Chapter 9.4 - Whose Hero?
Julio gave the paper a glance. A vivid and lifelike portrait of a girl was drawn with simple lines. She looked rather pretty, but her expression was serious, and she had rather messy short hair. There was also heavy killing intent seeping out from her.
“Peperus? Isn’t she that Town of Trials’ little devil’s executioner? What, you are interested in her?” The lieutenant colonel gave Su a sidelong glance.
Su spread his hands out, and with a smile, said, “I just saw her once and thought that she was quite pretty. That kind of feeling, hm, how do I explain it, was quite unique. It seems like you recognize her. Can you tell me a bit more about her? And who is the little devil?”
Aha! Julio cried out. With a serious face, he said, “Old pal, I would advise you not to have any ideas about her. This isn’t a joking matter. Do you know what we call the Town of Trials? Dragonriders’ graveyards! Correct, Peperus does look quite tasty, but heaven knows how many she’s killed before! Of course, you might not be scared of killers, but the ones she killed were all those on their side. Have any ideas about her, and you might very well be sending yourself to hell! As for the little devil she serves, she’s named Madeline. Did you know? Rumor has it that when she entered the Town of Trials two years ago and claimed the title of Dark Saint, she has killed at least several hundred Trials Division arbitration officials! At that time, she wasn’t even fourteen years of age yet! Old pal, its best if you stay a bit further away from the Town of Trials. Those that have connections with people there are all too dangerous.”
“Where is the Town of Trials?” Su asked rather curiously.
Julio pointed at the map and said, “Where? Right here! You aren’t really going to go there to look for that woman, right? I heard that a few accidents have happened there recently. You absolutely must not get close to that place! If something happened to you, I won’t be able to find anyone more suitable to complete these missions!”
Su laughed and said, “I would rather not have this life of mine end just yet!”
“Haha! That’s the way, old pal! In this blasted era, only living is the most important!” Julio looked rather happy.
When night descended, Su left Dragon City and headed towards Pendulum City alone. However, not long after leaving the city, he turned south and began to move under the cover of night at a constant speed. Su closed the intelligence system. This way, those from dragonrider general headquarters wouldn’t be able to follow his traces. This was a place where dragonriders were quite active. Along the way, Su encountered four or five dragonrider troops that were entering and leaving Dragon City, all of which he carefully avoided, not letting them find his traces. With Su’s current concealment skill, unless it was a general rank figure or some mysterious perception type irresistible ability, normal detection methods wouldn’t be able to find him.
An increase in Perception Domain abilities would similarly benefit hiding abilities. This was not only because one understood how detection worked so they understood how to hide themselves better, but also because strengthening the Perception Domain increased one’s restraint of their aura and all types of radiation fluctuations and complementary abilities. In addition, regardless of what domain it was, any increase in ability would bring about a small upgrade to one’s innate qualities.
The night quickly passed. This was cloud covered day, the lighting even dimmer than that of normal days. What was normally supposed to be the start of spring continue to be frigid coldness. Su slowed down his speed and carefully observed his surroundings.
Even though he wasn’t that far from Dragon City, this was a bleak and barren region without any plans of renovation that still maintained a trace of the olden era’s final moments. The half collapsed abandoned houses scattered about on the horizon, and several tall steel towers stood isolated against the cold winds, their warped steel bars clearly illustrating the incredible power of the nuclear explosion. At the end of one’s line of sight, one could still see an enormous spherical crater. That was the heart of where the explosion took place.
When the curtain of night drooped again, Su already rested for an hour in an abandoned house of his own choosing. He drank a bottle of high energy nutrient paste that did not have any taste to speak of as well as some clean water. Then, he removed his clothing. He brought out a roll of dragonrider military bandages and carefully wrapped it around his body. He didn’t wrap it around his entire body, leaving some crucial areas open to allow for easy movement. Then, he put on the military cowl and gloves. As a result, Su only had an eye revealed.
Su put on his clothes again. He hung two different model military blades at his waist, and then he attached a small caliber double-barreled silent pistol as well as twenty rounds of bullets. After completing these preparations, Su put the remaining items into his backpack and buried it inside a corner of the brick ruins. Then, he cleaned up his traces here before disappearing into the boundless night.
Two hours passed quickly. During this short period of time, Su who had crossed close to a hundred kilometers hid once again in the darkness while observing the small, simple looking, outline of a town in the distance. Su suddenly sensed something, and as a result, he raised his head and gazed into the small town’s skies. Above that small town, there were natural irregular phenomenons. The thick clouds full of radiation were strangely moving about, the center of the spiral dropping down and almost touching the top of the church at the center of the town! It was as if the entire night sky was on the verge of collapse, as if it would fall and crush the small town that had experienced the harsh passage of time.
After observing the small town for a period of time, Su felt densely packed stinging pain on his skin. This was his intuition towards danger and killing intent. The seemingly deathly still ancient town already made Su feel an instinctive fear. This type of fear was just as powerful as when he encountered things he couldn’t detect in the past. For Su, this was an innate type of fear, a fear that would immediately make him instinctively flee as soon as he felt it. After obtaining spirit reaction, Su’s perception of danger and fear became even clearer and sharper.
However, what was the most strange about the town in front of him was that apart from the feeling of danger, there was an abnormal quietness. In addition, the town seemed to contain a vague deathly aura. Su would sometimes sense this type of mysterious aura when humans were nearing death.
Su narrowed his eye slightly. His green pupil slowly expanded, and inside flickered a faint red colored radiance. This meant that he was using many types of perception strengthening abilities. Then, Su lightly leapt up. His body traveled ten meters through the air before silently landing on the ground. Then, like a spectre, he ran on the ground without any noise, quickly closing in on the small town that was full of destroyed buildings and deathly aura.
The road into the town had long been destroyed, so he could only barely make out the path that used to exist here. Next to the road was a wooden pole that had five or six signs that pointed at various locations. The words on them were mostly mottled and blurry.
A hand wearing a black glove without any base appeared, wiping one of the road signs. The trembling, sinister, and terrifying writing was silently read: Town of Trials.
The name was filled with dark paint. There were large patches of stains on its surface as well. That hand wiped at the stains, and then the face mask was pulled back, revealing two thin and erotic lips. A tongue licked out, carefully analyzing the taste.
It was blood, rather fresh blood. Most of it was the taste of human blood, but there were some different types as well. The blood was mixed with powerful poison and a bit of bitterness. This was a flavor only left behind when humans died while experiencing extreme fear.
Su slowly pulled down his face mask and raised his head. His sight extended into the town along the road, landing on the figure of an individual at the entrance of the Town of Trials. He sat on the ground and hung his head, his back leaning against a one or two story house’s fence, looking just like a drunkard that collapsed on the side of the road. However, the temperature was negative thirty five degrees, so those that became drunk outdoors only had death waiting for them, even if those of the new era had more natural resistance to the cold. In addition, Su already saw that his posture was a bit unnatural, not like someone that had collapsed and sat down by the fence at all.
Su’s eyes landed on his left sleeve. Even through the darkness and thick bloodstains, he could still make out the sleeve’s original color through the dim view. It was a bloody dark red.
This was a corpse. In addition, judging from the thick deathly aura that came from his body, he didn’t die that long ago.
He originally thought that this was one of the Town of Trials’ prisoners that had died, but this individual’s uniform gave away his identity: Trials Division’s arbitration official. In the Trials Division headquarters, how could there be an arbitration official killed right by the side of the road?
Ah!!! A miserable woman’s scream tore through the night’s peace. The scream was silent. It tore through space and directly resounded within Su’s consciousness.
This was already the third scream Su heard, and the source of the scream continuously moved. It was currently right inside the Town of Trials. Even though it was just a spiritual type, Su still recognized that this voice belonged to Peperus. She used some type of secret Mysterious Fields ability to release this spirit shaking scream. It was clear that she wanted to send some type of message to someone. Su just happened to stumble upon her screaming.
Just as the screaming echoed in his consciousness, Su felt a wave of deathly aura in the Town of Trials, one that was fresh and strong.
“Phoney… I’m sorry.” Su silently thought.
The half-squatting him stood up. He walked with large steps towards the Town of Trials. Behind him, a long shadow was dragged along, jumping about.
Every step Su took maintained a constant distance and frequency. He didn’t purposely hide his own footsteps as he entered the town along the small road. Even though his footsteps were already quite soft, in the quiet night, the slightest sound of footsteps would ring far into the distance. It was just like how a rock that was cast into a lake that was calm like a mirror would immediately stir up endless ripples.