Planet of Sand and Oasis of Iron

Chapter 181 180. Are the things you fight at level and level just a name change?

The next few days were calm, and it didn't look like several large companies were gathering people to do something.

After completing the damage assessment on the lower level, the reconstruction agency once again started exploring the middle and upper areas. The lower area is still controlled by autonomous machinery, and the path must be opened before it can be dealt with.

Therefore, the mercenaries entered the money-making mode again. As long as the meeting was not held for one day, they could earn one more day's money.

After all, whether you can still make money after the meeting is still an unknown, so you have to work hard in the mines to make money during this period.

He gave Tien some money for some drinks and asked her to help find out if the reformation agency had any preparations. Sefer himself quickly established a solid connection with the independent mercenary "Dust".

As a long-term customer, and as a customer who provides long-term equipment repair and maintenance, the other party gives Safe a 10% discount and provides 24-hour maintenance service.

As for ammunition, you have to buy it from the modification agency.

If I were to say the difference between these days and the previous days when I accepted missions and then went to fight in those intricate passages, it would probably be that there were a lot more people wearing uniform styles appearing in the square.

As mentioned before, the uniforms of the reformatory are very strange. They are made of obvious black and white clothes spliced together in an irregular manner, which makes them very conspicuous.

The I/O Enterprise guys, whom I hadn't seen for a while, had slightly fluorescent lights on the cuffs and seams of their straight uniforms. But honestly, with those bright white clothes and those outlines, Seifer felt like they were saying these guys could shoot.

The reformation agency allowed these employees to enter its node city, and it seems that the possibility of negotiation is very high... What are the reasons and considerations for doing so?
If it was because they couldn't defeat them, Cypher would probably laugh - all signs showed that the reformation agency had a lot of tricks up its sleeve, so 'not being able to defeat them' was not an excuse.

Seifer, who had just returned to hand in a task, rested for a while. Before preparing to take on a big job, he glanced around the hall for a while and found that the employees of Huanwu Group were also starting to enter.

But it was not an ordinary entry, they came in with transport vehicles!
In an area of the huge square, employees of Huanwu Group used machinery to move materials from the trucks and quickly assembled them on the spot. From the outline... it looked like a very large room.

Different from the attire of I/O Company, the people of Huanwu Group all wore long black coats, and some even wore a shawl on the outside to cover their hands.

The back of the shawl is embroidered with golden thread in a fairly regular pattern, which is different for each person, as if it represents each person's... uh, clerical level?
There are no clothing requirements for those corporate mercenaries, so I guess they won’t be used.

As the Phantom Mist Group began to divide up areas and establish rooms, I/O Enterprises also followed suit. The last to enter, however, was the theoretically closest company, Abian.

This was not the first time I had seen clerks dressed like this in this company. They all wore light green military uniforms. Some wore hats, some didn't, but each of them had an ID card hanging in front of them. The biggest thing on the ID card was not their personal name or position.

But they are numbers, such as the person who just walked past. Sefer saw P1 written on the sign.

After another P2, I can play Contra next, right?

Temporarily blocking out the strange thoughts in his mind, Seifer observed the behavior of these companies, and he couldn't help feeling impatient - it was already now, why hadn't the Phantom Mist Group informed him to be a security guard?
It would be great if I could earn some money by working.

Like other mercenaries, after watching in the crowd for a while, Seifer shook his head and accepted the task of going to the middle level.

By the way, it was daytime now—that is, everyone in the car except Seve was resting.

This included the silent, seemingly unnoticed Shengnai, who seemed to appear at any moment from any nearby corner. From this, it became clear that Shengnai was just an ordinary girl. Her elusiveness was merely a matter of movement and skill, not some supernatural power... probably.

Among a bunch of missions that might contain traps, Seifer chose a mission in the upper middle area based on his now sophisticated judgment, and then headed to the area where the machine was docked.

——The renovation agency separated each maintenance compartment with isolation panels and then charged shutdown fees, which highlighted the company's style.

But in other words, they have no obligation to help the mercenaries guard or maintain the machine. Everything is a transaction between the two parties.

Ignoring the mercenaries' curious gazes, Seifer entered the machine, opened the front partition door, and followed the guide line to the large elevator going downwards. His operations were smooth and fluid.

During this period, there were also mercenaries who came to chat and expressed their hope to work together - but they were all rejected.

At the level of driving a machine body, unless it is an individual, extremely individual mission, everyone basically fights alone.

There is no other reason. The cost of a mission has also increased. If there are many people and the damage is heavy, and the ammunition consumption is high, the final money earned will be less.

It’s better to fight alone, if one person is full the whole family will not be hungry.

The elevator began to descend heavily. Seifer watched quietly as the pipes and tracks in front of him slowly disappeared overhead. The complex and huge structure deep below began to appear at the end of the long passage.

Engineering machinery had been used here once before, but it was to repair and strengthen the middle layer of the large cavity area, which is actually a three-dimensional transportation hub area composed of a large number of loops and transport roads.

The large partition walls, portals, and transport roads that can be seen everywhere, as well as the huge pipes related to those roads, look foggy and gray under the lighting of the middle area.

Because the rust removal work was not thorough enough, Sefer always felt that these things were covered with a layer of rust... No wonder those mechanics were repairing these things all day long.

Materials science is really important. At least we can’t make things that rust, right?
Arriving at the target area, Cypher's machine also put combat control online. At this time, what appeared before Cypher was an area with a large number of entrances and exits, as well as active autonomous machines.

"Independent mercenary Red Crossbow, your mission is to cross the transport routes and reach the foundry to shut it down."

"The shutdown method is very simple. Just destroy the core control unit. Be careful not to damage the production lines. If you do, you will be fined according to the extent of the damage."

It's a troublesome task, but the payoff is high, and you can solve the problem without leaving the machine - most importantly, the control unit is not in the factory, so as long as you pay a little attention, you won't smash it to pieces and you won't have to pay any money.

As soon as I walked out of the elevator, the threat scan was activated and dozens of enemy armored vehicles of all sizes appeared in front of me.

However, compared to the reaction of the enemy in front of him, Sefer was more concerned about what was behind him.

When the elevator goes up, it is not the wall that carries the elevator, but a passage with a slight height difference.

There was no such road marked on the map—and for some reason, there was a slight energy reaction along this road. Out of curiosity, Cypher decided to waste a few minutes to check it out.

(End of this chapter)