Chapter 381 Weaknesses of the Heart of Steel (1/2)

Mountain top.

Next to a raised mound, Rourou inserted a crooked wooden sign into the ground.

Write this line above.

It’s the language of this world.

[He stood up for his partners and wrote a legend about courage with his life]

【——Teddy】

In addition to the name, below are the signatures of all members of the Knights of the White Bear.

She had many memories about it, but she couldn't write too many gorgeous words, let alone summarize it in a few words.

"I hope you can visit our world in your next life..."

"By the way, if you can choose, try to choose the one with dark circles...they are the most comfortable."

He stretched out his bear paw and gently touched the raised mound of soil. Rourou muttered a few words in a low voice and slowly stood up from the tombstone with his heavy body.

The wind blew gently, swaying her white hair and the grass on the ground next to her.

The morning sun has risen in the distance, casting a sparkling golden color on the forest.

She wanted to sing a song before leaving, but she couldn't remember which one to sing.

Staring at the epitaph on the wooden sign, stroking the tail of his chin and thinking for a while, he suddenly discovered a blind spot.

"etc."

"Writing our names on it, will others misunderstand that we are also buried underneath?"

"Hey, don't tell ghost stories at this time." Rourou, who was still sad just now, didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Well... it does feel a bit weird." Sesame Paste's expression was also a little subtle, and his index finger was placed on his lips, "It's like... a big flag was set up."

Tai Tai suddenly had a hellish expression on his face, lowered his voice and spoke furtively.

"Speaking of ghost stories, I wonder if you have heard of that one... One day, a girl attended a friend's funeral and suddenly discovered that her name was written on the tombstone——"

"Okay, okay, please stop talking!"

Rourou covered Tail's mouth, and the latter let out a strange cry.

The joyful sounds diluted some of the sadness.

Looking back at the scrawled tombstone, Sesame paste squatted down gently and planted a small flower brought from the mountain beside it.

Since it is a completely real virtual reality game.

I guess after a few years, colorful flowers will bloom all over the hillside.

As long as the server doesn't roll back...

Standing up from the ground, she looked at her friends aside with a smile on her face.

"It's time to leave."

As if he was always full of energy, Tails broke free from Rourou's arms and waved his fist energetically.

"Oh! Charge!"

…

Because of a newspaper, people in the entire Boulder City were in panic.

And Hal, the initiator of all this turmoil, is in high spirits at the moment - or in other words, elated.

"More printing! Another 20,000 copies of yesterday's issue! Now our readers are not only idlers in the tavern and unemployed people wandering the streets, but also well-dressed citizens and nobles living in the inner city!"

He was sitting by the window sill of the newspaper office, holding a bottle of champagne in his hand. He was drunk early in the morning, smelling of alcohol and giving orders to the editors in the editorial office.

Yes, a bottle.

And it’s a big bottle.

But it's all worth it.

Just the day before yesterday, the publication volume of "Daily Survivor" was still around 6,000, but as soon as yesterday's headline came out, all newspapers on the market were sold out instantly.

Not only that, subscriptions have doubled, and now people across the city are listening to what he has to say.

As for House?

He's just a loser who only makes weird noises on the radio, and he doesn't take it seriously at all!

Looking away from the employees, Hal looked at Fang Chang, who was standing in the editorial office, with a bright smile on his face.

"My dear friend, those two photos you brought are perfect! Why don't you just come to our newspaper as a reporter! Judging from my many years of experience in the industry, you are simply a genius!"

It’s okay to have been in the industry for many years…

Fang Chang remembered that a month ago, this guy was still a polite member of the royal family.

In just a few weeks, he was corrupted into this informal, talkative person.

For a moment, he didn't know whether he should complain about the newspaper office or the city that reeked of copper that was destroying people.

Fang Chang said after coughing slightly.

"You might as well thank our manager... I can only be regarded as a transport tool at best."

"Haha, of course I have to thank that person too - please allow me to offer the highest respect to the administrator, second only to the spirit of the sand sea!"

As he said this, Hal blew on the bottle again.

Fang Chang felt that he did not respect him from the bottom of his heart, but just found an excuse to drink.

but……

He didn't seem to be making fun of his position.

Just like there are always people talking about Thunder Bluff, but there are not many players who really like tauren.

He was the first person to call "Dear Manager" in this game, and now it has become a custom among players to increase their sense of immersion.

As for respect?

Maybe there is something to be admired. After all, if you want to find such an upright, selfless, and dedicated person in reality, you may have to open the history books and look for him.

But when it comes to respect from the heart, it seems that it is really impossible to talk about a character in a game.

"Salute to the administrator!"

Fang Chang said briefly, touched the wine glass in his hand with his wine bottle with a smile, took a brief sip, and put it aside.

"Is it really okay for you to drink so early in the morning?" Dolly, with her arms folded, complained softly.

Everyone in the editorial department is working hard.

Forget it about Fang Chang, he was not originally from the newspaper office, but only came to "do tasks" occasionally.

But this Hal...

He's also the president after all, right?

"It doesn't matter! Even when I'm drunk, I can write exquisite words and sentences in 12 ways... burp." Hal burped and staggered to find a chair to sit down, "I've thought about it. , this war will be an opportunity! In the future, the "Survivor Daily" will not only be the newspaper of Boulder City, but also the best-selling newspaper in the entire river valley province and even the entire wasteland!"

Fang Chang made a joke.

“Become bigger and stronger and create greater glory, right?”

Hal's glasses lit up, and he raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.

"That's what I mean!"

"I'm afraid it's a bit difficult. There isn't even a unified currency in this wasteland."

Hal smiled and said: "Haha, someone will always solve these problems, I believe they will."

Seeing his nonsense, Fang Chang smiled and shook his head, and was about to leave with Dolly.

At this moment, Hal suddenly spoke.

"Actually, I don't understand something."

"I don't understand anything."

Looking at Fang Chang who stopped, Hal continued.

"That Shuyu told me...this is very important for us to defeat the Legion."

"What he said is indeed correct. Is there any problem?"

"The problem is not small. Why do respected managers think that a newspaper can solve the problem? Here, it doesn't matter at all what ordinary survivors say. They can hardly even eat." Hal expressed doubts. .

This place is actually very similar to his hometown.

In the kingdom of Luoxia Province, all rights belong only to the supreme king.

And all the rights here belong to the city lord who never appears in public.

So what if the Legion's airship shocked the people in this city?

Even though everyone was trembling in front of the 400mm main gun, the city lord didn't say a word, right?

"Yes." Fang Chang did not deny it.

Hal asked curiously.

"Then what's the point of publicizing it to them? Of course, this is just my personal curiosity... Anyway, they like to watch the excitement. Even if there is no instruction from the manager, I will continue to do follow-up reports."

“The point is to mobilize.”

"mobilization?"

"Yes, we are fighting another war that is about life and death, and it is not just about our life and death. Although we can't influence the city lord's decision-making, we can let those who want to live take advantage of it before it's too late. Do something."

"Whether they are loaders at trading stations, workers on the assembly line, mercenaries who work for money, or factory owners, bankers or anything else... Boulder City certainly has its owners, but it is still made up of these people after all. ”

Looking at the drunken newspaper president, Fang Chang paused for a moment and continued.

"This city is like a rusty machine. We need to make it move. If it can move a little bit, it can wake up a little bit..."

"And this is what mobilization means."

Hal thought for a moment, and a thoughtful expression appeared on his drunken face.

"I see……"

"I seem to understand what you are planning to do."

Come out of the newspaper office.

Fang Chang noticed Dolly walking aside, looking at him curiously.

"What's wrong?"

"How do you know so many things?"

When she said this, she couldn't tell whether her tone was surprise or admiration, or maybe a little bit of both.

"Maybe because I come from a shelter?" Fang Chang said in a half-joking tone.

"Shelter..." With her arms folded behind her head, Dolly looked at the sky and didn't know what she was thinking.

At this time, she suddenly seemed to have thought of something, looked at him and asked.

"Then you know so much, don't you think we outside the shelter are stupid?"

Fang Chang was stunned for a moment, then said with a smile.

"How can it be."

Rather, he admires these wastelanders for being tenacious and optimistic enough to survive 200 years after the decline of civilization.

It’s okay to go shopping with filters on, but if you really live in this world...

He thought he might go crazy.

It’s not that you don’t have enough mental endurance, but that you have a clear understanding of your own abilities.

There is no need for war, the apocalypse, or the wasteland. If he just has money and cannot buy anything, his SAN value will probably go crazy.

Dolly stared at his eyes for a while, then the corners of her mouth suddenly curled up slightly.

"Oh, that's good."

Her emerald green hair swayed slightly, she dropped a word of unknown meaning, and she walked ahead briskly.

"?"

Looking at the girl who was suddenly in a good mood, Fang Chang couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

Are you so happy to be praised for your intelligence?

This is too coaxing.

…

Dawn City, Army Command Headquarters.

On the wooden command table, there is a frontline battle report that Xiaoqi helped compile.

Since a stable communication network has not yet been established, Chu Guang can only understand the developments on the front line through the official website forum.

The "communication network" established based on the morphological field runs completely in another unrelated parallel world, and smooth connections can be guaranteed under any circumstances.

"...forced march for more than thirty hours continuously, broke into pieces and penetrated into the defense zone, made five consecutive raids across fifteen kilometers, and annihilated nearly a full hundred-man team...Are you sure this is a team of only twenty Human troops?"

The most important thing is that only a few people suffered non-fatal injuries and no one was killed!

Vanus's face was full of surprise.

To be honest, he didn't quite believe it.

It can be said that mixing battle reports with water is the basic practice of frontline troops, and he understands this deeply.

However, this is understandable.

After all, the battle situation is changing rapidly. If no one is taken away for three minutes after falling to the ground, it will be counted as a kill, and if someone is taken away, it will be counted as wounded. It is impossible for someone to actually hold a telescope and pinch the watch to calculate how many seconds an enemy unit has been down.

As an excellent commander, the first quality you need to possess is to identify the authenticity of intelligence sent from the front line, judge the general battle situation based on vague intelligence, command people who "may still be alive", and execute tasks that "may be completed" The command.

If his men sent such a battle report, or said such words to him on the radio, his first reaction would definitely be that the guy was farting.

However--

After all, this battle report was brought in personally by the manager.

This gentleman is not the kind of layman who knows nothing about war. I heard that earlier, not only did he carry a nitrogen-powered hammer into battle to kill the enemy, but he also took the lead in blowing the charge whistle.

Later, as the number of talents in the alliance increased, he gradually moved from the front line to behind the scenes after leaving behind a bunch of miraculous legends.

If Vanus were to evaluate him, if he had been born in the Legion, he would have been on the level of Generals Claes and Griffin.

As for why he is not a higher-level legion commander and supreme marshal, it is just because ordinary people can only achieve the position of general based on their abilities.

Vanus was not the only one who was surprised.

Including the officers in the headquarters, after seeing the beautiful and outrageous battle report, everyone's faces showed expressions of disbelief.

"... To be precise, there are only more than 20 people who have arrived so far. There are more than 100 people and logistical equipment on the way, and they are expected to arrive within three days."

Speaking of this, Chu Guang couldn't help but feel a trace of emotion on his face.

"Don't say you can't believe it. I was also surprised when I first got this battle report...but I can be sure that its authenticity is beyond doubt."

Players who exchange battle results on the forum will "verify" each other, and the battle report compiled by Xiaoqi for him is already the final verification result.

It is also the result closest to the truth.

Seeing that the managers had said this, the officers no longer questioned the battle report sent from the front line.

Turning to discussing coping strategies.

"...According to frontline news, the Heart of Steel is suspected of having an engine failure. Obvious suspension brackets can be seen on the outside of the ship, as well as construction workers undergoing repairs."

"At the same time, they have also increased the scale of their ground deployment and sent about a thousand troops. It seems that they plan to use Ruigu City as a base for a long time."

"However, their methods are not clever. They still use the old method of threatening force. They send soldiers to extort nearby survivor settlements and require them to contribute food, livestock and labor to the airship. At the same time, they use dinars to bribe those mercenaries and looters. The extra-staff troops...local survivors also complained a lot.”

Looking at the map hanging on the shelf, Chu Guang continued.

"I have communicated with the frontline commander, and he and I basically have the same idea."

"In the first stage of the campaign, we must strategically unite local survivors and tactically consume the opponent's effective forces through guerrilla warfare."

"As long as we can reduce the opponent's target by more than 20% in the first phase, it is possible to force them to withdraw from this area...or adopt a more radical strategy!"

Having said this, Chu Guang paused and looked around at the officers present in the command room.

"If it is the latter case, the battlefield may no longer be limited to one hundred and fifty kilometers away, and we need to prepare for the worst. At the same time, before the final battle, we must find a way to move the airship An effective way to shoot down!”

Chu Guang suddenly looked at Vanus who was thinking.

"Are you familiar with that Captain McClung?"

Vanus was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly.

"I'm just a commander...and a commander of the Clone Corps."

"If you can take the position of captain before the age of 40, that person will have a bright future in the legion... There is no need to pay attention to a little person like me."

Although the Legion is famous in the wasteland for its large clone army, the status of the officers who command the cannon fodder troops can only be said to be average.

In particular, flying fortresses such as the "Heart of Steel" belong to a completely different system from the army.

Even if they met face to face, McClun probably wouldn't even look at him twice.

Chu Guang nodded and said nothing more.

"Well, it seems that the option of negotiation can be given up."

Although he never had this fantasy.

"The key is that troublesome deflector shield," Wrench, the commander of the First Corps, said with a frown, "If we get a low-speed bomb and throw it on them..."

Vanus shook his head.

"It's as simple as you said. Let alone flying here from the West Coast, they can't even fly out of their homes."

"The anti-aircraft machine guns all over the fuselage are enough to intercept any target approaching at low speed, not to mention the armor-breaking effect of explosives in open areas... I'm afraid they can only deal with its engine."

Those long rows of propellers connected in parallel are not very technical things, and it is not difficult to break a few.

However, even if that thing is destroyed, it will at best be equivalent to a flat tire on a bicycle or a broken track on a tank, which will not cause any substantial damage at all.

"Doesn't this guy have any weaknesses?" Wrench couldn't help but ask.

Vanus was silent for a while and said.

"Of course there are weaknesses."

Chu Guang asked immediately.

"Where?"

"abdomen."

Vanus pointed directly below the airship in the photo.

"...This is the bombing bay. Compared to other parts, the firepower density in this area is the smallest. I have heard people say before that some survivors used dense balloon arrays to cause them a lot of trouble. Although it is just As a result, the survivor settlement was eventually razed.”

Silence fell within the headquarters.

A staff officer said after thinking for a moment.

"The weak point is in the abdomen... If we put the anti-aircraft gun directly below them and fire, can it cause effective damage to the airship?"

Vanus shook his head.

"Then I don't know, but I think their ground troops and the observers on the airship are not blind."

The officer of the First Corps clenched his fists.

"Let's find a way to get a vertically launched landing craft! Let's ambush them first, and then dig up like a bird's nest! We have the strongest light infantry. As long as we rush into that fortress, we will beat that thing in minutes. Get down!"

Vanus sighed and said nothing.

This time there was no need for him to refute, even Wrench standing nearby couldn't help but complain.

"What if they drop bombs down there?"

"Yes! Also, what is the landing craft launched into the sky? I have never heard of it!"

Looking at the officers chatting with each other, Chu Guang also fell into deep thought.

At this moment, a phone call suddenly came to him.

"I'll take a call."

After leaving these words, Chu Guang turned around and walked outside the door, leaving the discussion time to the officers in the headquarters for the time being.

The call was from Luca.

As soon as the upper body appeared on the VM screen, he couldn't wait to speak.

"Sir, the city hall of Boulder City summoned the head of our stationed office this morning!"

"That Du Long?"

"Yes!"

"What did he say?"

Facing the manager's inquiry, Luka said with an intriguing look.

"He said a lot... For example, he asked us if we needed help. And he also mentioned that since we helped them share part of the wave at the beginning of the year, they had a lot of arms inventory left to prepare for the wave... If we are interested , they are willing to sell it to us at a 50% discount.”

Although this was undoubtedly a good thing, the conditions offered by the other party were so generous that he couldn't decide whether there was any big hole hidden in it.

Therefore, after he received the news, he immediately called Chu Guang.

After hearing this, Chu Guang was stunned for a moment and asked subconsciously.

"Is it 50% off the market price or 50% off the cost price?"

"50% off the purchase cost...and that Dulong also said that if we don't have enough money, we can lend us another loan specifically for arms procurement."

Damn it?

Is there such a good thing?

Chu Guang's face was filled with surprise.

Although it was his idea to pull Boulder City onto the alliance's chariot, the speed... was too fast, right?

It seems that the 400mm main gun has shocked the "civilized people" living in the giant wall so much that they don't even care about making money.

Without any hesitation, Chu Guang said immediately.

"Ask them to send it over quickly! I want as much as I want, the sooner the better!"

"Also, remember to tell them that weapons to deal with the waves are not enough. We can make rifles and artillery ourselves. What we need are weapons that can actually cause damage to that airship!"

At this time, Chu Guang suddenly remembered what the officers had discussed just now, and added something later without being polite at all.

"Especially the high-altitude landing equipment!"

"It would be even better if you could help our people board that airship!"