“…… In response to the current rumors that the alliance will return to the Middle East, Icarus gave a negative answer earlier, but some military analysts believe that with the strategic success of the alliance in Spain, the failure of Italy's successive offensives is 'unpleasant', and in order to liberate Europe as soon as possible, ordering the elite army of the Asian theater to seize North Africa through the Middle East is the best option......"

-- Confederate Defense Weekly

***

Tehran, it's not yet dawn.

A middle-aged man in a gray trench coat walks through the last street lamp and steps onto the dilapidated streets of Tehran's southern district, where buildings and abandoned cars are like beasts lurking in the dark on a starless night.

This is Tehran's southern district, or rather, the ghetto.

Even in such a city where there is no law and order, there are still areas where not everyone has time to dig a pit to bury themselves or squeeze into an evacuation helicopter when the fallout falls.

And the people who stayed behind built such a brutal social structure - the strongest of those who could not escape occupied the northern district, which was relatively intact and relatively far away from the explosion point, and had enough time to build themselves a shelter that I don't know if it was just psychological comfort, while the people in the southern district were left to fend for themselves.

What's more, even the protective equipment, medicines and food put in by the United Nations have been put into the northern sector, as if no one in the southern sector has survived.

Millions of people struggled in the fallout, most of them turned into dry bones.

After the fallout, the energy crisis arrived, and countless people who dreamed of becoming rich overnight in the Middle East came to this last remaining city, and although most of them were not much different from the civilians who were abandoned in the South Sector at the time, the myth of the few survivors made the city even more mysterious. In the end, the sandbag bunker that divided the southern and northern districts became a high wall, and Tehran, which belongs to the 22nd century, was born.

Some of these gold diggers were unlucky enough to spend the night in the North End, and they were not so bad as to turn into dry bones in a radiant sandstorm, and those who did not want to go back or had nowhere to go back struggled among the ruins and bones of the Southside.

If it is the same as Buenos Aires in the past. There is still order maintained by the yakuza in the North District, and if ordinary people can survive for a long time, this is a completely lawless zone, and anyone, at any time, can be attacked by others.

It's like a dark forest.

The gunshots swept by, and the man in the gray trench coat turned around a street corner unmoved, and saw a man lying on the ground, the man was shot from behind by an assault rifle, and he was dying and stretched out his hand to the man in the trench coat. Then he coughed up a mouthful of blood and hung limply.

The man in the gray trench coat stopped and looked at the woman with the gun not far away, the woman's clothes were a little messy, sitting on the ground, the hand holding the gun did not tremble, and the muzzle of the gun was steadily pointed at the man in the gray trench coat.

Is it a Black Widow who specializes in seducing others with her beauty and then killing? Or an ordinary female gold digger who is attacked by a man who is interested in it? The trench coat man didn't care, he just raised his hand. The hem of the trench coat on the left side was lifted, revealing a quaint knight's sword.

The scabbard of this knight's sword was already somewhat worn. The original exquisite carving has basically been smoothed out, but in the past five days, what this sword represents has only died in the southern district.

Don't provoke a man in a gray trench coat with a knight's sword.

The knowledge of survival always spreads rapidly, and the man in the gray trench coat after revealing his identity did not speak, but continued to take steps, as if he had not seen what had just happened. The woman stood up, slung her assault rifle on her back, and pounced like a wolf on the body of the man she had killed, searching for something that could be used.

He didn't have to wait until dawn for him to become a slick corpse. He was then thrown into a mass grave two blocks away by the people around him during the day.

That's the rule of survival in the South Side.

"It's been a long time since you've made a move."

The man in the gray trench coat again rounded a street corner and was stopped by a young man leaning against a broken telephone booth.

"Captain."

The middle-aged man in the gray trench coat did not speak, and made a rare knightly salute, and the young man who was saluted threw the cigarette butt on the ground, gently stepped on it with his military boots, he raised his hand to arrange his hat, and then pulled down the scarf to reveal his face, it was Ling Yu.

"Actually, there are no innocent people here, which is why I brought you here."

Ling Yu raised his head and looked at the pitch-black sky, "Everyone here, we can kill without any scruples, Payne." ”

"But there is no way to save more people."

Bruce. Payne, the former vice-captain of the Fourth Knights, now the Black Knights, the most wanted of the Alliance and the Cavalry, shook his head slightly.

"This city is like a real room that has nothing to do with human society." Ling Yu took out the cigarette case from his pocket, shook it gently, took out two sticks, and handed one to Payne, "The most essential cruelty and ruthlessness of human beings come from the inner instinct that has evolved over millions of years, and it is vividly reflected here. ”

"Do such people have the value of salvation?"

Ling Yu put the cigarette in his mouth, then lit it with a lighter, and threw the metal lighter to Payne with his backhand, who caught it, but did not light it or speak.

"It's good to save the people we deserve, there's no way we can save everyone."

Finally, Payne spoke softly, then added, "Neither can she." ”

"Hmm." Ling Yu nodded lightly, "I'm just sighing...... And, I think, I'm gradually understanding why she didn't go through it. ”

"Only by allowing more people to survive, human beings have more possibilities, this is not a human judgment, but from probability, from the judgment of nature, as a small human being, we have no way to decide who should die, who can survive." Payne's left hand subconsciously rested on the hilt of the sword and sighed, "Give one qiē to probability." ”

"But if," Ling Yu lowered his head. He buried his eyes in the brim of his long hat and sighed, "If the kid in the room is swapped with the people of the whole city, why would I choose the kid in the room?" ”

"Because we can't be stars." Payne sighed, "So we're just humans. ”

"Really?"

Ling Yu nodded. But it didn't seem to agree with Payne's statement, and the young man smoked the second cigarette, then stepped on the cigarette butt and looked up at his watch.

"Let's go, it's time to get out of class."

***

"So 2X moved to the left...... would be a negative 2X...... Then mention the common factor......"

Vivian. Ennig was sweating at the end of the pen, staring at the math problem on the electronic board in front of him with a twisted expression of extreme pain and fear.

"Yes, mention the common factor, then move the number to the right, and divide the coefficient on both sides. You can get X's solution. ”

Sitting across from Vivien was a young girl in a boat-shaped hat with short silver-gray hair, wearing the black uniform of Kronos Company, but without epaulettes or collar badges, only the Kronos logo on her arms.

The silver-gray haired girl looked at Vivien with a smile, and then gave the answer, and Vivien quickly wrote the answer on the electronic board like a gold digger who had found a treasure. I'm afraid that if I have one more second, the answer will be confiscated by the girl in front of me.

"I prompted this question, so it doesn't count. The homework will give you one more question, come on, Her Royal Highness Princess Ennig. ”

"Ahhhh How so!! ”

The silver-gray haired girl smiled at the blonde girl in front of her, and then issued a death notice, the blonde girl has completely lost the domineering ability to break other people's necks, and now Vivian is just a poor elementary school girl tortured by mathematics.

"Captain." Suddenly, a girl with silver-gray hair jumped up from a stool. Raising his head with his chest straight, he saluted Ling Yu, who pushed the door in.

"Class, Arya?"

"Wow, wow, dear, I don't want to study math!! Are you just watching your promised lover being tortured to death by math?!! ”

Vivian bounced up from the stool and threw herself into Ling Yu's arms, Ling Yu looked at the helpless smile on the silver-gray haired girl's face. Then he pinched the back collar of the blonde girl in his arms, peeled her off himself, and placed her on the sofa next to him.

"Call me brother." And then I added a sentence.

"The class is over," said Arya, who had silver-gray hair and a boat-shaped hat. Sheel lowered her arm from the salute, "Sorry for the delay. ”

"It's okay, we don't have anything else to do."

Ling Yu shook his head, took off his hat, then stretched the white scarf a little looser, and looked at Arya who put away the electronic board and books on the table, "Thank you for not missing class." ”

"Ling Yu, you stupid!! Why do you think people ran out of school!! ”

Vivian, who was sitting on the sofa, pulled a cushion and smashed it directly at Ling Yu, who caught it without looking back and stuffed it into Payne's hand, who was hanging his trench coat on the coat rack.

"You can't skip school even if you save the world, you should learn more from Japanese high school students."

Ling Yu turned his head to look at Vivian, who was lying on the sofa with her legs in her arms, with tears in her eyes, "Remember to do your homework well, otherwise I won't take you on the next mission." ”

"Woo wow wow - Ling Yu, you bully me, I don't love you anymore! I'm going to run away from marriage!! ”

"So when did I get engaged to you?"

Vivian sat directly on the sofa with her throat pulled and began to cry, Ling Yu rubbed her hair helplessly, and then watched Arya put the holographic projector on the table.

"Well, well, can you wait until the meeting is over to cry?"

Payne's embarrassed gaze roamed over Ling Yu and Vivian, but fortunately, it was not the first time he had dealt with this kind of scene, knowing that Vivian was not a completely ignorant bear child, a word made Vivian shut up.

Never discuss combat operations with Ling Yu, or cause trouble to Ling Yu during the battle, Vivien has always done a good job.

"Don't try to dump me! You are my man in life, and you are my ghost in death! ”

Vivien rubbed her eyes, jumped off the couch, ran to the table about the same height as herself, and glared at Ling Yu viciously.

Ling Yu ignored it.

"Based on Kronos's intelligence on the local intelligence network, it is basically certain that the information provided by the freshwater crocodile is correct." Arya smiled apologetically at Vivien, then regained her stern expression and looked at Ling Yu, "The location of the 'Black Gold' room is in the Baghdad region, and this information has also been confirmed by the Privy Hermitage. ”

"What does Helis think?"

Ling Yu clasped his hands in front of his chest, ignoring Vivian, who was pouting angrily, and asked.

"She's confirmed the information, she's done it alone."

Arya nodded, emphasizing the word "alone", and then looked at Payne.

There was a cavalry commissioner by Herris's side, and that's what Arya was talking about.

"Well, we narrowed down the target from the nuclear-contaminated zone in the Middle East to Tehran and then to Baghdad, and it was not in vain."

"But if we make such a big move, will Char have abandoned this base?"

Payne frowned.

"No, this kind of high-tech biochemical room doesn't mean to move away, Char won't jump because of us, and there is no news about it." Ling Yu shook his head slightly.

"Is our next target, my dear?"

Vivien leaned her hands on the table, looking at the holographic map.

"Baghdad is huge." Ling Yu shook his head, "And it's also possible that it's not in the city of Old Baghdad, so we still have some things to deal with before we go." (To be continued......)