"Mr. Carl, the outside has been cleared."
Not long after Carl finished examining the remnants, members of the Special Operations Team passed through the now-empty passageway and arrived at her side.
Their reputation in present-day Night City was indeed formidable. While they could not make people flee at the mere mention of them like the Psycho Squad, they had more than enough clout to "persuade" a group of Maelstrom to temporarily vacate their territory.
Especially after the news that "KK is inside" spread.
Those Maelstrom members, who usually behaved with utter lawlessness, displayed astonishing efficiency and practicality at this moment.
They did not even need the Special Operations Team to waste many words. They simply grabbed their most valuable belongings and scattered like birds and beasts.
If they lost their turf, they could come back after KK left. But if KK came and they still did not run, what they needed was not courage, but a Cyberpsychosis diagnosis.
They were somewhat close to Cyberpsychosis, but they had not actually snapped yet.
Of course, it was not as though no Maelstrom members cared about the other group of bizarre Maelstrom still inside the factory. After all, the two sides had cooperated fairly smoothly these past few days for the sake of both being Maelstrom. But at most, they only cared a little.
They did not answer to the same boss to begin with. Maelstrom had always been loosely organized, usually operating in gangs of ten to thirty people, each with their own leader. Strictly speaking, they only obeyed the Maelstrom leader at the very top.
Their usual cooperation had been pleasant because they recognized each other's combat strength, and taking on security jobs together benefited both sides. But now the other side had even brought down KK, that walking disaster—if they