Chapter 1133: Player Autonomous City
The two injured men first wanted to argue, but seeing the man sitting across from them, they swallowed their words and changed their tune. "We're just responsible for backup. The ones who went inside are the real experts."
A mocking chuckle came from the other side of the table.
"Looks like you still don't want to live," Xu Huo said.
"Wait!" the player who spoke first said. "Everything we said is the truth! Our lives are in your hands—how would we dare lie!"
"If you don't believe us, you can check the messages on the Vanguard Player forum. There are quite a few rumors about Bian Ling, leaked by insiders from the Special Defense Department. The names were just blurred out!"
Xu Huo's phone was already dead, so he used theirs and indeed found some marginalized information.
"These messages were very hot when they first came out, but they were eventually suppressed. The mentions of murder to silence witnesses and robbing items were never confirmed... maybe they were confirmed but not made public. Anyway, people kept talking about it, but Bian Ling never faced any punishment. She holds concurrent positions in both the Special Defense Department and the Jing City Independent Defense Department, and she's a genius player. How would such trivial matters implicate her?"
"The current X Country is different from before. In the past, those with power and influence would at least know to cover up their misdeeds to avoid public outrage. Now, player level is everything, and the words of the original state institutions don't carry as much weight anymore."
This was also true. Compared to other new districts, District 014 was still relatively well off. Just look at District 009, which had only recently fully merged with the game world. Once state institutions lose their deterrent power, chaos is inevitable. If player organizations or other groups can control the situation, there's a chance to stabilize things. If not, what awaits is prolonged conflict. For every person living in that district, including players, the difficulty of survival would skyrocket.
Looking at the safe zones established in Ting City, District 014 managed to stabilize its rhythm during the initial turn. At least the earliest batch of developed players remained within government institutions, though the internal power center might shift.
Of course, to maintain the original appearance of power, the country would certainly focus on cultivating its own people, especially the deeply entrenched families. Only then would the nation's situation not undergo earth-shattering changes.
However, "If that Bian Ling really tarnishes the country's image like the rumors say, the Special Defense Department wouldn't just ignore it."
Xu Huo closed the Vanguard Player forum interface.
The Special Defense Department wasn't stupid, or rather, the original power holders weren't stupid. Now that hot weapons were no longer dominant, and coinciding with X Country's full push to develop player numbers, negative news about the government would bring more severe consequences than before. Overthrowing the regime might not be achievable in the short term, but killing a few people was still simple.
X Country was only so big—where could people hide?
The country was still far from comprehensive development, but upgrading a single player was much simpler. In the current situation, any C-grade player could kill their way into a safe zone. But would the country really dare to use super-large weapons against a safe zone?
So at times like this, the likelihood of those in power being assassinated would greatly increase. Even for the sake of their own lives, they couldn't afford to let things like the Bian Ling rumors go unchecked.
"Maybe it's because she only steals things from the Special Defense Department..." another player said. "That makes it harder for them to deal with her."
Xu Huo rubbed his brow. "Don't act like you think I'm an idiot."
He took out a truth serum. "Let's see if this works."
Clearly, these two weren't people of strong will. One injection and they confessed everything. By and large, it matched what they had said, except that Bian Ling didn't contact them directly. They only learned from their companions that someone named "Bian Ling" was leaking information. The authenticity was uncertain, and they had never personally seen the information channel or had internal members contact Special Defense Department insiders.
This could be verified from the information on their phones.
However, flipping through the phone messages, he found something else interesting.
He had only been gone for three months, yet within X Country, three "player autonomous" cities had emerged.
So-called "player autonomy" was just a nice way of saying players controlled local government. The reality was that local Special Defense Departments could no longer control the local players. On the surface, the Special Defense Department and local government still had authority, but they dared not confront the local players head-on—it was as if a civilian force was secretly controlling everything, deeply rooted and unshakable.
These three cities had also become places some players longed for.
Of course, there were definitely more such cities than just these, but only these three had become nationally known. The Special Defense Department headquarters currently had no spare hands to clean up the situation and could only let it develop.
According to online news, the biggest incident involved a local Special Defense Department team leader leading a squad through one of these cities. The result was that the entire team was killed to the last man, and the supplies they were transporting were looted.
After that incident, Minister Fan specifically sent people to deal with it. But the entire city—from the local government to the Special Defense Department branch, official player organizations, and civilian player organizations—nowhere could any information be found. Even the batch of missing supplies had vanished without a trace, never circulating on the market.
Top to bottom, it was a solid block. Minister Fan's first batch of people returned in defeat.
If it couldn't be handled within the rules, there were naturally ways outside the rules. After the Jing City Special Defense Department personnel left, a group of players entered the city and secretly declared war on the local players. This conflict lasted only three days, ending with half the foreign players dead and half wounded.
This was their battle for fame, and it indirectly declared that the era of complete government control had passed.
Of course, if the Special Defense Department truly wanted to completely eradicate this cancer, it wasn't impossible—it just required a massive amount of manpower and resources, and the timing wasn't right. So the matter was shelved.
Thus, these "player autonomous" cities came into being.
Among the companions of the two men he had captured, someone seemed to have dealings with the underground organization in Tian City.
"If we're talking about X Country's advantage over other countries, it's that the number of players is large enough."
"If we're talking about its disadvantage, it's also that the number of players is too large."
Xu Huo couldn't help but say.
Given Tian City's population size, plus the officially counted number of players, the total was far more than one hundred thousand. Even excluding those who had only barely touched the threshold of being a player, there were still several thousand to tens of thousands who were relatively outstanding and could survive several rounds in the game.
If these people united, even the Special Defense Department wouldn't dare to kill them all at once.
Of course, looking at the bigger picture, the more players, the better. Otherwise, when District 014 eventually merges with the game world, it would be another tragedy of being the fish on the chopping block.
After finishing off the two men, Xu Huo returned to the safe zone.
(Chapter End)