Chapter 71: New Equipment

Chapter 71: Chapter 71: New Equipment

As quickly and painlessly as possible, Xiang Yi had tied up every loose end.

He holstered the Laser Rifle.

Shi Tie had just finished wandering around outside and was making its way back.

Xiang Yi had been about to put it to work helping dispose of the Scavenger crew’s bodies.

But for some reason Shi Tie suddenly moved on its own, tearing at one of the corpses on the ground like it was about to take a bite.

It was hungry.

"Stop!"

The command reached Shi Tie in time.

It hesitated for a moment, then dropped the arm — belonging to some Scavenger or another — back onto the ground.

There was a hint of resistance in its behavior, but it was still within the range Xiang Yi could manage.

If he kept letting Shi Tie go hungry, though, there was a real chance it would lose control eventually — and when that happened, it wouldn’t be feasting on these Scavengers anymore. It might come for Xiang Yi himself.

He’d have to head into the city and pick up some fresh meat at some point. Then again, did fresh meat even exist in this day and age?

Xiang Yi wasn’t sure, and he wasn’t going to dwell on it right now.

Right now he needed to clean this place up before someone happened to walk by and see the mess.

He had no interest in picking fights with people who had nothing against him.

He’d just started thinking about how to clear the scene.

When a faint noise suddenly drifted in from outside the hospital.

Xiang Yi raised his weapon immediately — then lowered it when he saw Ning Ye peeking out from behind a wall.

He hesitated, then tilted the barrel down and asked, "What are you doing here?"

"The leader of the Scavenger crew I just joined said there’s new intel from the mine," Ning Ye explained, walking closer.

"Some bodies were hauled up from the lower shafts. All the organs were scooped clean, but the brains were untouched. The wounds suggest a solid Abnormality, roughly the size of an arm."

"So the crew decided to resupply before pushing in. They told us to hold position and wait for the transport convoy to catch up. Since we weren’t that far from the city anyway, I figured I’d swing by and check on things."

"Then I heard gunshots coming from here."

She picked her way across the floor, stepping around the blood-soaked patches, and came to stand beside Xiang Yi. Her eyes swept over the dozen-odd bodies scattered around them, wide with shock and confusion.

"You did all this... are those two soldiers?"

"Those two are militia. The rest are Scavengers. I found something down below the hospital, and the moment I came back up they tried to kill me over it. I didn’t have a choice."

"Why would militia be running with Scavengers?" Ning Ye muttered, glancing around the room.

She spotted the wall near the stairwell leading underground — riddled with bullet holes, far too many for one or two people to have put there.

Whatever had actually gone down here, she was firmly on Xiang Yi’s side.

"But how did those two end up like that? Didn’t you say the Blood Crystals came from an Abnormality, not your Spiritual Energy? So why do those two have their skulls turned into Blood Crystals?"

It seemed Ning Ye hadn’t caught the full fight between him and Shi Tie.

Xiang Yi just shrugged and left the question unanswered.

"I need to deal with this. If you don’t want to be involved, you should leave now — otherwise you might end up getting painted as an accomplice and locked out of the city."

"Or, if you’re willing, you could help me handle them."

Ning Ye looked torn for a long moment, but after thinking it over she stayed.

She helped Xiang Yi with the aftermath, cleaning up the scene of the fight.

And listened as Xiang Yi walked her through exactly what had happened.

It didn’t take long before Xiang Yi had gone through every pocket on every body.

He turned up roughly a hundred or so credits in loose change, along with all kinds of miscellaneous personal odds and ends.

And of course, every single one of them had a personal terminal.

Those weren’t worth nothing — they could be sold off secondhand. They were all bog-standard models, but taken together they’d probably fetch upwards of twenty thousand credits.

Xiang Yi wasn’t particularly fussed about any of that small stuff. What he really wanted to find was the Biological Sensor someone had mentioned earlier.

He found it quickly enough, on one of the dead militia.

["Pioneer" Biological Sensor]

[Energy Core: "Nanfu" Energy Concentration Ring Battery]

[Functional Module: "Pioneer" Heat Source Detection Sensor, "Pioneer" Heartbeat Detection Sensor, "Pioneer" Bio-Electrical Signal Detection Sensor]

[Display Module: "Pioneer" Sensor Feed Synchronous Display]

[Structural Framework: "Pioneer" Handheld Sensor Unit]

It was a useful piece of kit — capable of picking up all biological signals within a certain range.

Though he couldn’t rely on it too heavily. After all, these people had already paid in blood to prove it couldn’t detect Shi Tie.

"Huh, what’s this?"

Xiang Yi pulled another device off the militia corpse — roughly the same size as a personal terminal, with no visible display screen or anything of the sort on its surface.

He was just about to pull up its panel when Ning Ye, who’d been dragging a body nearby, glanced up at what he was holding and said, "That’s a Portable Psychic Wave Detector. Works on the same principle as a Geiger Counter. Though why isn’t it going off?"

Xiang Yi opened the device’s panel.

["Edge Company" Portable Psychic Wave Detector]

[Functional Module: "Edge Company" Spiritual Fluctuation Particle Reaction Detection Unit]

[Structural Framework: "Edge Company" Miniature Portable Device Universal Frame]

At the same moment, the detector suddenly kicked on, emitting a slow, steady — beep — beep —

"Oh, there it goes."

Xiang Yi looked up at Ning Ye. "You know Edge Company?"

"Sure, it’s a big company — makes Spiritual Devices. Why do you ask?"

"No reason. Just curious."

Every single Spiritual Device Xiang Yi had come across so far had been an Edge Company model. It was hard not to take notice.

The detector was obviously valuable too, though its drawback was plain enough — it could only pick up a Spiritual Ability User when they were actively emitting a Spiritual Fluctuation.

Though its real purpose was probably detecting Abnormalities anyway.

Still a good find. He’d keep it.

Xiang Yi clipped the detector to his belt, then turned his attention to something else he’d been keeping an eye on.

The weapons these people had been carrying.

Fifteen people.

Two military-grade rifles, two civilian semi-auto rifles, and one homemade rifle — all chambered in 5.56×45mm.

Plus twelve handguns. Two military-issue, the rest all homemade, all in the standard 9mm.

The total ammunition count was considerably higher than what Xiang Yi had found at the robot’s place — just over three hundred rifle rounds, and another two-hundred-plus in handgun ammo.

Firearms regulation on Anka Star’s cities didn’t seem to be particularly tight.

Xiang Yi didn’t need that many guns. The extras would probably just have to go to the robot for recycling.

He also picked up the 7.62mm homemade rifle that Shi Tie had been swinging around like a club.

More stopping power than the others. With a little Spiritual Energy applied to it, it’d be functional again, and he could restock the ammo from the robot as well.

Before long.

The Scavenger crew’s bodies had been stacked together in a neat pile.

Ning Ye stood beside Xiang Yi, looking at the heap of a dozen-odd corpses. "So what’s the plan?" she asked.

Xiang Yi spread his hands. "No idea. What do you think?"

He’d already planned on making the whole thing disappear — Ning Ye showing up had just interrupted that.

Which was fine. He could use this to see where her head was at.

She’d already said plenty by agreeing to help deal with the bodies, but Xiang Yi figured it was worth one more test.