Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 10 - 10 Hero?

”Nia?” Fatty exclaimed in surprise.

”Nonsense! Who else but me?” Nia pounced on him, her delicate white hand swiftly twisting Fatty’s ear as she scolded, ”You damned Fatty! Meiduo and I have been looking for you for so long, and here you are hiding!”

”Ouch ouch, take it easy, take it easy. Why are you looking for me?” Fatty cried out, feeling smug inwardly, ”Two pretty girls looking for me? Could it be they’ve fallen for me? A threesome... ultimate dream!”

”Wham!” Nia’s flying kick sent the daydreaming Fatty sprawling several meters away. She snarled, ”We came to find you for this! You lecherous scoundrel, damned Fatty!”

The words ”lecherous scoundrel” seemed to remind Nia of a scene in the jungle during their escape. Her face turned crimson with shame and anger as she saw Fatty lying on the ground, refusing to get up, reminiscing with a silly expression. She stomped her foot in fury and ran out.

Fatty got up and dusted himself off, only to see Milan standing with her hands on her hips, glaring at him. Fatty said innocently, ”Honestly, I have no idea how I offended this woman.”

Milan, without hesitation, and with more skill and flair, drew her Mauser pistol and gave a cold smile, ”Fatty, keep pretending. Nia is my best friend. Who do you think I believe?”

Amid Fatty’s wails, chaos erupted in the laboratory.

Before Fatty could escape Milan’s clutches, Nia appeared at the laboratory door with a team of Constitutional Soldiers. Fatty was instantly dumbfounded.

Seeing the Constitutional Soldiers approaching him, Fatty clung to Milan’s leg and cried, ”Save me! I don’t want to die! I’ve bled for the Federation, I’ve been wounded in the Galileo Star System, I’m not a deserter!”

Thinking he was about to be executed, Fatty wailed and sobbed miserably, his voice and expression tugging at everyone’s hearts.

Milan was dumbstruck and amused. She kicked the ridiculously pathetic Fatty away and asked Nia, ”You’re telling me this guy single-handedly wiped out the entire command staff of the 3rd Mechanized Division of the Gazalin Air Force, including a Vice Admiral and a Lieutenant General Chief of Staff, making him a Federation Hero?”

Nia awkwardly nodded, a look of wanting to laugh but unable to.

”Hero?” Fatty looked around, then turned his head to the other side, pointing at himself with an incredulous expression, ”I am the hero?”

A Constitutional Soldier Captain stepped up to Fatty and asked, ”Are you Corporal Tian Xingjian of the 1st Squad, Logistics Squadron, 3rd Armored Battalion, 5th Armored Division of the Federation Air Marine Corps?”

Fatty dumbly nodded.

The Captain gestured with his hand and said, ”Please come with us, Corporal Tian Xingjian.”

It turned out that after Meiduo and Nia arrived at the front-line command, they were taken to the hospital for check-ups and quarantine. After they came out, the Federation officers told them Fatty was missing. Hence, they couldn’t return to their original unit until Fatty was found and the situation verified.

The two innocent female soldiers stayed at the academy, roaming around every day looking for any trace of Fatty.

Their battle recorders had been taken by the Imperial Army when they were captured. Two female soldiers with no ground combat or survival experience not only escaped the enemy’s tight supervision but also miraculously crossed thousands of kilometers of battle zones from New Rome to Gallipalan. It was unbelievable, and the key figure, Tian Xingjian, mysteriously disappeared. The front-line command didn’t consider them defected Imperial spies, which was quite lenient.

Their only hope was to find Fatty; only his arm-mounted battlefield recorder could explain everything.

Three months ago, Milan, who had been engrossed in the construction of the Simulated War Network, ran into her former high school classmate Nia while shopping for personal items. The two old friends were thrilled; such reunions were especially rare during wartime. However, they didn’t discuss their situations at the time—one was busy returning to the laboratory, and the other was busy searching for someone. They agreed to meet again the next time and parted ways.

A month later, Milan found Nia again during her free time. They spent a whole day together, chatting about many things, and finally, Nia recounted her experiences to Milan.

Upon hearing Nia’s description, Milan instantly confirmed that the Fatty in the laboratory was the person Nia was looking for, with the names matching. But the construction of the Simulated War Network had reached a critical stage, and Fatty played a crucial role. Not only was he responsible for the setup of Simulation Cabin No. 1, he also handled a portion of the data simulation work. His familiarity with both Federation and Gazalin Empire Mechas and various weapons was unrivaled, and much of the simulation data required his review. After all, he was the only one in the laboratory with actual combat experience.

Such a valuable person, even if the front-line command requested him, Professor Boswell wouldn’t agree, let alone if someone from the President’s office came.

As they were very good friends, Milan almost immediately told Nia about the situation. The unexpected news thrilled Nia, and she immediately brought Meiduo. After some discussion, they decided to talk to Professor Boswell. Even if they couldn’t get Fatty out, they needed to at least retrieve his battlefield recorder.

Things went smoothly. Busy with his work, Boswell agreed to their request without much thought but emphasized the need to wait until the Simulated Network construction was complete. To Milan, who held significant sway in the laboratory, retrieving a small battlefield recorder from Fatty was a trivial task.

Soon, the front-line command’s computer read the data from Fatty’s battlefield recorder. Due to the Federation Army’s prolonged six-month retreat, no department had been extracting wartime soldier recorder information. When the task was finally carried out successfully, Fatty became a temporary extra personnel because his entire unit had been annihilated.

As the recorded information displayed on the computer screen, the astounding twenty-one escape records left all the officers with dark lines on their faces. It was the most absurd soldier data they had ever seen.

Simultaneously, the content of these escape records shocked the front-line command officers. This guy not only accurately found escape routes through densely surrounded areas, but also utilized an astonishing variety of escape methods, crafting and using a myriad of transportation tools. The thrilling scenes of each escape could easily make an action-packed war thriller titled ”Run, Fatty, Run,” captivating the audience with every death-defying escape.

What was even more valuable was the large amount of actual data on various Imperial Army weapons and Mechas in the information. Just this alone made everyone feel they had stumbled upon a treasure.

Finally, when they saw the footage of Fatty placing the remote-controlled energy machine gun southwest of the forward base of the Imperial Army on the outskirts of New Rome, all the officers jumped up in excitement.

They waved their arms and cheered wildly:

”We found it!!!”