Chapter 38: Gun-slinging Daddy
And then, he looked away from the gate, staring at the greenery-filled ground, looking for a—
A large rock!
With an almost perverted smirk on his lips, Lucien disregarded the creeped-out expressions on both Mikky and Amira’s faces, heading straight to the rock.
The moment he hefted it on his palm, he nodded, walking toward the gate once more.
"You know, Luci, sometimes I feel like you just need to calm down..."
Lucien disregarded that.
"Step back," he said to the kids. And they listened.
He began hitting the gate.
A few hits later, Lucien, standing on crumpled steel, threw the rock in his hand, and he gestured at the kids to stay away as he regarded the warehouse.
It was wide and spacious. Dark but slightly visible, thanks to the light spilling in from the broken gate, and the splintered sun rays falling from the high-up roof of the warehouse.
Lucien took a slow step in, observing the area.
Sounds of insects echoed outside the building, chirping, creaking. They seemed to echo in the warehouse, causing Lucien, who hadn’t even paid attention to those sounds earlier, to become increasingly aware of them.
He moved, nevertheless, in a slow, cautious motion. Crouched and observant, he scanned the area.
Wooden boxes at one angle. Wooden boxes at the other angle. More wooden boxes. Another corner was filled with larger wooden boxes.
And at one angle, a large stairway led upstairs.
From the rails upstairs, a banner hung.
Lucien filed all this information away.
’Come on, there’s gotta be a vehicle in here somewhere.’
After concluding that there wasn’t any danger in the warehouse — unless the current assault to his nose could be considered danger — Lucien stood upright, clearing his throat.
And he began to move properly.
Hidden in between most of these boxes were items covered with large, black wrappers.
’What is it they’d imported to zerozones?’
Soon enough, Lucien found out the answer to his question as he opened one of the wooden boxes.
Emerald eyes widened.
"Holy shit," he whispered.
It was a crate filled with weapons.
Those gun-like weapons. Lector had called them blasters?
Well, the crate of weapons Lucien was currently looking at resembled pistols.
He would call them pistols.
He grabbed one of the pistols, holding it, bringing it eye-level to observe better in this dark place.
It was black, slick, and carved with numerous linings. It had a trigger, a nozzle. Yes, it really resembled the normal pistols he knew back in Jacob’s Earth. Not like he had seen any up close.
"They’ll all be useless when Eden arrives, as modern weapons are unable to pierce the skin of ancient entities that have dabbled in the force of mana since before this civilization was even born. Only mana-enforced weapons can harm them." Lucien shrugged, grabbing three of the pistols. "But shit it, Eden hasn’t come yet. It’s still useful now."
He held the pistol properly. A shooting position. He aimed at a section at the end of the steel house where–
He pulled the trigger.
Pew–!
A green-streaked laser flew out of the nozzle. But it was weak, lacking luster.
The shot didn’t even make it to Lucien’s target.
’What did I expect?’
Shrugging, Lucien put one of the pistols in his pocket. And for the other two, he hid one at the side of his shoe. It made walking awkward, but he got used to it.
Then he threw the remaining pistol into his backpack.
And he continued his search.
So far, he’d uncovered three items covered with large, black wrappers hidden between the boxes.
One had been a large, wooden cart filled with larger weapons that had designs and shapes that Lucien didn’t quite recognize. He’d never really been well-informed on guns and such. But this didn’t look like any gun on Earth.
He imagined this so-called ’importation’ business had just been a front for smuggling weapons to criminals all over the zerozone sectors, fueling the raging amount of insecurity.
Now it made him wonder. Had these smugglers been busted by Prowlers?
If yes, then how had they smuggled these large amounts of weapons from the big cities to this zerozone without getting demolished by the security at the Sector 1 border?
Lucien smiled, already knowing the answer to this question.
It was an easy one, really.
In the novel, after Lector had saved Amira and Eden arrived, Mira had been sucked into the trials, but when she eventually came out, she came out stronger, and she eventually left the zerozones.
There was a path she’d followed when she exited. A path that led directly to the lower echelons of Fivren. It was a loophole in the system often exploited by criminals and smugglers to make their way into zerozones. Nestled in a Prowler-infected area in Sector 3, it was Lucien’s path to Raphael.
They called it the Fig-line. Odd name.
Chuckling to himself, Lucien removed the black wrapper of one more hidden item.
And this time, what he unwrapped made him smile a warm smile.
It was a vehicle.
Portable, sleek, aerodynamic and bearing the color of steel. It had four wheels like a car, and it wasn’t the slightest bit rusted. Lucien knew exactly what this masterpiece of a vehicle was.
It was a Rover.
For the first time in a long time, his deep otaku senses tingled.
’A damn Rover!’
He moved closer to the vehicle, inspecting it, checking the interior, the exterior, and the designs.
It looked exactly as it was described in the novel.
Convertible tires for smooth gliding, autopilot funct–
"Luci?" Mikky called.
Lucien blinked, snapping out of that deep end phase of his, wiping the grin from his lips.
"Yes, Mikky?"
"Are we done yet?"
Right. He’d been standing there with Amira since Luci left.
"We are! I’m coming, just give me a second to..." He glanced at the vehicle, then at his camo-watch. And he smiled. "I’m coming, kids!"
Now he just had to find a way to move the vehicle. And then he’d have to find out if the engines were even still working.
If they were, then he’d have to leave it out in the sun for a bit to charge. This Rover model was solar-powered, after all.
Come to think of it–
He brought out the pistol in his pocket.
–The laser blaster was solar-powered, too, right?
Lucien grinned.
The big cities weren’t ready for a gun-slinging daddy.