Raiders Appear

After Professor Amrin left, Amy came over to Leon with a smile.

"Boss, I saw you talking with Professor Amrin for a long time. Did you get a lot out of it?"

Leon glanced at Amy, whose smile bloomed like a flower and whose demeanor was radiant, suppressed his slightly restless emotions, and placed his fingers on her red lips, gently tracing them.

"Amrin is a talented man. He brought a lot of good news. I plan to promote him to C-Class Technician next week."

Amy was a little taken aback, then after a few seconds, she said:

"He should be a good person. Annie and Aurelio told me their father, Amrin, loves them deeply. He'd rather go hungry himself and leave the last bit of food for them."

"Those two kids are really sensible, smart, and adorable."

Leon lifted Amy's chin, his voice laced with teasing:

"What, are you thinking about having a child now?"

After lunch and some post-meal exercise, Leon was about to go see Shane and Carl.

Suddenly, a communication request came through on the walkie-talkie at his belt.

"Beep!"

Merle's voice, raspy like a drake's, came through.

"Boss, we've been ambushed!"

"Eight bastards rushed out from cover and hit us. Bright took two bullets. We killed one and caught one. The rest got away."

Leon was silent for a few seconds, then asked in a voice barely holding back his anger:

"How's Bright? Where was he hit?"

Merle's voice also carried some frustration. The task the boss had given him had gone wrong, which would lower his standing in the boss's eyes.

"Bright's okay. The Black Bear Armor blocked some of the damage. He took one in the shoulder and one in the arm. No bone damage. We've already stopped the bleeding."

Good. Just injuries, no loss of a combatant.

Leon quietly breathed a sigh of relief and said in a low voice:

"Bring the prisoner back. Make sure to put an extra bullet in the corpse's head."

"I'll be waiting for you at the base."

"Damn it. Anyone who dares to ambush my people will pay the price."

Ten minutes later, the combat squad returned. Everyone else was fine, except Bright, who was clutching his injured arm, grimacing in pain, and glaring hatefully at the male prisoner at Merle's feet.

He was a survivor from the Nursing Home Camp, who had come to Atlanta to visit his grandmother. Before the disaster, he'd just been an ordinary assembly line worker. In all these years, this was the first time he'd been shot.

Leon had someone send the injured Bright to the medical room. The Umbrella Corporation had two professional C-Class Medics. They could handle this kind of ordinary gunshot wound just fine.

He looked over the prisoner. Around forty years old, African-American, short curly hair, ordinary face with plenty of scars, tattoos on his arms and forehead. He looked like the kind of thug who'd spent years on the streets.

Scanning the combat squad, he pointed at the prisoner, whose hands and feet were bound, mouth taped shut, clothes filthy, and eyes full of terror, and said:

"The rest of you, go rest up."

"Merle, you bring this guy and come with me to the Underground Parking Lot."

The three of them arrived at the Underground Parking Lot. Leon didn't stand on ceremony. He kicked the prisoner to the ground, pulled out his knife, and as the prisoner stared in terror, stabbed him once in the shoulder and once in the arm.

Damn it. Daring to hurt my harvest, almost costing me a worker.

The searing pain made the prisoner collapse to the ground, cold sweat pouring off him, his whole body trembling.

Leon pulled the knife out, letting the blood gush freely from the wounds, and said in a vicious tone:

"Those two stabs are just the interest for hurting my people."

"Now, I'm giving you a chance. Answer my questions honestly, no lies, or next time it'll be four stabs."

He pressed his foot down on the prisoner's chest and ripped the tape off his mouth.

The prisoner instinctively wanted to cry out in pain, but Leon immediately kicked him hard in the face.

"Yell again, and you'll get the knife right now."

The African-American prisoner gritted his teeth, trembling, his face twisted, cold sweat beading on his forehead as he nodded.

"Where's your camp? How many people total?"

"Don't kill me. We just wanted to get some supplies."

Seeing the African-American prisoner dodging his question and trying to make excuses, Leon directly stomped on the wound on the prisoner's arm, grinding his foot down, and roared:

"Don't play dumb. Answer my question, or you'll get the knife."

The prisoner howled in agony, twisting his body to try and push Leon's foot away, only to get another kick to the face that knocked out several teeth.

"Stop stalling. Answer me!"

"It was Emden who talked us into it. The camp's food is almost gone. Without food, we'd starve."

"He said if we just ambushed them first and killed one or two, the rest would be scared off."

"We just wanted food."

Seeing the prisoner still babbling nonsense, Leon directly swung his blade at his head and sliced off one of his ears.

He pressed his knee against the man's face, aimed the knife tip at his eye, and said viciously, "Keep running your mouth, and I'll kill you right now."

The repeated injuries finally made this street thug understand what it meant to be ruthless and a man of few words. He didn't dare speak recklessly anymore.

"There were twelve of us together. We were all members of the nearby Fire Bull Gang. Emden was our squad leader."

"After the disaster, we fled outside and wandered for a while. Four of us died. Later, we found a small camp at the Chemical Plant outside Shaxi Town, thirty kilometers away. There were over a dozen people there, including old folks and kids."

"We all had guns, so we took the camp quickly. We took their food, stole their vehicles, and locked them up."

"But we didn't kill anyone. We just locked them in the Chemical Plant."

"Then the food ran out, and we had to go out looking for supplies."

"Emden said this area had fewer Zombies and it'd be easier to find food, so we came here."

"And then we ran into you."

As he spoke, the thug felt his body temperature draining away like his blood, tears and snot streaming down his face as he begged, "Save me! Spare me! I'm a bastard, but I haven't killed anyone. I just wanted some food, just wanted to survive."

"Go kill Emden. He's the real scumbag. He's done a lot of bad things. We were all forced into it."

"Spare me. I'll do anything."

"I don't want to die!"

Leon didn't believe a word of his bullshit. No one thinks they're beyond redemption. He kicked the prisoner in the face, shutting him up.

Then he turned to Merle and said, "Take him to the medical room first to stop the bleeding, then chain him up with iron shackles."

"After that, go gather all the combat squad members."

"Wait for me in Basement Level 1."

"I'm going to grab some gear. Today, we're going to fuck those bastards up."

Merle nodded excitedly and responded with fervor, "Got it, Boss. They're just a bunch of scum. Old Merle can take three of them alone."

Watching Merle walk away, Leon's mind turned to something else entirely.