Apocalypse Hunter

< Ramphil, the Vagabond (Part 1) >

The Reavers brought a huge amount of chips in their junkwagons to ease the anger of the Wargrave. All the chips they brought became Zin’s.

And Zin didn’t finish there.

“400 chips. That’s pretty good as a prepayment. Make sure you have the rest of the payment ready at the Slaughterhouse.”

“What?”

“What, you don’t like it?”

“Oh, no, no, Mr. Hunter! Of course we’ll have it ready for you!”

The Reavers had their 400 chips taken away by Zin, and once the request was completed, they were going to get another 400 chips taken away. However, since they were right in front of the Wargrave fortress, they had to listen to whatever they were told to do.

“Good. Then, let me ask you some questions. Make sure you answer them accurately.”

Zin started asking about the location of the Slaughterhouse and the other group of Reavers, and the Reavers answered what they knew. The Reavers were extremely nervous, as Zin looked like he was ready to kill them if they lied to him.

Zin didn’t look like an ordinary hunter.

Ramphil began speaking as he watched the Reavers dragged their junkwagons away that were now out of fuel.

“I didn’t expect to receive a request from the Reavers.”

“If they are willing to gift me, why wouldn’t I receive it?” Zin was all about earning chips. Zin assumed that the Reavers were innocent, but Zin and Ramphil did not trust the Reavers.

“Do you think they are innocent? I feel like they are making things up and lying.” Ramphil questioned the truthfulness of the Reavers, and Zin nodded.

“I can’t fully trust the Reavers, but there’s something that I wanted to verify.”

“Verify?”

“It’s strange that someone is using the strategy of ‘killing someone using other’s help’.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Reavers are known for using this strategy frequently.”

In the past, the Reavers attracted monsters in order to raid Wargrave transportation units. The Reavers would use this strategy in order to defeat foes that were stronger than them. Zin wanted to verify if there was indeed another group of Reavers that was using this strategy.

It was a possibility, and Zin thought it was worth investigating it.

“So you are saying that there are two groups of Reavers in Harbin?”

“Possibly.” Zin thought that there was an existing Slaughterhouse, and another group of Reavers who were trying to take over the area around Harbin. It was not hard for Zin to investigate the group of Reavers who had settled into the Slaughterhouse.

However, the other group of Reavers was most likely hiding in different places, and Zin would need to thoroughly search the area.

Ramphil and Zin were getting involved in a power struggle between two groups of Reavers, and it was clear that Ramphil and Zin would have to search and eradicate the group of Reavers responsible for attacking their armored vehicle.

“The existing group of Reavers are ‘left-hand collectors’, while the new group isn’t displaying their territoriality in a specific way. They will probably get rid of the Left Hands and then start displaying territoriality with their own symbol. The two groups have not engaged in a war yet, but it seems like that they’ve encountered one another. The new group of Reavers is somewhere in Harbin…”

“We will have to search for their base.”

“Right.” Zin was not able to classify the unknown Reavers. The existing Slaughterhouse was located on the northern bank of the Songhua River. The Reavers were using an apartment building as their Slaughterhouse.

This meant that the Reavers had greater influence on the northern side of the Songhua River. In fact, the raid had happened on the southern side of the River, near the bridge.

Ramphil was going through his memories to figure out what happened before. “Hmm… If the Left Hand were going to attack us, it would have been better for them to attack us when we were on the bridge.”

“Correct,” Ramphil confirmed. There was a strategic advantage in isolating an enemy on top of the bridge. The attackers set up iron wires in order to stop Zin’s group from crossing the bridge.

If the attackers were from the Left Hand, they would have set up the iron wires at the other end of the bridge, and trapped the vehicle on the bridge. If the Reavers lied about the story, it would mean that they had also tried to raid the vehicle at a less optimal location.

Zin and Ramphil were able to derive that the Left Hand Reavers were not the attackers, and get some extra clues.

“The new group of Reavers is probably based on the southern side of the river, and they are probably cautious about advancing to the northern side. That explains why they attacked us when we were still on the southern part of the bridge,” Ramphil said thoughtfully.

Zin nodded at Ramphil’s conclusion. The Left Hand Reavers, who had no intention of interfering with the armored vehicle, noticed the new group of Reavers raiding the vehicle, and pursued the attackers, killed them, and brought them to the Wargrave fortress.

The Left Hand Reavers were obviously desperate to maintain a good relationship with the Wargrave fortress.

“We need to head south,” Zin said, Ramphil agreed, and both were happy that they were able to narrow down the search area.

—

“I don’t understand, why they would target Harbin?” Ramphil asked, as he crossed the bridge that connected the southern and northern banks of the Songhua River.

“Well… there are many refugees moving into the bigger cities. The Reavers hunt people all the time, and it was a smart decision to set up a base in the ruins.”

There was around 150 Left Hand Reavers who had come to the fortress. It meant that the Reavers had a bigger group. The Reavers who spoke to Ramphil acted like the leader of the whole Reavers group, but he was probably not the leader.

“The Left Hand probably has at least 500 members. If they sent out 150 Reavers for forgiveness, it means that they are actually much larger in size.”

“That’s pretty big,” Ramphill agreed.

“I don’t know if Harbin is that good of a city to take over…” As Ramphil questioned the motive of the other Reavers group, Zin also was not sure if taking over Harbin would be worth for any Reavers group.

As soon as Zin and Ramphil reached the southern part of Harbin, they started walking around the city. Harbin had many buildings that were still in good condition.

“Can we track them somehow?”

It was tough searching through a big city. Zin got ticked off as Ramphil asked the question. “Do you think that I’m a jack of all trades?”

“Hmm, I thought a devil hunter would have a solution.”

“And unfortunately… I do have a solution.”Zin smiled, and Ramphil started to realize that Zin was not simply a cold-hearted devil hunter, but a goofy hunter as well. “But I will need your help, is that okay?”

“Help?”

“Do you think my solution is anything special?” Zin shrugged. “If they are hiding, we need to drag them out.”

Zin went inside a random building, and brought out a piece of cloth. The cloth looked so dirty that it did not seem like a good idea to wear it. Zin started to speak.

“Take off your clothes.”

“Hold on, I don’t understand what you are trying to do.”

“For this point on, you are a vagabond.”

“…” Ramphil was upset, but Zin stood there ready to put the piece of dirty cloth on him.

—

After an hour, a man with dirty clothes was walking down the road through Harbin under the scorching sun. He had long hair, and black lines of sweat coming down his face. At first sight, he looked like a terrible beggar.

Zin had Ramphil take off all his clothes except his underwear, and made him roll in the mud. After rolling in the mud, Ramphil looked exactly like a beggar, and he then put on the piece of cloth. It made him look even more like a vagabond and an actual beggar.

Zin didn’t want Ramphil to appear too crappy, so he gave Ramphil an aluminum pole to use as a walking aid.

Ramphil had given all his weapons to Zin, and only had his radio hidden under his hair.

Although Ramphil was a handsome young man, at the moment he looked so bad that anybody would run away from him.

“Hunter, I don’t understand why I have to go through all this…”

Ramphil murmured in a calm voice.

[Doesn’t it make sense for the stronger man who can withstand ordinary ammunition to be the target?]

“I don’t know exactly, but I heard that you have a body strengthened by a boneframe procedure as well.”

When Ramphil first saw Zin fight against the devil, he thought that Zin was not an ordinary human, but someone who received the boneframe procedure.

[Unfortunately, I have a low energy level, and I can’t even survive a single bullet. Why do you think I asked you?]

“Well, I can’t trust you even more.” Ramphil gnashed his teeth as Zin talked with an evil laugh.

[When would you experience such a thing as a Wargrave executor? Just enjoy the moment.]

“If you were to smell this foul stench once, you would not be saying what you just said.”

The rotting smell was unbearable, and the dirty cloth smelled very bad. The mud that Ramphil rolled over earlier was not a simple mud. It was mud mixed with monsters’ vomit and dung.

Ordinary people would get infected with CP just by touching the nasty mud. However, Ramphil had a megaframe body and was not affected by the mud, so he could not refuse being disguised as a vagabond. He was in a better condition to do the job, and was the first one to ask what to do.

Ramphil would not have complained too much if he knew that Zin’s solution was a way to attract the Reavers. Ramphil was walking down the road, and Zin followed him from a distance.

A vagabond was a ticking bomb that could turn into a monster at any given moment. The best course of action was to get rid of a vagabond if one appeared.

If the vagabond was left alone, it would become a disaster if the vagabond turned into a dangerous monster. Zin’s solution was to have a fake vagabond walk down through the territory of the Reavers, so that they would have to attack the fake vagabond.

Ramphil was not in a good mood with the nasty outfit. When the first attacker appeared, he yanked out the attacker’s arm and crushed the head of the attacker.

“Hey… I’m attracting weird things.”

[Monsters are more sensitive to odors. That’s probably why.]

Ramphil looked at the headless ratman lying down on the street and sighed.

The stench from Ramphil was probably attracting monsters around the area. Instead of Reavers, there were now many monsters surrounding Ramphil.

—Zst Zst! Zst! —

The group of ratmen surrounded Ramphil, and started to attack him. The ratmen were monsters as swift as a rat. They were powerful enough to rip out a human’s head off their body.

However, Ramphil smacked the head of the incoming ratman, and punched another ratman closing in.

—Pow! —

Ramphil threw a light punch, but the upper body of the ratman blew up as the punch connected.

Most cyborg soldiers become complacent after gaining enormous power and agility. They were mesmerized by their own strength, and became lazy.

But in the case of Ramphil, as soon as he received the megaframe procedure, he trained even harder to surpass his limits.

—Pow! Crack! — 

With a swift punch, the ratman’s head was crushed and spilled out its brain.

Ramphil continuously thought how he could overcome the limits of the megaframe. He taught himself how to improve his battle skills utilizing the megaframe procedures. There was a reason why the Warlord of Harbin praised Ramphil as the strongest Wargrave soldier.

Ramphil used every part of his body as a killing weapon. He used his hands and feet to crush five ratmen to dead meat, and then sighed as he was covered with fresh blood and gore.

[Your disguise even looks better now.]

“… I’m hating this,” Ramphil grumbled and continued to walk down the road.

[But be careful. If you appear to look like a Vegabond, you might scare away the Reavers.]

Zin’s words irked Ramphil. Ramphil felt that Zin was jokingly mocking him, but Zin was actually saying all the right things.

< Ramphil, the Vagabond (Part 2) >

Four days later…

“This disguise is definitely effective.”

—Crack! Crush! —

Ramphil ripped apart the monster’s mouth and kicked the monster around. Then he murmured, “I don’t know about the Reavers, but this disguise is attracting only monsters.”

Ramphil sighed as he finished off another group of monsters. The monster that Ramphil encountered was ten feet tall and had a mouth big enough to swallow a house. Many people would panic if they encountered such a monster, but Ramphil was as cool as ever.

[You are pretty monstrous. You finished off that monster so easily.]

“You have a problem with that?”

[You need to shoot the head of that monster to finish it off. Or else it regenerates.]

Ramphil had killed the monster with brute force instead of killing it by attacking the weak point. It happened so fast that Zin did not have any time to advise him properly. Ramphil had killed a monster without giving it the time to regenerate itself.

“What can I do? It’s the first time I ever encountered such a monster.”

[True. You killed it, and that’s what matters.]

Zin felt that Ramphil was a battle machine with extraordinary combat skills. Ramphil did not hesitate in engaging enemies and killing them off by exploiting their weaknesses.

Ramphil’s advantage was not only his outstanding physique, but also his calm during battle. He had the ability to calmly assess the situation and execute an attack without hesitation.

Zin was simply amazed at the way Ramphil was able to engage in a fight.

It was apparent that the stench of the mud coming from Ramphil was only attracting monsters. If the Reavers witnessed what Ramphil was doing to the monsters, they would not dare to come close to him.

And there were no Reavers to be seen yet.

Zin was extremely happy, as he extracted chips from the monsters that Ramphil was killing.

Ramphil continued to wander around the streets. Harbin was not a small town, and the search process was going to take a while. In the last four days, he was only able to kill monsters.

Ramphil murmured as he fixed the clothes that he was wearing, “I am starting to doubt the effectiveness of this solution.”

[Oh, Mr. Executor, you need to have more patience than this. Just wait a bit longer. I’m sure we’ll hit the jackpot soon.]

“Whatever, man…” Ramphil was too tired to even complain, and he continued to wander around without talking. He continued to kill the monsters that were attracted to the smell.

——

The sun was setting, and the moon was rising. The lonely vagabond was walking through the darkness, and passed by a ruin where the apartments had collapsed and formed a wall.

The rubble seemed to be set up in a certain way, in the form of a guard post. Inside the rubble, there was a team of Reavers on vigil.

“Hey, hey, over there.”

“What’s up?”

“It’s a vagabond.”

A vagabond wearing only rags was passing by the guard post. The Reavers were operating the guard post secretively, as they did not want to reveal their presence. They quietly loaded their crude rifles, and observed the vagabond who was walking slowly past.

“That dude. He doesn’t look good at all.”

It seemed like the vagabond was about to change into a monster at any given moment. The Reavers did not hunt around their bases.

The Left Hand Reavers who controlled the Harbin area were eager to hunt down the other Reaver group. Starting a fight near their base would expose their location to the Left Hands, so the two Reavers did not attack the refugees that were passing by their secret hideout.

But things were different if a vagabond was passing by. The Reavers knew how much of a nuisance it would be if a vagabond turned into a monster near their hideout. The vagabond might pass by quietly, but if vagabond turned into a monster it might cause great trouble. The monster would continue to crave CP, and would sniff out any chips around the area. It was very probable that the monster would sniff the chips stored in their secret hideout.

It was smarter to finish off the vagabond before it turned into a monster.

“Let’s shoot and kill him.”

“Okay.”

The vagabond was in the range of their rifles, and the two Reavers loaded up.

“Three… Two…”

They held their breaths, and were ready to pull the triggers.

—Shank! —

In a split second, someone slit the neck of the Reaver using a blade gauntlet.

“Urrb!”

The person covered the mouth of the other Reaver with his left hand, while ripping apart the neck of the other Reaver.

“Arggh!”

—Snap. Crack. —

The Reaver helplessly watched his comrade getting his neck twisted and ripped apart.

“Kargg! Ngarrgh!”

—Crack. Crrraaack! —

In a matter of seconds, the Reaver was dead with his cervical bone yanked out by the blade gauntlet. The other Reaver looked up at the man in terror.

“Shhh.” The man shook blood off his right hand, and started to speak as if nothing had happened.

Before the Reavers could count to three, Zin had overpowered them.

—

Ramphil had noticed the sounds of the Reavers ahead of time, and he alerted Zin to them. Ramphil could have attacked them directly, but Zin wanted to take care of things quietly, so he attacked the Reavers and overpowered them.

If they got off a shot, it would have alerted all the Reavers nearby.

One Reaver was dead, and the other was terrified and could not lift up his head. Ramphil went straight to Zin and said, “My clothes, please.”

Zin took out the uniform from the void storage and passed it to Ramphil.

“You really look good on that outfit, are you sure you want to change?”

“Shut up.”

Ramphil took off the rags and put on his uniform. His body still smelled bad. He had worn the smelly rag for four straight days, and the smell was not going to away so easily.

The Reaver realized that he had fallen into a trap, but it was too late. Ramphil changed into the uniform, and fixed his hair.

As the Reaver looked at the Wargrave uniform, he remembered the failed raid on the armored vehicle. His comrades who had participated in the raid were caught and killed.

There were still conversations going on within the other group of Reavers. Some had thought that the idea of attacking the Wargrave unit was crazy.

In the end, their plan failed, and the Wargrave did not attack the Left Hand Reavers, but now they had found out the real culprit of the raid.

Ramphil started to interrogate the Reaver. “Now, you will answer only my questions.” His voice was extremely calm. “Are you the Reavers who acted like the existing Reavers and attacked the Wargrave armored vehicle?”

“Please spare my life…. Urrb!” Ramphil covered the mouth of the Reaver and snapped the Reaver’s finger.

“Arrgbbbb! Urb!”

“I will tell you one last time. Answer only my question.”

“Huuurb! Hub!”

Ramphil spoke very calmly for a person who had just broken another man’s fingers. “Are you the Reavers who acted like the existing Reavers and attacked the Wargrave armored vehicle?”

The Reaver realized that the soldier in front of him was no ordinary person. The Reaver was not able to scream for help, and Ramphil was not going to let him live anyways. Ramphil was going to get the information that he needed from the Reaver and then kill him.

The Reaver had to choose if he was going to be killed without pain or get tortured to death.

The Reaver nodded, as he did not want to be tortured by the soldier in front of him.

“When you pass the next apartment ruins, there is a big tunnel. The tunnel is sealed, but if you go through a small hole, there is a big underground area. All the Reavers are there.”

.

.

“They have basic rifles, but they also have chipbusters.”

.

.

“There are about a hundred Reavers in total.”

.

.

The terrified Reaver answered all that he was asked. He told Ramphil about the location of the base, the size of the group, and the weapons they carried.

Ramphil snapped more fingers when the Reaver hesitated to answer, and the Reaver ended up answering in pain and fear.

“How many guard posts are there in total?”

“There are five of them. Two Reavers are assigned to each post…”

As the Reaver was explaining things to Ramphil, Zin was checking the dead Reaver and retrieving their ammunition.

“Tell me the locations.”

The Reaver told him the location of the five guard posts, and Ramphil studied the dark ruins of Harbin.

“I will take care of the guard posts.”

“Okay,” Zin agreed easily.

Ramphil asked Zin to take care of the Reaver and disappeared into the darkness. He was going to take care of all the guard posts and attack the main base. It was critical for Ramphil and Zin to take down all the guard posts before the next shift.

The Reaver was trembling in fear as he looked at Zin. Ramphil was the person who had tortured the Reaver, but it was Zin who had killed his comrade in the blink of an eye.

The Reaver enjoyed killing other persons, but he had never seen someone kill others without any emotion.

“Hmmm… hey, I have a question,” Zin asked the Reaver casually as he was cleaning up his gauntlet.

“Yes, yes… please ask me…”

“Why are the Reavers eyeing Harbin?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you guys trying to take over Harbin? If you needed a base, there is ChangChun in the south, and there are many towns that are unoccupied by Reavers.”

There were many ruined cities that no Reavers were living in. There was no reason for this group of Reavers to take over Harbin specifically. Even though a city next to a fortress was better, there was no reason for the Reavers to sacrifice twenty-some Reavers to take over Harbin.

Why are they focused on taking over Harbin?

“I, I… don’t know. I am telling the truth…”

“Hmmm…”

The Reaver did not seem to be lying.

“Many of us were against this plan… There was no good reason for us to be hiding like a rat. But our leader was so stubborn… He insisted that we had to take over Harbin…”

It meant that the Reavers reluctantly followed the direction of their leader. There was a reason for this decision, but the underlings did not know what. Zin felt something fishy was going on.

There were many things that were unexplainable. However, Zin decided to finish what he was requested to do, since he had been paid. Zin did not like to leave anything unfinished. His main goal was to kill all the attackers, but he thought that it would be good to understand the motive behind the attack.

I should spare the life of the leader. 

Zin did not have any other questions to ask, and at that moment, Ramphil came back.

“I took care of them.”

There was no noise, and it seemed like Ramphil had no trouble taking care of all the guard posts.

“Good. Then, let’s move on.”

“Huh?!”

—Snap! Crack! —

Zin snapped the neck of the Reaver and stood up.

The Reavers was dead in a blink of an eye, and he still had his eyes open. Ramphil moved on as he didn’t really care about the dead Reaver.

—

Ramphil agreed to Zin’s suggestion to capture the leader alive. They both wanted to find out what the real motive for the attack was.

The Reavers were hiding in a collapsed subway station of Harbin.

The tunnel was not connected to other stations, and the Reavers were using the confined area as a shelter.

There was a small passage under a sinkhole that led to the hidden base of the Reavers.

Although it was not visible from the top of the sinkhole, there were guards at the bottom. A battle would start right away if Zin and Ramphil went down the sink hole. The dead Reaver’s information might be inaccurate, but based on the map of Harbin, the sink hole area led to the underground subway station.

There was no real attack plan for Zin and Ramphil.

They were planning to attack secretively until they were found out by the Reavers. From that point on, they would attack in full force. Ramphil and Zin went down the sink hole as quietly as they could. Ramphil did not have any silencer, so Zin was in charge of any covert attacks. Ramphil’s laser gun would create a bright flash with a loud gun sound.

Although Zin didn’t use it that often, he held a compound bow in his hand. A compound bow was more effective in killing enemies silently. Zin drew an arrow, and slowly walked down the passage.

In the darkness, he found two guards who were fooling around. They were probably thinking that nothing was going to happen that night, the same as any other night. Zin signaled Ramphil to stop.

The two guards did not spot the silent assassins.

—Psshoot! —

“Karrggk!

As soon as the first arrow struck the head of a guard, Zin drew his second arrow and shot again.

—Psshoot! — 

“Ack!”

As soon as the first guard fell to the ground, the second arrow pierced through the head of the second Reaver. In couple of seconds, the entrance of the base was overpowered, and Zin signaled Ramphil to come on down.

“Great spot for a hideout.”

The entrance was so small that only a single person could pass through at a time. It was probable that they found this underground facility first and blocked off the entrance in this way. In the guard post at the entrance, they found crude rifles and crappy grenade launchers.