This Game Is Too Real
Chapter 397 Soaring Clouds!

Chapter 397: Chapter 397 Soaring Clouds!

North of Dawn City Airport.

Barely half a month after his resurrection, Falling Feather was being nudged forward by Mosquito, a pilot’s cap freshly retrieved from Vine Cottage in hand.

"What’s with the secrecy... Where the hell are you taking me?"

Mosquito, pushing from behind, chuckled and urged him on.

"Stop asking questions. I’ve got a treasure to show you!"

If it weren’t for that comment, Falling Feather might have been less alert, but Mosquito Brother’s sleazy tone instantly put him on guard.

What kind of ’treasure’ could this cheapskate possibly have for him?

He was sure Mosquito was scheming to use him as a guinea pig again!

And indeed, that’s exactly what was happening.

The direction Mosquito was leading him toward was the Alliance’s hangar.

Seeing the two approaching from afar, the security guards on duty at the entrance of the airport immediately snapped to attention, saluted them militarily, and let them pass.

Both Mosquito and Falling Feather were faces they knew too well.

Especially the latter.

They often saw him take off but rarely saw him bring a plane back. Yet, a few days later, he’d reappear at the airport, alive and kicking.

Surviving a plane explosion to return was far more badass than simply bringing a plane back in one piece!

Falling Feather, oblivious to the NPCs’ adulating gazes, followed an enthusiastic Mosquito into the hangar with doors firmly shut.

Inside, the hangar lights came on.

The moment his eyes made sense of the plane parked inside, his face froze in astonishment, then he couldn’t help but blurt out.

"Holy shit! Damn!"

The sleek, silver-white fuselage!

The twin-jet engines!

That sci-fi-esque design looked straight out of an aircraft model show, particularly dreamy was the forward-swept wing—

But just as he noticed those wings, Falling Feather snapped back to reality.

"This thing can actually fly???"

It was no secret that, in real life, forward-swept wings were a fairly avant-garde concept, widely considered for sixth-generation fighters.

Aircraft with forward-swept wings produced greater lift, had a higher lift-to-drag ratio, lower stall speed, and exceptional low-speed handling—especially since they didn’t suffer from the wingtip stalling issues of swept-wing aircraft. This meant a significant increase in maneuverability!

Take the SU-47 for example, equipped with a coupled canard and forward-swept wing layout; it could even perform a "Cobra" maneuver with a 120-degree angle of attack at speeds close to Mach 1!

Of course, aside from its high maneuverability and cool factor, forward-swept wings have obvious drawbacks.

The most significant is the high demand on materials.

If the materials aren’t up to par, performing maneuvers at high speeds could risk breaking the wings or, worse, disintegrating the fuselage.

There’s a reason why swept-wing designs remain mainstream—when it comes to war machines, "advanced" isn’t the top priority.

Stability is.

Putting forward-swept or swept wings aside, is this thing a jet fighter?!

Falling Feather didn’t believe for a second that Mosquito would equip it with a matching flight control system.

No—

Whether this thing even had a flight control system was the question! Odds were the only piece of electronic hardware it had was the pitot tube on its nose.

Watching the dumbfounded expression on his guinea pig’s face, Mosquito let out a sly chuckle and unsurprisingly responded.

"No idea."

Falling Feather: "..."

Seeing his speechless look, Mosquito cleared his throat and began introducing his company’s latest groundbreaking product.

"Relax, I’ve considered all the issues you’re worried about. The entire airframe is made from A3 aerospace aluminum—that stuff is used on spacecraft, so you don’t need to worry about its reliability or strength!"

"And that’s not all—the plane’s exterior is coated with a radar-reflecting paint developed with the help of Camp 101, so on the enemy radar, you’ll probably appear no bigger than a sparrow. I won’t even start on the aviation fuel... Basically, this baby is loaded with top-notch tech, and I spent quite a bit of money to make it a reality!"

And this was the highest-tech product ever developed by Goblin Technology to date!

Seeing that Falling Feather remained silent, Mosquito grinned and teased.

"Wanna take it for a spin?"

Falling Feather swallowed hard.

To say he wasn’t interested would be a lie.

But the cost of flying once was too steep.

"Eight hundred... per flight."

"Damn! You’re ripping me off... but deal!" Though his face feigned pain, Mosquito internally rejoiced.

That amount of money wouldn’t even fill up the plane’s fuel tank.

Paying eight hundred silver coins to recruit a fearless Awakener as a guinea pig was an outright bargain!

...

After agreeing to Mosquito’s terms, Falling Leaves took up the "Equipment Test" mission released by Goblin Technology on the VM as per his suggestion.

"Mission: First Flight of the Jet Plane!"

"Requirement: Traverse the Iron Heart’s anti-aircraft fire net."

After registering a company, players could release missions that met the audit standards based on their own business scope and nature.

This was one of the features that set Wasteland OL apart from other MMORPGs.

Looking at Falling Leaves, who put on his newly purchased pilot cap and sat in the cockpit with a tragic expression, Mosquito patted the cockpit cover and reassured him,

"Don’t worry, this big guy isn’t just my own achievement—it’s the culmination of the wisdom of all Goblin Technology members! Guaranteed nothing will go wrong!"

He then glanced at Kill God, who stood by, eager to try.

"Introduce our warrior to our new product!"

Kill God walked forward with a hey hey laugh.

"Alrighty!"

Falling Leaves took a deep breath, strapped the VM to his thigh, and while listening to Kill God’s explanation, familiarized himself with the cockpit’s various instruments and control elements.

Out of habit, he subconsciously looked for the ejection seat switch, only to find that it didn’t exist at all—the whole seat was welded fixedly within the cockpit.

Well, damn.

This wasn’t a fighter plane at all.

It was clearly a "kamikaze plane"...

Pity there wasn’t a military court in this game, or else he definitely could send whoever designed this thing there.

Unaware of Falling Leaves’ strange expression, Kill God, having finished introducing the dashboard, continued enthusiastically to introduce the plane’s weapon system.

"...The main weapons are the twin-mounted autocannons at the front of the nose, capable of firing 20mm armor-piercing incendiary bullets or high-explosive bombs, effective against both ground and air targets. However, we currently only have 300 rounds in reserve, so it’s recommended to use the weapons safety and trigger button sparingly—don’t hold down the fire button."

Falling Leaves couldn’t help but interject, "What about the missiles? It’s a jet plane, and you don’t even have a guided weapon?"

Kill God: "Uh, we don’t have guided weapons, but you can equip a Spring Knife, and also unguided rockets! However, those are designed for the W-2 ground attack aircraft. Of course, if you want to use them, we can fit them for you—"

Before he could finish, Falling Leaves promptly refused.

"Thanks, but no need!"

The Spring Knife was too slow, mainly relying on diving to gain speed, and required ground operator coordination—using that thing to target something in the air was wishful thinking.

After introducing all the functions of the various dashboard instruments, Kill God proceeded to point to the push-pull handle beside his right leg.

"...The handle beside your right leg is the afterburner valve, also the soul of this plane. Pushing it all the way will boost the engine output to maximum!"

"We don’t have exact data on how much it will accelerate, just that it’s extremely fast! So fast that we had to design this control valve just for it! However, we found during testing that pushing the afterburner valve to the max caused the engine blades to show signs of melting... The function is not yet fully tuned, so if you can avoid using it, please refrain from doing so for now."

No supersonic wind tunnel test.

Nor a fly-by-wire control computer...

What the hell is this, a powerhouse brick?!

Falling Leaves: "You could at least fix the bugs before releasing it, right?"

"It’s too late."

Kill God looked at him seriously and continued,

"We also wanted to make it more perfect before presenting it, but the airships opposite have already mounted their cannon barrels right at our doorstep... We can only ask you to test its performance on the battlefield now."

"Please, try your best to bring it back!"

That serious gaze was truly hard to refuse...

Well, forget it; I know how to fly, anyway.

If I really die, it’s just a three-day affair.

Falling Leaves took a deep breath and turned on the avionics system power.

"I’ll do my best."

...

Up in the clear sky,

The Iron Heart quietly floated.

The towering steel fortress was as stable as a mountain suspended in the air, but inside the hidden observation deck at the front of the airship, there was a frenzy.

"...An unidentified flying object is approaching from a bearing of 116°, estimated distance approximately 10 to 15 kilometers, and we can see a column of air that is tens of meters long!"

"Speed close to mach one, it’s heading straight for us!"

"The targeting system is severely out of focus; I can’t see clearly what it is, it looks like a missile!"

"The radar’s not reacting! It’s confirmed to be an anti-radar device!"

For a flying object reaching mach speeds, whether it’s 10 kilometers or 15, it wouldn’t take a minute.

The window left for them to shoot was even shorter, less than twenty seconds!

Without any time to be surprised, the soldiers in the observation deck immediately reported the situation to the weapon operators and raised the alert level to 2.

Although it was uncertain what that thing was, since it dared to challenge the authority of the Iron Heart, it must have been prepared for death.

100mm secondary cannons and 144 medium caliber anti-aircraft guns all aimed at the 90° to 180° wide-angle airspace.

They weren’t targeting a single point.

But an entire space—

"Fire!"

Following a roar in the communication channel, all anti-air weapons with their firing angles ready unleashed their fury, almost simultaneously.

Strings of orange-yellow trajectories burst forth from the airship, forming an impenetrable web in the sky, covering the area in the direction of the unidentified flying object.

In the instant when they were about to approach the target’s nearby airspace.

The dense curtain exploded with a bang, and the smoke, flames, and shrapnel from the explosions formed a dark cloud that blocked out the sun in the blink of an eye!

The Iron Heart had no guided weapons.

Not because they lacked guided technology.

But because it simply was not needed!

A sufficient number of shells could make up for any lack in accuracy, and their proud barrage was enough to tear apart anything that came close!

Even if it were a fly.

It absolutely could not penetrate that layered "net"!

However—

Something unexpected happened to the soldiers on the airship.

The silver streak that should have fallen, like a dolphin leaping out of water, actually pierced through the wall-like thick black cloud!

"What is that thing!?"

The main gunner in the forward gun bay exclaimed in shock, his eyes wide.

He watched helplessly as the silver pillar shot past overhead, leaving only a fleeting spark in its wake.

A stream of aircraft guns poured onto the airship, and although deflected flawlessly by the deflection shield, the insult was severe.

Watching the speeding shadow through the screen, General McCullen in the bridge had a flash of anger in his eyes.

"Is that a plane from the Company?"

The adjutant beside him swallowed.

"Probably..."

"From the East Coast to here?!"

"Sir, I don’t know..." the adjutant said, trembling.

He only knew that the Company’s technology was strong.

But how strong, he did not know.

The Central Continent’s East and West coasts span over ten thousand kilometers, and a single phrase could change tenfold within ten miles.

Let alone across such a vast expanse of land.

The staff officer standing by looked solemn.

"A plane with a range of three thousand kilometers... If it really is the Company’s plane, their strength must not be underestimated."

"But their weapons are weaker than imagined, they didn’t even scratch our paint," the adjutant swallowed, stubbornly adding, "doesn’t seem all that impressive..."

...

"Damn it...

"That was freaking thrilling!"

Adjusting his disordered breathing, Falling Feather glanced back at the impenetrable explosion cloud and the gradually receding airship, slowly releasing his tightly-held throttle.

The speedometer’s needle was stuck at the far right end, quivering madly; the airspeed meter’s function had been distorted half a minute ago.

He did not know how fast he had been in that instant, but judging from experience, it was at least Mach 3!

He had died at the hands of that airship once before.

The strong premonition of death made him subconsciously decide to accelerate, and it turned out to be the correct decision.

If he hadn’t pushed the throttle to the limit at the last moment, he would have been blasted into a sieve by the shrapnel, not even leaving remains...

The black and red gradually faded from his view, and the clear sky also slowly returned to clarity, not just leaving behind the explosion’s smoke, but also the blackout from the acceleration overload.

Falling Feather moved the control stick in his hand to begin the return journey.

He could feel that it wasn’t just blackout; for a moment, it even felt like his eyeballs were about to be pulled out of their sockets.

Luckily—

The constitution of an Awakener was not weak, even for an Agility system player, the constitution attribute was still two points above the baseline of 5.

If it had been in reality, he probably would have been dead after that burst...

Regardless, he had succeeded.

His heart pounding wildly, Falling Feather took another deep breath to calm his excited spirits.

Next, it was time to fly the plane back...

...

Compared to surviving that dense barrage of gunfire, Falling Feather felt it was more miraculous that he managed to land the jet plane without a flight control system smoothly on the Dawn City’s northern airport.

Especially when approaching the ground for a while, the fuselage shook as if it had cramped.

It wasn’t until he had stopped on the runway and steadied himself on the ladder to come down that he discovered the rear blades of the left engine had melted and deformed.

But these were all minor issues now.

The final speed test result was that after he pushed the afterburner valve to the max, the peak speed had nearly reached 3.7 Mach!

Looking at the aircraft that had been his seat for less than an hour with a complex gaze, Falling Feather found it hard to imagine how the darn thing could fly at 3.7 Mach without disintegrating...

At the same time, beside the airport.

Two players from Goblin Technology were muttering and exchanging thoughts.

One was an Intelligence System player and the other an Agility system player, both newcomers lured in by Mosquito Brother during the Beta version. However, it wasn’t so much that Mosquito Brother had lured them in as they had volunteered and actively joined Goblin Technology.

"I didn’t expect the forward-swept wing design to be the one shining bright and hot in the Game first."

"Yeah."

"But judging by the Game’s restoration of the physics system, I feel it could completely provide references for real-world research."

"Yeah."

"What a pity, there’s lack of everything here, the conditions are worse than Africa... It would be nice if we could get a supersonic wind tunnel."

"That makes sense."

The Agility system player rolled his eyes.

"...Don’t just agree with me, give some advice."

The Intelligence System player sighed.

"No advice, I completely agree, it’s just that I am wondering... The 20mm aircraft guns were totally useless, I wonder if dropping low-speed bombs on the airship could break through that anti-Newtonian mechanics shield."

The anti-Newtonian mechanics shield was the name given to that thing by players because its effects were really hard to explain with science.

If it were just metallic bullet heads that was a different story.

It could be explained by the Meissner effect.

But non-metallic, irregular bodies, and even the aerodynamic shock waves generated by explosions all being "deviated," that was a bit outrageous.

Only a fictional setting could explain it.

The Agility system player replied.

"A target too large would be intercepted by the aircraft’s guns, if it’s small... even if it can break through the Deflection Shield, the blast shockwave would be weakened by the arched armor, and it wouldn’t hurt the inside of the airship at all."

The Intelligence System player said helplessly.

"So we still have to rely on ground troops after all... I always feel like something is very wrong with that device designed by Mosquito Brother, can humans really withstand that kind of pull?"

"You just don’t understand, this is, after all, a game, not everything can be the same as reality..." The Agility system player standing aside grinned, "Humans may not be able to, but those monsters from the Strength Type and Body Constitution System can."

A monster that can carry a ton, can it even be called a human?

Let alone a ton, even over five hundred kilograms, that would be enough to challenge a world record, right?

...

Although they still couldn’t do anything to the airship, the new jet aircraft developed by Goblin Technology had managed to secure a certain advantage for the Alliance.

As the Alliance’s first "indigenously developed" next-generation aircraft, its battlefield role was to vie for air supremacy, scout the battlefield, and provide medium-range rapid strikes.

As for general low-value targets like Variants and Looters, "Mosquito-style" ground attack aircraft and "Dragonfly" gunships, which had a longer loiter time, were better choices.

The group of players at Goblin Technology had high hopes for it.

And unusually, Mosquito Brother didn’t give it a peculiar name, but instead opened a voting thread on the Forum and adopted the popular opinion, naming it "Soaring Clouds"!

Although a "Soaring Clouds" couldn’t handle the heavily armored and heavily defended Iron Heart, the Iron Heart likewise couldn’t handle the absurdly fast "Soaring Clouds."

Breaking through the 3 Mach limit speed was terrifying.

Particularly since no one knew what was installed on the plane, the radar arrays on the airship couldn’t detect it and could only rely on visual searches.

By the time the airship’s Observers spotted the approaching Lingyun Fighter, they often had less than half a minute left to prepare their firepower.

Just as the barrage went out in one round, the plane had already sped off with a push of the throttle.

It was like a fly flying beside a giant, impossible to hit, yet impossible to ignore, annoying the airship’s Gunners to no end.

While over at the Storm Corps, there were cheers.

In coordination with the hundred-man "Pangolin" team’s intelligence, the swift "Soaring Clouds" often managed to deliver an unexpected blow to the Army’s ground forces and key facilities.

Previously, it had always been the Storm Corps taking unilateral blows; now that each side was bombing their own, it was certainly a significant improvement.

As the frontline situation gradually clarified, players discussing the battlefield on the Forum grew more and more joyful day by day, with all sorts of cunning strategies emerging constantly.

However, Chu Guang, in the role of the Manager, wasn’t feeling too optimistic at this moment.

The reinforcements from the East Coast hadn’t arrived yet, but trouble had already come from the West...

If he had to say which known power on this land was the most troublesome, it was undoubtedly the Army from the West Coast.

They were not only ambitious but also saw everything around them as Barbarians, nearly impossible to resolve differences with through the exchange of interest or negotiation.

Now that the Pioneer’s crew’s whereabouts were unknown, it seemed that the No.0 Shelter had become the focal point of the storm, the Army had invaded the Sunset Province, and it appeared to be brewing a second Expedition.

As for the southern part of the River Valley Province...

It lacked the "Holy Shield’s" protection.