Man of Action

Leaving the Frostplate Republic and entering the outside world might seem like suicide, but that wasn't quite accurate.

It would be more accurate to say it meant leaving one hell for another.

Li Aoz worked as a night patrol security guard for the Jianlin County Village and Town Savings Bank. He had heard that banks made money, but he had misunderstood two things.

First, banks made money, but security guards did not. Tellers worked five days a week with two days off, while security guards got only one day of vacation a year, on National Day. Their monthly salary was just 2,300 to 2,400 Derby—barely more than an ordinary supermarket cashier after doing the math.

What was more, being a security guard in a place like the Frostplate border was extremely dangerous. The Marauder Legion carried out robberies, superhumans committed crimes, and monsters like Spirit Wraiths killed people with alarming frequency. Banks were not government institutions and could not afford to hire superhumans. If a crisis occurred, kicking the alarm button was already more than enough to justify their pay to the bank manager.

Second, in the era of the Four Nations, ordinary financial banks were not the ones truly making money. That honor belonged to the special armed monopoly organization known as the "Global Trade Bank," or GTB.

Using the bank keys under the security guard's control, Li Aoz opened the riot-control equipment storeroom and took out a fire axe and a bulletproof vest. He had timed everything well, constantly counting the seconds in his head.

Then, gripping the fire axe, he smashed it hard into the counter and swiftly looted the cash. There were roughly 40,000 Derby. Li Aoz spread the bills into a fan and flicked through them with deft, practiced fingers—though it was not because he was proficient in bank work. It was a trick he had learned from playing cards in games before.

"142,300. Not much, but enough to activate that mission."

Li Aoz was quite satisfied. He had no intention of robbing the bank vault. For one thing, as a night patrol guard, he did not have the electronic key to open it. As for the bank safe—without professional cutting equipment, there was basically no hope of opening that thing.

Compared to that, looting the cash at the counter was far easier.

"Law Enforcement Division Four arrests people without caring about right or wrong and kills innocents to claim credit. I might as well steal from the place I guard. It's more worthwhile."

"Besides, if I pull off something big, robbing a bank is a serious crime. Law Enforcement Division Four agents might come after me all the way. Early-game Law Enforcement Division Four agents are only level fifteen at most. Killing them would give me a hefty amount of experience."

Li Aoz deleted the surveillance footage, then struck Lanny Johns's corpse a few times to ruin the scene and make it look as though Lanny had been murdered for money.

Ordinary people instinctively feared law enforcement, but Li Aoz did not. On the contrary, he even wanted to use this as bait and fish for them. As a pragmatist, he felt no psychological burden over any sort of crime. The players had caused plenty of havoc across the universe in his previous life. What was this by comparison?

He swiftly took off the Security Uniform. To prevent Law Enforcement Division Four from tracking his biological information, he simply set a fire and burned away his traces. He also removed the SIM card from his Personal Terminal and tossed it into a garbage truck that came to collect trash in the morning, preventing anyone from tracking him.

Li Aoz was a man of action. In less than ten minutes, he had prepared everything for the fire. He carried no unnecessary belongings, used the lighter he had found on Lanny to light a cigarette, and took a deep drag.

Huff...

The complex fragrance of tobacco lingered between his teeth, and Li Aoz's mind finally settled completely. He was not a habitual smoker, so the calming effect of the tobacco might last him quite some time.

Before six o'clock arrived, he tossed the half-smoked cigarette onto a pile of flammable materials and turned to leave.

Boom! The next moment, flames erupted and thick smoke billowed out. The glass entrance shattered and sprayed fragments everywhere. As shrieking fire trucks rushed in to fight the blaze, Li Aoz blended into the crowd of onlookers and calmly, skillfully left the Jianlin County Village and Town Savings Bank.

The nearby residents had already been drawn over by the fire. They watched the burning bank with fascinated clicks of their tongues. Their normally dull, repetitive working lives had gained a bit of amusement from this sudden blaze.

Artificial light fell across his shoulders. Amid the crowd, Li Aoz looked up at the sky. That cold, dim hemispherical generator still continued to slowly emit light radiation.

This was not a real sun.

There was no alternation between day and night, no sunsets or sunrises, no bright moon rising—only this daylight illumination that had remained unchanged for decades.

Li Aoz did not choose to take public transportation. He had a map of Jianlin County in his mind. After making several turns, he entered a public restroom. His disguise skills were excellent; when he emerged wearing a blue shirt and an old jacket, he had become a sallow-faced, grief-stricken middle-aged man.

He looked once more at the hemispherical barrier generator, still steadily emitting its dim yellow sunlight, and shook his head. "People who have even had sunlight taken from them don't dare look up at the sky."

After disguising himself, he simply tore up his ID card and threw it into a garbage truck as well. He would not need it anymore.

In his previous life, players who chose to be born in the Frostplate Federation would later do everything they could to immigrate or leave the country. It was not conducive to development, and most importantly, unless they were female players, they could barely even get any missions.

Even players controlling virtual characters had come to utterly loathe Frostplate.

But in this era, things were not so easy.

What was more, he was now fleeing with stolen money, so he could not use any form of public transportation. Fortunately, Jianlin County was not far from the border, only twenty kilometers away in a straight line. But crossing the national border was no small matter. Guard posts and GTB security personnel would be watching closely.

"Ordinary people need to find a smuggler to cross the border. But my destination isn't inside one of the other three nations. I'm going into the outside world. That makes it easy."

Li Aoz's luck was not bad. Jianlin County was neither a population center nor an industrial city. Put simply, it was a rural-urban fringe area.

The county town had a complicated mix of people: stateless refugees newly entering the civilized world, local residents, migrant workers, long-haul trucking crews, farmers, laborers, and even some city people from Radiant Light City.

Such a complicated population easily fostered clique formation. People from all over gathered according to hometown and profession, helping and looking after one another. Over time, this eventually gave rise to gang forces.

In lawless places, gangs filled the gaps left by order. Their essence was that of economic criminal organizations. Fighting and killing were merely methods; their true purpose was profit.

Thus, with Frostplate offering such a wonderful backdrop, human trafficking and smuggling were clearly enormously profitable businesses. This storefront-and-workshop model, combined with the county town's complex population and difficult law enforcement conditions, quickly saw the smuggling trade undergo industrial upgrading. By adopting a rapid, efficient sales model, empowering the industry, and driving innovation through technology, it made outstanding contributions toward actively building Frostplate.

Simply put, there were a few too many advertisements for smuggling. Ads were everywhere, on curbs and utility poles. Of course, they phrased it more tactfully, calling it "fast entry and household registration resolution."

Li Aoz did not know much about Frostplate, but... the street vendors handing out flyers and tossing cards had told him quite a lot.

He picked up several flyers from the ground and, unsurprisingly, found a smuggler who could take people out.

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

"Where are you going?"

The smuggler was a young woman chewing gum, her face full of impatience. Her voice was hoarse and unpleasant, her features somewhat crooked. Four middle-aged and elderly men stood beside her, dull and taciturn. They were likely the underlings responsible for the actual smuggling.

When she saw that Li Aoz was male and had skin as pale as the stateless people, contempt immediately rose in her heart.

Azure Planet's sunlight resources were completely monopolized by the Four Nations. Therefore, people with healthy, attractive wheat-colored skin had clearly received plenty of sunlight. Not only did they often bask in natural sunlight, but they also rarely performed repetitive labor and took frequent vacations—traits of the wealthy and powerful.

Conversely, pale-skinned people clearly suffered from a severe lack of sunlight. Even if it was congenital, it meant there had been stateless people somewhere in their family within three generations.

Li Aoz's family circumstances were obviously not very good. Otherwise, his skin would not have been nearly as pale as that of the stateless.

He did not mind in the least. People of the Four Nations all carried some degree of this prejudice. He directly tossed over a stack of bills and said:

"Fourteen thousand. More than enough to get me to P-205 Shelter."

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

A shelter was no civilized place. Without sunlight, it was nearly impossible to survive. Frostplate was at least part of the civilized world. GTB issued energy loans, and while life was miserable, people could at least stay alive.

For this man to risk escaping into the outside world, there were almost no possibilities beyond deserters, serious criminals, and smugglers. The county town was only so large, and those in this line of work had frequent dealings. There were only a few smugglers making the rounds, and everyone with a name was familiar.

The smuggler had basically determined that the man before her was either a serious criminal or a deserter, so she asked outright.

"You don't need to know."

Li Aoz snorted coldly, deliberately speaking evasively, which instead made the smuggler certain of her guess.

"Heh, don't be nervous. There are plenty of men dodging military service every year." The smuggler smiled, counted the cash, then looked somewhat surprised. "These bills are really new."

Li Aoz wanted to laugh. They had just come out of the bank. How could they not be new?

"When can we leave?" Li Aoz put on an anxious expression and hurriedly pressed her. "I need to get there quickly. Someone's waiting for me outside. They might not be able to hold on much longer..."

"No rush. This batch isn't full yet. We'll leave once there are enough people." The smuggler curled her lip.

Opportunities to smuggle people across were scarce. To make it worthwhile, they had to pack the smuggling containers completely full before they would leave.

Someone was waiting for him? Only a ghost would believe that.

In an environment like the outside world, a normal person without protective gear could not last three days. To retrieve one person, there would need to be at least seven or eight logistics and supply personnel supporting them.

Someone was waiting for him? Who did he think he was, to warrant such a grand arrangement?

Seeing that she was deliberately stalling, Li Aoz understood. His face darkened at once. He grabbed her by the collar and said in a low voice:

"Who the hell do you think you are? I'm with the Rose Army! You dare waste my time?!"