Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 70

Chapter 70: You Robbed a Bank

Inside the Lungmen Guard Department building, the temporary command post reeked of ozone and scorched concrete. The battle to regain control had been brutal, leaving the halls heavily scarred.

“Officer, you’re not injured, are you?”

Ch’en waved her hand dismissively, her expression stern as she focused on the tactical maps spread across the makeshift table. She was far more concerned about the overall situation than a few scrapes.

“How are things looking?”

The soldier standing before her was covered in soot, his shoulders slumping with sheer exhaustion.

“Reporting, Officer, we have successfully regained control of the building. However… after continuous combat, the brothers are all completely exhausted. If we want to immediately organize forces to pursue the fleeing enemies, I’m afraid we’ll need to rest for a while first.”

“I see… I understand. Everyone has worked hard. Those who still have strength, please go assist the wounded.”

“Understood!”

Just then, another communications soldier jogged over, his heavy boots crunching over shattered glass. He respectfully handed an encrypted communication terminal to the young Cautus standing nearby.

“Miss Amiya, it’s Officer Wei… Chief Executive Wei Yenwu’s emergency communication. He specifically requested to speak with you.”

“Thank you.”

Amiya took the heavy terminal, took a deep, steadying breath, and pressed the answer button.

From the other end of the line came Wei Yenwu’s calm, magnetic voice, smooth as aged velvet. Only this time, beneath the polished exterior, there seemed to be a hint of an imperceptible caution.

“Amiya, can you hear my voice?”

“I can hear you, Officer Wei.”

“First of all, on behalf of Lungmen, I express my heartfelt gratitude to Rhodes Island for its full assistance in helping us repel the Reunion Movement and successfully retake the Lungmen Guard Department building this time. Your performance far exceeded expectations.”

Amiya remained perfectly polite, but her tone carried a sharp edge of inquiry.

“Thank you very much for Officer Wei’s personal concern. However, why did we not receive any necessary intelligence about the enemy throughout the entire operation?”

There was a heavy moment of silence on the other end of the terminal, followed by Wei Yenwu’s carefully constructed, perfunctory apology.

“For that, I sincerely apologize. However, I also have unavoidable difficulties on my end. We have no way… to provide you with all the intelligence completely.”

“Difficulties?”

Amiya frowned slightly. This vague explanation clearly could not fully convince her.

Ivan, who had been seemingly distracted while casually tossing a block of dirt in his hand nearby, suddenly leaned over. He practically pressed his face against the communication terminal, his voice dripping with mock enthusiasm.

“Yo, Old Wei! What ‘difficulties’ are you talking about? Tell me about it? Maybe I can help you solve it, like by splitting that newly installed mahogany door in your office?”

There was a deep, suffocating pause on the other end of the line. When Wei spoke again, there was a distinct note of unexpected awkwardness in his usually flawless composure.

“Lin… Ivan? You’re here too…”

Wei Yenwu seemed particularly sensitive to Ivan’s presence.

Ivan pressed his advantage, his casual tone sharpening into something dangerous.

“So, Officer Wei, you used us as bait to draw out all the Reunion Movement forces hidden within Lungmen, didn’t you?”

“No! Absolutely not!”

Wei Yenwu immediately denied it, but his rapid response carried a distinct hint of evasiveness.

“This… didn’t this give you a stage to show off your skills in Lungmen? It proves that Rhodes Island is fully capable of handling such a challenge.”

Ivan’s voice deepened, stripping away the playful facade.

“What if I wasn’t there then? What if Rhodes Island’s strength wasn’t enough to show off, but instead was ambushed and severely wounded by the Reunion Movement? Officer Wei, you’re gambling with our lives to exchange for Lungmen’s ‘cleanliness’?”

The line fell into an even longer silence. One could almost hear a barely perceptible intake of breath over the static. Wei Yenwu was clearly cornered by Ivan’s merciless, pinpoint questioning.

A few seconds later, he let out a dry, forced laugh, desperately trying to steer the conversation away from the precipice.

“Ah, hahaha… Mr. Ivan, you exaggerate. The agreement we signed earlier… it is still valid! The urgent task at hand is for us to unite, pursue the victory, and sound the horn of counterattack…”

“Don’t you dare change the subject!”

Ivan cut him off unceremoniously, his tone carrying a dark, obvious threat.

“Confess honestly, or do you believe I’ll go ‘visit’your office with a knife right now, and we can’chat’ face to face?”

“Ah, haha! Hello? Hello?! My signal is suddenly bad here… I can’t hear clearly… Sizzle… Hanging up, hanging up!”

Wei Yenwu’s voice became deliberately intermittent, mimicking static, and then the communication was unilaterally cut off, leaving only the dull drone of a busy signal.

Ivan pouted, tossing the terminal back to Amiya. He crossed his arms, showing a genuinely puzzled expression.

“Something’s not right… Logically, Old Wei is thick-skinned and dark-hearted. He shouldn’t be so cowardly. I haven’t even really made a move, so why is he so flustered? Strange…”

Ivan rubbed his chin. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Wei Yenwu’s attitude was highly abnormal, as if the old Lung was desperately hiding something massive from him.

On a relatively quiet, ruined high point near the Lungmen Guard Department building, the wind howled softly through the shattered concrete.

Ch’en walked up to the precipice alone. She found a relatively flat section of a broken wall and sat down, the heavy plates of her uniform clinking softly against the stone. She gazed out at the sprawling city skyline in the distance, where thick plumes of black smoke still rose into the twilight sky.

Hearing familiar, unhurried footsteps approaching from behind, Ch’en did not turn around. She merely spoke to the person approaching, her voice losing its usual strict edge, replaced by a rare, quiet gentleness.

“Ivan… these past few times, I owe you a lot.”

She paused, clearly unaccustomed to expressing such direct vulnerability, but she forced the words out anyway.

“Thank you.”

A gentle evening breeze swept across the rooftop, rustling the dark azure strands of hair across Ch’en’s forehead.

“However… you always manage to accurately find the places you need to find. I really don’t know how you do it.”

Ivan walked up to her side. Mimicking her posture, he casually hopped onto the broken wall and sat down, his legs swinging freely over the dizzying drop. He answered her with absolute, matter-of-fact confidence.

“What’s so difficult about that? I have a map!”

Ivan tapped his temple with a grin.

Ch’en merely took it as another one of his beyond understanding, eccentric jokes. The corner of her lips twitched upward, and she couldn’t help but let out a soft, airy laugh, shaking her head at the skyline.

“Haha, Ivan, you’re joking again.”

“Officer Ch’en, if you really want to thank me, just saying it isn’t enough.” Ivan turned his head, looking at her profile with a wide, teasing grin. “Next time, remember to treat me to a big meal! The most expensive kind in Lungmen!”

Ch’en did not refute him or complain about her wallet this time. She simply looked back at him and nodded decisively.

“Alright. I’ve noted it down.”

The atmosphere between them fell into a comfortable, quiet intimacy for a brief moment, the sounds of the chaotic city fading into the background.

When Ch’en spoke again, her tone had cooled, returning to a serious, warning register.

“By the way, let me remind you… be careful of Wei Yenwu.”

She looked straight ahead, her eyes narrowing.

“He wants to make a move against you for Lungmen’s safety. Because your power is too strong. Although I think he most likely has his head stuck in a door to even consider it.”

Ivan remained silent for a few seconds, letting the wind brush past them, before slowly speaking.

“Oh, then let him come.”

He leaned back slightly, his voice utterly devoid of fear.

“I’m not afraid.”

Just then, the sharp, hurried clacking of high heels rapidly approached the ruined wall, violently shattering the quiet atmosphere between the two.

Miss Swire stormed over in a huff, her tail lashing back and forth with obvious displeasure. Her haughty voice arrived well before she did.

“Wait! Ch’en! I’ve never heard of such a sudden promotion exception in the Lungmen Guard Department! My contributions to this operation weren’t small either, so how should my merits be calculated? You can’t hog all the benefits yourself, can you?”

“What, you’re here too.” Ch’en sighed, her brief moment of peace thoroughly ruined.

“I’m exhausted from all the running around! Hurry up and treat me to a meal! It must be the highest-specification thank-you banquet!”

Ch’en gave the blonde Feline a deeply helpless glance.

“Miss, you still need me to treat you to a meal? Aren’t your Swire family’s restaurants all over Lungmen?”

“How can that be the same!” Swire declared righteously, crossing her arms.

At this moment, Swire seemed to suddenly remember something. Her bright emerald eyes darted over to Ivan, and her tone instantly shifted from complaining to highly enthusiastic.

“By the way, Ivan! Speaking of which, would you like to consider switching jobs and working for me? Our group’s benefits are absolutely generous, and your salary will definitely be much higher than whatever Rhodes Island is paying you! What do you say?”

Facing this blatant, sudden attempt to poach him, Ivan’s reaction was entirely beyond Swire’s expectations.

Instead of answering directly, he simply stared at her for a second, then silently reached deep into his pants pocket.

Then, under the utterly dumbfounded gazes of both Swire and Ch’en, Ivan pulled out a solid block of gold that was half as tall as a person.

He casually dropped the massive, gleaming gold block onto the concrete ground. It landed with a deafening, heavy thud that actually cracked the rooftop beneath it.

Ivan clapped the imaginary dust off his hands, looked at Swire with a perfectly innocent expression, and asked.

“Miss Swire, do you think… I lack money?”

Swire stared blankly at the enormous, blindingly bright gold block resting in front of her boots. Her eyes went wide, her jaw dropped, and after a long, agonizing moment of processing, she let out an incredulous, high-pitched shriek.

“No… no… Ivan! Did you… did you rob Lungmen’s Central Bank?! Where did this thing come from?!”

“Hmph, it’s just a small piece of gold. I have some too.”

“Oh!” Ivan simply lowered his head and started playing with his terminal again, completely ignoring her meltdown.

“Hey, what kind of attitude is that, Ivan?!” Swire’s small face puffed up in indignation, her hands on her hips.

Ch’en rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming on.

“Let’s go. We’ll start the operation soon.”

On the edge of another high-rise rooftop in Lungmen, overlooking the still somewhat chaotic, debris-filled streets below.

Blaze sat right on the precipice, her legs gently dangling over the dizzying drop. Looking down at the sprawling city, a rare trace of complexity and heavy melancholy appeared on her usually cheerful, boisterous face.

She murmured softly into the wind, as if asking herself, and as if asking Ivan who stood quietly beside her.

“Lungmen, oh Lungmen… letting the Infected assist the non-Infected, helping them suppress other people who are also Infected…”

She pouted, her usually perky cat ears drooping listlessly against her hair.

“It’s really unpleasant, this feeling.”

But just as quickly, she vigorously shook her head, her thick hair whipping around as if to physically cast away these annoying, depressing thoughts.

“However, thinking about these things is meaningless. Discrimination, oppression, exploitation… these aren’t new things. This land has always been like this, right, Ivan?”

She turned her head to look up at Ivan.

Ivan was currently entirely focused on fiddling with his newly acquired Xianhu white katana, admiring the pristine gleam of the blade. Hearing her question, he looked up and awkwardly scratched his cheek.

“Uh… even if you say that, I don’t know how to answer you.”

“Forget it, I’m not thinking about it anymore!”

Blaze suddenly sprang up from the concrete, instantly regaining her boundless vitality. She patted the dust off her jacket, flashed a brilliant, fanged smile at Ivan, and pointed down at the street.

“Time to go down! Do you need me to carry you down? I guarantee a smooth landing!”

She fondly recalled her previous experience of air-dropping with the Doctor and Amiya, eager to repeat the thrill.

Ivan took a step back, waving his hands repeatedly in sheer panic.

“No need, no need! Thank you very much! I can do it myself!”

“Alright then, let’s go!”

Blaze did not insist. Without a second of hesitation, she took a running start and was the first to leap directly off the edge of the towering rooftop.

She adjusted her posture in mid-air, plummeting toward the earth, and then…

With a deafening, explosive thud, she crashed heavily onto the street below like a living cannonball. Where her heavy boots landed, the hard asphalt instantly caved in, developing massive, spiderweb-like cracks as a thick cloud of dust billowed outward.

She stood up from the crater completely unharmed, casually clapping the debris off her hands.

In stark contrast, Ivan’s landing method was much more elegant.

Ivan followed closely, leaping into the abyss. But just before he was about to hit the unforgiving pavement, the white katana in his hand was unsheathed with a sharp hiss.

The blade’s ethereal gleam drew several perfect, glowing arcs in the air, the sheer force of the slashes catching the wind and drastically slowing his descent.

Finally, he touched down completely silently, landing lightly on his feet right beside Blaze.

Blaze’s eyes widened in amazement. She curiously leaned in, staring intently at the faintly glowing katana resting in Ivan’s grip.

“Eh?! Ivan, your new sword… can it also be used to slow down your descent? What’s the principle? Air pressure? Or some special Originium Arts?”

Ivan twirled the blade proudly, letting it catch the streetlights.

“How about it, cool, right? Want one? I’ll make one for you when I have time.”

Blaze chuckled, waving her hand.

“Forget it, forget it, I still prefer my old buddy!”

As they joked, their gazes simultaneously shifted forward, locking onto the squad of Reunion Movement soldiers blocking the street ahead.

This group of soldiers had clearly just witnessed the two of them descending from the sky.

Especially the terrifying Feline who had just created a literal crater in the asphalt, and the strange monster of a man who had manipulated gravity to land gracefully. The Reunion soldiers were instantly frozen in place, utterly paralyzed, caught between the urge to advance and the desperate instinct to flee.

‘Oh no, it’s Ivan.’ The collective inner thought of the Reunion squad echoed in the tense silence.

Blaze reined in her smile. She stepped forward, her expression turning fierce as she flexed her wrist joints, producing a series of sharp, intimidating clicking sounds.

“I know you want to rendezvous with your companions. However, you’ve seen the current situation. Please, can you put down your weapons and surrender? We, Rhodes Island, will guarantee your treatment.”

She had already slightly crouched, her muscles tensed, fully prepared to violently subdue them at a moment’s notice.

However, the anticipated desperate resistance simply did not occur.

The squad of Reunion Movement soldiers merely exchanged terrified glances with one another. Then, almost simultaneously, they very decisively threw their weapons onto the ground with a loud clatter and raised their hands high into the air.

“We surrender! Don’t move!”

Blaze blinked. “???”

Her prepared combat stance froze awkwardly. Her cat ears perked up in sheer confusion, and she wore a deeply bewildered expression.

“Huh? You… you’re surrendering already?”

The leading Reunion Movement squad leader had a mournful, tearful face. He frantically gestured toward Blaze’s right side with his eyes.

Blaze followed his gaze. She only saw Ivan standing there, idly guiding several glowing Phantom Swords made of pure energy, letting them orbit around him like deadly satellites.

The squad leader’s voice was trembling so hard his teeth chattered.

“Big sister… do you want to see who’s standing next to you? And look at those flying knives hovering next to him… What’s the point of us fighting? Going up just to be experience fodder?”

Another soldier behind him whispered loudly, supplementing the leader’s logic.

“Exactly… there’s no need for us to fight at all. Wouldn’t we just be instantly killed if we went up?”

Blaze slowly turned her head to look at Ivan, who was currently innocently playing with his lethal Phantom Swords, looking like he was just out for a stroll.

Then she looked back at the group of Reunion Movement soldiers in front of her, who were currently shivering and only seeking to survive the night.

She finally realized the sheer absurdity of the situation, and then felt a bit exasperated, her shoulders slumping.

Well… it seems that sometimes, having a walking humanoid natural disaster as a teammate really saves a lot of trouble.