Volume 10: Ancient Battleship Chapter 507: Don’t Chase the Desperate Enemy
"Don't worry about your broken warp engine," Hound interrupted the excited Layton, "If you have the time, you might as well think about how to solve this big hole in front of you."
Although the seeds of erosion and giant centipedes that invaded the Mukach base were destroyed, the large hole that was drilled still exists. No one is sure whether the heretic sect will use this "channel" to launch a second wave of attacks on the base.
"Do you want to chase into the cave?" Leighton asked after a moment's pause.
"Idiot." The hound kicked him in the butt with extremely skilled movements. "Don't chase after a desperate enemy, do you understand? Besides, if we run to this tunnel, without the support of the big guy in the sky, how many Corrosion Seeds do you think you can fight by yourself? Five? Ten?"
"What should we do? We can't stay here forever, can we?" Layton muttered, looking up at the "Aguna Tor" hovering above the base, "This battleship can't stay here forever, can it?"
"Please rest assured, everyone. The higher-ups have already given a solution." A familiar voice came from behind the Hounds. They turned around and saw that Lieutenant General Maginot had already arrived at the edge of the giant pit, protected by dozens of soldiers from the Guard Battalion and two "Heavy Shield Iron Defense" mechas.
"Maginot? To be honest, I wanted to ask you when we were still on the battleship, why are you here?" The hound looked at the other party with some confusion.
"Nick, you are here too. This matter... is a long story..." Maginot's eyes swept over everyone one by one. As the "liaison" between the military and Ke Lan, he could still recognize the members of the God Hunting Group. As for the people in dark gray uniforms on the side, they should be from the Security Bureau.
"Didn't the Security Bureau have some friction with Ke Lan and others? How come they are mixed up now? Could it be that the battleship in the sky is related to the Security Bureau?" Maginot Center muttered. As a senior member of the garrison, he was completely unaware of the reconnaissance mission in the Molten Mine Area.
"I've told you many times not to call me by that name!" The hound said angrily. "Since it's a long story, just keep it short... I'm really confused. Why are you, a fat pig who can run 200 meters and get out of breath, running to Mukach instead of sitting in your office? Are you trying to lose weight?"
"I don't know either!" Maginot said with a bitter face, "I was transferred directly to the Mukach base with a transfer order. Now I am the highest military commander of this base."
"You? You've been transferred to the field force?" Hound suppressed his laughter and sized up Lieutenant General Maginot. "This... If the car breaks down while you're marching in the wild, can your soldiers carry you?"
"Don't mock me..." Maginot waved his hands and said helplessly, "What can I do about the orders from above? You know, I'm not good at running, and I'm not good at fighting. I don't know why I was transferred to such a strategic location. Ni... uh, Hound, I see that you have a good relationship with Ke Lan. If there is a chance, can you ask him to help me ask the people above..."
As he was talking, Maginot suddenly lowered his voice and leaned close to the hound's ear: "I know that Ke Lan has a close relationship with the crew. If he is willing to speak, I should be able to get some information out of him."
Maginot's face was full of flattery - logically speaking, given his status, he shouldn't have been so humble.
To take a step back, even if the Hound was still serving in the army, no matter how good he was at fighting, his stubborn temper and his history of disobeying orders meant that he could only be a lieutenant general at best. The two of them were basically equal in terms of seniority and rank, so Maginot didn't have to act so servile when he saw the Hound.
But things are different now. It seems that Ke Lan has already established connections with the Undead Crew. Naturally, the status of the Hound, who has a close relationship with Ke Lan, is different from before... Maginot knows very well that the title of general may be used to scare ordinary people, but in the eyes of the Undead Crew... it's bullshit.
...maybe even worse than fart.
If he could be transferred back to the garrison in this way, let alone pretending to be a grandson, he would even ask Maginot to lie down and lick Ke Lan's boots.
Of course, the premise is that it has to be where no one can see.
This time, he almost lost his life, and Maginot didn't want it to happen again.
But what he didn't expect was that the hound showed a puzzled look on his face: "The crew would...what crew would?"
"Huh? You don't know that the crew will..." Maginot was stunned at first, then he realized that he seemed to have made a serious mistake, and quickly changed his words, "It is an organization formed by the United Parliamentary Group and the heads of those consortiums, which is what we often refer to as 'the people above'."
The Undead Crew's orders are basically issued through the United Council, so Maginot's explanation is actually not wrong... From this point of view, Ke Lan is probably the only one in the God Hunter Group who has had direct contact with the Undead Crew...
"Then I'm afraid we can't help you." Hound narrowed his eyes and looked at Maginot meaningfully, "Because we can't see those big shots at all. We can only be ordered by them. Oh, by the way, this time we use the 'Aguna Kotor' to support the Mukach base, it is also an order from the top."
"Oh oh..." Makino nodded repeatedly, trying to change the subject quickly, "So that's how it is..."
"By the way, what is the solution you just mentioned?" Seeing that Maginot seemed to have lost interest in this topic, the Hound tactfully brought the conversation back to the main topic.
"Oh, it's like this. I just received news that the Ark has organized a transport fleet, which will deliver a large amount of construction materials to the Mukach base within three days to fill this big hole. So including the construction time, you only need to assist in the defense for about a week, and then you can return to the Ark." Maginot said, "Including the battleship operated by Ke Lan."
"Okay, just one week. By the way, is our food provided by the base?" The Hound nodded.
"Yes." Levi answered on the side, "Except for food, all supplies for the Molten Mine Area Reconnaissance Team are provided by the Mukach Base. If you have any special requests, as long as they are within our ability to meet, you can also raise them with us."
"That's good. Eating compressed biscuits every day... now I feel sick whenever I smell the peanut butter. I have to get something good to comfort my stomach." said the hound.
"Uh... Hound, you probably don't know that what I, the military chief of the base, have been eating these past two days is canned synthetic meat and bean sprouts..." Maginot said with a wry smile, "The last batch of fresh ingredients has long been exhausted. Today was supposed to be the day for the transport convoy to arrive, but the convoy was attacked by a heretic sect before the base... To be honest, before the next batch of supplies arrives, we can only rely on emergency reserve materials to survive."
"As the local tyrant, don't you have any personal stock?" The hound looked at him suspiciously.
"Today is my second day in office, what do you think?" Maginot shrugged.
"Okay, canned food is better than compressed biscuits that are so hard that they can hurt your teeth." The hound nodded, "Then arrange a place for us to live."
"The accommodation has been arranged, please follow me." Levi stood up.
"The invaders have been eliminated, but there are still a lot of things to deal with in this aftermath. I won't accompany you." Maginot pointed at Levi, "This is my adjutant. If you have any questions, just talk to him directly."
"OK."
The Hound watched Maginot leave in the car, then quietly retreated to the end of the team, keeping a distance from Levi and Ayala.
Then, he opened a one-on-one communication channel with Ke Lan.
"Ke Lan, I just met that fat guy Maginot. He was transferred to the field force and is the military chief of this base. Of course, these are not the main points. The main point is that he said that you have a close relationship with a crew club and he wants you to say something good to him in the crew club so that he can be transferred back to the garrison."
"The crew will...what did Maginot say?"
"He said that the Crew Association was an organization created by the United Parliamentary Group and the heads of the consortiums, but when he said this, his eyes kept looking away. He looked very guilty. I doubt he was telling the truth."
"The crew members he mentioned should be the undead crew members." Ke Lan was silent for a few seconds, then said.
"Undead Crew?"
"Well... from what I know so far, the highest authority organization in the Ark, even the United Council and the Business Alliance, must obey the Undead Crew Association. In other words, they are the supreme controllers of the Ark."
"I knew that Maginot was lying to me... So, have you really come into contact with this undead crew member?"
"Yes." Ke Lan did not deny it. "We have had several contacts. This reconnaissance mission in the Molten Mine Area was actually commissioned by them, but I can't say that I have a close relationship with them... I haven't even seen the true faces of any of them."
So far, Ke Lan has had several contacts with the Undead Crew, either through the Internet or through cyborgs or remote-controlled cyborgs. The only one who has seen the "real person" is the "Pope" Chiron, but at that time Chiron was no longer a member of the Undead Crew.
So strictly speaking, he had never seen any of the members of this mysterious organization.
"Then do you know their identities? Are there some members of the United Parliament who have more say and have come up with this thing? To suppress other members who have different opinions from them? In my opinion, they might really do such a thing." The Hound guessed.
"If that's true, then Maginot isn't lying." Ke Lan replied, "I don't rule out the existence of members of the Undead Crew in the United Council, but I think the United Council is just a puppet they put up in the open, a vest to issue orders."
Ke Lan had many ideas about the members of the Undead Crew. Combining the existing intelligence, in his opinion, the reason why this group of people were unwilling to come to the front of the stage was probably closely related to themselves.
Makino once told Ke Lan that every member of the Undead Crew lived a long time - although they were not truly "immortal", their lifespans were at least several times that of ordinary humans. Coupled with Chiron's huge and strange body like a "mountain of flesh" and his incredible special abilities, Ke Lan had every reason to believe that the members of the Undead Crew were not human.
Perhaps they were once human beings, but now, given their condition, ordinary people would definitely not regard them as their own kind.
Even Ke Lan himself, when he saw the "Pope" Chiron for the first time, subconsciously regarded him as a monster similar to the Seed of Erosion, a fusion of humans and biological weapons.
Ke Lan couldn't help but wonder, what would the other members of the undead crew look like in their true form?
If they were all such monsters, then everything would be explained.
Because they have abandoned their human bodies, they have gained a lifespan far exceeding that of humans. It is also because of this that they cannot step under the light - people can accept being ruled by their own kind, but they absolutely cannot accept that their ruler is a monster that is completely different from themselves.
Especially when it comes to the stance against heretical sects, some people are bound to have doubts - since our own rulers have already abandoned their human bodies and turned into "monsters", why should we suppress another person who is trying to use the technology of the Alpha civilization to "evolve" humans?
Various conspiracy theories and suspicions will quickly spread and ferment among the people, order will be subverted, and rules will be broken... When the human race falls into self-doubt and madness, it will not be far from destruction.
No matter what the purpose of the Undead Crew is, at least they are still maintaining the stability of human society... and the actions of the heretical sects are obviously more likely to push humanity to the extreme of destruction.
Ke Lan is not an immature child. She does not think that the decent people are necessarily "good" and the villains are necessarily "bad". This world is not black and white... The prophet was right in saying that humans must evolve and become stronger in order to survive in this universe.
Ke Lan did not deny this statement, but the prophet's actions were too radical and too selfish - he did not take ordinary people seriously at all, and his mind was full of thoughts about how to transcend the limitations of race and become something called a "god."
In his eyes, the human race is not important at all. As long as he can become a god, everything else can be discarded...
Ke Lan didn't know whether the prophet himself had activated the "Holy Word". If he had really come into contact with that distant vision, he would have discovered that his current strength was so far away from the "God" mentioned in the Alpha civilization that it was simply indescribable.
This gap cannot be bridged by any individual organism, not even the primitive species with nearly infinite lifespans.
"Old dog." Thinking of this, Ke Lan suddenly said seriously, "Don't mention this matter of the Undead Crew in front of other people in the future."
"What's wrong? Is there any danger?" The hound was startled and said immediately, "If there is any danger, you should tell us instead of taking it alone."
"This matter becomes dangerous precisely because more people know about it... The fewer people who know about it, the safer it is."
