Chapter 294 - 284: You Can’t Afford to Break Them

The person across from her didn’t seem to expect Moira Lynch to fight back. His body tensed up before his mind could even react.

He leaned back, dodging Moira Lynch’s attack.

He was about to retaliate, but when he saw his attacker was Moira Lynch, his eyes widened in surprise.

Moira Lynch, however, paid him no mind. Seeing that her first strike had missed, she attacked again without a moment’s hesitation.

This went on for about ten minutes.

The entire time, he only defended, showing no intention of fighting back. This continued until Moira Lynch grew tired and stopped on her own.

Moira Lynch flopped onto the ground, utterly unconcerned with her appearance. She clutched the stick in her hands, gasping for breath as she looked up at the person opposite her.

"Done venting?" he asked in a calm voice.

She was sitting while he was standing. That, coupled with his resigned and even slightly indulgent tone, made it look exactly like an exasperated elder dealing with a disobedient junior after a lecture.

"I heard you’ve been looking for me?"

Moira Lynch decided to change the subject.

Seemingly not expecting Moira Lynch to ask that, Yarrow gave a slightly awkward cough. "I wasn’t *always* looking, it’s just... you hadn’t appeared in a long time. I thought something might have happened to you."

’Although I don’t know what went wrong with El’s program,’ he thought, ’these personalities are supposed to be in competition with each other.’

’Normally, in a situation like this, any sign of weakness from one of them would result in the other three ganging up on them.’

’Based on that understanding, and given that Moira Lynch hadn’t appeared for so long, he had naturally assumed she’d been ’devoured’ by the other three.’

’Yarrow didn’t know why he cared so much, but the person before him—if she could even be called a person—exuded an aura that he found comforting.’

’They were all derived from the same program, yet the other three didn’t give him this same feeling.’

Moira Lynch looked baffled. "What could possibly happen to me?"

’I just didn’t want to come in here and get beaten up, that’s all.’

Detecting the dejection in Moira Lynch’s voice, Yarrow asked on a strange impulse, "Did something happen?"

’The moment he asked, he felt foolish. She was just an artificial intelligence made of data. What could possibly happen to her?’

’But Moira was thinking something else. This ’artificial idiot’ in front of her was from space, after all. Maybe he’d have a solution for the insect plague.’

’Even though she already had Patience.’

’But according to Patience itself, it had been in Moira Lynch’s hands from the moment it left the factory to its very first boot-up. Its knowledge of space was limited to what it could find online.’

’Simply put, it only knew what was online; it was clueless about anything that wasn’t.’

"I’ve run into a ton of bugs. Do you have any good solutions?" Moira Lynch asked Yarrow earnestly.

"Bugs?"

’A virus, perhaps?’

"I’ll go back and have someone run a diagnostic."

Hearing this, Moira Lynch automatically interpreted it as him saying he was going to go look it up online.

’But this is Caelus,’ she thought. ’What damn internet are you going to get on?’

Moira Lynch sighed. ’I must have been dreaming, asking a computer program for help.’

Seeing that her time was almost up, Moira Lynch prepared to leave. She felt much more relieved after her recent discovery.

"I’m heading out."

Just as she was about to exit, Moira Lynch suddenly turned back for a parting shot. "Oh, right," she said to Yarrow, "go a little easier on the others from now on. If you break them, you won’t be able to afford to pay me back."

’Shane Rhodes, Kai York, and Hugh Finch are my teammates and bodyguards. If they actually get hurt...’

’...selling this machine wouldn’t even be enough to cover the damages.’

Moira Lynch’s words made Yarrow freeze for a moment.

’She’s actually protecting the other three?’

’Could I have been wrong? The one before me isn’t competing with the other three. It’s more likely she’s serving as a regulator among them.’

’That would explain why her combat style is the least professional.’

’She was never designed for combat in the first place.’

’And considering the "bugs" she mentioned earlier...’

’Could it be that she’s been spending all this time cleaning viruses out of the program?’

’And because I was too harsh on the other three, upsetting their balance, she appeared today specifically to warn me?’

A flurry of thoughts raced through Yarrow’s mind, but his expression remained unchanged as he said, "I was only trying to help them improve quickly. The enemy won’t show you any mercy."

Hearing this, Moira Lynch blinked. It seemed he had a point. "That’s still not okay. If you break them, won’t they be even more helpless when we actually face an enemy?"

When Moira Lynch exited the combat mode, she saw Shane Rhodes, Kai York, and Hugh Finch sitting in a row on the sofa.

Sensing Moira Lynch’s appearance, all three immediately fixed their gazes on her.

Seeing that Moira Lynch was completely unscathed, a flicker of surprise flashed in their eyes.

"Could the injuries be hidden by her clothes?" Kai York muttered to himself.

When he saw Moira Lynch moving freely, showing no signs of injury, Shane Rhodes couldn’t help but ask, "Moira, you’re not hurt?"

Hearing him say that, Moira Lynch finally understood why the three of them had been sitting on the sofa, staring at her the moment she appeared. So they were waiting to see her make a fool of herself.

’And to think I just pleaded on their behalf.’

"You must be so disappointed to see me completely fine," Moira Lynch said with a smirk.

At this, Shane Rhodes forced a polite yet awkward smile. "How could that be?"

Shane Rhodes wore an expression that screamed, ’How could you think such a thing?’

"Yeah, yeah! How could we possibly hope you’d get beat—MMMPH!"

Before Kai York could finish, Hugh Finch, who was right beside him, clapped a hand over his mouth.

Seeing this, Moira Lynch just snorted and turned to enter the kitchen.

The chimney flue had been sealed up long ago for fear of insects crawling in through the pipes.

Fearing that a large-scale infestation would lead to insects chewing through electrical wires—causing massive power outages and fires—the base had proactively shut off the main power grid the moment the plague began.

This wasn’t just fearmongering.

After surviving the extreme heat, some countries had barely managed to restore a fraction of their power, only for that small part of the grid to be utterly destroyed when the insect plague arrived.

When repair crews arrived on site, they found the locations piled high with dead insect carcasses, the air thick with the smell of them burning.

Now, everyone in the base was without power or running water.

No one could cook, as the smell would only make the insects more agitated. All they could do was eat their stockpiled food.

Moira Lynch and her group were better off. They didn’t lack for food, and they had plenty of things like self-heating hot pots and self-heating rice meals.

It’s just that after eating these for so long, they were inevitably getting sick of them and wanted a change of pace.