Chapter 57: Shameless
Chapter 57: Chapter 57: Shameless
The Tiger-faced King led his men to check on his neighbors under the guise of offering help. If the neighbors were doing fine, they would simply act as guests. But if they weren’t, the Tiger-faced King would gladly step up as the new master of the house—taking whatever he wanted, hauling away whatever he could, and killing whoever needed to be killed...
Yang Bo stared at the string of Metal Control +8 notifications! After counting carefully, he realized there were already nine of them.
Suddenly, his mecha blared an alarm. Yang Bo glanced down into the valley. At the mouth of a cave, a Silver Armor Rhinoceros poked half its head out. With a downward thrust and an upward jerk of its horn, it tossed a human figure into the air. The person landed squarely on the beast’s head, trembling violently.
He thought, "Who did this Silver Armor Rhinoceros run into? Could it be the mutants who ambushed these Advanced Mechas?"
His mind had finally regained some clarity. Those brief ten or so seconds had been truly terrifying. In the heat of the moment, he had completely forgotten he was just playing a game—it had felt like he was genuinely running for his life.
It made perfect sense for the mutants to hide underground. Once those guys took to the skies, they would be immediately locked onto by the Rail Cannon. Yang Bo was more qualified than anyone to attest to that fact.
Piloting his mecha, he raised his Energy Shield to the front to guard against any sudden sneak attacks from the Silver Armor Rhinoceros. As he observed the beast, an idea began to form in his mind.
He thought, "The game developers requested it to be captured alive. The only reason other players aren’t trying to kill this Silver Armor Rhinoceros is that there’s no profit in it.
"But I don’t care about profit. I’ve been losing money playing this game anyway, and I’m perfectly content just hunting small animals. If I lure this Silver Armor Rhinoceros out, will the Rail Cannon open fire?
"I might as well give it a try. If the Rail Cannon doesn’t fire, I’ll know to stay far away whenever the game developers announce bounties for live Mutated Beasts in the future."
The main reason Yang Bo didn’t fear the mutants was his absolute reliance on the Rail Cannon. It had saved him during the bull hunt last time. What had happened to those mutants who tried to take flight? They had basically just helped him farm kills.
Checking his mecha’s remaining arsenal of Shock Wave Bombs, Yang Bo manipulated the controls and hurled one fiercely at the Silver Armor Rhinoceros to provoke the creature.
BOOM!
Unexpectedly, the horn of the Silver Armor Rhinoceros emitted a burst of Energy Radiance, causing the Shock Wave Bomb to detonate mid-air.
He thought, "This guy’s abilities are bizarre." His mecha shook violently from the blast, setting off another blaring alarm.
Then, Yang Bo was dumbfounded. He watched as the Silver Armor Rhinoceros tossed the mutant onto the ground in front of it and began stomping on him mercilessly with its thick, silver-armored feet. It even flipped the poor guy over to stomp on his other side.
He thought, "Big guy, you don’t actually think this mutant is with me, do you?
"It’s highly likely. I should provoke it a bit more and let the Silver Armor Rhinoceros finish the mutant off so I can see what kind of abilities I get."
Acting on the thought, Yang Bo piloted his mecha down into the valley. With swift, practiced movements, he dismantled an arm from one of the destroyed mechas in a matter of seconds.
He thought, "Uh, how did I get so proficient with mecha anatomy?
"Could my Mecha Maintenance ability be at work?"
Yang Bo stared blankly for half a second, marveling at how he had disassembled the arm of an Advanced Mecha in under five seconds. He then hefted the severed arm and hurled it violently at the Silver Armor Rhinoceros.
This time, the Silver Armor Rhinoceros took a step back. The massive metal arm landed squarely on the heavily trampled mutant, causing him to twitch violently under the crushing weight.
The scene that followed left Yang Bo dumbfounded once again. From his current vantage point, he was nearly at eye level with the beast’s cave. To his utter disbelief, the Silver Armor Rhinoceros opened its massive jaws, chomped down on the metal mecha arm as if it were a spicy snack stick, and swallowed it whole in just a few bites.
He thought, "This..."
After the initial shock wore off, a half-baked idea began to form in Yang Bo’s mind.
He thought, "If I assume its intelligence is low, that contradicts the fact that it knew to use a mutant to provoke me.
"But if its intelligence is high, it should be obvious that this mutant isn’t with me. That means this beast is probably just a bit slow in the head.
"This creature might also be one of the game’s... or rather, this planet’s, most vital resources. It wouldn’t have survived this long otherwise."
His rough plan was admittedly a bit whimsical: he wanted to get on this dim-witted beast’s good side. His main rationale was that these scrapped mechas were completely free anyway. If left on the ground, the mutants would just sneakily haul them away. And if he tried to lug them back to base himself, he’d only be ridiculed as a scrap-peddler. Screw that!
With his mind made up, Yang Bo began dismantling the remaining eight Advanced Mechas, stripping them of their legs and arms. As he tore them apart, he tossed the metallic wreckage to the Silver Armor Rhinoceros. True to his expectations, the beast happily munched on the scraps instead of angrily snapping and snarling at them.
In less than ten minutes, he had completely dismantled all eight mechas. He fed every piece of scrap to the Silver Armor Rhinoceros, which devoured it all until nothing remained but the mechas’ power batteries.
The batteries were utterly useless. Every mecha was equipped with a proprietary power unit, and strict safety protocols prevented them from being swapped or repurposed.
He tossed one of the batteries over, but the Silver Armor Rhinoceros refused to eat it. Instead, the beast fixed its beady eyes on Yang Bo. With a sudden kick, it launched the battered mutant from the cave entrance straight toward him.
The mutant slammed into the ground just a few dozen meters away from Yang Bo. His condition looked incredibly bizarre—his entire body was rigid and stiff, almost as if he had contracted some strange disease.
The mutant glared furiously at Yang Bo. It was truly unfortunate for him; he was inherently a highly formidable mutant with metal-alteration abilities. However, he had run into the Silver Armor Rhinoceros, a creature whose innate energy could rapidly age and degrade metal.
After this particular group of mutants had successfully ambushed the Advanced Mechas, they had retreated into the cave system. Hearing a commotion deeper inside, they had just huddled together to investigate the source of the noise. Unfortunately for them, Yang Bo had misunderstood their intentions and promptly stuffed two Hydrogen Bombs down their tunnel. The ensuing blasts had left the mutants utterly disoriented.
The two Hydrogen Bombs had nearly caused the entire mountain to collapse. Fortunately for the mutants, they possessed superpowers, allowing them to miraculously survive the explosions. But before they could even catch their breath after dodging the Miniature Hydrogen Bombs, they stumbled straight into the path of the enraged Silver Armor Rhinoceros.
What followed was an absolute massacre. If the mutants had possessed the means to kill the Silver Armor Rhinoceros, they would have done it ages ago. Trapped in the narrow confines of the underground caverns, the mutants had nowhere to run. Aside from a few exceptionally fast runners, the rest were mercilessly slaughtered by the beast.
In the eyes of the Silver Armor Rhinoceros, anything that walked on two legs belonged to the same faction. Still bearing a grudge against Yang Bo’s mecha, the beast had intentionally kept the strongest mutant alive just to provoke him.
But to its surprise, Yang Bo had fed it a feast of mecha scrap—the exact type of metal the creature craved. The dim-witted beast likely figured that sparing the mutant’s life would be doing Yang Bo a favor. Thus, it punted the mutant out of the cave, returning him to his "rightful" owner.
Yang Bo was honestly a bit torn. Who exactly was this mutant? What kind of abilities did he possess?
Fortunately, his dilemma lasted less than ten seconds before a silver mecha suddenly touched down just twenty meters away from him.
BOOM! Only then did the delayed sonic boom of its descent echo through the sky.
Yang Bo snapped to attention and thought, "Well, well, here comes someone trying to steal my kill!" Without a second thought, he yanked his control stick. His Blade mecha swung its five-meter-long Plasma Long Saber, hacking ruthlessly down at the mutant.
Metal Control +16!
The pilot of the silver mecha was utterly dumbfounded. They had rushed here at top speed specifically to capture the mutant leader alive. Who could have anticipated that this Blade mecha would suddenly lose its mind and execute the target?
Just then, from the mouth of the distant cave, the Silver Armor Rhinoceros punted another dying mutant out. The body landed squarely in front of Yang Bo.
"What a sore loser..." Just as Yang Bo prepared to strike again, his screen suddenly went pitch black. Enraged, he began cursing profusely.
By the time he finished, the game’s visuals had restored. However, the dying mutant was nowhere to be seen. All that remained was the retreating shadow of the silver mecha as it blasted off into the sky...
He roared, "Shameless! Utterly shameless!
"I’m filing a complaint!
"This game is rigged!"