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ArabicArknights: Soul Knights of Terra — Chapter 45
Chapter 45: Gregor: I Can Finally Speak!
A heavy spatial distortion rippled through the air, blurring Gregor’s vision. When the dizzying sensation faded, the familiar stone walls of the Vitality Hall were gone, replaced by a dim, enclosed space.
Vane stood a few paces ahead, frozen in his tracks.
Gregor took in the surroundings. It was a modern, minimalist studio. Four dark wooden desks sat neatly in the center of the room, and resting atop them were—
“Computers!?” Vane let out a startled yelp. He practically threw himself at the nearest desk, his fingers trembling as he traced the cold edge of the monitor casing. Without wasting another second, he jammed the power button on the main tower.
Gregor stepped up beside him, his fiery gaze locked onto the dark glass.
[Gregor: Can it actually be used?]
The screen flickered to life. However, instead of a familiar operating system, a cascade of green, garbled code began scrolling endlessly across the black background.
“It can’t…” Vane’s shoulders slumped, his excitement evaporating in an instant. “Completely bricked. And here I was getting my hopes up…”
Gregor’s own brief spark of anticipation cooled. He let out a low, rumbling sigh.
[Gregor: What exactly is this room?]
“A hidden Easter egg room from the Vitality Hall,” Vane explained, pushing himself off the desk to look around the shadowy studio. “Originally, there were supposed to be a few chibi figurines of the game developers lying around in here, but they’re obviously gone now.”
He bent down, reaching toward his feet. A small, boxy little robot was aggressively rubbing its screen against Vane’s calf. Vane scooped up 10% Off.
“Have you been hiding in this secret room the whole time?”
[Gregor: So that’s why you got stuck trying to leave earlier…]
10% Off flashed a bright `⊙ω⊙` emoticon on its screen, nodding its metallic chassis obediently.
Vane sighed heavily, setting the little robot down on the wooden desk and patting its cold metal top. “What a waste. The computers here are just expensive props. If they actually connected to the internet, I was thinking I could finally catch up on One Piece…”
[Gregor: You wouldn’t finish that even in your next life. I would have thought your first reaction would be trying to contact Earth.]
“We’re an entire universe away, Boss. Aren’t you being a little too optimistic?” Vane rolled his eyes.
“Bili—!”
A high-pitched electronic chime suddenly erupted from 10% Off. The cute emoticon vanished from its screen.
Under the stunned gazes of both men, the display shifted, resolving into an incredibly familiar layout.
The digital homepage of a video streaming site.
Crisp channel icons, recommended thumbnails, and a scrolling program list were all perfectly rendered.
Vane and Gregor stared in dead silence.
“You can actually watch TV?!” they roared in unison.
“Bili Bili~!”
The screen flickered. A thin, telescopic metal antenna slid out from the top of 10% Off’s head, rotating slightly to adjust its signal. The interface handled itself automatically, and a few seconds later, the upbeat intro music of a familiar anime echoed through the quiet studio.
Vane’s eyes practically glowed. He immediately reached out, tapping the screen to skip to the latest episode, only for his face to fall completely flat.
“It hasn’t updated yet~”
A line of text scrolled across the video player: `[Don’t rush me… I’m typing, I’m already writing the outline for the next part, I have ideas, but connecting them is too hard.]`
[Gregor: Is that really the point right now!?]
Gregor dragged a massive hand down his face, exasperated. He leaned over and issued a new command.
[Gregor: Switch to the news channel.]
A rotating buffering ring appeared on the little screen. After several tense seconds, it spat out a massive, red question mark.
[Gregor: Looks like that doesn’t work…]
“Boss…” Vane muttered, his voice tight with sudden realization. He looked back and forth between the towering Fire Demon and the tiny robot. “Can you mentally connect with 10% Off?”
[Gregor: Of course not.]
“Then how the hell does it understand what you’re saying?!”
Both of them slowly lowered their heads to stare at the machine on the desk.
Gregor cleared his throat. He opened his maw and let out a low, guttural Fire Demon growl.
[Gregor: Can you understand me?]
“Bili ✓” flashed on the screen.
Vane sucked in a sharp breath, a finger shooting up into the air. “Boss, I have a genius idea!”
[Gregor: What?]
Before Gregor could even process the shift in momentum, Vane was already vibrating with excitement. “Since 10% Off can play TV shows and perfectly understand your grunts, isn’t it a ready-made translator?!”
[Gregor: But it doesn’t seem to have a voice module…]
“You’re not thinking fourth-dimensionally, Boss!” Vane clapped his hands together. “Think about how Bumblebee talks in Transformers!”
[Gregor: Uh… piecing together audio clips from the radio? You mean—]
“Exactly!” Vane snatched 10% Off off the desk and shoved it toward Gregor’s chest. “From today on, this little guy is your personal voice box!”
Meanwhile, back in the main area of the Vitality Hall.
Ifrit was furiously slapping her hands against the solid stone wall, trying to find the invisible doorway.
The air suddenly rippled like water. Gregor and Vane materialized out of thin air.
“Boss, you’re back! Where did you go?” Ifrit immediately bounded over, her tail swishing with curiosity.
The two men stood in absolute silence. Vane, holding 10% Off like a prized trophy, gave Gregor a subtle nod.
Gregor understood the assignment. He stepped up to Ifrit, lowered his massive, horned head, and let out a rumbling roar.
Grrr-raaaah. (A polite greeting.)
Just as Ifrit tilted her head in confusion, the screen on the robot in Vane’s arms flared to life.
“Go, Little Fire Dragon!” Ash Ketchum’s energetic voice blasted from the tiny speakers.
Ifrit jumped back. “!!!”
She stared at the metal box in shock, then looked up at Gregor, her eyes wide with absolute wonder. “Boss… are you talking?”
Vane smugly shook the robot. “How about it? Now the Boss can finally speak!”
Ifrit’s face lit up like a flare. She immediately started rapid-firing questions at Gregor, while 10% Off worked overtime to translate the Fire Demon’s responses. The results, however, were brutally concise.
“Boss, you can finally talk! Can you play games with me now?”
[Gregor: This body still hasn’t fully adapted… Go play with Vane for now.]
10% Off audio clip: “Go play by yourself.”
Ifrit deflated slightly. “Oh… Then Boss, when are we going out to explore? Even just walking around outside is fine!”
[Gregor: Your current body hasn’t recovered yet. Wait until we get some news from the Second, then I’ll take you out.]
10% Off audio clip: “Next time for sure.”
Ifrit pouted. “What about barbecue? You promised me before!”
[Gregor: I really shouldn’t have agreed to that…]
10% Off audio clip: “Are you dreaming?”
Vane winced, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. “…The core meaning is technically correct, but didn’t you omit way too much context?”
“Bili?” the robot chirped innocently.
Shaking his head, Vane scanned the Vitality Hall. He finally realized someone was missing.
[Vane: Third, what are you doing? Hurry back, we’ve got a surprise~]
[Gusi:…I have a situation to handle on my end.]
[Vane: What situation? Let me see.]
[Gusi:…]
Ursus Snowfield, the edge of the Black Forest.
A colossal, majestic deer head slowly breached the canopy of shadows cast by the ancient pines, its glowing eyes silently tracking the group of uninvited guests tramping through the snow below.
“[Ursus profanity!] When the hell did a forest sprout up here!?”
“Did we take a wrong turn?”
“Impossible! I know this patrol route with my eyes closed!”
“Then it couldn’t have just grown out of thin air, could it?”
“Are we going in or not? That Infected rat has already run deep inside!”
A squad of Ursus soldiers clad in heavy black military coats argued fiercely at the tree line. Though Gusi couldn’t understand a single syllable of their harsh language, the aggressive body language made their intentions perfectly clear.
His gaze shifted slightly, landing on the thick roots of a nearby tree.
Cowering in the freezing mud was a ragged, emaciated Infected.
The fugitive was clearly the target of the hunting party. He was shaking violently from the biting cold and sheer terror, his dirty hands clamped desperately over his own mouth to stifle his ragged breathing.
Gusi slowly raised a massive wooden claw, pressing a finger to his lips in a silent shh gesture.
The Infected stared up at the towering Druid beast, his eyes wide with shock, and nodded frantically.
Gusi looked away, silently retracting the deadly, thorned vines he had already coiled through the underbrush behind the fugitive.
My luck is truly abysmal… Gusi sighed internally, shifting his focus back to the shouting soldiers. How did I run into people the exact second I stepped outside? And in this kind of situation, no less.
I knew I’d be discovered eventually, but I didn’t expect the official military to be the first ones knocking on my door.
Keeping perfectly still in the shadows, Gusi opened the mental chat.
[Gusi: A group of men in military uniforms just showed up at my forest. I’m debating whether or not I should make contact with them…]
[Vane: Military uniforms? They wouldn’t happen to be black, would they?]
Vane’s mental voice carried a sharp, uncharacteristic edge of panic.
[Gusi: Yes, they are.]
[Vane: Are they carrying military sabers at their waists?! Wearing heavy breathing masks with strange tubes sticking out of their bodies!? Are there a lot of them!?]
Gusi peered down through the branches, analyzing the squad.
[Gusi: They have masks, and I see a few sabers, but no strange tubes. As for the numbers… it looks like a standard squad. About twelve men.]
[Gregor: What’s wrong, Fourth? Are those people dangerous?]
[Vane: Phew… Okay, it looks like it’s just the standard Ursus Patrol Team. You nearly gave me a heart attack, Third. I thought you ran into the Internal Guard…]
Internal Guard?
Gusi committed the term to memory. The sheer panic in Vane’s voice over those specific features meant this ‘Internal Guard’ had to be a terrifying, ruthless force.
He looked back down at the Patrol Team. Even if it wasn’t the worst-case scenario, being targeted by the official military of this world was a massive headache.
Should I… just kill them?
The sheer coldness of the thought startled Gusi. He instinctively shook his massive, antlered head, forcing the violent urge down. He looked back at the terrified Infected shivering in the dirt.
These soldiers were here to hunt this man down.
After a moment of deliberation, Gusi decided to consult the resident lore expert.
[Gusi: There’s an Infected hiding near me. It looks like this Patrol Team is hunting him.]
[Vane: Tsk… Then it’s exactly what I expected.]
[Vane: The Ursus Patrol Team aren’t real soldiers. They’re just a pack of state-sanctioned vermin who specialize in persecuting the lower classes, and they are disgustingly good at their jobs.]
[Gusi: Persecuting? Aren’t they the regular army?]
Gusi frowned. In his straightforward worldview, soldiers existed to protect the nation and its people, not to slaughter the weak.
[Vane: Soldiers? Third, you’re in Ursus. The entire empire’s stance on the Infected is violently hostile.]
[Vane: Forget actual confirmed Infected—even if you’re just suspected of having Oripathy, these bastards will drag you away and throw you into an Originium mine until every last drop of your value is squeezed out and you die in the dark.]
[Gusi: So… these guys aren’t exactly the good guys?]
[Vane: Let me put it this way. There might be a handful of people in the actual Ursus military who still possess a human conscience. But the Patrol Team? The ones who specialize in this exact job?]
[Vane: If you slaughtered a thousand of them, nine hundred and ninety-eight would deserve it. And out of the remaining two, one of them deserves to die twice!]
[Gusi:…Is it really that extreme?]
[Gregor: Words are cheap. Third, come back to the Hall for a minute and pick up the new translator.]
[Gregor: Wait until you can actually hear what they’re saying for yourself. Then, you can pass your own judgment.]
[Rhodes’s Note: The “hidden Easter egg room” refers to a secret developer room in the actual Soul Knight game lobby, which features chibi versions of the ChillyRoom development team. The “Bili Bili” sounds and TV interface are a nod to the Chinese video sharing platform Bilibili, often referenced in Chinese gaming culture.]