Yulia quickly regained consciousness.
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A concussion occurred when external force shook the neurons and damaged their structure. But the Metal-Based Protein created by the Father of All Machines formed cells far more resilient than those of natural humans. On top of that, industrial machinery had some truly impressive shock absorption systems, so even though Yulia had rolled through the air before landing hard on her front end, she had suffered no substantial damage.
But her left rear wheel was gone. A steel rod falling from the sky had pierced straight through it.
That was what had caused her crash.
Time rewound to a few minutes earlier.
"So that means this little town doesn't have protection anymore, right?"
At that moment, a voice suddenly rang out from within the swirling dust.
At the same time, noisy yet heavy footsteps began to sound. Panic had already been building among the crowd when the welfare officer announced that the protection had been revoked. Now, those words ignited their fear.
Youji's eyes widened. Through the dust, he saw several vague black silhouettes gradually becoming clearer. Then he rebooted his lenses—he suspected he might have seen wrong. In his vision, the figures charging out of the darkness were actually three meters tall, their arms seemingly held straight out at their sides. But those arms were wildly disproportionate to their bodies—they were simply too long.
Youji stared. "What are those?"
"Come with me, now!" Yulia reversed and skillfully hooked Youji around the waist with her unloading rack. The maneuver would probably have been fatal for a natural human, but Youji would only need to replace a few parts at most.
The ones coming to cause trouble were probably thugs, but they absolutely could not get caught up in a thug fight.
But just as Yulia fled with Youji, that steel rod fell from the sky.
—Youji...
Yulia detected crying. She did not need to compare voiceprints. That was her son. Youji was sprawled on the ground, bawling his eyes out. One of his legs had detached from his body in the accident, leaving him unable to move.
"Good boy..." Yulia shouted rapidly. "Put your leg back on! Didn't you learn repairs from Yawg? Hurry! Hurry up..."
"Mom!" Youji cried in ecstatic surprise. "You're okay! That's great!"
"I'm telling you to check your leg already!" Yulia was frantic. She did not know what had happened, whether that attack had been collateral damage from a fight or something aimed at them. She only wanted her son to get away from here as quickly as possible.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Metal struck metal. It was applause.
Leif stood to one side, his face filled with sorrow. "What touching mother-son affection."
"You're... a thug..." Yulia was horrified. "What do you want? My prosthetic body or my brain lobes? You..."
"Relax, relax." Leif pretended to wipe away nonexistent tears. "I'm not interested in a prosthetic body like yours, madam. A brain stem discarded so early, brain lobes that have never been trained—they aren't worth much either."
He strode forward.
Yulia instantly saw what the giant man intended.
—Youji...
Yulia's front wheels spun. She wanted to ram the giant with every last bit of strength she had. But her industrial prosthetic body was simply too cumbersome. With her rear wheel gone and her power damaged, she could not get herself moving in time.
Leif grabbed Youji. He could hold the child in one hand.
"All right, little guy. I heard you were the one who dug that man out of the scrapyard." Leif smiled. "He wouldn't just stand by and watch you die, would he?"
Youji's eyes widened. "Your target is... Master..."
"'Master'?" Leif repeated the word. "You mean... 'Master'?"
Leif: [Hey, Jingbao Kui, did you hear that?]
Because of the distance, the signal had become somewhat poor.
Jingbao Kui: [Yeah, "Master." An unexpectedly big fish? Only famous Vagrant swordsmen would qualify to have students use that word.]
Leif: [But isn't that strange? Would a Vagrant really let himself end up in that... that state of losing everything?]
Vagrants did not lose everything. The moment they raised the banner of rebellion against existing civilization, they had already prepared to give up their lives. They would rather die than lose their Inner Power—rather than become slaves of tyrants again.
Vagrants were also the hardest to capture alive.
Without brainwashing them, even if everything was taken from them, they would use their own strength to seek out every crack in society and become Vagrants again.
But if they truly lost their Inner Power and their ability to resist, they would choose death.
Even Vagrants brainwashed into the Greenwood Road were no exception to this.
Civilization's protectors, such as the lords, understood this as well. Vagrants rarely became prisoners. They were either executed on the spot, or their brains were directly dismantled and turned into another kind of resource.
That was why many people speculated that Xiang Shan was a martial artist who had lost his Martial Arts Algorithm, rather than a Vagrant.,-*' ^ '~*-.,_,.-*~ ~*-.,_,.-*~' ^ '*-,
Jingbao Kui: [Whatever... Find an opening and plant a Trojan in him first! Even if he really is some legendary Vagrant, without memory storage equipment, he can't recall his Inner Power in a short time!]
[Ah, wouldn't that be even better?] Leif grinned viciously. [That would mean our new brother definitely has talent in Inner Power! Get to the location and lie in wait, understand?]
Laughing loudly, he skewered Youji on the iron rod and raised him high. Youji struggled without stop. But Leif merely kept adjusting the steel rod, firmly controlling the center of the small body. Youji's struggles disrupted the dynamic balance between himself and the rod, but Leif only needed to twitch a finger to restore that balance.
Laughing, he walked through the town's streets and alleys. Everyone along the way avoided him. The village's self-defense force was meaningless against a martial artist of this caliber. People only screamed and fled desperately from his side.
[To your left.]
Following Jingbao Kui's instructions, Leif kept turning.
Jingbao Kui had infiltrated the surveillance network. In the city, it was as though he had activated a full-map cheat.
Then Leif spoke. "Hey, Enoch, my brother up ahead, where do you think you're going?"
Enoch, who had been running for his life, immediately froze.
"Lord Leif..." He desperately adjusted his voice toward the parameters of "flattery." "So it was you..."
Although Leif had changed prosthetic bodies, that original face of his...
"Oh my, I've never appeared before you looking like this, have I?" Leif laughed. "It's just a quick hot-swap of the brain. If you had several prosthetic bodies, you'd understand too!"
"I... I naturally can't compare to Mr. Leif... I..."
"I need to trouble you again, Enoch." Leif said gently. "Could you take poor Mr. Leif to this child's home? I'm here for that martial artist."
"Enoch!" Youji exploded instantly. "You bastard! You told him! You hurt Mom! It was you! You!"
He kicked and struck wildly. But Leif merely shook his weapon, maintaining the same position.
Enoch, however, was startled. "Yulia... What happened to Yulia...?"
"Relax, relax. I've heard your love poems. I didn't lay a hand on that industrial machine." Leif laughed heartily. "Will you take me there?"
Once he heard that Yulia was unharmed, Enoch relaxed. He stopped thinking about anything else. He did not dare disobey Leif and could only obediently lead the way.
Youji continued screaming curses. "You were the one who shoved Master back then too, weren't you? You bastard! Bastard!"
"Hey, brat." Leif bounced the rod in his hand. "Is this really the time to worry about that?"
"What?"
"Have you not thought about why I chose to capture you?" Leif smiled.
Youji's expression stiffened.
Leif burst into laughter.
Youji was merely a bargaining chip in the "deal."
Although neither Leif nor Jingbao Kui believed that the martial artist called "Shan" could match them, they still needed to prevent "Shan" from escaping. The Bionic Fist Technique was less aggressive than Leif's staff technique, but a light prosthetic body had a considerable advantage in long-distance pursuits.
They had taken Youji only to make sure "Shan" could not leave.
Of course, there were other uses for him.
Ideally, they intended to use Youji as a hostage and force Shan to accept the Trojan implant.
That way, Jingbao Kui could kill "Shan" at any time.
Soon, Enoch said, "It's just ahead..."
Youji's home was not far from there. Leif looked at the dilapidated shack and shook his head.
A building like this could not provide any effective defense. He had no idea what that "Shan" was hiding inside for.
—Come to think of it, was he really inside?
The infrared vision of his artificial eyes showed that there was indeed a heat source inside the house, slightly warmer than the surroundings.
He considered whether to use the wind pressure generated by his staff to blast apart the shack, or simply kick down the door.
"All right, step back." Leif waved a hand, telling Enoch to get lost. Enoch looked at Youji as though he still had something on his mind. But Leif barked, "What is it? If a fight breaks out, I won't have time to look after you."
Enoch jumped and fawned, "How could that be? How could that 'Yawg' possibly compare to you?"
Though he said that, he still backed away slowly.
And quite naturally dragged things out for a few more seconds.
A moment later, Jingbao Kui sent the signal that he was "ready."
He had already entered within thirty meters. At that range, the Wi-Fi signal was strong enough. His Inner Power could transmit through the air without obstruction, using Leif's eyes to perform the technique of "witnessing."
"Very good..." Leif muttered, then shouted at the door, "Hey, nameless martial artist, you're still in there, right? A fellow of the martial world has come to compare what he's learned with you! Please come out?"
There was no response.
"Oh? Not coming out?" Leif called. "Then what happens to this benefactor of yours might be hard to say, you know?"
"Master!" Youji shouted from the air. "Don't fall for their trick! I believe you're strong! You just haven't remembered yet! You can escape! Avenge me later! Master! You..."
"Shut up!"
The steel rod gave a light jolt, squeezing the air from his lungs.
Youji, whose internal organs had not yet been replaced, immediately sprayed blood from his mouth and nose.
"Well? Are you coming out or not?" Leif shouted.
There was still no movement. The object inside was gradually giving off more heat, however.
"What the hell?" Leif grabbed Youji in one hand and prodded the door with his three-meter staff. To a natural human, this long rod was closer to a pillar or a city gate bar, but to him, it was merely a brow-height staff.
The house's main structure let out a groan of unbearable strain.
But the person inside still did not emerge.
Yulia, who had barely managed to move closer, was filled with despair.
—If Shan did not save that child now either...
"Tsk, martial artist, are you trying to tell us, 'This child has nothing to do with me. Do whatever you want with him'?" Leif shook his head and clicked his tongue. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. That kind of tactic isn't much use against heroes of the Greenwood Road, you know?"
He had not determined what exactly the heat source inside the house was, or whether there was a trap, so he did not attack rashly.
Without a clear view, he might not be able to grasp everything about his opponent. On the other hand, the Vagrant inside might have ways to counter him.
Even if he could destroy the house in half a move, he would be giving up the initiative of half a move.
If the one inside truly was an expert, the initiative of half a move might be enough to decide life and death.
"In that case..." Leif thrust his steel rod upward and tossed Youji high into the air. "You brought this on yourself!"
Youji flailed helplessly in midair, while Leif assumed something like a golfing stance.
Of course, it was only a threat. He did not intend to kill the child yet. If he did, the bargaining chip would truly lose all value.
At that instant, Youji's house exploded. A stream of silver light surged out like flowing water, then gently coiled around the steel rod.
—So fast...
That was Leif's first thought.