A Day Off

Luo Ruzhuo searched the Star Network for information on Fang Squad.

To her surprise, the squad was quite well known on the Star Network. Its reputation, however, was anything but good. Much like their squad's name suggested, most of its sentinels had venomous snakes as their Mental Entities.

They fought with underhanded cunning and often robbed other squads of the spoils they had obtained in Pollution Domains. Among sentinels, they were practically notorious.

Surprisingly, though, their reputation among guides was unexpectedly good.

Countless guides who had purified Fang Squad praised them as courteous and highly respectful toward guides.

No wonder Ping Tian had believed their words without question.

Luo Ruzhuo thought back carefully, and after making sure she had never met anyone from Fang Squad, she put the squad on her blacklist.

Whether it was something they had heard from someone else or some grudge they had held against the original owner, as far as Luo Ruzhuo was concerned, inciting someone else to come after her was in poor taste.

Putting the matter out of her mind, Luo Ruzhuo began counting her gains in her optical computer account balance for the day.

As she counted, something felt off.

She took a closer look. Huh? Where had this extra hundred thousand come from?

Puzzled, she opened her chat with Lin Sheng, intending to ask him what was going on.

The screen lit up, and a flurry of new messages popped up.

Lin Sheng: Thank you for donating your Guide Element today! This is wonderful, the captain's condition is under control! He's even regained two human legs!

Luo Ruzhuo stared at the screen, stunned for a moment. Her fingertips instinctively typed out, "Huh?"

She tried hard to remember the monster in the cage... At the time, it seemed only his claws and tail had mutated.

But judging by how excited Lin Sheng was, she guessed that, by now, those two legs were the only human parts he had left.

The messages kept popping up, one after another:

Lin Sheng: Thank you again so much for your contribution. Please forget the offensive things I said before. Although the captain hasn't fully regained consciousness yet, we're all very grateful to you! This is a small token of appreciation from the other members of Firmament Squad. Please accept it if you don't mind.

Luo Ruzhuo couldn't help clicking her tongue. Their token of appreciation was worth a lot!

She leaned against the headboard and couldn't resist looking at the transfer notification twice more. They really were a squad ranked on the Star Network; they knew how to handle social niceties.

She hoped more good things like this would come her way next time.

Thinking happily to herself, she swiped open her message list. Sure enough, other red notification dots were waiting for her.

Heisha Draven: I sent you some cactus juice today. Want to try it?

Anna: Have you heard?!

Anna: Gossip sticker.jpg

Anna: This is wild, hahaha! The wicked really do get what's coming to them. That male guide who picked on us before was hospitalized with a damaged mental domain! Miss Bo'er from the treatment room said he might drop an entire major rank after this!

As Luo Ruzhuo read, the corners of her mouth curled up despite herself.

Although she had already laughed about it during the day, reading the message again while curled up in bed, she still couldn't help laughing out loud.

She leaned against her pillow and lazily typed: That's great! Let's have a feast tomorrow to celebrate!

Tomorrow happened to be a day off.

As Luo Ruzhuo replied, she had already decided how to spend tomorrow.

She wanted to go to the restaurant in the City in the Sky and have that roasted gel worm dish again.

*

The Black Tower had run out of its Guide Element reserves, and Anna was notified at the last minute to come in and have hers extracted.

Luo Ruzhuo had gotten up early, so she decided to look around the mall first, waiting for Anna while seeing if anything caught her interest.

Since it was a workday for ordinary people, the City in the Sky wasn't very crowded. Luo Ruzhuo wasn't wearing her distinctive guide uniform, just a simple sweatshirt and matching pants as she strolled around.

Even without dressing up, her face was striking enough that many passersby stole glances at her. Her neat, short hair and natural air warned strangers to keep their distance.

She looked very much like a high-ranking female sentinel.

Ordinary people had always given guides and sentinels a wide berth... especially sentinels. The longer they spent in Pollution Domains, the more unstable their mental domains became. On top of that, sentinels had keen senses, and if one took a dislike to an ordinary person, that person would suffer for it.

It was a secret people avoided mentioning to one another.

And so a bizarre scene unfolded: when Luo Ruzhuo entered the gravity pod to go to the top floor, a group of people were clearly standing outside, yet none dared come in.

But she had never cared about other people's gazes. Seeing that no one was coming in, she pressed the button on the screen. Just as the gravity pod doors were about to close-

A pair of hands with prominent knuckles stopped the doors. Immediately afterward, several tall figures crowded in one after another, and the empty gravity pod was packed tight with sentinels in black uniforms.

The space Luo Ruzhuo had originally had all to herself was reduced to one small corner by the arrival of the sentinels.

She sighed inwardly, sincerely hoping they would reach their floor and get out soon.

The sentinel closest to Luo Ruzhuo stood only a few centimeters away, facing her.

The original owner was about the same height as Luo Ruzhuo, both standing at 1.75 meters. She didn't consider herself short, but most sentinels in this world were giants, standing over 1.9 meters or even two meters tall.

The sentinel in front of her was more than half a head taller, and most of Luo Ruzhuo's body was covered by his shadow. Looking straight ahead, she could see his jawline.

Below that was a body wrapped in a black uniform. His muscles were well developed, their bulging contours still clearly visible beneath the fabric. The insignia on the sleeve over his raised arm bore a design she couldn't identify as a dog or a wolf.

The gravity pod began to rise slowly, bringing with it a slight feeling of weightlessness. Luo Ruzhuo was pulled forward, and her fluffy hair met something hard. She seemed to have bumped into the angle of the man's jaw.

"Sorry." Good upbringing prompted Luo Ruzhuo to speak.

"...It's fine." Luo Ruzhuo saw his Adam's apple move above the collar that partly covered it. His voice was deep, with a slight rasp.

Luo Ruzhuo steadied herself, but the man opposite her suddenly lowered his head. The neckline of her sweatshirt was neither too wide nor too narrow, exposing just a patch of skin. She suddenly felt warm breath brush over it, tickling and raising goosebumps across that small patch.

The man in front of her seemed to sniff.

"What perfume are you wearing?" she heard him ask in a low, puzzled voice, as if he were asking her and talking to himself at the same time. "Why does it smell so good? Is it from this mall?"

Luo Ruzhuo: ...Who is this guy? How rude.

She had only bumped into him by accident, and she had already apologized, yet his nose was practically against her neck!

Luo Ruzhuo was practically half enclosed in his arms, and with him lowering his head, their position was even more intimate.

She tilted her head uncomfortably, wanting to move back, but there was nowhere to retreat in the corner. Her back was already against the pod wall.

Luo Ruzhuo frowned and spoke with some displeasure. "I'm not wearing perfume. Could you please move farther away from me?"

"Heh." She heard a soft chuckle. Not only did he fail to move back, his warm breath swept across a larger area of her neck.

That small patch of Luo Ruzhuo's skin had turned completely red, and even the roots of her ears were red—a purely physiological reaction to anger.

"You're a guide." As though he had confirmed something, his tone was certain, and he finally deigned to raise his head.

Luo Ruzhuo shot him a glare. A face with sharp, chiseled features came into view, without a single flaw to be found.

In all fairness, it was the most pleasing face she had seen so far. But the upward curve of his lips was too exaggerated, and there was madness in his eyes. At first glance, he looked like the kind of antisocial criminal who took pleasure in his crimes. It spoiled the harmony of his face.

Luo Ruzhuo shifted her gaze from his face to his clothes.

Only then did she notice the flecks of blood on the edges of his black uniform. He had probably just returned from a contaminated zone.

Luo Ruzhuo: ...Now he looks even more like one.

Why would a sentinel who just got back come to the mall instead of going to a purification room for treatment?

To scare people?

She turned her head, sweeping her gaze across the pod from the corner of her eye.

The gazes of almost all the other sentinels in the pod were fixed on her. They looked alike, their features all exceptionally handsome, and their expressions seemed synchronized as well. Their eyes seemed to glow green as they looked at her-like a pack of wolves in the dark of night.

The discovery sent a chill down Luo Ruzhuo's back.