Previous Chapter ◊ Table of Content ◊ Next Chapter

Chapter 53: A+A (I)

---

Shang Ke gave all of his cultivation and the fruit of his labors, to Yan Lu. The moment Yan Lu had succeeded in his tribulation, Shang Ke’s consciousness returned to the System space.

System: 【Main Mission, completed.】

Shang Ke: “…Just what is the meaning of that comma?”

System: 【According to the system’s calculation, the probability of Host completing the penalty mission does not surpass 35%.】

“So?”

【For Host to be able to complete a difficulty x2 penalty mission is completely outside of the system’s calculations. The system shall re-adjust the Host’s evaluation.】

“What kind of evaluation do you have of me?”

【A Heroic Degree lower than expected value. A Completion Degree lower than average value.】

Shang Ke: “……”

He decided to ignore the explosive injury by the System. After all, the mission was finally completed. Although he had some regrets, they were not too painful. It was probably knowing that they would meet again in the next world that set his heart at ease.

System: 【The penalty mission does not have rewards, but the skills you have chosen before can be further progressed. The curse halo shall continue.】

“Curse halo? If you hadn’t mentioned it then I would have forgotten it.” Shang Ke thought a moment, then asked strangely, “Just what is the condition for activating the curse halo? It appeared once in the last world, but in the end, it didn’t show itself again..”

The System explained: 【The condition for activating the curse halo is—for “evil”. The definition “evil” has no clear boundaries, it is based mainly on Host’s moral quality.】

Shang Ke: “……”

【Choose a skill to improve for now. Of course, Host can also choose to enter the next world directly.】

How could he give up the chance to learn skills and adjust his mood in the Hundred Training Space?

The present skills Shang Ke had lit up were 【Cooking】, 【Musical Instruments】(Piano, Flute, Violin), 【Weaving】, 【Hacking (Intermediate)】, 【Martial Arts (Primary)】… 

He did not hesitate to promote his martial arts and hacking skills. 

After he came out from the Hundred Training Space, Shang Ke commenced the journey to his next world… 

A dense fishy smell saturated the air while cries of alarm and the sound of strikes flooded his ears. Shang Ke opened his eyes and found himself standing on top of a metal tower. Below him were densely packed… bugs?!

One after another, pumpkin-sized black beetles flocked toward his position like a tide. They were beaten back by the electric current that defended the wall, but as one died, another would immediately take its place. The defensive wall burned through its power source quickly under this kind of attack. The defenses were failing rapidly. They likely wouldn’t last much longer.

Around Shang Ke were countless soldiers, traveling back and forth as they sought a bunker, picked up their weapons and attacked the bug tide with all their might. A beam of light energy shot out from somewhere and fried its way through the group, causing a large expanse of green mucus to splash about. But the black bugs did not feel any fear. They advanced dauntlessly like a wave, throwing themselves forward in a race to kill off all the soldiers.

Isn’t this a bit much? 

Shang Ke looked at the ground before him, littered with bugs, and felt his scalp go numb. The dishonest System always likes to send him to the wrong place and the wrong time. His heart nearly gave out from shock.

Finally, Shang Ke started to receive the basic information of this world. 

The current planet he was on was called Aima and there were six genders on this planet. The male alpha, beta and omega, and the female alpha, beta and omega.

Alphas have congenitally strong builds and high levels of power, they are natural fighters and leaders. Betas have average ability and can impregnate and conceive, but their pregnancy rates were very low. Omegas have weak constitutions and experience a mating period when they reach adulthood. They could emit a pheromone that attracts alphas and their birth rates are high.

Three types with betas being the most common and omegas being the rarest.

Shang Ke’s identity in this world was an alpha about to graduate from the Royal Military University. His name was Filmore and he was dispatched to the north of Ourui Empire, Via City, to participate in the three month inspection mission. After the three months, the local commanding officer would grade them. The exceptional ones would have a higher starting point and a greater chance at a promotion.

Filmore was born into a declining military aristocratic family. His family once produced two Generals—one of them was even a four-star general. Five other family members had been military officers and many were government officials. But ever since the last military officer passed away, there hadn’t been another senior military officer produced by his family in a hundred years. The highest they reached was only lieutenant. 

By the time it reached his grandfather’s generation, their family had started to shift their focus to business to slowly accumulate an impartial wealth. However, their family’s prestige in the army was practically already obliterated. Filmore was the only younger generation of their family that had made it into the Royal Military University in nearly twenty years, his family placed high hopes on him.

But after he entered school, Filmore, who had originally been study-oriented and focused, fell in love with an omega named Ryan. In an effort to court this omega, Filmore had pulled all the stops, abandoning his studies and spending money like water.

An omega is rare, and one blessed with an outstanding appearance naturally did not lack suitors. The strongest contender among them was an alpha named Zeka. 

Zeka was different from Filmore. He came from a new power family and his father was the Empire’s vice admiral. His position was stately and dignified. To add on to that, personality-wise he was also very outstanding. No matter if was in appearance or ability, he was far superior to Filmore. But he does have one weak point, that being that he is very fickle. The number of omegas he had courted reached at least the double digits. In a time when omegas were rare, this kind of “wasteful” exploit really irritated people.

Filmore felt that with the depth and purity of his feelings, it was not set in stone that he would lose to Zeka. So while the other suitors gave up, he persevered.

Zeka did not really like Ryan all that much, but he was irritated by Filmore challenging him. So he took the chance of the inspection mission that one needed to participate in to graduate to have Filmore sent to the far Via City in the dark. What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t care for.

But he didn’t expect that the mission this time would turn out to be so deadly.

Via City was the second C level defensive line of the north border, classified as a relatively important strategic location. However, there hadn’t many large battles in the last few years. At most, they were dealing with a few arthropods that snuck through the border.

Not long after Filmore had arrived at Via City and reported in, the arthropod army had quietly bypassed Cantes Mountain Range, and started to storm the Northern border frontier. In a short three days, the arthropods had broken through the first defensive line and were forcing their way to the second.

Originally with the Empire’s military strength, they were strong enough to respond to the arthropod’s attack. However, the situation was different this time, because the arthropods started up a frightening sandstorm. The so-called sandstorm was made up of two hundred thousand or more of the electromagnetic bugs exploding at the same time to start a particle resonance. Wherever the storm covers, any nearby electronics would malfunction and produce radiation. It was very destructive toward the human body.

The frontier defenses of the northern border could only retreat for the time being until the storm passes so they could strike back. As for Via City, because of its special geographical location within a sluggish area of the arthropod sandstorm, it became the only defensive line capable of stopping the arthropods.

The longer Via City can stand, the more prepared the other withdrawing and warmongering armies would be. If they fell before the arthropod sandstorm ended, then it would be not only the soldiers of the border area, but the other two frontier cities, holding over four hundred thousand common citizens, that would be in danger.

As such, whether or not Via City can hold down the fort and for how long became a crucial point for victory and defeat.

But most of the people were not optimistic about the situation there, because Via City only has C level military power. Their weapon and energy reserves are unable to last over ten days of continuous fights. Even if the reserves were adequate, the physical strength of sixty thousand soldiers would never last long enough.

If it was under normal conditions, the logistic area and the frontier defense would have a quick shipment of goods so the front would not have to fear trouble in the rear. However, Via City was now a lone city that must withstand the countless numbers of the arthropod army under the condition of having no reinforcement.

Although the circumstances were not optimistic, the outside world all believes that Via City could stand for at least seven days. However, according to the original plotline, Via City had only held on for four days before falling. Perhaps fate was feeling unfavorable because all the commanding officers in Via City fell into some kind of accident and either became seriously injured in battle or directly died. In the end, Filmore had become the highest ranked, bodily sound commanding officer.

For students of the Royal Military University, as long as they graduate, they would obtain the rank of second lieutenant immediately. For the soldiers in the border area, most of them were warrant officers and common soldiers. Although Filmore has not formally graduated, he participated in the mission inspection under the identity of a military officer. During a crisis, he would temporarily take over the command and guide the barely forty thousand remaining soldiers to resist the arthropods.

But Filmore had faltered during such a crucial point, because he was very clear about the results of this battle. Before the arthropod sandstorm ends, Via City would receive no help. The fight would end in a complete wipeout, the only difference being how long they would last.

Filmore didn’t want to die, nor did he have the resolution and courage to fight to the end. As such, he chose to flee.

Although the arthropod sandstorm carried radiation, for the physically strong alphas there was a high probability of passing through the storm relatively unharmed. The only problem was that it would leave some residual effects. Compared to some residual effects, saving his own life was more important, so Filmore had quietly snuck out of Via City while the remaining soldiers fought with all they had.

He had planned to conceal his identity after he returned to the capital so to let others believed that he had died in battle. In that way, he would not need to bear infamy as a deserter and would be able to bring glory to his family. 

His escape of the battlefield did not seem important at first, but because of it, the entire army lost their commander and the soldiers were thrown into confusion. Morals fell and they were quickly breached by the fierce attacks of the arthropods. The soldiers fell one by one until none remained.

Not only that, but because the arthropods breached the defensive line ahead of predictions and rushed for the next line, in the following six and seven days, the lives of around fifty thousand soldiers were taken along with nearly one hundred and thirty common citizens. The tragic conflict only ended after the arthropod sandstorm ended and reinforcements arrived to put an end to them.

Filmore, who had run away during the battle, suffered the denouncement of countless people and underwent a court-martial trial. Although he was not sentenced to death, his family was shamed and their business took a nosedive and was quickly bankrupted. As for himself, because of the radiation’s effect, his body became progressively weaker day by day. In addition to his poverty-stricken life and being fully snubbed, what remained to him was infamy he could not erase. So he departed the world at the age of thirty-five. 

The time to which Shang Ke transmigrated to was exactly where their lives were on the line as they confronted the neverending arthropod army. Filmore had chosen to flee while he could only choose to face the attack.

【Main Mission: Promote to Senior Colonel within ten years.】

Shang Ke couldn’t quite stifle the urge to swear. He didn’t know if he could live past ten days, and the mission actually wanted him to promote to Senior Colonel within ten years!

According to the System’s information, the arthropod sandstorm would last for thirteen days. Subtracting the two that had already passed, there were still eleven more days until it was over.

In other words, he has to survive these bitter eleven days first before he could consider the possibility of completing the long ten year period of his main mission.

Damn it, what happened to easy and difficult mode missions alternating? The past world was a difficulty x2 mission, this world should be an easy mode mission!

【The penalty mission is not included within the count. May Host persist on living and die heroically.】

Shang Ke: “……”

---

Previous Chapter ◊ Table of Content ◊ Next Chapter