Arknights: It Can't Possibly Be My Fault... Right? — Chapter 16

Chapter 16: Mercenary W

Kai’s lungs burned with every ragged breath, his boots slamming against the cracked asphalt of Chernobog’s ruined streets. He was practically drenched in his own blood, his clothes reduced to scorched, tattered rags clinging to his battered frame. Slung over his shoulders like sacks of potatoes were Ace and M3.

“Hey, Kai, what’s the situation? Did we win?” M3 demanded from her undignified perch on his shoulder. She squirmed, kicking her legs. “And why are you carrying me?! Put me down, I can run on my own!”

“Shut up and let me carry you,” Kai wheezed, his voice hoarse. “Didn’t you haul me around exactly like this earlier? Consider us even. And no, I didn’t win. Talulah is way too fierce right now; I can’t beat her in a straight fight. More, my buff is wearing off. I can’t maintain this state for much longer.”

“Oh…” M3’s tone softened slightly, taking in the gruesome state of his wounds. “How are you holding up, then? Can you make it?”

“I’m fine. I can hold on a little longer,” Kai gritted his teeth, forcing his trembling legs to keep moving. “Amiya and the others should be waiting for us just up ahead.”

Sure enough, after staggering through two more devastated city blocks, the familiar silhouettes of the Rhodes Island vanguard came into view through the settling ash.

“Amiya!” M3 waved frantically from Kai’s shoulder.

Seeing that they had finally caught up with the main force, Kai didn’t bother with pleasantries. He unceremoniously dumped both M3 and the unconscious Ace onto the rubble-strewn ground, then collapsed onto his rear, gasping for air like a dying fish.

“Mr. Kai! Miss M3, and Ace—you’re all alright! Thank goodness!” Hearing the shout, Amiya immediately broke from the defensive perimeter, rushing over with Blaze and the rest of the operators close behind.

“Mr. Kai, what happened to you?!” Amiya gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as she took in the sheer volume of blood soaking his shredded clothes.

“Ugh, don’t even ask,” Kai groaned, waving a dismissive, blood-stained hand. “Talulah really has some serious skills. I didn’t manage to beat her.”

He forced himself back to his feet, his joints popping in protest. His sharp gaze swept over the jagged shadows of the nearby ruins, piercing through the gloom of the temporary camp. He took a deep breath and shouted into the empty air.

“Hey! W! I know you’re lurking around here, so just come out! Your boss has already been beaten to a pulp by me!”

“Mr. Kai? What are you doing?” Amiya asked, her ears twitching in confusion.

Before Kai could explain, a sharp, mocking sneer echoed from the shadows of a collapsed storefront.

“Ha! If you actually managed to beat her to death, I’ll eat two volatile Originium Slugs raw tonight.”

A Sarkaz girl stepped out from the debris. She had striking crimson horns, a short leather skirt, and a dangerously pretty face currently twisted into a look of absolute disdain. She tossed a live Originium explosive in her hand, catching it with practiced ease.

Kai didn’t immediately look at her face, nor did he pay attention to the deadly explosive she was juggling. Instead, his eyes drifted down, taking a moment to appreciate the Sarkaz mercenary’s legs with the eye of a true connoisseur. ‘Hmm. A bit thinner than Kal’tsit’s, maybe, but the shape is absolutely top-tier.’

“Hey. What exactly are you staring at?” W’s voice dropped ten degrees, her eyes narrowing as she caught his wandering gaze.

“Oh, nothing,” Kai replied casually, offering a shameless grin. “Just wondering if you get cold wearing so little in this weather. Doesn’t Ines look after you?”

Without a single flicker of warning, W whipped her arm forward. The Originium bomb sailed through the air, aimed dead at his face.

Kai didn’t even blink. He casually swatted it away like a pesky mosquito.

Boom!

The explosive detonated harmlessly in a pile of rubble a dozen yards away, showering the area with dust. W paused, a genuinely thoughtful expression crossing her face as she looked from the smoking crater back to Kai.

“Hey. What’s your name?”

“Kai.”

“I see. Are you from Yan?” W sauntered forward, closing the distance.

Instantly, Amiya, Blaze, and the surrounding operators drew their weapons, shifting into a high-alert combat formation. Kai merely raised a hand, signaling them to stand down.

“You really are… bold,” W purred, circling Kai like a predator appraising a particularly interesting meal. “Don’t you know who I am?”

“Of course I do,” Kai deadpanned, reaching out to firmly press his hand down on W’s shoulder, halting her dramatic circling. “Mercenary W. Currently acting as a mid-level squad leader in the Reunion Movement. Enjoys playing with highly volatile toys, has a penchant for dramatic entrances, and barely knows how to read.”

“Hey… you really could have left that last part out!” W scowled, twisting her shoulder to shake off his grip. When his hand didn’t budge an inch, she huffed, gave up, and simply plopped herself down onto the dusty ground right in front of him.

Kai blinked, his face a mask of utter bewilderment. “What are you doing?”

“I originally came over here to hunt down that hooded guy,” W said nonchalantly, gesturing vaguely toward the Rhodes Island ranks. “But now I’ve realized I absolutely cannot beat you. So, I’m surrendering. Do with me as you please.”

Kai and the Rhodes Island operators exchanged baffled looks. Was the infamous, bloodthirsty W really this much of a slacker?

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll actually just execute you right here?” Kai asked, testing the waters.

W merely clicked her tongue, leaning back on her hands. She pointed a finger toward the back of the group. “You’re even keeping her alive.”

Crownslayer stood near the medics. Given her surprisingly cooperative behavior, the operators had untied her legs so she could walk freely.

“I’m at least prettier than she is, right?” W flashed a dangerous, teasing smile. “Could you really bear to kill me? No way, right? Absolutely no way.”

Faced with W’s utterly shameless, rogue-like behavior, Kai sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose to drag the conversation back to reality. “Talulah is probably still in the Central District. You were likely sent ahead to intercept us. Look, we can just pretend we never saw you, and you can leave. Go back and tell her you couldn’t catch up to us.”

“Ah? Oh…” W blinked, genuinely surprised by the easy out. Then, her crimson eyes flicked back to Crownslayer. “You’re just letting me go? What about her, then? Why not hand her over to me so I can turn her in for a bounty?”

“I’m not going back.”

It was Crownslayer who answered, her voice flat and resolute.

“What? You’re not going back?” W’s eyebrows shot up. “Did that crazy Draco woman withhold your paycheck or something?”

“No,” Crownslayer replied simply, pulling her hood down slightly. “I just… have other things I need to do now.”

“Alright then, suit yourself.” W shrugged, pushing herself up from the dirt. She dusted off her skirt and offered a bright, entirely fake giggle, waving at them as if bidding farewell to old friends. “I’m leaving, then. You’d better keep your word, pretty boy.”

As W turned to vanish into the ruins, Kai called out to her back.

“By the way, W! Watch your back around Talulah. Something is seriously wrong with her.”

Whether the warning would actually change anything or not, Kai didn’t care. He just wanted to throw a wrench into the old Black Snake’s plans out of sheer spite.

W paused, glancing over her shoulder with a look of feigned confusion, as if she didn’t understand a word he had just said. Then, without another word, she disappeared into the shadows.

“Mr. Kai…” Amiya stepped forward, her brow furrowed with anxiety. “Is it really okay to just let her go like that? What if she leads Talulah straight to us?”

“Don’t worry,” Kai said, offering a weak, reassuring thumbs-up. “Talulah is heavily injured too. She won’t be coming after us for a while. Besides…”

“Besides?” Amiya echoed, tilting her head.

“That was… way too intense!”

With those final words, the adrenaline completely abandoned Kai’s system. His eyes rolled back, his body lost all structural integrity, and he plummeted face-first toward the concrete.

“Mr. Kai!” Amiya shrieked.

“You reckless idiot!” M3 yelled.

Kai’s sudden collapse threw the entire vanguard into a frantic uproar.

Central District.

W handled the treacherous, burning ruins of Chernobog’s core, clicking her tongue in genuine amazement.

“I really didn’t expect that guy to look so fragile but hit so hard,” she muttered to herself, stepping over a scorched slab of concrete. “He must have gone a full eight hundred rounds with that Draco woman.”

Following the massive, apocalyptic scars carved into the city’s architecture, she soon reached ground zero of the battle.

Sure enough, sitting at the bottom of a massive, glassed crater was Talulah. The Reunion leader had just regained consciousness and was resting with her eyes closed, desperately trying to suppress her horrific injuries.

Hearing the soft crunch of boots on gravel, Talulah’s eyes snapped open. Seeing the Sarkaz mercenary, her voice cut through the ash-choked air like liquid nitrogen.

“Why are you here?”

It was the first time W had ever seen the supposedly invincible Talulah in such a pathetic, battered state. W couldn’t hide her amusement. “Were you really almost beaten to death? That guy told me he thrashed you, but I thought he was just blowing hot air.”

Talulah’s golden eyes narrowed to dangerous slits. “You’ve met that person?”

Beneath the surface, she secretly began gathering her fractured Arts. If this erratic mercenary had heard something she shouldn’t have, Talulah would not hesitate to silence her right here and now, injuries be damned.

“Oh, just ran into him on the way,” W replied breezily, not bothering to invent a complex lie. “He said he beat you to a pulp and told me to come collect your corpse.”

“Did he say anything else?” Talulah probed, her tone perfectly even. If it was a mere chance encounter, nothing of consequence should have been exchanged. She knew for a fact that Kai’s injuries were just as severe as her own; he shouldn’t have had the stamina for idle chatter.

“Nope. Nothing at all. Why? Was he supposed to say something?” W lied smoothly, casually burying Kai’s parting warning.

She didn’t have a concrete reason for hiding it. It was just pure, mercenary intuition. W had felt that something was fundamentally wrong with Talulah for a long time now, but since Ines and the others hadn’t made a move, she had kept her mouth shut.

“By the way, is he really that powerful?” W asked, tilting her head in feigned curiosity. “He beat you into this state, but when I saw him, he was acting like nothing even happened. Is he from some overpowered elite race too?”

Talulah let out a cold, raspy laugh. “He merely obtained a mysteriously potent force from somewhere. He was being artificially empowered by that energy throughout our entire battle. I do not know what price he paid for such power, but I am certain of one thing: beneath it all, he is just an ordinary person.”

“An ordinary person who went toe-to-toe with you in a brutal fistfight?” W raised an eyebrow, her voice dripping with skepticism.

Talulah fell silent for a long moment. “He was using Originium Arts to reinforce his physical parameters—his defense, his kinetic output, his speed. His actual flesh is incredibly weak, but he compensated for it entirely with Arts.”

W’s eyes widened in genuine, unadulterated surprise. “Wait. So what you’re telling me is… you got pinned down and absolutely thrashed in a melee brawl by a Caster?”

Visible veins popped along Talulah’s ash-smudged forehead. The air around her began to superheat, the Draco on the absolute verge of exploding.

Seeing the boiling rage, W giggled, taking a casual step back. “Well, as long as you’re not dead. If there’s nothing else, I’ll be taking my leave. Oh, by the way, Crownslayer said she’s not coming home for dinner. That’s all. Bye-bye!”

With a cheerful wave, W turned on her heel and strolled away under Talulah’s dark, murderous gaze, leaving the Reunion leader sitting alone in the smoldering ruins.

“Whew~”

The moment she was completely out of Talulah’s line of sight, W’s playful demeanor vanished. She let out a heavy breath, her fingers slipping into her jacket to silently click the safety back onto the Originium bomb she had been palming the entire time.

“That crazy Draco woman really wanted to kill me just now,” W muttered, her crimson eyes darkening.

The instant she mentioned running into Kai, Talulah’s killing intent had spiked violently. The leader probably thought she had concealed it well, but her injuries had frayed her control, and W’s survival instincts were razor-sharp.

W ground her teeth together. She was a mercenary who always settled her scores, and she didn’t appreciate being looked at like a loose end waiting to be tied up.

It was time to head back and discuss some new contingency plans with Ines.