I Fought Kal'tsit? Seriously?

Robin didn't know who in the crowd had laughed, but she didn't feel particularly ashamed. Her mind was entirely occupied with simulating what would happen next. As she stood, she merely said to the prison guard in a low voice, "Sorry, sir. I should've watched where I was going."

"Don't worry about it." Saria glanced back at the dejected Robin, then at the cut on her knee. She didn't say much else. "Stop by the infirmary when you get back. Be careful it doesn't get infected."

"Ah, okay." Robin was somewhat baffled by the prison guard's sudden kindness, but she obediently nodded.

Just as Robin patted her knee and casually wiped at the scrape, a furtive figure slowly approached from behind.

She looked up to see a Liberi girl with her prison uniform's hood pulled up wave at her. Once Robin came closer, the girl directly shoved a bandage into her hand.

"Thank you," Robin said quietly. That small bit of kindness from a fellow inmate eased her mood somewhat—but when she saw the girl continuously rubbing two fingers together in the gesture for "pay up," she couldn't help giving a self-mocking smile. "I don't have any money on me right now. Can I pay you later?"

"Just kidding." The Liberi girl—or rather, Kafka—quietly stepped into Robin's shadow. "We're both girls. Of course we should look out for each other, right?"

Kafka discreetly glanced at Saria, who was standing ahead waiting for the elevator, as well as the other prison guard chatting idly with the prisoners. Then she whispered, "I heard our luck's pretty bad today. They're sending us to clear rubble, and they even made us volunteer for it."

"It was supposed to be a chance to relax after working hard, but it suddenly turned into heavy manual labor today." The girl clicked her tongue. "Sigh, I hope it isn't too exhausting. I was hoping to play around in one of the empty C Section rooms for a while."

Robin wanted to say something else, but the prison guard in the distance seemed to have heard the commotion among the crowd and immediately shouted over, "Hey! You two over there, stop talking!"

So she could only sigh and commit the girl's appearance to memory, hoping she might run into her again after they returned.

Inside Mansfield Prison, even a single bandage was kindness warm enough to cherish.

The cleanup crew made up of prisoners slowly entered this level of C Section.

An indescribable sense of oppression hung in the air. Mottled light and shadow on the walls cast the silhouettes of guards and prisoners alike. Before they even reached the cells, they could see rubble and metal fragments scattered all over the floor, likely blown here by the wind. It looked as though a small war had just taken place.

Robin's fingers instinctively reached for the dagger in her pocket, and the sweat in her palm betrayed her nervousness.

Though she tried her hardest to remain calm, every step she took after entering C Section felt like walking a tightrope. Every beat of her heart carried fear of the unknown and anxiety over failure.

The prison guard who had been joking around up front stopped and turned around, sweeping his cold gaze across the group. His voice echoed through the empty corridor. "Your task is simple. Clear away all the rubble, and don't cause me any trouble. If anyone tries to slack off or do anything unnecessary..."

"Hehe, then pray you die a little faster. Staying alive will only be more painful."

A malicious grin suddenly spread across his face as he waited to see whether any of the prisoners in front of him would be scared shitless... Yet, to his surprise, almost none of them showed much nervousness.

Seeing that things weren't quite as he'd imagined, he spat hard on the ground and pressed his palm against the lock. "Enough. Grab your tools and get in there to work. If you don't do a good job later, I'll make you—?!"

The words had barely left his mouth.

A club smashed directly into the back of his helmeted head. The shock rattling through the helmet's lining and his skull made him stumble dizzily against the wall.

Then several more blows struck the spots his armor failed to protect, knocking him unconscious on the spot.

"Hey, what were you gonna do, asshole?"

Having achieved his goal, the vicious-looking prisoner quickly turned his gaze toward Saria, who was standing nearby at a loss(?), merely staring blankly in place. He swung his club at her as well.

Saria instinctively caught the blow, only then realizing that her reaction had been inappropriate.

But several other prisoners quickly attacked her with the weapons in their hands. She slowly backed into Anthony's cell, dodging the prisoners' attacks with her back toward the damaged wall. They soon instinctively grouped together and forced Saria into a corner.

Then, finding an opening, she took a kick to the abdomen that only barely grazed her and let herself fly through the hole into Gerald's room behind it.

"?"

Gerald looked at the "frail woman" lying on the floor playing dead, and the corner of his mouth couldn't help twitching.

If Blue Cardwood stunt doubles all acted at this level, most of them probably wouldn't even be able to afford food.

After seeing the prison guard get beaten into Gerald's room, the remaining prisoners visibly lost their nerve. They shifted their targets toward their own fellow inmates instead, their eyes gleaming fiercely.

They had never been told beforehand that there would be "teammates" of their own.

But there was only one reward. That big tiger had already been shackled to the wall, so as long as they dealt with his remaining "teammates," they could claim the reward they deserved.

Then daggers met eyes, clubs struck heads, and blood flowed into trickling streams between the rubble and dust.

Robin was the first to be targeted.

She had never imagined things would turn out this way. She had even prepared herself to die here, let alone attack prison guards... So in everyone's eyes, she and Kafka had become soft targets that could be bullied and eliminated at will.

The incoming attack quickly gave her an idea—when that prison guard had been knocked into the room just now, almost all of them had hesitated. So as long as she did the same thing and pretended to have been knocked unconscious, she could find a chance to come back!

It had to be said that her thinking was exactly the same as Saria's.

The only difference was that Robin was betting her life on a risky choice, while Saria had made her judgment with full knowledge of the situation.

So after dodging another attack, she felt her way to the large hole connecting the two rooms and threw herself backward through it, away from the battlefield where they were fighting—

And landed in someone's arms.

Feeling breath against her neck, Robin felt her blood freeze in an instant into the eternal ice of the tundra.

Death had never felt so close. She felt a pair of slender hands settle on her waist and search through her clothes—

Then remove both her dagger and her traps.

"Indeed. Very finely made."

She thought she heard the person say that.

In Anthony's cell, the slaughter that had begun was already about to end after only a few seconds.

Right before everyone's eyes, the Liberi girl had stepped in front of Anthony, taken an attack for him head-on, then theatrically fallen to the ground, her fate unknown(?).

The three assassins still standing exchanged glances before looking together at their target.

They had no strength left to waste on one another. Once they secured the kill, there would be plenty of time to decide a winner among themselves.

But their thinking quickly changed.

The chains on the wall, which had been nothing more than decoration, were instantly torn apart by Anthony. He swung his fists, smashing them again and again into their weapons.

The weight of those fists was enough to make teeth ache the moment they touched flesh. Muscle and bone collapsed and shattered in an instant.

When one of them had his head smashed open by those fists and fell unconscious to the floor, the remaining two finally realized their mistake. They cautiously took a step back with daggers in hand, circling him in a standoff.

The blood flowing through the cell, along with the attack Kafka had just blocked for him—everything made Anthony unable to suppress the anger in his heart. "Who sent you?"

"Heh... hehe, you'll never know—"

The vicious-looking prisoner suddenly couldn't speak anymore. He touched his throat, confusedly trying to understand why something so strange had happened.

But all he could touch was a neck full of blood.

Along with the unconscious prisoner lying on the ground, all three men who had attacked Anthony suddenly bore a line of blood across their throats.

Like the people they had just killed, aside from breathing for a few minutes longer, they became mere decoration and embellishment in this hell, using their lives to add the final strokes to the painting.

"...They're about to lose the ability to move." Anthony looked at Gerald with a complicated expression. "I'm not blaming you. I just... I'm not used to something this fast."

He knew his friend had been to war, but such decisive methods still made him feel... uncomfortable.

"Only death doesn't lie to us, Anthony." Gerald gently wiped the blood from his dagger. "Since they couldn't be communicated with and only wanted you dead, I wouldn't risk letting a friend suffer an attack from behind. Especially not that other one besides you—so put away that meaningless mercy on your face and throw it in the trash."

Then he placed the dagger against the throat of the girl in his arms.

"Come on. Anything else you want to say, miss?"

These were the last few seconds of her life.

Robin's memories flashed rapidly through her mind. She wanted to smash the scene before her to pieces. She wasn't dead yet.

She had to say one final sentence.

Something that might, perhaps, offer a sliver of hope and save her own life.

"A deal."

A fierce desire bloomed in her eyes—the desire to live.

"I want to make a deal with you, Mr. Gerald. In exchange for my life."

Mr. J Exposure Countdown

Robin had completely understood just how absurd this entire matter was.

Back when she had still been a security officer responsible for transporting important personnel and protecting clients, one of her seniors had talked to her about assassinations and how to respond to them.

The first point, and the most crucial one, was information.

If one could see every moment and everything that had happened from a god's-eye view, then even the strongest person could be killed.

Setting traps, using buildings and poison, even sowing discord—this was the advantage of the enemy being exposed while you remained hidden.

So after Robin calmed down and looked at that large hole again, she already knew she had failed.

And she had failed completely.

It wasn't that she couldn't kill him—if she combined her traps with the perfect setting, Anthony's physical strength probably couldn't withstand fragments and shockwaves from an instantaneous explosion. Trying to break through his defenses wasn't some impossible fantasy. There was a chance.

But she had never acted with the mindset of an assassin, nor had she ever truly made up her mind.

The outcome was settled, and there was nowhere left to retreat. At this point, Robin instead felt a trace of relief.

Handing her life over to someone else, not having to think about anything, focusing on just one thing—it felt incredible. She only needed to do her utmost to stay alive.

"I was hired to come to Mansfield Prison."

"The person who hired me was an R Forum user using the alias 'Generous J.' They contacted me through private messages on the forum. It was a forum for security personnel."

Robin felt her adrenaline continuously rise. The fear brought by the dagger was slowly swallowed by the neurotransmitters flooding her body, allowing her to say what she wanted to say smoothly. "They told me to kill someone, and in return, I could get a sum of money."

She deliberately didn't mention what the money was for, or the fact that her father was still lying in the hospital.

In front of this person, any trace of personal emotion would lower his opinion of her.

"They transferred the money to my card in advance. At the same time, they knew exactly what had happened to me and concluded that I would accept the offer," she continued. "A deposit of three hundred thousand Columbia gold certificates, followed by another 1.7 million. It was about the same as five years at my old job."

"Anonymous transfers. I asked the bank and the platform, but the information can't be traced."

"That's everything."

Robin finished speaking in one breath, then quietly remained where she was, waiting for his judgment.

Perhaps she still had enough strength left to look at the final scene of her life—thinking this, she began to let her gaze wander around the room.

She couldn't seem to smell the blood. That was probably a side effect of being too nervous. Even though blood had soaked the floor completely, all she could think about was how to clean it up... Come to think of it, those cleaning tools hadn't even been used yet. What if they made her clean everything before letting her go back?

Haha, that would be exhausting. She might as well die.

But she couldn't die. She could no longer cling to her father and act spoiled like she had in the past.

She had to become the one supporting him.

"Can you give me the dagger?" Robin's breathing gradually steadied. She felt the coldness transmitted from the blade pressed against her throat. "I promise, I only want to prove something to you."

"Prove something to me?"

Gerald repeated her words, spun the dagger once in his hand, and handed it to Robin. "Fine. Go ahead."

The instant she took the dagger, Robin pointed its tip at her own thigh. After taking several deep breaths, she viciously drove it down.

The moment the dagger pierced Robin's thigh, blood violently sprayed out. The dark red fluid, like a breached dam, quickly soaked through part of her prison uniform. Splattered blood landed on the bed beside her, staining a section of the sheets and blanket red.

"—Ugh... Hah... hah..."

Robin's breathing became rapid, and her voice trembled from the pain, but she still struggled to steady herself and didn't collapse. One hand gripped the dagger's hilt tightly while the other braced against the floor, trying to maintain her balance.

Fortunately, she didn't know exactly where the artery in her thigh was. If she'd struck it, she didn't know whether she could survive the time it took to get from here to the infirmary.

But the spasms and pain in her muscles were still unavoidable, especially as the effects of her adrenaline neared their end. The signals racing from her thigh to her brain would make her wish she were dead.

"My hands... can be used to make tools. They're what I rely on to make a living... I'm sorry, they can't be cut off, or my value will decrease..."

Enduring the unforgettable pain, Robin spoke in broken fragments. "If it's only my leg... that's fine... And this way, whoever is monitoring me from behind can rest easy after seeing this... Even if he's watching through surveillance right now, he'll only think I paid a price to earn everyone's forgiveness..."

"And I will be of use to you."

The silence in the room lasted for quite a while. Anthony had already been unable to resist pulling free of his shackles and walking over to Gerald, while Saria, who was still lying on the floor, had silently extended Calcification to the bedside. If anything had truly gone wrong just now, she could at least save Robin's life immediately.

The reason neither of them spoke to interrupt was Gerald's expression.

There was anger on his face. He was... angry?

Gerald was indeed angry.