Reaping What He Sowed

Only then did Shiraki Uke release Q Dalang's collar.

"Cough, cough..."

Q Dalang took a few breaths and barely recovered his senses. He looked at the two who had arrived a step later.

"[Usogui], what are you and your follower doing here?"

He looked puzzled. "You've walked right into a trap—[Man of the Divine Realm]'s muscle will kill you!"

"Haha, little Q, you really are a good person!"

Baku Madarame laughed happily, then abruptly changed the subject. "Do you think you can change the subject?"

Q Dalang's heart tightened. "Huh?!"

Baku Madarame pulled out a handgun and tapped it gently against his own forehead. "You killed so many people. How should you pay for that?"

"The outcome of this gamble depends on which side, mine or my friend Akagi's, 'steps out' of this building first, or whether everyone dies here. There are no other rules."

Baku Madarame raised his gun and aimed it at Q Dalang.

"In other words, I can kill you first, then figure out how to escape little Uke, right?"

"..."

Cold sweat beaded on Q Dalang's forehead.

Before he could say anything, Shiraki Uke shoved Q Dalang, sending him staggering a few steps toward the office door. Then Baku Madarame fired at his feet.

Bang!

Q Dalang was forced to flee the office. Still shaken, he looked back inside—all four people apart from Takaomi Kaji were watching him with interest.

"Good luck, little Q!"

Baku Madarame laughed uproariously. "Now it's your turn to escape from 'our' building..."

"..."

Once Q Dalang had left, Baku Madarame turned his gaze elsewhere and quietly asked Shiraki Uke a question.

"By the way, little Uke, I left you the chance to fight him, but are you really confident you can beat Lodem in a head-on fight?"

"Who knows?" Shiraki Uke shrugged and murmured with a smile, "I don't want to lose, anyway..."

Chapter 35: Reaping What He Sowed (second update)

Tap, tap, tap...

Q Dalang sprinted toward the stairwell, running for his life.

Yagyou remarked leisurely, "The tables have turned..."

But to Yagyou's surprise, neither Akagi Shigeru nor Shiraki Uke, the muscle on Baku Madarame's side, was in a hurry to act.

Shiraki Uke even found an open spot and began doing squats, occasionally practicing wrestling moves.

Was he warming up? What for?

Yagyou was baffled, while Baku Madarame found a chair and sat down, fiddling with the communications equipment Q Dalang had left behind.

As Shiraki Uke warmed up, he explained, "The 'karma' Q Dalang left behind is far harder to deal with than the man himself."

Was he talking about Lodem?

Yagyou was even more puzzled. Could Lodem still be alive?

Tap, tap, tap...

Q Dalang fled all the way to the fifth-floor stairwell.

Looking back, Q Dalang saw that Shiraki Uke hadn't immediately given chase and couldn't help breathing a sigh of relief.

Without the slightest hesitation, he headed not down but straight up the stairs to the "sixth floor."

"Hahaha, what a bunch of idiots. I knew they'd want to torture me, but they haven't noticed a thing..."

Q Dalang had already worked out a plan.

There were countless traps below, leaving him no way through. His only chance of survival was to go "up"!

On the sixth floor, there was a small hidden space used to store spare equipment and other odds and ends.

"Haha, I'm the only one who knows about that place. There's no way [Usogui] and the others could have prepared for it!"

"As long as I get the climbing rope, escaping from here will be easy!"

"..."

Taking the stairs three at a time, Q Dalang rushed to a corner on the north side of the sixth floor, kicked through a wooden board, and pulled a large box out of the wall behind it.

He opened the box, and everything inside was just as Q Dalang had expected.

He was about to act when he caught sight of a spare display screen in one corner of the box. A red dot was flashing on it.

The screen showed the signal from the "tracker" Q Dalang had placed on Lodem, indicating which floor Lodem was on.

What Q Dalang had never expected was that the display showed Lodem's current location as the "fifth floor"!

Hadn't Lodem been shot dead on the sixth floor?!

"..."

After turning it over in his mind, Q Dalang thought of one possibility.

Neither Akagi Shigeru nor Baku Madarame had been a soldier, so they might not have been able to kill him with one shot.

It was very likely that, after Lodem went down, those people had gotten carried away and left in a hurry!

After the wounded Lodem woke up, he had wanted to find Q Dalang on the fifth floor, so he had staggered downstairs and was now wandering around that floor!

Q Dalang restarted the communications equipment and asked shakily, "Lo... Lodem?"

{Grr—!}

A familiar growl came from the other end of the earpiece.

Q Dalang was overjoyed. "Oh... oh! Lodem, you're all right? Can you still move?"

Lodem answered haltingly, {Can't see... hurts... but can still move...}

Q Dalang beat his chest and stamped his feet with joy, tears streaming down his face.

"Great, the advantage is mine!"

Now he had nothing left to fear. Everyone in the fifth-floor office had to die!

Although acid had already corroded Lodem's eyes, if he was simply killing indiscriminately, he didn't need to rely on his sight at all. Instinct alone was enough!

"Lodem, it doesn't matter if you can't see. Go kill everyone on your floor. Slaughter anyone who makes a sound!"

{Huff—!}

Lodem exhaled a breath of hot air, followed immediately by the sound of heavy footsteps.

"Hahahaha..."

Q Dalang couldn't stop laughing, but his expression suddenly froze, and his ears twitched.

Had he heard wrong?

Why were Lodem's footsteps growing clearer, as though he were getting closer and closer?

Q Dalang turned his head and froze, realizing it wasn't his imagination.

At the end of the passage, Lodem was charging toward him. His target was the only living person making a sound on the sixth floor—Q Dalang himself!

"What... Lodem!!"

Q Dalang's eyes widened, and for a moment he could hardly believe it.

The tracker clearly showed that Lodem was on the fifth floor!

Could someone have taken the tracker, making me think Lodem had gone to the fifth floor when he was actually still on the sixth?!

"Lo—"

Faced with the charging Lodem, Q Dalang wanted to shout for him to stop, but there was no time.

In the blink of an eye, Lodem swept a fist past the tip of Q Dalang's nose and smashed it into the wall beside him.

With a boom, a large section of the wall caved in, a fearsome fist print stamped at its center.

The power of that punch was inhuman, comparable to a head-on collision with a motorcycle!

Q Dalang could only roll out of the way. The blow knocked a few hairs off his head and nearly sent his head flying too, courtesy of Lodem.

Lodem's next attack followed close behind.

Run!

Without the slightest hesitation, Q Dalang bolted.

But the noise of his running attracted Lodem again, and he stayed on Q Dalang's heels like the god of death.

After rounding a corner, Q Dalang spotted a pile of iron racks and assorted junk. He seized the opportunity to overturn the racks, temporarily blocking Lodem.

"Ha—ha! Lodem... Lodem, stop—"

Bang! Bang!

Before Q Dalang could finish, two bullets suddenly came flying through the window.

While Lodem's movements were stiff, the two bullets passed one on either side, grazing his ears and drawing two streaks of blood.

The bullets' explosive reports at close range temporarily deafened Lodem. Unable to hear Q Dalang at all, he was intent only on killing the person before him and charged forward again.

"E... eeeee?!"