[Surveillance Robot]! The Phantom Troupe Takes Action!! Apprehending the Intruders!! (Part 2)

"The security around here has gotten much tighter."

Inside the van, a man covered in tattoos and moles, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, casually watched the scenery outside.

"Yeah~"

The driver gave only a brief reply.

"We've collected enough heads as tribute... Quiet down!!"

The tattooed, mole-covered man casually nudged the three hooded children lying in the back of the van with his foot.

"The hunt in Meteor City is almost at low tide."

The tattooed man leaned his head back comfortably. "Once we find the last one~~~"

"We'll have some fun before we leave, hehehe..."

His perverted laughter quickly filled the entire van.

Then, the next moment, after the van drove into the nearby woods—

"Oh? I'd just finished saying that, and we found one already~!!"

That perverse laughter turned into surprise and excitement.

The tattooed man looked out through the window with interest and spotted a short figure, clearly a child, walking through the woods.

"Ask and you shall receive. Looks like even heaven is helping us. We're really lucky!!"

The more he looked, the more satisfied he became. He immediately waved his hand. "Stop!!"

Screeech!!

With a hard brake,

the black van stopped directly in front of the child.

"This is the last prey for today~~~"

The tattooed man opened the door and stepped out.

"And my very own reward and toy~!!"

Looking at the child standing motionless before the suddenly appearing van and himself, seemingly frozen with fear, he nodded in satisfaction.

"This build and height are just right. What a perfect toy~!!"

A twisted desire flashed through the tattooed man's eyes as he looked toward the driver, who had gotten out behind him carrying various recording devices.

"This spot is perfect too."

The driver also had a cigarette in his mouth as he fiddled with the recording equipment, setting it up and aiming the camera this way.

Judging by his practiced movements, this was clearly not his first time doing this.

"To have this kind of entertainment before leaving~~~ We really hit the jackpot."

With the theater and stage here already set up, the tattooed man could barely contain himself as he walked toward the child.

"Let me think about how I should spoil you~~~"

The tattooed man could not help sticking out his tongue and vigorously licking his lips.

The brutality and greed in his eyes could not be concealed.

"How about I do whatever comes to mind, then write it all down properly afterward so everyone in Meteor City knows exactly what I did~~~"

"You people living in this place belong with this garbage. You should rot here forever..."

"Hehehe, I'm getting more and more impatient. Just thinking about your crying and wailing makes me tremble with excitement~~~ Hehehe!!"

The tattooed man cackled as he walked toward the child step by step.

But suddenly—

"Trembling, are you?"

The child in front of him suddenly spoke. That incomparably low voice made the tattooed man halt.

Huh?!!

His eyes widened slightly as the child lifted his head, revealing a pair of narrow fox-like eyes.

"Listening to that really makes me sick!!"

As soon as those words fell—

Boom!!

A loud crash suddenly came from the left, making both the driver preparing to film and the tattooed man instinctively turn their heads that way.

"You're really too stupid."

Those words rang out beside both of them almost simultaneously, and then—

Bang!!!

Both of them took a heavy blow to the other side of their faces, sending their bodies flying backward.

"This is... a rock?!"

Feeling the shattered stones burst across his face, that was the tattooed man's final thought.

Then his vision went black, his head tilted aside, and he lost consciousness.

"This was even easier than I expected..."

Feitan, disguised as a child, lowered the blades he had prepared inside his pockets.

Looking at the two men who had been struck by rocks and sent flying to collapse off to one side, he spat.

"Who are you calling the same size as a child?!!"

He was deeply displeased by those two scumbags' description of him.

"Can't be helped. You were the most suitable bait, weren't you?"

Phinks stepped out from behind the tree on the left, grinning.

"We couldn't exactly let Sarasa be the bait. If anything went wrong, that wouldn't be good."

"And I think you're pretty suited for it too... uh~~~"

When Phinks saw Feitan's death glare, he sheepishly shut his mouth.

"Hahahaha, I thought this would be a huge hassle, but this was it?!!"

Uvogin strode out from behind the tree on the right, laughing arrogantly.

"Just two rocks, and we knocked them both flat~~~"

Laughing, he looked at the two men sprawled on the ground and curled his lip disdainfully.

"They're complete trash."

"You can't put it that way~~~"

Shalnark jumped down from a concealed large tree.

"If Mog's [invention] hadn't given us enough information in time~~~"

Shalnark shook the screen remote in his hand. "We wouldn't have come up with a plan like this."

Their plan had been very simple.

Weren't these people specifically here to kidnap children from Meteor City?

Then they had Feitan, whose size and build closely resembled a child's, walk alone through the woods to draw their attention.

Sure enough, they successfully fooled those two men and lured them out of the van.

Then Feitan spoke up in front of them to catch them off guard, while Phinks created a loud noise on the right.

This drew both men's attention toward the right.

Then Uvogin, hiding on the right, took advantage of their distraction and decisively threw the rocks they had prepared beforehand.

He hurled them straight at their foreheads.

Judging from the result, the plan had gone extremely smoothly. Everything proceeded exactly as they had envisioned.

And even if something had gone wrong, Shalnark, Franklin, Chrollo, and Mog were hidden in the other trees as backup.

With so many of them, dealing with these two idiotic scumbags was more than enough.

In fact, those two should have felt honored that the future Phantom Troupe members had all mobilized to welcome them~

It could be said that the overall plan had been very simple.

But just as Shalnark had said, they had only been able to devise such a plan thanks to the intelligence Mog provided.

Only by knowing the enemy's exact circumstances could they formulate an appropriate plan and take action.

And the source of that intelligence naturally could not do without his [invention]:

Invention: [Monitoring Robot].

Source: Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf World—Chief Slow Goat.

Effect: A small, round robot like a surveillance camera. It can patrol through the sky, and the footage it captures is transmitted to the screen remote in real time.

The one in Shalnark's hand was that screen remote.

The current situation at the scene was displayed on the screen of that small square device.

And if they looked up, they would find that small round monitoring robot floating above everyone's heads.

It had originally been a monitoring robot Chief Slow Goat used to watch whether Lazy Goat would invade Goat Village.

Now Mog had taken it out to monitor the black van, and it was perfectly suited for the job~!

"Come on, come out. It's safe now."

Pakunoda and Shira had also rescued all the children from inside the van.

The two of them gently comforted the children. Once the children realized they had finally escaped danger—

they could not help letting out muffled sobs.