Chapter 147: Perlica Scream 2.0 (Patreon)

Damn it, don't you dare let me find out who stole those explosives.

On the rugged mountain trail, the ferocious voice of the Bonekrusher Clan leader — his hands wrapped in a pair of garish boxing gloves — rang out through the forest. All because of one moment's carelessness, he had nearly been beaten to death by Leader Rhodagn.

Bare patches of his skin bore several conspicuous, gruesome wounds. If there hadn't still been a chance to make amends, his fate would surely have ended in nothing but death.

Rage filled him, but neither Nefarith nor Rhodagn was someone he could defy — and to make matters worse, that damned little thief was nowhere to be found. So he had no choice but to vent his fury on the underlings behind him.

"All of you, (curse word), hurry it up for me! You know what happens if we're delayed."

The Boneshatter leader's tone brimmed with threats and intimidation, as if he didn't consider the men behind him one of his own at all.

But the men behind him clearly had no thought of resisting. That was simply how the Bonekrusher Clan worked — the strong had every right to decide the fate of the weak.

Far off, beyond their notice, two red-cloaked hunters of the Pack made no attempt to hide the contempt on their faces.

"Pathetic savages."

As fellow Landbreakers, the Pack placed great importance on family — even the most vicious of wolf chiefs would never treat their own kin this way.

"Rossi." Wulfgard called her name from beside her — not that he had any objection to what she'd just said.

He simply meant it as a heads-up: it was almost time to move.

Saito, clad in full-coverage power armor, stepped up beside the two of them and gave a brief rundown of the tactics for what came next.

"Little Chen and I will handle the frontal assault. I'll leave it to you two to mop up any stragglers."

"Mm."

Wulfgard gave a short acknowledgment, while Rossi stayed silent beside him, clearly already locked into combat mode.

"Well then, let me say hello first."

Saito eyed the band of Landbreakers and raised the Requiem in his hands. Bang~ A thunderous crack split the air. The terrifying recoil sent a faint tremor through Saito's arm as the specially made Originium round streaked out in a crimson blur, annihilating everything in its straight-line path before burying itself in the crowd.

The next instant brought roars of fury, cries of anguish, and startled shouts — a chaos of noise erupting through the mountain forest.

A pity, really — if he hadn't worried the Originium explosives might bring the whole mountainside down with them, Saito would have detonated the stash while he was at it.

At the same time, the two Pack members, who'd already been braced to move, found themselves frozen in place — Wulfgard especially so. He glanced down at the twin guns in his hands, half-wondering for a moment if he'd been sold a cheap knockoff.

Fortunately, their solid tactical training kicked in fast, and in moments both figures had vanished from where they stood.

That single shot had surely thrown the Landbreakers into panic — the perfect opening to wipe them out entirely.

What followed was likely to be a merciless slaughter.

"M3, why did you deliberately hide Saito's examination report?"

Aboard the Dijiang, Perlica had finally tracked down M3, who had just wrapped up her latest round of work. The tablet in Perlica's hand displayed the brief onboarding report.

M3, who'd only just gotten back from Wuling, was sprawled in her office chair. She barely managed to sit up when she heard Perlica's voice.

"Yawn~ Oh, it's Perlica."

M3 showed no trace of surprise — clearly she'd expected Perlica's visit all along.

Perlica's face was grim with seriousness, in stark contrast to M3, who lay half-slumped across her desk.

Perlica said nothing, only stared at her in silence.

"Sigh..." Only after several minutes had passed did M3 slowly lift her head, her expression shifting from slack to serious.

"Because that report can never be shown to anyone. The Administrator told me so herself, a long time ago."

"The Administrator?"

A flicker of shock crossed Perlica's eyes. M3 simply held out a paper copy of the report to her.

Perlica took the report and gave it a quick glance — her eyes went wide in an instant.

"These numbers?!"

"It's real. I ran the test four times, and every result came back exactly the same."

Perlica wasn't an expert in Oripathy, but even she could grasp what the numbers meant. Only now did she finally understand why the Administrator valued him so highly.

"Perlica, he's a miracle."

M3's expression turned complicated — even the word 'miracle' felt like an understatement for this report. In her view, Saito was something that simply shouldn't exist in this world.

If certain people ever learned of Saito's existence, the consequences didn't bear thinking about.

M3 even suspected that the reason the Administrator had gone back to Terra's past was because of him.

Or perhaps Saito himself was some project of the precursor civilization.

But she wasn't either of those two people, so there was no way for her to know for certain. Perhaps only the Administrator had any chance of glimpsing the truth.

"So we have to protect him properly, for the Administrator's sake."

M3 gave Perlica's shoulder a meaningful pat — but the Liberi girl had suddenly gone rigid where she stood.

She'd just remembered — only a dozen or so minutes earlier, Saito and the others had sent word that they'd spotted a Landbreaker force.

Unless something had gone wrong, they were probably already fighting the Landbreakers by now.

"!!!"

This was the second time since the Administrator's disappearance that the Liberi girl had let out such a piercing shriek — and, of all moments, an urgent transmission cut into her channel right then.

"Supervisor Perlica! Something terrible's happened!"

"What happened?"

"We picked up a sudden, sharp spike in Erosion depth readings at one location, and in the same instant, a massive surge of Erosion activity appeared there."

"Wh-where is it?"

Perlica's voice wavered. A sense of foreboding grew stronger and stronger within her.

And when the logistics Operator relayed the coordinates a moment later, everything went black before her eyes.

At the same moment, a passing Endfield Operator happened to see Perlica collapse into M3's arms.

"Someone, help! Supervisor Perlica's fainted again!"

"Ugh—!"

A flash of sword-light cut through the air, and a spray of blood bloomed across the Boneshatter leader's chest. He let out an anguished howl.

Saito, black sword in hand, came to a stop before him with the unhurried ease of a man on a stroll.

All around, his underlings lay sprawled across the ground, most of them barely clinging to life. Of the whole group, he was the only one still breathing.

Rossi and Wulfgard had already closed in as well, weapons raised.

"Damned scum."

The Boneshatter leader glared venomously at the two Pack members. Compared to these Endfield people, the two Landbreaker turncoats were far more despicable to him.

"It's already over."

"No. Not yet."

Cornered and desperate, the Boneshatter leader suddenly produced, from who knew where, a twisted mass of crimson-red matter.

In the next instant, everything changed!