When they heard Barto say he wanted to come live with them, Gu Ning and Cook both wore the same bewildered expression.
The next second, Cook's eyes turned murderous. He grabbed Barto by the back of the collar, threw him out the door, and slammed it shut.
Barto reacted with lightning speed, catching the edge of the door and squeezing his head through the gap. "I'll just stay for a few days! Then we can all leave Zone 19 together!"
He pushed on the door from the outside while Cook pushed from the inside, refusing to let him in no matter what.
Ultimately, Barto was no match for Cook's strength and got locked out.
"You ungrateful, stinking dog!" Barto kicked the door hard twice, cursing through it. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You two idiots! You're going to get me killed!"
Before coming over, Barto had questioned some of his black market contacts, investigating the recent affair concerning illegal items related to Beast Females. He learned that some Beastmen, hoping to make a fortune before winter arrived, had smuggled a large number of items tainted with a Beast Female's scent.
To evade the Beast Alliance's searches, these goddamn Beastmen had hired a large number of Dwarf hybrids to transport the contraband for them.
Dwarf hybrids are short-tempered and simple-minded, with one-track minds that make them easy for scumbag Beastmen to deceive.
The fact that Gu Ning suddenly had so much money had to be connected to this.
She seemed much smarter than those Dwarf hybrids. She even knew enough to want to leave Zone 19.
Barto felt he had been dragged into this whole affair. 'Otherwise, after all this time, why would the Beast Alliance suddenly come looking for me?'
Besides, that leopard had come in right after Gu Ning. 'She's definitely being targeted.'
Gu Ning's heart leaped into her throat at Barto's words. 'No way. Have they already found out that I'm pretending to be a Beast Female?'
"Open the door!" Barto pounded, while Cook let out a low, warning growl from inside.
Seeing they had no intention of opening the door, Barto glanced around, dragged an abandoned storage cabinet from the hallway over to the door, then stood on it. He pulled a piece of wire from his pocket and jabbed it into the keyhole.
With a few quick motions, he picked the lock and opened the door.
He didn't give Cook a chance to attack, darting into the room with swift agility. He lunged at Cook and knocked him to the ground.
Grabbing Cook's head, Barto slammed it against the ground several times, like a squirrel cracking a nut. He knocked Cook into a daze, but just as he turned to look for Gu Ning, BANG! A gunshot rang out. The bullet struck a low metal cabinet beside him, sending sparks flying.
The hand Gu Ning held the gun with was trembling; it was the first time she had ever fired one.
It was the time when most Beastmen were eating, resting, or washing up. Hearing the gunshot, they paused for an instant, glanced outside, then returned to their business. Some couldn't even be bothered to look. In Zone 19, when did a day ever pass without the sound of gunfire?
Only the landlord rushed out and yelled up at the building, "You bunch of beastly scumbags, don't you fucking brawl on my property! This is an industrial park, not the damn back alleys! If you want to fight, get the hell outside and do it! Die out there for all I care! If I find out who fired that gun, I'm calling the police!"
After his tirade, the landlord went back inside, sat down, and resumed scrolling through videos. It was only a ten-second clip, but he'd replayed it hundreds of times and had spent the whole afternoon arguing with people in the comments:
[If you can't appreciate her, get the hell out of the little Beast Female's comment section! Just seeing you analytical bastards is annoying.]
[That's enough out of you dogs. Has the little Beast Female even acknowledged you? Stop yapping so excitedly.]
[So what if they're from the Dog Clan? Who says a female has to belong to a certain group? That kind of thinking went out of style centuries ago. You think you're still running wild on the plains or something?]
After another round of insults, he opened his direct messages to the little Beast Female. He swallowed nervously, typed out a long message, and then deleted it all. He repeated this process several times, carefully choosing his words. Finally, using the most polite language he had ever used in his life, he cautiously sent a DM.
....
Hearing the landlord's voice, Gu Ning hesitated, looking at the gun in her hand.
The buildings in Zone 19 were sturdy and well soundproofed, but she had left a window open for air, which was why the gunshot had carried so far.
Seeing her fire the gun, Barto bared his teeth.
"You're another ungrateful mutt! I teach you how to shoot, and the first person you shoot at is me." At some point, Barto had pulled out a small knife. He placed the blade against Cook's neck. "Put the gun down. I can slit his throat before you could ever hit me!"
Gu Ning knew what Barto was capable of, and fearing he would actually do it, she placed the gun on the sofa.
Just then, Cook suddenly began to struggle violently, and Barto knocked him out cold with a single punch.
With that troublemaker Cook out of the way, he could finally have a talk with Gu Ning.
Barto was surprised at how quickly Gu Ning had lowered her weapon. That she could be swayed by a single sentence showed she was more level-headed than he had imagined.
"I'm not here to fight you." Barto quickly snatched Gu Ning's gun, then used a cargo rope to tie Cook up, all while watching Gu Ning's movements, wary of a sudden attack. "If you want to talk this out properly, you won't end up tied up like this guy. Don't worry, he's just passed out. He's got a tough build; he won't die that easily."
Gu Ning raised both her hands, indicating she was willing to talk.
Barto peeked his head out the door. The hallway was dim, and he could faintly hear the shouts and curses of Beastmen playing games, watching videos, and the like.
Seeing that Gu Ning's gunshot hadn't attracted anyone, Barto shut the door securely and then ran to close the windows one by one.
Gu Ning watched him bustle about, not understanding what he was doing.
After closing all the windows, Barto saw the water kettle on the table, picked it up, and started chugging water straight from it.
After he finished drinking, he wiped his mouth and asked Gu Ning directly, "Have you been doing some side jobs for some Beastmen?"
'Side jobs?'
Gu Ning shook her head.
Aside from her job at the construction site, she spent her days scavenging at the dump. It was true that some Beastmen had approached her about other work, but the better offers were just hauling and delivery jobs. The worse ones involved fighting Beastmen in the Underground Arena. She figured she was better off scavenging.
In the month since she'd crossed over, she had nearly been captured by malicious Beastmen several times; how could she dare interact with them too much?
Fearing she didn't understand, Barto told her plainly about the black market smuggling of items related to Beast Females.
Gu Ning breathed a huge sigh of relief. So, it wasn't that her disguise as a Beast Female had been discovered.
But hearing how serious the smuggling of Beast Female items was, she still felt a knot of fear in her stomach. What she was doing now wasn't much better.
Gu Ning found a pen and paper and wrote: I didn't do it.
Barto glanced at the note. "If you didn't do it, then Cook must have in the past."
Hearing this, Gu Ning couldn't be so sure. She had only been with Cook for a month. Maybe Cook himself didn't even know whether he had done it or not.
"I'm going to live with you for a while. You need to find a way to convince this guy Cook," Barto said.
"I don't know why that guy is so protective of you," Barto muttered. "He wasn't this aggressive before."
Gu Ning translated what she wanted to say on her terminal, then copied it onto the paper: Why do you want to live with us?
Barto said, "I have to watch over you, to keep you from getting caught."
Since the Beast Alliance had tracked him down, other Beastmen wouldn't let him off the hook either. There hadn't been any news recently, so he didn't dare make any rash moves. If he tried to run now, he'd probably just make himself easier to catch.
The Beast Alliance was probably still investigating. For now, he'd just watch and see how things played out.
He didn't trust Gu Ning and Cook to be left alone, either. The Beastmen who did these sorts of things would definitely throw a Mixed Breed under the bus to take the blame. If something happened, he could at least escape with them.