The Homeless Party
Haze's cigarette slipped from between her lips and tumbled to the ground.
The sight of the three figures striding out with roaring flames at their backs was so surreal that her pupils trembled violently.
"Unnie!"
Yui burst into the tears she'd been holding back and ran straight into Haze's arms.
Even the eyes of the woman known as the cold Ice Witch reddened in an instant.
"Yui... you're safe. Thank god... really, thank god..."
It was a tearful sisterly reunion. But the touching scene didn't last long.
**WEEEEEOOOOOO—!!!**
A piercing emergency siren tore through the ashen sky.
The lobby explosion had triggered it. Far in the distance, the main gates of the Lilac Ward burst open, and Red Cross armored vehicles and troops began pouring out like a swarm of hornets.
Eve's face went deathly pale. She pointed frantically at Haze's Humvee and jumped in place.
"W-wait just a second! We can do the emotional reunion later—get in the car right now! It's complete chaos out here!!!"
Haze snapped back to her senses too. She shoved Yui into the back seat and yanked open the driver's door.
"Ban! Get in! We need to get out of here—"
"Ma'am. Hold on. Gotta grab my baby first."
Ban stuffed both hands into his pockets and lazily climbed into the Humvee's passenger seat.
"Your baby? You don't mean the motorcycle, do you?!"
"Yup. Parked it behind some wall on the western outskirts. Step on it and swing by. I dumped a shit-ton of money into customizing that engine. No way I'm leaving it behind."
Haze stared at him like he'd lost his mind. But the Red Cross lunatics were closing in fast. She had no choice.
"...Ugh. Hold on tight!"
**VRRRROOOOOOM—!!**
The heavy Humvee kicked up a cloud of dust as it wrenched the wheel violently.
Yui and Eve, crammed in the back seat, screamed as they were tossed around like ragdolls.
Haze glanced at the rearview mirror, and her expression hardened.
Two Red Cross armored vehicles were roaring after them, closing the gap.
"Ban. The request was carried out perfectly. Honestly, I didn't think you'd actually make it out of that hell alone."
Haze spoke while whipping the steering wheel like a madwoman.
"Good. Glad you're satisfied. But ma'am, I'm all out of smokes. Throw in a few packs when you pay the balance, yeah?"
"Here."
Haze kept one hand on the wheel and tossed him a pack of Greenhouse-brand cigarettes from her jacket pocket.
Ban caught it smoothly and grinned.
**Riiiip—**
Haze violently tore the Aegis unit patches off both sleeves of her tactical jacket and hurled them out the window.
"Huh? Unnie, what you just threw out the window...?"
Yui's eyes went wide as saucers.
"I'm not going back to Aegis."
Haze's voice was calm, but a strange heat simmered beneath it.
"I understand Aegis's methods with my head. It's common sense in this world, after all. But..."
Her gaze shifted to Ban, who was casually lighting a cigarette in the passenger seat.
"You said it earlier. 'Aegis, my ass. If it were me, I'd go slit those bastards' throats right now.' Those words... they hit me hard. I'm sick of living like a machine too. Ban, hire us for your Solution Group."
"Huh? Solution Group? I'm just a solo problem-solver. A lone-wolf, badass problem-solver."
Ban exhaled a long plume of smoke and laughed it off.
"Hey! You idiot! You've got an Aegis Captain and an Intelli Master right here—what the hell are you playing hard to get for?!"
Yui kicked the back of his seat repeatedly and yelled.
Eve, who had been slumped beside her, wasn't about to be outdone. She leaned forward over Ban's shoulder.
"M-Master! I don't have anywhere else to go either! You know I was a Red Cross full professor... Please don't abandon me!"
"God, my ears are gonna bleed. Captain this, Master that, full professor—why do you people only speak in your own weird insider terms? Aaaaaargh!!"
Ban ruffled his hair in annoyance and waved them off.
Three suddenly homeless women latching onto him and whining for food. Normally he'd have brushed them off and gone his own way, but for some reason this headache of a combination didn't seem half bad.
He'd been getting a little tired of running solo anyway.
"Yawn... Whatever. Do what you want. Just don't drag me down."
"Understood, Leader."
Haze answered with a faint smile.
"Ugh... 'Leader' sounds so fucking cringey. Can't we just use your name? Cross-eyed lady?"
"Sure thing, Ban."
Soon the Humvee skidded to a rough stop in front of a collapsed section of the western perimeter wall, tires screeching.
There stood Ban's vicious-looking custom motorcycle, covered in gray dust, waiting obediently.
**Screeech—!**
"Oh, my baby. Not a scratch on her."
Ban kicked the door open, hopped out, and stroked the motorcycle's seat before swinging his leg over it.
Behind them, the Red Cross armored vehicles were rapidly closing the distance.
**Ratatatatang—!**
Bullets kicked up dirt and sparks near the Humvee's wheels.
"Ban! We need to move now! Where's the base?! Where the hell are we running to?!"
Haze shouted desperately.
Ban, having started the motorcycle, turned back toward the three women staring at him with desperate eyes from inside the Humvee and flashed a grin.
"Base? Home? Where the fuck would I have something like that? I'm a filthy homeless guy who just squats in whatever empty building I find each night."
"......Excuse me?"
"......What?"
"......Eep."
All three women's faces froze at the same time.
It made sense. There was no way they could've known this crazy bastard just lived however the hell he felt like in the moment.
This was the moment the legendary Aegis sniper, the genius hacker, and the Red Cross professor realized they had just become homeless bums on the streets of this ruined world.
"First, we're getting as far away from here as possible! If they can't keep up, we leave them behind!"
**VRRRRRROOOOOOM—!!!**
Ban's custom motorcycle exploded with a savage roar and shot forward into the wasteland, leaving the Red Cross pursuers in the dust.
"That crazy son of a bitch!!!"
Yui's furious scream filled the Humvee as Haze clenched her teeth, floored the accelerator, and chased after the motorcycle's taillight.
**Boom! Booooom—!**
The turret on the pursuing Red Cross armored vehicle spat fire.
A shell grazed the Humvee's side and blew the road apart.
Ban, watching through his rearview mirror from atop the bike, clicked his tongue.
"I'm the Pied Piper of pussy~ So damn charming."
He twisted the throttle and drew his revolver with his left hand.
Ahead lay an old overpass from the pre-apocalypse era, with a tunnel running beneath it.
He threaded the needle through the tunnel and aimed the revolver at one of the rotten concrete support pillars holding up the overpass.
**Bang—!**
The bullet struck the pillar's weakest rebar joint with perfect precision.
The instant both Ban's motorcycle and Haze's Humvee cleared the tunnel—
**RUMBLE RUMBLE RUUUUMBLE—!!!**
With a deafening crash, the entire ancient overpass collapsed like a line of dominoes.
The two Red Cross armored vehicles that had been hot on their tail were completely crushed beneath the massive avalanche of concrete and steel.
"Holy shit..."
"He was doing the same crazy shit back there too..."
Haze let out a dry laugh after confirming the collapsed overpass in her rearview mirror. Yui muttered in the same exhausted tone, clearly fed up with the madman's antics.
Ban glanced back with a smirk, then gunned the throttle and disappeared deep into the ruins of the Gray Zone as the red sunset bled across the sky.
Several hours later.
In front of an abandoned motel deep in the completely darkened Gray Zone.
A dilapidated haunted house of a building, overgrown with weeds, half its sign hanging off—perfectly normal if a rat suddenly came scurrying out.
**Creak—**
The Humvee came to a stop. The moment Yui and Eve stepped out of the back seat, their faces rapidly turned sour.
Ban parked his bike haphazardly and kicked open the firmly shut motel door.
"Alright, this is tonight's hotel. Lucky we found one with an intact roof."
Ban muttered around the cigarette in his mouth as he stepped into the pitch-black lobby.
A floor covered in dust bunnies, walls blooming with mold, and one fat field rat that went scampering away into the corner.
"Hey, you crazy bastard! You seriously expect us to sleep here?!"
Yui shrieked again at the top of her lungs.
Eve also looked deeply disappointed, staring down at the floor.
Only one person remained unfazed.
Haze didn't seem bothered at all. In fact, she was calmly scanning their surroundings.
As expected from the reliable big sister.
Ban plopped down without hesitation onto an old couch in the middle of the dark lobby, its surface crusted with some unidentifiable dried stain.
A thick cloud of ancient dust puffed up with a *poof*.
"Cough! Hey! You're really gonna sit on that filthy thing?!"
Yui pinched her nose and recoiled in horror.
"Listen, Miss Intelli Master. You think this is some sterile cleanroom? If it's got a roof and walls, it's a five-star hotel. You apocalypse natives really have zero survival sense."
Ban cackled and propped both feet up on the rickety table.
"If you don't like it, go upstairs, find a usable room, and clean it. I'm tired, so I'm crashing right here. Oh, and watch out for the rats running around in that corner."
Yui shuddered at his words.
Even though she was a native born into this ruined world, ever since she'd been scouted by Intelli she'd lived in relatively comfortable conditions, just tapping away at keyboards.
The combination of rats and the stench of a sewer made her want to vomit.
At that moment, Eve, who had been sitting on the floor, suddenly shot to her feet and blocked Ban's path.
Through the gap in her white lab coat, the torn tight underboob top and skirt that had been shredded by those trash in the lab were pitifully exposed.
"Damn nice view."
Eve hurriedly pulled her coat closed after seeing Ban lazily staring at her chest and muttering.
Her body was still trembling slightly from the extreme terror she'd just experienced, but her eyes burned with desperation.
"B-Ban! I'll clean the rooms on the second floor! I'm really good at cleaning!"
Eve was desperately trying to prove her usefulness. It was honestly pretty cute.
"Wow, Nevi's good at cleaning too? Whoa~ So different from our top hacker over there. A doctor who can clean, knows her way around, and even has those insane tits for a wallet! You're the best, Nevi~!"
"But you've been calling them a 'tit wallet' this whole time... that's a bit... A-anyway! I'll go clean the second floor now!"
Eve practically flew up the stairs to the second floor.
Yui watched her go and muttered in disbelief.
"That's just pathetic."
"What are you waiting for, shorty? If you don't want to sleep with the rats on this couch, hurry up and help her."
Ban waved his hand dismissively.
Yui cursed under her breath with every swear word she knew and stomped up the stairs after Eve.
The first-floor lobby grew quiet as the dust settled.
Cold night wind from the Gray Zone slipped in through the broken windows. Haze, who had already taken up position by the window and was checking her sniper rifle, spoke softly.
"Ban."
"What, Cross-eyed lady? You wanna sleep in this rat-infested lobby with me too?"
Instead of answering his lame joke, Haze simply stared out into the ashen darkness of the wasteland.
"No. I was just thinking... living without those stupid labels like Aegis, doing whatever the hell I want... it's not so bad. Except for the dust smell."
Her voice was calm, but it carried a clear sense of relief.
Ban exhaled a thick cloud of smoke from the cigarette between his lips.
**Hiss—**
The glowing red ember lit up the dark lobby.
"Want one?"
At his offer, Haze let out a small laugh and pulled out her own cigarette.
"I don't mind you following me. Hell, traveling with girls as pretty as you three is actually a huge win. Oh, not sexual harassment. MeToo, no thank you."
"You really are good at saying completely useless things."
The man who only ever spouted useless nonsense stood up and walked over to Haze.
"That's part of my charm. Anyway, I don't mind, but I'm not your babysitter or anything. I'm not some apostle of justice either. So don't die, and keep up on your own."
Without waiting for her reply, Ban walked out of the building.
Haze leaned against the broken windowsill and quietly watched his back as he stepped out into the moonlight.
She wondered where the crazy bastard was going in the middle of the night, but he was just rummaging through his bike's storage compartment. He pulled out a bundle of old wire and several empty pre-apocalypse tin cans.
With a cigarette still clamped in his mouth, he began carefully stretching the wire taut between the collapsed walls and the approach path around the abandoned motel, keeping it out of sight.
He meticulously set up the empty cans and scrap metal so that the slightest tug on the wire would create a loud metallic racket.
After all, this was the Gray Zone—not territory directly controlled by any of the Eight Major Factions.
It was pure wilderness. You never knew when Walkers might catch the scent and come crawling, or when loot-crazed raiders might show up to slit your throat.
The way his hands moved to build a perimeter directly tied to their survival showed the touch of a true veteran who'd survived decades in this world.
Beneath his sloppy appearance lay the iron laws of the apocalypse, carved into his very bones.
'So he's not just some reckless idiot who lives without thinking.'
Haze exhaled a long stream of white cigarette smoke and let out a small, dry laugh.
Insane guts that never lost composure no matter how extreme the situation, paired with ruthless survival instincts.
He was without a doubt the most interesting human being she'd ever seen—one she never would've encountered inside Aegis's stifling fortress.
She gently ran her fingers along the cold barrel of the sniper rifle in her arms and narrowed her eyes at Ban, who had finished setting the wires and was now casually spitting on the ground.
It looked like she might actually get a decent night's sleep tonight.