Home (10)

Following the road uphill, they came upon a dilapidated farmstead about three hundred meters away. Ding Shi pushed open the door and went inside. It was more or less as he had expected: Sun Heaven, Brother Kai, and Chu Yu had already subdued a male dwarf.

Chu Yu explained that they had found a row of iron cages in the warehouse. Two adults were unconscious, while the male dwarf was still awake. He claimed to be Yingying's younger brother and said the bad guys had just left, begging them to save him.

After releasing the male dwarf, Chu Yu brought him to the front hall for questioning, while Sun Heaven and Brother Kai tried to treat the two adults. Chu Yu had already learned from Mu Mu that Yingying was a dwarf, so she had remained wary of the male dwarf. When he attacked, Chu Yu, who had taken Jeet Kune Do classes for ten years, subdued him.

When Ding Shi had first met Chu Yu, he had described her as fair-skinned and athletic, with long legs and broad shoulders. That alone showed she was the sporty type of girl.

Ding Shi did not go to the warehouse to help. Instead, he searched the courtyard and the owner's residence. There were quite a few rooms, but most were covered in dust. They contained no furniture and were run-down and empty.

Before long, Ding Shi found the two dwarves' rooms.

The female dwarf's room was simple: one bed, one table, and one chair. A diary lay on the table. After reading through it, Ding Shi gained a fairly objective understanding of the Home dungeon world.

Fifty years ago, AI had burst onto the scene. In pursuit of fairness, people handed judicial authority over to AI. Because AI upheld fairness and justice, everyone had been satisfied. Then, forty-five years ago, people handed administrative authority over to AI as well. AI was incorruptible, efficient, and highly capable, neither wasting resources nor taking bribes, and for a time it had been welcomed by the public.

Forty years ago, AI introduced the Collective Plan. Put simply, it meant sacrificing the interests of a minority to benefit the majority. One of its policies was relocating rural villages far from cities. The first benefit was returning villages to nature and protecting the ecosystem. The second was reducing administrative expenses and allowing everyone to enjoy the conveniences of city life.

The resistance launched an uprising and confronted AI head-on. Unfortunately, AI's soldiers were endless, every one of them a king of soldiers right off the production line. From mining to manufacturing, AI had achieved a fully mechanized production chain. Even if all humanity united, they could not stop AI from dominating the world.

The surviving resistance forces scattered and retreated into no-signal zones. Since AI could not directly command soldiers within those zones, it adopted an extermination plan. Robots rode aircraft and scattered the X Virus over the no-signal zones from the air, while residents of signal zones had all been vaccinated in advance. Lacking medicine and supplies, the resistance could only enter the signal zones to seize food and drugs, even abducting people. They became the bandits the residents spoke of. Every operation cost the resistance dearly, and in the end, they collapsed without a fight.

The dwarf siblings had luckily survived the X Virus, but their bodies had mutated. That was why they had become dwarves. More interestingly, although the virus had turned them into dwarves, it had preserved their childhood appearances. To survive, the siblings became bandits on Nameless Road.

Whenever someone entered Nameless Road, the brother watching from high ground would notify his sister immediately. The sister would pretend to be a child in need of help, claiming that her older brother or younger brother had gone missing and asking them to help search. She would look for an opportunity to ambush and kill a lone target with a dagger, while the brother waited at the farmstead for prey to come to him.

Because the siblings looked no different from children, they had succeeded time and again, living quite comfortably over the years. The reason things had gone wrong this time was that Ding Shi's group had entered Nameless Road right after they attacked Yingying's family. The brother had only had time to deal with Yingying. He had not even managed to drive the car away.

Ding Shi recalled the mission. It was to find and help Yingying's parents, not to find and help Yingying's entire family. At first, Ding Shi had thought the system was laying a trap, trying to make the players believe the dwarf sister was Yingying. Now it seemed that the system had been quite honest. It knew Yingying had already been murdered.

Ding Shi pulled open a drawer and saw a stack of banknotes. After roughly counting them, he estimated there were around two hundred dungeon coins. There was also a dagger made of some special material inside the drawer, thin yet hard.

Ding Shi glanced out into the courtyard. Hearing Sun Heaven and the others' footsteps, he put away the dungeon coins, held the dagger in his hand and toyed with it, then continued reading the diary intently.

Brother Kai saw the flashlight beam and came over with Sun Heaven. Ding Shi greeted them and said, "This diary is pretty interesting. It records how AI ruled the world and enslaved humanity."

Brother Kai took the diary and said, "What's interesting about that? Isn't it just some worn-out sci-fi story?"

Ding Shi said, "What's interesting is that AI required humans to work thirty-five to forty hours a week. It required humans to undergo a physical examination at least once a year. It required humans to attend university and obtain a diploma. It required newlywed couples to take an assessment for prospective parents... A whole lot of requirements."

Brother Kai froze. "Those requirements sound way too outrageous."

Ding Shi laughed, and so did Brother Kai. Sun Heaven was an honest fellow, and he shouted, "If aliens like that invaded Earth, I'd be the first to surrender." Sun Heaven was a typical corporate drone at a small or mid-sized company. To him, 996 was already a blessing; his usual schedule was 007. Working only forty hours a week was a dream he did not even dare imagine.

Brother Kai asked, "Other than the dagger, did you find anything else?"

Ding Shi looked at the drawer. "No. The room next door seems to be the male dwarf's. I haven't checked it yet."

Brother Kai got the message: I've searched this room. Whether there's anything else here or not, I'm only claiming the dagger. But I'd rather waste time reading the diary than search the second room. As for what treasures you might find in there, that depends on your own luck.

He had principles, but not many.

Brother Kai went into the next room. Sun Heaven looked around the empty room, then also headed into the male dwarf's room.

The Fishy Squad held a meeting in front of the headlights. There were two topics. First, they now had three vehicles: the Fishy car, the red sedan, and an off-road vehicle at the farmstead.

The second topic was that the mission to rescue Yingying's parents had been completed, but no reward had been issued directly. It would presumably raise their clearance rating. What they needed to discuss was the newly appeared mission, Rapid Delivery.

The players had to deliver a sample of the X pathogen obtained from the farmstead to their doorstep. The resistance would take the pathogen there and use an AI laboratory to study it. Once the time was right, the resistance led by Old Ghost would launch another uprising, seize a no-signal zone, and continue fighting AI.

The pathogen was only the size of an index finger and did not need refrigeration. Completing the mission would add 1.5 to their mission rating. For example, a C-rank clearance would become a B+-rank clearance with this mission added.

The device storing the X pathogen was made of special material and contained a tracking signal. Once the X pathogen entered a signal zone, AI would detect it. However, due to its age, the tracking signal had weakened considerably. AI could only locate it within a hundred-meter radius and could not pinpoint its exact position.