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It was now a little over an hour after the dinner party. I hid myself in a spot overlooking Airiaâs orphanage facility and kept an eye on the situation.
ăMaster.ă
âYeah. I got them on my end as well. They really came huh?â
The Ninja power armorâs high-performance sensors detected numerous heat signatures surrounding the facility. I adjusted the visual sensor range, zoomed in on the folks who were behaving suspiciously and checked them out.
ăHow shall we proceed? Shall we launch an attack from here?ă
âThereâs no need for that this time around. Iâll handle them personally. I should make full use of the Ninja armorâs specs in a real fight every once in a while.â
ăUnderstood. Iâll monitor the situation and provide support when needed.ă
âIâll leave it to you. Iâll be careful not to make any blunders.â
I cut off the transmission with Mei and approached one of the groups surrounding the facility. I jumped from the roof of a lower block building and fired a hookshot into a wall. That reduced the speed of my fall and allowed me to get on top of the assailants practically unnoticed.
There were five in total. All of them resembled the thugs we encountered in the hideout we just raided. They were armed with laser guns, laser rifles, and cruder weapons like nail bats and large knives. As if to say messing with them wonât end well.
âItâs like Iâm playing a stealth action game.â
Maybe I should attach hidden assassination wrist blades to the forearms of the Ninja armor next time I get the chance? While thinking of some silly stuff, I silently drew out a pair of swords â one long and one short. I held them in a reverse grip and jumped off the building I was standing on. My first target was the guy with the mohawk at the very back.
âGuehâ!?â
Making use of the fallâs momentum, I aimed the long sword held in my right hand toward his right shoulder and stabbed it in deeply, reaching all the way to his core. The swordâs sharpness effortlessly tore through his innards and bones. Within moments, the place was littered with blood and guts.
âWhaâ!?â
âHuhâ!?â
I decapitated a second guy with the short sword in my left hand using a backhand slash, flipped the long sword in my right hand around, switched it to an overhand grip, and cut the third guy down with an overhead diagonal slash.
âHiiiâ!?â fre(e)novelkiss
âGiiâ!?â
As I approached the remaining two assailants, I also switched to holding the short sword with an overhand grip, then used both swords to sever each manâs torso from their lower body. Un. The sharpness of the swords used by nobles definitely ainât no joke. Even without using much force, youâd be able to cut a humanâs body in half.
âThatâs one group downâŠâŠ Letâs go for the next.â
ăExcellent work, Master.ă
âWell, this should about do it.â
âThe cleanup afterward is going to be quite troublesome though.â
âDo your best, guys!â
I cheered on the Reemay Prime decontamination team dispatched to clean up the blood-soaked lower block and gave them a thumbs-up while still in my Ninja armor. For some reason, it kinda felt like Iâd been sprayed with excessive amounts of cleaning fluid and disinfectant, but since I was wearing the Ninja armor, I didnât feel a thing. In fact, this saved me the trouble of having to perform cleaning on the ship.
âBig BroâŠâŠâ
As I was seeing off the decontamination team carrying body bags and decontamination equipment, Heinz came out of the orphanage facility and called out to me. Well, I did cause quite a commotion, so I suppose them noticing what was happening was inevitable.
âHey, man. There are dead bodies and innards all over the place, so itâs best not to wander around too much.â
âI kinda guessed that already, butâŠâŠâ
âWhyâd this happen? Well, you see, we really did quite a number on them, so I thought it wouldnât be strange if they wanted payback or something. Honestly, I thought there was only a 50/50 chance of them coming here. Staying vigilant was the right call.â
After saying so, I shrugged my shoulders in front of Heinz. The RIKISHI wasnât capable of such fine movements, but this custom-made power armor definitely could.
In other words, I explained to Heinz that I lay in ambush after the dinner party while anticipating retaliation from the Bloodies. There was a good chance it would have ended up being a miss, but I suppose my bad luck played a factor again.
For those guys, having their main hideout crushed head-on was akin to having their honor blown to pieces. Of course, being taken lightly by others in the trade as a result of that would have spelled the end for both mercenaries like me and outlaws like them, so it was necessary to take revenge to gain back at least a bit of face.
However, one of the participants in the raid was Hartmut â the current governor of the colony. So, it would have been troublesome and unreasonable for them to go head-to-head against him openly. Thatâs why they decided to go for the other participants in the raid instead.
Why did they directly attack the orphanage? Well, even an idiot would notice that the combat bots that attacked their hideout and the bots guarding the orphanage were of the same model. It was only natural to think there was a connection, and if that were the case, then launching an attack on the orphanage would make sense.
Eh? If thatâs the case, then it was ultimately my fault that the orphanage was targeted? Hahaha, I dunno about that.
Anyway, even if I laid in ambush for the guys whoâd come for revenge, there was still a chance that some might slip from me if I was going at it solo. Thatâs why Mei rearmed the combat bots and had them stand ready nearby as well. Well, they didnât get their turn in the end though. I mean, it was practically a one-sided slaughter.
After decimating one enemy team, Iâd activate my armorâs multi-functional camo system, used the hookshot, and then launched another surprise attack from above. From the enemyâs perspective, it was a nightmarish scenario of something unseen slashing several guys to pieces in an instant.
Most of them moved in groups, so even if they noticed the attack, they wouldnât be able to fire their laser guns and rifles for fear of friendly fire. On the other hand, since their enemy was almost completely invisible, they wouldnât be able to guarantee theyâd land a hit even when using clubs and knives. And so, I cut them down while they were hesitating.
After killing off all of the guys who came for revenge, I contacted Hartmut through Mei and had him send a decontamination team to get rid of the corpses. Well, that decontamination team in question seemed to be holding a grudge against me for getting them dispatched to perform major cleanup operations twice in a day though.
âYou really are a mercenary, after all, BroâŠâŠâ
âYeah. What? You scared?â
âVery.â
Heinz displayed a bitter smile. After all, I easily killed over thirty people in this incident. Honestly, even I was a bit perplexed by the fact that I was able to kill this many people so emotionlessly. But then again, they were technically akin to space pirates, so I suppose it wasnât that much of a surprise. They were actively causing the pandemic to worsen by spreading those illegal drugs, so even if Hartmut arrested them without any casualties, theyâd still end up getting sentenced to extremely hard labor for life, stripped of all their human rights, and turned into lab rats for inhumane experiments. Therefore, directly killing them like this could also be seen as a sort of mercy for them.
âItâs a shame that killing these guys wonât earn me a single Enel though. From a mercâs perspective anyway. However, with this, I believe weâve exhausted most of their manpower.â
âThen we probably wonât be expecting any further attacks from them for the time being, right Bro?â
âAt the very least, they wonât launch another attack without some sort of plan.â
If they were to lose all of their pawns for some unknown reason every time they launched an attack, they wouldnât be able to maintain their organization eventually. Or rather, they might have already lost most of their manpower after todayâs massacre.
If that really was the case, then the options they can take would be quite limited. They can either hide, run away, or simply surrender. In any case, surrender was probably out of the question. After all, even if they surrendered obediently, they probably canât expect a pardon. They were going straight to labor camps or the lab as guinea pigs.
âWith this, I think my business in this colony is coming to a closeâŠâŠ Hey, I just wanna ask. Are you familiar with Tina? I wanna know what she did in this colony and why exactly she had to leave.â
âI only know her by name, but I donât know much about her. I believe she had some sort of conflict with the Dawes Family. I donât know the details though.â
âThe Dawes Family?â
âItâs a criminal org mainly run by dwarves, and theyâre involved in the manufacture and smuggling of illegal weapons and tech. During the commotion caused by the pandemic, most of their higher-ups fell sick, and the organization itself should have fallen apart by now.â
âI see. Thanks for the info.â
Plenty enough info can be gleaned from what Heinz told me. Itâs unclear to what extent Tina was involved in the operations of the Dawes Family, but itâs not hard to imagine that she got into something quite troublesome before deciding to leave this colony. But if those guys got almost wiped out like Heinz said, ainât this a good chance for Tina and Airia to meet directlyâŠâŠ? No, maybe itâs still dangerous. Perhaps it would be better to just have Airia come to the ship instead.
âOnce this matter is settled, Iâm gonna invite you guys and Airia aboard my ship.â
âEh?â
âAfter all, itâs dangerous for Tina to come down to the colony, but I still want her and Airia to meet in person. But inviting Airia alone to my ship is all kinds of awkward, right?â
âAhââŠâŠ Youâre right. Yeah, that would be awkward.â
âThatâs why you guys should come too. My shipâs pretty good yâknow? Iâm sure you guys will be surprised at how different it is from a typical merc ship.â
âIs that so?â
âIâm 100% sure you guys will get floored.â
I engaged in small talk with Heinz while waiting for the decontamination team to finish the cleanup.