Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Chapter 279: Big Brother, You're a Genius!

Zane did not have time to fully explore his new Alchemy Feature. Instead, his attention was quickly caught by three armed men who entered the room. Though the armor they wore appeared as if it were out of some fantasy RPG, their face was painted in the colors of the football team of which their faction was named after.

The group of men appeared outraged that the Steelclaw Scorpion had been slain, but they did not see Zane or Gwen standing over the corpse despite being a few feet away from them. Gwen was about to move and kill the three men when Zane raised up his hand, silently telling her to halt her actions.

The largest of the three men was quick to voice his fear after the Scorpion had been killed. After all, it was their responsibility to keep it locked up.

"Fuck! The boss is going to kill us if he finds out his favorite pet was killed. But who the hell killed this fucking thing? It costs us thirty men just to capture it!"

The other men looked equally as intimidated as the largest of the three. They were quick to ask for him to cover for them, or try to blame it on someone else.

"I'm not taking the fall for this shit! Isn't there anyone we can pin the blame on? If the boss finds out this thing escaped and got itself killed, then he's going to feed us to the fucking slaves!"

There was no denying this would be a reality. Any food scavenged from the wasteland, or grown in the arena was used to feed the raiders and its members. The slaves were forced to feast on the grilled flesh of those who the Raiders killed.

After all, slaves weren't worth much in their eyes. Because of this, these men didn't want to end up as a meal for those who they believed were worth less than the dirt beneath their feet. Zane kept a close eye on the men, hoping one of them would go explain the situation to the boss. So that he could follow him to wherever he was hiding.

Cut off the head of the snake, so to speak. And luckily for him, this is exactly what the man in charge came up with.

"Shit! How about we blame it on that bastard, Carl? He always treated the damn thing like it was a fucking puppy. It's easy enough to convince the boss to believe that he wanted it to be freed from captivity, right? Leeroy, you go tell the boss that scorpion is dead, while we go capture the Carl and cut his tongue out. That way, he can't snitch on us!"

The raider named Leeroy, who was a lanky and skinny fellow nodded his head before running off. Where Zane silently motioned with his hands to Gwen for the two of them to follow. And that's exactly what they did. Following closely behind Leeroy as he ran through the Arena until arriving in the VIP box where the leader of their gang made his personal quarters.

The guards outside the door were quick to let Leeroy through when he explained what was going on, and when the doors opened, Zane and Gwen followed Leeroy through. Where they found a bunch of women, no doubt taken as slaves, were cast aside, naked, beaten, and bruised.

Some of them were even missing some limbs, clearly amputated by the Raiders boss as if he had some kind of sick and twisted fetish. Zane did not feel sorry for the women, nor did Gwen. They were total strangers. And in this apocalyptic wasteland, might be right.

If you were not strong enough to defend yourself, then you were a victim of someone who could force their will on you. That was the law of the land. And in all reality it always had been, even if the pre-apocalyptic society liked to conceal this fact with modern technology.

When the boss saw Leeroy enter the room, he quickly lost his temper, screaming at the man for interrupting him and his sick pleasure party.

"What the hell are you doing here runt? This damn well better be fucking important!"

Leeroy quickly explained the story that his squad leader had come up with, quickly pinning the blame for the mutated scorpion's death on some guy named Carl. Whereas the Boss immediately lost his shit when he heard his favorite pet was dead.

"What did you just say!?! The scorpion is dead? Do you know how many warriors I had to sacrifice just to capture that fucking thing? I'm going tip carl's intestines out and strangle him with them!"

Leeroy was glad that the boss had bought him and his friends lies. And was quick to explain that they had already begun to hunt carl down. With this, Leeroy and the boss stormed out of the VIP box, completely unaware that Zane and Gwen remained behind.

Once they were all alone, Gwen deactivated her stealth where Zane followed suit. She looked at him with a frown on her face, as if to ask what exactly his plans were.

"Alright. So now that we're in the boss's quarters? What are we going to do? Why didn't we just slaughter everyone once we infiltrated the arena?"

Zane shook his head and sighed at Gwen's' short-sightedness, where he then lectured her on his plans.

"Gwen, you really have to think more about the bigger picture. Okay… Let me explain this to you in the best way possible. If we just tear through everybody in here like we normally would. What do you think the local Horde King is going to think happened?

Until now, the balance of power has been maintained between the various human factions, and I don't doubt whichever of our siblings is in charge of the area has some ulterior motives in keeping so many living human beings alive.

So if we wipe out a major faction, as if they are nothing, what is he going to think happened?"

Gwen suddenly caught on, realizing that to wipe out thousands, if not tens of thousands of humans in the span of a single day would heavily imply that a Horde King arrived to challenge Victor for his throne. Or at least someone of equal power.

And if that was the case, their identities would be revealed shortly thereafter. Because of this, she was quick to agree with Zane's assessment of the situation.

"Alright, I understand now… So what exactly are we doing here then?"

Zane smirked as he himself used his superhuman speed to search every nook and cranny of the office. Where he luckily enough found exactly what he was looking for, before revealing it to Gwen.

"I was looking for these…. Blueprints to the Arena. With these, we might be able to find a structural weak point that we can use to collapse the building on its inhabitants. If something like that were to happen, then any of the human factions in the area could catch the blame."

Gwen stared at Zane in silence for a second before letting her thoughts escape her mouth.

"Big Brother, you're a fucking genius!"