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Chapter 93 - Chapter 94: Lock Down the Scene!

"Huh? Not only is this city's police force a robot, but so are the tour guides?"

"But I'm a little worried about who is responsible for these robots. What should we do if a special situation arises?"

"If we're talking about who's responsible... it's an organization called the 'City Administration Association'; in terms of function, it's the city council. They use robots to maintain public order and collect taxes. As for accidents... none have happened yet. But if they really do, I'm afraid the city will be paralyzed in an instant."

Only Rita could ask such a realistic question.

"As for the composition of this institution, elections are held among the citizens and they change every year. Because these machines can maintain themselves, these people don't actually have to do anything, and their status is similar to a jury in a court."

Schrödinger said it as if it were none of her business.

"It's quite advanced."

Bianka looked at this advanced and classical city with interest.

"What about the tour guide robot?"

"Here."

Schrödinger walked to the front and patted a white robot on the head with her iron gloves.

"Welcome to Alexandria," the robot immediately emitted a preset voice: "This machine can provide you with basic city guidance for free. If you need a guiding companion, please enter three drachmas…"

"Drachma?" Bianka nudged Schrödinger.

"This is the currency used here. One coin contains about 0.4 grams of gold. Although it's not as good as a gold coin, its gold content is high, even very high," Schrödinger continued to explain.

"It really is quite a lot," Tian Shi said with emotion.

Two and a half coins are equivalent to one gram of pure gold. In her previous life, that would be four or five hundred yuan, and it would only go up, not down. In other words, the price for this tour guide robot is equivalent to six or seven hundred yuan from her previous life?

"Speaking of money… would you like to save some money?"

A voice sounded around everyone, and then, a blonde girl in ancient Greek-style clothing appeared in front of them.

"I can give you a much better tour of the city—everything these machines can't tell you—and it will only cost you two drachmas!"

Speaking of which, the drachma was the currency of ancient Greece, although the drachma in the original world and the drachma in use today are probably not the same. 

From this perspective, the outfit of this girl who suddenly appeared in front of me was actually very reasonable.

"Although, in general, this kind of girl who suddenly appears is either an important plot mission or a big boss at the end of the level."

Tian Shi has completely resigned herself to this kind of classic RPG-style journey.

"In other words, you are also a tour guide?"

Bianka looked up and down at the girl who had the same hair color as her.

"Guide? No, no, I won't do that kind of repetitive work for long."

The blonde girl waved her hand. 

"The reason my way of thinking is fundamentally different from the robot's way of thinking is because my way of thinking is fundamentally different from the robot's way of thinking."

"It would be a huge problem if there were no difference in the way humans and robots think, wouldn't it?" Schrödinger said.

"What do you know? In other words, I am a philosopher, they are not."

"I've studied a bit of philosophy... well, most of it is from Schopenhauer." 

Schrödinger looked at the blonde girl in front of her strangely from under her mask: "But I don't see at all how you could look like a philosopher. You look more like a street kid so poor that you're competing with robots for food."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The blonde girl crossed her arms and looked at the masked person in front of her with disgust.

"Let me introduce myself! My name is Thales of Miletus, and I am the director of the Institute of Metaphysics at the Great Library—that is, a real philosopher. Who is Schopenhauer?"

"Rita... the name Thales..."

Bianka felt as if she had heard that name in a textbook.

"One of the Seven Sages of Ancient Greece, the ancestor of philosophy and science, and the first recognized person in the history of Western philosophy."

Rita curled her lips and explained that she now felt Tian Shi's complaint was truly reasonable.

I can meet an ancient boss of this level just by walking down the street... what luck.

Unlike other pure philosophers, Thales was also a master of mathematics and astronomy, and her philosophy was also related to hydrology. 

In terms of influence, Thales influenced Heraclitus, Heraclitus influenced Socrates, and after Socrates came Plato...

Well, in this sense, this person should be the greatest ancient person they have met so far.

"Here's a business card. Keep it."

"That's true... But as a director, you actually act as a tour guide..."

"Well, why is she the commander of the three armed forces? Does the director have to hold a part-time military position?" Bianka asked with interest.

"..."

Well, Bianka's innocent side hasn't changed much.

"Ah... Well, there are only three employees in the Institute of Metaphysics, including me! So I am the commander of three armies!" 

Thales puffed out her slightly joyful chest with some guilt.

"She's a person who becomes extremely pathetic once explained!"

"What a pity! No wonder you have to work as a tour guide to earn extra money." Bianka nodded sympathetically.

"..."

Thales twitched the corner of her mouth in dissatisfaction.

"Hey, masked person, tell this person, how much can 100 drachmas buy?"

"That's equivalent to about 2,000 euros."

Schrödinger was too lazy to give examples and just helped convert it directly.

"2,000 euros... is this your weekly salary?" Bianka had never expected it to be so much.

"Weekly salary?" Thales smirked, "This is my half-day salary—200 drachmas a day."

"Eh... 200 drachmas is 4,000 euros... that's 120,000 euros a month, and a year... 1.44 million euros! That's more than the salary of an A-rank Valkyrie like me!"

Bianka was shocked.

"Don't worry, you'll earn more than this when you become an S-rank Valkyrie." Schrödinger comforted her.

Because Anti-Entropy is much stronger now than in the original novel, she and Anti-Entropy can occasionally communicate with each other, and she is not outdated.

Ah... So it turns out that Rita and Dudu Goose are hidden rich women?

Tian Shi curled the corner of his mouth. He had always ignored this question.

"How come she's more familiar with Schicksal than I am... In short, Miss Thales, you're saying you're not coming to us for money?"

"Of course, I think you are interesting, so I want to chat with you and tell you stories~"

Thales crossed her arms and smiled widely.

"What do you think? There aren't many opportunities to stroll on the street with a great philosopher like me. It's precious, isn't it?"

"Well... it's precious, but since you are so rich, why don't you just give it to us for free?" Bianka said bluntly.

"Huh? Ahahahahaha... you are truly fun!"

Thales smirked and put her hand on the robot, and at the same time, three coins were thrown at it.

"Miss Thales, senior researcher of the Great Library, welcome to the Lighthouse Guide System."

"Eh?"

"Well, I thought about it. You need a tour guide, but you don't want to be tricked. I want to talk to you, but you don't know me. This matter has nothing to do with whether you hire me or not, so I just get out of this contradiction. This way, won't both goals be achieved?"

[Under the guidance of the robot, you begin a tour of the city.]

[Along the way, Thales conversed with you, asking some dark philosophical questions.]

[Although Thales is very friendly, even Rita can only listen to her philosophical thoughts and questions in a vague way. However, for you who have a bit of philosophical experience, you can understand it by analogy.]

[Philosophy lv1→lv3]

"..."

Ah, if the system hadn't reminded me, I would have forgotten that I once learned philosophy with Schrödinger.

But does this useless skill have any use other than solving riddles?

[At the same time, you learn from Thales that there is a place called the "slave market" in this city.]

[Anyone who goes bankrupt in this city will become a public contract slave, and there is no prison or death penalty in this city, only "property confiscation" and "segregated exile."]

[This is a wild and ruthless commercial capital.]

[Afterward, you visited the great library where Thales worked. In this library, there are all kinds of endangered materials, such as "Homu Adventure" or "Homu Three Kingdoms".]

This thing called Homu has to show its presence wherever it goes, right?

By the way, the unique unit of the Honkai World, Hongwa, is actually Homuwa...

"Hey! Miss Bianka! Miss Rita! And the iron-masked companion and the boatswain!"

As everyone was touring the library, the white-haired pilot, Manfred, ran over with an anxious look on his face.

"Jimmy, Jimmy she…"

"What's wrong?" Bianka stepped forward to support the panting pilot: "Tell me slowly, is there an accident?"

"Hoo, hoo…" Manfred took a few deep breaths. "Jimmy, Jimmy has disappeared."

"Eh?"

The news shocked everyone.

"Manfred, please tell me in detail." Schrödinger's tone became serious.

"Okay, okay." Manfred nodded. "After we disembarked, we had already agreed to go to the library to find information about airplanes. Jimmy and I entered through the lobby hallway without stopping and went directly to the Postmodern Science Library."

"There is a lot of knowledge there that we have not yet fully mastered." Thales introduced and then continued to listen to Manfred's story.

"Yes, that's right. Jimmy and I started looking for information separately. After about ten minutes, I found the relevant information. When I went back to look for Jimmy, I couldn't find her. The worst thing is that I smelled drugs in one place. If I hadn't been a professional soldier, I would have been poisoned too."

Manfred patted his chest with some fear.

"…"

Everyone looked at each other and had a bad feeling.

This is clearly a kidnapping!

"Go! Take us to where the ...! No, that's not right! Send a message to find someone! Seal the door immediately and check every floor! If anyone else knows about the potion, follow Manfred to investigate!"

Bianka showed great decisiveness without anyone needing to remind her at that moment.

"Uh... this?" Thales was a little scared by Bianka's murderous aura.

— To be able to be promoted to an A-rank Valkyrie, Bianka must have killed quite a few Honkai beasts. Otherwise, even with her special identity, she would not have been promoted so quickly.

"Didn't you say that this city is full of human trafficking? There were even drugs. Can you just say she's lost? This is clearly a brutal kidnapping! It's a kidnapping!"

"I admit that your 'worst-case scenario' is not impossible."

Thales nodded, agreeing with Bianka's statement.

"Searching for a person doesn't require any formality, but the last two measures... are considered acts that seriously disrupt order inside the museum and require the personal approval of the director for implementation."

"Then, let's go find the curator! Rita! You and Schrödinger go and seal the door! First Mate and Miss Leila, seal the other exits, if there are any!"

"I remember there was a back door to this library."

Schrödinger nodded.

"Then I'll go to the rooftop." Leila also took on the task.

But in this case, no one could identify the potion with Manfred, although none of the people present knew much about potions.

"Then I'll continue the search... Although I'm not a secret agent, I still have some basic qualities."

Once the task was completed, Bianka immediately decided to look for the curator.

"Calm down!" Thales shouted, "I understand how you feel, but it seems like you are looking for trouble now! Calm down, our curator is very good! Skipping necessary steps will only bring you trouble!"

"Looking for trouble?" Leila, who was about to go up the stairs, smirked. 

"Technically speaking, we are pirates. Do we need to raise the pirate flag on the Caledonia?"

Leila, who has been with Jimmy the longest, is the angriest of all.

"…"

Thales did not speak further.

The military strength of this commercial city... although not weak, it is not extremely powerful, nor is it invincible. 

The businessmen who run the city believe that as long as the pirates are willing to pay protection fees, everyone can sit down and talk.

In fact, this city was under the rule of pirates for a long time, but later the civilians... or should I say the "civilian pirates" overthrew the "pirate aristocracy," which has nothing to do with the original civilians. 

It came to be like this after a series of evolutions.

Therefore, although this city is quite powerful, it does not have enough martial virtue.

So Thales, who was familiar with the history of this city, decided to remain silent after hearing Leila's half-threatening words.

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