Arknights: I'm Pretty Strong With Minecraft — Chapter 79

Chapter 79: Free Labor

Ch’en crossed her arms, her tail flicking in a slow, agitated rhythm. “Ivan, what exactly are you planning to do with those Shadow Guards down in that pit?”

Ivan clapped the residual dust from his hands, looking at her as if she had just asked why water was wet. “Isn’t it obvious? We’re tying them up and hauling them back to Rhodes Island!”

A distinct, avaricious gleam flashed in his eyes—the look of a gamer who had just stumbled upon a chest full of premium loot.

“These are high-tier laborers, practically gift-wrapped and delivered to our doorstep. It would be a criminal waste to leave them behind!” Ivan rubbed his hands together. “Do you have any idea how many potato fields we still need to till back at the base? Hehehehe…”

Ch’en’s eyelid twitched violently. She slowly turned her head toward Lin Yuxia, her voice dripping with suppressed disbelief. “Are you just going to stand there? He is openly abducting Lungmen’s elite combat forces.”

Lin Yuxia met her gaze with a perfectly deadpan expression, effortlessly batting the responsibility back. “You are a Senior Superintendent of the Lungmen Guard Department. Why don’t you arrest him?”

The two native Terra residents exchanged a long, heavy look. Silence descended over them. A thick, awkward tension filled the air as they both silently acknowledged the exact same truth: neither of them could stop this walking anomaly if they tried.

Satisfied with the lack of opposition, Ivan grabbed the nearby lever and yanked it down. The heavy obsidian ceiling of the trap slid open with a grinding scrape. He squatted right at the edge of the sheer drop, peering into the gloom.

“Yo, friends in the basement! How are the accommodations?” Ivan called down cheerfully. “Climate-controlled obsidian suite, blast-proof, self-repairing. If you enjoyed your stay, don’t forget to leave a five-star review!”

The elite Shadow Guards trapped at the bottom maintained their absolute, professional silence. Only a dozen pairs of icy, murderous eyes glared up at him from the shadows of their black cloaks.

“Silent treatment, huh?” Ivan pouted, clearly disappointed. “Fine. I like tough nuts. Let’s see if you can stay this quiet in a minute.”

He reached behind his back and pulled out a perfectly cubic block of TNT. Its pixelated, jarringly bright red-and-white texture looked entirely alien against the grim, gritty backdrop of Lungmen’s alleys.

With a practiced flick of his wrist, he struck a piece of flint against a steel ingot. A spark caught. The fuse atop the block began to hiss, flashing with a rapid, blinding white light.

He casually tossed it down the hole.

The stoic professionalism at the bottom of the pit instantly evaporated. Exasperated roars, now heavily laced with genuine terror, echoed up the shaft.

“Ivan! We surrender! We surrender! We are allies with Rhodes Island!”

“Too late~”

Ivan dragged out the syllables in a sing-song voice, mercilessly yanking the lever back up. The heavy obsidian blocks slammed shut, instantly cutting off the frantic screams and the strobing white light of the explosive.

Down in the pitch-black, utterly sealed, and indestructible box, the remaining elite assassins of Lungmen abandoned all pretense of dignity. They hammered their fists against the unyielding walls, watching the hissing block of TNT flash faster and faster.

“Damn it! Ivan! We surren—”

BOOM—!!!

A muffled, bass-heavy thud reverberated from deep underground. The concrete beneath Ch’en and Lin Yuxia’s boots trembled violently.

Lin Yuxia stared down at the vibrating pavement, a rare crack in her composure showing. “They… should be fine, right?”

“You’re the one using the word ‘should’,” Ivan replied breezily, digging a pinky finger into his ear as if he had just set off a cheap firecracker.

He threw the lever one more time. The pit opened.

Down below, the fearsome Shadow Guards lay in a tangled, groaning heap. Their signature black cloaks were shredded into tattered rags. Their faces were coated in thick black soot, and their hair stood on end, emitting faint wisps of gray smoke. They looked like the punchline of a terrible cartoon. Yet, the shallow rise and fall of their chests proved they were still breathing.

Ivan let out a low whistle of genuine admiration.

“You Terra locals really are built different! Taking a point-blank blast and keeping all your limbs attached? Not bad. Next time, I’ll drop three blocks.”

He turned back to Lin Yuxia, flashing a bright, innocent smile. “See? Still breathing. I told you they’d be fine.”

Without waiting for a response, Ivan hopped off the ledge, plummeting straight down into the pit. He pulled out a massive coil of rope and went to work, deftly trussing up the dazed, twitching assassins one by one, binding them into tight, inescapable bundles.

Ch’en leaned over the edge, watching him work in the gloom. “Do you need us to throw down a line to pull you up?”

“Nah, I got it.”

Ivan waved her off. He pulled a stack of oak planks from thin air. Right before the astonished eyes of the two women, he jumped straight up, instantly placing a floating wooden block directly beneath his boots. He jumped again, placing another. Plop. Plop. Plop.

Defying every known law of physics, Ivan rapidly built a vertical pillar beneath his own feet, casually riding the rising tower of wood until he stepped right over the edge and back onto the street.

Lin Yuxia stared at the crude wooden pillar standing in the middle of the pit. “Your method of ascending… is certainly unique.”

“Alright, let’s move.” Ivan dusted off his jacket. “I doubt they’ll send any more fodder our way after this. Let’s go meet up with Amiya and the others.”

He grabbed the thick end of the rope, threw it over his shoulder, and started walking. Behind him, the long string of tightly bound, soot-covered Shadow Guards dragged across the rough pavement like a massive string of sausages.

Ch’en stared at the crude, utterly humiliating method of transportation. “Ivan… are you seriously just going to drag Lungmen’s elite forces across the ground like that? Don’t you think that’s a bit… inappropriate?”

Ivan paused and glanced over his shoulder. His face was a mask of pure, unadulterated innocence. “What else am I supposed to do? Do I look like a taxi service?”

Ch’en looked at the trail of twitching, charcoal-faced bodies scraping along the asphalt. She swallowed whatever argument she had prepared, rubbing her temples as a headache began to form. “Uh… never mind.”

“You… just do whatever makes you happy.”

High above the city, inside the Lungmen Chief Executive’s Office.

“What?!”

Wei Yenwu’s hand froze in mid-air. The expensive pipe clamped between his fingers halted inches from his mouth. He stared at the encrypted communication terminal on his desk, his usual aristocratic calm shattering.

“Are you telling me that nearly half of the Shadow Guards deployed… were captured alive by that boy?”

A strained, hesitant voice crackled through the speaker, confirming the disastrous report.

Wei Yenwu took a slow, ragged breath. He leaned back into the plush leather of his high-backed chair, lifting his free hand to heavily massage the bridge of his nose. He brought the pipe—a companion of many decades—up to his head.

With a heavy sigh of sheer, unadulterated exhaustion, he tapped the hard wood of the pipe against his temple. Thwack. Thwack. The dull sound echoed in the quiet, opulent office.

It was the sound of a master strategist realizing a chaotic, rule-breaking variable had just bulldozed straight through his carefully crafted chessboard.

“This boy… he is simply…”

Wei Yenwu let the sentence die in his throat. He remained silent for a long minute. Slowly, the turbulent ripples in his sharp eyes faded, replaced once again by the cold, fathomless depths of Lungmen’s supreme ruler.

He leaned forward, pressing the transmission button. When he spoke, his voice had completely regained its terrifying, measured authority.

“Relay this order: cease all targeted engagements against Ivan immediately.”

“Consolidate all remaining forces. Your absolute priority is the core directive I issued at the start of this operation.”

Wei Yenwu paused, his tone dropping an octave, each word carrying the weight of an executioner’s blade.

“Execute the mission. No matter the cost.”