Chapter 103: No Love Lost

Kyle grabbed the arctech handgun dropped by the sergeant and shot the lady, the projectile tearing through her windpipes before she could scream even more to attract attention.

[System Message]

Killed [Informant Villager], +5 EXP

However, her initial scream had already attracted the attention of a dozen soldiers who were still herding the villagers at the open clearing in the middle of the village. The gunshot startled them as well, prompting them to raise their repeaters in wariness.

“Hey, what was that?”

“It came from the leader’s house! Where’s the sergeant?”

At the same time, Kyle knocked out the sergeant with a kick to the jaw, sending a concussion right up to his brain, before dragging him back into the house quickly.

The soldiers had already spotted him, with five of them rushing out to the front of the house, their bodies hugging the walls to prevent being shot from within the house. The first soldier peeked through the broken-down door but was unable to spot anything other than a bloody mess on the floor. “Don’t bother hiding in there – we saw you! Come out peacefully, and you will have a fair trial!”

Nobody replied, but the soldiers who had their ears to the wall could hear the dragging of bodies on the ground. “Thundercrackers, through the windows now!” One of the soldiers ordered, prompting them to brandish a metallic arctech orb.

Before any one of them could toss the orb in, a loud gunshot ripped through the thin curtains of the windows and grazed the forehead of one soldier, who quickly ducked in response, his heart pounding wildly.

A hand reached out from around the edges of the doorway, grabbing onto the soldier’s legs firmly and dragging him inside whilst his head landed with a heavy thud from the sudden jerk.

“He’s right under the windows! Get him!”

Just as the soldiers were about to react, a whirring rotating sound could be heard behind them, before they felt sharp pain erupting all over their body. The machine gun’s pellets tore through them like butter, a hundred pellets shredding them as their bodies became ragged.

The pellets lodged themselves in the walls and pockmarked the curtains, tearing off chunks while all five soldiers died, slumped to the ground with the armed thundercrackers popping off like a loud banging noise with a white flash, blinding everyone who even slightly looked in their direction.

The remaining soldiers at the central clearing were not unaware of what was happening – they had just witnessed the five soldiers gunned down by a machine gun from a house opposite.

“Shit! How did they get a machine gun here?! What do we do? There’s no way we can fight that!”

“Retreat, get back to headquarters to ask for more backup and equipment. Move!”

“What about the sergeant?!”

“Fuck him, he’s dead!”

Panicking, the soldiers beat a hasty retreat, running away from the middle clearing. However, two shots suddenly rang clear through the evening sky, boring a hole in the two soldiers forehead and prompting the rest of the soldiers to get off the road immediately and duck behind the houses, aware that the shot came from behind them.

“Where was that?”Updated from novelb(i)n.c(o)m

Kyle complied, releasing Hayden as she gingerly wiped the small stains of blood off her neck, still glaring at Kyle with anger.

Already outside, the villagers were crowding around the dead lady’s body, arguing with each other in a frenzy.

“How did she know we had a revolutionary here in the village? And how did she tell the military in the first place?”

“It does not matter – we need to kick Hayden out of the village right now, as well as those two strangers! The military will find out that their entire detachment has died, and they’ll come back even stronger!”

“Idiot, kicking them out won’t do us any good. They already want to evict us for illegal occupation! Why would kicking out the revolutionaries help us in any way?”

“I don’t want my children to get caught in the crossfire. We should surrender to the military immediately – tell them who the exact revolutionaries are and negotiate.”

“This village was built on trust and loyalty among us. If we are selling out our own people, what kind of village is this?! I did not sign up to betray one of us!”

“Hayden is not one of us; she barely joined us a year ago.”

“And? You still use her metalware right now in your house – don’t forget the metal pots you use to cook for your children!”

“We should move away from here – find another area. The Keru Forest is big; we’ll definitely find another place.”

“How the hell are we going to fight through the mineral ants hive and the other animals in the forest?!”

The argument was heated, as the villagers were clearly divided on what to do. Not many participated in the argument, some simply heading home to check on their damaged furniture from the rough handling of the soldiers, while a few curious kids warily picked up a dropped repeater, examining it before their mother quickly snatched it away.

It was the first attack on the village in forever, with the mineral ants hardly ever coming out this far. It was the entire reason the village had managed to flourish here – though the forest was still a dangerous place.

Inside the house, Hayden and Kyle were still arguing with each other, Hayden completely unintimidated by the Ghost of Tenar. “You expect me to believe that mineral ants attacked you and your ‘friend’ here and somehow managed to find our village when just a week ago you were killing representatives in broad daylight in Tenar? Do you even know how far Tenar is away from here?”

“I don’t know how far it is from here. Mostly due to the fact that mineral ants attacked me.”

“Gah! Fine. I applaud your commitment to the Ghost of Tenar identity. It’s clearly obvious that you are simply an imposter. You just managed to do your research on the original revolutionaries, namedropping them randomly.”

“Believe whatever you want to believe. But as of now, we have a common goal as revolutionaries.”

“A common goal? Pfft, you are just an imposter? How would you ever comprehend what the goal is?”

“Says the one who was about to leave the village earlier today without telling anybody. Is that a goal too?”

Hayden stiffened up, noticing Drake’s eyes staring at her in confusion as he was simply listening to the whole conversation while treating Feldon’s burns. “Drake, I... I was going to tell you! I...” She stammered slightly as she tried to explain, but Drake had already turned away from Hayden’s face, unable to meet her eyes.

She turned to glare at Kyle. “Outside, now.”

The two of them left Feldon and Drake alone in the house, with Feldon clearly aware of what had taken place. “Doctor, don’t worry too much. My first wife pulled the same trick on me, too, packing up and leaving without telling me.”

“And she came back?”

“No, I heard that she’s having a blast in Proco. Married one of the mayors or something.”

“What? What are you trying to tell me?”

“Uhh... all things work out in the end? I got a second wife no-ARGH!” Feldon screamed as Drake tightened the bandage far too hard before stomping out of the house, leaving the whimpering Feldon on the ground.

The villagers noticed Drake leaving the house, quickly clamouring around him and trying to convince him of their viewpoints.

“SILENCE!” Drake bellowed as loud as he could. “Tonight, there will be a village meeting in three hours after dinner. I expect all villagers to attend. The future is at stake.”