Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 321 After the War
And indeed, things turned out exactly as Li Wei had predicted.

After the Empire's mech forces entered the fray, the monsters were completely routed. Although they had previously managed to defeat Hound-class mechs, the Hound mechs were primarily used for reconnaissance, not combat, and were essentially fragile small tanks, so their destruction was not surprising. However, this time, the Knight mechs, the backbone of the Empire, arrived, and they had no problem dealing with a few monsters that were only human-sized, capable of flight, but already stunned by the attack.

Before long, the monsters in the cave were all wiped out. Only when he heard the system notification that the task was completed did Li Wei breathe a sigh of relief and lean against the cave wall with a speechless expression.

It has to be said that Li Wei hasn't encountered such a humiliating battle in a long time.

In general, Li Wei prefers to be well-prepared, fully armed, and to fight with superior numbers and strength before taking action.

The problem is, this time the situation is different; Li Wei's goal is to rescue people. But reality isn't like a game. Even in a life-or-death rescue mission, you can control your character to take a nap, eat to recover health, repair weapons, upgrade skills, allocate skill points, and then rush into the dungeon to fight the boss, still having enough time to rescue your target.

In reality, if you had that much time, the boss would have already meticulously chopped up the person you were trying to save, made dumplings, and eaten them.

The plumber rescuing the princess was a scenario that, in reality, would lead to the princess and Bowser having a child.

To make matters worse, Li Wei had just fought a fierce battle with high-ranking vampires in Caesarblanca, suffering heavy losses. Even his silver-armored knights had self-destructed, and new ones hadn't been built yet. The unmanned turrets were also being repaired or replaced as needed. As a result, Li Wei's only capable frontline combat force right now was the Death Puppet that the system had given him when he went down into the Rune Mine.

Actually, that wouldn't be a big deal. Li Wei's original plan was to rush in, rescue people, and then escape. According to his plan, as long as he could hold them off for a while and rescue Dr. Franco and Qi Ya, everything would be fine.

However… the task given by the system was completely opposite to Li Wei’s plan.

It actually intends to completely annihilate this group of alien creatures?

Li Wei felt like he had originally come to steal the cassock, but his mission was changed to kill Tang Sanzang and his disciples... What should he do?
I'll just have to bite the bullet and go for it. I'll take the gamble and maybe even achieve immortality.

What if we can't win?
If you can't win, just run away. What else can you do?

However, it seems that there is sometimes a gap between the system's goals and my own ideas.

Li Wei frowned, deep in thought. This mission, for example, only required Li Wei to rescue Franco and Qi Ya, but the system's objective was to eliminate the monster, seemingly completely disregarding Franco and Qi Ya's fate. However, upon closer reflection, the system only issues missions when encountering mysterious events; it doesn't care about ordinary cases, whether murder or anything else. In other words, the system only cares about events related to the mysterious.

Therefore, when encountering ordinary people and mysterious things, the system clearly prefers the latter over the former.

Hmm... We need to take this into consideration later. Although there's not much loss if we fail at the tasks given by the system, as a relative perfectionist, Li Wei still doesn't want to see "Task Failed" in his task log.

Oh right, let's see what we got from this mission. We worked so hard to complete it, we can't just leave empty-handed.

Li Wei opened the system and glanced at the task list.

[Mission "Enemy of the Universe" Completed]

[Time consumed: s]

Survey efficiency: S

[Impact/Effect: S]

Overall Rating: SSS

[Lifespan +300, additional +150]

"………………………"

Li Wei wanted to complain, but after thinking about it carefully, compared to the idols and high-level vampires he had encountered before, this alien monster wasn't that powerful. At most, it could fly and use lightning and ice weapons...

For people of this era, it might be impressive, but for Li Wei… it seems like nothing special…

In an action game, this would be like a small monster that can unleash fire and ice attacks, stronger than a regular monster, but not much stronger.

[Acquire weapon: Blade of Heavenly Punishment]

What the hell?

Li Wei curiously clicked it, and the next moment, there was a loud "clang" and a giant sword appeared out of thin air, almost knocking Li Wei down!
Luckily, he reacted quickly! He hurriedly dodged to the side, letting the sword whiz past him and smash into the cave wall!
What the hell is this!

Li Wei stared wide-eyed in astonishment at the greatsword lying beside him, completely bewildered. From the outside, the sword seemed unremarkable. The silver-white blade, hilt, and guard all emitted a faint glow, giving it a somewhat holy sword-like feel.

But... damn, this sword is way too big!

Li Wei compared them and found that the sword's blade was taller than him, and Li Wei was already 1.9 meters tall!
This sword has a blade that is at least two meters long!

Is this for human use?
Li Wei looked at the sword hilt, which he could barely grip with both hands, swallowed hard, and then reached out to hold it. Perhaps this thing, like the Golden Cudgel, could extend and retract freely; if so, that would be quite nice.

However, dreams are often grand, while reality is often harsh.

Li Wei gripped the thing, which neither shrank nor grew larger; it simply leaned silently against the cave wall. Li Wei felt as if he were holding a steel plate; he used all his strength, but he couldn't move the thing an inch.

Forget it, I'll just put it away. This thing isn't suitable for me to use. I'll just make a mecha doll for it later.

Li Wei took a breath, silently snapped his fingers, put the greatsword away, and then continued to look at the next reward.

【Strength +5】

...........................

Even if you increased my strength to 500, I still wouldn't use that broken sword to fight! Li Wei almost fainted. Was this system deliberately trying to annoy him?
Skill Level +1

Thank goodness, there's something usable. Li Wei felt his blood pressure, which had spiked earlier, drop back down.

This time, however, Li Wei didn't continue to upgrade [Puppeteer]. Although his [Puppeteer] was already LV7, and one more level would grant him another Puppeteer skill, Li Wei thought about it and decided to upgrade this time on... [Witcher]!

[Witcher level upgraded to LV2]

[Gain professional skill — Multishot (When this skill is activated, the number of ranged weapons the user has is considered as X2 attack)]

Yes, Not Bad.

Looking at this skill, Li Wei nodded in satisfaction.

The meaning of the skill 【Multi-Shot】 is quite clear. Simply put, when attacking, a ranged weapon is treated as two. In other words, Li Wei can fire the bullets of two guns with one gun.

So if Li Wei uses two guns—that's equivalent to launching an attack with four guns at the same time!
Don't underestimate this X2.

Because this applies to all ranged weapons.

So theoretically speaking, even if Li Wei were to operate a mortar, that would still be X2. A howitzer, that would also be X2. A naval gun… would also be X2.

This will greatly enhance our firepower!

After all, Li Wei also suffers from a fear of insufficient firepower. The reason he didn't continue to add points to the Puppeteer class, but instead prioritized unlocking the [Multi-Shot] skill for the [Witcher] class, was precisely for this purpose.

The only downside is that this skill only works on ranged weapons; melee attacks don't benefit from it. Otherwise, if Li Wei could manipulate the puppet and make one slash equal to two slashes, wouldn't that double the damage and make him incredibly wealthy?

It's even more profitable than Pinduoduo.

"Report to the captain!"

Not long after Li Wei finished reading the rewards for this mission, he saw Henry reappear in front of him, panting, and salute him.

"The enemy has been annihilated."

"Yes, thank you for your hard work... How is Dr. Franco doing?"

"The doctor has been sent to the Steel City for treatment. The accompanying doctor has given him emergency treatment. At present, his vital signs are normal and he should be out of danger."

"That's good."

"only……………"

"but?"

"Many of the brothers who fought those monsters are not in a stable mental state right now, and quite a few soldiers have even reacted hysterically..."

"…………………"

As for what?
Li Wei simply couldn't understand why these soldiers would have mental breakdowns upon seeing that monster. Of course, it would be one thing if they couldn't defeat it, but they had clearly killed it, yet they still had mental breakdowns? What kind of mental breakdowns were they having?
"Give them a good talking-to, or maybe give them some drinks or something..."

"We have started administering sedatives."

"Oh, that's good... By the way, those who reacted should no longer be allowed to participate in these kinds of battles; they should be transferred elsewhere."

"Yes, Captain."

Henry knew, of course, that Levy wasn’t referring to the ordinary soldiers, but to the steam-powered soldiers under his command. Clearly, if someone could break down and become hysterical just by seeing such a monster, they were not suited to carry out MI7 missions.

"Also, those monsters simply evaporated and disappeared after being killed..."

"Oh, not surprising, some creatures are like that."

If Annie were here, she would probably let Levi capture her alive, but Levi obviously wouldn't waste his energy.

Thankfully, Annie wasn't there.

"This is the equipment we salvaged from the place where those monsters disappeared."

As he spoke, Henry took out some strange things. Levi looked at them; they looked like black doorknobs with a coil of wire wrapped around them. Although he didn't know how they were made, Levi guessed that these things were probably what those monsters used to launch lightning.

And that thing that used to freeze his Death Puppet, which sprayed icy mist, has been blown to pieces.

And that strange cube...

"Take all of these back to MI7 and let them study them."

Li Wei knew these weren't evil artifacts of black magic, but rather products of alien technology from outer space. Many science fiction movies depict humans finding alien technology and then reverse-engineering it; Li Wei wanted to see if Benjamin could use this alien equipment to develop some entirely new, deadly weapon.

After all, if he could invent a brand new weapon, it would greatly help improve his strength, wouldn't it?
(End of this chapter)