Mecha Chapter 174: Punishment

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Lhachril

 

What a pig of a teammate! Luo XiaoLou sent a heartbreaking look at 125, who appeared dumbfounded, and held Yuan Xi’s arm in his trembling paws, God, he’s going to strangle me!

Luo XiaoLou tried to look at Yuan Xi with pleading eyes, his eyes floating with a rippling watery glow from staring too long.

Yuan Xi couldn’t take his eyes off of it crying, Indeed it was crying again! This feeling is really …… a weirdly refreshing feeling.

After observing contentedly for a while, Yuan Xi tensed his face and said gloomily, “It seems that you’ve always had the idea of escaping, and even if it’s because you have the self-awareness to know that you’re guilty of a great crime, it makes me very unhappy that you’ve repeatedly pushed the limits of my patience. Therefore, I think you should be punished heavily, don’t you?”

I don’t think so! Luo XiaoLou didn’t have time to express his thoughts – of course even if he did, Yuan Xi wouldn’t listen, and he wouldn’t understand anyway – before Yuan Xi placed him in his lap.

“Here, put one of your hands in mine. Quick, you know I don’t take no for an answer… That’s right. Now, my dear, pose as I say, and with the suppleness of your body now, you will be able to.” Yuan Xi smiled a kind and perfect smile and spoke kindly to Luo XiaoLou.

Then, Yuan Xi held Luo XiaoLou’s paw in one hand to prevent him from escaping and struggling, and turned on the video recording function of his communicator with the other.

“…”

This is an absolute insult to animals! Animal abuse – no, animal molestation!

Luo XiaoLou who was commanded to pose this way and that almost really cried out!

“No… this position is not tempting enough. Can’t you think about how you do it all the time in bed? Yes, lie down, cross your legs over, and lift your upper body up a little. Here, here, I’ll give you my fingers, lick them…” with a wicked smile, Yuan Xi gently pushed the animal down on his knees, then assisted him in his position and began to let him lick his fingers.

Enjoying the soft little red tongue sliding on his fingers, with that coarse feeling that animals have when they lick their fur, Yuan Xi narrowed his eyes slightly. He could feel the little fangs that occasionally accidentally touched his fingers before they were quickly withdrawn.

Yuan Xi felt as if even the depression brought on by the drastic decline in his abilities over the last few days had lessened quite a bit, so it really was a good thing to de-stress at the right time.

“Listen, if you’re good enough to come back with me and confess your sins, maybe I’ll be kind enough to adopt you, and I don’t care about having an extra pet anyway. However, if you ever run away again, I will absolutely put this wonderful video on a loop throughout the universe. Do you understand? Nod your head when you understand.”

Luo XiaoLou really cried, God, there must never come a day when I can afford to shame this man!

125 couldn’t bear to look anymore, and it tucked itself into the corner as best it could, afraid that Yuan Xi would do the same to it on a whim. It’d be laughed to death by all the exotic beast mecha!

After the torment, Yuan Xi came to a stop, took out a nutritional pill and shoved it into Luo XiaoLou’s mouth.

Luo XiaoLou stretched his neck with difficulty and scrambled backwards.

Without questioning the consequences of his actions, Yuan Xi gave Luo XiaoLou two gulps of water.

After Luo XiaoLou gulped down the nutritional pill with difficulty, Yuan Xi smoothed out two handfuls of hair before looking at 125 and motioning with his eyes for him to hand over all the drinking water.

After pounding away for a long time, 125 only took out a case of drinks and explained in a small voice, “I was in a hurry when I left, I didn’t have time to prepare the water, this is all left over from before.”

Yuan Xi didn’t hold out much hope for the household robot at all, so he put away the box, took a nutritional pill himself, drank a bottle of water, and then drew the territory for Luo XiaoLou and 125, telling them to stay honest and head inside.

Rats were usually pack animals, but this mutant gray rat was not. Because of their physical strength, they could forage alone on their own. However, most of the rats preferred to live in the burrows underneath, and this cave that led to the underground had become their best habitat.

Yuan Xi headed deeper into the cave, and in no time at all, he managed to lure out one of the rats, but he couldn’t deal with two of them at the same time.

Luo XiaoLou, who had been cursing Yuan Xi in the corner, forgot about his intentions and stared nervously at the center of the field as Yuan Xi drew the gray rat out.

He hadn’t had a chance to look closely at how Yuan Xi maneuvered around the first gray rat, but now he could see it clearly, and his heart couldn’t stop rising.

In Luo XiaoLou’s mind, Yuan Xi had always been very powerful, so powerful that he couldn’t even see Yuan Xi’s movements when he struck. Every move was simple and effective, all of them enemy-suppressing moves.

Now, those moves were no longer suitable for this frail body, and what Yuan Xi had was only experience, experience against the enemy, and sensitivity to danger.

He had to slowly adjust his moves and movements to suit his current self as the gray rat attacked, and then look for the gray rat’s weaknesses.

Against such a seemingly weak and far inferior enemy, who had actually been fighting for a long time, the gray rat gradually began to get fidgety. Its red eyes shot out a fierce light, its movements became faster and faster, and its claw tips carried a fierce wind.

Yuan Xi gradually became a mess, and his clothes would occasionally be cut by the rat’s claws. His strength and speed were now inferior to that of a gray rat, and the black sword in his hand was the only thing that could scare the gray rat. Almost every few seconds, Luo XiaoLou and 125 eyes were looking a little straight at the extremely dangerous situation.

The gray rat also tried to hit Luo XiaoLou and 125, but each time he was held back by Yuan Xi, and when the gray rat was distracted once again, the black sword left a wound on the gray rat’s body. The gray rat was completely annoyed and took it upon himself to deal with Yuan Xi.

Yuan Xi’s clothes got worse and worse, and in response, the rat got more and more wounds, one near his neck, and his grey fur was becoming stained with blood. There were also wounds on Yuan Xi, which Luo XiaoLou watched with distress and anxiety. He rarely saw him injured.

Yuan Xi had always been invincible in his eyes. Even when he was in the same mess in the asteroid and dealt with the mutated Level 7 Insect Beast, Yuan Xi hadn’t been injured.

Oh yeah, there was Cloudy Sky then, and Luo XiaoLou was stunned to find another problem, Yuan Xi hadn’t even used a gun.

Luo XiaoLou tugged at 125, “Give me the Particle Gun.”

125 leaned close to his fosterer – as if Luo XiaoLou could protect him – as he stared at the one man and one mouse in the middle of the field and said, “It’s no use. Do you know why Yuan Xi didn’t pilot Cloudy Sky or use the Particle Gun? Affected by the special environment here, the energy box doesn’t work here, or rather, plays a very small role. So, your protective shield is only for show right now, it’s only a little better than nothing. Also, the people here don’t use guns, but locally made weapons.”

Luo XiaoLou was stunned and thought about it, asking, “Like the weapon from the skies that we met on the first day?” A sword with a blue flame.

125 nodded, “Mn, and that sword of his is different from normal weapons, it has energy fluctuations. As to which kind of energy, we can only analyze it when we have more detailed information.”

Luo XiaoLou sighed, then glared, “Wait, the energy box doesn’t work, so why are you not completely useless now?”

125 was dumbfounded, then stammered and shouted, “And – and you can’t say that! At least I provided my collection! And I was able to prepare potions for Yuan Xi-“

“I mean, in terms of fighting.” Luo XiaoLou interrupted 125, he was just considering if he could help Yuan Xi in combat.

Luo XiaoLou was worried that he was going to die. 125 continued his frightened performance and whimpered, “You can’t abandon me, I can talk with you while Yuan Xi is fighting. He’ll protect us!”

…How can you expect a human to protect you, if you have not always considered yourself an arrogant exotic beast mecha?

Luo XiaoLou silently turned his head away from the fake crying 125 and stared worriedly at Yuan Xi and the gray rat. Yuan Xi’s wounds seemed to be growing…

The injured gray rat was getting slower as he started out manic and ended up exhausted. It had lost too much blood.

Yuan Xi, however, kept moving at the same pace, as if he didn’t feel any of the injuries he had sustained.

Finally, when the gray rat realized that something was wrong and planned to run away, it was pierced in the back of its neck by Yuan Xi with his black sword. The gray rat let out a shriek and slowly fell to the ground.

Yuan Xi gasped and looked back at Luo XiaoLou and 125 who were ‘counting on him for protection’ in the corner. Seeing that they were fine, he leaned against the rock wall and took out a bottle to drink. Luo XiaoLou asked 125 for a healing device and healing medicine. Even though the healing device could do little, it was better than nothing.

Yuan Xi looked down for two seconds as Luo XiaoLou tugged on his pant leg, and finally obeyed Luo XiaoLou and sat down, leaning against the rock and closing his eyes as he let Luo XiaoLou work his way up and down his entire body.

To show that he was not completely useless, 125 stood attentively beside Luo XiaoLou and handed him items. Although Yuan Xi wasn’t seriously injured, he had many wounds. The wound medicine put on quickly stopped the bleeding, but the wounds were still there and the pain was definite.

After the therapeutic device was swept to one side, the wounds healed slightly, but the effect was not obvious.

Luo XiaoLou looked up at Yuan Xi for a moment, judging that Yuan Xi hadn’t been storing up energy, or been inexhaustible, he’d just been holding on.

“Should we go back? It’s already two o’clock in the afternoon.” Luo XiaoLou wrote on Yuan Xi’s hand.

Yuan Xi still had his eyes closed, and when Luo XiaoLou thought he was asleep, Yuan Xi spoke up, “There’s still time to kill one more before we go.”

“But it’s dangerous, and you’ve drained your energy too badly,” Luo XiaoLou wrote again.

Yuan Xi opened his eyes and tugged on Luo XiaoLou’s ear, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly, “…My previous training was also like this. Only battles where life and death were at stake could improve you the fastest, and if you showed cowardice, you would only die faster. On the contrary, after each fatal crisis, new experiences will be accumulated. It’s only after this accumulation that abilities will improve. Although my physique is terrible right now, I will become stronger. Only by becoming stronger can we hope to leave.”

Luo XiaoLou shook his ears and sulked a little. Yuan Xi wasn’t wrong in saying that. Even if they had a ship now, they would have to find a way to get the energy stones to leave, and the energy stones could only be obtained if Yuan Xi became stronger.

After resting for ten minutes, Yuan Xi got up and moved around and went inside again.

This time it was a bigger gray rat, but like Yuan Xi said, after a bit of experience, the gray rat could do nothing to stop Yuan Xi, even if it had a lot of advantages. Yuan Xi knew the rats’ weaknesses and was able to deal with them more easily. An hour later, the gray rat was also lying on the ground.

Yuan Xi looked at the time, it was already four o’clock in the afternoon, he put the bodies of the three rats into the space button, and then left the cave with Luo XiaoLou.

On the way back, they encountered many people returning to the city. Seeing Yuan Xi, who was empty-handed and with tattered clothes, but holding a pet, while avoiding him, many people had a look of contempt on their faces.

This young man was too blind to the situation, it was difficult to feed himself and he still had a pet?

Compared to Luo XiaoLou’s apprehension, Yuan Xi didn’t care about other people’s opinion. On the contrary, he was more used to people caring about him. When they returned, Li Jay and Xiao Qiao had already returned, as the assessment to enter District D was near, they went to the mountain together, and the harvest this time was not bad.

Yuan Xi took out three gray rat carcasses and brought them to Li Jay, Li Jay said that the animals and plants here were fierce and not easy to kill, many people even went in teams. And the carcasses of the animals and plants could be exchanged for money or daily necessities.

“To pay you back for yesterday and today’s food.” Yuan Xi said.

Li Jay was stunned, then laughed, “You killed it all by yourself? The harvest is good, we don’t need so many. One is enough.”

Yuan Xi thought about it and said, “The rest, exchange drinking water with you guys.”

Li Jay readily agreed, “Okay, I’ll bring it over to you later. It just so happens that we’re going to the trading market tomorrow, and if you didn’t have too many wounds on your gray rats, you could sell them for more money. The rich people in those high-class districts like gray rats’ skins to keep them warm and sturdy. You can actually go there yourself, you might be able to sell it for a good price.”

Yuan Xi shook his head and turned to walk away.

Li Jay knew that Yuan Xi was not someone who cared about these small profits at a glance, and didn’t try to persuade him much, but asked Xiao Qiao to bring two boxes of clean drinking water to Yuan Xi’s house.

Xiao Qiao came out and secretly asked Li Jay, “Brother, he doesn’t seem so useless. Do you think he’ll come into District D with us three days from now?”

Li Jay shook his head, “It’s really hard to say, I don’t even know how he got back safely. Those scoundrels who stare at others every day didn’t even rob him. But even if he did have the energy stone, it’s still another thing whether he could keep it or not.”

Yuan Xi didn’t think too much about it, but that night, he took a bath with a container of water and wiped Luo XiaoLou off himself. As Luo XiaoLou shivered and shivered because of his wet hair, Yuan Xi was even more unhappy with the fact that he was being waited on.

Luo XiaoLou also had a hard time – it would be a disaster to have Yuan Xi take a bath, so he started to think about restoring Spiritual Power, and asked 125 to prepare the materials to start practicing tomorrow.

The next morning, although there was nothing to buy or sell, Yuan Xi sacrificed his morning to go to the trading market, between the Out of Boundary District and District D. It was mostly District D and District C people who came to buy something fresh or cheap.

Luo XiaoLou poked his head out and found that Ling Xiao, whom he had met on the first day, was standing not far away.

Yuan Xi stood there for a full minute, then suddenly turned around and walked back.

Luo XiaoLou was shocked to see Yuan Xi, but didn’t look this way. Luo XiaoLou could feel Yuan Xi’s breathing was disordered and his body had stiffened terribly.

 

When he was almost at the cave, Yuan Xi suddenly said, “Luo XiaoLou, we might not just go into District D, I want to go to District A. That person, the one who was just next to Ling Xiao, had a mark on the necklace he was wearing.” Luo XiaoLou moved, and Yuan Xi took a deep breath and said, “That mark, it’s my brother’s name, written in ancient script.”