Chapter 44 : Time for a reunion

The girl read the data from the acquired brain chip and clicked her tongue briefly.

“Another bust.”

Glancing indifferently at the corpse on the ground, she turned and left without hesitation.

A redheaded girl with fine black hair tied in twin tails. Despite her petite frame and cute impression, marked by a white rabbit hair tie, the red dog drawn on her black jacket boasted a ferocious appearance.

Hands in her pockets, she strolled leisurely down the street, and passersby couldn’t hide their fear at the sight of her.

Her name was Ruby.

A rundown bar deep in Rat Town. Burn marks from the fire remained, making it hard to see as a functioning establishment. In truth, Red Dog hadn’t reopened since that day, so it wasn’t an inaccurate impression.

Creak—.

The door groaned with a loud hinge as it opened.

In the dim interior, someone sensed Ruby’s presence and spoke.

“You’re later than usual today.”

“The rat was slippery, took time to catch.”

“And the data?”

“A dud. Thought this one was a hit.”

Ruby sighed, grumbling, and the man on the sofa cackled, reaching for a liquor bottle on the table.

Swish!

With quick reflexes, Ruby snatched the bottle first.

“No booze for you.”

“Come on. Without that guy, what’s the point of living?”

“Didn’t you hear Mary? Keep drinking, and you’re dead.”

Despite Ruby’s stern tone, Franklin brushed it off.

“Replaced my liver and stomach with implants. If they rot, I’ll swap ‘em out.”

“Even you can’t replace your brain. It’s not your liver or stomach—it’s the brain damage from chugging that’s the problem!”

A heavy silence fell. After a long pause, he muttered softly.

“What can I do? I need booze to survive. It might rot my brain, but without it, my heart breaks. If a miserable end awaits either way, shouldn’t I choose the path there?”

“…”

Unable to respond, Ruby glared at Franklin, then chugged from the bottle in her hand.

“Heh. Told you. You’ll end up hooked on booze too.”

“Shut up.”

“But you’re late today. The data?”

“…I said it was a dud.”

“Oh, right. Now that you mention it, I recall. Heh.”

As Ruby put the bottle in the fridge, she asked casually.

“Anything happen while I was gone?”

“Hm… Come to think of it, one of your lackeys dropped by. Looking for you, but I said you weren’t here.”

“Name?”

“Dunno. My brain’s not roomy enough to remember every punk’s name.”

“Figures. I’ll be back, so behave. Touch the booze, and you’re dead.”

“Ooh, scary. Heh!”

Leaving the ruined bar, Ruby headed to the new Red Dog hideout across the street. It wasn’t much different from the last place. The fire that swept Rat Town five years ago spared nothing, burning everything to a crisp.

Any clean building around here, free of burn scars, was likely new, built on the ashes of one that collapsed in the blaze.

They could’ve chosen such a place for the hideout, but Ruby didn’t. To never forget that day’s wounds. She felt more attached to buildings scarred by fire, like herself.

As she neared, a man approached and bowed.

“You’re back.”

“What’s up?”

“A negotiator from Wave is here.”

Negotiator. A specialist brokering missions between corporations and mercs. Usually corporate-affiliated, but some freelancers mediate between both sides.

It wasn’t welcome news, and she clicked her tongue.

“Tch. Here to nag again? Lead the way.”

“Yes.”

As her subordinate led her inside, the hideout’s members bowed in unison. Ruby accepted their greetings as if it were only natural.

The sight of grizzled mercs bowing to a petite girl seemed bizarre, but anyone who knew her would understand.

After the Rat Town fire, the old merc world collapsed. The two pillars propping it up—Red Dog and Rusty—vanished overnight.

Chaos reigned for a while, a fitting term for the mess. Rat Town, their base, burned to nothing, and Old City’s rise shifted the landscape drastically.

In that turmoil, Ruby emerged like a comet, rallying the scattered mercs.

At first, being a young girl, she faced fierce opposition. But that resistance faded quickly.

Franklin, a former Red Dog member, backing her helped, but the main reason was her own exceptional skill.

Despite her youth, her marksmanship was near-perfect. Her grasp of engineering was undeniably genius. And her ruthless decisiveness was unbelievable for a young girl.

She didn’t hesitate to kill. That single trait carried immense weight.

Beyond merely being capable of murder, her willingness to employ any brutal method without blinking instilled fear even in fellow mercs.

As a result, a girl just eleven years old became the head of Rat Town’s most powerful merc group in five years.

All for a single goal she’d chased relentlessly. To Ruby, Red Dog was a means, not an end.

Sitting across from Wave’s negotiator now was for the same reason.

“How’s the mission going?”

“Not something done overnight. We agreed on that from the start, didn’t we?”

“Of course. But things have changed.”

The negotiator, wearing a gas mask, exhaled through the filter.

“Old City’s Surfers are wiped out. Ikazuchi’s hunting dog did it. Our losses are massive. We’re at risk of total collapse.”

“And that’s my problem how?”

“Really don’t get it? If we fall, you’re next. You don’t think Ikazuchi left you alone because they couldn’t handle you, do you?”

It wasn’t pleasant, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.

Red Dog and Wave could be said to have an implicit alliance based on mutual interests.

To oppose their common enemy, Ikazuchi.

Wave, focused on Old City, left Neotopia’s gaps for Red Dog to fill.

Red Dog was the only merc group openly hostile to Ikazuchi, taking sabotage jobs. While others cowered before the top corporation, Red Dog took the opposite path.

Without backing, such guts would’ve crushed them. Red Dog survived Ikazuchi’s wrath only because Wave, their sole rival, had their back.

But with Ikazuchi seizing Old City’s dominance, the delicate balance began to tip.

Wave faced an unprecedented crisis, and Red Dog, allied with them, was now on thin ice.

“The only card left is this mission. Fail, and we’re both torn apart by the lion.”

Grasping the gravity, Ruby stared into the distance, lost in thought.

“What’s the mission’s progress? Odds of success?”

“Just need one piece of data.”

“What kind? If our intel can help, we’ll cooperate immediately.”

“Pretty desperate, huh? Doubt you have it. Ikazuchi’s hidden it tight.”

“What is it?”

Tapping the table, Ruby answered.

“The hunting dogs’ roster.”

“Finally…”

Just three hours. Five years of waiting, and I’m back in just three hours.

I only lived here for six months, but the memories from that time are worth more than a lifetime, so painfully missed.

Neotopia.

Ruby is here.

I want to run to where my sister waits and hug her, but there’s somewhere I need to go first.

It’s time to meet him again.