Chapter 342: Assassinating A Dictator

The one who came to deliver the package was someone that Chen Xiaolian recognized. It was one of the two fellows who were keeping watch at the entrance of his residential complex – the driver. The bruises on his face had yet to abate and he appeared quite miserable.

He anxiously stood at the doorway as his eyes swivelled around – clearly, he had noticed Yu Jiajia who was in the middle of working up a sweat on the treadmill. Thus, he had felt lost.

Chen Xiaolian walked out and stopped in front of him. “It’s you?”

He extended his hand and asked, “Where is the item?”

The fellow inhaled and said, “My boss sent me here to…”

“Don’t talk nonsense, I don’t have the time for it. Just give me the item and leave.” Chen Xiaolian was not exactly in a good mood.

The fellow produced a small parcel and handed it over. Then, he could not help but turn his gaze toward Yu Jiajia. However, Yu Jiajia did not turn over to look at them.

“You can leave now.” Chen Xiaolian pointed at the door.

“… oh, right.” Clearly, the fellow was terrified of Chen Xiaolian. However, it was also rather difficult for him to swallow. After all, he had been beaten up and threatened by a youngster who was so much younger than him. This was a huge loss of face for him. Yet, all he could do was swallow his saliva, turn around and leave.

Chen Xiaolian opened the box and found something that looked like a strip lying quietly inside it.

Clearly, that was a USB drive.

Walking back to the lounge, Chen Xiaolian readily grabbed the laptop that was placed in the fitness centre and took it with him. It was something put here for Xia Xiaolei to play with and did not contain anything too important.

After closing the door of the lounge, he opened the laptop and plugged in the USB drive.

The contents of the USB drive were quick to be revealed.

The first file contained several pictures.

The picture was of a typical black African fellow. While his exact age was not shown, he was highly unlikely to be a young fellow.

He wore a very exaggerated military uniform that had countless medals, badges and ribbons.

A standard black man’s face, thick lips and flattened nose.

Most importantly, after seeing the picture, both Chen Xiaolian and Roddy were unable to stop themselves from laughing out.

The black fellow in the pictures had a face that screamed “I am a warlord.”

A military blade hung down his waist while his hand held onto an indistinguishable sceptre.

There were about five or six pictures of him and they were all taken from different angles. Some were taken straight up, some from the side while some were clearly secretly taken.

Next was an introduction document.

…

Kongzabeyo Bejide Zayad.

Current head of Kombia, one of the minor states in Central Africa.

Born in 1965 and now 50 years old, the commander of the state’s military and President of the state government (for 15 years); Chieftain of the Nua Tribe, the biggest tribe in the state, he came to power through a coup in 1999 and had ruled until now.

He possessed a cruel and merciless disposition with a hatred for Muslims and the West alike. He was a firm religious leader of the native Nua Tribe’s religion.

The state of Kombia was located at the west side of Central Africa and had a population of 3.6 million people. The amount of land it possessed was small and its economy poor. Its biggest city was Kabuka City with a population of 630 thousand people. In 2015, its GDP, compared to the rest of Africa, was third from the bottom.

As one might imagine, this was not a civilized place.

This Zayad was a standard militia warlord found in small states.

According to the information given, in the past decade, at least three civil wars and tens of rebellions had occurred within Kombia.

The people of this state were made up of several tribes. Clearly, this President Zayad had put in place a policy which suppressed the various tribes and even going so far as to exterminate some of them. Within the past ten years and more, he had slaughtered off at least 300,000 men from the other tribes.

His highly oppressive rule gave birth to an uncivilized, barbaric and brutal world.

Even so, this minor state in the west side of Central Africa had continued unnoticed by the civilized world.

Because…

This state did not possess any mineral deposits!

The continent of Africa was filled with various precious minerals such as copper, iron, diamonds, gold etc. They could be found in every state within Africa.

Thus, for the past few decades, developed nations would continuously attempt to infiltrate those places. As a result, the many leaders in Africa would constantly be locked in a struggle for power. Behind all of them would be some developed nations who were pulling the strings.

However, Kombia was an exception.

Due to the small size of its land, it did not have any mineral deposits. Thus, none of the Western powers had any interest in Kombia.

Simply put, it was an extremely poor and remote corner of Africa that did not have any minerals to offer. Thus, the Western powers simply could not be bothered with it.

If there were any precious minerals lying around, this state would have been infiltrated by either the CIA or the KGB decades ago.

For the past decade, this state had been constantly in a state of ‘humanitarian crisis’. However, it would never appear within the civilized world’s line of sight. It was simply too barren, devoid of any attractive places.

The power plays by the various developed nations were all done on the places that possessed precious minerals and resources. They had no interest in looking at Kombia at all.

Thus, this President Zayad was able happily act like a dictator. No Western nations would scheme to get his lands, instigate a coup to overthrow him or make him a puppet etc.

Quite simply, even if he wanted to sell off his lands to them, he can’t. That was how poor his lands were. That was how embarrassing of a situation he was in.

According to the information provided, this fellow was without a doubt a tyrannical dictator.

The most absurd action of his was something that happened five years ago. UN Peacekeeping and the International Committee of the Red Cross had gathered up a donation fund of over three million dollars for them only to be used by him to lavishly fund his 10th year celebration as President.

As a direct result of this incident, no more charitable organizations were willing to donate to the government of Kombia.

He had 16 wives and 40 plus children, 19 of whom had already grown up. Those grown up children of his served in the army and were all given the rank of lieutenant general.

Seeing that might cause some to laugh their teeth out.

Because there were only 14,000 soldiers in the National Defence Force of Kombia.

A total of 14,000 soldiers. Adding his 19 children into the equation, there were 33 generals.

Naturally, this landlocked state did not have a navy force. Neither did it have an air force. Its land-based army did not even have a tank!

Worst of all, its capital city of Kabuka did not even have an airport!

Around 20 years ago, there was a rumour that an iron ore was found in Kombia and a developed nation went forward to search for it while forming a cooperative relationship with the Kombia government of that time. They had constructed a simple airport in Kabuka.

However, the results of the survey soon revealed that the discovery of the mineral deposit was just a beautiful misunderstanding.

Thus, the developed nation withdrew and the airport became abandoned and unused. After Zayad enacted his coup and came to power, he showed no interest in repairing the airport.

This was a state so shitty it had practically nothing worth showing.

As for Zayad, he was without doubt a tyrant, a genocidal monster, an executioner and a ruthless bastard.

However… in the eyes of the rest of the world, he was someone with no value whatsoever.

Dead or alive, no one would care about Zayad.

And yet…

Qiao Yifeng’s task for Chen Xiaolian was:

“Kill him!”

…

There were many odd aspects to this task.

All questions revolved around two main points.

One: Why does Qiao Yifeng wants to kill a dictator of a dirtpoor state that was thousands of miles away?

Two: Why should he be the one to do this? Don’t Qiao Yifeng’s guild have any Awakened experts that can do that?

However, it would appear that Qiao Yifeng had no intention of answering those two questions for Chen Xiaolian.

Presently, Chen Xiaolian only knew of one thing. Only by killing off this fellow would he be able to get a chance to contact Qiao Qiao.

…

“What do you think?”

In the lounge, Chen Xiaolian looked at Roddy and Xia Xiaolei.

Roddy looked over the information provided and whistled, “He has 16 wives and 40 plus children. What is he? A YY novel’s main character? [1]”

Chen Xiaolian responded with a smile and said, “Now is not the time to joke around.”

Roddy shrugged his shoulders and said, “What else is there to it? This is a task given by old Father Qiao. In order to meet Qiao Qiao, we must first do it. If we can’t figure out the answer to those other questions, then just leave it be first. Things like why he wants the guy dead is not something we need to worry about. After all, that is old Father Qiao’s business.

“My only questions is… if, after we have completed this task and Qiao Yifeng goes back on his word, what do we do?”

Chen Xiaolian pondered the question before saying, “I don’t know.”

Roddy was surprised. “Don’t know?”

“What else could we do?” Chen Xiaolian spread open his arms and continued, “Yu Jiajia is now with us. If Qiao Yifeng breaches the contract, do we tear the contract? Kill Yu Jiajia? Or torture her to force Father Qiao to give in?”

“… err, all right, all right. Pretend I never asked,” replied Roddy with a melancholic sigh.

“This is something that had to be done.” Chen Xiaolian thought about it and said, “About what you said, don’t worry about why Father Qiao wants him dead… I personally think this is a key point. Perhaps, by going to Africa and getting to know what this is all about…

“We can perhaps turn this into a bargaining chip.”

Roddy nodded his head. “So, we’ll do it this once?”

“Mm.” Chen Xiaolian then considered it and said, “Considering the time we completed the last instance dungeon, there should be around one more month before the next instance dungeon starts. There should be enough time to do this. Additionally… we now have our own base. Even if the instance dungeon opens up, we will have a way to avoid it.

Roddy smiled. “All right. Then let’s go. When do we set off? I’ll go buy some necessities.”

“Not we, just me,” said Chen Xiaolian, looking right at Roddy. He said in a hushed tone, “This time, I am going alone.”

“What?”

Roddy stood up and looked at Chen Xiaolian with a frown on his face. “You’re going alone?”

“What are you getting anxious about?” Chen Xiaolian smiled. “We’ve gone to the medieval era and a monster infested Tokyo city before. What is there to fear from a little Africa? It’s not as though I have to go kill the President of America. It’s just a small-time rural dictator. How hard can it be?”

“But, Africa is far away…”

Chen Xiaolian shook his head and turned to face Roddy. “Naturally, there is a reason to have you stay. If we leave together… what happens to Yu Jiajia?

“Do we let Xia Xiaolei look after Yu Jiajia alone?

“If Father Qiao is simply trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain and he sends his men to come get Yu Jiajia after we leave, could Xia Xiaolei go against them by himself?”

Xia Xiaolei had wanted to shout: I can do it! But Chen Xiaolian patted him on the head and smiled. “I know you want to contribute. However, this matter regarding Yu Jiajia is related to Qiao Qiao and Soo Soo’s return. We cannot afford to have any mishaps.”

Thus, Xia Xiaolei simply kept his mouth shut.

“Or, how about we call Lun Tai and Bei Tai back?” Roddy frowned. “I’m not too at ease with you going alone. Besides… if Qiao Yifeng is setting you up, what then?”

Chen Xiaolian rubbed his chin and said, “You have a point. However, that is also why I need you to stay here. If Qiao Yifeng is setting me up, then you having Yu Jiajia in your hands will become our biggest bargaining chip.”

Chen Xiaolian continued to ponder the matter but he finally rejected the idea of calling Lun Tai and Bei Tai back.

“Qiao Qiao is my girlfriend. It is my responsibility to save her. Roddy, you are also Qiao Qiao’s friend, so it’s understandable. However, Lun Tai and Bei Tai do not have this obligation. There is no reason to pull them into this.

“Additionally, this task really shouldn’t be that difficult. Even if things don’t go well, no one can stop me if I want to run away. I’ll take the base with me. If things get bad, I’ll open it up and run inside. Then, what else could stop me?”

As Chen Xiaolian was the Guild Leader, his decision was not something that Roddy and Xia Xiaolei could object to.

At any rate, this task really did not appear to be that difficult.

Could a bumpkin President of a minor state in Africa be guarded by a force comparable to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department?

Even if Chen Xiaolian chose to swagger his way in and kill off everyone, could anyone stop him?

“I’ll go. If things get resolved quickly, it’ll be around one week. At worst, it will probably take only about 10 days.” Chen Xiaolian looked at Roddy and said, “I’ll be leaving the matters here to you.”

That night, Chen Xiaolian received a call from Qiao Yifeng once more. There, Chen Xiaolian told him that he would accept the task.

Qiao Yifeng’s tone in the phone was very unfriendly and he simply told Chen Xiaolian that he would settle the flight tickets and procedures for Chen Xiaolian. Chen Xiaolian was to simply arrive at the airport two days later.

As for how Qiao Yifeng would settle the flight procedures and documents in those two days, that was not something that Chen Xiaolian had to bother with.

Two days later, Chen Xiaolian went to the airport and found that what awaited him in the airport was…

Qiao Yifeng's private jet!

The jet’s flight route had been applied for. The jet would fly to Hong Kong. Then, it would turn around and fly to Africa.

Over 10 hours later, Chen Xiaolian landed in Cairo, the capital of Egypt in North Africa.

Since Kombia had no airport, it was not possible to directly fly there. He could only fly from Cairo to Abuja, the capital of Nigeria in West Africa.

Qiao Yifeng truly possessed extraordinary influence.

When Chen Xiaolian landed in the capital of Egypt, Cairo, a mysterious person came forward and delivered a parcel to him.

In that parcel were fake identification documents as well as a few rolls of dollars. Also… two backpacks filled with equipment, medicinal substances etc.

There was also a flight ticket from Cairo to Abuja that was bought using the fake documents.

Surface wise, Chen Xiaolian was ‘touring’ around Egypt. In truth however, he had used the fake documents to get to Nigeria.

At that point, his pleasant journey came to an end.

To get from the capital of Nigeria, Abuja to the capital of Kombia, Kabuka, he would need to think of something else.

1 YY novels are ‘mental masturbation’ novels, usually harem themed.↩

TL: Warlords and militias are a real existing issue in Central Africa and some other parts of the world.