WTYTIAAN Chapter 232

Chapter 232

Chapter 232

Free City.

Yan Yunqing’s mood was a bit complicated as he came to this city again, known as belonging to bounty hunters and most of the people and alien races who wandered in the gray area.

This time, he didn’t switch over in his player persona, but came with the main body’s role-playing function enabled, mainly because only the main body can directly switch to the identity of [Nolan], while the player persona can only use skills to role-play.

Alice could see through his identity with her talent skills, and Yan Yunqing didn’t think his role-playing skills could fool Theodore.

Since he was prepared to come clean, he should honestly come with his main body, so as not to be suspected by Theodore of being impersonated by someone, and start a PK battle without saying a word. Yan Yunqing really couldn’t withstand a single blow.

Oh, [Unyielding Will] is okay, but after dragging through the invincible state, he would face the [Healing Restriction] period of rapidly burning blood until he was fragile.

Faced with the overly powerful Theodore, Yan Yunqing decided to play the emotional card as soon as he went up.

Nearly a year had passed, and the Free City’s earthy yellow city walls were still dilapidated, even more so than a year ago. With the unique desolate and unruly atmosphere of Free City, it stood quietly in the southwesternmost part of the continent, like a pearl abandoned in the desert, lonely overlooking the dead ruins.

Of course, Yan Yunqing knew why this was.

Because Mandy Pell had been destroyed by them. Before that, the people of Mandy Pell would still be responsible for part of the maintenance of Free City. After all, to attract more nobles to spend money, the city couldn’t be too dilapidated, so they had to do some superficial work.

Now that Mandy Pell was gone, the major guilds were as low-key as before. On the surface, Free City was dominated by the Bounty Hunter Association alone, so naturally they wouldn’t pay much attention to whether the city walls were dilapidated—after all, in the eyes of the locals, these city walls didn’t have much meaning. If the monsters really appeared near the city, the broken city walls couldn’t resist anything.

People were constantly entering and exiting the city gate of Free City.

When Castella City and Loreus City were experiencing heavy snow, the temperature on the Ermann Continent was still very high, and the locals were even wearing overly revealing clothes.

Yan Yunqing stopped outside the city and watched for a while. There were many players entering and leaving Free City. This was not surprising. Now the number of internal beta players had reached 10,000, and there was a player starting point next to Free City. ‘Flame’ had also established a Newbie Village here, and the people in charge were Jeff and Nika from the Kids Corps.

Jeff didn’t need to be mentioned. As the head of the Kids Corps, it was very reasonable for him to be the person in charge. Nika was also one of the smartest children Yan Yunqing knew, and she was good at using all her own conditions. Together with Jeff, she could manage a player Newbie Village well.

At least so far, other Newbie Villages had more or less had some problems, but Free City had never had any major troubles.

Yan Yunqing changed into his player identity and inconspicuously followed a mercenary group, trailing behind them like a little tail, intending to enter Free City with these people.

He pulled his hood. This time, he was dressed similarly to the common attire of local mercenary groups: a dusty sand-proof cloak, with convenient leather light armor inside.

This outfit made Yan Yunqing inconspicuous even when mixed into the mercenary group, making outsiders unconsciously regard him as a member of the mercenary group.

The mercenaries walking in front were talking in low voices.

“I heard that Klaun and his team encountered a level 46 monster near the Little Sand Dune Ruins last time? Is it true?”

“It’s true. Two of them died that time, both level 30. I heard that the monster was particularly fierce and almost wiped them all out. If the support hadn’t arrived in time, they would have all died.”

“So serious? The Little Sand Dune Ruins are not far from our city, right? High-level monsters have appeared so close. Do you think a high-level monster might appear near our city one day?”

“What’s this? It’s just a coincidence. Haven’t monsters been found near Free City in the past few years? Besides, we’re mercenaries. We risk our lives every day. Are you still afraid of death?”

“Who isn’t afraid of death? I’m not mainly afraid of death. If we encounter monsters in the wild, we can only blame ourselves for being unlucky. But what if we’re sleeping soundly in the city and suddenly our home is overturned by monsters? Wouldn’t you be depressed? I’d feel aggrieved even if I died.”

“That’s true… But those kids in the city… are they called the Kids Corps? Didn’t they form a patrol team? This time, Klaun was able to get support quickly because those kids discovered the situation and notified the other mercenaries in the city, so not so many people died. I heard that those kids are also preparing to build defensive facilities in the city. Maybe it’ll really be useful!”

“Do you really think a group of kids can do anything?”

“Hey, didn’t Klaun and his team survive this time because those kids discovered it in time? Besides, those kids aren’t alone. Don’t those Skywalkers listen to them very much?”

“…”

Yan Yunqing followed these people silently, listening to their conversation clearly.

He hadn’t asked about the situation here for a long time, and he didn’t know that the Kids Corps planned to carry out a silent ‘reform’. Just from the mouths of these mercenaries, Yan Yunqing could hear Nika’s plan.

From the initial patrol team to the city’s defense, and then maybe even establishing city guards, Nika was trying to establish ‘order’ in the minds of the people of Free City.

‘Order and rules’ were commonplace in other cities, but they were what Free City lacked the most.

And Nika’s actions already showed her ambition. Her actions were still a bit naive. These ordinary mercenaries couldn’t see Nika’s purpose, but a smarter superior would know what Nika wanted to do with just one glance.

But this wasn’t important. Although Nika’s actions were naive and people could see through her thoughts at a glance, the Kids Corps still had one advantage—their age was small enough.

Even Jeff, the ‘head’ of the Kids Corps, was only barely an adult now, let alone the fact that most of the Kids Corps were children only a few years old. Even if Nika showed that she wanted the Kids Corps to become the rulers of Free City, they wouldn’t be taken seriously by those real superiors.

In their minds, the Kids Corps was just playing house like children. How could real power be controlled by these children? At most, they would guard against Jeff—

Yan Yunqing couldn’t help but raise the corners of his mouth when he thought of this. He had stayed in Free City for a period of time because of the previous entrance exam and had gotten along with Nika and Jeff, so he naturally knew the difference between the two.

Jeff, to put it bluntly, was just a naive do-gooder. In this Free City, which was called ‘free’ but was actually extremely ‘cruel’, he was out of place. He couldn’t bear to see those abandoned children who had lost their families die, and he tried his best to give those orphans a place to stay.

Such a do-gooder was not to be feared in Free City, in the eyes of those so-called superiors.

His weaknesses were too obvious, and he didn’t seem to have much of a brain. When those people felt that they should guard against Jeff, but found that Jeff was such a person, they would put down their guard again.

And Nika, this smart child who was good at using all external factors, was hiding behind Jeff and starting to cause trouble.

Perhaps by the time those superiors reacted, Free City would have been infiltrated by the Kids Corps for the most part.

Yan Yunqing shook his head silently.

It seemed that Nika had learned a lot in the process of managing the Newbie Village in the past six months, and she had begun to put it into practice in Free City. Perhaps soon, this Free City would no longer be secretly called the City of Sin.

He just didn’t know if the natives of Free City thought this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Yan Yunqing didn’t intend to stop Nika’s actions, even if he saw that most of Nika’s current power came from the Newbie Village, using the stage built by ‘Flame’ to perform for herself.

Just like he supported Alice in using the power of ‘Flame’ to pave the way for her own power grab, as long as they could maintain their original intentions after taking power and provide him with convenience, that was enough.

Anyway, Yan Yunqing’s original purpose in establishing ‘Flame’ was just to guide these players who had crossed the world barrier.

At this moment, there were already a few people similar to city guards stationed at the city gate of Free City. Yan Yunqing even saw a familiar face among them—Mia.

It seemed that the older children in the Kids Corps were currently acting as city guards.

Noticing Yan Yunqing’s gaze, Mia, who was talking to her companion, looked sharply in Yan Yunqing’s direction. Yan Yunqing took the opportunity to turn his gaze away and didn’t meet Mia’s eyes.

Mia glanced at Yan Yunqing thoughtfully, sweeping over the unfamiliar face. After confirming that there was no such person in her memory, she looked down and saw the extremely ordinary clothes on the person, which looked like ordinary mercenaries who were unknown but wanted to come to Free City to make a name for themselves as famous bounty hunters.

Confirming that the other party didn’t have any strange behavior, Mia withdrew her gaze and continued talking to her companion, but still observed the person who made her feel something was wrong out of the corner of her eye.

However, the other party didn’t make any extra moves after that, and didn’t even look in her direction again. Mia didn’t withdraw all her attention until the other party had completely entered Free City.

“What’s wrong?” The companion noticed Mia’s strangeness and asked softly, “Did you find anything? Are people from the guild here to test us again?”

Since Nika created the patrol team, the guilds in the city had become a little restless and would send people over to test them from time to time. Because Nika had told them in advance, they had avoided many secret confrontations.

And their attempt to establish city guards had also been opposed by the major guilds. There had been a lot of small actions by the guilds recently.

If it hadn’t been for the monster incident in the Little Sand Dune Ruins last time, and they had indeed made a contribution, the recent resistance would have been even stronger. Those of them who were placed here by Nika to prepare for a slow and steady approach naturally bore the brunt of the pressure.

Therefore, they would pay extra attention when doing things, so as not to fall into the trap carelessly.

Mia shook her head, “No, I just suddenly had a strange feeling.”

“A strange feeling?” The companion was puzzled.

Mia thought for a while and said, “Just now that person, I always felt that the way he looked at me, there was something strange about it for a moment.”

The companion oh-ed, “Are you sure it’s not those people?”

Mia wasn’t sure, “But the feeling that person gave me… uh, very loving? Oh no, I can’t really describe that feeling, it’s like the way Jeff sometimes looks at Sisi and the others.”

Sisi, currently the youngest member of the Kids Corps, is only two and a half years old. She’s the child that Jeff just brought back a while ago. Her parents were the two mercenaries who died in the Little Sand Dune Ruins in Klaun’s team.

Companion: Ah?

The companion was confused. He recalled Jeff’s usual gaze at Sisi, that loving and caring gaze, and the image of a ‘silly brother’ who would clap his hands when Sisi completed a small task.

The companion’s face showed hesitation. Who would look at Mia like Jeff looks at Sisi?

Having already entered the city, completely unaware that he was just looked at Mia a little more, and was described by the two of them as a silly older brother like Jeff, Yan Yunqing was observing the changes in the city.

In a year, the changes in Free City were much greater than the changes in the city walls.

The ruins pit after the collapse of Mandy Pell had been filled in and turned into a wide small square. Many houses had been built on it, the most conspicuous of which was the small building in the center that was seven or eight stories high.