Action Taker

Leaving the Frostplate Republic and venturing outside might seem like courting death, but that's not entirely accurate.

It's more like going from one hell to another.

Li Aoz worked as a night security guard at the Jianlin County Rural Savings Bank. He had heard that banks made money, but he misunderstood two things.

First, while banks do make money, security guards don't. Tellers work five days a week with two days off, while security guards only get one day off a year for National Day. Their monthly salary is only 2300 to 2400 Derby, which, when calculated, isn't much more than a regular supermarket cashier.

Moreover, being a security guard in a border area like Frostplate means a high probability of encountering robberies by the Marauder Legion, crimes committed by the gifted, and even being killed by Spirit Wraiths and other monsters. Banks aren't government agencies and can't afford to hire gifted individuals. If they can kick the alarm in a crisis, that's already doing the manager a favor.

Second, in the era of the Four Nations, the real money-makers aren't ordinary financial institutions but the "Global Trade Bank," or GTB, a special armed monopoly.

Li Aoz used the bank keys he had as a security guard to open the riot gear depot, taking out a fire axe and a bulletproof vest. He had a good grasp of time and kept calculating it in his mind.

Next, he wielded the fire axe and smashed it down on the counter, quickly looting the cash. He roughly estimated it to be about 40,000 Derby. Li Aoz fanned out the banknotes and skillfully counted them with nimble fingers—not because he was proficient in banking, but because of skills he had learned playing cards in games.

"142,300 yuan, not much, but enough to start that mission."

Li Aoz was satisfied. He didn't plan to rob the bank vault. As a night security guard, he didn't have the electronic key to open it. As for the bank's safe—without professional cutting tools, you can forget about opening it.

In comparison, looting the cash from the counter was the easiest.

"Anyway, Law Enforcement Division Four arrests people indiscriminately, killing the innocent to claim credit. It's more cost-effective to embezzle directly."

"Besides, if I pull off a big one, robbing a bank is a serious crime. Law Enforcement Division Four agents might chase me all the way. Early-stage Law Enforcement Division Four agents are only around level 15 at most. Killing them will give me a considerable amount of experience."

Li Aoz deleted the surveillance footage and struck Lanny Johns's body a few times to tamper with the scene, making it look like he had committed murder for money.

Ordinary people would feel an instinctive fear of law enforcement agencies, but Li Aoz didn't. Moreover, he wanted to use this as bait to lure them in. As a pragmatist, Li Aoz had no psychological burden regarding various criminal acts. Players in his previous life had caused plenty of trouble in the universe, so what was this?

He quickly changed out of his security uniform. To prevent Law Enforcement Division Four from tracking his biometrics, he simply set a fire, destroying his biological information. He also removed the SIM card from his personal terminal and threw it into the garbage truck that came to collect the trash in the morning to prevent being tracked.

Li Aoz was a man of action. In less than ten minutes, he was ready to set the fire. He didn't carry any extra items, using the lighter he found on Lanny to light a cigarette and take a deep drag.

Hoo…

The complex aroma of tobacco lingered between his teeth. Li Aoz's mind was completely calm. He wasn't a regular smoker, so the calming effect of the tobacco might last a long time.

Before six o'clock arrived, he threw the lit half-cigarette onto the pile of combustibles and turned to leave.

Boom! The next moment, a fire blazed, thick smoke billowed, and the glass door shattered and burst out. As the screeching fire trucks drove into the scene to put out the fire, Li Aoz mingled into the crowd of onlookers, calmly and skillfully leaving the Jianlin County Rural Savings Bank.

The surrounding residents had been alarmed by the fire and gathered here. They watched the burning bank in the sea of flames, marveling at the spectacle. The usually dull and repetitive work life had become somewhat interesting because of this sudden fire.

Artificial light fell on his shoulders. Li Aoz, in the crowd, looked up at the sky. The cold and dim hemispherical generator continued to emit light radiation slowly.

This wasn't the real sun.

There was no alternation of day and night, no sunset or sunrise, no moonrise, only this unchanging daylight illumination for decades.

Li Aoz didn't choose to take transportation. He had a map of Jianlin County in his mind. Turning left and right several times, he entered a public restroom. His makeup skills were excellent. When he came out wearing a blue shirt and an old jacket, he had transformed into a middle-aged man with a sallow complexion and a worried face.

He glanced again at the hemispherical barrier generator that was still steadily emitting dim yellow sunlight and shook his head: "People who have had their sunlight stolen dare not look up at the sky."

With makeup on, he simply tore up his ID card and threw it into the garbage truck. He wouldn't need it next.

Players who chose to be born in the Frostplate Federation in his previous life would later try their best to immigrate or go abroad. It wasn't conducive to development, and most importantly, if they weren't female players, they wouldn't even be able to accept many missions.

Even players who controlled virtual characters to play the game felt disgusted with Frostplate.

However, it wasn't that easy in this era.

Moreover, he was now on the run with stolen money. Various public transportation methods couldn't be used. Fortunately, Jianlin County wasn't far from the border, only about 20 kilometers in a straight line. But crossing the border wasn't a small matter. Guard posts and GTB security personnel would be closely watching.

"Normal people who smuggle themselves need to find a snakehead. But my goal isn't to go to the territory of the other three countries, but to enter the outside world. That's easy."

Li Aoz was lucky. Jianlin County, where he was located, wasn't a major population center or a city with concentrated industries. In simple terms, this place belonged to a combination of urban and rural areas.

The composition of the county's population was complex, including stateless refugees who had just entered the civilized world, local residents of the county, migrant workers, long-distance truck teams, both farmers and workers, and some city dwellers from Radiant Light City.

Such a complex population easily fostered a culture of forming gangs. People from all over the country would divide into circles based on their hometowns and occupations, helping and taking care of each other. Over time, this eventually formed gang forces.

Gangs belonged to the filling of order in lawless places. Their essence was defined as economic criminal organizations. Fighting and killing were at most means, and the fundamental purpose was to make profits.

So, under the wonderful background given by Frostplate, trading in human heads and smuggling were obviously very profitable things. This front-store-back-factory model, combined with the county's unique complex personnel and the external conditions of difficult law enforcement, quickly upgraded the smuggling business, using a short, fast, and flat sales model to achieve industrial empowerment, technological innovation, and make outstanding contributions to the active construction of Frostplate.

In short, there were a few too many advertisements about smuggling. There were smuggling ads everywhere on the roadside curbs and telephone poles. It's just that they called it more euphemistically, modestly referring to it as 'quickly entering the country and solving household registration problems.'

Li Aoz didn't know much about Frostplate, but... the people handing out flyers and cards on the street told him a lot.

Picking up a few flyers from the ground, he wasn't surprised to find a smuggler who could take people out.

Following the address, he found the person in an alley.

"Where do you want to go?"

The smuggler was a young woman, chewing gum, her face full of impatience. Her voice was hoarse and unpleasant, her features a bit crooked. She was accompanied by four middle-aged and elderly men, taciturn and dull, who were probably her subordinates responsible for smuggling.

When she saw that Li Aoz was a man with pale skin, just like those stateless people, she immediately felt contempt.

Azure Planet's sunlight resources were completely monopolized by the Four Nations, so people with healthy and beautiful wheat-colored skin indicated sufficient sun exposure. They not only often basked in natural sunlight, but also rarely engaged in repetitive labor and often took vacations, which was a characteristic of dignitaries.

Conversely, people with pale skin indicated a serious lack of sunlight exposure. Even if it was congenital, it meant that there were stateless people in the family within three generations.

Li Aoz's family was obviously not well-off, otherwise his skin wouldn't be as white as a stateless person.

He didn't mind at all. People from the Four Nations had this kind of discrimination to some extent. He directly threw over a stack of banknotes and said:

"This is 14,000, more than enough to get to P-205 Shelter."

The smuggler weighed the money in her hand, her eyes shifting. She glanced at Li Aoz and asked, "Deserter?"

Shelters were not civilized places, and it was almost impossible to survive without sunlight. Frostplate was, after all, a civilized world, with GTB providing energy loans. Although life was miserable, at least one could live.

This man was willing to escape to the outside world, so there was almost no other possibility except for deserters, serious criminals, and smugglers. The county was so small, and those in this business had frequent dealings. The smugglers who came and went were just a few, and they were familiar with their names.

The smuggler could basically judge that the man in front of her was either a serious criminal or a deserter, so she asked.

"That's none of your business."

Li Aoz snorted, deliberately being evasive, which only confirmed the smuggler's guess.

"Hehe, don't be nervous, there are plenty of men who desert every year." The smuggler smiled, counted the cash, and was a little surprised: "This money is brand new."

Li Aoz laughed inwardly. It had just been withdrawn from the bank, so of course it was new.

"When can we leave?" Li Aoz put on an anxious look and urged, "I'm in a hurry to go, someone is waiting for me outside, they might not be able to hold on for long..."

"Don't rush, this batch isn't complete yet, we'll leave when we have enough people." The smuggler curled her lips.

Smuggling opportunities were rare. To make it worthwhile, they would stuff the smuggling container full of people before setting off.

Someone waiting for him? What a joke.

In that kind of environment outside, normal people couldn't last three days without protective suits. To pick up one person, you'd need at least seven or eight logistics personnel to keep up.

Someone waiting for him? Who do you think you are? Such a big show.

Seeing that the other party was deliberately dragging things out, Li Aoz knew what was up. He immediately pulled a face, grabbed the other party's collar, and said in a low voice:

"What do you think you are? I'm from the Rose Army! How dare you delay my time?!"