“BANG!”

A loud gunshot could be heard for miles in the wasteland, attracting the attention of beasts and everything else in the vicinity, with most of them quickly running away in response to it.

For those who were curious about what it was and who had decided to track the source down, they would find an area completely littered with tiny, shattered pieces of unidentifiable objects, and two scary-looking beings standing in the center of all of them.

“…”

Dauma frowned as he looked down at the weapon he had just used. It had been a normal gun before he had fired it, but now it was broken in his hands. The barrel had been melted to the point it was like a metallic goo, and unless it was taken apart and refitted, it had been rendered completely unusable.

“I suppose that’s a problem, hm…”

Blake fidgeted in contemplation as he stood beside him and examined the gun as well, tutting and muttering as he noted the extreme damage that had been done to it.

“All of this for just one shot,” Dauma responded as he lifted the gun up to his eye level before shaking it, “I don’t think it is worth it.”

“It’s a good thing we didn’t test it out on any of my friends. That would have been fucking terrible,” Blake crossed his arms and nonchalantly added.

Whatever had happened in the past few hours was only known to the both of them, but one thing was for certain. They knew that it was not a feasible option at the current moment, not when problems like that would arise and hinder them if they used it.

“A last resort it is then.”

“Maybe a custom-made gun is the way to go if we want this to work.”

Pushing their tests out of the way for now, the two of them took a rest on the hot sand as the sun began to set and the cold winds began to intensify, marking another end to their day.

“… ugh…”

“What’s the matter? You still disappointed in the gun issue?” Dauma casually asked after night fell, as he gathered all the available fuel sources they had before lighting them up for the night.

“Devil,” Blake remarked as he inched forward towards the fire and proceeded to warm his hands up by it, rubbing and blowing on them repeatedly, “do you know how long we’ve been here?”

“I don’t know, I don’t really keep track of—”

“Three weeks!” he answered his own question with a loud, annoyed tone, “we’ve been roaming around with nothing to do for almost three fucking weeks! Nothing at all!”

“So?”

“So?! This is not the timeline I’d agreed to! The angel and the spirit are busy fucking around doing jack shit while we’re here freezing our fucking balls off! This is unacceptable! This is bogus! This is absolutely fucking pointless!”

“… be patient, Blake,” Dauma coldly replied as he stared at him, not taking his rant with any hint of concern, “if Anten has not contacted me yet, that means she’s still safe, and there’s no reason for us to act yet.”

“… you know what? You’re a coward for a devil, do you know that!?”

To that heinous accusation, the said devil simply raised an eyebrow and remarked, “I don’t think so. I trust that the girls will finish the job on their own terms. I am not being a coward; I am just biding my time until they are done.”

“And what if she is in trouble and can’t contact you? What then? Are you still going to sit around and do nothing?”

“You’re placing way too little faith in her, Blake. That’s not going to happen.”

“Dgk… mgh… I can’t believe this!”

Blake began mumbling unintelligible words of anger to himself as he gripped his head and stood up before fiercely stomping around in frustration. At the same time, Dauma coolly rocked back and forth on the sand, looking up at the emerging stars in the black sky.

“Again, I urge you to calm down,” he continued, “throwing a tantrum isn’t going to help your case. You should rest, and maybe you’ll cool off in the morning.”

In response to his suggestion, Blake went silent for a few minutes before he gave his answer.

“… no.”

“No?”

Hearing a shifting sound and tilting his head back down, he could see that Blake had removed his hands from his head and stopped right in front of him, a grim look in his eye as he glared.

“And what do you think you’re doing?”

“What I should have done the first time,” Blake immediately countered.

“… if you’re going to leave, I don’t care, but she would, so I can’t let that happen. Just try it and we’ll see what happens.”

“I’m not gonna leave your group, you stupid devil, and I’m not gonna fight you either unless you want to.”

“So what is this?”

“It’s like I said,” Blake shrugged, “I am merely going to do what I said I was gonna do from the start, nothing else.”

“… you mean…”

“The night’s still young, devil.”

Without waiting for Dauma to finish saying his answer, he had already started packing his bag and walking off, leaving both the devil and the comfort of the fire behind as he began going in a specific direction.

“I’ve already made up my mind,” he turned back and called, “what do you want to do? Do you want to stop me, or do you want to follow? You know what’ll happen for the both of us if you try to stop me.”

“…”

“I’m going! Last chance for you!”

“… ugh, you know what? Fine.”

I’m sorry, Anten. I did try to stop him, but you know how it is.

In the end, despite his internal confidence, Dauma had also been wallowing in irritation and impatience for a while, and coupled with the lack of communication, it had finally pushed him past the edge and towards a firm decision.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Watching as Blake began to walk further and further away, Dauma finally sighed and stood up as well, before swiftly joining up with him. With that choice made, they closely picked up and began to follow the trail that Anten and Yuu had left behind almost three weeks ago.

“That’s the spirit, devil. Guess you’re not a fucking coward after all.”

Together, without informing the girls or waiting to analyze the current situation even more, the devil and the killer initiated Plan B of the Apocalypse Cleaners’ main plan all on their own.

**********************

The Church of Enlightenment’s compound, sitting isolated in the middle of nothing and nowhere, was, or at the very least appeared to be, a fortress by simple definition.

Despite its long occupation of the entire site and all the buildings contained within it, most of the followers of the Church did not know what the premises had been originally used for.

However, based on a cursory glance of the architecture of the buildings and the walls that surrounded and protected them from any outsiders, there were running theories that it used to be some kind of castle town or some other kind of medieval stronghold before the Church’s occupation.

Who it once belonged to or how it operated in the past did not matter to them once they had taken control over it with the help of the Goddess’ Gift. They had the say over what went in and out of the premises, and they were free to do whatever they wanted with it.

Renovating and upgrading certain aspects such as the main buildings, the walls, and the watchtowers, including placing guards in every corner of the compound, they had built an ironclad and nearly impenetrable security force.

By any account, there was no feasible way for anyone to sneak into the place, by themselves or as a group. Anyone who did so would automatically be questioned, and their fate would then be decided.

“… wow.”

Hence, it was most unfortunate for Dauma and Blake that they had to do it in order for them to get in and find the girls, which meant that they had to come up with a plan.

Getting through the main entrance or even the walls was definitely the most difficult part of the entry, thanks to the presence of round-the-clock surveillance provided by the watchtowers and the guards. If they wanted to get in, they had to do it during a guard shift change or at a blind spot where no one could see them.

A place the Church had overlooked, a weakness in their security. From a sizable drainage pipe to a small crack in the wall, they had to note anything and everything that could be useful for them in order for the latter option to be possible.

Taking that fact into consideration, the two separated and circled the compound’s perimeter from a distance where they could not be spotted, using their enhanced senses to spot anything that could fit their objective.

“Hmm…”

After an hour, the two of them stopped and consolidated everything they had, including what each of them had spotted and whether there was anything they might have missed out.

“This is a problem.”

The results were not satisfactory. There were a few drain covers they had seen along the walls, but those were either also guarded like the main entrance or too small for any of them to fit through. It seemed as though the walls had recently undergone some intensive and thorough reconstruction work as well, as they had seen no visibly large flaws in its structure, so that was not an option either.

“There is one other option.”

Dauma had also given another suggestion to Blake as they were discussing the plan, but it was shot down almost immediately by a stubborn and firm refusal from him.

“I am not going to let you carry me and jump over,” Blake had immediately responded, “in addition, the both of us jumping over together is not an option either. Those two are not fucking happening.”

“Then, what do you suggest?”

“…”

Truthfully, there seemed to be no possible option for the both of them to slip in unnoticed, with all the ways they could possibly take either not available for them to use or not unanimously agreed upon.

However, in spite of that setback, that did not necessarily mean the both of them were entirely out of options to get in. They just had to make a little change in how they approached the problem.

“… I’ve already had a plan.”

“Do you now?”

“Well, I’m not sure if you’ll like it, devil,” Blake remarked as he lazily stretched his arms out into the sky before cracking his neck to warm himself up, “but I think it’ll probably work. Just follow what I do.”

**********************

The plan was simple.

OUTPUT: -10%

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“Aghk! Aghk! Please… help us…”

As Sister Clara, the female guard on duty in the watchtower, leaned out to see the commotion happening below her, she instinctively flinched as she heard the loud coughing coming from the two hooded figures standing in front of the main gate.

“Wha…”

“Please…” one of the figures continued to cry out in between his coughing spasms, raising a shaking hand up towards her while using his other to hold on to the other figure beside him.

Shining a light on the both of them, they looked misshapen, inhuman, as though they had been mutated or deformed in some way, especially the one who was not speaking, who looked much larger and eerier as compared to the presumably sick one.

In general, they seemed to be incredibly weak as well, as though they could keel over and die at any moment. As the strong night winds continued to blow, she could see the smaller figure sway clumsily in the wind like a brittle twig that was about to break.

“Tch, tch, tch… ngh…”

Seeing the clearly depressing sight in front of her, Clara bit her lip fiercely and clicked her tongue in contemplation, her hand tentatively leaving but still keeping a close distance to her holstered gun.

Despite feeling a twinge of pity for them, she knew she could not take any chances against strangers, especially not on a day like today, when most of the guards were away in charge of something far more important that was about to happen in the afternoon.

As much as she did not want to, she had to make the right decision here, even if it meant choosing to forego any sense of emotion or feeling.

“I’m sorry!” she sucked it all up and yelled at the figures below, “the Church is not accepting any refugees today! Please leave and come back another day!”

“… agkh! Agkh!”

In response, the figure continued to violently cough, but neither him nor the other one obeyed her and moved away. Instead, they remained in the same spot, unwilling to move or show their faces.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

It seemed like this was going to be one of the difficult groups of people that she was going to have to deal with all on her own.

“This is your final warning! Leave now!”

Finally pulling out her gun, she continued to threaten them as she pointed it aggressively downwards, with her finger on the trigger and ready to fire without hesitation.

“Aghk! Aghk! Aghk!”

But still, they did not budge. They never pulled out any weapons in response to her threat, they did not flee, they simply did not react. It was as though they could not hear her at all.

“Mmgh…”

Beads of sweat dripped down her forehead and a small trickle of blood began to flow from her bitten lip as she groaned, her trigger finger trembling as she paused before she could take the shot.

For as much as she had dealt with troublesome stragglers like them who were too stubborn to leave before, she was still relatively inexperienced in the field of guard duties as a whole.

She had not personally fixed any security issues on her own. Each and every time it had happened, she always had someone around to help both parties reach a fair compromise, and the problem would be easily resolved.

“Oh god… oh god oh god oh goddddd…”

But now, she was well and truly alone in her post. There was no one that could come to help her, as she knew they were all busy doing their separate duties. The option that she could ask for help did not cross her mind out of growing panic, and she felt that it was her call alone to decide on whether they were a threat or not.

To top everything off, it was still the middle of the night, which meant that it was still freezing cold. It was certainly not a good environment for two people to survive in, especially if they were sick and dying.

If she made the wrong choice, she would create trouble for either party. Between refugees and the Church, the thin line of morality was suddenly and rapidly becoming blurry and hard to distinguish for her in the moment of her internal crisis.

“…”

So, she did what she felt was right for her in the end.

“I apologize for scaring you two, I—ghk!”

As soon as she opened the gates and stepped outside to escort the two in, she was immediately knocked out with a swift chop to the neck from the smaller figure.

“Apology accepted,” Blake flippantly responded in a snarky whisper as he and Dauma quickly checked for anyone else patrolling before dragging her back inside the compound to ensure she was at least not in any danger.

“I would say this is risky, but I guess it’s more like goddamn luck at this point,” Dauma whispered back, as the both of them closed the gates as best and as quietly as they could before doing a survey of their surroundings from the shadowy area by the wall.

Much like what he had suggested, the two of them seemed to be ridiculously lucky with their makeshift plan so far, as not only did the guard they had knocked out not alert anyone else to be on standby, but there was also no one patrolling the area at this particular time, allowing them to sneak through relatively unnoticed.

Although this situation was a fortuitous circumstance for the both of them, Blake had in fact planned out a few more possible ways the interaction could have gone, along with how to shape it in their own favor and how they made them all lead to the same outcome in the end.

Some of them were admittedly very dubious, such as allowing the guard to shoot Dauma and using their own guilt to trick them into helping, but it was all a thing of the past now.

“Come on.”

Using the current lack of security to their advantage, the two quickly shifted their position to a nearby building, noting that its small size and simple structure made it appear to be either a guard post or a storage room.

Regardless of what it was, as long as they could use it as a place to lay low or obtain some disguises for the time being, none of them particularly minded what it was actually used for.

“On my signal, knock on the door.”

“Mm.”

They positioned themselves by the closed entrance of the building before doing another quick look around. As soon as they confirmed the coast was clear once again, Dauma rapped his fist against the door, deliberately making sure the sound he made was loud enough for the people inside to hear yet not so loud that the people roaming outside could.

“…”

There was no answer. Behind the door was pure silence.

“Ok, devil,” Blake whispered in response, “if the door is locked, just break it as gently as possible.”

“I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“I’m just saying.”

After internally counting to three in his head, Dauma reached for the door handle and pushed it as gently as he could. Somehow by another round of luck, it had not been locked as it opened with ease, albeit with a slight creaking noise.

Still, there was nothing. No one came to the door, and there were no visible alarms triggered. The building, as far as they knew, was empty.

“Good, good,” Blake lightly smirked.

They kept their movements quiet and low even as they went in and shut the door. It was only until they had switched on their torchlight, scanned the room and found no one that they finally relaxed and got up.