The so-called "company" referred to the many subsidiaries under Heliopolis Life Sciences.
In this city, being "assigned" by a company to die on duty was a very common occurrence.
If you wanted promotion and a raise, you had to be prepared to risk your life.
If you didn't climb the ladder, there were plenty of others ready to fill that vacant position.
Forget compensation—Grandma Tao couldn't even get her son's ashes, because she had no way to go to the company to prove that her son was indeed her son, nor could she prove that he had truly died, let alone that he had died in the line of duty.
The company had far too many ways to embezzle this unpaid compensation.
To actually receive that money, one would have to grease every link in the chain—from supervisors, secretaries, finance, management, all the way to the warehouse issuing the funds and the personnel at the social security office handling the handover.
Even if Grandma Tao managed to bribe all of them, after deducting various "fees" and "accidental taxes," she would still end up paying out of her own pocket.
So she could only live frugally, scraping by.
At this moment, Hua carried a gas canister in one arm and a large water jug in the other—this was her daily routine.
Normally, she would have to make several trips back and forth.
Thanks to Vill-V and Hua, today she only needed to make this one trip.
"You two young lovebirds, you're from out of town, aren't you?"
Clearly, the old woman had misunderstood their relationship.
Vill-V quickly shook her head in denial. "No, no, no, we're not a couple—just close friends... colleagues, really. We're here on a business trip, a business trip, hehe..."
Hua's appearance and attire leaned toward the androgynous, and she never wore makeup. Even her hair was cut haphazardly by herself, her face perpetually hidden behind her bangs.
This left Hua in a constant state where no one could quite tell whether she was male or female.
Even Vill-V, who used to be a full-on man in her previous life, had learned proper makeup in this life.
Following Hua around, Vill-V had complained about this several times, but Hua simply couldn't learn it.
Every time she tried, her makeup ended up looking like a Peking opera mask.
Perhaps deep down, she was the true "manly one"—unable to grasp the things girls did.
She didn't even have to worry about the two lumps on her chest. How nice.
Thinking this, Vill-V couldn't help but sigh. I'm the one who's supposed to take the male role—how did it end up reversed?
But looking at Hua's powerful arms carrying all those heavy items...
And then at her own slender, fair arms, Vill-V admitted defeat.
"Looks like I should've gone down the warrior path. Why did I become a scientist? I should be grabbing a weapon and fighting Herrschers head-on."
(Expert said: Becoming a scientist was my role... and according to the schedule, you don't have any spare time to train as a warrior. Magician has already taken up all your free time. Perhaps you could consider letting Magician become the warrior instead.)
(Id: Then... should I split off a berserker personality?)
(Conductor: No. I have no interest in dealing with a second Pure Evil.)
(Pure Evil: What's so difficult about it? Just drug the person you like. Scholar has some interesting stuff stored away—I've secretly tried it.)
(Expert: So it was you behind that strange feeling that day... This is the sixth time I've wrongly blamed Magician.)
(Id: It's fine. Hua only knows hard techniques. On a yoga mat, I could definitely suppress her—use softness to overcome strength and lock her down!)
(Conductor: Id, you're dreaming. I'd rather think about how to mass-produce Taixuan Divine Sword techniques.)
Leaving aside Vill-V's internal theater.
After hearing Vill-V's explanation, Grandma Tao merely gave a noncommittal hum.
"I see."
The old woman asked with a hint of curiosity, "So, you kids are also from the company?"
But as soon as she said it, she shook her head, denying her own guess.
"People from the company wouldn't be this polite to others."
"Even my own grandson... I can barely recognize him anymore."
Along the way to Twilight Street, Vill-V and Hua didn't encounter any reckless bandits blocking their path.
It was hard to say whether that was luck or something more unsettling.
Because there wasn't even a single troublemaking thug on the road.
In this so-called simple and honest Dusk Street city, that was extremely rare.
After all, even in areas previously managed by mobile response units, there had been plenty of thugs who tried to harass Vill-V—only to be beaten down by Hua and "voluntarily" join the Taixu Gang.
Hua—Vill-V's personal bodyguard.
As the ever-present loudspeakers of the companies began broadcasting advertisements, the streets gradually became livelier.
"High-price recycling! Old ventilators, old computing chips, used prosthetics—knife sharpening, scissors sharpening!"
The buildings along the street slowly lit up, forming something like an oasis amid the surrounding ruins.
Without someone to guide you, this oasis would be very hard to find.
After all, who would have thought that near the edge of Barcelona, a place that faced beast tides every seven days, there would be such an oasis?
Although this wasn't the frontline against the Seven-Day Tide, the stray Honkai Beasts that wandered here were far from few.
No one knew how the residents managed to survive.
Amid the constant shouts of vendors, the old woman led them to her residence. The living environment of Twilight Street differed from the usual image of slums—it consisted of rows of high-rise apartment buildings.
After all, this was still a city, albeit a cyberpunk one. The companies needed labor, but land was scarce, so the poor were packed into tall buildings or lived in company garages.
The main gate of Twilight Street had been tightly welded shut with steel plates.
Around the district, all kinds of abandoned vehicles were parked haphazardly, forming a perimeter wall.
The interiors of the cars were in complete disarray, and deep claw marks marred their metal frames.
They formed a barrier encircling Twilight Street.
A toppled paint can lay on the ground, black liquid spilling out to form a strange pattern.
Residents usually entered and exited through a small side window.
The window came from a kindergarten building. Due to its original purpose, it was heavily fortified.
Residents were stationed inside the kindergarten—for protection against gangs, but also against certain mutated creatures.
Not just monsters left over from the Seven-Day Tide.
Ever since three years ago, all kinds of strange things had begun appearing one after another.
Some were experimental subjects that escaped from the companies. Some were bio-modified humans that had escaped. Others were creatures released by the companies to gather data—
In cyberpunk slang, they were called cyberpsychos.
Of course, these were all street rumors. As for how much truth they held, no one here knew, because they had no evidence.
All they could see was people around them being harmed by strange and inexplicable things.
The retired coach was one of the residents stationed here. Wearing black-framed glasses, he carefully examined Vill-V and Hua through a hole in the window.
The window was reinforced with two layers of iron bars.
After some discussion with Grandma Tao, the coach cast a complicated glance at Vill-V and Hua before using a wrench to loosen the bolts and open the heavy metal gate, allowing the three of them to climb through the window.
Passing through the kindergarten window led into a small video game area filled with educational arcade machines.
Now, it had been repurposed into something like a control room, packed with various weapons.
On the other side was a classroom filled with children's handicrafts and drawings, with cabinets stuffed full of toys and other children's supplies.
Seeing this scene, Hua felt a slight tightening in her chest and asked Grandma Tao, "Grandma Tao, ever since we entered this city, it seems like we haven't seen any children, have we?"