Chapter 8: Kind Heart

...

Giogio city is a megalopolis among metropolitan cities in Olion, the name of the planet. They are a combination of five city-states turned into one city two hundred years ago. The city is categorized into five regions, the central, the south, the west, the east, and the northern sector.

The whole design is intended. It was definitely planned 200 years ago. The problem lies in how it turned out for everything.

Each sector is a former city with its own urban planning. They have their own industrial chains, suburbans locations, and commercial districts.

As time passed by, among the five, only the northern sector deteriorated. Abandoned buildings are mostly found there. If people have a chance and a choice, they won't come back there.

A complex layout of the aboveground and underground. Tourists dubbed it the 'the great labyrinth'. Getting lost there is no joking matter.

Most of the abandoned and dilapidated buildings in the city are found there. For some reason, people won't come back to this place. Only the poorest will actually live in here due to the cheap rents.

The scarcity of police patrols and the absence of cameras created a good spot for the base of operations for criminal organizations. It also has the most passageway to the underworld.

Combine all of that and you will have a haven for particular individuals.

Combine all of that and people wouldn't like to live there.

The outer rim is still somewhat good because there is a bunch of police offices built and stationed. A little further away from it is still okay because not many have the guts to commit crimes near a police branch. Around here is Nana's house and the spot Lon found her. Further away from this part is the heart of the north sector.

It is a place for mafias, gangs, criminals, and convicts that escaped. The police have previously raided the place in the past 200 years. Their efforts were in vain because they can't totally cleanse the whole sector.

Military-grade armor suits and small-sized infantry mechs are even utilized in the last campaign. Only for them to explode in balls of flames. The despicable perpetrators used highly explosive bombs in an unassuming area to completely annihilate that unit.

The policemen couldn't do anything to them as they retreated. The sector was so huge that it would be incredibly hard to find the rats that hide in their lairs after blowing that mechanized squadron.

...

One of them is Ajoika Akizuki. He is in there five years ago. It is also the reason why his own faction, the Kuroi Te is rising steadily in recent years.

Sitting on his leather chair, he took a glimpse of the walls of his office. There are priced paintings and old collections he loved that are purchased legally. Their value is high enough to buy a 10-story building in the central sector.

The funny thing is that among his collections, there are five paintings full of paper charms. All of them are written using the blood of a mature rooster. Each paper has a different character. Ajoika didn't know many of them but the select few he could read gave him some serenity.

'Protect, bless, guard, defend'

After that incident, Ajoika ordered some of his men to create those charms based on his Jirhen. All of those charms are carved in paper, rocks, furniture, and even below the carpet. This is to guarantee the safety of his men in their workplace.

Such cautiousness didn't materialize overnight. His mother died in a car accident when he was five, an uncle of his, the elder brother of his mother, committed suicide the same day and his father suddenly died when he became an adult. Their deaths, if categorized, are all unusual.

The mother died due to a traffic control error of the local flight tower. Five other vehicles bumped and crashed to each other, killing her instantly. According to autopsy reports, her brother jumped off his aviation automobile. The time of death is closely related. Only has passed when the man 'died'.

As for his father? When the clock strikes midnight, he suddenly died. Lab reports said he has no external injuries, organ failure, or even an overdose of drugs. He just died for no particular reason.

His father is a healthy businessman at his prime, his wife was unlucky but her brother isn't a mindless soul to just jump off from a height of more than one hundred meters.

All of those sad and uncanny occurrences and made him buy tons of charms from a monk.

But it seemed it only safeguarded him and not his business. The news really traveled fast in this epoch. That day, many of his workers in Olion voiced their uneasiness and requested to transfer to safer locations. After all, most of the places they work in are inauspicious ones where many died and suffered since the day the planet is colonized.

The solution to that problem is to distribute those charms in his Jirhen. Also, he wasn't a fool enough to tell them that it came from his Jirhen. He just told them it was taught to him by the same passing monk years ago. Although there are voices of dissatisfaction, Ajoika didn't think that would result in immediate betrayal.

If it is still not enough and there are more cases that appeared, Ajoika could only compromise because it could lead to mutiny and desertion.

His comm device, a black-bead bracelet with a crown and cross mark dent on polar sides, suddenly rang. It was a call from his aide Ajoika answered it nonchalantly. The man's face is covered in sweat and his eyes had this look of disbelief when one saw something horrifying. Before he could ask what was going on, he was interrupted by his shout and the screams on the background.

"Boss, we need help, help us!"

...

Somewhere in space, a spacecraft is floating silently. Most of its engines are turned off but its defensive systems are still online. Space pirates would not attack this ship even if they have one hundred spaceships and one hundred large space mechs on their side. All because of the enormous size of it.

That magnitude only belongs to the Dominion type under the Battleship class. This kind of ship is one of the main spacecraft mostly employed in warzones. Its classification is universally agreed upon by all sentient races and no one could oppose this concept.

Their design has incorporated an arsenal of weaponry that is enough to blast one side of a medium-sized planet.

Right now, a small space vessel came towards it. The cannons and energy blasters didn't fire at it because it could recognize that it was a registered friendly. This small fry then landed on the battleship's opened cargo dock.

After the doors where closed and the life support system is activated, a woman came out of the small ship.

The two most striking features she has are her fierce red hair and the golden color of her eyes. Her hips swayed in the air that will attract the attention of boys, her developing voluptuous body would captivate men, and her sour expression would make legends run for their lives.

Hikari stared at the row of unfamiliar ships with vigilance. These things didn't belong to her, the fellow disciples, or her father himself. More so, they have varying damages. Some have their rear part scratched and some have their bow deformed.

Naturally, Hikari has her own doubts. There aren't that many visitors that are permitted to embark 'Hopeless Endeavour'. Besides her and special relatives, any unidentified hostile entity that approached a certain range would be immediately shot down.

The girl went to the bridge of the battleship. There was no living human there except for the humanoid androids that automated the course of the ship.

'Father's probably teaching'

Before she went into another section of the spaceship, her comm device, in the form of a slim white bracelet, vibrated. A message was sent from her father and told her to come into the infirmary bay.

This made her worry. It could mean that some people were injured and some of them could be her friends. Hikari didn't dwell deeply on that as she faced towards the place. When she got there, Hikari has a surprised prised Pikachu face. Then it was washed by her anger that surfaced from her bright golden eyes.

Laid down on the sick beds are people she didn't know. But from their clothing alone she knew where and who they are. There are also some acquaintances resting in vertical medicine capsules. All those people sustained heavy injuries like a missing limb or burnt trunk. The gravest injury among them is a person with a missing heart and several vital organs.

It is even a question if she is still alive.

Artificial androids treated their injuries, people in uniformed orange clothes that attended their needs, and his father that is talking to a haggard man.

"You wouldn't understand, Li! You wouldn't understand what we saw in there!", that man is yelling with all his might. There is this notable long scabbing scar on his abdomen.

Plus, there are already healing small and medium-sized wounds that are scattered all over his body. His appearance could only be described as a solder that went into a war unprepared.

"Those despicable scums! I will make sure they will suffer for the rest of their lives!", deep resentment was laced in his voice as he clenched his teeth and fists. Evidently, the man is being slowly consumed by wrath for the scene he has witnessed.

Beside him is a bald man that administers medicine into his injuries. This man is Yuan Li, the father of Hikari and the commander of Hopeless Endeavour.

He only let out a sigh of helplessness as he reassured.

"Old Mena, do not further trail off from your path.", he lightly patted the man's closed hands.

"Right now, some of my disciples are searching for any survivors, so rest well first.", Yuan Li said in a soothing voice while discreetly applying a sleep-inducing calming drug directly through the tube attached to his veins.

"But my daughter and, an-d, and-", the man's voice trailed off to wonderland and shortly went into rest.

The bald man wearing a bright orange robe stood up and took a glimpse around him.

There are more than a hundred sickly men that groaned and cried because of the terrible pain they are experiencing. His eyes soon noticed a new arrival on the infirmary.

The bald man left some instructions to one of his smart disciples before walking towards his daughter.

"Let's talk somewhere else.", he said to her with a tinge of exhaustion. Hikari followed suit as her father walked out of the sickbay.

However, the moment the metallic doors closed behind them, she couldn't help but voice her sentiment.

"Father, why do you helped them?", her voice was plain and simple but Yuan Li could discern the venom deeply hidden.

Both of them knew what kind of sketchy people they are. Yuan Li preferably call them the 'dark practitioners', for they use their knowledge and abilities to gain something they wanted by harming people.

And they are that protected the ordinary humans from both the dark practitioners and the unimaginable beings that lurked in the darkness through a set of values.

For a normal, old practitioner like him to help the opposing party, they swore to battle and trample, which is an impossibility.

At least, that was what Hikari believes in. But today, the unthinkable truly happened in front of her.

The man stopped in his footsteps, turned kindly to his daughter, and patted her head. It was a momentarily lovely scene of a responsible father and a hot-tempered daughter.

This made Hikari be surprised and look up at the gentle brown eyes of the man.

"One must forgive the faults of others but never forget. Have you already forgot that virtue, Hikari?", the man let out another sigh before asking her directly.

She shook her head before expressing her viewpoint.

"I haven't but why we must provide support to these people that are essentially evil?"

In a serious conversation like this, any form of laughter is rude. Yet, that was exactly what Yuan Li did. It was an uncontrollable feeling that made him chuckle.

"Young girl, do you really think that they are pure evil?"

She nodded strongly to affirm her belief, not caring about that disrespect.

"Listen, young Hikari, there is no natural born evil human. All of them are molded by their experiences."

"So learn to forgive and be kind."

Hearing his explanation, Hikari could only internally grumble. It was always the same thing since she was a child.

It wasn't a misfortune or any accident made by fate. It was just the way her father is because he is an authentic man. Sometimes, he was also called a monk by those people he had assisted.

...