A group of five people stood in front of a tall building.
The people wore uniforms with red and black colors, the same colors as the standard Zephyx Extractor uniforms.
However, compared to those, these uniforms looked to be of higher quality, and their shape was also slightly different, giving off more authority.
On these uniforms were emblems depicting mushrooms in front of building silhouettes.
The people in the Outer City saw these kinds of uniforms even rarer than Zephyx Extractor uniforms.
These uniforms were the uniforms of the official city forces, and they all worked and resided in the Inner City.
One could also call the people who wore these uniforms the guards of the Inner City.
Naturally, since the Inner City was where all the rich and influential people lived, the level of the guards there was also vastly higher than in the Outer City.
All of these guards were Zephyx Extractors or ex-Zephyx Extractors.
When a Zephyx Manufacturer became big enough to have their own emblem, they were also required to support the city with more than just credits.
Namely human power.
At that point, the Zephyx Manufacturer needed to dedicate 20% of their Extractors to the city officials.
So, if a Manufacturer had about 20 Veterans and 100 Johns, they would need to dedicate at least four Veterans and 20 Johns to the city.
These Zephyx Extractors would work for eight hours each day for the city.
This meant that these Extractors wouldn't have any time to work with any Specters or for the Manufacturer.
Of course, the city also paid these Extractors, but the Manufacturers almost always had to pay their Extractors on top of that since the city's pay was horrendous.
The Extractors that were dedicated to the city would work as guards, officials, tax collectors, and so on.
But most of them were essentially just doing nothing.
It didn't take a lot of manpower to run the city.
The real reason why every Manufacturer needed to dedicate 20% of their forces to the city was to make a revolt impossible.
With 20% of all the Extractors in their pocket, the city could fight any Manufacturer that wanted to rise against it.
However, while this seemed like a horrible disadvantage for Manufacturers, it actually wasn't.
After all, someone who was working for the city had a lot of power and could sway some things.
The more people a Manufacturer had in the city's forces, the more advantages they could get with the law.
For example, there had to be at least one Zephyx Manufacturer that was causing illegal deaths in the Inner and Outer City because of one of their Specters, but the guards didn't know which Manufacturer it was.
Naturally, that was because that Manufacturer had so many people in the guards that they could keep such a huge operation hidden.
And right now, five of these people stood in front of Cycle's building in the Outer City.
The four people in the back had emblems with two mushrooms on them, which meant that they were level two Extractors who were currently working for the city.
When an Extractor worked for the city, they would wear the city's uniform, making it impossible to tell from which Zephyx Manufacturer this Extractor came.
One could only tell that these four were Johns.
Compared to these four, the person in the front had three mushrooms on his emblem, which meant that he was a Veteran.
Just now, the leading person had tried to open the front door to Cycle, but it didn't open.
That was a bit unusual since it was 9 a.m.
After some time, the guard frowned.
DUNG! DUNG! DUNG!
He knocked with a lot of force three times, shaking the entire entrance area.
"This is the City guard. Open the door!" the guard shouted.
No answer.
This continued for almost five minutes.
The guard just kept knocking and shouting.
"Seems like we got a winner," the leading guard commented.
The other guards looked with curiosity at the closed doors.
It wasn't every day that a Manufacturer went out of business.
The leading guard pulled out a thin golden blade and rammed it into the slit between two doors.
DING!
He moved the blade down and cut through the lock with a lot of force.
Finally, he pushed forward, and the door opened without any resistance.
When the door opened, the guards smelled a thick stench of blood coming out from the building.
The main hall was very clean, but it smelled like it was coated in blood.
The guards behind the leading guard became nervous.
Johns rarely fought Extractors or Specters, and whenever a Manufacturer was about to go under, they often resisted with force or just released their Specters.
And since these Specters were a danger to the city, the guards had to take care of them.
"Don't worry," the leading guard said as he strode into the building confidently. "Based on the report, this Manufacturer only has one Adolescent and two Hatchlings."
The other guards sighed in relief when they heard that.
The building was eerily silent as they continued walking towards the end of the main hall.
When they reached the counter, the stench of blood became even thicker.
No one was standing at the counter.
The leading guard approached the counter and looked behind it.
"Ah, that's where the stench is coming from," he said.
The other guards followed and also looked behind the counter.
They saw a huge pile of bloody minced meat.
It was like a pig had been thrown into a meat grinder and then just dumped here.
"Looks like the doing of a Specter," the leading guard said.
The other guards gulped nervously.
"Kill me."
A chill ran down the guards' necks as they heard the soft but almost lifeless voice of a young woman coming from one of the hallways.
"Please… kill me…"
The voice became louder, and some moments later, they saw someone stepping out of the hallway.
It was a severely bleeding naked lady with long black hair.
Her fingernails were over 20 centimeters long and extremely sharp.
A moment later, the woman raised her head, and she looked at the guards.
Her eye sockets were empty.
There were only two dark and bloody holes.
"Kill me…"
"Kill me!"
"KILL ME!"
"KIIIIIILLLL MEEEEEE!"
And then, she charged forward.