Veronica shot through a pirate's wrist, rushed forward, kicked him to the ground, and immediately riot squad members surged up to shackle him.
Veronica handled almost all the direct combat, while the other team members became mere tools for processing pirates who had lost the ability to resist. It wasn't that the riot squad didn't want to help Veronica fight, but their captain's speed was simply too fast, and this group of pirates was surprisingly easy to deal with. Seeing the riot squad charge over, they showed absolutely no sense of crisis; some even approached proactively, cockily taunting, "Come hit me, come hit me..."
The result was getting their nose bridge broken instantly by Veronica's punch.
Some other pirates who were busy looting valuables from offices inexplicably developed black, thorn-shaped tattoos on their bodies and collapsed to the ground howling in agony, requiring no further action.
"Warehouse Six suppressed! First two stay behind, the rest follow!" Veronica left two members to handle the aftermath and continued sweeping other areas with the remaining team.
"Veronica, intruders have broken into the Warden's office!" a guard ran down the corridor to report to her.
Veronica immediately tensed, accelerating into a sprint. The team members behind couldn't keep up despite their best efforts.
When she reached the office, she immediately saw it was already in shambles.
Two pirates were inside, smashing everything with sledgehammers and chairs. Two others were preparing to plant explosives on the safe embedded in the wall. Bookshelves, coffee tables, and desks were all overturned. The office chair and lounge chair had been dismantled. Fragments of documents, books, and tea sets littered the floor.
As Veronica burst in, the pirates stopped their actions and focused their attention on her.
Veronica stared at the Warden's office, practically reduced to rubble by the pirates, her gaze rapidly turning ice-cold.
"Yo ho, a pretty female officer has arrived."
"Come play with your big brothers?"
The pirates smirked lewdly. They were unaware that elsewhere in the prison, all their comrades had already been wiped out, and the Codex Anomos protecting them was already in the hands of this office's owner.
Veronica quickly drew her gun. The pirates, still lacking any sense of crisis, laughed.
"Ha, this silly girl is gonna shoot at us—"
A rapid burst of gunfire cut off their laughter, replaced by successive screams—Veronica very fairly put a bullet in each pirate's hand.
Only then did the other riot squad members catch up, immediately seeing Veronica holding her sidearm and the four pirates clutching their bloody hands, howling in agony.
Their job now should have been to enter the office and subdue the injured pirates, but at this moment, not a single member of the riot squad dared take a step forward.
Because they clearly saw their captain, standing silently with her back to them, take off her hat. Wolf ears had already sprung up on top of her head. Not only that, her fur seemed to be bristling, and the killing intent emanating from her back was almost palpable.
Werewolves generally only use their beast transformation ability during fits of rage or serious combat. Veronica's current state... clearly encompassed both.
The riot squad members swallowed collectively.
"Wait outside for me for two minutes," Veronica instructed in a tone calmer than they could imagine, then closed the door behind her.
The moment the door shut, some riot squad members saw the pirates' faces twist in terror.
Then, tragic and sharp howls, so intense they could make listeners' legs go weak, erupted from the office, interspersed with heavy thuds and crisp sounds like bones breaking.
Under the prison's full-scale suppression, the captured escapees and jailbreakers were quickly rounded up. Most sustained some injuries during their capture.
The most severely injured, however, were these four pirates who had vandalized Aiden's office.
That evening, having handled most of the aftermath, Aiden stood at his office doorway, looking left and right at his office, and shook his head. "What a mess."
"...Although the incident was successfully suppressed, quite a few facilities here were damaged by them. The most severe damage is to your office," Franda reported cautiously beside him. "This... basically all the furnishings need replacing. I'll call people over later to clean up. You..."
"It's fine. The higher-ups will allocate funds for these losses. After all, we captured the Pirate King of the Empire's Coral Sea. Just handing him over to the Empire will fetch a bounty sufficient to cover the renovations," Aiden waved his hand calmly. "Has the damage assessment been reported?"
"Already reported. People from the Prison Administration Bureau arrived at three o'clock after the incident occurred."
"Good."
Seeing Aiden so calm and composed, Franda finally breathed a sigh of relief. "Judging by your reaction, you must have already secured the crucial documents in the safe, right?"
Destroyed office furniture could be replaced with money, but if important work documents were torn or lost, many tasks would become extremely troublesome.
"Of course," Aiden bluffed casually.
In reality, he hadn't had much time to prepare when the pirates attacked. Now, both important and unimportant documents from his desk were shredded and mixed on the floor, likely trampled countless times.
"When Veronica rushed in, they were about to blow up your safe. It was truly perilous," Franda glanced at the safe on the wall.
"Indeed," Aiden replied.
He knew very well the pirates' explosives couldn't possibly breach this safe. This safe, and indeed this entire wall, were linked to the mechanism opening the underground passage to Mephilia's cell. They had been entirely rebuilt with funds from the Inquisition. If the pirates had actually detonated the explosives, they would have discovered that beneath the peeling plaster, the wall itself was made of Mithril.
"The funding allocation from above will probably take some time. I'll just purchase a new set of office furniture directly. I'll have the Golem handle the cleanup," Aiden turned his face towards Franda. "You can go attend to your duties first."
"Okay."
After Franda left, Aiden closed the door, then began chanting the "Return" divine word. The entire office immediately began to "rewind time": all the furniture swiftly returned to its original state, the torn and trampled documents became whole again, automatically returning to the desk, the scattered white porcelain shards on the floor reassembled into a tea set on the coffee table, and all the waste paper flowed into the trash bin.
In mere seconds, the office became even tidier than before it was trashed.
Looking at the result before him, Aiden nodded with satisfaction.
The other damaged facilities can be dealt with tomorrow.
After all, he repaired this himself through his own abilities. Getting funds allocated for free shouldn't be too excessive, right?
Comments
Post a Comment