Clint carefully scraped the green moss off the sewer pipelines into the small dish in his hands. Immediately, there was a smile on his face.
“There will be more ingredients for tonight’s dinner.”
In the dark and gloomy sewers, there was an underground river that flowed rapidly on the right side. At times, there was some white and yellow floating debris drifting by. Most of it was a layer of thick oily sludge that stank from afar.
However, Clint had gotten used to it. He looked around for more spots with such moss and scraped off the only bit of moss in the sewer into his small dish.
During these few days in the sewers, he had encountered multiple instances of underground pursuit. They were not by the pilots above ground but by mutated rodents that lived in the depths of the sewer and would appear in big groups every few hours. These rodents with glowing red eyes could gnaw through any objects. In order to conserve the mech’s energy, Clint did not dare to misuse the mech. It was a rigged-up mech in the first place. The power furnace was an old model and lots of its energy had been used up. A majority of what was left of the energy had been used for Red Moon’s recovery while the final bit was reserved for the opening of the hatch door.
Thinking of this, Clint sighed. Putting away the moss, he touched his stomach and it still felt a bit sore to the touch. He looked at the time, turned around and headed back to his hiding spot.
“Ten more minutes until the group of rodents appear. There should be enough time.”
After walking for a distance, he quickly wormed his way into a narrow crevice that was located in a small space between the pipelines. There was an indistinctive white light shining from the inside and a wet glaze was seen when the light reflected off the floor of the sewer.
Clint walked in and saw Baylon roasting a dried rodent. Both of them had been living like this for the past two days. They were only left with eating this as they had finished their dried food supplies. Luckily, Baylon’s Bright King Training Method could eradicate most diseases and infections; otherwise, eating this unhygienic stuff would cost both of them their lives.
The light came from the electric wire of a Mech. It was not very bright since it had to be used conservatively.
“How is it? How’s the situation outside?” Baylon looked over with wide eyes. She had now completely transfigured into a female, or to put in another way, she was a female all the while. It’s just that the training method helped shed off the epidermis layer.
Sitting on her knees by the fire, Baylon’s face was red and she looked rather worn out.
“Fortunately, no one seems to be coming after us,” Clint nodded and smiled helplessly. “Maybe this is part of the radiation area, so they don’t dare to chase us down? Their bodies could acquire the radiation disease after staying in a radiated area for a long period of time.”
“Yea…” Baylon nodded and lifted her arms. Grey spots faintly appeared on them as if the skin had shriveled.
“I heard that it is hard to treat radiation disease…” her eyes dimmed, “once a person has the radiation disease, there’s no way to live in the regions anymore…”
“Don’t worry, there has to be a way when Lord Red Moon wakes up!” Clint was always full of hope and confidence even though he himself did not know where this confidence came from, “If I myself have no hope, then there really isn’t any hope at all.”
“Yea… Lord Red Moon is very powerful. There sure is a way to solve it,” Baylon relaxed slightly. They had constantly viewed Red Moon as all-capable. Even though he had a foul mouth, he could always think of a way to resolve any matter. As compared to that, radiation disease did not seemed like a big issue.
Both of them quietly worked together to clean the moss with filtered water. They then boiled some soup with the dried rodent meat and moss. This food had been their main sustenance.
After boiling for some time, a booming roar thundered from the outside of the passageway. It sounded as if it came from afar.
The look on Clint and Baylon’s faces changed. They swiftly got up and blocked the only access to this small and narrow space using a piece of the shattered alloy plate from the mech. The alloy plate fitted in nicely to conceal this place. Clint braced both of his hands against the alloy plate in fear of it being knocked down.
On the other side, Baylon quickly extinguished the fire, leaving only a little material for starting a fire and covered the soup before spreading out clothing on top of it.
Not long after, there were several thudding sounds outside of the alloy plate, as if there were numerous little things ramming against the alloy plate non-stop. Clint had started to sweat and was exerting great effort. With his Level One Nine Mega Cannon Training Method, his strength was several times that of ordinary people, and yet, he still felt remarkably strained.
One could only imagine how great the impact coming from the outside was.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, the ramming sounds began to weaken. The blue veins on his forehead started to subside and he had sweated profusely.
He let out a long sigh and slid down onto the floor after the last ramming sound had died down.
“Hoo… hoo… hoo…” the sound of huffing and puffing as intense as a racehorse could be heard.
“Come, drink some water…” as there were no cups, Baylon filled the indented part of a small piece of alloy plate with water and brought it over.
“Thanks,” Clint took it and gulped it down.
“Did you hear something?” Baylon suddenly asked warily.
“What? Heard what?” Clint was stunned.
“I… I think I heard the sound of someone shouting on the outside…” Baylon replied uncertainly.
“There’s someone?!” Clint stood up, his eyes filled with worry.
Both of them lightened their breathing and Clint could hear it too.
“Carl!” “Carl, where are you?”
“Captain Carl!” “Big brother Carl~”
It did not sound like a person but a group of people with male and female voices looking for someone named Carl.
Clint carefully removed the alloy plate and poked his head out. He saw that at the end of the passageway where the rodent group had wreaked havoc, there was a group of people with fire torches approaching. What was most surprising was that these people were not wearing any radiation suits in this radiation area.
There were males and females, and all of them were more or less wearing nail plates made of metal on their bodies; some on their shoulders; some as helmets; but mostly on their arms, chests, and abdomens.
In the group of more than a dozen people, many of them wore torn clothing and some of their faces had radiation scars that could not be covered up.
“So many Radiation people…” Clint instantly knew that these were ordinary people with radiation disease, just like them.
He suddenly did not know what to do. In the absence of Red Moon, their safety was in their own hands. They would be lucky if this was a group of kind-hearted people. But if they had any bad intention… then he and Lon would…
“Who’s there?!” the leader of the group, a woman in a red shirt, shouted suddenly and looked over in his direction.
Clint jumped in shock and fell onto the floor, making a louder sound.
This group of people hurried over in an instant. Baylon quickly helped Clint to get up. Both of them huddled together and gazed at the access point. Soon, a husky, muscular man cautiously made his way inside. He was somewhat stunned when he saw Clint and Baylon.
“Chief, it is two kids!” he shouted loudly.
“Are you joking? How can little kids survive in this place?” the redshirt woman walked in and was surprised as well when she saw Clint and Baylon. “You guys… This is the region’s sewer’s dark maze, with radiation poison and mutated rodents everywhere. You guys actually…”
“Hel… Hello…” Clint forced a smile and greeted them.
**************
Blackboard Region Police Agency Mobile Hall
“This is the report,” Garen submitted the paper report in his hands. He was standing at the center of the large hall with the deputy director of the Agency seated in front of him. He was a bald, middle-aged man who had a small patch of yellow hair at his chin, making him look stern.
“You are part of the military and the academy. Being able to strike dead the terrorist in a kamikaze style with Level Three capability even though he was heavily injured, this combat record still exceeds the capability spectrum of an ordinary student,” the baldy browsed through the document and nodded his head while commenting.
“As is customary, the police bureau will hand over all your state-of-the-battle records and someone from the military will award you for your merit. Please wait patiently.”
“I understand,” Garen nodded his head.
“However, you must be mentally prepared,” the baldy looked up at Garen. “The mission this time had exceeded the scope of your assignment. No one would have thought that you could defeat a terrorist and it was only hoped that could stall the opponent, but…” he paused. “Well, I won’t say any more unnecessary things. The elite team that was in charge of this matter are rather disgruntled at you, so be prepared for the handing over of the mission as you might encounter some provocation.”
“Is it from the elite students?” Garen asked rhetorically.
“It’s good that you know,” the baldy seemed to admire Garen as he smiled and nodded. “Alright, you may go now. The military will send out the notice of military credit very shortly, so don’t be anxious.”
“Understood.”
Garen nodded. He gave a salute with the back of his right hand pressing against his left cheek and bent over slightly to give a bow.
He then stood to attention, turned around and left.
Garen let out a breath as he exited the hall of the Agency. The deputy director of the Agency was definitely a powerhouse with hidden depths. He was most certainly be a Level Five pilot, though not one who practiced any ordinary training method; the wave motion of the willpower energy field emitted by him gave off an intangible pressure.
This kind of feeling was many times stronger than when that of the Red-White Mech.
“He could fight against two at least,” Garen estimated in a low voice. Two of the Red-White Mechs might not even stand a chance against the Deputy Director. As expected, powerful and respected people in Blackboard Region had made it to a point of reality.
Capability determined everything. With capability, you could occupy important positions, while without enough capability, it would be impossible to be raised to a top position regardless of how knowledgeable you were. This was also the result of a single mech soldier’s capability of turning the tide.
Leaving the police agency, the guard stations were right next to it. A few of the guards who happened to pass by saw Garen from afar and greeted him warmly. These were the police members of Garen’s patrol area.
After exchanging some general pleasantries with them, Garen learned of the current situation and had some ideas in mind. He then immediately took a cab home.
His parents and sister were all at home. Due to the brother’s disappearance, everyone was feeling down and waiting for Garen’s latest news.
As he entered the room, his father who had been sitting on the couch instantly stood up.
“How’s it? Nono? Lon’s situation…”