The falling Fade landed on the ground, barely able to keep his balance.
His poncho, made of a special material, was completely intact.
‘So the booby trap was just a trick of the eye?’
Lorraine was sure that Fade would find the booby trap, so she dug a double trap.
Immediately, Fade lunged forward and rolled.
-Bang! Bang! BANG!
Bullets from the building across the street shattered the glass, aimed squarely at Fade.
Fade sprinted forward and pointed his gun at the other building.
Just as he squeezed the trigger, the muzzle of his gun exploded with a loud bang.
Shrapnel from the barrel scattered in all directions, forcing Fade to shield his face with his prosthetic arm.The reason for the sudden barrel explosion was simple.
A small metal rod that flew out like a throwing dagger had blocked the muzzle opening of his gun.
The tip of the metal rod was coated with flammable gunpowder.
It was no wonder the gun exploded when he fired it.
Fade ducked low in panic, but no further shots came.
He looked at his mangled weapon and laughed, his shoulders heaving like a man possessed.
“Cough, cough. That's it. This is how it's done, battlefield witch!”
The previous three shots were also decoys to get him to move.
When he aimed his gun to return fire, the metal rod was thrown at the exact time and location.
It was a tactic to neutralize the opponent's weapon by destroying it
Something that hadn't been seen from her in the past, but the extreme finesse with which she accomplished it was comparable to her prime.
“But you're still too weak. Did you think I'd give up just because you took away one weapon?”
Fade tossed his now-obsolete pet out of the way and pulled a pistol from his waistband.
The gun was black and murderous in design, with countless modifications.
“This fight isn't over until someone dies!”
Fade leapt outside, smashing through the glass, and then rushed inside, smashing through the window of the opposite building.
Lorraine had already fled, but Fade's prosthetic eye zoomed forward, following her trail.
A trail of rainwater was etched into the floor and Fade sped along it.
Lorraine's movements were quick and agile and Fade felt like she was a hare running away in the mountains.
Hiding under rocks, fleeing into tree crevices, ducking into bushes.
But this one, on the other hand, is a boar. A wild boar that doesn't stop, smashing anything in its path.
-Kwao!
His prosthetic hands weren't ordinary and he opened his palms and placed them against the wall, causing the structure to collapse with a tremendous vibration.
A wall that had receded like that would easily crumble just by pushing with a strong arm.
Fade charged as fast as he could, using his prosthetic hand to smash the inner walls of the building.
His prosthetic eyes picked up Lorraine's body heat as she fled over the wall.
“Over here!”
-Boom!
Fade burst through the wall and charged straight for Lorraine.
But as if she'd already anticipated his arrival, Lorraine braked sharply and pointed the muzzle of her sniper rifle at him.
It was then that the prosthetic leg that replaced Fade's other leg moved.
-Keeeeeee!
With the sound of gears turning furiously, his leg shot out and kicked Lorraine’s muzzle.
The force of the blow knocked the weapon from her hand and a gap opened.
As Fade pointed his pistol at Lorraine, he felt a twinge of discomfort.
‘Wait a minute. You lose your weapon so easily?’
Seeing the button in Lorraine's free hand, Fade cocked the pistol and slammed it down on the floor with his forefinger.
With a violent vibration, it crashed to the floor and plummeted downstairs.
Above Fade’s head, the detonator that Lorraine had been holding just moments ago dropped with a soft thud.
As if to say, if you're going to push it, you might as well try it.
“Yee!”
Fade, realizing in hindsight that he had been tricked, glared at the ceiling, but Lorraine had already pulled away.
“You think running away like that is going to end this!”
Fade shouted, his voice tinged with evil.
He grunted and moved after Lorraine.
He knew Lorraine is blatantly leading him on and stalling for time.
It was better not to pursue her and join the ghosts but Fade wouldn't or rather, he couldn't.
He doesn't know why. He just knew that he had to bond with Lorraine at this moment. Some fate seemed to whisper to him that he must.
It wasn't hard to find where she had fled to, for his mind had given him a path.
It was an abandoned warehouse, untouched by man.
The warehouse itself had been abandoned to dust and cobwebs, its contents forgotten by time.
Lorraine was inside this warehouse. Fade tried to follow her trail with his prosthetic eyes, but the stabbing pain and dizziness in the corners of his eyes forced him to lower the output.
‘Damn it.’
I've been on high power too long.
The power of these prosthetics isn't just in the eyes. It also puts a tremendous strain on Fade's optic nerves and cranial nerves.
Fade lowered the power of the prosthesis until the pain lessened.
His eyes, which could see the darkness as clearly as daylight and convey all kinds of information, were soon reduced to normal vision.
“How long are you going to run!”
Fade's voice, filled with rage, echoed through the warehouse.
Toward him, Lorraine's voice flew from wherever she was hiding.
“You can't chase me anymore, can you?”
Hearing the words, Fade opened his one remaining eye.
He realized immediately what Lorraine was talking about.
‘On purpose?’
Fade's eyes are different from normal human eyes.
They were more like artifacts, made of monster byproducts, materials, and science.
They can detect body heat, see through darkness, and pick up on the smallest details of their surroundings.
Although it is crude, it has a built-in vision function. With just that, he can see the location of objects through walls.
However, this prosthetic eye doesn't last forever.
It puts a tremendous strain on the user, and when Fade gets tired, his prosthesis loses its benefits.
Lorraine knew this, and had deliberately set up a trap, playing on Fade's nerves and stalling for time.
‘She was able to learn all of my prosthetic's features and weaknesses in such a short engagement?’
The fight, which had been one-sided in Fade's favor, was now on an equal footing.
Of course, the odds were still in Fade's favor since Lorraine was injured, and Fade still had the strength of his prosthetic hand and prosthetic legs.
However Fade knew that these prosthetics and prosthetic limbs are a double-edged sword. Like the prosthetic eye, they can eat away at his nervous system if he overuses them.
Right now, that was the case.
-BANG!
The bullet Lorraine fired in the darkness hit his prosthetic hand. Normally, Fade would have reacted, but this time, his movements were stiff.
Realizing he'd been hit, Fade ducked back behind cover.
“You're moving a lot slower. Didn't I teach you that concealment is essential when fighting gunmen?”
Lorraine asked from the shadows. The words brought back memories of the distant past.
It was the first time he'd met Lorraine, when he'd joined the 121st Rangers.
Once they joined the unit, they had to continue training.
Among them were mock battles. It was one-on-one, on a field with cover, where you had to take down your opponent with a pistol and a knife.
Fade was matched up against Lorraine there and lost to her.
The number was well into double digits and in all that time, he had never beaten her.
Mock dueling was dangerous because even though the name was mock, the weapons were real.
A heated duel sometimes led to the death of the opponent.
There was only one way for a duel to end as a duel, and that was for one to be so overwhelmingly superior that he or she could easily overpower the other.
Lorraine had never killed an opponent in a duel.
She always subdued her opponents, took them by the hand, helped them to their feet, and gave them advice.
-When fighting gunmen, concealment is essential. Remember that.
Keep your shoulders back. Keep yourself well concealed. Keep your breathing steady. Keep your eyes wide open.
Lorraine was a colleague, a captain, and a great teacher.
Her teachings had been absorbed into Fade's body and helped him survive as a member of the 121st Rangers.
But now, Fade had forgotten them all too quickly.
In replacing his weak flesh with a superior machine, he had lost the fundamentals that had brought him to this point.
-Crack.
Fade bit his lip hard as he clenched his fists.
He pulled the ampoule containing the drug from the pouch at his waist and injected it into his neck.
It felt like a bucket of cold water was being poured on his heated nervous system.
It was a neutralizer for the body's overuse, but in essence, it was a highly addictive narcotic because it is made up of only things that are harmful to the human body, using it actually shortens your lifespan.
His men used it so much that their minds were ruined, their bodies worn out, and they were forced to retire.
The retirement referred to here is not the official retirement of a soldier.
They didn't have a title to give up, so the only time they could rest was when they died.
“Why didn't you kill me?”
Fade screamed as the effects of the drug wore off.
The way he shouted, as if he didn't care that his location had been revealed, made him look like a child.
“With your skills, you would have aimed for the space between my eyebrows instead of my prosthetic arm just now!”
“I wasn't trying to kill you in the first place, I was trying to get you to stop this.”
“Your head has become filled with flowers while I was away! Did you think something like that would stop me?”
“At least the Fade Wilson I knew would have stopped.”
“Well, that's too bad! I'm not the timid coward you used to know, and I don't need to take orders from you, and I'm not such a child that you need to teach me!”
Fade pointed his pistol toward where he assumed Lorraine was, then paused.
Is she really there, and if not, this is going to be a big mistake.
Lorraine had said she wouldn't kill him, but his pride wouldn't allow him to take her word for it.
But at the same time, he remembered that even this act of stopping him came from Lorraine's past teachings.
“My men won't stop when I'm gone, and stopping me won't end this!”
“I'm not worried about that. I've got a companion. A very reliable one.”
At those words, Fade felt his head rise upside down. Lorraine hadn't meant to, but she'd touched a nerve.
“......Colleague?”
Fade, faintly angry, unloaded his pistol in the direction Lorraine's voice had come from.
“A trusted ally?!”
Several obstacles stood in his way, but the specially modified bullets pulverized them along with the discarded debris beyond.
However, Lorraine was not there.
“We are!”
Fade felt like he was going to lose his mind. He felt like his body would explode if he didn't vomit out this rage.
“Weren't we mates! Rosa! Boris! Miller! David!”
Lorraine replied to my outrage.
“Of course you are coworkers. Very dear friends, too.”
“Then why did you leave us!”
“Because.......”
Lorraine hesitated to answer.
She had her own reasons. Things she could never tell her troops.
But her hesitation only fueled Fade's misunderstanding and anger.
“You abandoned us! And now you’re here, playing the role of a fixer with your colleagues?!”
You can't.
At least you shouldn't.
Do you know how painful it was for us when you left, and we had to keep it inside, not knowing where to turn?
We tried our best, fighting to survive, fighting to be accepted, fighting to throw away the body we were given, fighting to shorten our lives.
“No, you're wrong!”
Lorraine tried to say something, but Fade wouldn't hear it.
“Stop making excuses!”
“It's not an excuse! I was really thinking of you.......”
“What? Thinking of us?”
Fade couldn't hold back the anger building inside him.
He tried to keep it until the end. From the moment Lorraine left, anything related to her became nothing more than a dirty past.
“Do you know how Rosa died? She had both of her arms replaced with prosthetics! Her nervous system was destroyed from working with those dangerous tools that weren't meant for her body, and she lived in pain and medication every day! She couldn't take it, and she hanged herself, leaving a note saying she wanted to see her sister!”
From Fade's mouth flowed the final words of his former companions.
It was the last thing Lorraine had ever wanted to hear, a terrible truth.
“Boris had a deep fondness for Rosa, and after her death, he became less talkative and more mission-obsessed, until he was led astray, fell into the hands of the enemy, was horribly tortured, and died without leaving a will!”
And Fade did not even recover his remains.
“David's body wasn't fit enough, so he had to be drugged every time he operated it, and the more he did, the crazier he became, until he couldn't tell friend from foe, and went on a rampage! Do you know how it felt to have to let him go without suffering?!”
Lorraine's fingertips trembled in the darkness.
Her mind replayed the final fate of her companions.
“You let them go, and then you tell me, the one who wandered the battlefield endlessly, unable to let go of the gun in my hand, to stop doing this? And what about the ones who are dead now? My friends who fought for the same cause? Why did they have to die?!”
The output of Fade's prosthetic limbs increased and his prosthetic eye emitted a strong red light.
“Answer me, Lorraine, do you think the path I've taken is light enough to be stopped by a few bullets and a few words!”
Even if it was already the wrong path Fade could not turn back; he had too much on his shoulders and had come too far for that.
Kudang-tang!
Fade now charged like a wild boar toward Lorraine's hiding place, whether she fired or not.
Fade, who had smashed through the wall of rubble in front of him with his prosthetic arm, was in front of Lorraine.
“Answer me!”
“......!”
Lorraine bit her lip in agony as she came face to face with Fade's face.
His face was contorted like a demon but he looked like a child crying in sorrow.