Natuba was in a terrible mood today.
As a squad leader in the Flying Crow Gang, his status in Deadwood Town was actually pretty decent. At the very least, when he walked down the street, most people either bowed and scraped or, at the very least, greeted him with smiling faces.
But there was one person, and one person only, who never gave him a pleasant look.
That person was Marifina, who lived on the east side of town.
Marifina was just an ordinary town resident. She made a living doing work for the Flying Crow Gang.
Truth be told, she was not particularly outstanding in the looks department, but she had a perky ass and thick thighs—exactly to Natuba's taste—so he had spent a long time trying every possible way to curry favor with her.
Yet Marifina had always been lukewarm toward him. Natuba had noticed, of course, but he had simply chalked it up to her being shy, and so he kept nurturing that vague, illusory hope and continued trying to pursue her.
Until this morning, when he saw another squad leader, Torubin, coming out of Marifina's house at the crack of dawn.
At that moment, Natuba finally realized that he really was a clown.
Worse still, even though they were both squad leaders, Torubin not only commanded a stronger squad, but was better at fighting than him, and was even better-looking to boot. In every possible way, Natuba was completely overshadowed.
So all he could do was rage impotently. He was in such a foul mood that he had even skipped the gang's activities for the day and wandered aimlessly around town trying to clear his head.
And before he knew it, he had ended up in front of the bookstore.
After hesitating for two seconds, he stepped inside and called out loudly, "Old Homa, got any new movies lately?"
No sooner had he spoken than he frowned, his gaze shifting to a young man standing by the counter packing up his things.
A scavenger?
What rotten luck.
Wrinkling his nose, he clapped a hand over it, just about to bark out a few insults when the young man gave Old Homa a bow, then gave him one as well, hugged his bag to his chest, and bolted out the door.
"Tch. Good. At least the brat knows his place," Natuba muttered, fanning the air in front of himself with one hand as he walked up to the counter.
Watching this display, Homa merely smiled and shook his head.
The smell on scavengers really was awful, sure, but to be honest, he did not think the Flying Crow Gang's men—who barely bathed because of chronic water shortages—smelled all that much better themselves.
At most, maybe thirty percent of Natuba's reaction was genuinely about the odor.
The other seventy percent was just pure superiority complex.
"You've got a lot of fire in you first thing in the morning," Homa said with a grin. "So, what kind do you want? Still the big-ass type?"
"Not today. I'm changing it up. Recommend me something different," Natuba said.
"Well now, look at that—you do change tastes once in a while. Fine then, I'll pull up a few popular ones for you to take a look at." As he spoke, Homa began operating the personal computer he had assembled himself.
"Oh, right—what was that kid doing here so early?" Natuba asked. "Didn't recognize him. First time in here? Was he buying movies too?"
"Yep. First time. Makes sense you didn't know him," Homa replied. "Funny thing is, his tastes aren't like yours. He likes the tall, skinny type. You know Galaxy, right? The kid even bought a whole bunch of her Mecha Tournament videos."
"Galaxy? Which Galaxy? The one from the Mecha Tournament?" Natuba snorted. "Isn't that just a robot? Skinny as a stick, too. Only some half-grown brat would be into that."
"Hah. If that's what you're saying, then maybe I should just pull up a few big-ass ones for you after all. Doesn't sound like your tastes changed that much."
"Uh... well, that works too, I guess. Let me see what you've got first..."
Back in Jiang Qi's shack.
Setting down the bundle in his hands, Jiang Qi let out a long breath.
Thankfully, he had gone early. If he had arrived even a little later, he probably would have ended up getting tangled up with people from the Flying Crow Gang.
After learning a little about Mecha Tournaments, Jiang Qi had come to a realization:
The mechanical humanoid he had brought back, even in its current wrecked state, was still of immeasurable value.
At the very least, it was absolutely not something a bottom-tier scavenger like him should possess.
Back at the bookstore, the first thing he had done was ask for a few movies...
That was obviously not because he actually wanted to watch them. Mainly, as a hot-blooded young man, going to the bookstore and not buying any movies would have made him stand out too much. So, in the interest of blending in, he had picked a few that suited his supposed tastes.
Of course, that was not the important part.
The important part was that he had found a large number of Yunting Mecha Tournament match videos, including plenty featuring Glaxia. On top of that, he had also bought some materials related to the assembly and repair of mech combat units.
On the surface, he had said he was interested in the topic and wanted to study up a little, so that while scavenging in the future he might be able to spot similar items and perhaps sell them for a good price to the town's mech-fighting club.
That excuse, naturally, was perfectly reasonable. For a scavenger hoping to improve his lot in life, one good route was to buy reference material from the bookstore and learn how to identify high-value items.
Even if gang members heard about it, it likely would not arouse suspicion.
Opening the bundle, Jiang Qi took out the tablet he had bought, along with five old data cables.
Those cables were easy enough to find, and the bookstore owner had piles of them lying around as well.
After carefully examining Glaxia's data interface and checking some information on the tablet, Jiang Qi finally confirmed the interface's exact structure and specifications.
Then he used his Synthesis ability on the five cables, producing a brand-new, high-grade data cable that could connect both the tablet and Glaxia.
Once the two were linked with the cable, Jiang Qi looked at the tablet.
Hmm...
No response.
Which, honestly, was within expectations.
Swiping across the screen, Jiang Qi found an icon.
It was a piece of software Old Homa had installed for him on the spot. According to him, it was a mech control program that had made its way out of Bafeng City. It could be used to connect to ordinary mech-combat units and control them, and its compatibility was supposedly pretty good.
At the very least, it was what the people at Deadwood Town's mech club all used.
Jiang Qi was not sure whether software like that would work on Glaxia, given that she was a specially made prototype, but he had no other option at the moment.
All he could do was try it first.
The program launched smoothly enough.
The interface was simple and clean, prompting the user to connect to a unit before any operations could be performed. There were several available connection methods: wired connection, wireless connection, and remote connection over a network.
For a place like the Wasteland, where there was no network, only the first two options were usable.
Under the wired connection tab, a prompt appeared saying that an unknown unit had been detected, and asking whether data interaction should be initiated.
Jiang Qi immediately selected Yes.
After that, the program began spinning through a loading animation.
He waited anxiously for a while, only for the software to pop up a message saying the interaction had failed.
Jiang Qi's heart instantly sank halfway to the floor.
Unwilling to give up, he tried several more times.
The result was always the same—either an error message or a straight failure.
"...Sigh. So it really wasn't going to be that easy, huh..." Jiang Qi muttered, running a hand through his hair.
Left with no choice, he exited the software, intending to check his资料 again and see if he could find any clues.
But the instant he returned to the desktop, something at the bottom of the screen caught the corner of his eye.
A new piece of software was being installed automatically.
Jiang Qi froze for a moment.
His first reaction was to wonder whether he had accidentally clicked on some kind of pop-up ad earlier.
But the next second, he remembered that this damned place did not even have internet.
Where would an ad possibly come from?
His eyes dropped to the software's name.
It was written in a string of letters—in this world's script—but ever since transmigrating here, Jiang Qi had somehow acquired the ability to read it.
The program's name was a single word.
And when pronounced aloud, it sounded exactly like—
"Glaxia."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 120)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 100)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 100)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter89)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter86)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter63)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter75)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 53
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 57
From Junkman to Wasteland 35
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