Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 434 - 390 - Countryside Stroll_2

Chapter 434: 390 Chapter Countryside Stroll_2

Scary! Du Qianqian saw that guy acting so savagely and hurriedly shot him with the King of Illusions, causing him to groan and fall to the ground.

But this also put her in a dangerous situation. If the bandits realized the killer was among them, they would immediately kill Du Qianqian.

"Quick!" Du Qianqian shouted.

"What?" Before the bandits could figure out what was happening, Mizuiro Yoshioka quickly conjured up several Ink Beasts.

As soon as they touched the ground, they could run, appearing from various angles and drawing the bandits’ attention. The bandits had never seen such creatures before and hurriedly shot at the Ink Beasts. The bullets whizzed through the ink without causing any actual harm.

"Don’t be afraid!" Du Qianqian commanded them, "There’s only one of them!"

"Be careful!"

"Don’t let your guard down!" Their morale was greatly steadied by Du Qianqian’s spirited orders.

Du Qianqian was the best assassin. Taking advantage of their mistake in thinking the enemy was outside, she quietly killed with the King of Illusions, one bandit after another from behind.

They simply could not detect the presence of the King of Illusions and could only be mercilessly harvested by it.

Mizuiro Yoshioka also occasionally popped her head out to cooperate with Du Qianqian’s actions and open fire, providing covering fire to make everything look more real.

The number of enemies was limited, after all; one less with each death, and soon they were successively falling.

"Only you left!" Du Qianqian feigned horror as she seized the last bandit, "What do we do now!"

"What do we do? You tell me!" he yelled desperately, "Weren’t you the one who..."

"Yes, it was I who killed you all." Du Qianqian pressed the King of Illusions to his chest and fired, piercing directly through his chest. His eyes bulged, blood splattered, and he fell back limply.

Mizuiro Yoshioka pressed her forehead, the skirmish worsening her headache, feeling as if several capacitors on the circuit board were blown out, affected by the electromagnetic grenades thrown by the bandits.

But she couldn’t let Du Qianqian worry, because Du Qianqian was psychologically fragile. Mizuiro Yoshioka knew.

When she crawled up from the bottom of the hill and ran to Du Qianqian’s side, she saw only Du Qianqian smiling as she looted the bandits’ bodies.

Aluminum cans, nutrient paste, keys, knives, simple tools... Du Qianqian wasn’t concerned with these. She only searched their bags, pocketing the cash cards with passcode locks first. There were also quite a few anonymous cash cards, their funds all transferred to her own card.

Progress: 531/300,000,000

"They are so poor!" Du Qianqian yelled in disappointment, "How can they be this poor!"

"The money is probably all with their boss, when they turn to banditry," Mizuiro Yoshioka said with a smile, "We’ll have Kong Tai and the others come and take over this village."

"Then I can’t enjoy all the spoils of war by myself," Du Qianqian figured, "I’m going to attack them tonight."

"Having lost so many companions, they will definitely be on high alert, or even sweep everything away and move out," Mizuiro Yoshioka said, "Attacking the village directly now is the safest move."

"...Fine." Du Qianqian didn’t want to argue and reluctantly agreed.

After sending a message to Kong Tai, he arrived with 30 soldiers, surrounding the village from different directions in team formation and slowly advancing.

The bandits in the village were panicking because of the loss of their companions. Fearing every rustle of leaves, they kept sending out people to scout for information, but ended up falling into Kong Tai’s ambush, one by one being captured alive, until only the gang leader and his three confidants remained, who, faced with the situation, had no choice but to lay down their arms and surrender.

As Du Qianqian swaggered into the village, the bound gang leader went mad, desperately shouting at Kong Tai, gesturing to Du Qianqian’s presence: "Catch him, too! He’s with Black Fire Innovation! He’s got a Shuttle Machine dropped nearby!"

Du Qianqian burst into laughter, while Kong Tai merely shrugged. At this moment, the gang leader suddenly realized they were in cahoots and broke into a cold sweat.

"Tell me the password to the cash card," threatened Du Qianqian, "or I’ll kill you."

The gang leader stuttered out the password, and Du Qianqian overlaid the two cards, inputted the password, and received the gang leader’s money, a total of 2,400 funds.

"How can you be so poor," frowned Du Qianqian, "are you even professional robbers?"

The gang leader swallowed his saliva and then started to complain about how life was so unsatisfactory.

"Who’s the richest here? I’ll go straight for the richest," Du Qianqian said, her head held high.

"Li Gaoping!" he yelled, "Yidu City’s richest man, Li Gaoping, he’s got money!"

"Now is not convenient to go to Yidu City," Du Qianqian knew it was a big city of Silla, and there might be some checking measures that could see through her Magic Power disguise, "Is there any other wealthy place we could hit?"

"Don’t know," he said dejectedly, "you should head north."

Kong Tai set up camp in the village, gathered the villagers, opened up the supermarket occupied by the bandits, distributed the supplies to them, and started to consider their next move.

"Ah, fellow countryman, I heard that there’s a Righteous Army in Silla?" Kong Tai asked, "What are they for?"

"We don’t know what they want to do," lamented the impoverished villager, "War, war, war, a good life turned into this. They call themselves ’Righteous Army’, but who crowned them ’righteous’? Themselves?"

Du Qianqian scavenged the supermarket and found about 700 funds.

"I got 4 thousand today, it would take me 200 years to earn 300 million," said Du Qianqian, "it looks like I really have to rob Li Gaoping."

"He’s a wealthy man, protected by a large army and the city, you know," Mizuiro Yoshioka sat on a broken chair.

"We are witches, the most powerful and unbridled," nodded Du Qianqian, "his good days are coming to an end, I say."

Du Qianqian watched as the villagers piled up firewood on the open ground, boiled water in primitive ways, soaked the Nutrient Paste found in the supermarket to make a porridge which they relished, and then collected the leftovers, mixing them with some tuberous crops they dug up to make a larger batch of porridge.

"Nowadays country folks don’t have implants. There was a time when we had a power outage for half a year," said a villager, "and all batteries were stolen. Anyone with cyber implants eventually died for lack of power; they had food and drink but were paralyzed without electricity. Batteries became too important; bandits needed batteries the most."

With no electricity or internet at night, they made do with the moonlight, and Du Qianqian looked at the quiet and chilly night, the whole village whisper quiet.

To conserve energy, the villagers went to bed early, and not one was a local, all of them having fled the cities for the countryside. The original villagers were all killed during the first raids.

Those who filled their places used to live relatively decent lives before they fled: Du Qianqian learned after some inquiry that many were company employees, clerks, administrators, and some were skilled workers and maintenance workers. But their skills had no place here; whether bandits, warlords, or companies came by, they would help with maintenance and tidy up in exchange for food.

Many others were killed or starved to death; Du Qianqian didn’t see a single woman. The robust folks were the first to join violent groups, transforming themselves from victims to perpetrators, leaving the weak behind to perish in random calamities.

Surviving in such poverty felt absurd to Du Qianqian. People outside had no idea what Silla was really like.

Silla, ravaged by war, was like wasteland, but people could still survive under such conditions. Du Qianqian lay in an empty room in the village dwelling, pondering over this fact repeatedly.

Living in such desperate conditions was initially shocking, but Du Qianqian found she adapted quickly; insects everywhere, everything was muddy and overgrown with weeds, much like her previous life.

She felt far removed from the noisy, bustling corporate cities, far from those luxurious fantasies, leaving her with only her undiminished ambition.

Silla was filled with treasures; all she needed to do was bravely reach out and grab, regardless of warlords, tycoons, or the Righteous Army. They should all tremble and be mocked under the dominion of a witch.