Once I realized there were no other threats, I recollected myself and inspected the person who I had shot. From the experience notification, I knew he was dead, so I searched the body.

The body didn’t have keys or anything, so I threw it into the dumpster along with any equipment, opting to go over it later. With that set aside, I entered the building from the door that the man had opened.

I tried to stay as silent as possible as I traversed the hallway, checking each room I came across. Most of the rooms looked abandoned and were piled with trash or dusty boxes.

At the end of the hallway was a door that led to the main room of the warehouse, where tall empty shelves loomed over.

Off to one side of the warehouse was an open area with stacks of metal shipping containers half surrounding it. The open area was well-lit, with one person who sat below a set of stairs that led atop the containers, leisurely reading an actual book.

It seemed like there weren’t many of them active at this time. I couldn’t really blame them either as it was around 4:00 AM.

With the place so lightly guarded, I easily moved around unhindered and climbed up to the second floor of the shipping containers. I slowly opened the door to a container that they were using as makeshift rooms and found a man in a sleeping bag snoring away. I moved on when his face didn’t match with the image of the target I had pulled up in my optics.

I repeated the same steps for all the rooms on this floor. Some of them were empty, but most weren’t. Not having found my target, I made my way back down to the first floor of containers, away from where the man was still reading, near the bottom of the stairs.

I dropped down as lightly as possible, but I couldn’t entirely kill the sound. I hastily moved to another spot and kept watch for any reaction. The man looked up from his book for a second but didn’t bother investigating and returned to his reading.

After allowing the man some time to be absorbed into his book, I resumed investigating the remaining makeshift rooms on the ground floor.

It wasn’t until the third one that I found someone awake.

“Would it kill you to knock—” The man froze as he turned toward the barrel of my gun.

I gestured for him to stay silent while I kept my Suri trained on him while I closed the door behind me.

“Adam, I’m just here to ask a few questions. Now you answer them quietly and we all can go our way. Do you understand?”

He nodded before I gave him permission to speak.

“...Who are you, why are you looking for me?” Adam spoke as he kept alternating glances at me and the barrel pointed at him.

“No, Adam, I am the one asking questions here. Now tell me, where did you get those weapons you sold a few weeks earlier?”

“Weapons? What weapons?”

“Come on now, Adam, we both know you are lying. Let’s not make this difficult.”

“Look, I do a lot of errands for our group, so I probably sold off many packages, but that doesn’t mean I know what it was,” He said as he wiped the sweat that was building around his temple.

I stared at him unflinchingly.

“...Okay, look, it wasn’t my idea. I’m just a grunt, I didn’t know we were raiding your corp. I’ll do anything you tell me, just let me go,” He nervously pleaded.

So his group was responsible for the raid? I thought wastelanders did it…Was this guy a raider? No way, I thought they didn’t stay in cities.

“So what did you do with the things you stole from us?” I asked, playing into the role of the corpo that he had assigned me.

Might as well go along with it, right?

“It’s all here with us. I even have the keys to the stash. It’s right there in the drawer,” He slowly placed his hand on it and looked toward me for permission to continue.

I nodded and took a step back.

Adam gradually opened the drawer but then abruptly jerked it fully open and grabbed something from within it.

Two soft ‘Pfft’ noises resonated within the small shipping container, followed by two ‘clinks’ noises of the bullet hitting the walls.

+10 EXP

I should have known this was how it was going to end…

As I inspected the room and his body, I found nothing in particular besides the gun he tried to pull on me.

I was on my way out of his room when a knock came from the door.

“You okay in there, Adam?” A man’s voice spoke out, and when no one responded, he continued knocking.

Shit, my gun may be quiet, but the sound of the bullets hitting the metal walls wasn’t.

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I stalked closer to the door and pushed it slightly open. I aimed my gun at the gap and waited.

“You mute now or what? The fuck you doi—”

As his head poked out through the gap, I opened fire from almost point-blank range, right at his forehead. Immediately, I dashed back into the warehouse, away from the shipping containers.

After five minutes had passed, it didn’t seem like anyone else had noticed the commotion.

Now that their group was deemed hostile in my books, it was time to earn some experience points. I already killed three of them, and the last thing I wanted was to be a potential target of revenge.

I retraced my previous path, then quietly entered the shipping container rooms one by one to silently dispatch the occupants with my dagger. I didn’t even need to turn on the vibroblade function as I could take my time aiming for the vitals.

I secured the area after I had gone through every container. I took some time to go over any loot they had and piled it all by the area where the man had been reading, though it was mostly just guns.

Just as I was bringing the last few hauls of loot out, someone called out while I had my hands full and was in the middle of descending the stairs.

“Hey, Baron! When the fuck are you coming to relieve my shift? I’ve been—” The man stopped talking and stared at me once he got close enough to make out my masked face and dark attire.

“Who the fuck are you?” He raised his rifle toward me.

I swiftly dropped everything in my hand away, jumped off the side of the stairs, and took cover behind the metal staircase.

Several loud shots echoed throughout the warehouse as the man started shooting as soon as I had moved.

Now that I was in cover, I could take the time to prepare for a fair gunfight… Okay, maybe not something I was confident in, but thankfully I had some aces up my sleeve.

As I tried to swap the mag in my gun, I fumbled it as my left hand didn’t respond like I was used to.

Shit!

I looked down and saw my blood trickling out of a hole in my upper arm.

Deeming the imminent threat that was still shooting at me more important, I peeked out to scan for my opponent’s location. In response, I received several more shots fired at me that forced me to duck back into cover. Though now I had a rough idea of where he was, behind an old forklift.

I swapped the ammo in the gun with my one good arm and blind-fired several times in his direction.

Boom

Boom

Boom

Three explosions rang out consecutively, and he hadn’t shot back this time.

“Haha!” I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. Firing off explosives sure was fun, if only I wasn’t starting to feel the pain from my wound…

Those explosive rounds had better be effective too, they were quite expensive! At least the cost was a good deterrent for me from getting addicted to it.

I took another peek out and bullets once again came at me in response.

I responded with my own shots, exploding ones at that, but this time, I started pushing forward to my assailant by diving behind a crate while laying down suppressing fire.

Let’s see if you can fight back when pelted by a rain of explosive rounds! I’ll show you that money is power!

When I jumped out of cover again, no more shots were fired my way. I made my way to where I last saw him, behind the forklift.

When I cleared the corner, I spotted the man holding onto his bloodied chest while panting heavily. His rifle was lying on the ground, slightly away from him.

I pulled the trigger to finish the man off from the cover of the forklift.

+10 EXP

With the system having helped me confirm the kill, I took a closer look at my left arm as I felt warm liquids continuing to drip out.

Shit, I sure fucked up…

I should’ve known there still was a guard out front…This wasn’t a video game where enemies stayed in place and patrolled in fixed routes.

Wait… there is still an entire building next door that I haven’t checked out yet and there’s also a guard posted out in front of it too…

After I realized the threat I was under, I retrieved a syringe from my med kit and stabbed it right beside the wound to stop the bleeding and doubled time out of the building the same way I entered.

By the time I was outside, I heard car engines starting up and lots of yelling. I made my way out of the fenced area and back into the thicket.

“Over there!” A voice yelled out behind me.

Damn it, it seems like they spotted me.

I headed further in where the foliage was thicker, covering my tracks. I made my way around a hill to ensure I broke the line of sight from my pursuers before I found a nice hiding spot atop a large tree.

In a minute or so, I spotted several lights moving nearby. I waited until it was a distance away from me before I started dressing up my wound and collected my thoughts.

Well, at least I now know that I hit the right target…But if I left now, who knows if they would relocate or not? In the first place, could I even get away?

They had cars on standby, and people searching for me on foot. I would need to call for a pickup to extract me, but that was probably something they would expect.

In that case, I should play to my strengths.

“Status,” I called out.

Status

Level:

3

EXP:

20/300

Musculoskeletal:

11

Neural Reflex:

15

Visuomotor Coordination:

12

Endurance:

8

Sensory Perception:

37

Upgrade Points:

2

Upgrades:

* Stealth +5

* Hacking +3

Enhancements:

SAID: Zenitech Hoth Mk.3

Optics: Nova Tech Stars Mk.4

You know, I planned to start spending my points on technology skills that could help me start earning credits, but I guess the saying “No plan survives contact with the enemy” was too true.

I took a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the direct knowledge dump into my brain that I got when using my points, and double-checked my equipment.

I really need to be more careful and avoid falling into situations like these from now on. Let’s hope this will be the last time…