Chapter 103: Joan’s Flawless Investigation
Meanwhile, at the survivor camp...
A man yawned, stroking the fire. The weather had gotten unusually cold all of a sudden. Still, someone had to guard the perimeter.
What used to be the job of over a dozen people per gate had been reduced to just two guys.
There were others, but since the survivor camp has more or less been on a decline, Old Joe had no choice but to let most people guard the richies instead of the overall area.
"Sheesh, we’d need more wood," the well-rounded guy mumbled. "Maybe we should ask for warmer clothes."
"Sure, be my guest," the scrawny guy scoffed and kept stroking the fire. "While you’re at it, give them your ass to explore too. Ever since Mila left with her girls, those disgusting fucks are going after anyone with a hole."
The guy cleared his throat before imitating someone, "You want to keep warm, then first you have to warm me up!"
Instead of retorting, the fat guy broke into laughter.
"Just because your girl went to warm someone’s bed, doesn’t mean I would do the same, haha!" The guy patted the other guy’s back and got up. "You need to stop beating yourself up about it. Plenty of women left in the world, even if most of them are taken, haha."
He waited for the scrawny guy’s reply, but there was none. Thinking the man was sulking, the guy just rolled his eyes and turned around.
"Oh, come on! I was just messing—!"
What he saw made his blood run cold. The guy was still leaning over the fire... but his head was nowhere to be seen.
His blood was still pouring out of his neck onto his shoulders and chest. The body stood upright for another second before it slowly toppled over and hit the ground with a thud.
"MIKE! MIKE’S DEAD! SOMEONE HELP!" the guy yelled.
People heard him yelling and stepped out. Some carried weapons, some just stayed at their doorsteps, refusing to move.
By the time the first group of survivors rushed out, a minute had already passed. By then, even the guy screaming for help had met his end. Unlike Mike, whose head was severed, the second gut was cut in half vertically, right in the middle.
As they got closer, they noticed a note was stuck where Mike’s head should have been, with a knife pinning it to the corpse.
A brave soul pulled the knife out and unfolded the note with shaking hands. The note had been stained with blood, and some words were difficult to make out, but the general tone was clear for everyone to understand.
"To the men of this camp, heed this as your call of reckoning. Your misdeed against women will not be forgotten or forgiven. None of you will be spared by my sword... the Nurture Gang..."
"What is going on here... eek! Someone clean this place up!" he shrieked, staring at the disfigured corpses. "And what’s that? Give it to me!"
Old Joe, who only arrived when everything was safe with the entourage of his guards, snatched the paper away.
"Wait a second... the note says it was from some nurture gang, but this paper has the butcher gang’s mark on it!"
Everyone was shocked. Not because two people had died, but because the Butcher gang, the people known for abusing women like animals, were trying to act like heroes and even rebranded themselves as protectors of women?
Was it some kind of joke, or had they gotten so bored living the high life that they decided to torment the camp in new ways? It was more like they wanted the camp for themselves, so they were bullying them for any ridiculous reason.
Meanwhile, no one noticed the woman outside the camp standing on top of a crumbling building.
"That’s what you get for treating women like cattle," the woman spat on the ground before disappearing.
Joan had a satisfied smile on her face. Mila had told her that the place where women were tormented was around this area.
Just to make sure she didn’t accidentally attack some innocent camp, Joan had spent hours scouting the nearby area. This base was the only one on the map Mila had drawn for her, although the location was a bit off.
"The place she had marked only had some abandoned watchtowers and nothing else," Joan mumbled to herself. "I could sense the presence of people around, but... There was no one in sight."
The location was correct, but Mila didn’t know one thing. The sanctuary barrier hides the entire complex from strangers’ eyes.
That was the reason neither monsters nor humans could see the building unless someone attacked them from inside the barrier or a tenant revealed the location to them.
It was why Karina’s crew hadn’t noticed the building until James had pointed it out to them all those days ago.
Instead, Joan only saw the watchtowers, which were ’abandoned’ because everyone was inside the building, crowding the medicare center.
The universal saying once again proved its worth.
Whatever happens, happens for the good.
Sure, John died, Dexter almost died, and whatnot, but at least the guard didn’t get chopped in half, unlike the guards of the survivor camp.
As for why Joan could see the watchtowers but nothing else, it was simply because the towers were outside the barrier’s protection, hence they weren’t hidden.
As for why Milarel sent Joan there, it was because Joan had been pestering her about the location. Once she learned about the ’monsters’ under human skin, she just couldn’t stop herself.
Her constant pestering made it impossible for Milarel to gather intel, as Joan was constantly breathing down her neck.
With Joan gone, she got a lot of information from the girls and the eunuchs about the former leaders of the gang, though it wasn’t much.
However, any info about those samurai girls was appreciated. Though with everything that had happened with Dexter’s crew and Carmila’s resurrection, Aiden hadn’t had the time to go over that information either.