17 Rikos Choice (1/2)

Chapter 17: Riko’s Choice

In the afternoon, Riko brought Shi Xiaobai around Steel City. Steel City was divided into five zones. The jurisdiction zones of the four Divisions were separately the north, south, east and west. In the middle was a joint area with buildings for meetings as well as shared facilities.

[Gaia]’s reputation was now in decline, but it had once been brilliant in China. [Gaia] Base had been established back in its glory days, hence, the facilities in Steel City were considerably adequate. It could be said it had everything. It had restaurants, supermarkets, karaoke bars, bars and other entertainment outlets. It even had a game arcade.

However, this world’s “virtual reality” was surprisingly well-developed. Every game was basically a “virtual game” meant for training the abilities of Heroes. Shi Xiaobai’s eyes glowed immediately as he yearned to try them out. Riko did not have that much time to waste with him at a game arcade, so she pulled him away. Shi Xiaobai lamented in pity as he decided that he had to find an opportunity to play every game in the game arcade in the future.

It was unknown where Riko obtained a car from. The duo drove around and walked around, traversing most of Steel City in its entirety. Of course, the main introduction was [Annihilation]’s jurisdiction zone.

[Annihilation]’s jurisdiction zone was located to the south of Steel City. The facilities it had were not any different from the other three jurisdiction zones’. The main thing Riko wanted to do was to let Shi Xiaobai understand the structure of the jurisdiction zone, so that he would not get lost while outside. As for whether Shi Xiaobai was listening attentively or not, that was unknown.

The results of the Rookie Evaluation Test were out in the afternoon. A few text messages were sent to Riko’s cellphone. Shi Xiaobai had naturally received first place for [Annihilation] in this batch of rookie evaluations. He also became this year’s second S– Class rookie. If Shi Xiaobai had received one more point in the ability test, he could have had a chance to achieve S, or even S+ Class. After all, his dual S Class natural endowment was something that only appeared once in several years in the entire world, while he was the first in [Gaia] ever since its establishment.

There was another text message which was quite thought-provoking. According to the organization’s investigation, Shi Xiaobai’s identity came up completely blank! This meant that even [Gaia]’s intelligence agencies were unable to obtain any information about Shi Xiaobai. There were only two possibilities for this to occur. Either the confidentiality of Shi Xiaobai’s identity was above [Gaia]’s clearance level or Shi Xiaobai had appeared out of thin air. The former was unbelievable, while the latter was preposterous.

But in any case, [Gaia] would not easily let an uber-class rookie not seen in a hundred years disappear from their grasp. Even if they had to resort to brainwashing techniques, they would do so just to make Shi Xiaobai have a sense of belonging to [Gaia].

This matter resulted in two conflicting text messages. One of them was sent by the upper echelons of [Gaia]. It vaguely hinted to Riko that while protecting herself, she should try her best to make Shi Xiaobai have a sense of belonging to the organization. It implied a request for Riko to play with Shi Xiaobai’s feelings, making Shi Xiaobai fall for her. On this matter, it made Riko unsure whether to laugh or cry, but at the same time, she was infuriated.

The other text message had healed her hurt heart. It was a message sent from her father. Her father’s text message cussed at Shi Xiaobai, sternly requesting Riko to distance herself from Shi Xiaobai. He also expressed that he would settle any problems that came from the organization’s upper echelons. He wanted Riko to focus on her own matters and to not make any compromises.

Riko immediately replied her father’s text message, explaining the misunderstanding. She also depicted her understanding of Shi Xiaobai. After Riko’s father received the text message, he immediately responded with—”There’s really such an idiotic child?”

Riko immediately laughed in stitches as she began tapping noisily at her cellphone, producing a large passage mentioning how silly Shi Xiaobai was. Immediately, her mood turned better.

After that, Riko sent another text message to the organization’s upper echelons. She explained that Shi Xiaobai was a pure and kind child, and that she treated Shi Xiaobai as her younger brother.

The reaction from the upper echelons was swift. They immediately responded with a text message that gave Riko a headache. In summary, the organization decided that Riko was to play the role of Shi Xiaobai’s rookie counselor. Also, as there were not enough room in the rookie dormitories, Shi Xiaobai was to temporarily stay with Riko, and they had even used “a younger brother living in his elder sister’s house is completely reasonable” as the corresponding reason.