Military Contractors

Black Rose Gasoline Bar

Gao Gong sat in the corner of the bar, a classic cocktail from the menu before him. It was also Black Rose's favorite, called the "Flaming Chariot." Azure flames burned across the surface of the glass like fire shooting from a motorcycle.

It tasted very bitter, with a hint of gasoline mixed with cola.

Although Black Rose had not returned, the bar had already regained its former liveliness. There were people gathering information, making deals, chatting and bullshitting, and spending money to get drunk. Every facet of life was represented.

"Sir, someone wants to buy you a drink." A female android waitress walked over with a glass of liquor on her tray.

It was obvious that this android was low-grade. There were clear signs of assembly around her hands and feet, and the smile on her face was unnatural. She had clearly downloaded only the most basic AI service, without even a personality template.

Gao Gong said nothing and simply waved his hand.

A sigh sounded from the shadows.

A burly, bearded man's face darkened. He downed the gasoline beer in his hand, stood up, and walked out without looking back. He had no left hand; in its place was a large hunting rifle.

"Even Elephant Hunter didn't make the cut? His standards are way too high!"

"He's a veteran too."

"Yeah. I once saw him blow the head off an E-rank radiation elephant with one shot from his large double-barreled hunting rifle. That was a large radiation beast!"

"What can you do? He's got the credentials."

"He's just an old man. What's so impressive about that?" a newcomer suddenly said indignantly.

"Kid, don't misunderstand the situation. In the desert, seniority is the least valuable thing there is."

A mechanical hunter sneered and shook his head.

"Yeah. If you could bring back the head of a Reaper leader and four D-rank Reaper corpses alive, you'd have the right to be picky too."

The newcomer froze and instinctively asked, "Reapers? Those melee monsters that even chainsaws can't cut through?"

"Yeah. Five heads in total. How many years has it been since Car City had a haul like that?"

"Impressive!"

Gao Gong finished the Flaming Chariot and asked the waitress for a Lady. Sure enough, this mellow cocktail with a brandy flavor suited him better.

More than a dozen people had invited him to drink today, but he had not accepted a single glass.

It wasn't because they were men.

Nor was it because he was afraid they would "harvest his corpse"—well, fine, he was a little afraid of that too.

There were women as well.

But their motives were impure too.

Women who purely wanted to hook up with men generally would not choose him either. Those who often drank at this bar knew more or less about his relationship with the female owner.

The women of male bigshots and the men of female bigshots were two types of people no one could afford to provoke—though it probably would have been exciting.

The fundamental reason was that drinking someone's drink was equivalent to accepting their invitation to form a team.

According to the aerial photographs from the factory satellite, at least dozens of groups of beasts had appeared around Car City.

The Security Corps had issued a death order: within five days, no matter what methods they used, they had to assemble at least one three-person armed squad.

For this kind of free-form team, powerful mechanical hunters were naturally popular.

As a central oasis, Car City was home to many renowned mechanical hunters. Lone wolves without fixed teams, however, were few and far between.

Even among special experts like lone wolves, someone with Gao Gong's record was one of a kind.

When Gao Gong brought back five corpses yesterday, the entire military supply warehouse had been alarmed. Even the logistics supervisor, who had always looked down on hunters, had personally come out to exchange a few polite words with him.

Everyone knew that Gao Gong had hunted a C-rank Reaper—again!

After downing another drink, Gao Gong glanced at the mechanical clock on the bar. It was about time. He had to go to the military supply warehouse to collect his goods.

"Wait!"

Gao Gong had just reached the door when a bald, burly man suddenly stood up and strode over aggressively. He shouted, "My name is Black Death Gorilla. I think I'm qualified to be your teammate."

Amid the low jazz music, Gao Gong lowered his head and tapped the bottom of his cigarette case. He pulled out a cigarette with his lips and examined the other man through the dim light.

The man was very tall, a little over two meters, but his body was not deformed like a native's. He had undergone skeletal enhancement surgery—an enhanced form of abnormal bone growth.

His muscles were developed and swollen, probably some kind of inferior biotechnological muscle. Whether it was an implantation problem or an issue with the muscle model, he looked as though he had bought his clothes several sizes too large.

Most eye-catching were his pair of oversized metal arms. They were at least three times larger than normal arms. The protrusions on his forearms were probably flamethrowers, and his carrot-thick fingers had nine metal joints.

Getting hit by those things would definitely hurt.

"Imported Gorilla Arms from Nightless City?"

"Good eye!" Black Death Gorilla's eyes lit up. He casually grabbed a bottle and clenched his hand. With a series of crunches, he quickly crushed it into a pile of glass shards.

"I've looked into you. I know you're good with a knife and carry a heavy sniper rifle." Black Death Gorilla struck a bodybuilder's pose. His bio-muscles bulged as if inflated. There were no veins, only a few ghastly pale artificial fibers.

"I'm good at close combat too, and I can handle medium and long range. I can attack and snipe. We'll be the most compatible partners!"

Gao Gong drowsily exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, "I don't have a problem with it. The problem is that you do."

"What do you mean, I do?" Black Death Gorilla widened his eyes and shoved his pair of Gorilla Arms right in front of Gao Gong's face.

"Take a good look! These are the latest Impact Rocket Type III!"

In all fairness, the equipment was good. On the system panel, it could at least receive a "Fine" rating.

The person was the problem.

Gao Gong took a few more puffs, dropped the cigarette butt into the ashtray, and prepared to leave without explaining.

"Wait! You can't leave without explaining yourself!"

Black Death Gorilla flew into a rage. His mechanical palm suddenly clamped onto Gao Gong's shoulder. The mechanical grip collided with his titanium-alloy bones, producing a creaking sound of compression.

"The equipment is fine. Your legs, however, aren't."

"What did you—"

Gao Gong suddenly turned around, closed in through the center line, hooked his foot, and lightly stamped the inside of the man's ankle. The slender ankle could not withstand the weight of his body at all. It cracked with a snap, and Black Death Gorilla crashed to the floor with a bang, clutching his leg and screaming.

"My leg! My leg! My leg's broken!"

"Your movement-system modification rate is under four percent, yet you installed such a huge thing on yourself." Gao Gong shook his head and waved, sending the bartenders who had already reached for their gun grips back.

"You've got some issues, friend."

Human modification was a delicate undertaking that required consideration of every aspect. It was not simply a matter of having stronger cybernetics. In fact, the stronger the cybernetics, the harder they were to install and the harder they were to remove. Every high-level cybernetic modification was practically equivalent to making a trip through the gates of hell.

And once the compatibility with the cybernetics was insufficient, the whole build was ruined.

Players could start over after ruining their builds, but when an NPC was ruined, there was truly no saving them.

In fact, in Gao Gong's view, the mechanical hunters in Car City all suffered from over-modification to some degree.

Perhaps they had no problems at this stage, but when they tried to advance further—for example, cross the level-ten threshold of their primary class or the level-twenty bottleneck—they would discover that their bodies had already been overdrawn by the modifications. There would be nothing left to modify.

This might be an opportunity.

Mechanical modification has reached its limit. Biological modification is another path, but mechanical rejection is a major problem.

Even a mechanical modifier like Gao Gong, whose attributes were relatively balanced, had to be extremely careful when facing mechanical rejection.

For these people who had pushed human modification to an extreme, running into mechanical rejection was practically inevitable.

He could not forcibly perform biological modifications on them either.

That would only create a large group of cyberpsychos.

Gao Gong headed south and drove to a modern military camp. The buildings before him had a rare freshness for the desert. The main building, airport, firing range, and various off-road obstacles were all made of real materials, yet they gave off a strange sense of being made from foam.

This should have been printed using 3D technology by the military contractor of some major corporation.

This was the Security Corps' military supply warehouse.

Quite a few Security Corps members could be seen conducting live-combat training, while their opponents were "radiation beasts" projected through virtual-projection technology.

Their melee weapons inflicted different levels of damage depending on which part of the "beast" they struck.

The VR goggles they wore deepened the sense of immersion.

"Not bad. No wonder the Security Corps is getting better and better at fighting."

Gao Gong smiled and looked to the other side. In a simulated concrete forest, an armed squad from the Security Corps was clearing obstacles in the "forest" at designated points.

These were experiences that mechanical hunters often had to learn with their lives.

But was this kind of training really advanced?

At least the defeats on the front lines had not proven that it was.

"Mr. Gao, welcome," a robot came over and said in a toneless electronic voice.

"How about it? Have you confirmed the value of my spoils?"

"They have been confirmed. You have a total of 2,124 contribution points. Would you like to see the details, or go shopping first? We have just imported a batch of new intelligent weapons. Would you like me to show you around?"

"Let's take a look first." Gao Gong blinked and said casually, "By the way, may I ask which military contractors this batch of weapons came from?"

"Tiber Defense Systems, Marubeni Global Security, and Mars Edge."

All familiar names.

"Mars Edge," Gao Gong repeated. Had this lunatic company, which would later become famous for its radical human modifications, already begun entering the weapons and equipment market?