Wipe Out a Squad

"Who are you?"

Facing the question, Suren gave the excuse he had prepared long ago. "I'm a Wilderness Hunter. Earlier, my team ran into a group of Lightning Lizards, and I got separated from them. I'm short on food and water now. If you're willing, I'd like to buy some—or trade for some."

Lacking knowledge of this world, he tried to keep his words as vague as possible.

The words were half true, half false. He was not making it all up; he had indeed encountered a pack of giant lizards earlier.

But unexpectedly, these people seemed to be here specifically to hunt those giant lizards that moved as fast as leopards.

Suren clearly caught the flash of delight on the faces of the people opposite him when he said that.

Sure enough, someone immediately asked, "You ran into a group of Lightning Lizards?"

"Yes."

Suren pointed back toward the passage. "On the left side of this tunnel, in the direction of B11 Zone, there's a huge group of them. I guess there's one of their nests there."

Hearing the precise answer, the delight on their faces deepened.

The captain with the Mechanical Prosthetic glanced at the gun on Suren's waist and asked, "You're alone? Which Wilderness Hunter Group are you with?"

Without thinking, Suren casually said, "I'm with the Straw Hat Wilderness Hunter Group."

"Oh?"

The captain narrowed his eyes slightly, as though something had occurred to him. Then his gaze fell on the black Storage Ring in Suren's hand. "Are you with the Crow Gang?"

At that, the expressions in the eyes of all eight people across from him turned subtly hostile.

"..."

Suren keenly caught their expressions, and his heart filled with caution.

He did not understand the exact meaning of the term "Crow Gang." But he vaguely felt that the other party sounded certain, as though they had noticed something about him.

Clearly, something was wrong.

He thought the problem might be the firearm at his waist.

Before, without anything to compare it to, he had not realized it. But now that he did, the Rune Firearm he had found in Bald Ivan's Storage Ring looked far more advanced than the weapons these people carried.

But clearly, admitting that he was a member of the "Crow Gang" might get him killed on the spot.

Suren knew that if the questioning continued, trouble might follow. He could only answer vaguely. "As you can see, I'm a freelance adventurer. Sorry, I only wanted to buy some food and water. If you don't have any to spare, then forget it."

"A freelance adventurer?"

Hearing that Suren did not belong to any gang, the captain's eyes shifted, suddenly turning amused.

But he had clearly noticed Suren's reservations. A friendly smile suddenly appeared on his face as he motioned for his subordinates to lower their guns. "No, what I mean is, if you don't have a gang, you can choose ours. As you can see, we're from the Steam Brotherhood. You can call me Dick."

As soon as he finished speaking, someone beside him added, "This is our captain, the famous Silver-Arm Dick of the East City Longge Street District."

Suren glanced at his silver Mechanical Arm from the corner of his eye and politely said, "Of course. I've heard of Captain Dick's great reputation."

Flattery never hurt anyone. Whether he knew the man or not, praising him was never wrong.

Judging from their tone, Suren guessed that this Steam Brotherhood was probably a major organization. And from what the others said, Dick was likely quite formidable.

Silver-Arm Dick suddenly changed his attitude and called out, "Brother, want to come into the camp and rest for a while? We can sell you some food and drinking water."

"Then thank you very much."

Though no guns were pointed at him now, Suren felt he had no right to refuse.

He entered the camp, where a bonfire was burning.

Suren had no intention of staying long, nor did he dare say too much. But clearly, they had been constantly probing into his background.

"What should I call you, brother?"

"My name is Suren."

"You're not an Official Professional yet?"

"No, I'm not."

"Oh, then you should consider joining our Steam Society even more. Once you join the gang, there'll be plenty of Job Advancement Materials and Alchemical Implant Blueprints for you to choose from. You know, aside from the Cross Society and the Crow Gang, no one in the Outer City can offer more resources than we can. And if you want to modify Mechanical Prosthetics, only our Steam Society is the very best."

"I'll think about it."

Suren had picked up a great deal of useful information from their words.

That city seemed to have a distinction between the Inner City and the Outer City.

And there were three major gangs in the Outer City.

Seeing that Suren had not agreed, Captain Dick began talking about the purpose of their trip.

He tested the waters. "We came out this time to prepare the cursed materials our Vice Captain Lawen needs for an Alchemical Implant. Our targets are Lightning Lizard Leg Tendon, or Cave Horned Dog Hide. If you have any of those materials, brother, you can sell them to us."

"Sorry, I don't. Our group ran into danger and got scattered not long after leaving, so we didn't gain anything."

"..."

The atmosphere of the conversation still seemed fairly harmonious.

They prepared three days' worth of drinking water and food for Suren.

Suren had not intended to think the worst of human nature, but the next action told him it was time to make a move.

The water flask they handed him showed several words when appraised by the All-Seeing Eye: Water with Neuro-Paralytic Toxin.

Their purpose was already obvious.

The reason they had not acted earlier was probably because they saw he was alone and could not determine whether he had any trump cards or what his background was. Now that they had tested him enough, it was time to strike.

Poisoning the water was the best choice.

If he drank it, everything would be over.

Even if he did not drink, there were so many of them that it would not be too late to act.

Now that he knew they harbored ill intent, Suren's gaze toward them also grew faintly hostile.

They looked like they were sitting around the fire chatting, but it was more like they were surrounding him.

And their wandering gazes never left the firearm at his waist. Probably, the moment he made the slightest unusual move, they would strike first.

Pretending not to know, Suren unscrewed the flask. He had no intention of reaching for his gun.

He knew very well that no matter how fast he drew, he could fire at most one or two shots.

There were eight of them.

Not to mention the extremely threatening Official Professional, Silver-Arm Dick.

But the good news was that, apart from the two sentries, the other six were all within ten meters of Suren.

And that distance was precisely within the range of the Cursed Item: Rune Abomination Puppet.

A sincere smile hung on Suren's face as he made as if to drink.

But just as the flask reached his lips, he stopped, as though he had suddenly remembered something. Smiling, he said, "Captain Dick, thank you for your generous hospitality. Although I ran into some danger on this trip, I did get a little something out of it."

As he spoke, Suren calmly removed the cloth bag hanging from his waist, revealing the wooden box inside.

"Brother Suren, you're too polite."

Dick wore a smiling face, but a trace of wariness flashed through his eyes.

He was very confident. Even if the other party took out a grenade and detonated it right then, he could evade it immediately.

"This is something I found earlier in the ruins of an estate. I still haven't figured out what it does, so I'll give it to Captain Dick."

Suren pretended to be clueless as well. With an easy smile on his lips, he opened the box and took out the Rune Anomaly Puppet.

Since Cursed Objects capable of Mind Control existed in this world, there had to be things capable of resisting Mind Control as well.

What he was really calculating was that, if it failed to achieve the desired effect, he would at least have an excuse.

Clearly, the other side had been deceived by Suren's "kind" smile. Seeing that he had not made any dangerous movements that could be misunderstood, none of them were particularly guarded.

Of course, no one could have expected him to take out such a "sinister thing"!

The instant the doll was exposed to the air, something bizarre happened!

An invisible wave of Mental Power spread out in an instant.

Clearly, the doll was more powerful than expected.

Even Captain Dick's expression froze the instant he saw the doll. The other five people by the bonfire looked as though their souls had been ripped away, their eyes blank and vacant.

This was the moment he had been waiting for!

Seeing this, a fierce glint flashed through Suren's eyes!

Without the slightest hesitation, he drew the firearm from his waist and pulled the trigger at Captain Dick's eye socket.

Suren had been paying attention earlier. As the only Official Professional in the squad, this man, like Bald Ivan, possessed many strange Supernatural Abilities.

So even though he had been controlled, Suren still felt this man had to die first!

Bang!

His head exploded like a watermelon smashed on the ground.

"Obtained Memory Fragment of 'Dick Nelson' *2"

"You have gained some Intermediate Mechanical Knowledge"

"Obtained a memory: 'There are more and more Mutation Incidents in the city. It feels...'"

"Steam Mechanical Combat Experience +4"

"Mental Power +0.13"

Gray Mist also appeared on the corpse. With a sweep of his hand, Suren absorbed it into his soul.

Before he even had time to process the information he had gained, he raised his hand and fired another shot at the sniper on the distant watchtower.

The shot struck him in the abdomen, and a figure fell down.

Those two snipers had not been within the doll's control range, but they had not expected Suren to suddenly attack.

Nor had they expected that, facing six members of their team, Suren could instantly "control" them and kill their captain in a moment.

After firing two shots in succession, Suren knew he would not have the chance for a third. Their snipers were not fools.

Then he decisively leaped backward and hid behind a mud wall.

Sure enough, the next second, with a crack, a bullet blasted a huge chunk out of the mud wall.

The bullet pierced straight through the wall and nearly hit Suren.

Then came a burst of rat-a-tat-tat gunfire. The nearly one-meter-thick mud wall was pulverized in the blink of an eye.

At that moment, the only remaining threat was the sniper hiding in the watchtower.

Suren knew that neither his marksmanship nor his position gave him an advantage. In a shootout, a pistol could never beat a sniper rifle.

Without caring about the expense, he directly drew the firearm loaded with special Alchemical Bullets and fired several shots at the sentry post.

Alchemical Bullet (Burning) *2, Alchemical Bullet (High-Explosive) *2, Alchemical Bullet (Concussion) *2.

Although the oversized revolver held only six rounds, it completely overwhelmed the enemy sniper with firepower.

Suren did not know that this volley had consumed ammunition costs that would have taken many gunslingers a year to afford.

The three kinds of special bullets were astonishingly powerful. After the rounds hit, the entire watchtower was blown away.

The explosion a hundred meters away was tremendous. Especially the last two Concussion Bullets—even Suren, standing far away, felt his head buzzing.

He did not delay at all and rushed out immediately after firing.

Because his eyesight had been enhanced, he saw the sniper swaying in the thick smoke and dust, struggling to get back up. Then he fired two more shots.

Bang! Bang!

The corpse fell to the ground.

"Obtained Memory Fragment of 'Synos Carter' *2"

"You have gained some Basic Alchemy Knowledge"

"Firearm Experience +6"

"Mental Power +0.07"

Suren did not dare let his guard down. He found the other sniper, who had been shot in the abdomen, and gave him another shot as well.

Only then did he return to the bonfire. Looking at the five people whose bodies were twisted strangely like puppets on strings, he ruthlessly fired four more shots, killing four of them.

He left behind the Vice Captain, Lawen.

From the sudden attack to the end of the battle, the entire process had taken less than a minute. A full Wilderness Hunter squad had been completely wiped out by Suren's decisive strike.

However, there was one small problem.

"Peeling away too many memories at once is a little too much for my head."

After extracting the memories of three corpses in succession, Suren found his head becoming heavy and muddled.

It felt like he had stayed awake all night, leaving his thoughts hazy and confused.

But he also discovered that if he did not extract them quickly, the Gray Mist on the corpses would grow fainter and fainter. The longer the interval, the lower the quality of the extracted memories. After around five minutes, the Gray Mist on a corpse would completely dissipate.

At that point, Suren had roughly figured out some of the limitations of the Death Reaper ability.

After resting for a while and completely digesting the Memory Fragments in his mind, Suren finally opened his eyes.

Suren let out a long breath, his eyes shining with vitality. "With this Reaper Talent, I feel like I can develop in this world until I'm invincible."

The Soul Fragments from seven corpses had brought him far too many benefits. His mind was suddenly filled with all sorts of strange knowledge, as well as understanding of this world.

He felt himself becoming visibly stronger.

After only a few minutes of digestion, he felt he had mastered knowledge and skills that would normally take one or two years to learn!

Suren put the Rune Anomaly Puppet back into the wooden box.

He looked at Lawen, whom he had tied up tightly, and muttered, "I hadn't planned to communicate with you this way."

Unfortunately, you insisted on harboring malicious intentions.

After the doll was put away, Lawen woke from his mental chaos.

As though waking from a dream, he seemed not to understand what had happened. But when he saw the corpses scattered across the camp, then looked at Suren, his eyes instantly filled with terror. "You..."

Suren did not give him another word of explanation. He drove a knife into his right leg and said coldly, "Now, I ask one question, and you answer one."

P.S. Please vote~

Thanks to Gan Li Liang for the tip. An old familiar face from my previous book—thank you~