"Hey—stop!"
Watching the Perro youth sprint away, Chen Qianyu belatedly realized—absurdly—that as a so-called martial hero, she couldn't actually catch him.
"How the hell is he running that fast?!"
"For the weak, staying afraid and keeping away from strangers is the most practical survival strategy," Wolfguard said. He didn't seem surprised at all, as if he'd seen this exact scene countless times.
Hao Fan—whose physical fitness was the worst of the bunch—had already decided he was done jogging like an idiot.
So he pulled a tiny trick.
A stare that makes you hiccup.
"Hic—hic—what the…?"
The Perro youth froze in confusion, hiccupping nonstop, unable to understand why his starving body had suddenly betrayed him like this.
Worse still, the hiccups warped his movements and slowed his stride—just enough for Chen Qianyu to catch up and clamp down on him.
"D-Don't hurt me!"
The moment his escape failed, he folded instantly.
"I was just passing through! I don't know anything else—"
"Then why were you running like your life depended on it?" Chen Qianyu shot back, rolling her eyes. "Are we that scary?"
For the first time in her life, she'd failed to outrun a normal person. It was… slightly humiliating.
Meanwhile, Hao Fan—who was more ordinary than ordinary—bent over with his hands on his knees, panting, and silently complained to himself:
Terralans really were built like workhorses.
"He… he looks like a Riftbreaker," the Perro youth said timidly, pointing at Wolfguard.
When he'd been hiding, he'd seen these strangers beat down the Riftbreakers who were hunting him—so he'd thought they might be righteous allies.
But the moment he noticed the Lupus man with that unmistakable Riftbreaker aura, his brain snapped to gang war—and he ran.
"Sharp eyes," Wolfguard said calmly. He didn't deny it. He didn't even act like it mattered.
"Don't worry," Perlica said softly, trying to soothe the youth's nerves. "He's different from them. He won't hurt you."
She then asked gently, "You live around here, don't you? Do you know Endfield Industries?"
"…G-Guild? No—you don't look like Guild people."
The youth frowned in confusion. Clearly a sheltered rural kid—he couldn't distinguish Endfield Industries from the Alliance Guild.
Perlica didn't seem surprised.
"The Guild is our partner. You don't need to be afraid."
"T-Then you're the good guys? Thank the heavens!"
His emotions surged in an instant, eyes bright with desperate hope.
"My name is Kaja! Please—save my sister. I'm begging you!"
"Easy," Perlica said, steady and patient. "Slow down… What happened to your sister? What's going on here?"
"The Riftbreakers took a lot of people. Everyone's hiding. But my sister—she's really sick. The medicine the Guild gave us is all gone, so I had to come out. I thought maybe I could find something at the factory across the bridge…"
Kaja's words tumbled out, messy and frantic.
He didn't explain clearly—but it was enough for them to understand: there had to be some kind of shelter nearby.
Wolfguard's brows knit.
"This stretch is extremely dangerous. You won't make it through safely."
"I know!" Kaja's face twisted—pain, struggle, helplessness all in one. "But Aji can't wait anymore. I can't just—just watch—"
Aji was his sister. And from the way Kaja spoke, her condition sounded urgent.
By now, Hao Fan had caught his breath. He spoke evenly.
"Let's help him."
He looked at the young man clinging to them like a lifeline and concluded this wasn't meddling—it was the rational call.
"Where he came from… someone there should know more."
"Yeah! He's right—of course we have to help!" Chen Qianyu agreed instantly, nodding hard.
Seeing injustice and drawing steel was second nature to her. It was the same reason she'd once stepped in to save the Doctor from a Riftbreaker attack.
"Calm down, Chen," Hao Fan said, tossing her a casual jab. "Wipe that dumb look off your face. It's exactly why people keep thinking you're a bit… light upstairs."
Chen Qianyu glared at him, cheeks puffing in indignation.
Hao Fan ignored it and looked to the others. With unanimous approval, the next objective was set.
"Then, Mr. Kaja—please lead the way. We'll check your sister's condition, and see how everyone's doing."
"That's great… that's great!" Kaja breathed out, relief flooding his face. "The shelter's this way—follow me!"
His guard finally dropped. He began guiding these strangers—these sudden saviors—through the twisting abandoned path toward the temporary refuge.
With someone who knew the way, the trek became noticeably smoother.
"Huh… is that… ketone scrub?"
Hao Fan spotted a cluster of vicious-looking plants by the roadside—exactly like what Uncle Xiemiao had described in their earlier chat.
Ketone scrub: a native plant of Talos II, usually found in soil with unusual composition.
It contained volatile, flammable components and was often used to manufacture industrial explosives.
In other words, it was one of the raw materials.
Hao Fan had tried searching near the Hub Zone Base before and found nothing. He hadn't expected to stumble across it in some forgotten backwater like this.
So he casually harvested a bit and hurried after the group.
Then he stopped again.
"Wait. There are Riftbreakers ahead."
They were walking along the route Kaja had used to return to the shelter.
Hao Fan narrowed his eyes at the red dots that appeared on his map.
Meaning: for medicine, this Perro kid had run out from right under the Riftbreakers' noses.
It was ridiculously risky—no wonder they'd been hunting him. They probably wanted to interrogate him for the shelter's location.
"There's a tough one in there," Chen Qianyu said, excitement flickering in her eyes. "Let me test my blade!"
She'd made it clear already—she wanted to cross swords with a real fighter among the Riftbreakers, not just cut down fodder.
Kaja confirmed the bad news: the temporary camp lay directly on the only route forward. There was no detour.
So there was only one choice.
Fight.
"Who's there? Looking for death?!"
A Crushbone raider guarding the camp entrance spotted movement and barked a warning, tense and alert.
Inside the camp stood a hulking Crushbone enforcer gripping a heavy execution axe—the "boss" the earlier squad had mentioned.
"…That stench of Wolf Pack."
The Riftbreaker leader locked onto Wolfguard, hostility roughening his voice.
"Civilization's lackey. You don't deserve to call yourself a Riftbreaker!"
....
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