Ocean Zone.
The game world’s map was extremely vast. Whether it was the plains or the rainforest, the areas were so wide that players could barely encounter each other.
But once you reached the seaside, that boundless vastness became even more apparent.
The calm, wave-less, deep-blue ocean and the ancient stone bridge stretching so far across the sea that its end couldn’t be seen made for a dreamlike, wallpaper-worthy scene.
The milk tea car stopped in front of the bridge.
After modifications, the milk tea car looked slightly different from before: a pink exterior, a little fluttering “tch” flag, and several small glowing lights hanging from the sides—apparently the technicians had taken the owner’s personal tastes into account while upgrading the car.
He Wuning pretended he didn’t hear that comment. Even if he had heard it, he would have assumed they were talking about Q-chan.
The car’s front had been extended so the spikes were more prominent. Without obstructing the driver’s view, two anti-air machine guns had been added above the spikes. On both sides of the car, a total of four launchable harpoons gleamed coldly. The roof had been fitted with a higher-powered cannon—tied down with ropes to avoid the game flagging it as unauthorized modification.
Overall, the milk tea car’s arrangement looked like the weapon-stuffed flowerbeds of grandparents’ generation—never wasting even an inch of space and cramming weapons into every gap.
This wasn’t their first time coming to the ocean zone. They had come several times earlier just to test whether the milk tea car could go into water. But this was its first time entering the water after the full modification.
Originally, the research institute and the combat department people all wanted to spectate, but because He Wuning found them annoying, he’d driven all of them away.
Yi Luo sat in the driver’s seat and glanced at He Wuning. “Shall we set off, Captain?”
He Wuning curved his lips slightly, in rare good spirits. “Let’s go.”
Q-chan lay on his shoulder and shouted, “Set sail—!”
The milk tea car slowly drove into the sea. The blue seawater filled their vision. Yi Luo pressed a button, and the airbags around the car’s underside all inflated. At the same time, the four wheels retracted into the body, and the electric propellers began turning.
The car rose back up from the water. The airbags around it flickered with colorful lights, giving it a festive look.
Q-chan pressed against the window. “Wow, it’s so pretty!”
Yi Luo glanced at it and said with a smile, “It’s designed to attract sea monsters. Do you like it that much too?”
Q-chan: “I feel like you’re subtly insulting me.”
Yi Luo laughed. The milk tea car drifted leisurely along the edge of the stone bridge. Occasionally, they saw normal players cautiously making their way across the bridge, all of whom stared at the car with a “what the heck am I seeing” expression.
Whether they could actually see him waving or not, Yi Luo still smiled and waved politely.
He Wuning stood inside the car with his hands in his pockets, watching the scenery through the window.
Suddenly, a few faint black dots appeared in the deep ocean ahead. The dots rapidly grew larger as they shot up from the sea, leaping out with huge mouths full of sharp teeth as they passed over the stone bridge.
—They were the piranha monsters of the ocean zone.
Most of the piranhas splattered blood and then fell into the sea on the opposite side of the bridge. A smaller portion was intercepted by the players on the bridge; with their brief ability to move on land, they immediately attacked the players without hesitation.
Yi Luo raised a brow. “Should I go?”
He Wuning said simply, “Go.”
The milk tea car suddenly accelerated. Its spiked front smashed directly into the second wave of piranhas attempting to leap, sending several of them flipping belly-up into the water.
He Wuning glanced over. “Just as the info said—these fish have terrifying attack power and speed, but extremely low HP. You can practically kill them in one hit.”
“But they like moving in groups. Once the first wave attacks, there’ll be at least three more waves coming.” Yi Luo frowned as he looked at the panicked players on the bridge struggling with the fish, unable to dodge. “Did they not read the forum guides?”
“This is way too chaotic.”
“Can you handle it?” He Wuning turned back, grabbing the safety handle on the roof. The milk tea car— No, at this point, “milk tea boat” might be more accurate.
The milk tea car remained agile in the water. Its four paddles spun rapidly, carrying the milk tea boat in a wide arc across the sea—after pulling aggro from a wave of piranhas, the monsters had already abandoned the prey on the stone bridge and were now furiously chasing the milk tea boat.
A few piranhas caught up and lunged toward the airbags with gaping jaws, but before they could get close, they let out a miserable screech, scales bristling as electricity shocked them. They dropped straight into the sea, turning into floating loot.
Yi Luo even had the leisure to lean forward and look. “I was originally worried that killing monsters on the water would make all the drops sink into the sea. Looks like the game design is actually pretty reasonable?”
He Wuning lifted his eyelids lazily. “If they sank into the sea, we’d make ‘Voice of the World’ compensate us.”
Q-chan, completely forgetting that “Voice of the World” was his direct superior, echoed from He Wuning’s shoulder, “Make it compensate us!”
He Wuning glanced upward. “Get close to the stone bridge and stop for a bit—they can’t handle it.”
He picked up a cup of milk tea from the table and took a sip—this was the milk tea car’s latest product, a fruit tea that granted a “fish-form” skill: honey lemon tea.
He casually packed the remaining cups into a bag and hung it onto Q-chan. “Perfect, I’ll test the new skill.”
Yi Luo let out a short laugh. “You just want to get in the water and test your new skill, don’t you? Be careful.”
He Wuning didn’t argue. A long blade appeared in his hand, and the rear hatch of the milk tea car opened. He Wuning leapt into the water with graceful ease.
Q-chan, carrying the milk tea cups, flew high into the air. “Sweetie, I’ll be waiting for you up here!”
A piranha stupidly leapt toward Q-chan. Q-chan dodged quickly and rose even higher into the air, taunting it with a mischievous laugh. “Ha! Too dumb—I can fly!”
He Wuning entered the water, touching his cheek. It had felt itchy on land earlier, but once he entered the water, it felt incredibly comfortable. Not only was there no suffocating feeling of needing to hold his breath, even his eyes didn’t sting from the seawater.
Underwater, the piranhas moved even faster, darting aggressively toward him. Human movement underwater was normally sluggish, but a skill that required 30% administrator permissions wasn’t going to merely grant underwater breathing.
He Wuning’s movements seemed completely unhindered, the long blade cutting through the water as if carried by the current. Each monster fish was instantly sliced apart into motes of light, and their loot slowly floated to the surface.
He Wuning wasn’t here to kill monsters. He tested a couple of swings, then stopped engaging and began swimming forward.
He had learned to swim before, but had never once moved so smoothly through the sea—he felt as though, compared to these fish, he was the true aquatic creature.
He glanced back. He wasn’t sure if his swimming speed correlated with his stat panel, but somehow that entire school of piranhas couldn’t catch up to him.
He had no intention of stopping, swimming swiftly toward the stone bridge.
The bridge itself wasn’t tall, built simply of stacked stones—and perhaps because of its flimsy structure, it often ended up half-destroyed by sea monsters crashing into it over the course of a single day.
There were gaps between the stones; He Wuning wedged his blade into one, stepped on it, and vaulted out of the water. With a smooth, elegant motion, he flipped over the decorative railing and landed on the bridge.
The players on the bridge were still fighting the piranhas that had fallen there earlier. From the look of things, the fish were nearly dying from exposure to the sun, yet the players were still screaming and swinging wildly.
When He Wuning abruptly leapt onto the bridge from the sea, their screams grew even louder. They huddled together, trembling, awaiting death.
A lanky young man with a face full of acne stammered, “H-h-h–humanoid monster! I’ve never seen one before!”
The bald middle-aged man clinging to him stole a glance. “Is—is it a mermaid? If it’s a mermaid, then dying here is… kinda glorious…”
“…Ah. It’s a man.”
A bob-haired girl leaning against the railing swallowed nervously. “B-but… there are male mermaids too, right?”
He Wuning: “…”
Q-chan landed on his shoulder with the milk tea, patting him comfortingly. “It’s okay, sweetie! They mean you’re so good-looking you don’t look human!”
He Wuning pushed his wet bangs back and looked at them expressionlessly. “Want to buy milk tea?”
“…Huh?”
The players stared at him, completely stunned.
The bald middle-aged man seemed to think of something terrifying, his face turning pale as he stammered, “B-b-buy… We’re not paying with our lives, right?”
He Wuning: “…With game coins.”
He glanced impatiently at the piranha still thrashing and snapping its tail. With one strike, he pinned it to the stone bridge, ending its sinful existence. The three players screamed even louder.
The bob-haired girl cautiously asked, “D-does this game… actually have NPCs?”
He Wuning sighed and looked at Q-chan. Q-chan immediately flew forward, handing them a sheet of paper, and showed a practiced official smile: “The Command Center reminds you: the game has now unlocked the basic monster and field boss database. Please review the information before adventuring and prepare adequately before setting out!”
He Wuning currently had 40% of the fragments, unlocking the second tier of the database, and he had already transferred all the data to Xue Xun.
The players huddled together. The acne-faced youth pushed up his glasses. “It really is a document from the Command Center. Look, there’s the official seal.”
“Then they are…”
He Wuning stared at them expressionlessly.
The acne-faced youth’s imagination exploded. “Could this be the Command Center’s secret weapon?! Like, a humanoid combat unit!”
He Wuning: “……”
So I just inherently don’t look human, huh?
Q-chan lifted the milk tea it carried. “Need supplies? We’ve got all kinds of buff milk teas! Drink one and greatly increase your survival rate!”
It then expertly handed over a milk tea price list.
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The author has something to say:
Q-chan: I’ve sacrificed too much for this family.
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