Chapter 106 After the Player's Self-Strategy【VIP】

Glass raised his eyebrows. This "dismantling-collecting-repairing-selling" assembly line sounds surprisingly reasonable.

This not only improved the quality of recycled waste but also solved the problem of unclear market opportunities. She looked at Geto Suguru, who gave a subtle nod.

"That sounds very feasible," Geto agreed cautiously. But then, a perfectly balanced look of embarrassment and apology crossed his face. "However, there's still a big problem."

He sighed and pointed at himself and Glass. "The two of us... don't have IDs, so we're illegal here. The scavengers are really strict lately. Forget helping out at the clinic or going to the recycling station; even simply being here can get you stopped and kicked out at any moment."

The black-haired man with strange bangs paused, his tone tinged with goodwill. "Player, you're a player too, right? I don't know how you got in, but you'd better be careful. The Scavengers don't care if you're a wanted criminal or not. It's very troublesome to be here without an ID."

Dead Fish Eyes added at the right moment, his voice flat yet resigned: "Yes, without legal status, it's difficult to move forward. This cooperation... I'm afraid it's going to be difficult to proceed."

She spread her hands, looking regretful, as if saying, "It's not that we don't want to, it's that the conditions don't allow it."

The player listened to their complaints for a while, feeling a little dissatisfied with his perfect plan to get rich, but he turned around and left without hesitation.

It's a shame, but there's nothing we can do about the NPCs being expelled. We can probably find some local people to work with...

Ding!

A crisp system prompt sound rang in her mind.

A new task box popped up in front of me:

[Poor Homeless High School Students: Help two poor students who are homeless, penniless, and in urgent need of identification to obtain legal ID. Helping others is a traditional virtue!

Reward: Morality +5, Mysterious Thank You Gift x1]

Lin Chen's eyes suddenly lit up amazingly!

Morality points! And a mysterious thank you gift!

Answer immediately!

She immediately extended her hand to the man with strange bangs and dead eyes who had already turned around and was about to leave, and shouted, "Qiaodou Masai!"

I think you can still rescue it!

Soon, the player quickly found a place in the Metaverse where identity IDs were sold. In the middle, because there were no photos, he even took a few photos of their faces.

Geto Suguru and Nozomi: “……???”

The two rubbed their faces, which had been vigorously manipulated by Player for a while, and looked at each other. 7 looked at Player who suddenly entered "standby mode" and was completely confused.

After just a few minutes, Player suddenly opened his eyes and two cards with a gleaming metallic luster and complex patterns printed on them appeared in his hand out of thin air.

She stood up swiftly and slapped the card into the hands of Geto Suguru and Naoko Ieiri: "ID."

Xia Yujie took it subconsciously and looked down. The card clearly showed a close-up ID photo of him and Nazko, with a Punk Lord-style code underneath and a prominent "Temporary Resident" logo.

It feels cool to the touch and has a real texture.

He was silent for a moment: "This is...?"

"Legal ID." Player said concisely while giving a thumbs-up, his eyes filled with pride. "Scavenger, I'm not afraid anymore."

Hey, just using the US dollars and Japanese yen I stole from the outside world can be exchanged for credits at a 1:1 rate. It's so worth it. What's wrong with buying two temporary IDs? Anyway, I have a lot of money, and 7 can't be used in the system mall, so I don't feel bad about spending it on mission props.

She pointed at the pile of scrap, and 7 pointed at Geto and Nazawa. Her blue eyes were filled with urging to "get to work quickly." "Now, cooperation?"

Geto Suguru held the ID card, which was still a little warm, in his hand and looked at the player in front of him who looked as if it was a matter of course, as if he had just solved a small problem. 7 looked at Nozomi next to him, who had not changed much, but only those who knew her knew that her mind had stagnated.

Well, at least the ID issue is resolved, and the mission can be completed. As for this player... her logic is exactly the same as the expert's analysis, and it really cannot be understood by common sense.

He took a deep breath and nodded to Player: "...Cooperation."

——

What kind of person is Player?

If someone had asked Geto Suguru this question in the past, he would have said, "Player is very dangerous. Holding power but not using it to protect the weak is not the right way. Even though rumors say she never kills, we can't bet against her ever killing."

If Xia Youjie, who had been in contact with Player for a long time, were to speak to him later, he would probably say seriously with a look of disapproval: "Lin Chen is just a child at heart. What does she know? Why are you adults so petty?"

Now, it is OK and P

Geto Suguru finished his morning work. The air was not very good. Naturally, there were no delicious restaurants nearby. Only the vending machine with measuring sticks was barely surviving.

He was leaning against a metal block. His college uniform, which had been clean and tidy, was now covered with black engine oil and dark red rust fragments. The cloth on his arms and back revealed a little bit of skin underneath.

Too tired.

My shoulders and neck felt tense, and my spine felt like it was filled with lead.

Sorting out the heavy, cold, sharp-edged metal junk by hand, moving it onto the conveyor belt, avoiding the constantly dripping black unknown liquid and the data creatures that peeped in the dark...

This kind of pure, continuous physical labor that relies on the flesh and blood is as mentally demanding as exorcising cursed spirits.

Especially when the body instinctively mobilized the magic power to try to reduce the burden, but found that the power had no response like a stone sinking into the sea, the irritability caused by the loss of a part of the body almost turned into actual fatigue.

Just then, there was a rustling sound from the metal wreckage nearby.

Ieiri Naoko walked over and sat down on the pile of waste next to him. Her movements were much more skillful than two days ago, at least she didn't bump into anything.

Geto Suguru opened his eyes and looked at his classmates.

Glass's condition is not good either.

She had already taken off her white lab coat, tucked carelessly aside (Player had "contributed" a work uniform from who knows where, a size too big for Glass, with the sleeves and trouser legs rolled up several times), and changed into dark blue, coarse work clothes, also stained with oil. Her face inevitably had a few oil marks on it, and beads of sweat formed on her forehead from the activity.

But unlike Geto Suguru's pure exhaustion, there was a strange mixture of emotions on Nozomi's face - fatigue mixed with a strange sense of accomplishment of "actually getting the hang of it" and an indelible disgust.

Ieiri Naoko was holding a disassembled old bearing in her hand and was carefully wiping the balls and grooves on the inner ring with a relatively clean piece of cloth that she had pulled from somewhere.

"Two done." Without looking up, Glass's voice was a little hoarse, probably from inhaling dust. She held up the cleaned bearing and examined it against the dim light. "This is a hundred times more troublesome than dealing with that idiot Wu's wounds from his foolishness... At least Wu's wounds don't spray oil."

Xia Yujie was silent for a moment, trying to imagine Gojo Satoru's face appearing on this dirty and greasy bearing, but failed.

"How is it?" Xia Yujie couldn't help asking as he watched her skilled movements. He was referring to this mechanical work that was completely unfamiliar to her.

Glass brushed back her sweaty hair and flicked off some metal debris with her fingertips. Her tone was even, "It's okay. To some extent, it's not much different from biology. Just think of it as practicing clinical judgment."

She rubbed her brows tiredly, sighed, and looked at the figure nimbly moving among the piles of metal garbage. She asked faintly, "She has such good stamina. Doesn't she ever get tired?"

Player, watched by high school students, is trying to "reconstruct" the wreckage of an abandoned engine that is taller than her.

She was completely focused, her nose almost touching the cold metal shell, and she was humming a tuneless song she had adapted (it seemed like it was the commercial song that was played on the radio yesterday?).

Player's shoes made a light clicking sound as they stepped on the oily floor. Occasionally, if she lost her balance, or simply for fun, she would do a very smooth forward roll, then get up and continue as if nothing had happened, her short black hair drawing an arc in the air.

However, this forward roll can sometimes be miscalculated, like now:

The player seemed completely unaware of the abyss just ahead, and rolled down with a clean tumble. It seemed only midway through that the player realized they were falling from a great height, so they struggled to reach out and frantically grabbed a stick protruding from the garbage heap, then slammed down onto the shell of an unknown metal object.

"Be careful!" Geto Suguru almost blurted out, but he felt the absurdity of the words after they came out of his mouth.

Who was he reminding? The internationally wanted criminal Player, who had thrown a mechanical whale into Yokohama Bay like a toy and hammered the Curse Master into the ground?

As soon as he finished speaking, Player climbed up, grabbed the stick, jumped up and down a few times, turned a few circles to observe himself, and continued to climb up as if nothing had happened.

...Looking at her defenseless and even reckless appearance, it really makes people worry that she will be hit by falling metal parts or fall into the suspicious black oil pool next to her.

Glass dropped the cleaned bearing into the toolbox nearby. Seeing the mixed expression of worry and absurdity on Geto's face, which he couldn't hide in time, he said calmly, "Geto, your 'righteous' expression is about to break."

Geto Summer Oil: “…”

He took a deep breath, trying to quiet the alarm in his head that was ringing with "Danger! Extremely dangerous!" "I just... can't understand it. Her power... and what she showed..."

He couldn't find the right words.

"Like a kid running around with a new toy?" Glass accurately hit the point and turned his gaze back to Player.

The latter seemed to be in some trouble. He was frowning and trying to pry out a broken robot stuck in the gap of the gear with the metal stick he had just picked up.

Although the child was clumsy, he was strong and quickly pried the robot out. At the same time, the garbage high in the garbage pile began to shake.

Soon the Player started skiing on a mountain of garbage with the broken robot on his head.

"Hey," Glass turned away, unable to bear the sight, "She seems...to have absolutely no common sense."

Geto Suguru also has a deep understanding of this.

Just yesterday, Player saw him chewing on an energy bar (provided by Ms. Ash "Hao Zi Xin" at the recycling station, the taste is hard to describe), and immediately came over without any sense of social distance, his blue eyes full of curiosity.

Geto Suguru thought she wanted it, and was about to explain that this thing tasted terrible, but Player snatched the strangely shaped energy bar from his hand and stuffed it into his mouth without hesitation.

She chewed it twice, and her expressionless little face instantly wrinkled into a bun, and then she spat it all out with a "Pfft, Pfft, Pfft" sound. She looked at him in shock, then pointed at the energy bar in confusion and asked Xia Yujie: "Food? Is it spoiled?"

He seemed puzzled as to why he could eat such a thing.

Then, the Player took out a plate of delicious food from her four-dimensional pocket with pity, put it in his hand, and turned to leave.

After a while, 7 came running back. Haozi seemed to feel that it was really pitiful for him to eat such food. He patted his shoulder maturely, shook his head, sighed, and left.

He is just like the old man who plays the poor beggar in the TV series.

And the way she walked, always bouncing, daring to trot or even tumble in the narrow and dangerous waste pile.

When asked why, she replied as if it was a matter of course: "Quick."

It seemed that saving those few seconds of travel time was no big deal. After Haozi's Player disappeared from sight several times in the blink of an eye and they searched for her for a long time and found that she had rolled to some corner, Geto Suguru and Nozomi had to take turns watching her.

Fang Bai was afraid that she would miss a step and fall into a deep pit or be scratched by a sharp metal edge - although she probably wouldn't be injured with her ability, the visual impact was too strong.

On the other hand, after she rolled down, she would soon be attracted by other strange things and run away without being found.

What made Geto Suguru's inner alarm and some strange protective desire fight wildly was Player's attitude towards them.

Although it was unbelievable, Player was strangely responsive to their every request, in a sense.

Glass casually complained that the tools in the Old Vic Clinic were old and blunt, and that several key models were missing.

In less than half an hour, Player came with a large box of brand new precision tools that gleamed with a cold light and placed it in front of Glass Bai, looking at her with sparkling eyes, as if waiting for praise.

Where did it come from? She simply gave a thumbs-up and said, "I got it."

Looking at the set of tools that were obviously worth a fortune, and thinking about how decisive she was when she bought the ID, Geto Xiayou once again deeply realized how...simple and crude this player's "financial resources" and execution ability were.

When Geto Suguru feels stuck with a pile of alloy scraps that are difficult to distinguish, Player will come over immediately and, in her flat voice that lacks intonation but is extremely clear, point out which structures can be "reconstructed" into basic parts (useful for her leveling up), which are pure garbage (which Geto Suguru needs to sort out), and which are broken but the core data units can still be disassembled for Nozomi to "maintain" (which will then count towards Nozomi's mission times).

The solutions she provides are often very effective and get to the point, without caring at all whether it makes her look like she's helping her opponent (?) cheat.

Two days.

Just two days.

Geto Suguru leaned against the cold metal wall, watching Player escape the mountain of garbage. Seven successfully "reconstructed" the little robot in one go, then tossed it into the collection basket nearby (that was Geto Suguru's task) with satisfaction. Then, as usual, he tried to celebrate with a forward roll, but instead, 7 tripped over a protruding pipe beneath his feet and stumbled towards a pile of rusted iron sheets.

"Be careful!" The voices of Geto Suguru and Nozomi sounded at the same time, and their bodies leaned forward a step faster than their brains reacted.

Player steadied himself at the critical moment, supported himself on the garbage heap with one hand, and gently exerted force upwards, then rolled to his feet perfectly, his movements gracefully like gymnastics.

But her palm seemed to rub against the rough iron sheet. She shook her hand nonchalantly, as if just brushing off dust, and then looked back at them. She still had that expressionless look, but her blue eyes seemed to be saying: [What?]

Geto Xia Yu silently withdrew his half-extended hand and exchanged glances with Naoko. Naoko's eyes also held a look of helplessness and... a hint of understanding.

"Jie," Glass watched Player 7 skipping off to find the next "trash" target. Her voice was soft, but it struck like a hammer against Geto's heart. "I remember many expert reports analyzing her behavior patterns, but none of them analyzed her true nature. What do you think she looks like now?"

Geto Suguru was silent for a moment.

The labels of "dangerous", "uncontrollable" and "need to be vigilant" in his mind were shattered by the close and high-intensity "Player observation" in the past two days.

What he saw was not a scheming conspirator, nor a madman playing with power.

What he saw was an individual whose thinking path was extremely simple and direct, who would immediately do whatever he thought of, had clear goals and was not afraid to hide them, lacked basic social cognition of the surrounding environment (including people), and had a reckless style of behavior with a bit of strange purity, even... a bit clumsy and cute.

strength?

She did, but it didn't seem to be driven by ambition or malice, but more by a childlike curiosity and some inherent rules of the game that they couldn't understand.

"Player... no, Lin Chen," Xia Yujie finally spoke, his voice filled with a complex sense of relief and redefinition, "She is just a child with a childlike mind and straightforward actions."

He paused, then added, more to himself, "Protecting a 'child' like this... is not against the 'right path.'"

Glass said nothing. She simply pulled out a piece of fruit-flavored synthetic gummy candy (which actually tasted rather strange) that Player had forced upon her yesterday, saying it was "delicious" to eat. She tore open the wrapper and popped it into her mouth. A faintly sweet, artificial taste filled her mouth.

Well, it’s a bit... innocent.