When she reread the details about the current mission, after realizing that this 'Stab Gio Albarez With a Knife' mission had one or two loopholes, she started asking the system whether there were other hidden conditions to take note of.
Okay. Apparently, and thankfully, there were none.
Due to this, while securing her stalls and equipment, she paid points to the system to tell her Gio Albarez' locations. Like what she expected, many dots appeared on the map it showed.
'Just as I thought,' she giggled.
They were at a country where similar names were just a norm. At least Gio's full name was not really unique, unlike hers whose first name was invented by her parents.
If her guess was correct, even though the system specified the name, it didn't really mean that it has to be the person she knew. As long as the name was the same, the system would have no choice but acknowledge it as a completed mission!
She glanced again at the map and checked which one was the nearest to her. Surprisingly one was actually also on the same floor as her. And since the shooting range occupied the whole floor, it meant he was here.
'Gio also came to this place? He didn't tell me about this?'
She narrowed at the rows of words floating in front of her to double-check that she did not read the map incorrectly.
'A surprise?' she thought after confirming there was really one at the floor, to be precise, in a private booth here.
She was already marching to his direction when she heard its voice.
However, she did not reply to it as someone just called out to her. It was Claus, and he asked if she already planned to go home.
Sofony nodded but said that she'd be checking something in the leftmost stalls first. The musclehead shrugged and let her go.
When she reached the area, she came to know that the private booths were actually just larger fully partitioned stalls with a door. She checked and saw that there were only five such booths here. Her destination was the fourth to the left.
Her left brow rose after seeing that its door was not close. It was to her advantage since all that she wanted was to peek in there and confirm who the Gio inside was. However, she was kind of confused by the loud and wild noises coming from there.
Why does it seem like there's a party there? No, actually, the noises were like from a bunch betting about something.
With extreme curiosity, she barged into the place. There were already more than ten people inside. When she roamed her eyes around, if she was included, only three girls were here. The rest were men of different getup and physiques. At the middle of the bunch was Marc Goldwin standing with the hand holding a revolver extended out. She saw him casually pulling the trigger while laughing together with the noisy bunch.
Sofony was not really interested in whatever he was doing so she just continued looking around for Gio. Meanwhile, she could hear the others chat with each other.
"Awww, he didn't miss again."
"Damn! My money!"
"Agh, I also lost! I thought by telling jokes to this dumb*ass, he'd get distracted."
"This is why I told you to bet on him hitting the target again."
"Haha, he really dislikes Gio so he wouldn't miss."
Sofony's ears perked up at the mention of his name. But she was puzzled because she had already triple-checked and her Gio was not in the room. Due to this, she approached one of the women in the room and asked,
"What's happening here?"
The girl she asked was called Jaya. She was a tall short-haired brown-skinned lady who looked very sexy due to her revealing getup. When Sofony said revealing, it was the kind where only the bare minimum amount of clothes were worn to cover what should be covered. She didn't really like the girl due to her flirty behavior but compare to the rest here, she already looked the most approachable. At least, when compared to the scarred guys, musclehead uncles, and matron-like woman over there.
The sexy woman, Jaya, threw Sofony an annoyed look but still explained, "The usual. Whenever Marc is around, he always invites people into his booth to hold a betting game. He will target Gio while we bet whether the body part he will mention will be hit by him. It's that simple."
Sofony dumbly exclaimed, "Gio?"
In her mind, she was asking, 'Which Gio? He's not here. So there's really another person named Gio here? Such a coincidence!'
The bald musclehead next to Jaya who looked like some inmate that escaped from his prison grinned, "Hey, you're his girl! Don't tell me you didn't know that he's having a fierce rivalry with Marc? Why are you surprised?"
Sofony looked away uncomfortably since she noticed the person indecently checking her out. If weren't for the number of people looking their way, she would have started hypnotizing this guy to kiss another brawny man on the lips.
"Hey, Goli! You brute! Stop disrespecting this new addition to our group. Hello, by the way, pretty miss! I didn't think you'd be the one to walk into my room!"
Sofony saw the place's owner walking towards her direction. A smile adorned his face. However, she only held unhappiness from Marc's warm greetings.
"Sorry if I just suddenly went in. I was curious because I heard some loud voices here," she said flatly.
"No problem! You're more than welcome here, Miss Silver!"
She automatically narrowed her eyes after hearing the upper society's name for her.
The same word briefly crossed her mind, but she was not that impressed. Many members here were aware of who she was so with a bit of effort, finding her name would be easy.
She heard the guy added, "By the way, everyone in this room is having fun betting. The rules are simple. You see, the target there?"
The girl followed the direction pointed by his gun and saw something lying more than twenty meters away.
"A dog?" she asked, confusion was on her face because she could see that it was a living target. She squinted her eyes in hopes she gets a clearer view, and noticed that it was really a dog, it looked to be a golden retriever, but she couldn't say for sure due to the blood and wounds all over its body.
The musclehead started laughing together with Jaya and Marc Goldwin. "No, it's not just any other dog. It has a glorious name!"
The others also started laughing. Sofony was initially weirded out by their actions but when she remembered that Jaya mentioned about him being the target...
Her pupils dilated at the realization. Her eyes immediately went to the weakly whimpering animal at the distance, her heart grew cold as she asked,
'Is it... the Gio Albarez showing on my map?'
A second later, a reply came. Then before the system even finished laughing, her expression was already stone-cold, staring icily at everyone who was still chuckling. Unfortunately, the people qualified to enter this place were either veteran and skilled mercenaries or soldiers. Despite feeling amazed that a girl so young could emit a dangerous aura like that, they didn't really feel threatened at all.
One of them laughingly said, "Wow, as expected, that demon won't like a worthless doll!"
"Yeah, at least, she knows how to glare," laughed the macho woman puffing vape at the corner.
Sofony ignored the others and faced Marc. "You named a dog after Gio and put it there as a target?"
While ignoring the obvious anger in her voice, the musclehead replied to her mockingly, "Hey, pretty doll, you seem to know so little about our Gio and Marc here! Haven't you heard of our superman Marc making it a hobby to buy dogs and name them Gio, and then one by one bring them here to shoot to death?"
Marc coughed and laughed, "Baldie, why are you tainting my image to this girl's eyes? You want a one-on-one?"
The other man immediately shut up after Marc brought that up. However, if the latter really did not want to leave any more bad impressions to Sofony, then it was already too late as she had already begun sending him detesting glances.
Seeing Sofony's reactions, the others sneered. She didn't mind them though, and also did not wait for Marc's answer since it could not be any more transparent.
In her mind, she talked with the system and asked if Gio knew about this. She actually had a hunch that he was aware but was just too lazy to care about his opponent's loser-like moves. Her guess did not stray away from the truth. Due to this, she gave one last glare to the guy before walking to the unmoving dog.
The glare was like a warning for him to not shoot. He probably got what she meant, but the others didn't.
"Hey, Dollie! What are you doing? Get back here! If you're not joining our fun, just get out!" It was Jaya's voice that echoed near her ears.
Sofony merely slapped away the hand that tried to grab her shoulder. Surprised by her strength, a shocked expression appeared on the sexy woman's face who then forgot to follow.
At the back, Marc waved a hand at those who wanted to go stop Sofony from whatever she was planning. He said with a cheerful smile, "Let's watch. Anyway, it's a dead dog, so I want to see what Gio's girl's reactions will be to a rascal named after him."
Despite the distance, since the place was currently not as noisy as before, she heard what he said. That time she was already staring at the poor thing's state. The nearer she gets, the more she holds her breath.
'Is he still breathing?' she asked while staring down to it.
Fortunately, she had already gotten used to seeing blood so she didn't turn her head away. But it really looked gory, with holes on some part of its body. Actually, she was guessing there's even one at its brain because a hole was on its forehead. It was a miracle that it was still alive!
With bated breath, she inquired, 'Does it still... want to live?'
Sofony stared at it for a while. Afterward, she let out a sigh and withdraw some items from the system. She made it appear as though she pulled them out of her pocket.
A minute later, she had already ended the poor creature's life and given it the relief it probably longed for even before it was brought here. The bunch from afar didn't manage to do anything to her when she set its corpse on fire.
Also, when they interrogated her why she did, she only replied, to ruin their fun.
The big-bodied woman had probably become too annoyed by her so she tried to grab and pull Sofony's hair. Of course, the girl was still someone with non-existent combat techniques so she just dashed away, dodging the others who tried to corner her or push her back to the other. Then when she reached the door, she wordlessly got out and closed it to trap them there. She even paid points to ensure the door was locked from the outside and wouldn't be opened for at least three hours.
Half a minute after she started glaring at the closed door, the system in her head finally spoke.
The anger in her heart still hadn't gone away so she pointed out,
'....Where's my 100,000 points? And my other reward for this non-mission?'
'....And that Marc too, did you report me the correct information about him? Why do I feel like you lied to me when you told me he's not a host!?'
The devil avoided answering the last question as it focused on scolding her about her stupid and unbearable way of completing her official mission. It kept preaching that she could have done it better and more immorally if she just followed its direction. However, the more it stirred away from that person's real identity, the more Sofony's eyes narrowed...