Life Game In Other World
Chapter 290: The Traitor and the Factory (Major - Please Favorite, Subscribe, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

Chapter 290: Chapter 290: The Traitor and the Factory (Major Chapter Please Favorite, Subscribe, and Vote for Monthly Tickets)

The dazzling laser cannon flashed by, and the intense brilliance made the originally bright light bulbs seem dim and dull.

Huge energy collided with the wall of the corridor, scorching a molten breach into it.

And in the pitch-black illuminated by this dazzling laser cannon, a ghostlike figure arrived in an instant.

Clang—

That was the sound of a sturdy blade striking metal.

The sharp curved knife tore through Hank’s clothes, stabbed into his body, piercing the sturdy synthetic chest armor and faintly revealing the sparking machinery inside.

In the instant the collision occurred, jets beneath Hank’s feet erupted, forcibly pulling him away from He Ao using the tremendous thrust.

But the curved knife hanging from his chest opened an even larger gash in his body.

He Ao didn’t press his attack further, instead, his gaze fell upon Hank’s chest.

However, his attention wasn’t on the huge gash that had been cut open, but rather on the synthetic skin of the chest.

To be precise, it was on the Ice Wolf tattoo on the synthetic skin, which had mostly been destroyed.

At that moment, he finally understood the identity of the person before him.

He grasped the curved knife in reverse and calmly looked at Hank, "Is this mechanized body what you traded the camp for?"

"You recognize me?"

Hank revealed a ferocious grin, with electric light leaking from the wound in his chest. He realized that he was most likely no match for He Ao.

At this moment, he stood before a sturdy iron railing, behind which were those who were imprisoned.

Those weakened people were also coming to their senses from the sudden change. The woman sitting at the forefront peered through the iron bars and saw He Ao standing outside. A glint of surprise flashed across her face, and a hoarse voice broke from her lips, "Leader?!"

Hank glanced at He Ao, placed his palm on the iron bars, the muzzle in his palm opened up, and he laughed, "Get out of here, or I’ll kill them."

He Ao stood by the dining table, halting his movements, watching the burly man before him.

This Hank was the ’Wilderness Wanderer’ who had abandoned the defensive line in the attack by the Bitter Monkey and fled.

Due to his desertion, the exotic beast broke through the line of defense, giving Wilderness Hunters the opportunity to infiltrate the core battlefield with mercenaries, leading to Ronald’s father being put at a disadvantage in the battle against the Bitter Monkey, gravely wounded.

Subsequent investigations revealed that this guy had taken money from the Wilderness Hunters to flee on purpose.

He wasn’t the refugee from a Wanderer Camp he claimed to be but a fugitive from Rock City in the north.

He Ao hadn’t recognized him immediately because when he arrived at the camp, his whole body was covered in damaged machinery, his face below the eyes nearly entirely destroyed, with only the remaining Ice Wolf pattern on his chest.

Soon before the incident, considering the merits Hank had accumulated, Ronald’s father planned to chip in some money to get him a brand-new mechanized body, but it turned out he had betrayed the camp.

At the time, to prevent wandering refugees from being ostracized by the camp’s natives due to this matter, Ronald’s father didn’t publicize the incident. Instead, he intensified the screening process for incoming wanderers and issued a bounty to capture the traitor.

But with the gradual decline of the camp, there were fewer and fewer resources to pursue the traitor, allowing him to remain at large until now.

Unexpectedly, this guy hid his identity and was lurking in Dawn City, still secretly luring other Wilderness Wanderers.

In some sense, this man’s desertion back then was one of the direct reasons leading to Ronald’s father’s death and the camp’s rapid decline.

"You really wouldn’t take action," Hank sneered as he watched He Ao calmly fixating on him,

"You really are just like your stubborn father, trapped in this sham sense of morality and unable to break free.

Actually, I knew when he said he’d get me a mechanized body, but what kind of mechanized body could he give me? At best, he could only get me a set of E-grade junk.

And the price offered by the Wilderness Hunters could get me a D-grade mechanized body. In the face of gold, even Kings must doff their hats, the fault lies only in the fact that you guys paid too little."

As Hank was speaking, a little brother trembling in the corner slowly raised his head, taking out a Gauss Gun from his bosom, gradually lifting the muzzle pointed at He Ao.

And He Ao seemed utterly captivated by Hank’s words, staring at him calmly.

"And these fools behind me, they couldn’t recognize me at all. I told them I was a Wilderness Hunter who had once received your damned father’s favor, and they actually believed it.

Using just a little bit of talk, they foolishly told me about your father’s death and your escape, and then followed me obediently into the city, thinking I could really find them work."

Hank smiled and continued, "Although, indeed, I was going to find them work."

In the midst of this conversation, the little brother had already aimed the gun at He Ao’s head, finger on the trigger.

"Leader, be careful!"

A short-haired girl approached the doorway. She saw the little brother’s actions and cried out in alarm.

Her words ignited the fuse for the entire situation.

The little brother hastily tried to press the trigger, while Hank swiftly raised his hands, darting towards the window to widen his distance from He Ao. At the same time, the muzzles on both of his palms opened up, aiming at He Ao.

In the split second between lightning and flint, He Ao fiercely pulled out the dagger stuck in the table and hurled it with a flick of his wrist.

The sharp dagger pierced the little brother’s throat just before he could pull the trigger, pinning him to the wall behind.

But at the same time, Hank, who had been aiming at He Ao ready to fire, suddenly felt an irresistible pull from the golden jewelry on the little box at the entrance, momentarily distracting him.

A lure!

By the time he came back to his senses, the sharp curved knife had already reached his front.

"You’re not D-grade?"

In this final moment, he could only hoarsely ask this question.

A flash of silver light, and the knife pierced his chest, carrying his body crashing into the window behind him.

Countless shards of glass scattered, and the sharp scimitar penetrated his energy core.

In that instant, dazzling electric light spilled from the wounds of his mechanized body, Hank’s robust form broke free from the earth, flying out the shattered window and into the vast night.

He Ao withdrew the scimitar and turned around.

Fierce flames erupted behind him, countless flying fragments hitting the wall, like brilliant fireworks illuminating the night.

Penny stood at the door, blankly watching this spectacular scene.

Her pace was a bit slower than He Ao’s, so she was a little late, but she didn’t expect that by the time she arrived, everything had already ended.

He Ao walked to the iron railing, next to it was a keypad that seemed to require a password to unlock the gate.

He glanced at the keypad, then simply lifted the scimitar and severed a few bars of the iron railing, dismantling it.

The people held in the corner looked up, dumbfounded at the figure who had taken down their confinement, the bright light shone upon him, coating his entire figure in a faint glow.

Like a messiah sent by the gods in stories.

"Leader."

The woman at the front opened her mouth, hoarsely calling out, her lips were dry, she tried to move but collapsed weakly to the ground, she felt like crying but no tears would come.

"Don’t worry,"

He Ao said softly, his gaze sweeping over the people detained there; each one had their heads raised, their gazes converged on him, a brilliance twinkling in their eyes at this moment.

He turned back and looked toward Penny who was approaching, "Check around, there should be some glucose injectors or Fast Recovery Nutrient Solution in this room; Wilderness Hunters always keep some of these."

"Ah, alright!"

Penny nodded and headed into the other rooms.

Meanwhile, He Ao watched the people who had been detained, there were a total of eight, all from the group that had gotten separated before.

But at the time, there should have been seventeen people who got separated alongside him.

He Ao crouched down and asked with confusion, "Where are the others? Did they get separated from you?"

The people looked at each other, uncertain where to start, eventually, the woman closest to He Ao spoke softly,

"They couldn’t endure the hunger and the beatings; they went to the factory."

"Factory?"

He Ao was startled.

"That Hank originally told us he’d bring us into the city to find work, that there was no danger in the city." A frail man beside her slowly added, "In reality, he wanted us to go to a factory."

"He said we would be fed and housed at the factory, there were no exotic beasts, and it was much better than living in the wilderness."

"We were all ready to go, but the night before we were to leave, Linda got up to use the restroom and ran into another Wilderness Wanderer, an old man. He had escaped from the factory and was caught by these people, and they beat him through the night."

Linda was the weak woman who had first spoken, Penny’s cousin, and one of the better hunters in the camp, He Ao shifted his gaze to her.

"I didn’t make a sound at the time," Linda said softly, "I waited until they had all rested before I went to find the old man."

At that moment, Penny brought out a box of bagged glucose injectors; He Ao tore them open and he and Penny distributed them to everyone.

After distributing them, Linda held her glucose injector ready to continue speaking, but He Ao gestured for her to drink some first,

"Don’t rush, have a drink first, take it slow."

The intestines and stomach of the famished were already damaged and their bodies extremely weak; the glucose injectors could be directly absorbed by the body to replenish energy, moisture, and electrolytes.

Linda looked at He Ao, obediently took a sip of the injector, and continued speaking,

"The old man said, work in the factory was all high-intensity; sixteen to eighteen hours a day, and if anyone slacked off, the foreman would whip them. Some people were beaten to death by the foreman, and some died accidentally falling into machinery because of prolonged lack of sleep and inattention.

The old man said that anyone who worked there would go gray in their twenties and die from exhaustion within a few years.

The foreman was from these Wilderness Hunters, and those who entered the factory, aside from room and board, didn’t get a single penny, as all the money went to the foreman. Most of the Wilderness Wanderers in there had expired visas, and if some tried to escape, the foreman threatened to hand them over to the City Defense Army and expel them from the city.

Even if some weren’t afraid of being expelled from the city and tried to sneak away, they would be captured by the foreman, hung in the corridor, and whipped."

"The old man took the chance when the foreman was not looking to run straight out of the factory, but he was old and his body had broken down in the factory; he couldn’t survive back in the wilderness and could only wander the streets, quickly caught again by these people."

At this point, Linda took another sip of the injector, "I told the others about this, and we originally planned to sneak away at night, but Hank found out, they split us into two groups and locked us up, starving and beating us. The others couldn’t bear it and were sent into the factory two days ago."

She paused, "We held out a little longer, but if you hadn’t come, we would have probably not lasted, entering the factory is death too, but at least it offers a few more days of life."

He Ao’s gaze became stern, "Does anyone know where the factory is?"

Although Ronald was thrust into leadership in a crisis, Hank’s words weren’t wrong; Ronald shared some traits with his father, such as a Leader’s sense of responsibility.

The main mission ’Seeking a New Home’ was also related to the camp’s Wanderers, and in He Ao’s estimation, gathering the Wilderness Wanderers as much as possible would likely enhance the main mission’s rating.

And with the news of this factory, he was beginning to unravel a thread for the method to complete the main mission; it was necessary for him to take a look at this factory.

Although all of Hank’s men were dead, according to these descriptions, there seemed to be no shortage of Wilderness Hunters in Dawn City involved in this trade. If Linda and the others didn’t know the factory’s address, He Ao thought that finding other Wilderness Hunters, he should have a way to ’ask’ it out of them.

"The old man mentioned it," Linda thought for a moment, as if recalling, "on No. 79 Avenue, number 135."