A Carriage in This Godforsaken World
As we climbed up to the surface and stepped out into the gas station lot, Jin and the Blackhead members were preparing to rotate guard duty.
"Hey, you bear bastards! We're heading out to earn some cash! Keep the house safe while we're gone!" Ban shouted toward Jin as he climbed into the passenger seat.
"Don't go too wild out there, Captain," Jin replied, waving his hand indifferently.
The Humvee roared to life and the gas station barrier swung open. Their destination was the gray zone along the northwest coastline. Olympus—the most powerful faction on the continent—along with a insane reward of two thousand coins. And the trail of two women who had vanished without a trace. A bunch of naive hothouse flowers who didn't understand the world, dragging a carriage out beyond the walls that were supposedly the safest place in this fucked-up world.
"Haa... I've got a really bad feeling about this," Ban muttered, chewing on a cigarette while staring out the window.
For some reason, his annoyingly sharp intuition was almost never wrong. Just like the absurd amount of luck the universe had dumped on him, his senses for sniffing out troublesome shit were freakishly well-developed.
"Two thousand coins. For that kind of money, we're gonna have to roll around in the dirt like dogs."
The Humvee swallowed Ban's dry grumble and raced toward the northwestern wasteland. Its massive tires chewed up the cracked asphalt, letting out an unpleasant grinding sound. Outside the windows, skeletal buildings stripped down to their rebar bones flashed by like ghosts, while the low cries of unidentified mutant creatures echoed through the air from somewhere in the distance.
"This is deep in the gray zone, huh?" Ban asked lazily, leaning back in the passenger seat and blowing cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.
"That's right. It's been about two hours since we left the gas station," Haze replied, glancing sideways while keeping her hands on the wheel.
"Where's the nearest official outpost around here?"
"Well... probably one of the Unchained's sub-bases?" Eve answered with a nasal tone, looking around outside.
"Hey, shorty. That seven-thousand-coin fly is still flying properly, right? You didn't crash it into some wall and turn it into a seven-hundred-coin piece of junk, did you?"
At Ban's teasing, Yui, who had been staring intently at her terminal in the back seat, jerked her head up.
"Shut the hell up! The controls are buttery smooth! It can go ten kilometers out without a single bit of noise, you know? It's feeding us a picture a hundred times clearer than your dead-fish eyes, so just be quiet!"
"Whoa, scary. You shook your ass to farm up the points for it, so the performance better be worth it. But seriously, you don't see anything? It's not like that carriage has stealth capabilities or anything."
"I'm picking up something like smoke near the last signal coordinates... but we need to get closer. Sis! Turn toward eleven o'clock here and hug the coastal cliffs a bit more."
At Yui's order, Haze silently turned the wheel. As the Humvee left the forest path and entered the open coastal road, they could see a thin trail of black smoke rising in the distance.
"Wow... it looks so clear on the drone feed! Look over there, Master~! Something's really burning!"
Eve, who had been hugging a first-aid kit to her chest, pointed at Yui's terminal screen with wide-eyed fascination.
The screen displayed a crystal-clear, high-resolution view of the coastal road from five hundred meters up.
"Oh, it really is worth seven thousand coins," Ban said, twisting around to peek at the terminal. Yui puffed out her chest proudly and delicately manipulated the drone's joystick.
"Of course! Okay, zooming in now. Haa... but damn, I still can't get used to seeing that no matter how many times I look."
As the image enlarged, the true nature of the overturned object became clear. It was a luxurious white carriage with elegant curves that looked completely out of place in this wasteland. The roof was adorned with Olympus's signature gold-leaf patterns, and even the individual spokes of the wheels were intricately crafted—a pure luxury item.
"Wow... it's actually a carriage? They really came outside pulling something like that?" Eve asked curiously. Instead of Ban, Haze answered while driving.
"I saw a few when I was with Aegis. It's what the Olympus bastards call a carriage. It may look like that on the outside, but inside it's a monster packed with a high-output engine and bulletproof alloy."
"But why's it in that state? What's the point of having an engine if it just flips over?" Ban sneered, preparing to get out of the Humvee.
The Humvee had stopped right beside the coastal cliff, in the middle of a sheer drop-off road. As Ban stepped out, he frowned at the acrid smell of gunpowder that stung his nose.
"Damn... this is quite the spectacle."
An overturned carriage lay in the middle of the road, with two crumpled black SUVs smashed in front and behind it.
"It's a carriage, so where are the horses?" Ban asked, kicking the carriage lightly.
"They only trot out the horses as decorations when they're showing off their dignity inside the walls. When they crawl outside, of course they run it on an engine, you idiot!" Yui answered, looking at him like he was brain-dead.
The golden harness fixture that would connect to the horses was stored inside the carriage body, but the impact from the rollover had knocked off the fancy decorative panel on the exterior.
Beneath the elegant shell hid a massive radiator grill for high-speed driving and an absurdly thick steel frame for shock absorption.
"These bastards really can't drop the pretentious act even outside. Just ride an armored vehicle, why insist on this ridiculous shape?" Yui clicked her tongue as she stuck her head under the carriage to inspect it.
"They're probably all dead. It's a total mess," Ban said, lighting a new cigarette with disinterested eyes.
"It's a private vehicle for senator-level people. I saw the blueprints back when I was with Intelli. Its defensive power is higher than most armored cars. But something turned it into this?"
The outer wall Yui pointed at was made of special alloy that wouldn't even scratch from ordinary bullets. Yet now it was crumpled like a sheet of paper, as if something ridiculously large and heavy had rammed it head-on.
"I don't think that's the main issue, Mr. Ban," Haze called out as she flipped over one of the bodies while examining the area around the carriage.
Around them lay over a dozen of Olympus's elite guardian soldiers, known as Guardians. Ban approached and inspected the corpse. Just as Haze said. While there were bullet wounds in the chest and limbs, the fatal shots were all concentrated on the forehead or temples.
"Heh. They killed them cleanly," Ban's eyes narrowed for the first time.
"The Guardians were wiped out without even managing a single counterattack. The ambush point was perfect, and the shooting timing was demonic. This isn't the work of ordinary looters," Haze said, adjusting her sniper rifle and scanning the surrounding forest.
"Master~! The person in the driver's seat is dead too!"
At Eve's shout, Ban looked toward the front of the carriage. The Guardian who had been driving was still gripping the wheel, his head blown apart.
Ban examined the road surface. Beside the scrape marks from the carriage flipping over, the tire tracks of a large vehicle making an emergency stop before speeding off again were clearly visible.
"Master~! Look at this! There's almost no blood inside the carriage!" Eve reported, peering into the now-empty interior.
The inside, upholstered with luxurious silk seats and premium leather, was in shambles, but there were no traces of people being killed. Instead, a small sapphire brooch that had lost its owner rolled around on the floor.
Ban picked up the brooch and slipped it into his pocket, staring at the tire tracks leading deep into the forest.
"Looks like they needed hostages. If they were just going to kill them, they would've finished it here. Taking them alive like this..."
"Ban, I'm following the tire tracks with the drone... but the trail splits. It branches into three paths inside the forest," Yui said, shaking her terminal with a troubled expression.
"The bastards used smoke screens. They brought multiple vehicles to mix up the tracks. This is going to take some time."
"What about the satellite network?"
"The forest makes it hard to see."
Ban pulled out a fresh cigarette.
He'd thought this would be a simple two-thousand-coin missing persons case, but the scene smelled way too rotten.
"Ah... like I said, my shitty premonitions are never wrong. This just got annoying as hell."
Ban walked over to Yui and ruffled her hair.
"Hey, you gotta earn those seven thousand coins. Clean the fly's lens properly. Even with the smoke screen, a loaded truck should leave different depth marks in the ground."
Even as Yui pouted, her fingers moved to switch the filters on the terminal screen.
"I was already about to do that, you know? Alright... switching to terrain scan filter. Analyzing wheel track depth now."
Yui's fingers danced busily across the terminal. The processing speed was incredible, as expected from brand-new equipment. The real-time terrain data transmitted by the drone transformed into complex graphs and numbers, filling the entire screen.
"Found it. The left and middle paths have slightly narrower tire widths. Must be decoy buggies. But the right one... the depth of the dug-up soil is different. That's the truck's trail."
"What? Can't you tell a truck's wheels from a buggy's just by looking?"
"They deliberately used tires that look almost identical! Argh! I figured it out from the depth difference, okay?!"
Yui exploded at the captain who always knew exactly how to get under her skin.
Everyone climbed back into the Humvee.
"Master~! If they're dangerous people, can I really use my potion?" Eve asked, carefully cradling the flask filled with that dark green liquid.
The insane concoction that could melt bones on contact.
"Uh... yeah. Depending on the situation. But can you stay calm for now? You're scaring me, you know? With those missile ports of yours, it looks like that stuff could spill all over me any second."
"Hehe. Got it~! I'll be super super quiet!" Eve happily tucked the potion deep into her bag.
Haze was already gripping the wheel, coldly staring down the dark forest path ahead.
"Mr. Ban, if they're professionals, it's highly likely they've set up ambushes or traps at the entrance to their hideout. We need to be careful."
"I know. That's why, Yui, send the drone further ahead to check the path. Let's see where those shit-fly bastards are hiding."
"I'm already doing it! Lowering altitude for advance reconnaissance right now."
Vroooom—!
Haze slammed on the accelerator. The Humvee tore through the forest path, charging down the right route where the enemy had disappeared. It plunged deep into the woods, kicking up clouds of dust from the unpaved road.
As the sun sank below the horizon, the surroundings gradually darkened. The shadows stretching between the dense trees grew increasingly grotesque.
"Ban. Two kilometers ahead. I'll lower the drone altitude more," Yui said, all playfulness gone from her voice.
The thermal imaging feed from the drone was starting to pick up increasingly clear heat signatures.
"Wait. Stop the car," Ban murmured quietly. Haze immediately hit the brakes.
The Humvee came to a halt with a low engine rumble. Ban stuck his head out the window and sniffed the forest air. The gunpowder smell had already faded, replaced by a faint burning odor mixed with the scent of oil.
"Haze. Turn off the headlights for now. Yui, kill the drone's lamps, raise the altitude more, and suppress the motor noise."
"I already turned off all the LEDs and switched to low-noise propeller mode, you know?" Yui grumbled, snapping her fingers.
With the Humvee's lights extinguished, the forest sank into deep darkness. Only the bluish glow from Yui's terminal illuminated the inside of the vehicle.
"Found it. This is the place. The entrance to a quarry," Yui said, holding out her terminal.
Beneath a sheer cliff, an enormous quarry had been completely fortified into a stronghold. A thick iron gate stood at the entrance, and above it, concrete watchtowers equipped with searchlights swept the surroundings without pause.
"Wow... the people in those watchtowers have really big guns," Eve whispered softly as she looked at the screen.
Just as she said, the men stationed in the towers weren't holding ordinary rifles—they had mounted heavy machine guns of the sort you'd only see in Guterrat territory.
"These aren't your average neighborhood thugs. Look at how seriously they've built this base," Ban said, scratching his chin.
When they zoomed in further, they could see the large truck whose tracks they'd followed in the forest parked in the wide open space inside the quarry. And from the truck's cargo bed, the silhouettes of two women being roughly dragged out were caught on camera.
"It's Cecil and Hana. They're still alive," Haze said calmly.
On the screen, a large man grabbed Hana by the hair and dragged her toward a building inside. Hana struggled and resisted, but a kick from the man sent her sprawling to the ground.
"Ah, this is the worst. This isn't a two-thousand-coin job anymore. The way they're being dragged off, we don't have time to just sit and watch," Ban said, clicking open the cylinder of his revolver and snapping it shut again.
"Shorty. Find the thinnest spot on that building's outer wall. Breaking through the front gate would be stupid."
"Hmm, wait... running an ultrasound scan. How about the north wall over there? The outer wall is heavily deteriorated. The rebar's corroded and hollow."
At Yui's report, Ban's gaze naturally shifted to Eve's bag. Eve seemed to have already caught on; she pulled out the flask containing that dark green liquid and held it carefully.
"Master~ I can melt that wall like pudding!"
Heh. Like I always say, there's no such thing as useless gear. It's magic potion time!