"Thud—"
A loud noise interrupted the "conversation" between Melina and the Red Dragon, and both human and dragon quickly looked toward the source.
When Melina noticed that the sound came from the high ground, she immediately closed her eyes.
"Roar!"
Boom—
Then came the pained roar of the dragon and the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground.
A high-potency flashbang.
Even in the pleasant climate and bright sunlight of this afternoon, it was enough to instantly emit a blinding light.
"Nice hit, A1 flash."
Melina wiped the sweat from her face and said cheerfully.
This kind of life-or-death struggle gave her a feeling of being "alive." The emotion even made her somewhat reluctant to leave, but she then clearly realized that she was unarmed, and it was impossible to kill this red dragon in hand-to-hand combat. Someone once said that a Banshee must be equipped with an Armament to be considered a complete Banshee, and Melina deeply felt this to be true.
Without an Armament, she was like a wizard without magic; it was that serious. It wasn't even about lacking a "wand," but lacking "magic."
She tilted her head, gazing deeply and affectionately at the Red Dragon struggling on the ground.
*—Once I get my Armament, I'll come back and kill you.*
This pure killing intent was perceived by the Red Dragon. The short-tempered beast seemed to lock onto Melina's position and opened its jaws toward her.
Inside the menacing maw filled with sharp teeth, a bone-chilling heat surged.
Boom—
It was as if a wall of fire had suddenly been erected in the air. The high temperature evaporated the moisture in the air, making Melina feel a warmth on her face followed by a tightening of her skin. The flame breath blasted not far from her side, and she let out a light laugh.
"I'll come back for you."
Boom—
Another breath attack, but this time Melina had slipped out of the attack range early, diving into the dense jungle and running toward Hamlet Town relying on her memory.
As she ran, she felt bursts of dry, cool air.
She reached out and patted the back of her black dress, only to find:
Not a single drop of sweat.
Looking at her own clean little hands, Melina frowned:
"Is something wrong with me?"
...
After digging up a large amount of crystal ore, the Echo Squad and Sonia hurried toward Hamlet Town, hoping to get back before nightfall.
Although the inn there wasn't much to write home about, the Echo Squad still hoped to eat a hot meal, drink a hot soup, and head to the tavern for some fun at night. The abundant productivity of this world had led to booming business at the taverns frequently visited by explorers, which were six or seven tiers higher than the inns. As for Sonia, she just wanted to go home and see if she had a chance to use today's sisterly bond to invite Xiaomei to take a bath together, to personally verify whether the "largest among the top five Banshees" was true or not.
On the way back, the attitude of the Echo Squad improved by a few notches.
Anyone could see that Xiaomei had a bright future ahead of her, but for some reason she got along well with this good-for-nothing senior, so she would probably join the senior's squad in the future.
Aside from cursing the heavens for being blind, they still had to wag their dog tails enthusiastically so that there would be a chance of success when renting the big shot from the senior's squad in the future.
Since they had left the dangerous area patrolled by the wyverns, the journey became much more relaxed.
The group had also been frightened by the Red-Feathered Dragon that suddenly appeared earlier, so they stopped gathering materials and just wanted to return to Hamlet Town as quickly as possible, avoiding all dragons encountered along the way.
Qiong and Lei, the two petite girls, carried their backpacks back and forth this time.
This was specially requested by Sonia. The Taryi Crystal Mine possessed a very disgusting property: if skin accidentally came into contact with it, one would feel the pain of high-temperature burns within a minute, and it would begin to severely infect the internal organs of the body, causing them to fail. Even for explorers full of magic factors, it was extremely dangerous, constantly eroding their magic factors and constructing a complete absorption circuit, making explorers weak or even fatal.
However, this property made it suitable for making control cores.
Xiaomei needed a control core to operate her Armament. The relationship between Xiaomei and the core was somewhat like Bluetooth; the first connection took a little effort, and after that it became both convenient and cool.
At the same time, this pile of Taryi Crystal Mines should be the easiest to obtain near Hamlet Town. Once they were taken away, the movable estate could also be put on the agenda.
Sonia was in an extremely good mood.
When she reached the edge of the road, five minutes' jog away from Hamlet Town, and saw Melina standing by the street wearing a small parasol and a mourning-style black gauze dress, she felt an indescribable joy.
She was even thinking: *Could I be the first person to witness the abilities of "what she could have been" in a healthy state?*
...
Returning to the Explorers' Guild, she signed the commission documents. Meanwhile, the impatient, auntie-style receptionist at the guild spoke harshly and remindedly to the beautiful Senior Sonia:
"Have that squad hand over their commission logs tomorrow. You come over to confirm it and just sign."
After explorers completed commissions in this world, they still had to write something similar to police reports.
However, there were ghostwriters available for such troublesome matters...
Melina turned her head and saw the two legal lolis of the Echo Squad struggling to squeeze in front of a counter, standing on tiptoes and speaking in a very loud voice to a round Cat Bun sitting on top of the counter.
This Cat Bun had a clockwork mechanism turning on its back; it was round and furry, but it understood human speech and undertook a lot of paperwork.
Including writing commission logs.
It only cost 1 Silver Lei (with a purchasing power of 10 yuan) to hire this round, furry animal to listen to your dictation and write the commission log, guaranteeing the format was correct. If you added another 1 Silver Lei, you could even reach out and pet this warm, furry creature while it wrote...
Qiong handed 1 Silver Lei across the counter.
Melina turned her head away and clicked her tongue, lamenting that this truly was a woman devoid of romance. Having such a good-tempered living creature—and such a large Cat Bun at that—without petting it was a terrible waste of natural gifts.
Sonia was still entangled with Lao Ma:
"If I want to apply for an explorer license for my companion, what is the procedure..."
The counter auntie spoke harshly:
"We're closing today, come back and ask tomorrow!"
"Be accommodating, Sister Malu!" Sonia flashed a very charming smile. "Can't you bend the rules a bit?"
Sister Malu was completely unresponsive:
"Say whatever you want, it's useless!"
Did Malu seem to really dislike Sonia?
While Melina was watching the show, Sonia suddenly grabbed her hand, dragged her to the counter, smiled ingratiatingly again, and said, "It's for her. Look, can you just log the application procedures in first? Tomorrow is a day off, hey, isn't the day off only for processing completed commissions..."
Auntie Malu looked like she was about to curse again, but her gaze lingered on Melina's face and stopped, her eyes staring straight ahead.
Melina tilted her head slightly, not quite understanding.
Auntie Malu actually showed a bit of nervousness on her face.
Sonia leaned into Melina's ear and whispered, "Smile."
...Melina complied, revealing a formulaic smile.
Auntie Malu immediately displayed a shy expression, and a blush appeared on her face...
"It's not impossible to process..."
...
Outside the Explorers' Guild.
Holding the registered Explorer's Handbook in her hand, Melina felt the candies, cookies, boxed pastries, five extra record notebooks given out of fear she wouldn't have enough, and packaged ballpoint pen gifts tucked into her pockets.
Sonia held the crossbow in both hands, in a pleasant mood: "Done, done, finally done. Heh, we successfully cheated the system."
Melina turned her head to look at her: "Cheated the system?"
"Yeah." Sonia took the lead in walking toward the estate, talking as she walked. "Explorer certification is still quite strict, requiring applicants to possess an Armament, and instructors are also dispatched to guide new explorers. And this creates a problem: you can't normally use an Armament."
She slowly recounted a piece of history:
"It won't be until a year from now that a freak of nature like you appears, and the Explorers' Guild will change the registration regulations for 'using an Armament.' And that was based on rules they were forced to compromise on after two horrifying dragon rampages had already occurred. Right now, without major events happening, the people at the guild won't agree to let 'someone who uses magic factors to control five Armaments simultaneously' become an explorer. To be honest, I can understand them."
Melina could understand it too.
This wasn't a simple matter of "using five weapons." From a magical standpoint, there were people in this world born with dual-Armament adaptability, but the fate of such people was often tragic.
Because magic factors could not fill two weapons.
And even if they were filled, a rejection would happen on some unknown day, resulting in death.
It could be said that the people in the guild set this registration rule to "prevent tragedies from happening."
Melina asked:
"So you presented them with a fait accompli?"
"Whoa!" The senior made the sound of boiling water. "So bold, Xiaomei..."
Realizing there was ambiguity in her words, Melina stared at Sonia with her beautiful golden pupils.
The senior nodded: "You could say that. Because you registered today, they'll ignore the day off and process it for you tomorrow, but today's procedures have already been handled, which means you are now an explorer. Tomorrow you'll just be registering your own data, and tomorrow and the day after are both days off. After you register, these two days are the default information processing time, which means your registration will be sent to headquarters for approval..."
Melina knew the logic:
"And since nobody works on those two days, the registration will be processed by default and entered into the database. If they want to pull it back to change it or strip me of my explorer status, they'll have to go through official channels, right?"
"Yeah, Xiaomei." Sonia smiled happily. "However, this trick can only be used once. From ancient times to the present, you are the first person to exploit this bug."
"I'm so honored," Melina replied.
"Heh, although illegal explorers are also a thing, looking at your expression, you've always wanted to be a legal explorer, right? You respect me, I respect you, respec, Xiaomei."
She held out her left fist.
Melina looked at her fist for a fraction of a second, then extended her own right fist and bumped it against the other's.
...
Returning to the estate, there was already someone in the living room.
A woman who immediately brought to mind dazzling sunlight; her golden long hair was brilliant and magnificent, and her bright silver eyes had a charming luster. She was a tall beauty who looked completely like a knight princess. She flashed a sunny and cheerful smile at Melina, resembling some kind of large canine, and then greeted Sonia:
"Good evening, Suosuo, this must be A-Mei, right?"
Sonia, who had been called Suosuo, nodded and introduced her to Melina:
"She's our last roommate, Maria, but I usually call her Lao Ma."
She paused:
"Also, she's a cheater too. Ever heard of system cheats?"