Volume 4, Chapter 6 – ヽ(‘⌒?メ)ノ

The short one wanted to shout, but his mouth was clamped shut at once.

With his life rapidly slipping away, he felt utterly powerless.

Before he died, he stole one glance at his attacker. Damn, it was that nomad girl.

How was she this vicious? I’d totally misread her.

Mm…

But at least his lips had touched her hand.

It really was soft…

Anran supported the short one, then stuffed him straight into a large metal barrel under the stairs.

There were still several more people upstairs, so she did not charge up right away. Instead, she covered the bloodstains with dust and ash and continued waiting.

…

On the second floor, the tall one was pacing restlessly.

It had already been two or three damn minutes. Why wasn’t that short bastard back yet?

He did not think the short one was dead. Instead, a thought suddenly struck him: that bastard was not trying to hog her all to himself first, was he?!

Right then, a frightened cry suddenly came from downstairs.

“Let go of me!”

“No, don’t!”

Fuck.

The tall one flew into a rage.

That damned short bastard was really no kind of human. He actually wanted to ditch him and have her all to himself.

If I get pissed off, I’ll smash the whole damn set. Nobody gets to eat!

Gun in hand, he charged downstairs.

“Pfft—”

Anran wiped the blood from her hand.

Then she stuffed both the tall one and the short one into the large metal barrel.

The two rested together peacefully, big head against little head. Good brothers, hand in hand, walking the road to the underworld together.

…

Anran made a circuit of the first floor and found a camera near the back door. She quietly went around it.

There were several holes in the ceiling large enough to climb up to the second floor, but for the moment she had not spotted the other people the tall one and the short one had mentioned.

So Anran quietly went up the stairs.

“Pair of aces.”

“Can’t beat that!”

“Haha, I’m almost out of cards! Brother, the rest is up to you!”

She could faintly hear the sounds of a card game.

“Three, four, five, six, seven!”

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“Six, seven, eight, nine, ten!”

“Haha. Four twos!”

Anran had already reached the room.

It looked like a bedroom, while the living room outside was piled with scattered junk.

Sneaking a glance inside, she saw that it really was four twos…

The bastards were playing cards.

Playing cards was really that damn fun, huh.

Anran gripped her knife with one hand.

One round ended.

The next round started instantly.

After drawing their cards, the four of them were studying their hands with great concentration.

“Who’s got the three of spades?”

“I do…” One of them had just opened his mouth to answer.

“It’s here!”

Hm?

“Wow! What luck, I actually drew both jokers!”

Hm?

All eight eyes turned at the same time.

Three pairs of human eyes, and one pair behind glasses.

The remaining pair of eyes could no longer turn.

Staring at the unbeatable cards in his own hand, his eyes bulged wide.

They looked like they were about to pop right out.

Stab. Pull.

Anran efficiently yanked the knife back out.

“Enemy—”

Rolling, retreating, trying to shout.

Someone else even tried to quietly pick up the communication device tossed aside nearby.

It was all useless.

Anran only made three simple bursts of speed and feints. Each time her blade flashed, another corpse fell behind her.

Being the big shot really did feel great.

Whoever she wanted to hammer, she hammered.

As long as she did not run into someone even more monstrous, she could swagger sideways.

Back when she dealt with Morningstar grunts like these, she had to carefully trade gunfire with them. Now all she had to do was sneak behind them and then go on a rampage.

But this was not Mechanic-like at all!

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Once she finished this job, Anran wanted to see if she could get her hands on some drones or small robots or something.

She did not have any drones, but she did have robot blueprints.

After smashing all the communication devices on the floor, Anran grabbed the one guy she had left alive and performed her magic trick for him again.

“Are you talking or not?!”

Gripping his throat, Anran snarled like a demon.

There was a strange smell.

Anran frowned.

He pissed himself?

Was it really that realistic?

The people were realistic.

The game was realistic too.

With details done this well, could sex really be just like it was in real life?

Dangerous stuff. Luckily, players could only touch certain parts of an NPC after raising favorability high enough.

The survivor spilled everything he knew like beans pouring from a jar.

Pfft—

Anran walked out of the little room.

After comparing the new information she had just obtained with what Kate had told her, she found both new gains and conflicting details.

The new information was that Heloise had left the outpost not long ago.

Anran had one less target now. What a pi—

Sorry, what she really meant was that she was genuinely happy.

The biggest threat was gone.

With the boss gone, only a few elite mobs and a bunch of trash remained.

The discrepancy lay in the number of sentry posts and the rough map Kate had given her.

In reality, there were three sentry posts.

This post was the one Kate had failed to mention.

And there was also a problem with the map. The room Kate had marked as the records room was actually the lounge.

If her luck had been bad and she had gone through all kinds of hardship to sneak inside, only to find a whole bunch of Morningstar soldiers sitting there cleaning their guns, that would have been one hell of a show.

“Faction mission [Recon] complete. Obtained 3000 Free EXP.”

Anran immediately passed the information on to Feilian.

As for how Feilian would handle it, that was up to him.

There were still two more sentry posts, with more than a dozen people in total.

“There are quite a few surveillance devices around the outside of the canyon. Looks like Morningstar’s outpost is here.”

A voice suddenly came from the other end of the radio.

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“What’s the situation elsewhere right now?”

“We ran into a Morningstar patrol on the way just now, in the old riverbed near the canyon.”

“Should we keep moving forward and take a look?”

“Keep looking. Get the positions of the sentry posts down clearly.”

“Got it.”

The call ended.

Actually, there was also a road from the abandoned town that led to the outpost, but Anran did not mention it for now.

She had her own little scheme in this mission too. The more she could pocket for herself, the better. Once the mission ended, she was going to slip away immediately.

Anran turned off the radio, left the building, and headed for the other two sentry posts.

After receiving the news, Feilian seemed to have rushed over as well. If he wanted to steal kills, he had better hurry.

…

Knock knock knock!

“Wait, there’s a smell of blood.” Just as Feilian was about to head upstairs, he stopped in his tracks.

Anna immediately sniffed the air.

“Below.”

The two of them immediately ran over to look under the stairs.

“…”

A shocking sight met their eyes.

Inside the large metal barrel, the two brothers had died together in “loving harmony.”

“Anran?” Anna said.

“Let’s go take a look upstairs.”

Feilian led the way.

Then they saw the four card players arranged in a circle.

Each of them had been stabbed in the chest and killed with a single strike.

“…”

Feilian was speechless for a long time before finally saying, “Come on. Let’s go check the next sentry post.”

Then came the second sentry post.

Still wiped out to the last man.

Only the style of the wipeout was slightly different.

This time there were no loving brothers under the stairs.

This particular rampage had started in the bathroom and continued all the way into the living room on the third floor.

Blood covered the entire floor.

“I feel like I’m completely unnecessary,” Feilian said helplessly.

“That’s about enough.”

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…

Meanwhile, Anran, having just come out of the second sentry post, was calculating her gains.

Altogether, she had taken out 15 Morningstar soldiers and gained 4500 Free EXP.

Completing the missions [Recon] and [Hunt I] had earned her another 8000 Free EXP.

“All right, now for the third sentry post.” Anran stood up.

The third outpost was already very close to that secret entrance, but she still had to find its exact location.

Anran had already changed into a Morningstar uniform. Her original clothes were caked with blood and smelled far too strong to wear out.

A clock tower!

Anran looked up at the crooked, leaning clock tower.

The sentry post was right here.

Let’s g—

Tap tap tap!

Tap tap tap!

Footsteps suddenly sounded nearby.

Hm?

Anran whipped around and saw several people running over from the distance, all looking flustered.

“Morningstar people.”

Startled, Anran wondered how they had suddenly appeared behind her.

She tightened her grip on the short blade in her hand.

“What are you still standing around for? Run! The Empire’s dogs are attacking, and you’re still waiting here to die?!”

A bearded man barked at Anran.

Huh?

They thought she was one of Morningstar’s people?

Or was this a trap?

“What exactly is going on?” Anran shifted half a step back, her waist bent slightly, ready to explode into violence at any moment.

“Intelligence says people from Nine Songs have shown up over by the old riverbed. The higher-ups told us to hurry back to base. Quit dawdling. If you die out here, don’t blame this uncle for not warning you.” The bearded man directly smacked Anran on the shoulder.

This…

If she followed them, she would be able to find that entrance very easily, right?

What worried her was the possibility that there might also be quite a lot of people near the entrance.

Whatever. She had already been exposed anyway. If there were a lot of them, she’d fight. If she couldn’t win, she’d run.

If there were only a few, she’d see whether she could pull something off.

“Oh, okay.”

Anran quietly blended into the enemy group.