Into The Wilds [3]
Gio had plenty of memories in the rest cities.
The Wasteland was abandoned by 3030. It became completely the territory of beasts and monsters, and at a certain point, those two sides began warring over control. The world was completely theirs.
Humanity didn't give up on it. Humanity didn't even give up on the Rathole. Despite the differences they had, humans were humans when the threat of foreign entities became too severe.
Gio wasn't a frontline fighter, but as he'd mentioned before, he did work his way into being a person of high status. Well, it was partially work and partially connections, but that was beside the point.
When the Wasteland reclamation efforts were taking place, Gio was always sent to these rest cities to set up mobile operation centers for the teams operating throughout the world. From the rest cities, humans in fortified bases could surveil all of the movement in the world and help the ground teams operate.
He was out of the way of danger, as he was always surrounded by troops whose sole purpose was to guard him, but that didn't mean he never interacted with the locals.
If they were here in the Wilds, they were probably inherently bad people. Some of them were irreconcilably bad to the point where it was better for everyone if they died.
But that wasn't always the case.
Some of those people were reformed, some of them were framed, and some of them were thrown out here or being chased by enemies who weren't part of any good or just force.
He, as someone who grew up in the Wasteland, was never going to keep his hand back when he saw them just because there was a possibility for them to be vile.
Seb parked the truck in something like a parking lot in that it was filled with cars that were lined up in no particular order. When they got out, he said this:
"Since you're the one who wants to look around, I'll let you lead. Pretend like I don't exist at all."
It was a sentence that implied they'd be moving together, which wasn't great for Gio's plans, but he never expected Seb to give him freedom once they'd left Haven.
'The truck is started through fingerprint recognition. It's a pretty outdated method that's really only used on the cheapest consumer cars, so it must be an older model. New ones are produced by order, so if they wanted to find something built after 2995 that isn't currently in use, they'd have to specially commission it.'
A commission like that took months to complete outside of wartime. Naturally, it wasn't a viable acquisition method when there wasn't even a month remaining before they set out.
'I didn't expect us to hypertrain, so I was ready to hotwire, but that won't work anymore.'
He had to get Seb's fingerprint.
'In Gastle, it would be impossible to do something like that without being caught. Here, though…?'
In this rest city so irrelevant that its people never even gave it a name?
In this place, there was bound to be more than one person who could do it for him.
'All I need to do is lose him first.'
Gio didn't have Seb's information, but he knew the man's Original Gene was related to tracking. He probably already had Gio marked and would be able to find him no matter where he went.
'I don't know how many Gene Slots he has in total. In the past, I saw him use two other abilities.'
The first gave him extreme strength, and the second gave him extreme speed. Seb used basic abilities and focused on martial arts, making him a rare type of Sequencer.
'As long as I'm in the city, he can probably reach me instantly…'
Gio glanced back at the man following him from a short distance away.
'...I need to give him a reason to not look for me before I'm already gone.'
He almost couldn't stop himself from clicking his tongue. He took a moment to change his expression before turning to face Seb with a jovial smile.
"We've been traveling for a while. Why don't we go get some food?"
Seb's brow raised in interest.
"You want to eat? Here? You know they don't have access to spices, right?"
Gio shook his head casually.
"What are you talking about? Of course they have spices. We just have to be a little careful since everything they have is from the black market."
There was a twenty percent chance they'd accidentally ingest poison, but it was fine if they were cautious, right?
The people here had to survive somehow. Nightreign was the only thing making their lifestyles viable.
They could hunt in the Wasteland and sell their goods anonymously for the money that sustained them. Their entire lives revolved around Nightreign.
In a sense, Nightreign would never die as long as people like them existed.
'Is he really just hungry?'
Seb didn't really care whether they ate or not. As a Sequencer of a relatively Origin Level, he didn't need to eat nearly as often as someone like Gio.
In this case, he didn't think Gio was hungry either.
'He ate quite a lot on the drive here. If it isn't for the food, then… perhaps he has already learned the best ways to gather information in a rundown area like this?'
Seb decided to observe more carefully and voiced his agreement. Since Gio wasn't supposed to know the way, he put on a little show before allowing Seb to lead him to the closest thing to a good restaurant he could find.
One couldn't expect good service.
When they walked in, they were greeted by a bar backed by a couple of rickety wooden tables equipped with four chairs each. There were two men at the bar, and another woman was eating quietly in the corner with a hood over her head.
There was one woman behind the bar with tattoos covering her whole body. The moment she saw them, she rolled her eyes.
"Sit anywhere. When you wanna order, come up and tell me what you want. I'm not coming to you."
They definitely stood out. They were too clean to be denizens.
The two grabbed menus off the counter and grabbed a table for themselves. They looked through them, chose what they wanted, and approached the lady as she asked to place their orders.
Their food arrived half an hour later. It was mediocre at best, but then again, neither of them was eating because they were hungry.
Seb watched Gio carefully.
'He has been wary ever since we entered. He must be listening to the conversation between those two men.'
The men at the bar were conversing about some interesting happenings in the surroundings, but Gio was paying no attention to them at all.
Because he was also watching Seb carefully.
'He touched his water cup, but he didn't drink it.'
That water cup was his target.
'When I first came here in the past, it had been almost ten years since I left. The things I know may be different right now.'
But, when he came here last, he did the same as he did in every rest city and got to know the population. He knew who the people trusted and admired. He knew who they respected and protected.
Among them was a person like that. He could clone fingerprints, acquire any sort of gear one could need at a cheaper price than market, and cover most of the needs of these rogues.
When it came to commissions that had to remain secret, he was the one they all chose.
'I don't know if he's operating right now. I don't even know if his shop is open.'
He only knew where that place was.
'And if that street was being developed at this time too, there should be other people with at least the same basic capabilities as him.'
Where he needed to go and what he needed to do were set.
He only needed to lose Seb's trail now.