Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 270: A Friend of Justice (6)

Dragon Raja 3

He slung the antique rifle over his back and turned around. Chisei had already donned a set of red-lacquered Nanban dōgusoku armor.

“Cosplay?” Caesar muttered, picking up a Winchester M97 shotgun. He struggled to load the old gun, noticing twelve tally marks carved into the barrel, indicating the soldier who once wielded it had killed twelve enemies.

“I’m not sure if a barrage of bullets will hold them in the elevator shaft, so I need to prepare for close combat,” Chisei said, taking a deep breath and tightening his armor’s belt.

Wearing the armor, he looked like a young daimyo from the Sengoku period, with a long sword on each side—Kumogiri and its twin blade, Dōjigiri Yasutsuna. A Mauser pistol was tucked in front of his waist.

“There are other styles, feel free to choose,” Chisei gestured toward the rows of gleaming armor.

Caesar hesitated for a moment before hefting a Gatling gun and a box of ammunition: “Forget it, I can’t handle you Japanese people’s aesthetics.”

Chu Zihang filled a bag with Sten submachine guns and Thompsons. He bundled up the remaining famous swords, slinging them over his back. As he walked out, brass bullets clinked out of the bag, falling to the floor.

Watching these two men’s retreating figures, Chisei suddenly recalled the scene from the deep sea—these two trudging through chest-high pulmonate slugs, the nuclear reactor room ahead. According to Chisei’s orders, they had to manually detonate the miniature reactor. Takamagahara was collapsing, the Haiti Rift was widening, and magma traced bright paths through the water, turning the sea into daylight. Their Ziegler suits twisted and deformed… yet neither of them stopped or retreated, but instead pushed forward with all their might, clumsily paddling like ducklings.

Chisei took a deep drag of his cigarette and then crushed the butt under his foot.

Uesugi Erii stopped walking and pointed at the orange-flavored drink inside the vending machine. Lu Mingfei recognized it too—it was a popular juice for young girls, with commercials starring Yui Aragaki airing on TV all the time.

“You actually know what drinks are. Can we just buy it after we get out of here?” Lu Mingfei groaned, pulling out some money.

It wasn’t that he cared about the money; rather, there was a horde of Death Servitors watching them from a short distance away. These deformed beasts lowered their bodies like giant pythons, slithering and staring at Lu Mingfei with burning eyes. Even the smallest of them was three to four meters long, and the largest reached five or six meters. If they stood upright, they could stretch from one end of a bedroom to the other, and their height would be about half again as tall as Lu Mingfei. The heaviest known python is the green anaconda, which can weigh about half a ton. These Death Servitors looked like they weighed at least 100 kilograms, but they weren’t sluggish fatties. Their strike speed was comparable to that of old-style musket balls. Not that it mattered—if these Death Servitors were weakened by 80% and there were only one or two left, Lu Mingfei would still die if he ran into them. So, he turned off the safety on his handgun, shoved it in his waistband, and prayed it wouldn’t misfire and shoot him in the butt.

They were likely on the sixth floor, which had already been evacuated; otherwise, there would have been bodies everywhere. The Death Servitors had been following them up and down the stairs, and Lu Mingfei had never thought pythons could climb stairs. The creatures didn’t dare get too close, likely out of fear of Erii, but they didn’t want to give up on Lu Mingfei, their “delicious snack,” either. Erii showed no sign of annoyance at being followed. She dragged Lu Mingfei along, following her intuition, but it was clear she didn’t know the way.

Two cans of drink rolled out of the vending machine. Lu Mingfei handed the orange-flavored drink to Erii, and he didn’t forget to grab a hot coffee for himself. He glanced at the map on his phone. There were plenty of exits, but red dots marked the end of every passage, indicating Execution Bureau guards. Gold dots were scattered in the central area of the building and behind them. Lu Mingfei finally realized—what lay at the center of the building was the elevator shaft, now the Death Servitors’ lair.

“We’re lost,” Erii wrote on her notepad, showing it to Lu Mingfei.

“No, no, we’re not lost. We’re just… going in circles on purpose. Please, girl, you don’t even know the way. Can you just follow me?” Lu Mingfei thought to himself, at least I have the GPS.

“They’ll find me. They’ll take me back home.” Erii pointed up, then down, then at her ears.

Lu Mingfei was startled. The places she pointed out were indeed near certain passageways, but according to his phone, those passageways were guarded by Execution Bureau agents. They were dozens of meters away, separated by several floors, so it should have been impossible for Erii to hear anything. But she had heard. The only explanation was that even without using the Yanling Kamaitachi, her hearing was nearly on par with Caesar’s. Within a vast range around her, nothing escaped her ears. In this invisible domain, she was almost omniscient and omnipotent.

It turned out that Erii had been wandering aimlessly to avoid her family.

Lu Mingfei thought, if you’re that powerful, what are you afraid of? If I had that kind of power, I’d stride up to those guys and order them to prepare me a luxury car and a box of fruit juice—orange-flavored, apple-flavored, whatever I want! And if they tried to stop me, I’d just wave my little notebook with “I’m going out to play” written on it. If I’m all-knowing and all-powerful, what’s the point if I can’t even go out and have some fun?

“Try following me for a change,” Lu Mingfei said, pulling out his phone and pressing the “Emergency Assistance” button that had been flashing since they got lost.

A rumbling noise came from outside the glass wall. A shadow descended from the sky and stopped outside the glass—a maintenance elevator used for cleaning the exterior walls. Somehow, Lu Mingfei’s phone had managed to summon it down from the roof.

Lu Mingfei had no idea what to do after getting on the elevator, but at this point, he had to trust the little devil. So far, the little devil had been kind to him tonight, giving him a nearly naked girl to ogle and letting him run away with her. The only problem was… he suspected this girl wasn’t human.

For the first time, Erii showed a look of surprise and wrote, “That’s amazing,” on her notepad for Lu Mingfei to see. Lu Mingfei felt pretty proud of himself too—it was nice to show off in front of a pretty girl.

He pulled Erii toward the glass curtain wall when suddenly he heard a piercing cry from the far end of the corridor. A group of Death Servitors was huddled around a metal filing cabinet, greedily sniffing its scent. It turned out there were more people on this floor than just the two of them—a girl who hadn’t managed to escape was hiding inside the filing cabinet, and now the Death Servitors had picked up on her scent. Lu Mingfei thought, What are you, an idiot? Do you think you’re playing Resident Evil or Metal Gear where hiding in a filing cabinet keeps you safe? Hiding in a metal cabinet or trash can won’t save you!

One of the Death Servitors suddenly reared up. Because of its python-like tail, it had been less than a meter tall while crouching in front of Erii, but now it abruptly revealed its towering figure, over two meters tall. Its sharp claws pierced the filing cabinet, causing blood to spurt from the cracks, dripping along the keratinous surface of its claws. Inside, the girl let out a pained wail as more Death Servitors straightened up, as if a snake charmer had played a flute to rouse them. Lu Mingfei’s eye twitched; he could almost feel the girl’s despair, like when he had been trapped in that diving bell deep in the Three Gorges Dam, watching the blood-stained water rise outside. He wanted to rush forward but didn’t dare, instinctively gripping Erii’s hand tightly.

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