The Ram's Roach was a crappy name for a bar, considering the stuffed head was that of an ox, but Adam had been to worse places.

"Alright, who do you want us to whack?" Adam said.

Jona, an elderly woman dressed in overalls and a checkered-shirt, halted mid-way through mixing a drink, "Pardon me, boy?"

"Bandits, right?" Adam said. "That’s what your kid at the gates told us. Tell us where they are so we can clear them before sundown."

Jona put down the glass and let out a sigh. "Cole!" She hollered. "What did you tell this guy?"

"Nothing, Miss Jona!" Cole yelled from the back of the pub. A worn book rested on his table, next to a porcelain mug.

"Doesn’t sound like nothing to me! You told these guys to go after the bandits as a favor? What’s the matter with you?"

The boy looked perplexed. "But I thought Mayor Jackson--"

"Extreme case, Cole! He said it was an extreme case!" Jona said. She pressed a finger on her forehead, beneath her withering grey hair. "You think you’d learn proper from all those books of yours!"

"Shut up! These guys are sus, so it counts! They got all the star-tech! They would've shot me if I gave them a few more seconds, honest!"

"That true, boy?" Jona said to Adam.

"Your grandson damn near blasted his entire mag at us." Adam said, "We didn't even unload our weapons or nothing. Tell him to have some self-awareness."

Jona glowered at him. It resembled a dried-up prune left too long in the sun. "He's not my grandson, boy. Don't get too cocky, either. Just because I let you in here doesn't mean this village wants to have you around yet."

Cole shouted some more at Jona, who immediately yelled back. A less experienced ganger would've thrown a fit at being ignored. Adam knew better. It was a small way of putting him in his place, by informing him that his needs were lesser than the host's. Speaking up would pin him as the rude one. This could be mitigated if he had a silver tongue, but Lucy couldn't speak English and Penny was too busy sucking on the apple juice the old lady had spotted her, for some reason.

He checked out the place instead. The place was a rectangular box, lit up with lightbulbs on wires and filled with the slick scent of frying oil. There was only one exit—the way he entered. The architecture of the bar was split in two. One side was solid steel, reminiscent of a cargo shipping container, while the other had been patched up with wooden planks and sealed with tar. He caught Lucy observing the same spot. She nodded back at him. It was destructable, either with a grenade or Lucy's [Photon-Blast].

Both would incapacitate the patrons bouncing a ball against a section of white near the corner. Like Cole, they were hicks—with their long-sleeved shirts, wide-brimmed farming hats, and skin tanned from fieldwork. The chair he sat on was too heavy to throw and too fragile to use as a shield. If it came down to a fight, he’d have to dive under a nearby table, or hop across the counter and take Jona out in the process…

"Oi, boy! We having a conversation or what?"

"Oh, you done with the kid?" Adam said, not missing a beat, "Fine. Tell me why we almost got shot at the gate instead of being let in like Penny said you guys would."

"Times change, boy. So does this village." Jona said, returning to her mixing. She was an aging woman, with wrinkles running across her cheeks and hands. Her hands were blotchy with melanin spots. "Monsters have been increasing. Bandit season kicked up again. A group of scavengers went to the Witch’s Mountain and never came back, save for one. Can you blame us for being cautious?"

She gave him a pointed look, particularly in the direction of his uniform. This lady was far from the edge of the grave. One wrong move and she’d whip that sawn-off shotgun on her belt straight into his chin.

"If I wanted to fight you guys, I wouldn't have shown up at the fucking front gate." Adam said.

Jona harrumphed. She glanced over at Penny. "She with you?"

"Yeah. Saw her on the road. She was running down like her ass was on fire." Adam lied, "Kept blabbing on about the Blast Witch and how her mates got killed. We took her along."

"So she's new to you. You ain't friends."

"What's it to you? She with you?"

"No, but I always knew she saddled with the wrong crowd. Poor tyke. And what about that other lady friend of yours? Will she be a problem?"

She glanced over at Lucy, who was sitting with her hands by her side, facing Jona. That was not a tranquil position. More like a crossbow with its string pulled taut. A bouncer at the door had asked them to hand over their weapons before entering. Lucy had refused, giving the bouncer a fierce staredown, before Adam intervened.

"She’s my bodyguard." Adam said, "She'll stay put, as long as your kid or anyone else doesn’t try and shoot me in the head. She won’t start fights, but she sure as hell will end them. She’s also not from around here. Don’t bother trying to chat her up."

"You're not making a good case for not being sus, boy. We're getting off topic. You know how it goes now. I can tell."

"Favor for entry." Adam said. Technically, they were already within the village, albeit outnumbered and outgunned. The other patrons put on a facade of minding their own business while sporting shotguns and rifles. It was only because of Penny that he had been allowed in the bar in the first place, otherwise he would've been told to piss off from the gates instead.

None of these bastards knew the Blast Witch was sitting no more than a few feet away from them, sporting a composed smile, but that wasn't important. It was kinda funny, though.

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"That’s right. Gotta show you’re willing to give a little before you come in." Jona said, "Call it a way to filter out the bad types."

Enter a new territory, meet the boss, and pay the tribute. It was another way of putting the newcomer in their place. Glenn’s Rest was a cakewalk in comparison to some of the groups he dealt with. Those wanted to be paid in blood money.

"If it’s any consolation, you just have to do a little bit." Jona gestured over to a board pinned to the wall. Several pieces of parchment were pinned to it. The handwriting was awful. "Haul some bags, clean out a few coops, deal with some monsters if you’re feeling good enough. Do that by sundown and you get to stay in the inn."

That was simple enough, but…

"What about those bandits?" Adam asked.

"What about them?"

"I can get rid of them before sunset, yeah?"

Jona cackled. Several of the patrons stopped messing around and turned to look. Cole looked up from his book, a lazy smirk between his freckles. "Don’t jump a horse you can’t ride, boy." Jona said.

"But if I do, then I’m welcome?" Adam said, leaning back on the table.

"Of course, of course! Bastards burned our crops and crippled one of our girls. You bring one back here and the inn’ll put you up for days. I’ll even mix you my special drinks." Jona said. "Cole spotted a group lurking in the hills outside the other side of the town, most likely setting up a new base of ops."

"Cool. Thanks." Adam stood up. Lucy and Penny did the same. "We’ll be heading off now."

"Hold on," Jona said. "You’re not thinking of bringing that tyke along with you?"

"What, you got a problem with it? She’s new here, right? Bound to the same rules as us." Adam said, cricking his shoulder, "She’s got a keen eye. Good at scavenging. We need her."

"Is that true, Penny?" Jona said, looking at the girl. Penny gulped, then nodded.

"I wanna help, too! It’s true, Miss Jona!"

Jona lingered on Penny for a while longer, before she shrugged and waved towards the door. "Get going, then."

A couple of the patrons sniggered as they walked towards the exit. A hundred on the new boy getting his ass blown off, or something. Adam waited until Lucy was ahead of him, then smirked back and gave them the finger.

----------------------------------------

He guided the group out the way they entered, then went around the town walls to some trees resting alongside the riverbank. The group sat down and opened out packs of rations. Adam lifted a stone and threw it. The stone bounced across the shimmering water, once, twice, then sank into the murky depths. Further down, a fisherman sailed his boat downstream.

"Y’know, I thought you’d be more pissed." He said to Lucy, "Some of those barhoppers looked like they wanted to shove me down a flight of stairs."

Lucy whipped her head around. "Is that what they said to you?"

"That was a metaphor, Lucy," Adam said. He chewed the last of his disposable fork. It tasted like leather boots.

"Then it’s okay," Lucy said, with a smile. "It's natural, even. Most locals tend to be afraid of us ADO types. It isn't positive, but they’re humans just like you and me, Chosen. If we can help them, then it's a good thing!"

Adam took a stone and threw it into the river. One bounce, two bounce, four bounces. It sank down into the muddy depths.

"You don't believe me?" Lucy asked, sounding concerned. "I thought you expected it."

"We’re taking their trash out for free," Adam said. "It’s practically blackmail. It's annoying, no matter how you stretch it."

"Well, yes, that is true. It doesn't mitigate the good we're doing, though. Man should help each other, because who else do we have in this vast universe, besides Her? The villagers may not be Astraeans, but they are our fellow humans."

"Assuming they're not the real ungrateful bastards..."

Lucy gave him a soft smile, almost sad in a way. "I’m sure at least one of the townsfolk will appreciate us ridding them of their problems."

More like grudging acceptance. Of course, people played nice to her and the other War Maidens; they were too weak to resist otherwise. If a regular human could screw over another without consequence, they'd gladly do so. He was a living, breathing product of such an environment.

His hands fingered Mary's pendant and he shook his head. Whatever. He wasn't about to engage in a ethics debate with a War Maiden. The bandits were easy targets to collect more C-EXP. No-one would miss them. He could slice off their fingers one by one and none of the villagers would give a damn. In a way, it was like the times he prowled around the night streets, jumping any half-decent thug that he came across to hone his fighting skills.

He looked to the sky. The orb in the sky wasn't a sun. Suns rose and fell, instead of staying in one place and dimming and brightening. It still worked in a twenty-four-hour cycle, same as Earth. According to ADOSCH’s clock, they still had a good twelve hours to find those bandits and either eliminate or capture them. That was bags of time.

They rested for a while longer, then proceeded towards the hills, adjacent to the river. The trail led them to the outcrops of an abandoned gas station.

"Wait, what the hell is that doing here?" Adam muttered. There weren’t any roads leading to it. The building looked as if it had gotten lost on its way to the depot, then blown up. The central portion had a huge gaping hole, in which he saw figures lurking inside. Adam took out his scope and zoomed in.

The first detail that jumped out was the magenta lines running up their clothes. The rest of their uniform was a muddy brown, adorned with crude protective padding. Hastily made stitches and patches lined their trousers and fronts.

The first man, whose arms resembled tree trunks, lifted a box out of a hole in the ground and slammed it on a nearby table. He gestured to the second figure, a shortie with a goatee and scrawny arms. The second bandit began working the lock on the box with a pick. His fingers jittered. A red mist poured out of the sides of the box, rattling the chains.

The third, a woman with vivid purple hair, cuffed the second boy on the back of the head. She yelled, the distance obscuring the words, then strode past, clutching an absolute disaster of a grenade launcher. She glanced up, straight in his direction, but not making eye contact. Those bloodshot eyes could only belong to an addict.

"The hell are they doing?" This was less of a stakeout, like Jona had described, and more like a drop-off. There wasn’t enough cover here for a stakeout.

He zoomed in. Tears were running down the second boy’s face. He looked starved, even for a shortie. Probably hadn’t showered in days. The third woman yelled again. She held up a faded piece of paper and pointed to it. The first man took out a gun and slammed it to the back of the boy’s head.

"A hostage!" Adam hissed.

Or was it, he thought? That second boy could be a bandit who fell to the bottom of their crew. Failed a job, got roughed up, and forced to pay a debt. He scanned their clothes again. The woman wore a patch of a smirking gas cloud on her left shoulder. He couldn’t see it on the boy or that fat lug of a man. The position might not matter.

"The Gasheads, they’re called. Definitely bandits." Penny chimed in. "Two of them tried to ambush us on the way to Glenn’s Rest. Raz shot them dead."

"You seen them before?" Penny shook her head, "What about the kid in the center?"

"I don’t know. It’s too far away to tell."

"Chosen, would you like me to engage them?" Lucy asked. "I can disable them with my [Photokinesis]."

He considered it. Lucy could indeed charge in and take them all out. They could take out their rifles and snipe them from afar. It was tempting to get this over and done with. However, three factors held him back.

Firstly, there was the possibility the boy was a resident of Glenn’s Rest. If he died, no way was Adam and his group getting back in.

Secondly, that box looked dangerous. The red that seeped from within reminded him of the corruption that once resided within. A stray shot could detonate it, or worse.

Thirdly, ADOSCH’s levelling system worked by exposing him to conflict. It was reckless, and Lucy would not approve, but he needed to get into the thick of things.

"Nah, let me do the talking first. I’ve got a plan…"

Ten minutes later, as the boy picked the lock on the box, Adam and Penny walked up the road to the gas station.

"Huh?" The woman bandit snarled, aiming her grenade launcher in their direction. The lug pulled out a shotgun. "Back off, you two! This has nothing to do with you!"

"Wait, don’t shoot!" Penny cried. She held up a bag and pointed to the boy. "We’ve got his ransom!"