Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 76

Chapter 76: What? You Want to Learn From Ivan Too?

Looking at Lin Yuxia who had suddenly appeared before him, Ivan felt his head spin.

‘No way, big sister?! This wasn’t in the script!”How did Lin Yuxia end up in a place like this? And she just happened to pull us in? This coincidence is way too deliberate!’

Ch’en clearly recognized this uninvited guest. She quickly suppressed the lingering awkwardness of being carried like a sack of potatoes by Ivan just moments ago. Smoothing out her uniform, she regained her strict composure, her eyes narrowing with a mix of doubt and sharp scrutiny.

“Lin Yuxia? What are you doing here?” Ch’en demanded. This damp, cramped alleyway hideout was clearly not a place the Rat King’s refined daughter would usually frequent.

Lin Yuxia folded her arms, leaning back against a towering stack of wooden crates. Her tone was flat, yet it carried the distinct, haughty edge of someone taking over the host’s role.

“That is what I should be asking you, isn’t it? Officer Ch’en, and this… friend of yours who caused such a massive commotion.” Her amethyst gaze pointedly swept over Ivan, sizing him up. “You two are the ones who crashed into my safe point.”

Ch’en did not dwell on the ownership of the location. Her mind was entirely focused on the lethal, black-clad figures currently hunting them through the streets.

She stared at Lin Yuxia, getting straight to the point. “You must know something about that unit, right?”

Ch’en firmly believed that as the daughter of Lungmen’s underground emperor, Lin Yuxia’s vast intelligence network could not possibly be blind to such a powerful, hidden force operating within the city limits.

Hearing this, Lin Yuxia merely raised a slender eyebrow. She neither admitted nor denied the accusation, choosing a cold, measured silence instead.

That silence itself, in Ch’en’s experienced eyes, was all the answer she needed.

Realizing she would not pry any useful information from the Rat King’s daughter for the time being, Ch’en suddenly pivoted. She turned her piercing gaze toward Ivan, who was currently rubbing his sore arm with a distinct expression of ‘this has absolutely nothing to do with me.’

She recalled the chaotic moments on the rooftop earlier. Amidst the flashing blades and crumbling concrete, Ivan had muttered a very specific name when facing those assassins.

“No, buddy, why are you looking at me?” Ivan asked, feeling a sudden chill crawl up his neck under Ch’en’s intense stare.

Ch’en took a slow, deliberate step forward, her tone probing and dangerous.

“During the battle just now, I heard you talking to yourself. You mentioned ‘Wei Yenwu’s hidden guards’?”

She leaned in slightly. “Ivan, you… you must know the origin of those people, right? What exactly are they?”

Ivan looked into Ch’en’s dead-serious eyes, then cast a sideways glance at Lin Yuxia. The mafia heiress appeared entirely indifferent, staring at the ceiling, but the slight tilt of her head betrayed that she was listening intently to every single syllable. He knew he could not simply bluff his way out of this interrogation.

Ivan aggressively scratched the back of his head, letting out a long, exaggerated sigh.

“Oh, alright, alright… I guess I know a little bit,” he conceded, his voice dripping with reluctant resignation.

He spread his hands apart, speaking as if he were discussing the weather rather than classified state secrets.

“Those guys dressed up like oversized crows are called the Black Raincoats.”

He paused, waving a hand dismissively. “They operate like a hidden blade directly under that old… ahem, Officer Wei’s command. They specialize in the city’s dirty work. Basically, they are his personal shadow guards.”

Ivan delivered this devastating revelation with the casual breeze of a tourist recommending a cheap street food stall.

However, those careless words struck Lin Yuxia like a physical thunderbolt.

The mafia heiress, who had maintained a flawless mask of calm composure, suddenly jolted upright. Her beautiful eyes widened, instantly flooding with absolute, unadulterated shock. She sucked in a sharp breath.

“What?! No… how do you know about this?!”

Her voice lost all its previous aristocratic smoothness, cracking with disbelief. “The name ‘Black Raincoats’… even among Lungmen’s highest-ranking officials, only a tiny handful are aware of their existence! Who exactly are you?!”

This seemingly nonchalant, erratic gamer actually held one of Lungmen’s most heavily guarded core secrets!

Watching Lin Yuxia’s violent reaction, Ch’en became entirely convinced that Ivan was telling the absolute truth.

She stared at the young man, her own heart pounding against her ribs.

This man not only possessed reality-breaking, beyond understanding power, but he also seemed to hold a terrifying amount of classified knowledge.

‘Ivan…’Ch’en thought, her grip tightening on her scabbard.’Just how many more things are you hiding?’

Meanwhile, far from the suffocating tension of the Lungmen safehouse.

“Slow down! Blaze—!”

Accompanied by the Doctor’s drawn-out, desperate scream, a figure descended from the sky like a blazing meteor.

Thud—!!!

A familiar, deafening crash echoed across the staging area, accompanied by a violent tremor that shook the very ground.

Blaze the feline Operator landed perfectly, dropping into a flawless, three-point superhero crouch. Dust billowed outward from the crater beneath her boots.

The Doctor, who had been firmly tucked under her armpit for the entire descent, spun several times like a broken windmill due to the sheer inertia before finally being deposited onto the solid earth. He collapsed into a heap, cartoonish stars practically circling his hooded head.

“Ivan! We are here!!”

Blaze shot up to her feet, shouting with explosive energy. Her feline ears perked straight up, twitching with excitement as her golden eyes scanned the perimeter for that familiar, chaotic figure.

However, the busy Rhodes Island Operators securing the site merely glanced up at the crater.

After confirming it was just their own people making a standard entrance, they calmly lowered their heads and went right back to bandaging the wounded and securing the perimeter.

After all, everyone on the payroll was already thoroughly desensitized to Blaze’s unique, property-damaging methods of arrival.

The Doctor violently shook his dizzy head, trying to clear the ringing in his ears, and frantically looked around the camp.

“Where is he? Where is my extra-large, no-extra-charge, strong-in-power, strong-in-wisdom ace Operator?”

Amiya, who was diligently coordinating the cleanup efforts nearby, turned her head upon hearing the Doctor’s frantic rambling. She offered a tired, somewhat helpless smile.

“Doctor, are you asking about Mr. Ivan?”

Amiya let out a soft sigh, her rabbit ears drooping slightly.

“Mr. Ivan… he just received an urgent encrypted communication from Officer Ch’en, and then… well, he just ‘whooshed’ and vanished into thin air right in front of us again.”

“No!!!!”

The Doctor looked as though he had just heard his own heart shatter into a million pieces. He dramatically stumbled backward, clutching his chest with one hand while reaching desperately toward the gray sky with the other.

[Snowflakes fluttering ~ North wind howling ~]

Amiya stared at the Doctor’s theatrical overacting, helplessly massaging her temples to ward off an incoming headache. She quickly tried to salvage the situation.

“But do not worry, Doctor! Mr. Ivan promised right before he left that he would be back very soon!”

The Doctor instantly dropped his mournful, tragic facade. His expression shifted faster than flipping a page in a book, his face instantly beaming with overwhelming joy.

“That is good, that is good! As expected of my ultimate wheelchair, so efficient and reliable!”

Amiya seized the brief window of optimism to drop the hammer.

“Then, until Mr. Ivan returns, the on-site command and all subsequent tactical arrangements will continue to be entrusted entirely to you, Doctor.”

The bright smile on the Doctor’s face instantly froze, shattering like cheap glass.

‘No way? I actually have to use my brain again? Ivan, please come back quickly!’

While the Doctor suffered his internal crisis, Blaze’s attention had already been thoroughly captured by the extremely spectacular, horrifying sight displayed across the factory wall.

She slowly walked over, staring up at the Reunion Movement soldiers. They were securely pinned to the reinforced concrete in various distorted, gravity-defying poses, held in place by the glowing, ethereal blades of the Phantom Sword.

Blaze’s jaw hung open in absolute shock, the fur on her tail standing completely on end.

“Wow… This… this is truly art!”

Blaze exclaimed in genuine, heartfelt admiration. She even dug into her tactical pouch, pulling out her terminal to find the perfect lighting angle and snap a quick photo of the suspended grunts.

“These… wouldn’t happen to be that Ivan guy’s masterpiece, would they?”

A nearby Rhodes Island Operator, who was currently tying up a groaning prisoner, pushed up his glasses and nodded with a completely deadpan expression.

“Yes. Besides Mr. Ivan, who else could possibly create such… well, a uniquely styled crime scene?”

Blaze stared at the wall of groaning enemies, her golden eyes shining with an intense, burning desire to learn.

She folded her arms, nodding with absolute seriousness.

“Hmm… it seems I definitely need to find an opportunity to properly learn this highly efficient and visually impactful enemy-subduing technique from Ivan!”

[Reunion Movement: Nooooo!!! Big Sis! We beg you! One Ivan is already Nether difficulty! If another one comes, do we even have a way to live?! Brother! Oh no! Dear Big Sis! Give us a way to live!!!]

`[Rhodes’s Note: In Chinese gaming slang, calling a character or weapon a “wheelchair” means they are so incredibly overpowered that they can effortlessly “carry” the player, making the game easy enough for anyone to win without trying.]`