Qianyuan: My crew comes from the world of anime.

Instead, he first took a grand shower, meticulously trimmed his nails to the last hair, and adhered to the time almost obsessively—checking his watch every hour on the hour, as if anticipating some 'lucky time' for himself.

In fact—he was indeed waiting.

"..."

It's not that he's superstitious, but rather that gacha pulls truly have absolutely no probability of success.

After using the special recruitment ticket twice, he had basically figured out a certain pattern—first of all, it would definitely summon the 'profession' that Luo Tianming wanted.

Secondly, the summoned characters were not drawn as he had imagined—but rather were drawn from a range that roughly met the job requirements, completely random yet still satisfying his needs.

He had previously requested the positions of [Safety Officer] and [Ship's Doctor], and the recruitment vouchers sent him Levi and Takemi Myo respectively. Both of them were competent and responsible, and had no flaws whatsoever.

But that's it—

Well……

That's a bit too individualistic...

A smuggler, a female mercenary with dual pistols, and a crazy, experimental punk doctor—this cast is enough to make a Breaking Bad movie.

If another person who doesn't abstain from smoking or drinking were to join them, I feel like they would be burning their butts with cigarette butts in bed.

"..."

This time he wants an engineer, someone highly educated who should appear refined and cultured.

"..."

It's really hard to say. Luo Tianming quickly reviewed his impressions of scientists. Anyone who even remotely touches science is insane.

Therefore, he thought about it and decided that the required research capabilities of the engineers did not need to be too strong; as long as they could solve the daily problems of the submarine, it would be fine.

No, and it doesn't necessarily have to be an 'engineer' by training. As long as you're a genius with some mechanical and electronic knowledge, that's fine.

There aren't that many requirements regarding appearance, but it definitely has to be as beautiful as Revy and Takemi Tae.

Ideally, I'd like a cute girl with a bob haircut, young age, a nice figure, a kind and understanding personality, and preferably a mixed-race girl whose face conforms to both Eastern and Western beauty standards...

It would be even better if it had white hair and red eyes, which fit the description of "Chinese people".

"..."

He's treating the lottery mechanism like a wishing well.

Beep beep—!

The countdown timer he set on the bridge reminded him that it was almost the hour.

You must face east to draw a card on the hour; this is also part of the mystical aspect.

When the electronic clock showed the hour, Luo Tianming immediately opened the captain's log and wrote down the word "lottery".

"..."

As before, a graceful figure emerged from the white light. As the light faded, she opened her eyes, and everything around her looked so strange.

Of course, the strangest one was the man in a dark gray military uniform with his mouth open.

"...?"

"Are you the [Captain]?" She uttered some strange words, and strangely enough, she seemed to be aware of this change in language.

She frowned, scanning the computer-like data with her eyes: "Who changed my default language? I can't find any trace of it. Strange... Why can't I connect to the internet? There's no signal on the intranet or the black market...?"

At that moment, she finally remembered that she should ask the somewhat dazed man a question.

"Hey~ Where am I?"

Luo Tianming: "..."

The girl with the asymmetrical 'sister's head' quickly closed the distance to Luo Tianming, and the two were almost face to face. Her faintly glowing red pupils seemed to be flowing with something.

"..."

In fact, she was secretly investigating the human in front of her—collecting intelligence through an electronic prosthetic eye and sending this information to her brain prosthetic body. After her meticulous examination, she discovered that this was a native human with no traces of modification on his body.

(What happened?)

Have I been sent to a primitive society?

Luo Tianming then realized that she was investigating him.

So he looked at the girl and said:

"Have you found anything?"

The girl was startled: "!"

The expression on his face seemed to say: 'You clearly don't have any electronic devices, so how did you find me?'

After the initial shock, Luo Tianming gradually regained his composure: "You can't find anything, can you? There's no network like the one you're familiar with here. Even if there were, you wouldn't be able to access it without the necessary equipment."

Girl: "..."

She realized that as a cyber hacker, she was completely outmatched, and the only reasonable explanation she could get was from the man in front of her.

So she said, "Lucy, my name is 'Lucy'. Someone hacked into my brain prosthetic body and told me they could help me fulfill my wish... on the condition that I help someone called 'Captain'. I nodded and came here."

That's right, the girl who appeared in front of Luo Tianming was none other than Lucy, the genius and beautiful hacker from the famous Cyberpunk: Shadows of the Past.

That's why he was so shocked just now.

This was the first time Luo Tianming had ever seen such a 'colorful' white in real life... Lucy had an asymmetrical bob that was shorter on the left and longer on the right, and her hair seemed to have some kind of iridescent material that kept flowing with rainbow colors under the light.

Her small, delicate face was painted with red eyeshadow, making her look like the fox mask of Inari, the god of Japanese mythology.

What's most eye-catching about her is undoubtedly her breathtaking outfit.

She was wearing a tight-fitting, high-cut bodysuit, the material of which was somewhat similar to the pilot suit in Eva. The small jacket on her upper body was practically nonexistent, only covering her beautiful back... but her revealing lower body made Luo Tianming unsure where to look.

He had to exert all his strength to look away from her snow-white buttocks.

"..."

Luo Tianming nodded at her words: "I am Luo Tianming, roughly the [Captain]. As for your wish... I'm sorry, which part is it about?"

Lucy pursed her lips: "..."

She didn't seem to want to talk about it.

Luo Tianming then guessed, "You... are you trying to avoid 'Arasaka Corporation'?"

"!!"

Lucy's face changed almost instantly; she trembled with fear at the mention of the name: "How...how did you know?"

Luo Tianming: "Don't worry, there's no Arasaka Company here. We're on Europa."

Lucy: "Space development plan?"

Luo Tianming: "It's not what you imagine. This place is now cut off from Earth, so it's impossible for the company you're guessing to exist here."

"..."

She had absolutely no real feeling about this matter.

That shadow, like a childhood nightmare, that colossal Arasaka Corporation that haunted my midnight dreams... is gone?

She then asked, "Um, what year is it now? When did Arasaka Company cease to exist...?"

Luo Tianming shrugged: "I'd like to know about this too, but unfortunately, time feels different here than on Earth. Ever since Europa lost contact with Earth, time here has been a complete mess."

"However, I can probably tell you that people arrived on Jupiter around 21xx, and it doesn't have much to do with your world."

Lucy: "..."

She quickly fell silent. Luo Tianming understood her feelings—she had been instantly transported to a strange world, with no sense of reality around her.

It felt like a dream.

The reason Lucy is so afraid of the company called 'Arasaka' is because of her background.

She was born in an Arasaka Corporation facility in another country and was trained from a young age to be a cyber hacker specifically used to infiltrate the old network and extract profits.

Unfortunately, the job wasn't as good as they thought. They were like disposable 'wet parts' that could be plugged in and used immediately, and deep diving would cause them to die quickly.

Unwilling to die like this, they one day conceived the idea that "since we're going to die anyway, we might as well fight to the death and escape." They then, along with their surviving companions, murdered the Arasaka employees in the facility and successfully escaped to a sparsely populated area. After escaping the Arasaka facility, he traveled to many countries, eventually arriving in Night City… As for Lucy, who stood before Luo Tianming, according to her own account, she seemed to have come from 2075 and was being invited to join a team. Her wish was simple: to escape to a world without Arasaka and without cyberbullying. Therefore, she gradually developed a dream of going to the moon. Luo Tianming: "Sorry… I seem to have taken you too far."

After hearing Lucy's wish, he felt somewhat apologetic, after all, he was the one who suddenly brought Lucy into this world. The distance between Europa and the Moon is much greater than the distance between the Moon and Earth, undoubtedly increasing the difficulty of her dream. "Pfft~..." Upon hearing this, Lucy's face lit up with a bright smile, "You're so funny, I've never heard anyone say such a thing before."

She seemed to have calmed down a bit: "Never mind, going to the moon is just a way to escape Night City and Arasaka anyway, and I can't stay on the moon forever."

"But now I can be on Europa, it's a whole new world, right?"

Luo Tianming smiled and said, "I don't think there's anything good about this place. Besides the stifling submarine life, there are countless monsters and infighting among humans."

"That's perfect!"

“A hint of madness seemed to flicker in her eyes. “Doesn’t that mean there’s a lot of excitement and adventure?”

Luo Tianming: "Uh..." Wait a minute, his brain only started working at this moment—if Luo Tianming's memory wasn't wrong, this was actually a cybernetic female lunatic too. "..." Before he could change his mind, Levi's carefree voice came from the bridge entrance: "Yo!"

Do we have new people again?

"Takemi followed closely behind, and the Nautilus crew members gathered together. But when they saw Lucy, the atmosphere quickly became awkward. "...". Levi casually put her arm around Luo Tianming's shoulder, but her expression was full of mockery, and her tone seemed to be suppressing anger: "Hey, hey, hey, is it just my imagination?"

Why do I feel like this ship hasn't had a single male crew member since it started recruiting, while the women are getting prettier and prettier?

"Hey, Alo—can you explain this to me clearly?"

Luo Tianming: "...". Wu Jianmiao, standing next to him, added fuel to the fire: "This new little sister seems to be something else, with her mechanical body and electronic eyes... Are you looking to try something different with your mechanical tastes? Maybe you'll bring up a female robot next time?"

Luo Tianming: "..." He wanted to—but weren't all the fragments still missing? He was joking; saying something like that would be a death sentence... The muscles on Levi's arms weren't fake. "Ahem~" he coughed lightly, feigning seriousness, "What do you guys think?"

It's all for the sake of the crew's physical and mental well-being.

"One man on the ship is enough to make you worry, how could we possibly recruit another one..." The two women exchanged a glance, meaning: Nobody believes that! But since they were indeed quite concerned about other men on the ship, they simply stopped using that excuse to make things difficult for Luo Tianming. After the atmosphere was disrupted, Luo Tianming pulled Lucy aside and introduced her to them again: "This is Lucy Kushina, from now on she will be the [Engineer] on the Nautilus."

. . !

Lucy's expression was somewhat blank. She looked at Luo Tianming in astonishment, her eyes practically screaming, "Holy crap!" She hadn't revealed her 'real name,' yet three people already knew, and they didn't seem very friendly towards this newcomer. So she quickly added, "My name is Lucy, just call me Lucy."

"...". Levi and Takemi glanced back and forth between them. One had a smile on her face, her outward appearance impeccable, while the other looked flustered and clearly something was wrong. Something was fishy... there was definitely something fishy going on here.

Chapter 41 Newcomers Join the Ship

With another person added, the space on the ship felt even smaller.

The Nautilus was originally a T1 reconnaissance submarine, with a total length of only 48 meters. After cramming in a reactor, bridge, cargo hold, and medical room, there was not much extra space.

To Luo Tianming's surprise, Lucy actually chose to go to the power room located at the stern of the submarine, which is where the nuclear reactor is located.

As the second most dangerous place on the ship (the first being the ammunition depot), it was usually deserted, feeling like the 'end of the world' compared to the bustling bridge.

The only person who used to come here was Luo Tianming. The ship's nuclear reactor is automatically controlled, and he rarely comes here except for manual operation in overload mode.

The main reason is that there isn't much intense fighting right now, there are fewer malfunctions, and we haven't encountered any problems that would require the ship to go all out.

But as the exploration goes deeper, the future becomes uncertain.

Previously, the work that Luo Tianming and others had been doing in the cold cave was like the top layer of an iceberg. They were sailing in the safest waters of the vast Europa Ocean, trying their best to avoid trouble.

However, as they delve deeper, they are likely to encounter more and more troubles, which is one of the reasons why Luo Tianming has always attached great importance to improving the firepower of the Nautilus.

The engineer's job is to handle various malfunctions on the submarine. Other malfunctions are manageable: if there are holes in the submarine's structure, Levi and Luo Tianming can carry welding torches to repair them.

But if the reactor, circuits, and systems malfunction, they can only pray that the submarine doesn't sink before returning to its station.

Lucy's arrival was like filling in the last piece of an incomplete ship puzzle.

Luo Tianming found her choice somewhat difficult to understand:

"You don't have to stay here all the time."

Lucy lay on the ground, her hips raised as if tightening a screw that no one else was paying attention to, completely unconcerned about Luo Tianming's worries:

"What, Captain? Are you worried that I'm not up to the task?"

Luo Tianming: "How is that possible!"

He immediately dismissed her idea.

It's important to know that although Lucy isn't a professional "engineer," she is one of the thirteen geniuses trained by the Arasaka Corporation.

She is someone who can dive deep into the 'Old Net' and emerge unscathed. Her brain contains unimaginable knowledge and wisdom. If you were to ask who could understand all the circuits and systems on the ship, it would be her.

Of course, these are not her strengths—Lucy's real strength lies in 'electronic warfare'. As long as you have a network, she can hack into it no matter who the enemy is.