“So much money…” Now there was so much cash right in front of Vera’s eyes. Looking at the messy bundles of cash, it was obvious to her that their owner did not take them seriously. He had just tossed them in carelessly, and there was even a smattering of smaller change underneath the huge notes.
“Nono would surely not care about the money in this drawer, he gets a cut of more than two million every month… This tiny sum must surely just be a pittance for him…” Vera gulped. “If I take a bit… just a bit… Surely he would not notice…”
Greed surged in her heart. Such a thick wad of cash, if she simply pulled out a dozen or so notes, that would surely not make an impact at all, surely she would not be noticed…
Such thoughts kept echoing inside her mind.
After hesitating for a while, Vera finally reached out her hand, and expertly pulled seven or eight thousand-unit notes from the stack.
“Just this… Nono wouldn’t notice, for sure.” She closed the drawer with a whoosh, feeling her heart pound extremely quickly.
Stuffing the notes into her wallet anxiously, she got up and arranged her hair.
She put everything back the way it was, opened the blinds, and opened the door. But Vera’s heart kept replaying that terrifying sum on that document.
She paused for a moment, but in the end, she still turned around quickly. Closing the door, she found that document again, and she quickly took several pictures of it with her Watch Terminal.
“I might be able to sell this for a pretty sum…”
She smiled, satisfied, and finally closed the drawer again, leaving the room reluctantly.
***************
In the Blackboard Region, Caesura City
The huge cylindrical chimneys were dyed a yellow-red by the twilight rays.
There were many skyscrapers and streets between the chimneys, but compared to the size of the chimneys, these buildings were as small as toys, like the uneven grass on a lawn.
Between the streets, there was a constant flow of levitating cars, as though they were the pulse of a city that flowed with fresh metallic blood.
Boom!
Suddenly, there was a large explosion of crimson flames at the bottom of the largest chimney. It was a high-end residential area that was lavishly decorated, and the two mansions in the very center were completely engulfed in flames, turning into black scraps in an instant.
Thick black smoke floated out from the burning remains, and soon enough, the sirens of ambulances, police cars, and fire engines arrived at the scene. A large crowd of people alighted from the cars, and quickly began to secure the area.
Beside the burning remains, the crimson firelight dyed everything within a ten-meter radius bright red.
Ker-chak! Ker-chak, ker-chak…
Buddy quickly took a few close-range shots with his high-quality camera, his expression somewhat somber.
There were a few more reporters from the news agency behind him, but unlike him, they looked extremely excited.
“Hehe, this is big news!” said someone in a soft voice.
“We’re lucky, we got here at the first opportunity, and go first-hand information,” the other person said excitedly. “My aunt’s husband just happens to be the inspector in charge of maintaining order here, otherwise we would still need about ten minutes of source investigation.”
Buddy was not in as good as the mood as the two of them, though.
“Such an explosion could instantly override all the defense systems, and destroy all the Energy Barriers. Only a strong enough pulse wave bomb can do that…”
“Isn’t that perfect? We can just call this explosion the Pulse Wave Incident.” The reporter behind him hurriedly noted down the headline.
“But very few people know that one of the previous Three Black Rain Generals, the strongest veteran pilot under the last generation’s Black Star, Bordo Miserman lives here,” said Buddy in a somber voice.
“The Three Black Rain Generals?! Buddy, are you kidding me? The Three Black Rain Generals are the three strongest pilots under Black Star, even if they have retired, they still enjoy the privileges of Great Generals here in our Blackboard Region!” The reporters’ expression changed immediately, a regular terrorist attack and a pointed attack were two completely different things.
“I’m sure of it, I came here for a special interview before, interviewing General Bordo’s grandson.” Buddy looked at the fire quietly. The fire brigade sprayed pillars of water at the fire hurriedly, and the smell of dry fire-extinguishing powder, as well as oxygen-absorbing liquid, proliferated everywhere.
“No way, the Black Rain Generals should be enjoying their retirement in Blackboard Academy!”
“Very few people know that Bordo didn’t actually enter the academy, and instead he lived alone as a normal person, with his family. It’s not just him, several other important officials did the same,” said Buddy quietly.
Instantly, their hearts began to feel heavy.
“So you’re saying… this explosion, it was aimed for General Bordo?” someone asked.
“It’s very likely,” Buddy nodded. “If it really was an attack aimed at him, with General Bordo’s skills, to think that he could still be destroyed so calmly…Then the enemy’s powers must be…” Suddenly, he felt a chill down his spine.
***********************
“This just in, there was a terrorist attack in the city of Caesura yesterday. A pulse wave bomb blew through two houses in a high-end residential area. Fortunately, because of the peak-hour traffic from the end of office hours, there were very few people in the buildings. The number of casualties and fatalities were few, including about a dozen members of the elderly and children…”
Accompanied by the sound of the television news, Clint was sprawled onto the table in his room, wolfing down his food. There was a plate with an entire kilogram of seafood fried rice, with some octopus, lots of shrimp shells, chunks of fish, strands of seaweed. He poured all of it into his mouth, as though that mouth was an endless abyss.
“One more portion!”
Smack!
Clint smashed the empty plate onto the table and yelled.
“You’ve already eaten three portions…” Baylon said helplessly beside him, wearing an apron. She was the one who made the fried rice, having rushed out to buy ingredients and trying it out blindly after some studying. Personally, he(1) felt the taste was so-so, but Clint ate it like it was a delicacy.
“He’s a pig, ignore him, and fill your own stomach first,” Red Moon’s voice rang out slowly.
“I can’t help it either!! I just never feel full, there must be something wrong with that training method you gave me! I didn’t use to be like this!” Clint cried out in defense.
“Sure, the Nine Mega Cannon training method increases your appetite, but not to this extent. The more you eat, the more that means your energy efficiency is low, you waste too much, so you need to absorb a lot more energy to make up for your Willpower consumption.”
“What’s that mean? I don’t get it…” Clint asked honestly.
“It means you’re too stupid, that’s why you eat so much,” Red Moon stated mercilessly.
“Oh! Don’t blame me, there must be something wrong with your training method!” Clint finally knew how to resist, after accepting a brand new plate of fried rice from Baylon, he continued to dig in.
“That idiot.” Red Moon was utterly speechless, and turned his attention instead to Baylon, dressed in a white apron.
After this kid’s Willpower was activated, perhaps as a result of the training method, but mostly because of his own body, Baylon had somehow quickly become such a sweet, pure, and pretty figure.
Slender, weak, tall and long, curves in all the right places, large watery eyes that looked like they were about to cry at any moment. Long hair hanging loose, matched with fair and supple skin, gave off a gently beautiful impression that just begged for love and pity.
“As expected, you fail as a boy, it’s better to be a girl and find someone to take care of you,” Red Moon said exasperatedly. “It’s unnatural. Tsk-tsk…”
“The more I train with that Bright Queen Jisaiya method, the more I feel my body change. What’s up with that…?” asked Baylon, embarrassed.
“It’s normal, that’s the training method inherited from the legendary Bright Queen, it’s a Three-Only type, and it can evolve, allowing the pilot’s body to advance together with it from the very beginning,” Red Moon explained.
“What do you mean by Three-Only attributes?”
“It means what it says, in the whole world, only three people can practice this training method, because the Bright Queen Jisaiya only left behind three imprints. If you have the chance to reach the peak, you’ll enter a race to obtain the imprints, and achieve the actual, complete main imprint. But it’s still far, far too early. That woman, the Bright Queen, died too soon, and she was a picky one too. If it weren’t for the fact that her training method was still kinda decent, I wouldn’t wanna get close to her.”
Red Moon seemed to have a very bad impression of the Bright Queen.
“Lon! One more bowl!!”
Beside them, Clint had somehow finished a large plate of rice in such a short time, slamming the plate onto the table and yelling again.
“There’s… There’s no more…” Baylon was utterly shocked, seeing how Clint still looked unsatisfied, she began to panic… “You ate it all…” She was about to cry. She had made seven people’s worth of food, and this guy finished it all, even she had not gotten a chance to eat yet.
“Urk…” Clint noticed that he had eaten too much as well, and scratched his head awkwardly. “Um… Uh… Ah!!” Suddenly, he screamed.
“Careful! Something’s coming!” In an instant, Red Moon hit Clint hard with a bolt of electricity, making him cry out in pain.
“Everyone, hold your breaths!”
Suddenly, the lights in the room went off, and everything was plunged into darkness. There was only the faint smell of fried rice lingering in the air.
Outside the room, in the garden, a tattered tall black shadow slowly appeared outside the wall.
“The Forbidden…” A deep male voice came from within the shadow. “Found it, right here…”
Smack!
Suddenly, a beacon of light was turned on, shining onto the shadow and revealing most of its body. It was a tattered and broken-up white-and-red mech, six meters tall!
“Do it!!”
Amidst the shouts, a similarly huge humanoid shadow jumped out from the house, crashing straight for the Red-White Mech. Underneath the illumination of the light, they saw that this black shadow was actually just a broken trash mech made up of assorted parts.
“Fool!”
The Red-White Mech did not give way at all, crashing its arms forward.
Bam!!!
The two crashed into each other.
“Eh? What tremendous strength!” A surprised voice came from inside the Red-White Mech. “But if all you have is strength, you’re still just a piece of trash.”
Waving him away, the Red-White Mech swept with its leg, and hit the opponent’s waist with a clang, sending him flying out and crashing into a large portion of the wall at the side.
“Clint!!” cried Baylon worriedly from inside the room.
“Hand over the Forbidden Core, and I will spare your life,” the Red-White Mech chuckled, stamping on his body so that he could not get up.
Clint felt weak all over, he could not use any strength at all.
“Idiot! I let you drive mechs so that you could run errands, not to fight! You idiotic moron, don’t you understand human speak!!” Red Moon scolded madly beside his ear.
“What to do…?”
“What to do my ass! Run!!”
All of a sudden, Clint’s mech found a huge burst of energy. He stood up abruptly and ran away as fast as his legs could take him. When he passed Baylon, he picked up Baylon lightly, and then ran into the distance even more madly.
After this full-strength crash, the Red-White Mech’s engine nearly exploded. He was already at the end of his rope, his mech was nearly collapsing after his battle with Red-Eyed Medero, so he did not dare to exert too much force at all.
And now a tiny Level One minnow had managed to escape from him, that really pissed him off.
Amidst the roar of the engine, he quickly gave chase. The two mechs, one after the other, soon disappeared into the night.