Though Wis'adel was still young, when it came to understanding the locals, she was already something of a veteran.
After letting the little boy go, she did not need to tail him too closely. Just by seeing the direction he fled, she could already guess where he was headed. There were only a few places in this area where people could hide, and she could count them off with her eyes closed.
So she followed at an easy pace, unhurried and completely at ease.
With the symbiotic suit covering her body, her footsteps had become as light as a cat's. Even stepping on loose gravel made almost no sound at all, as if she were walking barefoot.
The boy ran fast, glancing back from time to time, but he saw nothing.
He crossed an abandoned mining pit and slipped into a half-collapsed shack district.
Wis'adel stopped behind a rock fifty meters away and peeked out with half her head.
There were five makeshift shacks there, along with seven or eight Sarkaz mercenaries. Some were cooking over a fire, some were wiping down their weapons, and some were sprawled on the ground dozing lazily.
The boy ran into one of the shacks. A while later, he came back out carrying supplies in both hands, apparently his payment.
"So it is them."
Wis'adel narrowed her eyes.
These were the same mercenaries who had stabbed her in the back. Exactly as she had expected.
You Yi asked, "When are you planning to move?"
This ought to count as their first real fight since forming true symbiosis. He could not help looking forward to how their You-and-Wis combination would perform.
He had assumed she would say they should wait until nightfall for a better opening, or at least make some preparations first. Instead, Wis'adel's lips curved upward.
"Right now, of course."
She stepped out from behind the rock.
And strode straight toward the shack camp, bold as brass.
Before meeting You Yi, she might have waited carefully for an opportunity. But after experiencing the changes he had brought her, she could only think—
Avoid their edge? Me?
—
"Boss!"
A mercenary sitting by the fire was the first to notice her. He forgot all about the meat roasting in his hand.
"It's that brat! That little brat's back!"
The whole shack camp erupted into chaos.
The ones lying down sat up at once. The ones cleaning weapons grabbed their hilts. The ones tending the fire dropped what they were doing. Seven or eight men quickly gathered, forming a loose half-circle around Wis'adel.
A Sarkaz man in his thirties came out of the largest shack.
There were several old scars on his face, and one of his eyes was cloudy white, whether from injury or by birth was impossible to tell.
He walked to the front of the group, studied Wis'adel for a few seconds, and then smiled.
"You were lucky to get away last time. Never thought you'd come walking back on your own. Should I call that courage—or stupidity?"
The surrounding mercenaries laughed along with him.
"Is there something wrong with this brat's head?"
"She got chased like a stray dog last time, and now she dares come back alone?"
"Maybe she's here to beg for mercy? Hahahaha..."
Wis'adel stopped where she was, a faint smile hanging on her face, impossible to read.
She did not even look at the ones laughing the loudest. She simply stared at the one-eyed man and spoke softly.
"I want to know who hired you to come after me."
The one-eyed man raised an eyebrow.
Wis'adel continued, the smile at the corner of her lips deepening slightly.
"If your answer satisfies me, I might leave you with a corpse that's still mostly in one piece."
The laughter stopped abruptly.
A few of the mercenaries exchanged looks. Some still wore the remnants of a grin, but their eyes had already changed.
There was confusion there, incomprehension, and a kind of anger at being insulted.
What the hell was this brat talking about?
A half-grown little girl was threatening them—saying she'd be generous enough to leave them intact corpses.
One of them let out a cold laugh. "You're about to die and you're still acting tough."
The one-eyed man did not laugh.
He kept staring at Wis'adel, both his good eye and his ruined eye sweeping up and down over her.
She stood there in the middle of their encirclement without running, without begging for mercy, without even a hint of tension.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
He had lived more than thirty years, and a mercenary who could survive that long in Kazdel did so with more than just combat ability. He also needed an instinct for danger.
And right now, he could smell it.
This was not going to be simple.
Thinking that, he tried to offer her a step down.
"If you hand over what you took, maybe we can talk."
Wis'adel tilted her head. "Oh? And if I don't?"
The one-eyed man's face darkened.
Around him, several mercenaries looked at him as if they wanted to speak but stopped themselves. They could not understand why their boss was suddenly backing down at a moment like this.
Wasn't she just some brat? All bluster and empty threats. Put two holes through her hands and she'd behave soon enough.
The one-eyed man swept a glance across his men's expressions.
Some looked baffled. Some indignant. Some eager, already waiting to see a spectacle.
He knew that if he backed down any further, certain people in the squad would start getting ideas. Before long, there would be muttering, doubts, maybe even open challenges.
Some of them had already spent too long under his thumb and had long since begun wanting to replace him.
He took a slow breath, looked back at Wis'adel, and his gaze hardened.
"You're making this very difficult for us."
Wis'adel bared her teeth.
"Difficult?"
Her smile looked almost blinding under the sunlight.
"Then don't do it."
The instant the words fell, her right arm snapped up.
The black symbiotic suit bulged sharply along the outside of her arm. Several tendrils shot out, winding together as energy condensed.
A dark red beam lanced forth.
Bang!
A Sarkaz mercenary had a bloody hole blown through his chest. The force hurled him backward, smashing him into the crate behind him, and he never moved again.
Everyone froze.
You Yi's voice sounded in Wis'adel's mind, full of approval. "Pretty accurate."
Wis'adel was expressionless. "I was aiming for his head."
You Yi fell silent for a second.
"Then you need more practice."
"Take cover!" the one-eyed man roared, shattering the frozen silence.
He was the first to dive behind the nearest cover, weapon already in hand.
"Move! Stop standing there!"
The remaining mercenaries finally snapped out of it and scattered in all directions, scrambling for anything they could hide behind.
Wis'adel did not pursue them. She stayed where she was and raised her right arm again.
The second dark-red beam skimmed past one mercenary's sleeve and blasted a bowl-sized crater into the ground behind him.
The man's legs nearly gave out from fright as he crawled desperately behind a rock.
"That one was way off. Looks like the first shot really was luck," You Yi commented objectively.
"Shut up."
Their counterattack came quickly.
Arrows and bolts flew at her from several directions at once, precise and deadly.
Wis'adel moved with astonishing speed. She twisted and rolled sideways in advance, slipping behind a huge boulder.
She raised an eyebrow. "So you can do that too?"
A moment ago, she had suddenly felt something like needles prickling across her body. Instinctively, she had dodged—and in doing so had avoided the arrows before they even landed.
It was hard to call that coincidence.
But You Yi told her not to make such a fuss.
"Standard procedure. No need to be impressed. I just calculated the arrow trajectories from their angles and fed the predicted impact points back to your body in advance. Nothing special."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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