The Client Came in Person

Chen Mo lay in the basement for four hours.

The standing water had already soaked through his clothes.

The wound on his lower back, cut open by rubble, had been submerged in filthy water, burning with pain.

Leaning against the wall, he began seriously studying the system panel.

He had not had time to examine it closely while fleeing for his life. Now, he finally had a chance to catch his breath.

[Infinite Kaio-ken System]

[Host: Chen Mo]

[Current Level: 2x Kaio-ken]

[Upgrade Requirement: Reach 100 Emotion Points to unlock 3x Kaio-ken]

[Current Emotion Points: 17/100]

[Emotion Collection Target: Android 18]

He scrolled down.

[Emotion Point Acquisition Rules]

[Different emotion types correspond to different multiplier bonuses:]

[Curiosity: ×1]

[Surprise: ×1.5]

[Anger: ×2]

[Fear: ×2 (Note: The probability of an Android experiencing fear is extremely low)]

[Pleasure: ×2]

[Obsession: ×3]

Obsession. A threefold bonus.

Make an Android who treated destroying cities as entertainment develop an obsession with an ordinary human.

He continued reading and found another warning in red.

[Warning: The host's current physical rating is F- (the lower limit for ordinary humans). Forcibly using higher multipliers will result in irreversible injuries such as torn muscle fibers, shattered bones, and ruptured internal organs. The host is advised to begin physical enhancement training immediately.]

[The Kaio-ken multipliers accumulated by this system will not place additional strain on the body. Infinite Kaio-ken System—you deserve it.]

He flexed his wrist, and his bones cracked.

He needed to gather one hundred Emotion Points to upgrade to 3x Kaio-ken.

He only had seventeen points at the moment. Those seventeen points had come from a kiss and one desperate escape.

And Emotion Points could only be obtained from Android 18.

In other words, if he wanted to grow stronger, he had to keep coming into contact with Android 18.

A woman who treated cities like building blocks to knock over.

"System, do you actually want me to level up, or do you want me dead?"

Chen Mo stretched his limbs. After confirming that he could walk, he felt his way along the wall toward the basement exit.

Outside, the sky had gone completely dark.

The fires still burned, but they were much dimmer than they had been four hours ago.

The inferno consuming West City was slowly dying out, because there was almost nothing left to burn.

Chen Mo climbed out of the basement and headed east along the shadows of the ruins.

The original owner's memories told him that six kilometers east lay the ruins of a supermarket.

There was a cold storage room beneath the supermarket, which had been converted into a shelter.

It was one of the few remaining human gathering points in the area.

The person in charge of the shelter was called Old Zhang. The original owner had been there twice.

It took Chen Mo an hour and a half to cover those six kilometers.

A distance an ordinary person could run in half an hour took him an hour and a half to walk.

It was not because he was slow. He had to avoid every open area, squeeze along gaps in the ruins, and whenever he came across an exposed stretch, crouch down and wait a few minutes before crossing.

Only a section of wall at the northeast corner and a slanted piece of roof remained of the entire building.

The sign at the entrance had fallen to the ground. Of the words "West City Chain Lifestyle Supermarket," three characters were missing, leaving only "City Life Market."

Living in a city like this really was thrilling.

Chen Mo circled around to the east side of the supermarket and found an iron door blocked by a collapsed shelf.

He raised his hand and knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more, paused, and finally knocked once.

Someone was listening on the other side of the iron door.

"What are we eating today?" a hoarse male voice came from behind the door.

"Dirt," Chen Mo replied.

The password matched.

The three locks opened one after another. The iron door was pulled open a crack, revealing half a wrinkled face.

"You are..." Old Zhang narrowed his eyes and studied him for several seconds in the weak flashlight beam. "Chen Mo? You brat, you're still alive?"

"Alive." Chen Mo turned sideways and squeezed in.

The iron door shut behind him.

The three locks were secured again.

Old Zhang led him down a narrow staircase.

The stairs had once been the freight passage of a cold storage facility. Water stains and footprints marked the concrete steps.

Chemical glow sticks hung on the walls every few meters, giving off a dim yellow light.

The cold storage facility was not large.

Chen Mo swept his gaze over it as he entered. There were around thirty people.

Men, women, old people, and children. Some were families, some were alone, all sitting or lying on the floor.

A few cardboard boxes and plastic buckets were piled in the corner. Those were the supplies.

There was very little.

"How's the west?" Old Zhang asked in a low voice.

The shelter was quiet. Everyone was looking at Chen Mo.

In a world like this, the information brought back by someone returning from outside was more important than food.

Because that information determined whether they would still be alive tomorrow.

"West City is finished," Chen Mo said. "No. 18 was over there this afternoon, knocking down all the remaining buildings."

Silence fell.

"What about No. 17?" Old Zhang pressed.

"It was there too." Chen Mo thought for a moment. "But I only saw No. 18. No. 17's sounds came from the north. It might be in the Northern District."

"So the east is safe for now?"

"Not sure. But they should have headed west today."

Old Zhang nodded and turned to rummage through the supplies in the corner.

"Old Zhang," a voice called from Chen Mo's right, "give him something to eat."

Chen Mo turned his head.

The speaker was a young woman in her early twenties. She had a ponytail and dust on her face, but her features were fairly delicate.

She wore an ill-fitting army-green coat and held half of something in her hand.

A compressed biscuit, broken into two pieces.

She handed one half to Chen Mo.

Chen Mo glanced at the biscuit, then at her.

"You don't even have enough to eat yourself."

"You ran back from the west. You need it more than I do." The ponytailed woman pressed the biscuit into his hand. "Eat. It's shelter rules. Anyone who brings back information gets a bite to eat."

Chen Mo did not refuse again. He took it and bit down.

The compressed biscuit tasted exactly the same as the ones he had eaten in his previous life.

It tasted awful. But chewing it now made him feel especially grounded.

"Thanks. What's your name?"

"Lin Ke." The ponytailed woman sat beside him against the wall. "And you? I heard Old Zhang call you Chen Mo?"

"That's right."

"How did you make it back alive from the west? It was exploding over there all afternoon."

Chen Mo chewed the biscuit and answered vaguely, "I got lucky. I hid in a basement and wasn't discovered."

Lin Ke studied him for a few seconds but did not press further.

Everyone who survived in this world understood one truth: being alive needed no reason. Only death did.

If you said you were lucky, then you were lucky. No one had the energy to question it.

Chen Mo leaned against the cold wall and swallowed the last bite of biscuit.

He closed his eyes.

Five p.m.

He was still eighty-three short of a hundred.

Curiosity was worth one times, giving five points. Shock plus confusion gave twelve.

If he wanted to efficiently obtain emotion points, he needed to provoke stronger emotional fluctuations. Anger was worth two times, pleasure two times, and obsession three times.

Chen Mo sifted through the original plot in his mind.

Android 18 in the Future Saga was different from the one in the main timeline.

The Android 18 of the main storyline had later been moved by Krillin, gotten married, had children, and lived a normal life.

But in this timeline, there was no Krillin. No one had ever given her a positive impression of "humans."

She only found humans boring. Weak, insignificant, and all exactly alike.

Chen Mo suddenly opened his eyes.

If he did not grow stronger, he was no different from an ant.

The only way to become stronger was this system.

And the system's way of charging up was Android 18's emotions.

Fine.

Back when he had been a corporate drone, he could accept even the most ridiculous demands from clients. Now, the client had merely changed into a blonde beauty who could blast apart mountains with one hand.

At their core, there was no difference. Both meant trading his life for money.

As he was thinking, someone knocked on the iron door.

Chen Mo opened his eyes.

Everyone in the shelter pricked up their ears.

Thump, thump, thump.

Three knocks.

A pause.

Thump, thump.

Two knocks.

Everything had been correct up to this point. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the final knock.

The pause passed.

There was no final knock.

The signal was wrong.

Old Zhang rose from the corner and gestured for everyone to stay quiet.

More than thirty people fell silent in an instant. Even the little girl under five buried her face in her father's arms.

Chen Mo's heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

Outside the iron door, there was silence for three seconds.

Then someone spoke.

"I know there are people down there."

A woman's voice.

Cool and lazy, carrying a trace of careless indifference.

Chen Mo recognized that voice.

Android 18.

Someone in the basement began to tremble.

A middle-aged man pulled his wife and child behind him.

Old Zhang's face turned pale. His lips trembled, but he forced himself not to make a sound.

Lin Ke grabbed Chen Mo's sleeve. Her hand was icy cold.

Outside the iron door, Android 18 spoke again.

"I don't want to play guessing games. It's not fun at all."

It was a light, casual remark.

Then she said the words that made Chen Mo's scalp go numb.

"Hand over the one among you who can give off red energy. I'm only looking for him."