Chapter 1044: It’s An Escapee

We left the building with the guard guiding us, the guy looking quite apologetic for what we just experienced.

"I have to apologise," The guard spoke up after leaving the building. "Professor Thawen Eirlos is known as a bit of an eccentric... He treats everyone the same way so please don’t take it personally."

I turned to Lea, "Are other Alvs like that?"

Lea shook her head quickly, "No. It’s just a personality issue, Mistress."

Ok, good. Because I know for a fact that Lea was not that stuck up like him and since I don’t really have much experience with Alvs, I don’t know if it was Lea or that guy that was the one that was weird.

I turned back to the guard and brought up my Codex to project a screen of the bug that the Alv professor had sent to me, "So... Our task is to capture this specific bug?"

The guard nodded, "We require this specific specimen back in containment. You will be paid exceptionally well for this."

"Exceptionally well isn’t a number though. How much are you actually paying us?"

There was a pause as though the guard was considering the actual value of this job before he spoke, "How does five million Credits sound?"

Ohh~ That’s a lot of Credits to be paying for a single bug~

For reference, Vier told us that an intact humanoid bug would net us five hundred thousand Credits if we sold it on the market. So even if they were going to pay us seven times the market price, that’s still more than a million Credits above the expected price for it.

That’s why I wasn’t trusting his word for it and made a call to Vier instead.

The call connected after a single ring and she appeared on a screen in front of me.

"Tera. Are there any problems with the negotiations?"

I gave her a quick summary of what happened and even sent her the image of the bug as well.

She took a moment to look at it before turning to address the guard in front of us, "You wish for us to get this creature back to you in one piece?"

The guard seemed a little surprised to see her at first, though I was wondering if it was because he didn’t expect me to call someone else right in front of him or because he recognised who Vier was.

The guard quickly recovered and nodded his head, "Yes. That is the job."

"I want to know if this creature is an escaped experiment?"

Eh?

The guard froze up again and something told me that Vier got it spot on.

Well fuck... You’ve got to be kidding me...

Amber turned her gaze at the guard and gave him a pointed look, "Well? Is it?"

He hesitated, probably thinking if it was better for him to lie to us or not. But unfortunately for him, I already waved at Mara to let her know she should be using her telepathy to check for the truth through his memories so we would know whether he was lying or not.

He shook his head quickly, "No... Of course not. It’s just a bug that we found that the professor is interested in since it’s different from the normal bugs."

I peeked at Mara and she just gave me a slow shake of her head to show that was not true.

I sighed and shook my head at him, "If that’s the case, I suppose you guys can get someone else to deal with that bug then. After all... We were sent here merely to drop off those supplies for you and the dogs technically still belong to the military so we can’t just take them away and use them for ourselves, especially when the rewards are outweighed by the risks."

He grimaced but it doesn’t seem like he was going to take back what he had claimed about the bug. Either because he was not allowed to do so or because of some other reason.

Either way... The fact that this was an escaped experiment of theirs meant that it was way more dangerous than normal... And I have a feeling we just found the reason why they hired us for the first job with the requirement that we don’t inform the military about this.

I’m guessing the bug escaped from their lab and broke through that wall to begin with and escaped into the tunnels which then prompted them to start digging out a bigger hole to fit their own people to chase after it.

But they realised that the hole led to a network of tunnels with even more bugs and they didn’t have the firepower to chase after it while dealing with the other bugs so they had to give up on it.

They were hoping that the bug might just be hanging out near the cavern and thus they sent me there to capture it. But now they know that the bug they were looking for was not there at all and most likely somewhere else.

So now they’re trying to hire us for cheap to get their escaped science experiment back, all the while keeping this a secret from everyone else that they managed to create a mutation of the bug and now it’s lost somewhere in the tunnels.

I gave him one last chance to change his mind but he still remained silent so I turned and boarded my Power Armour and gave out the order to return to the main outpost to report back on our mission success to General Rourke.

Surprisingly, no one stopped us and we left the outpost without any issues.

I wonder if they were hoping that someone else would come along and they could trick them into helping them deal with it.

When we finally got out of sight from the outpost, I slowed down and let the dogs lead the way to rejoin my girls.

"So... Is that really alright?" I asked, even though I knew that if it wasn’t, my girls would have stopped me.

Mara tilted her head at me, "I believe we made the right choice, Captain. From what I could read from his mind, they had managed to get one of those humanoid bugs off the market that had been captured alive by one of the Mercenary groups. I believe it’s one of those bugs that had escaped from the nest we had been trying to deal with and it ended up crossing paths with another Mercenary team who then captured it. Thus, they decided to buy it off from them and move an outpost here to start experimenting on it which then led to the bug mutating into that form."

Amber then gave her a pointed look, "Did the bug escape before or after the military got pushed back from the new wave of bugs?"

"Before."

I sucked in a breath, "You’re not suggesting that the bug escaped into the nest which then led to all of the bugs starting to mutate alongside it and now... We might be dealing with a new nest of bugs that have god knows what spliced into them?"

"That might very well be the case, Captain."

I couldn’t help but let out a groan, "Then doesn’t it sound like we should really deal with it before it gets out of hand?"

Yumiko scoffed, "We are under no obligation to clean this mess up to begin with, Mistress. And what’s more, they are trying to get away with lowballing us with such an offer. Unless they pay us what we’re worth for this job, I say we hang them to dry."

"I mean... Wouldn’t they now be incentivised to do something to keep us quiet since we know about this?"

Amber let out a laugh, "Ahahaha! Sure~ They can just go ahead and try~ Right now we might be the only group on this planet that is able to help them solve their problem so if they want to cut us off and burn that bridge... Heh heh heh~"

I want to say that she’s exaggerating but... I guess they can’t go to the military to ask for it since that would be admitting that they screwed up and the government might come down on them for that.

They could of course find other Mercs to do it but there’s no guarantee they could succeed. At least... No one else who might have the same guarantee as having a hundred and one dogs on their side.

"But we’ll still run into it if we’re going to operate in this nest, right?" I pointed out.

"True, but there’s no need for us to keep it alive, do we? And if they really want to retrieve it at that point before we kill it, then they better cough up the Credits to cover for our work~"

Damn... I never knew my girls already learned how to extort people like that...

I love you girls~