Chapter 91: Chapter 89: A Disorganized Army l
Translator: 549690339
“Alright. But let me sleep first, at least. My serum hasn’t worn off yet, and my body isn’t in the right condition, especially fatigue-wise. I can’t…can’t produce anything.”
It took Harrison Clark a full five minutes to recover from the heavy blow of the genetic liquid.
It was too uncomfortable.
After finally convincing himself to be mentally prepared for a fierce battle, it turned out that he still had to obediently return to playing games.
Although the gaming experience was also very realistic and convincing, once people see something better, their eyes will naturally wander, and they may become discontented.
Furthermore, even though he had initially resisted the idea, once his mental preparations were complete, he held a go-for-broke attitude, thinking along the lines of if I don’t go to hell, who will?’ and considering anyone who didn’t take advantage of the situation a fool. His thinking shifted.
However, the course of events was completely different from what he had both hoped for and feared, and it did not bend to his will. Naturally, he felt somewhat twisted.
He had never imagined that high-end talent would interact in this way, and their concept of love was entirely dead and buried.
How sad!
“Why haven’t you left yet? Do you still have something to do?”
Nora Camp looked at him, puzzled.
Harrison Clark squeezed his fists with both hands, his thumbs constantly colliding with each other. He pouted, “No…nothing to do. Sigh.”
“Oh, you wait a second.”
He had just turned around when Nora Camp’s voice came from behind him again.
He excitedly turned back, thinking General Camp had changed her mind, but she was just opening the refrigerator and taking out a few boxes.
Nora Camp looked at her watch and handed him the boxes, “It seems I delayed your mealtime. You have only ten minutes before you fall into a deep sleep. You can sleep in the rest area behind my office. These are some snacks I usually eat to replenish consumed calories. Hurry up.”
Harrison Clark took the boxes, still not fully comprehending. Then Nora Camp received a call—there were matters in the base that required her attention. She hurriedly left in a rush.
Harrison Clark sat down on the sofa, placed the boxes on the coffee table, and quickly unfolded them.
After unpacking the boxes, his face suddenly soured.
Unless he remembered incorrectly, Nora Camp’s refrigerator was full of these small boxes.
That meant there was only one kind of snack available to her.
But why was it all strawberry cheesecake!?
Could a sweet dessert like cake serve as a meal?
He tried a bite and shuddered violently, even feeling as if his solid teeth had instantly melted.
Harrison Clark squinted his eyes and sighed in his heart.
What kind of divine dessert was this? It was way too sweet!
Did they put too much sugar in it when they made it?
He really didn’t want to eat any more, but he looked at the nutritional breakdown on the side of the box and saw it was an excellent meal, scientifically formulated—though perhaps customized with an ultra-sweet taste for their preference.
His upcoming sleep would last for ten hours, and his body’s self-repair during this period would consume a lot of energy.
As long as conditions allowed, he needed to replenish energy after each serum injection and training sessions.
Eventually, Harrison Clark gritted his teeth and quickly finished off the cheesecake, then darted into the resting room inside Nora Camp’s office, fell onto the soft bed, and instantly fell asleep.
Just before drifting off, he could hardly feel the presence of his teeth.
He never expected Nora Camp, a formidable hero, would have such a soft spot for desserts behind her tough exterior.
That night, he even had a nightmare in which he fell into a swamp made of honey and nearly drowned.
Then he struggled out, and the honey congealed, turning into a graceful woman.
It was beyond words, stunningly beautiful, like a celestial paradise.
When he woke up the next morning, Harrison Clark rubbed his head.
Nora Camp was sitting cross-legged on her office chair, repeatedly clicking on the holographic image.
This was not the star map from yesterday, but a chess game that Harrison Clark found extremely familiar.
Chess.
Harrison Clark was slightly surprised, not expecting someone to still enjoy chess after a thousand years had already passed.
Hadn’t chess already been defeated by artificial intelligence back then?
Given the current level of artificial intelligence, wasn’t playing chess a fruitless endeavor for humans?
Sensing his presence, she paused the game and turned around, “Awake already? I’ve sent you information on the major battleships in the fleet to your personal neural device. You can review it when you return to your dormitory. But the information is confidential, so be careful not to show it to anyone else. Also, the database is massive, so I suggest you only review the top thousand battleships and not waste time on the lower-ranking ones.”
Harrison Clark nodded, “Alright, thank you. I’ll go back and get that ‘essence’… Genetic liquid.”
Nora Camp shook her head, “No need. Last night, while you were sleeping on my bed, some fluid leaked out, and my Al assistant has already taken a sample.”
Harrison Clark widened his eyes, “Huh?”
So embarrassing.
He just wanted to find a crack in the floor to crawl into.
“Oh, I’ll go back first. General, you can continue your game of Chess.”With that, he was about to leave.
“Wait!” Nora Camp stopped him. “Huh, you know chess?”
Harrison Clark nodded blankly, “Yeah, is that so strange?”
He was screaming internally.
Your priorities are so weird, General!
Being on your bed and having your Al extract my genetic material should be the focus here!
This calmness on your face, what gives?!
As someone who grew up a thousand years ago, with morals and values founded in another era, he couldn’t adapt to Nora’s perception of love.
No, it shouldn’t even be called love – more like the concept of reproduction.
Now interested, Nora inquired, “Do you play?”
Harrison honestly replied, “A bit.”
He did play because he had learned it before.
When he was in high school, his foster parents kicked him out during his final year, leaving him without fees, and support. Fortunately, a nearby elderly chess club was hiring a cleaner, so he tried his luck there. Later, he used his lunch breaks to clean the chess club and earn a meager monthly stipend from the manager, enough to get him through his senior year.
Of course, this was one reason he didn’t get into a top university and attended one with lower prestige.
While others were pouring their energies into preparing for the college entrance exam, he had to fend for himself, and not performing well was expected.
But he didn’t blame the old man at the chess club; indeed, he was grateful. If it weren’t for those lovely elderly people, Harrison wouldn’t have finished high school.
After the entrance exams, in addition to working part-time to cover college expenses, he’d occasionally visit the chess club to sweep the floor, and be forcibly dragged onto the chessboard to lose a few rounds by the old men. Unfortunately, during his university days, he couldn’t find anyone to play with, so he gradually gave it up.
“Want a round?” Nora enthusiastically pulled open her desk drawer, revealing black and white chess pieces, and lifted the tabletop cloth.
It turned out that her tabletop cloth was covering a glass chessboard.
Though the chessboard stirred memories and tempted him, he hesitated, remembering the fleet documents. “Uh, I’m a bit busy right now. How about we do it another day?”
Nora shook her head. “No can do. You have no idea how hard it is for me to find a real person to play chess with. I haven’t found a chess enthusiast in nearly ten years, and I’ve only had Al to play with. Ten years! You can look at the files anytime, but playing chess greatly depends on one’s mood, come on! If you don’t satisfy me today, are you even a man, huh?”
Harrison fell for her provocation, “Fine, let’s do it! Who’s afraid?!”
He considered himself quite strong, even managing to play on par with the old experts in the chess club when he was in the zone. He wasn’t just some lousy chess player.
Twenty minutes later, under Nora’s wild laughter, Harrison left the room, defeated and dejected.
Her skills were absolutely terrifying!
Not human at all!
Harrison, with his amateur level skills, couldn’t put up a fight against her, and to make things worse, Nora’s chess manners were rather nasty.
She mocked him as they played.
“I’m going to capture your dragon.”
“Surrounded, beaten, time for you to surrender.”
“So naive, stumbling into every pit I dig for you.”
“Do you know who your opponent is? It’s the genius among the genius Commanders!”
“You’re digging your grave!”
Harrison couldn’t be bothered to count the points and threw the chessboard before running off, wanting only to go home and cry in his blankets.
No wonder she couldn’t find a chess buddy. In addition to few people knowing chess in this era, her terrifying chess skills coupled with her taunts would drive people away after one round – never to return for a second.
“Hey, don’t go! Let’s play another game!”
Nora’s voice echoed from behind.
Harrison jumped into the time machine without looking back, “In your next life, maybe!”
Even after Harrison returned to his dorm, Nora wouldn’t leave him alone, sending a lengthy message through his personal brain communication system.
She said,
Chess is profound and intricate, greatly beneficial to mental development. As a commander-type talent, her success at such a young age is closely related to her years of playing chess.
She hoped Harrison could aim higher and strive to be a more well-rounded talent, combining combat skills and command abilities.
Harrison immediately retorted, “Don’t you try to trick me. I’m not that naive. I won’t listen to your nonsense.”
Moreover, he couldn’t defeat computers anyway, so why waste energy?
Nora continued,
Although humans have never defeated Al after Eugene lost to AlphaGo a thousand years ago, and the defeats keep growing worse, the fact that chess can enhance human logical thinking never changes.
Her personal success proves the effectiveness of treating it as a mind training method.
While Al can’t fully replace humans in commanding wars, no matter how fast they compute, they cannot completely replace human emotions or intuitive judgment abilities.
Harrison would never fall for her tricks. He cut off the communication decisively and focused completely on reviewing the data.
Once he started, the day passed in a blink of an eye..