Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 417: Hunter and Prey (1)

Chapter 417: Hunter and Prey (1)

Malin turned his head to look in the direction they had come from.

Far in the distance, gunshots rang out, but neither Faye nor Jessica could hear anything.

"Let’s change our plan, don’t look for the ogre anymore, let’s find the battlefield first. But don’t just barge into the scene, scout the surroundings first." After some thought, Malin decided to change the course of action; otherwise, their plan would have been to look for the ogres first, searching their camp to see if they could find anything.

"Why?" Faye asked, puzzled.

"I heard gunshots from the direction we came from..." Malin could clearly hear the sound of the gunshots; it was the distinctive sound of the old-fashioned revolvers used by the Northern troops.

To the North, military weapons, Malin first asked himself if he had friends from the Northern army—the 17th Division couldn’t possibly be it, as they had already completed restructuring their equipment.

Military weapons aren’t easily available everywhere.

So, the only possibility... that Lord had come.

Even though Malin had no evidence, his intuition told him that there was only one answer.

In the Capital, the two hadn’t met immediately; Malin only knew from the newspapers that he had been to the Capital and faced questioning.

Besides that, Malin didn’t know much about him.

He only knew that he had fought in the Northern wars for many years, was a half-blood with decent heritage and military achievements as his advantages; otherwise, no elven Professional would have taken a liking to him.

However... that’s all right, as the elves say, nature will discern whether a person is a hunter or the hunted.

"Faye, eliminate our scent." As soon as he finished speaking, Malin took out a jar and connected it to the conduit near his collar—this scent eliminator was the result of alchemy. Its inventor initially intended to create a pheromone for hunting Spirits in the wild, but somehow, his invention ended up as a complete scent eliminator instead.

Not to mention attracting Spirits, it could even erase the user’s scent from nature.

It was prepared for them by Clovis; the Bunny Girl’s alchemy workshop always produced some weird and wonderful stuff.

Malin took Bippo out of his hood and let Melo morph into armor that completely covered it.

Malin pulled up his hood, and the wooden World Tree mask fit snugly with the hem of his cloak.

"Bippo, link us."

The next second, Malin could feel the presence of Faye and the others connected to Bippo.

"Let’s go," Malin whispered, ducking under a fallen tree trunk, intentionally leaving a footprint pointing north, and then treading lightly: "Step lighter, don’t leave footprints."

Then Malin led the girls to the site of the incident in the West.

.........

"I heard gunshots, coming from behind." The half-human Tech Hunter in the squad stopped: "No, that’s wrong, Wanka’s signal is gone, he’s dead."

"There are definitely gunshots in the sensor, but could the signal be due to the woods." Another Tech Hunter turned around saying this and raised his hand: "Two... Three... Four, four sounds! There’s at least one squad of targets that has crossed the sensor array I laid down, adult-sized, steady footsteps, we’re in trouble."

"Defensive positions, let’s first welcome our guests," said the captain of the Tech Hunters, who took a contraption from his waist and threw it to the side. Upon landing, the machine transformed into a four-legged form and began to patrol the woods.

"I’m curious, it’s just an ogre, was there a need to go on such a relentless hunt from the start, this isn’t the damn Dark Zone or the Death Zone, I always thought that the Southerners of the Sydney Union were as warm and welcoming as our captain." A Tech Hunter with a shotgun spoke while pulling up his hood, lamenting to his Sharpshooter friend who was wrapping up in a camouflaged cloak.

"The last guy who thought like that has been rotting in Black Zone No. 11 for three years now." Sliding open the bolt, loading the bullets, the Sharpshooter shifted to a few nearby trees while replying.

The spiders that emerged from his backpack quickly turned that area into a dense webbed space.

And their master lay half-buried at the center, at the highest point in the area, waiting for his prey.

The gnome and his half-human companion moved to the other side, establishing a small camouflaged outpost backed against a rock, with machines deployed to guard both sides—any humanoid creature without a signal emitter that came within fifteen yards of them would meet the deadliest assassins, the machines, which would attack them with high-explosive bombs and blow them to pieces.

Their captain left a decoy in his place—this was his Transcendent ability, an incredibly lifelike decoy, and then he blended into the ordinary bushes, his camouflage suit merging well with the thicket.

"What did the second group of sensors hear, it’s to Linna’s right side, they’re coming." A low warning came through the communication channel from the assault soldier: "Damn it, infrared can’t confirm their presence, I can’t see them at all, but the sensors confirm they’re passing through the territory in front of Linna."

"I can’t see, I can’t even see the distortion caused by their movement when invisible, are they really human, or is your sensor malfunctioning?" The stressed voice of the Sharpshooter rang out in the channel.

"We can’t see them, we can overlook that area from here, but both Bigfoot and I can’t see anything, Bigfoot’s infrared scope opened for three seconds, and could only see the captain."

"We made it through! No, wait, only three made it through! One’s changed direction! Linna! He’s coming for you!" the Assault trooper shouted, then had no choice but to abandon his cover—his duty was to protect the Sharpshooter, and he had to step out to draw the enemy’s attention.

Then he saw it, a distortion in the air about forty yards to his front left.

"On my front left!" He had just enough time to shout out a warning when a crossbow arrow pierced his side. His last-minute evasive maneuver, spurred by instinct, saved him from a fatal blow. A gash torn across his side was far better than an arrow through his lung.

As the Assault trooper fell, another crossbow arrow appeared from thin air even further away from that spot, covering a distance of about sixty yards. This time, with the arrow flying straight at him, the Assault trooper could only block it with the stock of his shotgun.

He avoided the deadly strike but tumbled to the ground.

All the while, he saw that the mine continue to roam through the woodland, as if everything was fine.

His professional instinct made him yell out the answer: "Undead assassin!"

Then he tilted his head to dodge a dagger thrust from the void, watching it pass by his ear, and seeing the bony hand holding it: "It’s Undead! Damn it!"

The Gnome fired a flare imbued with the Holy Light, but found that the problematic assassins had already begun to use the shadows cast by trees on the ground to dodge the deadly white light.

"It’s here!" Linna screamed from her position. "From beneath the ground!"

The Half-human flipped out of his hiding spot and quickly pulled the Gnome out of the pit by his upper body, "Eta’s dead!" He let go of the Gnome’s shoulder strap and turned to run towards his captain: "What are you spacing out for, Captain? Capta..." He saw his captain emerging from the bushes, with a young stranger walking out alongside him.

Seeing the stranger’s smile and the bloody red in his captain’s eye sockets, the Half-human fell silent for a moment, noticing many Undead units closing in from all around.

"Can we make a deal? I’m a battle Mage with some extra gold. Maybe I can buy my life from you. You know, everything in this world has a price; every person has their own worth."

"If we were somewhere else, I’d find your proposition very tempting, but not now. So, die a bit more quietly," the young man shook his head.

The Half-human nodded, then drew the signal gun from his waist and shot himself in the head.

As the young man looked on in confusion, the Half-human’s skull burst open, and a signal flare fueled by his own soul soared into the sky.

"Are battle Mages always this serious?" The young man glanced at the signal fireworks exploding in the sky, then turned his head to watch the human racing towards the Web Spell.

"Kill him." He turned to the puppet he’d just acquired, who was on all fours and charging at his prey in a grotesquely twisted manner.

The Assault trooper crawled through the web, his Anti-Demon Charm from the Dark Zone ensuring he wasn’t ensnared, and made his way to the Sharpshooter’s shelter. He found her struggling with a Half-human.

No, not a Half-human—it was a corpse.

Breathing heavily, he pulled the silver-soaked dagger from his waist and stabbed it into the corpse’s back. Pushing the body away, the Assault trooper pulled his teammate to her feet and then snatched the charm off her neck, "Run, Linna, head west and find the Church members who are controlling the area. It’s your only way out."

"What about you?"

"I’m fine," the Assault trooper said and took a grenade from the Sharpshooter’s waist. "When we left the village together, I swore to your father that I would bring you back... go... "

There must have been poison on the crossbow arrow, for the Assault trooper felt half of his body grow numb.

He lay in that small foxhole, watching his beloved courageously make her escape.

His breathing grew labored, and he could no longer see anything clearly. All he felt was being dragged out of the foxhole.

They all say that Tech Hunters choose a path of no return, whether they be Sydneyans or from the Eastern Kingdom, surviving in the Dark Zone, the Red Zone, and the Death Zone, their lives hanging by a thread every day.

For what... certainly not for glory and fame.

Something bit into the Assault trooper’s leg. Then, like a toy, his torn leg disappeared from his blurry vision.

It didn’t hurt at all.

With that thought, something tore his hand from his body, along with the pin of the grenade.

The Assault trooper laughed, the piercing sound by his ear growing clearer. He saw the dumbfounded stranger.

"May the Lord have mercy," he said.

May the Lord have mercy, may the innocent find fortune, may the wicked be judged, and may the good and evil of this world... both receive their recompense.