Chapter 551.3: CALL AN AMBULANCE... BUT NOT FOR ME!

Light Wind shifted her gaze from the courtyard and happened to lock eyes with an old woman shoveling snow on the other side of the alley.

She tried to smile, but the woman recoiled as if she’d seen the plague, quickly averted her gaze, and rushed into her home.

Light Wind faintly heard the door latch slide shut.

That was odd...

She had suspected from earlier that this might be a hidden quest trigger. Otherwise, why were there so many armed people around?

Now she was almost certain, they weren’t at a hotel, and the guy who brought her here wasn’t a good person at all.

"Miss, you're from the shelter, right?"

Hearing the man speak, Light Wind turned her gaze back from across the alley and nodded. "Yeah, how could you tell?"

The man grinned. "Your accent, that special aura... Those things make it obvious. No wastelander could compare to you."

This NPC was surprisingly flattering.

Light Wind blushed slightly and smiled. "You flatter me."

The man finally found the right key and pushed the iron gate open with a creak, walking in first.

He didn’t seem worried she would run.

But she had no plans to flee either. Hidden quests like this were rare, how could she not be curious?

She followed him through the overgrown yard, stepping onto a short stone path that led up two stairs to the red brick building's main entrance.

The man gave her a hand gesture to wait and approached the wooden door, knocking twice lightly.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Almost as if someone had been waiting just behind it, the door opened a crack. A woman’s annoyed face appeared in the gap.

She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties, hair disheveled, a freckle by her nose. Her face was decent-looking, but a burn scar on her forehead ruined any beauty she might have had.

Her name was Horaka. She had been a prostitute, an enforcer, and a mistress to the boss of the Dagger Gang. Now she was the director of the Gray House Welfare Center.

Everyone in the slums knew her.

Whenever a child went missing or a girl never came home, they either ran off with wastelanders, or ended up here.

"Miles... what are you doing here?" Horaka growled in a raspy voice, "Didn’t Mr. Weast say we’re on hold for a few days?"

The man named Miles grinned, lowered his voice, and said with excitement, "He did, but this is a rare opportunity."

Horaka glanced at the girl standing behind him, eyes scanning suspiciously. Her expression darkened. "A shelter resident? Are you out of your mind?"

She knew at a glance, the girl was no ordinary wastelander.

"She’s alone, no companions. I’ve been watching her for a while. Don’t be so scared. There are over 10,000 shelter residents in the Northern Suburbs. By the time the New Alliance notices one missing, we’ll have sold her off already. Didn’t the client from the North say they wanted one?"

Seeing Horaka staring at him like he was insane, Miles chuckled nervously and added, "Relax... I turned on the signal jammer. Nothing’s getting out."

He knew shelter residents carried bio-monitoring devices which were called VMs.

And he knew two VMs could track each other. That was as basic as knowing blue coats wore blue coats.

But so what? Jamming a signal was way easier than tracing one.

He turned on the jammer as soon as they left the market.

Horaka’s glare softened slightly, and she opened the door a little wider.

"Come in and talk." She looked at Light Wind, who was fiddling with her VM, and cleared her throat. "You too, dear. It's cold out here."

"Mm!" Light Wind smiled and tucked her unresponsive VM back into her sleeve, following Miles inside.

The foyer was spacious.

Directly opposite the front door was a wooden platform, on which sat two cages fashioned from steel rods. Shackles hung from the bars, stained black, possibly with rust, more likely with blood.

It was probably blood.

As soon as she entered, she caught a faint stench of decaying grease.

Below the wooden platform were a dozen chairs. Judging by the placards tossed nearby, the place had recently hosted an event, likely an auction.

A thick layer of dust coated the stool legs. The facility had clearly been out of use for a while.

How could she see everything so clearly?

There was no question about it. She had flown hundreds of meters in the air before and could spot helmets poking out of trenches. Seeing things up close was child’s play.

"Excuse me, are the spices here?" She knew it was a dumb question but asked anyway.

Horaka glanced at Miles. He blinked, then suddenly burst out laughing. "Spices? Hahaha! Hey hey... girl, you really haven’t figured it out yet?"

Before he finished laughing, he pulled out a handgun and aimed it at her, grinning menacingly. "Now do you get it?"

Horaka crossed her arms and sneered, "Next life, open your eyes a bit wider. Lucky girl born in a shelter... but don’t be too sad. The northerners might be wild, but they’re still better than wasteland scum."

"You could’ve just said you didn’t have spices," Light Wind muttered, not at all frightened. Instead, she calmly pulled a grenade from her pocket and dropped it at her feet.

"As for the next life... Why don’t we go together?"

"What the fuck?!"

Seeing the grenade hit the ground and roll toward him, Miles’ face twisted in horror. He dove backward.

This lunatic!

She’s looking to die?!

Horaka also panicked and threw herself to the side.

Almost simultaneously, a deafening blast shook the hall. Nearly ten million candelas of blinding white light forced both of them to shut their eyes instinctively.

But it didn’t help. Closing one’s eyes couldn’t beat light speed. No eyelid could block a flash that intense.

"Shit! Flashbang!" Miles yelled from behind the platform, clutching his burning eyes and firing blindly.

Gunshots echoed through the hall, but he couldn’t hear a thing. His brain felt hammered, and he lost his balance.

Then another, larger grenade, clattered beside him.

He barely saw it, and his face went pale.

A fiery explosion erupted. The blast wave swept across the platform, shattering the curtained window beside the door.

Miles died instantly, leaving behind no last words.

Horaka collapsed in stunned silence, with her face completely void of blood. Yellow liquid soaked the floor beneath her.

She had been a Dagger Gang enforcer and had killed people before, but that was years ago.

And even then, it was just street shootouts. She had never taken a direct hit from a grenade.

Lying by the hallway, Light Wind shook her head and stood up with the help of the wall.

The flashbang had dazed her too, but not enough to take her out of the fight.

She was a Combat Profession Player, after all. Maybe not on par with the elites of the Burning Corps, but she wasn’t about to lose to two petty thugs.

Looking at the scorched floor and ruined lobby, Light Wind chambered a round into her pistol and muttered, "That payload was a bit excessive."

With that kind of power, the shrapnel felt redundant...

Horaka, recovering from the blast, tried to crawl away unnoticed. Before she could get far, a cold muzzle pressed against the back of her head. Light Wind’s voice rang in her broken Federation language. "Don’t move. I’m an awakener, and I move way faster than you."

Horaka slowly raised her hands, trembling. "D-Don’t shoot!"

She couldn’t understand how that sweet, well-mannered girl had turned out to be such a monster.

"I surrender!"

Light Wind asked calmly, "Anyone else here? Or is it just you?"

"Th-There’s some stock in the basement... I mean, some prisoners... No... Slaves!" Horaka stammered.

There had been more thugs before, but with business on pause, no clients to entertain, and only feeding the goods left to do, she was the only one present.

To avoid attracting the New Alliance’s attention, the Dagger Gang had disguised the place as an abandoned building.

Thinking about it, she cursed the now-dead Miles in her mind. If he had lived, Mr. Weast would’ve had him dismembered and fed him to the dogs.

Light Wind ignored her panicked corrections and glanced at the VM on her left arm.

Still no signal.

Clearly, the building had jamming equipment too.

Just then, the courtyard outside filled with footsteps and shouting, at least a dozen or twenty people were approaching.

"Looks like I walked into a gang’s den."

If she had known the hidden quest would be this exciting, she would’ve dragged Little Ghost along!

Glancing at the door, then at the trembling ‘red-named NPC’ holding her head, Light Wind muttered, "Guess I’ll have to hold them off..."

Just as she prepared for combat, a thunderous explosion erupted outside. Snow and dirt blasted into the room like hail.

"Aaaaah!" Horaka, finally losing her nerve, screamed as she collapsed, only to be knocked out by a solid whack to the head moments later.

"So noisy." After knocking her out, Light Wind crouched and darted to the window.

The moment she looked out, her eyes widened in awe. "A missile?!"

The entire front yard had been turned into a massive crater several meters wide.

Despite the carnage, no surrounding buildings were touched. Even the courtyard wall remained intact.

That level of precision clearly wasn’t artillery.

Scattered around the crater were several corpses and a few gang members with blown-off limbs, curled up and groaning weakly.

The explosion had been so sudden, none of them had reacted in time.

Gunshots and screams echoed from the alley, but each was swiftly and cleanly silenced.

In an instant, the battle was over.

A sleek, curvy figure stepped calmly across the dust-filled courtyard toward the red brick building.

Light Wind’s eyes lit up as she saw the alloy chest plate, the black mirror-like helmet, and the riot shield and rifle in the woman’s hands.

"So cool!" she whispered softly to herself.

What gear was that?

Wait... Is she an android?

X-16 glanced at the shelter resident peeking from the window and tapped her helmet with her index finger.

"Target secured..."

"Mission complete."