Reincarnation NPC, but Arknights

Chapter Twenty-Six: Gathering

Bai Ye was actually quite familiar with Black Steel International.

In his previous life, he had worked as a mercenary for Blacksteel International, a private security consulting firm and one of the most well-known security contractors, whose core business was providing private security consulting and defense contracting services.

Compared to Rhode Island, this company is more well-known and larger, but its headquarters are located in Columbia.

In his previous life, Bai Ye learned shooting skills at Black Steel.

Contrary to popular belief, firearms in Terra are not easy to master. Compared to the kinetic weapons on Earth that can be used simply by pulling a trigger, the guns in Arknights Online seem more like staves.

Using firearms requires mastery of Originium Arts, and continuous firing demands precise and sustained activation of Originium Arts. Disruption of this mastery can lead to firing errors and even weapon damage.

Compared to bows, arrows, and ballistae, this weapon has a much higher learning curve.

In his previous life, Bai Ye learned shooting theory provided by Black Steel International. Although the final effect could not compare with that of the Laterans, it was still efficient and practical.

Of course, White Night seems to prefer calling it Black Silk International rather than Black Steel International, because their female employees' uniforms all include black stockings.

Take Razer and Franka, for example. Their fair and plump legs were covered in stockings, and the dark fabric contrasted sharply with their skin, creating an indescribable visual impact.

After admiring it for a while, Bai Ye subtly shifted his gaze. More than the black stockings, he was curious as to why an employee of Blacksteel International would serve as an operator at Rhodes Island.

As expected, I still know too little about this world... In his previous life, Bai Ye wasn't an immersive, experience-driven player, nor was he a story-driven player; he simply enjoyed combat, shooting, and grinding. He knew more about the characteristics and weaknesses of his enemies than about their background.

For example, some players can even talk about the origin, characteristics and even ecology of Originium Bugs in great detail, but White Night focuses on how to kill Originium Bugs efficiently and how to completely clear an Originium Bug nest.

While pondering, Bai Ye asked, "By the way, are any of you infected?"

"I am." "She is."

The two spoke almost simultaneously.

Franka was the one infected with Oripathy. Bai Ye couldn't help but take a closer look at her. He had to admit that, as an infected person, this smiling fox lady was much more cheerful than the average person.

"Then we need to register you and record your identification code..." Bai Ye took out the terminal and began to contact Officer Chen Huijie.

"Aren't you scared? I'm an infected person, you know," Franka suddenly asked.

Bai Ye, operating the terminal in his hand, casually replied to the question, "Of course I'm not afraid. Why should I be afraid? According to the medical theory of Oripathy, there is no human-to-human transmission."

As he spoke, Bai Ye raised his head and looked at the longsword placed on Franka's lap. The sword was sheathed, and perhaps because it was a bit long, the hilt extended to the side of Razer's seat, occasionally poking Razer's leg.

"If I have to say what I'm afraid of, it's this long sword that I should be wary of."

"That's unnecessary. It's just an ordinary decoration. Actually, I'm not good at using this kind of weapon," Franka lied through her teeth.

Bai Ye disagreed.

As a veteran gamer who had spent six years in the game in his previous life, Bai Ye had seen too much. As a swordsman, if he couldn't tell that this girl was a master swordsman, then he had wasted his time.

How did you figure that out?

Bai Ye is not a theorist; he relies on intuition.

As expected, Franka's good partner quickly exposed the girl's lie: "If we need to cooperate in the next battle, hiding your abilities is not a wise choice."

"Let me introduce you to Franka, the Black Steel Sword Master, the year-end swordsmanship competition champion, known as the Black Steel Sword Saint."

“If you continue like this, you’ll lose my friendship, Razer.” Franka blinked, showing no embarrassment at having her lie exposed.

Razer retorted, not to be outdone: "So, we have a friendship after all? That's quite unexpected, Franka."

Bai Ye couldn't help but laugh as he listened. These two seemed to have some comedic potential. How come he hadn't met them in his past life? He had missed out on a lot of fun.

"By the way, why are Blacksteel International's employees at Rhodes Island?" Bai Ye finally asked, voicing his doubts.

“I became an infected person, and the company arranged for me to go to Rhodes Island for treatment. We also established a cooperative relationship, and then I became a temporary operator at Rhodes Island,” Franka explained.

It turned out to be the case.

Bai Ye suddenly realized. In his previous life, Rhodes Island was known for having "face-saving fruit"—no matter where they met or who they encountered, they could always establish a connection and have a chat, which gave them considerable prestige. Therefore, the presence of a few Blacksteel International employees here now didn't seem so incomprehensible.

……

As they spoke, the vehicle passed through the checkpoint. Thanks to Officer Chen Huijie's connections, Franka, despite being infected, was not harassed. She registered her infected person identification code and was able to move freely in Longmen.

"You're doing quite well in Lungmen. What's your relationship with that fierce-looking policewoman?" Franka asked, a little gossipy.

In fact, she had long been curious about Bai Ye; this handsome young man seemed to be shrouded in mystery.

"Convenience comes at a price. We need to assist the Lungmen Guard Bureau in resolving the case of infected individuals in the slums using prohibited drugs as soon as possible." Bai Ye temporarily ignored Franka's question and changed the subject.

Razer looked at Bai Ye with an approving expression. To deal with someone like her, you can't go along with her rhythm, otherwise she will overwhelm you with a barrage of questions, jokes and teasing.

……

Finally, White Night and the Black Steel duo arrived at the Rhodes Island office.

Meanwhile, Officer Chen Huijie from the Guard Bureau also joined the group here with the player Zhai Mao who had been looking for her earlier.

All the elements have been gathered.

Chen Huijie distributed case-related materials to Bai Ye and Rhodes Island.

"Recently, gangs have been found transporting and selling illegal drugs in slums. These drugs are highly addictive. The gangs have even packaged illegal drugs under the guise of 'Oripathy cures' to deceive infected individuals into taking them. They then exploit the infected individuals' dependence on the drugs to extract money. Those who cannot afford the drugs are forced to sign unequal terms and become puppets of the gangs."

Chen Huijie briefly described the situation, then said, "It is said that someone saw the Rhode Island logo on the drug packaging."

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Correct Way to Use Players

Sitting among the big shots, the cat looked completely bewildered, like a husky in a wolf pack, its style naturally different from the others.

Meow meow meow?

Rhodes Island? Infected? Guard Bureau? What are you talking about? I don't understand a word.

She wondered if she had missed an episode.

When you skip all the story CGs in order to complete the mission.JPG

However, this is a 100% realistic (so-called) fully immersive game that uses almost no CG to depict the plot. Therefore, players will have to explore the world, characters, and story themselves to understand everything.

At this moment, besides the spam and random memes, many people in the live chat are also starting to analyze the game's world view and plot.

Story-driven and historically accurate readers exist in almost every game. Early games, limited by their size, required a long, novel-like narrative text to fully appreciate them. Even if the text was obscure and difficult to understand, players still enjoyed it immensely.

This is especially true for Arknights Online. The official team has released almost no information about the world, but what they have provided is the entire world. This is a feast for story enthusiasts, while those who like to research are trying to find the intersection between reality and the game.

Later, something similar to "porridge studies" developed, but that's another story.

In short, after playing the role of a good girl for a long time, Officer Chen Huijie finally noticed the otaku sitting to the side.

"Bai Ye, did you have some kind of plan when you sent her to find me and asked me to bring her along?"

Currently—and this is important, it's "currently"—in the eyes of Chen Huijie and the people of Lungmen, the players are refugees from a disaster-stricken city or town. This situation is commonplace on the Terra continent.

Not everyone can settle in mobile cities. Scattered across this land are countless small villages and towns. Some of them are fortunate enough to never be visited by natural disasters, while most will be destroyed by one.

One of the tasks of the disaster messengers is to warn villages to evacuate their inhabitants before a natural disaster strikes. However, this land is too vast, and the disaster messengers clearly cannot, and should not, be able to, cover every single area…

Of course, the statistics on players' origins are clearly a failure.

"Bai Ye, come with me."

Officer Chen Huijie stood up from her chair and, to the astonishment of the Black Steel Crosstalk Group and the Otaku Cat, grabbed Bai Ye's hand and dragged him out.

"..."

Driven by instinct, Bai Ye subconsciously tried to resist. However, Chen Huijie was full of martial virtue, and Bai Ye was unable to resist the power from the Great Flame Dragon Clan for a moment. Embarrassingly, he failed to resist and could only let the girl pull him out.

Embarrassing.JPG

It must be said that the land of Terra has never been fair. She has shown excessive favoritism towards some races, such as the Vyvan, Drak, and Great Flame Dragon races with their extremely high physical strength... and the even more outrageous Sarkaz, a chaotic mob of demons.

These races, almost like fantastical beings, are born with extraordinary bloodlines and talents, and some are even on the verge of extinction because they are too powerful.

In short, Bai Ye was dragged out by Chen Huijie in a very embarrassing manner.

It was indeed too weak and powerless.

Chen Huijie and Bai Ye walked out of the Rhodes Island office in Lungmen. Chen Huijie whispered to Bai Ye, "Are you sure you want to use these refugees?"

“It’s not prejudice, but these refugees are all a bit strange and suspicious. Just to give you an example, the places of birth they report are all over the place, and I’m not even sure if they actually exist.”

As Chen Huijie spoke, she shared some of the information with Bai Ye, her expression somewhat grave: "I suspect that some exiled criminals may have been included among them..."

"Moreover, some of them are not mentally stable."

"Their names are also very strange, almost like... forum nicknames on the intercity network."

"puff--"

Bai Ye opened the document and burst out laughing.

He couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"What's wrong?" Chen Huijie frowned, somewhat displeased. It was fortunate that Bai Ye possessed such charm; if it were anyone else, this short-tempered superintendent would probably have immediately launched into a tirade.

"Well, I was just thinking about something happy..."

Bai Ye couldn't hold back any longer when he saw the players' reported places of origin and personal information.

M78 Nebula, Shocker Organization, St. Petersburg, Holy Roman Empire, Lubyanka...

The players are all really talented; they love to do funny things and their reported places of origin are so varied that it's impossible to understand them.

It's somewhat ironic, really; they were having a lot of fun entertaining themselves, but Bai Ye became the only person in the world who understood them...

Bai Ye suppressed his smile and looked at Chen Huijie, saying, "Superintendent Chen, you can trust me. For the time being, most of these refugees are not dangerous."

Players are indeed an uncontrollable and complex group, and due to their immortality and origin from another dimension, they naturally occupy a certain level of power. However, they cannot be described as absolutely dangerous.

At least, a large portion of these players are benevolent and positive.

Let me ask you a simple question.

In old-school games, you could kill NPCs on screen without batting an eye. Because they had nothing to do with you, you knew it was fake, and the game couldn't affect reality.

But when you're in a fully immersive game, when a living "person" stands in front of you, when it's almost indistinguishable from reality, would you still attack without reason and insanely?

The line between illusion and reality has long been blurred thanks to advanced technology.

Moreover, the so-called "green game, healthy game" is not just empty talk. The system will constantly monitor the player's mental state, and if a player exhibits serious anti-human tendencies, their account will be banned and they will be kicked out of the game.

What? You say games are about freedom, so why can't you massacre an entire city? Who can stop me from indiscriminately killing civilians?

Please refer to the relevant laws and game terms for details. Experts and parents have argued countless times over this issue, along with animal rights activists, feminists, human rights advocates… You are welcome to confront them; the game company is happy to see it.

Getting back to the point, Bai Ye sighed as he told Chen Huijie about his plan: "The gangs that sell illegal drugs are very well hidden, and it would be difficult to find them using only normal investigation methods, so we can use a sting operation."

"Those in the know probably already know about the refugees. The city entrance has been blocked for so long, it would be strange if those guys didn't know. So these refugees are naturally very credible. If we let that little girl pretend to be an infected person to buy medicine, we should be able to catch the fish."

Chen Huijie was somewhat tempted. The Guard Bureau was not opposed to doing so, and Chen Huijie herself even had informants in the slums.

However, she still cautioned, "First of all, we must obtain her consent. Even if they are refugees, they have passed the infection test, have temporary residence permits, and are protected by Lungmen law."

Bai Ye nodded, but how could the players possibly disagree?

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Dragon and Tiger Clash

After Bai Ye and Chen Huijie finished their private conversation at the entrance of the office, they were about to enter when Bai Ye suddenly noticed an angry young woman rushing towards them.

"You damn idiot! I'm working myself to the bone over there, and you're just slacking off here. I can't even find you anywhere."

The girl roared at Chen Huijie like an angry little tiger.

Her long, voluminous, golden curls shone brilliantly in the sunlight.

"Okay, hurry up and stamp it for approval. I wasted my time looking for this..."

Suddenly, the girl caught sight of Bai Ye standing to the side. She froze for a moment, her roar abruptly ceasing, her face gradually turning red.

"Keep talking, why did you stop?" Chen Huijie raised an eyebrow.

"When did you find a boyfriend? Seriously, what made him fall for you?" The girl with the film made a surprising remark.

"Hehe." Chen Huijie's facial expression suddenly became lively. She looked at the girl in front of her, who was shorter than her, and cursed, "Char Siu Cat, are you looking for death...?"

……

Bai Ye was completely dumbfounded...

What a fierce battle!