Chapter 741: Jail
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
It only took Lin Sanjiu no more than ten seconds to acquire Ikkaku’s “combat system” and return it to him. While he was unconscious, Lin Sanjiu touched his body and turned all his clothes and items into cards, leaving only his underwear to cover his nether regions. After fainting twice, Ikkaku finally regained his consciousness. The moment he flipped his eyes opened and lowered his head, he instantly recognized what kind of situation he was in right now.
Even if he did not wear a heavy layer of white powder on his face, Lin Sanjiu was certain that his face would look just as pale.
“Now, talk. How did you guys get here?” asked Lin Sanjiu as she pressed the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac] to his bare chest.
Ikkaku glanced at the tiny box in the hand of the woman in front of him. The memory of getting his combat system forcibly pulled out of his body was still vividly clear in his mind. Fear flickered in his eyes, but there was no expression on his face. Behind Lin Sanjiu, Flame Arm and Tunnel were screaming and yelling as they tried their best to fight off the suction force of the drawing.
“Either you speak now,” Lin Sanjiu urged Ikkaku as she pressed the box even harder on his skin, “Or I take away all your operating systems and let you die in your dream. What do you say?”
It stood to reason that she was on the tenterhook. There were only several minutes left before the effect of the [Oh My G.o.d! My Wallet Is Missing] was gone, and once they got access to their Special Items, the drawing wouldn’t be able to hold them off anymore. Lin Sanjiu compressed her lips as she thought.
“Wait!” Perhaps he was scared by the expression on her face, for Ikkaku hastily said, “It’s the squad that sent us here!”
The muscles on his face looked stiff, but when he began to speak, the first impression she had of him, which was of a cold and expressionless man, shattered. It seemed like an actor stepping out of his role.
“Squad from The Munitions Factory?” Lin Sanjiu pressed on.
‘Is it the same squad as Silvan’s from when I first met him?’
“Yes, and we are the combatants,” Ikkaku continued to say, as he thought Lin Sanjiu was very familiar with The Munitions Factory. “After we finish our given mission, we just need to send them our location and the squad will come to pick us up.”
Lin Sanjiu cursed inwardly. ‘How am I going to hijack a vehicle from them if that is the case?’.
“What is your mission? To kill me?”
Ikkaku was slightly stunned, and although there was no expression on his face, the aura about him changed. “W—Well, we were hired by someone, so you shouldn’t be las.h.i.+ng out at us…”
“I will decide that. Who is the one that hired you?”
“I don’t know—”
The second the words slid off his lips, Lin Sanjiu activated the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac].
When Ikkaku woke up the third time, he breathed like a man struggling in a marathon as his forehead beaded with hot sweat.
“W—what was that?” As rivulets of sweat trickled down his face, they dampened the white powder and clogged the pores on his face. He swiveled his eyes around maniacally before staring fixedly at the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac]. He seemed very much afraid of the tiny box in Lin Sanjiu’s hand.
“That is none of your business,” Lin Sanjiu said through gritted teeth. She p.r.i.c.ked her ears up to listen to the movement behind her and continued. “I will ask you again. Who is the guy that hired you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please, please don’t do that again. I really don’t know who he is!” Ikkaku pleaded. “We don’t interact directly with the clients. It is the factory’s commissioning department that accepts the job, and we only carry out the mission based on their order!”
Lin Sanjiu squinted her eyes, feeling skeptical about Ikkaku’s statement. As she pondered about the truth of his words, Woyu suddenly spoke up, his eyes red and bloodshot. “What about my committee members? What have you guys done to them?”
Ikkaku threw him a glance and closed his mouth. After a few seconds, he looked at his comrades, who were playing a tug-of-war game with the drawing, and said, “Did Lollipop not tell you already? They are gone.”
Woyu froze at the answer. When he began speaking again, his words were broken and his voice quivered. “Gone? What do you mean by ‘they are gone’?”
“We received a clear order that we could adopt any necessary measure so long as we accomplish the mission and subdue our target, including killing anybody who has any sort of relations.h.i.+p with her,” said Ikkaku. Then, he lowered his head, and there was dead silence in the air for a moment. He continued, “We didn’t want to do that, but this woman, she is too good at hiding. And it was such a coincidence that your committee managed to successfully track her down, so we decided to head towards your committee first.”
Woyu raised his head and looked at Lin Sanjiu, his face blank. There was water swirling in his eyes, and his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish gasping for air, but no words came out.
“Pull yourself together!” Lin Sanjiu shouted and gave a slap to his face. “Now is not the time to mourn for your friends!”
It was only when a red weal appeared on his cheek that Woyu snapped back to reality, blinking his eyes. Lin Sanjiu turned the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac] back into a card. Then, without giving Ikkaku a chance to get back on his feet, Lin Sanjiu slapped her hand on his shoulder.
Ikkaku did not even have the chance to do anything before he was hurled upward, drawing a perfect arc in the air and eventually disappearing into the sky like Lollipop.
Coincidentally, as Ikkaku was thrown into the sky, Flame Arm yelled behind her. He brandished his arm and threw something into the ground. After that, a humanoid figure clad in an iron suit appeared out of thin air on the gra.s.sy plain.
“What the h.e.l.l was that?” Lin Sanjiu whispered.
“It’s an iron golem,” Woyu answered.
The iron golem dragged itself towards Flame Arm and Tunnel, its pace sluggish and heavy. When it was near enough, Flame Arm grabbed tightly at its arm and yelled out to Tunnel, “Tunnel, use your Special Item! We can use them now!”
Just when Tunnel was struggling to grab onto the golem’s s.h.i.+n, the burly man twisted his body and hurled something small that looked like a green bean towards Lin Sanjiu. It rotated under the dawn-laden sky and plopped into the gra.s.s.
“Artist!”
On Lin Sanjiu’s command, the poorly-dressed artist took his brushes and paint bucket, and began running towards Lin Sanjiu. Just as he was about to reach her, a metallic jingle came from the gra.s.s and an iron golem rose up. It stretched its arm forward to reach for the artist.
Lin Sanjiu rushed a few steps forward and delivered a flying kick to the iron golem’s knee. Her legs went numb for a few seconds, but it was more than enough. Seizing the opportunity as the iron golem staggered back, she slapped at the artist and turned him back into a card.
After that, she turned to Woyu and yelled, “Come with me!”
Without the artist, the suction force of the drawing would decrease dramatically. Taking advantage of the few seconds, she pulled Woyu, and together, both of them threw themselves into the forest.
“Why are we coming back? It is a dead-end here! There is a big river across the slope, and there is no way we can cross that!” The young man’s face was pale as a sheen. “We should run towards the outside of the forest and wait for the airplane…”
“Who said I’m running away from them?”
Lin Sanjiu gasped for air as her eyes jumped between the trees. She had already forgotten where she threw the [Cornetto, Freeze The Fun Time]. After all, finding a dead leaf in the forest was like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, the silver lining was, since she was having a hard time locating her Special Item, it went without saying that the other two would not be able to find it either.
“If we are not running away—” Woyu suddenly stopped midway through his sentence, as he almost bit his tongue. He took a deep breath to calm down his jumping heart and continued. “Then what are we doing here?”
“Because of you, of course!”
Lin Sanjiu jerked her head back to look at the young man. Woyu’s expression suddenly changed, as if he knew something bad was about to happen to him. As he expected, he saw Lin Sanjiu raise her hand. Then, before he could say anything, she delivered a blow to the nape of his neck and knocked him out cold.
It was easier and faster to carry him on her shoulder than drag him.
She was certain that the two people were hot on her heel, and even a second mattered a lot to her right now. When she saw the hanging bridge above the “river,” she only hesitated for a second before bringing Woyu over.
“Welcome home, administrator.”
Exodus was still waiting silently for her return, and Silas’s voice was still as soothing as always.
Lin Sanjiu dropped Woyu into the maglev pod before squeezing herself into it as well. She didn’t know whether or not it was right choice to bring Woyu back to Exodus. She sped up so much that she almost banged into the wall.
“Administrator, I sense that your heartbeat and body temperature is beyond the normal parameter. Do you need any a.s.sistance?”
‘There is a heat sensor around the house?’
The thought flitted through her mind, but she was too anxious to care about it right now. She then gave her order. “This guy is my captive. Is there any room in Exodus with a particularly thick and st.u.r.dy wall?”
She did not want to show Exodus to an outsider, even if the person was Woyu. After all, he was still a posthuman, and she feared that a normal room might not be able to contain him. If Silas said no, then she had no other choice but to use the [Empty-handed Kleptomaniac] on him.
However, what Silas said next made Lin Sanjiu feel like she was in a dream.
“Alright then, please allow me to show you the jail area.”