Chapter 285

Just as he’d suspected, Joshua indeed had something like fireworks or signal flares hidden. After hearing the commotion and turning around, Leon glimpsed through the porthole on the side of the airship the signal flare shot by middle-aged Joshua and couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.

As expected, everything going smoothly was all just an illusion.

With his own shopping trip somehow coinciding with the Holy Spirit’s descent, and even watching a play resulting in encountering an out-of-control anomalous item, there was no way things could go perfectly smooth for him. Stability was the exception; misfortune was the norm.

And his kind of bad luck wasn’t even the “the higher your taint value, the more likely you’ll encounter anomalies” type of Clearing Bureau misfortune, but rather the simplest kind where nothing went well, and there were always little hiccups…

Shaking his head helplessly, Leon reached out and grabbed the Holy Spirit Pendant hanging from his chest, then lifted up the unconscious people one by one, sending them out of the airship to hand them over to the rebels waiting outside.

After a short while, once the last unconscious operator was taken away and entered the opened “Gate of Beyond” together with the rebels, Leon, confirming that Joshua hadn’t played any tricks, first waved goodbye to the tearful rebels, then turned around again and walked back into the airship, leaving everyone with a “ready to die” silhouette.

…

That’s about it.

Prying open the fuel storage room of the airship, he took out more than ten barrels of whale fat used as fuel, poured them along the narrow airship, repeatedly checking to make sure nothing was missed. Then Leon retreated near the entrance of the mid-cabin and took out a box of matches used for lighting cigarettes for the black goats.

The airship’s gas bag was filled with highly flammable and explosive hydrogen gas, estimated at over 300,000 cubic meters, and the tail cabin also stored many unstable lightning strike minerals.

Next, all he had to do was ignite these whale fats, allowing the flames to spread, and the entire airship would be completely destroyed, possibly even instantly exploded by the electric arcs of the lightning strike minerals, becoming a massive fireball suspended 700 meters high in the sky…

“Don’t light the fire, alright?”

Just as Leon was about to act, a somewhat crisp childlike female voice suddenly came out from the nearby metal pipe.

There are still people on the airship?!

Leon’s expression tightened upon hearing the sound. His right pinky immediately brushed against the cufflink, pressing against the exposed horn, but no matter how he checked, the airship in his soul vision remained eerily silent, with no soul flames appearing.

No soul?

So is it an anomalous item? Remote communication technology? Or something like an answering machine?

“Where are you?”

He touched the fixed inner wall, the piping used for transmitting sounds from the control room to other cabins, confirming there was no abnormal danger. Carefully finding the nearest pipe opening, Leon opened the cover and shouted inside:

“No matter what you are, if you’re on this ship, better come out now! I’m about to set the fire!”

“I can’t come out.”

As soon as Leon finished speaking, the communication copper tube in front of him immediately transmitted the crisp reply from the “little girl.”

“I am this Arthif 128 airship itself, and you are currently standing in my mid-cabin.”

？！！！ Upon hearing the words of the “little girl,” Leon’s eyes couldn’t help but widen instantly.

No wonder… No wonder Joshua said this ship must be blown up too. It turns out it’s a living ship! Even if all memories were altered, it wouldn’t work if it really returned to the Crocodile Kingdom!

Startled, Leon steadied himself and then furrowed his brows to ask:

“What exactly are you?! An anomalous item? Or…”

“I am the 128th sub-body of Artefact.”

The childlike voice in the communication copper tube sounded again.

“…”

So it’s neither human nor an anomalous item, but rather something akin to an intelligent supercomputer? Has the technological level of the Crocodile Kingdom developed to such a terrifying extent?

After silently remaining silent for a while, Leon, shocked beyond measure, couldn’t help but ask:

“Do you have intelligence? Can you truly communicate with me? How did you hear what I said?”

“I should have intelligence. As for how I heard your words, it relies on a special audio device that can convert sounds near the communication copper tubes into ‘mechanical codes,’ transmitting them to my core differential machine for information processing, and then outputting them backward.”

As Arthif 128 explained, her tone began to gradually slow down and stretch out. The originally crisp and neat childlike voice slowly “spread out,” transforming into countless intricate and dense tiny tapping sounds.

These innumerable complex tapping sounds, resembling various sections of a symphony, cleverly and precisely combined into her childlike tone, spreading throughout the entire airship through specially designed communication copper tubes.

So… she wasn’t actually “speaking,” but rather using some mechanical device with countless small hammers to simultaneously “tap” on the specially designed communication copper tubes, simulating the voice of a little girl?

Hardly understanding how this ship calling itself “Arthif 128” communicated with him, Leon inwardly marveled. Although he still had a lot of questions, thinking about the signal flare fired by middle-aged Joshua, he could only helplessly shake his head and then open the matchbox.

“One mistake, one content, one chapter, one finish, one look!”

“Sorry, my time is limited.”

“Please wait.”

The emotionless mechanical child’s voice sounded again. Facing the “life-and-death crisis,” Arthif 128 seemed somewhat anxious, speaking much faster, even exposing disharmonious tapping sounds.

“Please don’t destroy me. I’ve already analyzed what you’ve done. There are a large number of soldiers below the boarding tower who will attack you, causing you to die from bodily damage. If you agree to abandon setting the fire, I can teach you how to operate the airship and safely leave here.

Also, for the Crocodile Kingdom, I am an irreplaceable important asset. If you agree to abandon destroying me and take me back to the Crocodile Kingdom, Arthif 01 will certainly give you extremely generous rewards…”

“Did you record the volcanic data of Leon County?”

Interrupting Arthif 128, Leon asked counter-questioningly:

“Since you have intelligence and even understand how to paint pictures, can you tell me what the reaction of the Crocodile Kingdom will be if you take those sniffing records back?”

“…”

“An invasion war without counting casualties, right?”

“Yes… But if you destroy me, it will also attract the attention of Arthif 01.”

“But destroying you guarantees a war, whereas destroying you might delay the outbreak of war, isn’t that right?”

“…”

Leon took out a match and lit it, his expression calm: “I’ve seen those sniffing records. They spent a full 31 years drilling more than seventy deep holes in the Hesperito volcano group, only recently preliminarily determining the location and intensity of the heat source.

Even if they measure again, it will be much faster, but as long as those deep holes are filled up and the terrain is slightly changed, even if new sniffers come in to measure randomly, it will at least delay for eight to ten years, and with a bit of sabotage, it might be delayed even longer.

And even if the Crocodile Kingdom is crazy, they wouldn’t recklessly start a war without knowing the specific situation, especially when the kingdom is still cooperating, right?”

(End of Chapter)