Life Game In Other World
Chapter 452: Homecoming (Long - )

Chapter 452: Chapter 452: Homecoming (Long Chapter)

Kaye City is northwest of Dawn City and is an important industrial city in the east of the Federation. It’s also a major source of industrial goods for large eastern cities such as Ains City and Dawn City.

The trade route from Kaye City to Ains City runs nearby Limen City.

Of course, this important trade route doesn’t pass through Limen City nor the road that once was eroded by Phantom Mushrooms. Instead, it’s a direct highway to Ains City, maintained by the Federation, complete with outposts and supply stations along the way.

The road where He Ao was now was a minor road leading from Limen City to this trade route.

Convoys carrying supplies regularly passed through here on their way to Limen City.

The convoy up ahead, bearing the emblem of Stars City, seemed to be one such trading group.

But compared to other convoys, this one seemed a bit too ’minimalist’, consisting only of several armed all-terrain vehicles and two small trucks.

This type of ’micro convoy’ typically engages in trade with Wilderness Wanderers, selling items like medications and firearms that the Federation restricts.

Such items are sought-after commodities in the wilderness.

As the convoy slowly approached, He Ao turned on his car’s lights, stepped on the gas, and burst out of the roadside bushes.

"Who?"

The driver of the lead all-terrain vehicle immediately hit the brakes and called out alertly.

At the same time, a burly man in the back seat placed his hand on a box under his seat.

Nolanka Group is one of the Federation’s largest industrial conglomerates. Although most of its industry is in light manufacturing, its heavy industry is not far behind.

In terms of scale of arms production alone, Nolanka Group could rank second in the Federation, the only issue being that it lacked cutting-edge Mecha and fighter technologies, making the arms sector less profitable.

But this was not something ordinary gangs or Wilderness Wanderer organizations could afford to provoke.

It had been a long time since the driver had encountered someone daring to block a Nolanka Group convoy.

He kept a tight watch on He Ao’s all-terrain vehicle, activating the machine gun’s auto-aim function mounted on top of his.

He Ao, on the other hand, turned his head to signal his daughter to stay put inside the car, then his figure instantly vanished and reappeared inside the armed all-terrain vehicle, between the driver and the co-driver.

"I’m looking for Roger."

His tone was calm, but all movements froze in an instant.

The burly man in the back row reached for the button on the box, but He Ao gently pressed his hand, "Don’t move."

The muscles in the burly man’s arm bulged, and his face turned red, but no matter what, he couldn’t move the seemingly frail hand pressing his even slightly.

"I’m looking for Dr. Roger. He should be in your convoy. I’m his friend. Tell him, and he’ll understand," He Ao said, turning his head back to the driver.

A drop of cold sweat emerged on the driver’s forehead as he picked up the vehicle’s communicator and dialed an internal number, "Dr. Roger, there’s someone here to see you..."

He raised his head to glance at He Ao, who was smiling, continuing with a tremble in his voice, "He says he’s your friend."

"My friend?"

There was a pause on the other end of the communicator, then it seemed to recall something, "Wait a moment, I’ll come over right away."

The beeping sound of the communicator hanging up followed.

With a tremble, the driver raised his head, looking nervously at He Ao.

"Thank you."

He Ao nodded at him slightly.

"It’s nothing, nothing."

Sweat soaked through the driver’s back, drenching his clothes.

He had heard many stories of merciless, unconstrained criminals stranded in the wilderness — before, he thought he would never encounter such people.

Now...

He dared not speak.

Time ticked by, perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a couple of hours — the stillness of the night seemed to stretch time unbearably long.

Finally, a middle-aged doctor in a white coat, with somewhat disordered hair, approached them. He glanced at He Ao inside the all-terrain vehicle, "Are you the one who called me?"

"Yes."

He Ao’s figure instantly vanished and reappeared beside Roger.

In that very instant, the burly man who had been kept under He Ao’s pressure pulled out a black box from under his seat and pressed the button on it.

The box unfolded, revealing handgrips for insertion. His hands slipped inside, and the box started peeling away layer by layer like an onion, rapidly covering the man.

It soon became a full-body black Mecha suit.

He Ao glanced at the Mecha, faintly seeing some aspects of his original Adam-1 model, but it had greatly diverged from it.

Clearly, this Mecha was a highly simplified version of the simplified Adam-1 model he had originally designed.

The materials used were also of lesser quality compared to Adam-1, and so was the power output. The deployment time was too long — with the time it took to deploy, he could have killed the burly man a dozen times over.

But clearly, this Mecha was not designed to battle C-level Transcendents. Its advantage lay in mass production.

The production plan for the simplified version of Adam-1, as laid out by He Ao, seemed to be progressing orderly.

According to the original plans, this portable, lightweight, black Mecha should be called ’Cain’.

He Ao’s attention returned, and at that moment, Roger was also sizing him up. After a long silence, Roger said in a slow voice, "You’re not quite what I pictured."

"How so?"

He Ao offered a cigarette to Roger, who waved it off.

Roger seldom smoked, believing that smoking could affect his thinking and make his lungs unseemly.

Of course, that was not something ’Pete’ should know.

He Ao put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it himself.

"I thought you’d be like those gruff-voiced, fierce-looking mercenaries," Roger said, looking at He Ao with a light laugh, "but in reality, you look more like an office worker who should be employed by some corporate group, with a happy family to boot."

"People always have many facets, right?"

He Ao exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Your smoking, it reminds me of a friend of mine,"

Roger glanced at He Ao.

"Oh?" He Ao squinted against the night sky and the wilderness, "What’s he like?"

"A foul-mouthed, reckless old geezer," Roger followed He Ao’s gaze, a bright moon hovering over the wilderness, "But in great shape, sometimes quite admirable."

"Sounds like a very interesting person,"

He Ao said after taking a drag of his cigarette, his voice relaxed.

"So why did you ask me to come here?"

Roger looked at He Ao.

The meeting today had been agreed upon five days before during a phone call when Roger mentioned he would be following a caravan to Ains City, collecting some experimental materials along the way in the wilderness. That’s when He Ao had arranged to meet him on this small trail leading to Limen City.

Of course, at that time, He Ao did not know where this trail was; it was Eve who had looked it up and told him.

"I have a favor to ask of you..."

He Ao chatted with Roger for a few sentences.

Then he extinguished his cigarette and waved in the direction of his small off-road vehicle.

Ennie, who was dozing off in the car, looked at her father beckoning in a daze and, still half-asleep, got off the car and jogged over, "Dad, what’s up?"

"This is your Uncle Roger,"

He Ao said, pointing at Roger.

Ennie eyed the nervous driver and passengers in the off-road vehicle and the man in the strange armor, before finally setting her gaze on the brown-haired Roger.

"Hello, Uncle Roger."

The little girl greeted him politely.

"This is your daughter?" Roger asked, somewhat surprised as he looked at Ennie. "She does look a bit like you, but she’s much prettier."

He Ao: ¿

"My dad was also very handsome when he was young."

Ennie giggled, holding her father’s hand.

"You can obviously tell, my genes are fine."

He Ao shrugged, ruffling Ennie’s hair, "Uncle Roger is a very skilled doctor. He’s going to teach you some medical knowledge, so be sure to thank your teacher."

"?" Roger looked puzzled, "Did we just talk about this?"

However, Ennie had already reacted quickly, bowing deeply, "Thank you, Teacher Roger, for being willing to guide me."

Roger looked at the father and daughter, amused yet helpless, "You two are really cut from the same cloth, aren’t you?"

But unknowingly, his relationship with He Ao and Ennie had grown much closer, lacking the initial feeling of strangeness.

"Uncle Roger will be accompanying us for a while, and during this time he will teach you some basic combat, nursing, and medical knowledge,"

He Ao, leading Ennie, walked back to his off-road vehicle.

"Wasn’t it just medical knowledge earlier? Don’t go too far."

Roger protested.

"Thank you, Teacher Roger, you really know so much, so impressive."

Ennie gave Roger an admiring look.

Roger closed his mouth.

Over the years, he had dealt with female corpses far more often than with living women.

He Ao still trusted Roger’s character.

And, given Regit’s years of understanding Roger, he knew that Roger preferred a corpse with clear muscular lines and aesthetics over a beautiful living woman.

Regit had once gone with Roger to Alisel to watch a striptease.

While Regit’s gaze lingered on the clothes the Dancing Girl was shedding, Roger was seriously explaining to the elderly man what the muscles of the striptease dancer should look like anatomically.

And he claimed that the Dancing Girl wasn’t as good-looking as Regit.

Since then, Regit made it a point to keep a physical distance from Roger.

However, it was for this reason that He Ao felt comfortable entrusting his daughter to Roger.

Roger said farewell to the Nolanka Group’s convoy and got into He Ao’s small off-road vehicle with him.

Ennie, sitting in the passenger seat, glanced at her father and then at Roger in the back seat, who was pulling out a mutated three-eared mouse that seemed already dead and observing something. She scratched her head, puzzled.

She couldn’t figure out what her father was trying to do.

The off-road vehicle slowly made its way through the night.

He Ao quickly returned to the Andavi Family Camp, buried the Shadow, and retrieved his luggage.

After saying goodbye to the Elderly Chief, he switched to a more spacious off-road vehicle and drove into the depths of the night.

"Dad, where are we going?"

Ennie rolled down the car window, letting the night wind blow through her hair.

He Ao looked up at the distant city lights twinkling like stars,

"Home."

In the back of the off-road vehicle, Roger had already used a scalpel to perfectly dissect the three-eared mouse into a skeleton and flesh.

No trace of flesh on the bones, not a sliver of bone in the flesh.

----

Andavi Family Camp.

In the silver metallic space, one painting after another was narrating the ancient family history.

An elderly hand, covered in age spots and with sagging skin, slowly put the sharp carving knife back into the dish on the side of the wheelchair after making the final mark.

The Elderly lifted his head to look at the mural in front of him, controlling the wheelchair to move back bit by bit.

The full scene of the mural appeared before his eyes.

It was a huge mural, with a colossal beast standing in the center, towering like a mountain. Beside it blazed fierce flames, and under its feet lay endless, eerie Phantom Mushrooms.

Even with the barrier between reality and fantasy, standing outside this mural, one could feel the suffocating oppression of the monstrous creature.

But between this beast and the viewer, in front of the beast, stood a figure with tattered clothes and wounds all over his body.

He wore a complex-patterned Fireproof Suit, his right hand wrapped around a helmet resting at his waist, and not far from his side lay motorbike parts consumed by the flames.

He stood there quietly, observing the terrifying and majestic creature, like a speck of dust gazing upon a deity.

Yet, he did not retreat even a step, his body held erect. Within that tiny frame seemed to be a mountain, unyielding and firm as heaven itself.