A Core Ship From The Start

“Ogis, let’s go take a look.”

“Okay, Master.”

After Ogis responded, Duanmu Huai picked her up, activated his jetpack, and leapt high above the city gate, heavily landing on top of it.

“Thud!!!”

The Power Armor collided with the stone door, making a heavy noise. But there was still no movement within the city. Apart from the grass and trees, there seemed to be no other signs of life. So Duanmu Huai deployed a Reconnaissance Servo Skull to investigate the nearby area — however, even the Servo Skull detected no signs of life.

Could this place actually be a dead city? Nothing left but the city itself?

It can’t be… In any case, let’s keep moving forward.

Duanmu Huai and Ogis jumped down from the city gate and arrived on the other side, proceeding along the road overrun with weeds. Although most of the city’s buildings were constructed from stone, they had a unique geometric beauty — a characteristic of advanced technology. Well, whether the construction material was stone or not was still debatable.

“Roar—————!!!”

As Duanmu Huai and Ogis passed the road and arrived at a crossroad, suddenly, a massive dark figure let out a beastlike roar, leaping down from the rooftop and pouncing at them. Faced with this sudden attack, Duanmu Huai hurriedly lifted his War Hammer and went to meet this enemy. After a brief clash, they both disengaged.

Only then did Duanmu Huai get a good look at the dark figure that had attacked him.

“What the hell is this thing?”

Staring at the creature in front of him, Duanmu Huai was dumbfounded. It was metallic, had a shape resembling a humanoid robot, but with four limbs fashioned into beast-like claws. Its head looked like that of a lion, and it had a lizard-like tail and wings like a hawk…

[Demonic Iron Mad Lion]

[LV21]

“Well, well… I’m guessing whoever built this thing wasn’t playing with a full deck…”

Staring at the mechanical monster in front of him, Duanmu Huai didn’t know what to say. The metallic lion roared again, charging at them with teeth and claws bared. This time, Duanmu Huai showed no mercy. He stepped forward, meeting the Demonic Iron Mad Lion’s attack head on, and hammered down onto its skull. The heavy War Hammer shattered the iron lion’s head into pieces. But even then, the iron lion thrashed around wildly, trying to harm Duanmu Huai. However, Duanmu Huai swung his hammer again, treating the iron lion like a golf ball, and sent it flying towards a wall in the distance where it turned into a pile of scrap metal.

“It seems this city isn’t as peaceful as it seemed.”

The attack actually calmed Duanmu Huai down a bit. At the very least, this showed that the way to clear this fragment was likely by fighting… and the reason the Reconnaissance Servo Skull didn’t detect any life was probably because all that was left here were self-activated machines.

Afterwards, Duanmu Huai and Ogis’ experiences confirmed his guess. During their exploration of the outskirts of the city, they had come across attacks by several types of robots. In addition to the previously encountered lion-headed creature, there were Experimental Mechanical Soldiers that looked like knights equipped with Twin Swords and capes, as well as Mechanical Soldiers wielding machine guns. These robots’ level ranged from 20-30. Due to the endless Puppet Army, these robots were not difficult for Duanmu Huai to deal with.

However, throughout the journey, he grew increasingly interested in the city’s origins.

From what he had seen so far, it seemed like Sky City was a place where some ancient civilization had conducted research and manufacturing of robots… However, he didn’t know what exactly was inside of it.

“Clang!!!”

Another Mechanical Soldier, turned into scrap metal by the Puppets’ attack, fell to the ground. Ogis, moved by curiosity, walked over and gently poked the scrap metal on the ground.

“Master, are these Puppets too?”

“In a way, I suppose they are…”

“But I don’t see any strings controlling them.”

Ogis was very curious about this. Each Puppet from the Puppet Card Group, with her at the core, required strings for control. While it seemed like Duanmu Huai simply put a bunch of Puppets into battle each time, each Puppet’s strings were actually controlled by Ogis.

So, she was very interested in these “Puppets” that could move without strings.

“They’re made differently and don’t require strings to move, but their movements are rather limited.”

Duanmu Huai gave Ogis a simple explanation, and she nodded in a somewhat understanding manner.

Meanwhile, the two had walked past the outer layer and arrived in an area resembling a street. The nearby houses had signboards hanging in front of them. Although they couldn’t understand what was written on them, the designs and patterns on these signs suggested that this place was likely a shopping street.

Out of curiosity, Duanmu Huai walked into the place to have a look around. However, there wasn’t much inside. Whether it was always empty or the fragment just didn’t project anything inside, he wasn’t sure.

Only when he entered the third shop did he find something worthwhile.

“Oh, this is pretty interesting.”

Seeing the scene before his eyes, Duanmu Huai couldn’t help but marvel. In front of him was a display table with several cute and pretty girl Puppets sitting on it. They had different looks, outfits, and hairstyles. Near these girl Puppets, something like a price tag was displayed.

“This civilization is quite interesting.”

Seeing this, Duanmu Huai’s interest was piqued. Though he couldn’t interpret the text, he understood that this was a place selling robots and those robots were likely the products. The information on the tags might be their specifications and functions. While he should have figured it out earlier, this society truly seemed to be an expert in robot creation.

Ogis seemed quite interested in these robots that looked very similar to her, too. She stretched out her hand, touched this one, looked at that one, and sometimes compared herself with them, seemingly trying to notice the differences.

“Alright, let’s go, Ogis.”

After observing for a while, Duanmu Huai felt they had found no more clues there, so he signaled Ogis to leave.

However, just as they turned to leave the shop, a voice sounded from behind them.

“Could…you two wait a moment?”

Hearing the voice, Duanmu Huai and Ogis turned their heads and saw that one of the girl robots, which was originally sitting on the display table, was now looking at them with her eyes open.