“What’re you going to do?”
Inside a silence room within Celine’s household, Garen and Celine were sitting facing each other as they casually ate deer jerky as snacks.
“To think that you’d kill one of your patrols, isn’t it hard to explain it to the higher-ups?” Celine looked at Garen lazily who sat opposite her.
“Indole died while on duty as he fought bravely against the terrorist. It was unfortunate that he died as he attempted to protect me,” Garen casually responded.
“Do you really think the higher levels will believe you?” Celine curled her lips.
“Does it matter whether they do or don’t?” Garen couldn’t care less. “Regardless, we have sacrificed a lot in the battlefield. One of my men died in the line of duty, a Mech was destroyed and I myself have suffered serious injuries. Ultimately we still managed to detain the terrorist of the White Light. The result is more than enough. Furthermore, the majority of the people do not know about the Forbidden Mech, so the outsiders would only view this as a battle between the terrorist group and the patrol team.”
“How do you plan to deceive your way out of this?” Celine wasn’t convinced at all.
“What do you mean deceive?” Garen frowned as he picked up a glass of red fruit wine and lightly sipped it. “I did my best and defeated a Level Five Red-White Mech. Although the enemy was seriously injured, it’is still a feat that could only be done by a few. Furthermore, didn’t your men handle the rest while I took care of most of the small fries?”
“You can’t deceive the higher levels with such an excuse. It’s still acceptable if you plan to deceive them in the short term, however, the beans will spill in the long term. Even I can’t guarantee that things won’t leak out even though I’ve gathered so many men,” Celine glanced at Garen and felt that this man was cruel to the core as he was able to kill his partner that he’d just teamed up with. He was completely different from the typical student and was the type of person who would not stop at anything once he had snapped.
“Don’t worry about it,” Garen smiled. “The most important thing is that I won by a slight margin, the Forbidden Core had escaped and is not in my hand. Everyone will definitely set their eyes on the Forbidden Core. Furthermore, the White Light’s Mech definitely has a technological instrument that is able to track the Forbidden Core. As long as we have that instrument, the most they would do is to not credit the whole thing to me.”
“Seriously?” Celine didn’t think of this at all. “As long as we have the tracking device, we will definitely be able to track the location of the Forbidden Core and you’ll definitely be cleared of suspicion. If that’s the case, then the most dangerous period is the buffer period we’re in right now. Even so, with your identity, Britney and a bunch of us around you, and that man from the Polar Region, the higher levels will definitely have second thoughts about killing you.”
As her thought process chained up to this point, she finally let out a sigh of relief.
“Since you know about this, wouldn’t it be the same if you let the core escape? The moment the higher ups get their hands on the Red-White Mech’s tracking device, they would mobilize the majority of Blackboard Region’s power and then finding these few people won’t be too hard of a task,” Celine puzzled.
“Does that matter? If they can’t survive this little obstacle, it’s better for them to just die,” Garen shrugged nonchalantly.
“Seriously…” Celine was hopeless. “Whatever, whatever. Thinking of all these is give me headaches. Let’s go! Let’s have a match!” she immediately stood up. “If you make me worry again, I will beat you up for real!!” She raised her fist and said angrily.
“That’s fine since you can’t beat me, to begin with,” Garen continued sipping his drink slowly without any change in expression as if he was asking for a beating.
“You…!”
***********
In the warehouse area.
It was the battlefield where Garen and the Red-White had fought to the death. A man and a woman had come to the area with a mechanical arm-like instrument. The police force had already locked the entire place down; the police car’s lights kept spinning and as it shone onto the people within the area, it revealed their strange expressions.
Both of them walked through the blockade and as they arrived at the barrier, they gently placed their hand on the barrier.
“Beep… Verification of the Special Detectives is complete. Please enter.”
A beautiful woman’s voice rang out of nowhere.
The officers inside the area turned their heads around and looked at the newcomers. The bystanders too turned their attention towards them.
“Special Detectives?”
Among the crowd, a middle-aged man who had a mottled beard tipped his hat and looked at them through the gap as well.
“Even the Special Detectives have arrived for this terrorist attack. I heard that the government would only send these officers to the scene if the situation is extremely serious,” a civilian whispered.
“What actually happened here to the point where they had to make a huge scene and lock down the whole warehouse area?”
“I heard that there was an intense battle between the terrorist and the patrol team. Ultimately, the patrol team won by a slight margin but they had lost three Mechs and one of the academy students died in the line of duty”
An uncle laughed, “It looks like a scandal. This has never happened in the past. However, ever since the assassination of that military officer, trouble started to appear everywhere.”
“What trouble?”
The bearded man questioned him, acting as if he was a bystander as well, “Do you mean the assassination of one of the Three Black Rain Generals?”
“I’m afraid not, as that incident had already spread out. The assassin has yet to be caught and is on the wanted list everywhere. The higher-ups have tried to suppress the incident multiple times but to no avail, and it has been spread about everywhere. Perhaps the Pilots from the White Light Group have infiltrated everywhere in this region and have been carrying out their activities in the dark,” The uncle continued chuckling. “I migrated here as I heard that it would be safer here in the Blackboard Region, but…” he shook his head.
The bearded man pondered for a while and quietly left the crowd after listening to them for a while. He then took out his Watch Terminal, called a number and reported the news over.
Inside the alley.
Two Special Detectives were squatting down at the center of the alley as they examined the area thoroughly.
“There’re traces of strong Willpower in the area and it’s obvious that it’s a Level Five Energy Field,” the male Special Detective murmured. “It should be from the White Light Group’s Mech of the report. Have you discovered anything over there?”
The female Special Detective frowned as she reached out her finger and touched the layer of white stains on the wall. Her blue irises started rotating as if her eyeballs were rotating together and it looked very inhuman. However, it only lasted for a moment before it returned back to their normal state.
“Surprisingly, there’s a trace of Cold Radiation… Although someone tried to eliminate it on purpose, I could still sense a slight trace of radiation left behind.”
“Cold Radiation? Is it from the Quick Frost Grenade?” the man asked softly.
“I’m afraid… According to the report, this is the location where the Blackboard’s top student fought with the terrorist. One of them most likely possessed a secret weapon,” the woman shook her head.
“Officer, we’ve found something! Come take a look!” the police force’s captain called as he walked towards them.
As both of them walked over to him, they saw that the captain was holding a small exquisite white stone sculpture in his Traceless Glove. The stone looked like a man was squatting down or sitting on his knees, and its face and attire were unclear to the point where it looked like a stone that was shaped naturally. As to why it was exquisite, the back of the stone’s head was etched with a detailed and complicated circular texture which looked to be a magical formation of overlapping circles.
“What’s this?”
“I’ve found it on the body of the terrorist. I can’t believe this thing is still intact after that explosion. Even our researcher isn’t able to detect what this item is made from,” the police captain said as he walked towards them. This man, who was known for his sharp observation, was a muscular man who had climbed up from the bottom of the ladder to become an elite pilot.
“This is…” the female detective took the item and examined it closely. “This is an ancient tracking device…”
“Perhaps…?” the male detective seemed to have recalled something.
At the same time, the female detective had thought of something as well and they exchanged glances with each other.
“Let’s report it immediately!”
“What about the remaining traces of radiation?”
“Ignore it. The most important thing now is that we need to find out is if this is what we think it is!”
**********
In the sewers.
It was dark, cold and smelly.
Two scraped-together black Mechs walked slowly as they moved forward.
Clint’s wound had been healed by Baylon’s Willpower. Although it wasn’t a complete heal, it was able to prevent his injury from worsening.
Time passed by.
After running for a considerable amount of time, both of them felt safer when they arrived at a place deep the sewers, which Red Moon had arranged earlier. This place was narrow but it was big enough to fit two Mechs.
“Sigh…” Clint opened up the cockpit and walked out from it. He was extremely dirty as he laid on the ground. He was fortunate that Baylon didn’t mind how dirty he was at all as she carried him along.
“Your injury is very serious, so stop moving about!!” Baylon felt relieved when she saw Clint’s wound; her Willpower was able to release a Life Field that would supply life force to Clint. At the same time, it would cast a layer of absolute protection which prevented bacteria from invading his body.
“Lon… How did you know that that was your brother?” Clint tried his best to put a smile on his face as this pain was nothing compared to Red Moon’s daily ‘teachings’… No, Red Moon’s classes were much more painful than this, which was the reason why he was able to endure the pain for a long period of time.
“It was uncle Red Moon who told me about it,” Baylon responded as she found a grooved metal piece that she could use to pour some water on him. Although the water in the sewer was dirty, it could still be used to wash one’s body after filtering it with the Mech’s system.
“Red Moon said so? What’s going on?” Clint wasn’t able to move at all from the moment he relaxed. He started to feel dizzy, and he could only lay down and wait for death even if he were to be placed in the same dangerous situation he had just experienced. As he calmed down and gave the biggest sigh of relief in his life, his body switched to recovery mode.
This was similar to someone wanting to sleep after too much training. However, as Clint was afraid that he might never wake up if he fell asleep, he tried to stay awake and kept finding topics to talk about. Most of the movies he had watched had people who slept and passed away peacefully, which had traumatized him deeply.
“He told me to rush over as you were in grave danger. He even told me that my brother… my brother, he…” Baylon looked at Clint’s missing left thumb and his left leg that had been on the verge of being amputated. Although the wound had stitched up together, it was still shocking to see the red flesh and she was very guilty about it.
“I’m sorry Clint. It’s my fault. I only wanted to go home and see my parents, brother, and sister. I didn’t expect… expect everything would unfold like this…” she couldn’t help herself but to cry once more.
“Don’t blame it on your brother. I believe he has his reasons,” Clint tried his best to act that he didn’t care at all as he patted her hair. “I’m a person who has done many good deeds and good karma will definitely come back for me. See, I didn’t die, right? If your brother didn’t evade at the very last second, I’m sure I would have died from it.”
He didn’t know that it wasn’t Garen’s error but Red Moon’s handiwork; he had twisted the space to save Clint’s life. As Red Moon didn’t mention anything about this to him, he really believed that Garen had decided to not kill him at the very last second.
“But your finger…” tears kept rolling down from Baylon’s red eyes.
“Didn’t Master Red Moon said that I will be fine? Don’t worry about it. This isn’t something you should bear alone as I wanted to go back and visit my sister as well. Stop feeling bad about it, I didn’t die, right?” Clint comforted her clumsily.
“Did Red Moon really say so?” Baylon continued crying as she asked skeptically.
“Definitely. Although I’m not sure why I’m sure he has his reasons, “Clint nodded. “Your brother is a good person, it’s just that he doesn’t express it. In fact, he’s the type of person who would act coldly on the outside but feel emotional on the inside! Trust me on this, for I have never judged people wrongly with my experience!” he smiled as he revealed his set of white teeth.
“You really don’t blame him for this?”
“Yes. Really.”
Baylon pondered for a moment as she bit her lips.
“Then… can I send some of the items to him? Now that I’ve become like so, no one should know except for you and me…”
Clint was helpless as the situation changed too quickly.