Chorong was on the ground. Her system announced a bunch of alerts inside her modules.

She looked at her damaged arm. She didn’t really feel pain, but just the sight of a missing limb was so shocking and was engraved into her memory. Her body refused to listen to her commands. It was as if her body was frozen. Her body trembled.

Why? Why can’t I move? she thought.

Then she felt liquid flowing down her cheeks. She lightly tapped on the liquid and looked at her hand. It was her tears. Why was she crying?

She heard ruffling near her. She looked up. The wolf had jumped to James, who managed to dodge the attack just by a mere inch. She saw the expression on the busker’s face.

Fear.

She realized why she was crying: she was afraid.

I don’t want to die, she thought.

Her gaze dropped to the ground. This was her first time experiencing fear. She didn’t know how to react to it. She was so afraid that she couldn’t dare to look at the wolf.

Then, she heard a shout: “NO!”

She looked up. James glared at the wolf, which was backing away from him. His expression had changed from fear to rage.

James was resisting against the wolf: against fear.

The yell was enough to wake Chorong.

She let out a sequence of short breaths.

Think of your how, think of your how, she told herself. Her right hand tightened into a fist, collecting dirt into her grip. Is this how light your decision is, Chorong?

She looked up at the wolf. Its legs were lowered, ready to spring.

I am a robot. I can’t die, she told herself.

Then, she launched herself forward.

Before the wolf could launch its next attack, Chorong ran 50 meters. She carried the momentum into a punch and landed it on the wolf’s head. It whelped, but the punch wasn’t strong enough to shatter its skull or make it unconscious.

The missing limb had thrown off her balance, significantly reduing her punch’s impact.

The wolf lunged at Chorong, trying to bite her head. She dodged graciously like a boxer weaving to dodge their attacks. She occasionally threw counterpunches with her right hand, but they didn’t do much damage.

James moved away from the fight so Chorong could fight freely. Still, he had to do something: Chorong couldn’t launch any blows hard enough to kill or stop the wolf.

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He grabbed the rifle by its barrel like a bat. Then he swung it against a tree next to him. He swung again. And again. He grunted each time he made a swing, squeezing out every bit of his strength. He knew this was a dumb way to fix a gun, but it was all he could think of.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered between his grunts.

Then he heard a metallic cling. It was very quiet, but he still heard it.

He stopped swinging the weapon. He grabbed the rifle correctly and yanked the bolt one last time. It slid smoothly. A bullet shell flew out from the rifle’s chamber and fell to the ground.

He raised the gun. Chorong and the wolf fought viciously, moving around everywhere quickly. He steadied the gun. He could shoot his boss if he didn’t aim right.

After letting out a deep breath, he stayed still. Instead of trying to track the enemy with the crosshair, he kept the gun still and waited for the wolf to align.

Then it did. James fired.

The bullet flew past Chorong and the wolf, hitting a tree behind them.

The wolf slashed its claws at Chorong, forcing her to jump back. Then, suddenly, it started charging toward James.

“James, watch out!” Chorong shouted. She chased after it, but it was too fast to catch up before it reached James.

James felt his heart starting to pump again. His instinct screamed at him to run away. However, he knew he had to stay still. The wolf was faster than him, and he gauged that he had just enough time to fire one more bullet.

Using the bolt, he loaded the chamber with another bullet. He lined the crosshair with the wolf’s head. He pressed the trigger: the trigger that would determine his fate.

Blood splashed from the wolf’s shoulder. It didn’t stop charging.

Well, that’s it, James thought.

A gunshot echoed in the forest. The wolf’s head flicked sideways as blood splashed from its forehead. Its legs stumbled, making its giant body fall onto the ground and roll to a stop just in front of James.

James stared at the wolf, huffing and puffing. It was dead. He was alive. He looked at Chorong, who looked back. She was also panting.

The busker suddenly stood up and looked around frantically, his rifle raised. It wasn’t him who shot the wolf, so there had to be someone with a weapon nearby. Chorong, too, got into a boxing stance again and raised her sensors’ sensitivities.

There was a small cliff behind where Chorong was, perhaps around fifteen meters high. Chorong heard footsteps from the cliff’s top, so she turned around and faced it. James did the same.

Someone emerged on the top. The evening sunlight shined brightly on the figure’s back as a strong backlight, making them look like a silhouette. Chorong and James couldn’t see their face. The duo could tell that the silhouette carried a rifle, but the figure held it so that it pointed at the sky.

“Put the gun down! I just saved you!” a female voice shouted. The voice belonged to the person on the cliff.

After a moment of hesitancy, James lowered his rifle. If she had wished to harm him or Chorong, she already could’ve done so.

The person slid down on the less-steep part of the cliff to come to the duo. Once they were on even ground together, James could see the saviour’s appearance properly.

James couldn’t hide his surprise.

She was…short. Very short. About 150cm tall.

She was a girl, perhaps in her late twenties. Her long orange hair had a wavy curl to it, like the wind blowing in the evening sky. A huge backpack and baggy jacket made her look bigger than she actually was.

“You aren’t going to say thank you?” she said.

“Thank you,” James said, bowing. “My name is James.”

“Chorong,” Chorong said. The busker got frightened and thought that she should’ve hidden her identity as a robot, but then realized her severed arm was showing wires and circuits. The saviour probably already knew she wasn’t a human.

“We owe you our lives. May I ask your name?” James asked.

“Hmm...” the girl with orange hair muttered, rubbing her lips with her index finger as if she was thinking. Then she opened her chest wide and put her gun over her shoulder, like a constructor worker holding their hammer. She smiled, revealing her shark-like teeth. “You can call me Secretto.”