The battle was over, and Medic began bandaging the Weepers' wounds, while Gavo started on one of her core duties: cleaning the battlefield.
As a professional trash picker, Gavo's talent quickly showed itself.
Not only did she dig several well-preserved rifles out of all kinds of corners and crevices, she also pocketed a good number of intact magazines and even pried complete bullets out of the bodies of those monsters.
In no time at all, she had gathered a large pile of weapons and ammunition.
Looking at Gavo's haul, Griffin's eyelids twitched.
What kind of natural-born logistics saint was this?
"Alright, let's move. Cleanup here is finished."
And so, the battered and bloodied Weepers left the tunnel full of corpses behind them.
On the way back, many of the Weepers, Griffin included, tried to strike up conversations with Gavo, but she brushed them all off with lukewarm replies.
After they returned to camp, Griffin glanced at Gavo, who was just about to jog off to see her adoptive father, and said in his hoarse voice,
"Pack up your things. Bring your father too. We're leaving this camp."
Strike teams did not have fixed bases.
They were the blades of the Tearblood Gang, carrying out slaughter wherever the higher-ups directed them. Wherever they went, that was where they stayed.
Gavo returned to the tent and immediately hurried over to her adoptive father, who was lying on the bed.
Seeing the worry in his eyes, Gavo stood up and turned around a few times.
"It's fine. I'm totally fine."
"You don't need to worry about me. My work is very safe."
Her adoptive father looked at her, raised a hand, and signed:
"Do they make you kill people?"
Hearing that, Gavo's eyes shifted slightly.
Yes, strictly speaking, the Croc-Men she had just blown up did not count as people.
But what about later?
Sooner or later, the strike team's guns would be aimed at other humans.
Sooner or later, her hands would be stained with the blood of her own kind.
That was clearly something her adoptive father did not want to see.
Gavo was silent for a moment before slowly speaking.
"Father, I promise you. I will never kill innocent people."
Her adoptive father looked at her with deep affection, looked at the child he had raised with his own hands, and slowly signed the same words he had said to her countless times before.
"You must become someone useful to the God-Emperor."
"And then leave this filthy place."
"Do not let the bloodshed here stain your heart, my child."
Gavo crouched down, tightly held his hand, and gently nodded.
...
"Where are we going?"
Gavo placed the weapons and ammunition she had collected, along with her adoptive father's bedding, onto the handcart and followed closely behind Griffin.
"You'll know soon enough."
Griffin showed a meaningful smile.
Riddler types really needed to get out of the underhive. She truly wanted to say that.
As they kept walking, Gavo gradually felt that something was off.
This path looked strangely familiar.
A sense of familiarity slowly rose in her heart.
That left her a little confused.
The farther they went, the more certain Gavo became of where they were heading.
It was the scavenger settlement where she had once lived.
"Why are you bringing me back here?"
A very bad feeling rose in Gavo's heart.
"You'll know soon enough."
And Griffin, with an evil smile on his face, kept speaking in riddles.
Familiar sights appeared one after another. That garbage mountain still stood in the distance, and at its foot, the rows of garbage shacks were still scattered about.
This was her home.
This was where she had grown up.
This was where her fate had turned.
Here, she had been taken in by her adoptive father.
Here, she had joined the Children's Gang.
Here, she had become one of the Weepers.
And now, she had returned once more.
Invisible threads of fate seemed to wind through this place, as if destined to make Gavo experience one turning point after another in her life here.
Step by step, Gavo walked through this familiar place, and for some reason, those unknown beings once again began whispering in her ears.
Beyond the endless murmurs, she vaguely heard voices begging in fear.
No, unlike those noisy whispers, that was not a sound from the Warp.
When she fully saw the scene in the central clearing of the scavenger camp, Gavo's pupils contracted violently.
Dozens of ragged scavengers were kneeling on the ground, their hands bound behind their backs, trembling in terror under the guns of many vicious-looking gang members surrounding them.
"Please, I didn't do anything..."
"Please, sirs from the gang, spare me. I only pick things up. I never steal..."
Among them were many faces Gavo recognized, all of them part of the vilest human scum among the scavengers.
Back when she was still with the Children's Gang, she had dealt with these people many times while investigating who had hurt her adoptive father and standing up for the younger kids.
If the gangs were bloodthirsty beasts, then these people were poisonous insects in the gutter.
They were cruel and treacherous, willing to do anything for their own benefit when the opportunity arose.
Gavo had always suspected that one of them had harmed her adoptive father, but she had never had a real chance to confirm it.
And now, these pieces of trash were trembling under the guns of the Tearblood Gang.
"I told you. Every Weeper gets a chance to receive a unique gift."
Griffin smiled faintly as he drew a gun from his coat, loaded it, clicked off the safety, and then stuffed it into Gavo's still-shaking hand.
"You've wanted revenge for your father for a long time, haven't you?"
"I used a little of my authority and had the Tearblood boys round up every bit of scum with a bad record within several thousand meters of this place."
He stepped to Gavo's side, supported the hand holding the gun, and slowly raised it to aim at the trembling scum now screaming from sheer terror.
"Go on. Do it. Kill them."
Griffin wore a cruel smile as he spoke into Gavo's ear.
"Don't you want revenge for your father?"
"The culprit has to be hiding among these pieces of trash."
"It's simple. I'll aim for you. All you have to do is pull the trigger..."
His words were deeply seductive.
As Gavo looked at those people, she could not help recalling that night.
Because of the bastard hiding among them, her adoptive father had remained unconscious for six whole years, and even now still lay paralyzed from a broken spine.
For one moment of greed, one person, or several of them together, had mercilessly destroyed the shelter of Gavo's childhood and left her tossing restlessly through countless nights, burdened by guilt toward her father.
"That's right. Blow them apart. These faithless, heartless, shameless wretches have already lost the right to live in this world."
That familiar eerie whisper appeared once more in Gavo's ears, stirring the rage that had burned in her heart for six long years.
That fire might once have been suppressed, but it had never gone out.
And now, after all those years, it burst forth again, determined to burn everything to ash.
A towering blaze of fury climbed up Gavo's spine and flooded her mind.
Just as her finger slowly began to squeeze the trigger, a withered hand grabbed hold of her pant leg.
(End of Chapter)
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