I was just about to ask what the situation between the two gangs were when someone suddenly dropped down in front of me.

I was already reaching for my gun when I realised that it was Amber who had appeared, the blonde haired Merc rushing towards me to grab my shoulders.

"Tera!! Are you alright?! Did you get hurt anywhere?! Did the old fuck do anything to you?!"

I saw old man Steri's eyes twitch at her words but he said nothing and went back to puff on his pipe.

I gave her my best reassuring smile, "I'm fine, Amber. It's not my first day as a Merc, you know?"

"Nngghhh… But this place is worse than all the other places we've been so far! What would I do if you got hurt by some random bastard or worse… Get accosted by some random old man?!"

Why do I feel like you're specifically targeting the old man on my right?

I pointed at the store's interior, "It's fine. See? I handled all of them, no problem."

She turned to look at where I was pointing and saw the bunch of dead bodies in the hallway.

Amber immediately turned back to me, "You were attacked?!"

I raised an eyebrow at her, "Didn't I tell you that when you called me just now?"

"No! You said they attacked the old man, not you!"

"I mean… They weren't really attacking me specifically, their target was old man Steri and I intervened, that's all."

Amber grumbled something unintelligible before suddenly hugging me to her chest while turning to face the old man, "You… What did you involve her in?"

The old man puffed on his pipe, "Calm down lady. I merely hired your girlfriend to protect me from those four thugs. I did not hire her to wage war on the two gangs."

"Hmph… Did you pay her already?"

"Yes I did."

"Good. Then business is done here, correct?"

"Yes it is."

Amber then turned to me, "Did you get what you came here for?"

I peeked out from in between her boobs, "Umm… Yes?"

Her lips curled up into a grin, "Perfect! Then let's get out of here!"

She released me from her bosoms to start draggin me away, though I pulled back on her just to ask one more question.

"Will you be alright?" I asked the old man.

He shooed me away, "I'll be fine. It just means I have to change locations, that's all. Nothing I've not done before. Now hurry along before your girlfriend decides to kill me."

I chuckled at his joke before I let myself get dragged away by Amber.

Only after we reached the main street did Amber let go of my arm and allowed me to walk at my own pace.

"So… What was that all about?" I asked.

She gave me a look, "What was what about?"

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"You know what I'm talking about. Do you have something against the old man or something?"

"Of course I do, he got you involved in something so problematic!"

"What, the four thugs? Those weren't even a problem. I didn't even need to change mags to get rid of them. Besides, that's what Mercs do, right?"

"Mnngghh… I just don't like you being in danger…"

I didn't know she was that protective of me… So cute.

I reached up and patted her head, "It's ok Amber, I'm a big girl now. I can take care of myself."

She giggled, presumably at my joke.

I decided to change the topic, "So how did the sale go?"

"Hmmm? Oh, that. I met some scummy bastard who couldn't stop staring at my tits. Got him to list our loot for a sale period of two days so we should be getting the money before we leave. He estimates we'll get at least fifty to a hundred thousand Credits for everything. We're lucky because the other Mercs who went to loot have not listed their stuff for sale yet so we can get a higher price for them."

Well, that's good I suppose. Probably because we didn't really loot that much anyway and most of our loot are just weapons we pilfered from their armoury.

Amber then jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "What about your deal with the old fuck?"

I sighed, "Seems like it's a bust. The machine could read the cards but the files inside seem to be corrupted or something. Look."

I tapped on my Codex and showed her the folder with the weird files.

She frowned at the sight of the files, "Hmm… That's unfortunate… Are they really pre-AI Rebellion tech though?"

"I have no idea. We'll need to find someone else who knows about these types of memory chips to be sure."

"Hmmm… We can always just claim it might be and sell it off though. Unless we have a way to use it somehow?"

"I doubt it… I would need to ask the old man what he used to be able to read this memory card and that would mean we have to go back to the shop."

"Forget it then," Amber decided immediately.

Guess she really doesn't like the old man because of that huh…

Oh well, I'll probably take a closer look at those files back on the ship later and see if there's anything I can get from them. Maybe some of the files can still be accessed or something.

Then I'll find the old man at a later time when Amber is busy or something.

I turned to Amber, "So what now? We're heading to the guild right?"

"Yep. Have to get our rewards from them and stuff. I have a good feeling about this actually."

"Why?"

"Ehehe~ I believe they are going to promote you by several levels, maybe even bump you straight to gold. This would be the fastest rank up of a Merc in history!"

She looks so proud of it that you would have thought she was the one that was getting promoted.

As we neared the exit of the black market street however, I realised that there were a bunch of guys blocking the way out, all of them armed.

The first thing I noticed was the fact they were dressed rather similarly to the four thugs I killed back in the old man's store, which already told me that these guys must be the same gang as them.

There wasn't anyone around that could have told the gang about the fate of those four thugs so I suspect that they have been waiting here for a while. Most likely they were here as their backup or they were here to block the old man's escape route.

I looked at Amber but she did not seem that concerned about them and continued walking towards them.

Well… Since it's unlikely they knew I killed their buddies, there shouldn't be any problems right?

Amber managed to reach me anyway so she must have passed them earlier as well right?

As we neared them however, they made it clear that they were most definitely not intending to let us pass when they spread themselves out in a line while brandishing their weapons.

"Hold up, no one's leaving this place right now. Turn around right now," alone of them ordered.

I frowned, "Why? what's going on?"

"None of your business. Now get lost."

"Err… Sure, I can get lost in that direction," I told him, pointing to the exit of the street.

He narrowed his eyes at me, "You think you're fucking funny huh? Fucking bitch. You asking to get fucked or something?"

"Well how long are you going to block the path then? We have places to be."

"I already said none of you damned fucking business bitch! Are you deaf?!"

Tch… Fucking thugs… I guess we might need to find another way out of here then…

Just as I was about to tell Amber that we should leave, my lover pulled out her pistol without warning and shot the guy in the gut.

It took me a second to react to what was going on which was already several seconds faster than those thugs as I pulled out my own gun to start shooting at them as well.

Amber went down the line and shot the guys on the right so I started shooting the ones on the left, dropping two of them before the third and fourth guy recovered enough to dive away to avoid my shots.

It was kind of a pointless move since there was no cover around so all I had to do was swing my aim towards the side and pull the trigger again, double tapping both of them and dropping them quickly.

I turned to the other side to see all the thugs on Amber's side were also shot dead, leaving the two of us the only ones standing.

Amber holstered her gun and glared at the dead guy, "Call her a bitch again, bastard. Oh wait, you can't because you're dead. Fucking trash."

…

Did she really decide to shoot all of them just because of that?