, you can enter the city directly, just like I did when I entered West Carter."

At this point, he suddenly paused, realizing something, "Oh! Mercenary!"

He lowered his head, glanced at the remaining battery of the floating warplane, and began to change its direction, "Old man, we might have to go back to the camp."

"Seems like you’ve figured out how to get into the city?" He Ao asked with a smile.

"A somewhat risky method," Anke looked at the dwindling battery power, took a deep breath, "but as of now, it’s the only method."

He Ao didn’t say much, just watched Anke pilot the floating warplane back near the camp and then watched Anke manipulate the surveillance screen, searching a bit and then adjusting the position.

After a while, he parked the floating warplane beneath the sky quietly and asked, "Old man, do you know how to land this warplane?"

"No," He Ao answered honestly, "I just saw the take-off tutorial."

Upon hearing this, Anke quickly opened the operation manual, flipped to the operation page, and swiftly found the landing section.

But at this moment, the power warning icon on the control screen started flashing intensely.

"Battery power exhausted, please land immediately, about to shut down motor."

"Battery power exhausted, please land immediately, about to shut down motor."

The floating warplane shook violently out of control, as if the motor power supply became slightly unstable.

"This plane looks like it’s going to crash!"

Anke glanced at the surrounding vibrating spaceship, his entire body shaking violently along with it, shouting in panic.

"Don’t panic," He Ao quickly said, "turn the page first."

Anke barely held onto the edge of the control console and quickly started turning pages.

"Oh, I see it," He Ao quickly said, "Press the left pedal, the one farthest to the left, press it hard, right, then there’s a lever on the right, pull it up, yep, just like that."

Anke swiftly followed He Ao’s instructions, and the violently shaking spaceship quickly stabilized.

"Then," He Ao said slowly, "push the joystick in front of you forward, don’t touch the lever on the right."

Anke grasped the right lever and began slowly pushing the joystick forward, the floating warplane started descending slowly.

But with seemingly unstable power, the descending speed of the floating warplane fluctuated, Anke could only tightly grasp the lever, steadying his posture.

Soon, the floating warplane closed in on the ground, the height only remaining at four or five meters.

"Alright, now release the lever in front of you," He Ao said slowly, "Do you see the gray button on the right? Press that to deploy the landing gear."

Anke glanced at the right and pressed the button there.

"Now continue to push the lever in front," He Ao continued, "until you hear a ’bang——’ light sound···"

Bang——

Before he could finish speaking, the entire spaceship shook violently with a loud bang and stopped.

"That works too," He Ao affirmed, "Now release all levers and then press the red button to power off."

This time, he had finished speaking, but before Anke could operate, the entire spaceship automatically shut down due to low power.

"Just in time." Anke looked at the stable ground outside the window and smiled awkwardly.

The atmosphere quieted for a moment, then He Ao slightly smiled as well.

Anke stood up from the pilot seat: "Why doesn’t this warplane have an automatic landing mode or something? Press one button and it automatically lands, like those spaceships on TV can do."

"It does," He Ao said, "The manual says this feature is available but only as an optional feature in the ’high-end’ version, this warplane seems to be the ’low-end’ version without that feature, oh, sounds like a luxury villa and a regular city house."

"Are those cultists this poor?" Anke couldn’t help but say, "I thought these cultists were wealthy, equipped with all sorts of advanced weapons, and also powerful extraordinary warriors, capable of anything, yet they bought a low-end floating warplane."

As his words fell, the control screen that initially went dark suddenly lit up, followed by a popped message.

"Due to system date alert, your repayment day is near, please repay promptly, overdue payment will automatically deduct installment from your account."

"Still on installment! How does it notify repayment with no power!" Anke sighed, "No, this is too poor, is there no villain prestige!"

"What is the TV you mentioned?" He Ao asked somewhat puzzled.

"Just," Anke froze at this, pointed to the previously used surveillance screen, "It’s a screen like this, where various stories are played."

"Opera? Some kind of medium that continuously plays opera." He Ao said slowly.

"Yes, yes, yes," Anke nodded, "That’s pretty much it."

He glanced down at the center console in front, which went dark again, sighing, "Looks like villains in legendary stories aren’t as well-off as portrayed in the tales."

"Indeed," He Ao slightly sighed, "Our city-state once had a governor, you can understand as the person with the highest power in our city-state, he was tyrannical, often killed people, went to war externally, captured slaves, sacrificed to the Evil God, guess how he ended?"

"Got overthrown by your city-state people?" Anke asked curiously.

"No, killed by a slave while sacrificing," He Ao laughed, "Moreover, he fell on his head while walking flat on the high platform, enabling the slave to seize the opportunity."

"He was pretty unlucky." Anke laughed heartily.

"Certainly quite unlucky." He Ao also slightly smiled in affirmation.

By this time, Anke had already stepped down from the control platform and walked over to the pile of Gauss guns he had retrieved, fished out two Gauss pistols and tucked them into his pocket.

"Aren’t you taking all of them?" He Ao asked somewhat curiously.

"What we’re about to do carries some risk, bringing all these guns is too conspicuous," Anke somewhat regrettably glanced at the Gauss rifle on the ground, sighed deeply, "What a pity."

Then he turned his head decisively, walked to the floating warplane cabin door, he inspected it, found the electronic switch of the cabin door, pressed it but got no response.

He then followed the cue to find the manual switch nearby, exerted a bit of force, and flipped the manual switch.

The entire cabin door slowly opened, touching the ground.

Anke touched the shoulder bag strapped across his body, and as he retracted his hand, the manual switch began to rebound slowly, the entire cabin door also started to rebound.

Anke glanced at the mercenary jacket on him and jumped down to the ground below.

A thin layer of snow had already covered the slightly green grassland, indicating that it had snowed recently around here.

As Anke jumped down, the spaceship door that had no one pressing the switch also closed and locked completely.

Anke withdrew his gaze and moved forward along the snowy ground.

After walking for about ten minutes, he climbed up a hill and looked down.

Below the hill, there was a road that seemed to have been freshly paved, with several green troop transport vehicles standing below. "Fortunately, they haven’t left yet."

Anke took a deep breath, turned sideways, glanced at the continuous camps not far from the troop transport, then quickly slid down the side of the hill, rolling into the tall grass by the roadside.

At this moment, the last troop transport shook slightly, and the mercenary driving it walked down, glancing around before moving to the front of the vehicle and leisurely lighting a cigarette.

Anke was just about to make his move, but another mercenary got out from the passenger side, looked around, and walked over to the driver, taking a cigarette from him.

Once both men started smoking and chatting, Anke quietly approached from behind, pulled on the back door of the troop transport, found it unlocked, and climbed in.

The interior of the troop transport was similar to a luxury minibus, with soft seats arranged in two rows on the left and three rows on the right.

"Rockville Energy Group’s benefits are much better than ours," Anke murmured, then compared sizes, curled up, and squeezed behind the last row of seats on the right.

After a while, the two smoking mercenaries got back into the vehicle, turned around to check the interior, and found nothing amiss.

The sky outside gradually dimmed.

Soon, a rush of footsteps approached, followed by the middle door of the troop transport opening, one by one, mercenaries climbed in, laughing and joking.

Before long, everyone found their seats, except for one vacant seat in the back row.

"Alright, alright," an officer walked onto the troop transport and counted heads, "tonight you can do whatever you want, this is your vacation, enjoy it however you please, but tomorrow morning gather at the designated place. If you’re not there on time, you won’t get paid this month, and the group will contact your family to retrieve any advances and compensation, understand?"

"Understood!" all the mercenaries immediately replied.

"Louder!" the officer said coldly.

"Understood, sir!" all the mercenaries sat up straight.

The officer nodded and sat in the frontmost seat.

Soon, the vehicle started, swiftly moving forward with all the soldiers.

Anke, hidden in the very back row, glanced at the mercenaries chatting loudly, their voices almost filling the entire cabin.

"Old man, look, they seem to be from different units," Anke whispered, "they don’t know each other."

Just then, a lone mercenary sitting in the back row glanced around, walked to the last row, and sat on the innermost chair, as if preparing to sleep.

He had just sat down and leaned back in his seat when he seemed to sense something unusual.

He turned his head to look behind him, only to see a pair of eyes staring back at him.

Anke looked at him and said, "Sorry about this."

The taser, prepared in advance, extended from the side, knocking the mercenary unconscious.

Then Anke glanced at the mercenaries in front who were happily chatting, and stepped out from the back, taking off his jacket.

He then sat next to the unconscious mercenary, removed his jacket, and put it on himself.

After that, he turned his own jacket inside out and draped it over the mercenary.

Both jackets were military green mercenary attire, with nearly identical inner colors, only differing in the outer patterns and insignia.

Anke then reclined the mercenary’s chair, making him lie down as if he were sleeping.

Just as he finished everything, a voice sounded beside him, "Buddy, got a light?"

Anke looked up and saw two mercenaries from two rows ahead approaching, looking at him.

Anke reached inside his jacket, pulled out a lighter, and handed it over.

The mercenary borrowing the light lit his cigarette and also lit one for his companion before returning the lighter to Anke and sitting down in the seat in front of Anke.

They chatted casually for a while before turning to Anke, "Buddy, can I borrow that again?"

Anke handed them the lighter.

This time, one of the mercenaries sitting on the left lit his cigarette while looking up at the unconscious mercenary beside Anke, "Is this guy your friend? He can sleep in this environment?"

Anke remained silent, maintaining necessary restraint.

The mercenary in front, having finished lighting his cigarette, returned the lighter and smiled at Anke, "Buddy, where are you planning to go for fun? I heard Ilotan has the best strip club nearby. The girls there, those chests, those legs, they say that once you go there, you’ll dream of a second visit. Interested in joining? We can pool some money and have a blast."

"I’m going to pass," Anke shook his head, "I need to send some money home, my brother broke his leg."

The mercenary seemed a bit disappointed but still sighed, "Alright, alright."

Having said that, he and his companion got up and went to the other side, striking up a conversation with two other mercenaries.

Silence returned to the surroundings.

Anke glanced at his ’companion’ who was ’sleeping’ heavily beside him.

"You seem quite familiar with the rules of the Mercenary Corps? You found the vehicle entering the city at a glance." A hoarse voice whispered in his ear.

"Considering how long I was a mercenary," Anke smiled, "the Mercenary Corps only lets mercenaries into cities they control to spend money. We call it the salary recovery plan. These old men are truly shameless in their ways."

"It seems the times have changed," He Ao said with a slight smile, "but not too much."

At this moment, the dim sky began to brighten slightly, with a convoy of trucks appearing beside them.

The troop transport overtook the queued trucks, cutting in line to the very front.

The officer in front handed his officer ID to the City Defense Army soldier, then retrieved it, and the troop transport drove straight into the city.

"These City Defense Army," Anke raised his head, observing the soldiers standing straight through the window, "their military discipline is much better than Wes Carter, even better than the Mercenary Corps."

"This means they have a good officer," He Ao replied softly, "often, a unit’s combat effectiveness depends on the commander."

"Seems like it," Anke turned his gaze ahead.

The scattered reflections gradually receded as they entered the city.