Chapter 646: Chapter 646: This Cannon is Somewhat Advanced

Having gained complete control over East View City, the West Fifth Army was busy at work, first with settling the wounded and prisoners, then with handling the bodies and collecting the spoils of war.

Due to the severe cold on the Selovomen Plain, Flame Magic was hard to use, so the corpses of the Beastmen and Humans could only be buried on the spot.

Yang Yu didn’t rest. Staying up all night was a piece of cake for him; right now, he was calling on Iyas and the others to search everywhere to see if there were any Hidden Tasks that could be triggered.

The malfunction of the Luoze Empire’s artillery was no coincidence.

When the retreat bell rang, General Piluf was visibly surprised.

Eight out of ten times, someone had rung the bell before Piluf had issued the order; Piluf simply took advantage of the retreat signal to pull back.

After becoming the acting General, Yang Yu could access more secret information.

He had also heard a bit about the happenings in the rear of the Luoze Empire.

Piecing together the events of the past few days, Yang Yu could almost be certain that within the Luoze Empire’s troops, someone was aiding Wansheng Country.

Whether it was the Peace Faction of the Luoze Empire or something else was unclear.

But whatever it was, as long as he could find a clue and follow the trail, he would likely get a Handsomely rewarding task.

Since the problem lay with the artillery, that’s where the investigation would start.

With permission from the Lu Hua Army claiming they wanted to inspect the artillery, Yang Yu and his team climbed atop the city walls.

Standing near the three-meter-tall colossal cannon, Iyas once again felt the unique creativity of Humans.

“Is this the cannon that was just firing at us? To think such a tool could unleash that kind of attack! There are so many on the city wall—good thing they stopped firing halfway, or we would have faced a tough battle.”

Iyas tentatively reached out a finger, gently touching the black, huge cannon.

The moment she touched it, Iyas’s fear turned into delight, much like a child who sees a toy they like but can’t afford and is finally allowed to touch it with the shopkeeper’s permission.

Yang Yu leaned against a nearby ammo fence, glanced at Iyas, “I know how you feel; you’ll have plenty of time to touch it later. Tell me, do you sense anything?”

Iyas coughed awkwardly, placed her palm flat on the cannon, and sensed for a while before confidently answering,

“Nothing, nothing at all.”

“Is that so?”

Yang Yu wasn’t surprised by Iyas’s response, then he began to inspect the cannon more closely.

Not long after, he discovered an odd seam on the right side at the base of the cannon’s barrel.

With a gentle push, a gray screen and several buttons were revealed beneath the crack.

At first glance, they somewhat resembled the control keys of a CNC machine that Yang Yu operated during his college internship.

To use it, one only needed to call up the program and then enter the parameters for it to operate.

Holy shit, have Humans in this world managed to create something like this?

No, wait, is this game designed in this way to make controlling cannons convenient for players?

Yang Yu was taken aback, and after some trial and error, he found the on-switch with a set program and parameters ready to go—these were for the shot that hadn’t been fired.

However, Yang Yu couldn’t read the text on it, meaning these characters weren’t the General script of this world.

So that’s it—I understand now why the Luoze Empire isn’t worried about their cannons falling into the hands of the Beastmen.

If, as I suspect, all these cannons are driven by programs, requiring a new program for every shot, then Beastmen who lack the cognition and haven’t undergone certain training would not be able to master the cannons fundamentally.

It’s like a seventy or eighty-year-old person getting a smartphone for the first time, “not knowing where to start.”

Even so, there’s no way the people of the Luoze Empire could have come up with advanced technology like touchscreens, right?

Thinking this way, Yang Yu’s hand touched the screen, and with a thunderous roar, a black cannonball was fired from the muzzle, blasting towards the wilderness and triggering a tremendous explosion.

…

Upon hearing this cannon blast, the Wansheng Country soldiers, in the midst of carrying out various tasks, immediately became tense and lost their composure.

The Lu Hua Army ran to the top of the wall, only to see Yang Yu and his companions crouching down, inspecting the cannonball.

“What on earth happened? Was that cannon shot fired by you? Do you have the capability to fix the cannon?”

“The cannon doesn’t need to be fixed,” Yang Yu stood up, revealing a meaningful smile, “but I can now tell you clearly that the cannon is not the problem.

The problem is with the cannonball.

Inside the cannonball, some impurities had gotten mixed in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, it seems to be ghosts, or rather, fragments of ghosts, those things jammed the cannon’s system.”

The Lu Hua Army was utterly confused and had no idea what Yang Yu was talking about.

“It’s okay if you don’t understand, I don’t know how it was done either. All you need to know is that the cannon is fine and that there’s something wrong with the cannonballs.”

“So, if we switch to a new batch of cannonballs, can we use the cannon normally?”

“In theory, yes. Even without switching cannonballs, simply finding a way to remove the impurities would work.

Unfortunately, the only reason we were able to fire the cannonball just now was because blindly pressing buttons triggered their prepared cannonball, a stroke of luck.

Without knowing the exact method of operation, we can’t expect these cannons to become a combat force.”

To resolve the issues of the Lu Hua Army, Yang Yu could only fib, claiming it was all down to good luck.

“Is that so, that’s a real shame.

This time, you and your troops have contributed meritoriously again.

And to talk about earlier, I really did not expect you to be able to contain General Piluf, a man even I find to be a tough nut to crack.”

The white smoke rose slowly from the smoking pipe, and the Lu Hua Army did not skimp on their praise,

“But don’t get arrogant because of this.

Given your outstanding recent performance, you are very likely to be targeted by the Luoze Empire from now on.

Especially since you have tampered with their cannons, you’ll have to be careful in the future.

There are many young people like you who had just begun to make their mark, only to perish on the battlefield.

I do not want to see such tragedies repeated.”

Yang Yu smiled and replied modestly, “I will keep the General’s words in mind. I’ll be careful. It’s only because the team the General assigned to me was outstanding that I had the opportunity to restrain them.”

“Cut the flattery, it won’t work on me.”

The Lu Hua Army took a puff of their cigarette,

“In our army, we speak with strength, and from this operation, the term ‘provisional’ can already be removed from your title of provisional General.

Your team has gathered quite a few talented individuals. Make good use of them, and you can go even further.”

After the Lu Hua Army finished speaking, Yang Yu’s war task changed, his military rank increased, and he was officially made a General.

Yang Yu did not hesitate and immediately claimed his reward, also taking the opportunity to use all the lottery draws he had received. Unfortunately, his lottery draws remained heartwarmingly mundane, featuring an assortment of snacks, toys, and little books.

In this lottery draw, the most valuable item Yang Yu won was a tape recorder, which came with an English Level Four cassette from a certain era. It seemed as if pressing the play button on the tape recorder would emit the sound “The price of the shirt is nine pounds and fifteen pence.”