Chapter 232: The Python Family!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
The gigantic python finally ceased its struggles. The giant snake head crashed abruptly to the ground, sending some dirt and leaves up into the air again. [No Mecha Unrepaired] said carefully, "It's dead ..."
"Not yet!" responded Ling Lan coldly. How could this petty trick fool her? In the primordial forest, what savage beast had she not seen? Some were even slyer than this python here.
"Ah ..." [No Mecha Unrepaired] stared gobsmacked at the python — in that state and it still wasn't dead?
Ling Lan drew a short sword each from behind the two hind legs of the rabbit. With a powerful swing of her left hand, one of the short swords flew, whistling through the air right at the head of the python.
Just as the blade was about to strike, the python suddenly raised its head to snap its jaws savagely over that flying short sword. With a loud crunch, that short sword made of high-durability steel broke into pieces. It was clear to see how great the bite force quotient 1 of the python was. If Ling Lan had walked forward personally, her vital points might have accidentally been caught in its sneak attack, destroying her mecha and losing her life.
However, this frightening strike was also the python's final attack. Heaven knows when, the second short sword in Ling Lan's hands had been sent flying out without a sound. Even as the python's jaw shattered the first short sword, the second short sword buried itself in the snake's eyes, piercing through the entire snake head.
In the throes of death, the python seemed to be in great pain. It split its mouth open wide in a howling cry to the heavens. After a long ear-splitting wail, the snake head finally fell heavily to the ground once more, sending yet another spray of dust and dirt into the air.
Seeing this, Ling Lan made the rabbit mecha jump forwards. [No Mecha Unrepaired] was horrified by this, shouting loudly, "[Lingtian First-String], watch out in case it isn't dead!" If by any chance the other was playing dead again, wouldn't it be very dangerous for the rabbit mecha to just approach it like that?
"This time it's really dead," replied Ling Lan calmly as she walked up to the head. She pulled out the carrot sword pinning the snake by its vital point, placing it back securely into the rabbit's mouth. Next, she pulled out the short sword which had burrowed into the snake head, rubbing it against the ground a few times before putting it back behind her mecha's hind legs with some disgust. There was no helping it — the weapons on the trainee mecha were just too few; Ling Lan could not afford not to take it back.
As Ling Lan made preparations to leave, [No Mecha Unrepaired] spoke up once more, "Um, aren't you taking the spoils of victory?"
Previously, when the rabbit mecha had finished off those other mutated beasts, it had never once taken the spoils of victory off those mutated beasts' bodies. [No Mecha Unrepaired] felt his heart ache at the waste — mind you, those were all points! Although each spoil would only offer several decimal points worth of points, many a little makes a mickle 2 ! With that many beasts, if they had collected all of the spoils, it would have amounted to over at least several tens of points.
Living in the mecha world, restrictions were everywhere if one did not have points. If he had countless points, then he would not have been stuck so pitifully at Three-Seas Town for so long. He could have just offered 10,000 points as a reward — then, even the Thunder King would not have been able to stop a strong mercenary from bringing him out of Three-Seas Town.
"Spoils of victory?" asked Ling Lan curiously. She truly had no idea about these sorts of things.
"Yes! The beasts have lots of good things on their bodies. As long as we collect them, we can take them to an exchange store to redeem points. For instance, the teeth of this python — each one could be worth 3 points, 4 of them giving a total of 12 points. Like the pelts of the rabbits you have been killing all this way — each would be worth 0.2 points, while the pelts of the wild wolves would give 0.3 points ..." [No Mecha Unrepaired] really knew the value of the spoils of victory like the back of his hand. He detailed all the wastage Ling Lan had committed this entire journey.
After listening for half a day 3 , Ling Lan finally got the gist that there was still this method of gathering points within the mecha world. However, she took a look at that snake's head ... fine, she really had no interest in touching that ugly body again, so she said, "You collect it!"
[No Mecha Unrepaired] thought Ling Lan was letting him help her collect the spoils, and so happily made a sound of acknowledgement before moving forwards to collect those 4 sharp teeth from the snake's head. Ling Lan's terrifying combat power this entire way had let [No Mecha Unrepaired] understand that that bit of reward he was offering was totally insufficient to hire such a formidable mecha operator. He really wanted to use something else to supplement his payment — if he could help the other collect the spoils of victory and get a bit more points that way, he would feel less guilty.
As [No Mecha Unrepaired] harvested the teeth, he sighed, looking at that centre section of the python which had been smashed into mincemeat. This was the result of Ling Lan plunging down from a tall height, using gravity and the weight of her own mecha to crush the snake's body with one strike. This move was flawless both in terms of timing and accuracy, proving that Ling Lan's mecha control skills had already reached a point where her body and the mecha had become one. This was the mark of a special-class operator, which also proved that [No Mecha Unrepaired]'s deduction was correct. The operator of this rabbit mecha before him was most definitely a mysterious and powerful special-class operator.
Of course, [No Mecha Unrepaired] was not sighing over the other's strength. Instead, he was sighing over the fact that that section of snake skin had been ruined by Ling Lan's brute force. He silently thought to himself that, if they could have peeled it off in perfect condition, such a ginormous piece of snake skin would have been worth at least 30 points. This was already among the highest amount one could get from the redemption of victory spoils. Alright, in the process of accumulating points to hire a master, [No Mecha Unrepaired] had undoubtedly become somewhat of a point-freak.
[No Mecha Unrepaired]'s harvesting ability was rather strong — the four teeth took him less than two minutes. Still, even so, Ling Lan felt this was not worth it. Perhaps that was why Little Four had not suggested this method to her. Ling Lan only needed perhaps several seconds to kill a beast, but collecting the spoils would waste a lot of her time. This was definitely not something Ling Lan wanted.
Seeing [No Mecha Unrepaired] done with the harvesting, Ling Lan did not linger, continuing forwards. Although they remained vigilant for the rest of the way, they did not encounter any more savage beasts, nor did they meet any dangers. The strangeness of the situation made [No Mecha Unrepaired] become restless and unsettled. However, for some unknown reason, seeing the rabbit mecha hopping unhurriedly before him — each hop eating up the same amount of distance, with the exact same arc and rhythm — this precise operation soothed his emotions, allowing him to regain his calm ...
After travelling for about 5 minutes, Ling Lan suddenly stopped and said, "Careful."
Although [No Mecha Unrepaired] was not officially trying to become a mecha warrior, these couple of years of watching out for himself had given him extremely rich combat experience. Hearing Ling Lan's warning, he instantly assumed a defensive stance, multiple viewing angles popping up on his mecha's screen to cover his surroundings. However, aside from the silence, there was nothing else strange about the situation.
No, in fact there was still noise. It was the sound of tree leaves being rustled by the wind, but this was extremely normal ... Sweat beaded on [No Mecha Unrepaired]'s forehead — the calmer and more normal things seemed, the more it meant danger was imminent.
At this moment, [No Mecha Unrepaired] still did not realise that he now trusted Ling Lan unconditionally. It was because of this that he took Ling Lan's simple warning so seriously, to the extent that he would believe a hazard was right before them.
"Jump!" shouted Ling Lan abruptly. Without even thinking, [No Mecha Unrepaired] operated his mecha to leap into the air. In his screen, he saw a flash of red light sweep beneath his mecha's feet.
"Swish!" It was the sound of something piercing through flesh and blood, or perhaps stabbing into earth. [No Mecha Unrepaired] had not yet figured out the sound when he heard a tremendous snapping sound coming from not too far behind him.
Before [No Mecha Unrepaired] could expand the scope of vision of his mecha to look, he felt his mecha being thrown into the air by a great force.
From his screen, [No Mecha Unrepaired] could clearly see that the one who had attacked him had been the rabbit mecha. The other had given him a solid kick with its hind legs. This kick was even more forceful than the force Ling Lan had used to shove him aside earlier, causing [No Mecha Unrepaired]'s mecha to fly up high, soaring over several large trees, before crashing heavily to the ground about 30 metres away.
If not for the fact that [No Mecha Unrepaired]'s physical constitution could still be considered excellent, just this series of collisions alone could have given him grave injuries. Despite not being injured, [No Mecha Unrepaired] still felt his Qi and blood roiling from the concussive force, and could not help but spurt out a mouthful of blood ...
"Could it be that [Lingtian First-String] is trying to kill me?" This was [No Mecha Unrepaired]'s first thought. However, he quickly dispelled it, because he believed that with [Lingtian First-String]'s abilities, killing him would be as easy as a lift of a hand. He would not just be left with such minor injuries.
Meanwhile, on Ling Lan's end, she had borrowed the reaction force from kicking [No Mecha Unrepaired], assisted by the thrust of her engines, to rise up swiftly into the air. This allowed her to dodge the speedy attack of a silver beam of light, while also helping [No Mecha Unrepaired] to dodge this ruthless killing attack at the same time. Based on the trajectory of the silver light, the first one to be hit would have been [No Mecha Unrepaired].
Ling Lan controlled her mecha to land securely on the ground. She carefully observed a gigantic silver python coiled up approximately 10 metres away, which was already preparing to launch its next attack. This python was even more colossal than the python Ling Lan had killed earlier. Two snake eyes as large as lanterns were beaming with coldly sinister light, not at all trying to hide the killing intent within them.
"Who'd have thought that the savage beast occupying this area would be from the python family." Ling Lan's brow furrowed. Even though Ling Lan had been schooled by the learning space in such a way that she was already no longer like a girl, not at all afraid of any fierce beasts or savage creatures, this did not eradicate her inherent nature of loathing these types of slithery cold-blooded animals. Therefore, when she discovered that the opponent was these pythons, some dislike still reared within her heart.
Ling Lan cast a glance at a distance not too far off, where her carrot-sword had already pinned a slightly smaller python. That python was struggling desperately, trying to wrest free of the carrot-sword's blade.
She could not help but 'tsk' in annoyance; Ling Lan knew that she would definitely not be able to retrieve the carrot-sword right now to attack. Furthermore, as the rabbit mecha was a trainee mecha, other than the carrot-sword, it only had two high-performance steel short swords as its cold weapons. One of the swords had already been 'nobly sacrificed' in the previous fight, so the only cold weapon Ling Lan could use now was that one remaining short sword.
Although there was still a beam handgun on the back of the mecha, Ling Lan knew very well that it would be impossible to overcome the defensive power of this humongous python's skin relying on that handgun alone. Of course, it could not be said that it would be useless — if one managed to shoot a vital point, it would still be effective. For example, the eyes of the python, or perhaps the vulnerable mouth cavity unprotected by the skin ... however, in a moving fight, it would be extremely difficult to hit these points accurately. Unless it was absolutely unavoidable, Ling Lan did not plan to use that unreliable beam handgun.
Ling Lan lifted up the only remaining short sword she had with her left hand. Right now, she was a little regretful at her own overconfidence. She should have prepared a sharp long sword beforehand, or perhaps a lightsaber — that way, killing these pythons would be much easier.