"Mother... Mother..."
As if it were a suppression ingrained in her blood, the moment Cocolia appeared before her, Seele instinctively felt a wave of fear and trembling.
"Oh, she's here so soon!"
Veliona was annoyed.
Unlike Seele, she had no respect for that woman. In fact, she held a grudge against her because of the X-10 experiment and the price she and Seele had paid for it.
Therefore, the moment Cocolia appeared for the second time, she instinctively wanted to take control of the body and teach her a harsh lesson.
"Don't!" Seele cried out, suppressing her impulse.
"Don't what?" Cocolia didn't know about the debate in Seele's consciousness, but she knew her daughter very well.
Her eyes narrowed, and she asked unhurriedly, "Could it be that in that instant just now... Seele, you actually had the urge to attack me? It was just that the moment it was born, it was suppressed by your weak side?"
"No, I didn't!"
Seele's scalp tingled.
Her memories of Cocolia were also quite negative, but in her impression, no matter how unreasonable Mother Cocolia was, she had never said such heart-piercing words to her or the other children!
"Is that so? Then what are you afraid of?" Cocolia sneered. "Although you had the guts to run away on your own, you're trembling like this after seeing me. Ah, Seele, should I praise you for your improvement, or should I say you're as useless as ever?"
This condescending tone had none of the warmth that should exist between a mother and daughter. It was as if the trembling, frail girl before her was not her daughter, but just a subordinate, or even just a tool.
"Damn it... Seele, let me go, let me tear her mouth apart!"
Veliona was furious. Who the hell are you to talk? What does it matter to you whether Seele is useless or not!
"I'm sorry, Mother..." Seele lowered her head and said cautiously.
"Hmph." Cocolia gave her a deep look, then walked past her and said without turning back, "Let's go, back."
"But..." Seele mustered her courage to argue, but was interrupted by Cocolia's cold laugh.
"But what?" Cocolia had just walked past Seele's frail shoulders.
Hearing her words, she stopped, turned her head slightly, glanced at Seele with her peripheral vision, and said in her usual indifferent tone, "Within a two-hundred-kilometer radius in all directions, there is one city, four towns, and seventeen villages. Not counting you children I've adopted, including the permanent residents and the few tourists passing by, there are a total of two hundred and fourteen thousand, three hundred and fifty-two people. Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you. None of them have a name that matches the two syllables you spoke."
"How... could this be?"
Seele was stunned, then dazed again. Compared to Cocolia's casual words, her so-called resolve and efforts seemed like a joke. "Mother, you... you already knew?"
"Heh..." Cocolia laughed again, but this time it was no longer a pure sneer, but faintly tinged with a hint of helplessness. "Know what? Your foolish actions for the better part of the day, asking for a name 'Lin Wei' at every door you knocked on. Do I need to specifically investigate anything?"
Although she had a cold expression, even Cocolia herself probably couldn't describe her mood at this moment.
She was definitely not as she appeared on the surface, unconcerned about her child's whereabouts.
In fact, after receiving Bronya's report, she had almost immediately activated Anti-Entropy's intelligence system on a large scale to find out who dared to abduct her daughter in the shortest possible time.
After seeing what she was doing, Cocolia, for a moment, felt that activating the intelligence system on a large scale for her was a huge waste of resources. But on second thought, since it was already activated, she might as well do a little more.
And so, she quietly followed behind Seele, visiting almost every house she had "harassed," and got almost exactly the same answer.
After learning that Seele was looking for a person named Lin Wei, she, as an Anti-Entropy executive, once again issued a large-scale order: to search for people with this name, or a similar pronunciation, in their respective jurisdictions.
While waiting for news, she had been secretly following Seele and observing her, cleaning up a few malicious people who had ill intentions towards her along the way. A frail young girl appearing alone in a strange and remote place would always easily be targeted by some criminals.
Cocolia had no mercy for such people.
Although these people might not have actually posed a threat to Seele, every single one of them, before they had a chance to appear before Seele, had already fallen under her gun. Of course, she would not let Seele know about these boring little things.
After receiving another large-scale report and confirming that the person Seele was looking for was not there, Cocolia, who had just finished another small-scale slaughter, finally walked up to Seele.
"When Bronya reported to me, I thought something big had happened. Turns out you're just playing a boring children's game here?"
Although she was worried in her heart, the words that came out of her mouth were always contemptuous and mocking. "Also, since when did you get involved with people from Shenzhou?"
She strongly suspected that the person Seele was looking for was a spy from Schicksal or some other organization, trying to use her stupid daughter. The reason she couldn't find the name was only because "Lin Wei" was an alias.
"I'm sorry, Mother Cocolia... Bronya-oneechan... is she okay now?"
Hearing her mention Bronya, Seele immediately panicked, not knowing how worried she would be because of her unannounced departure.
"Heh..." Cocolia was still observing Seele. Seeing her sudden anxious look, she sneered. Now you remember Bronya?
Bronya was not doing very well right now. Because she had volunteered to investigate Seele's whereabouts in the snowfield, she had run into a difficult problem—no clues.
Of course there were no clues, because Seele had never taken this path from the beginning.
Both she and Seele were, in a sense, doing the same futile work, going in opposite directions. One was following the footsteps of human civilization, while the other was fumbling in the uninhabited wilderness.
What was the same was that, for their own purposes, they were both looking for that one-in-ten-thousand possibility. One could only say, they were sisters after all...
"No, not here either. No matter which direction, there are no traces of human activity, whether it's footprints or anything else..."
Bronya, covered in white frost, trudged with difficulty through the snow that reached up to her thighs. She didn't know how far she had walked and was almost exhausted.
She looked up at the sky, then casually picked up a snowball to moisten her lips, muttering to herself, "No news is good news. Maybe Mother Cocolia has already found Seele? It's getting late, I'll check the vicinity again."
As for the warning she had given before she left, "don't come back if you leave," she had never taken it to heart from the beginning. She was frantic with worry for Seele, but that didn't mean she would just abandon her alone!
Especially...
She shook her head, not wanting to think about that dangerous experiment at this time. It was useless to think about it.
She knew that Mother Cocolia would only favor those with more use value. Only by constantly working hard on this path could she be qualified to protect Seele and keep her away from these terrible dangers.
"Seele..."
The thought of the girl who was now completely out of touch made Bronya's heart clench. She dared not pin all her hopes on Cocolia.
Pulling herself together, she prepared to rest for a while before continuing her investigation in another direction.
...
"It's been too long since Seele was taken away. The subtle clues can easily be completely covered by the wind and snow. I must be on high alert and not miss anything..." Bronya constantly admonished herself. Holding her breath and concentrating, she widened her eyes and ears, searching for any suspicious clues.
But as far as the eye could see, there was only white, and more white, making the originally colorful trees in the forest a monotonous black. As far as the ear could hear, besides the sound of the wind, there was also...
"Huh?"
Bronya's expression suddenly became serious. For a moment, she seemed to have heard a different sound. Under the cover of the whistling cold wind, there seemed to be an extra sound mixed in.
"What is that? An engine? A plane?"
Bronya tried hard to distinguish the direction and distance of that sound. "No, it's much smaller, and much closer... Is it a model airplane, or a drone? In this season, this weather, in a place like this?"
The more Bronya thought about it, the more suspicious it seemed. She flicked her ski pole, hung her gun on her back, grabbed the trunk of the nearest tree, and climbed up with extreme dexterity, all the way to the maximum height that could bear her weight.
She held on tightly to the swaying branches and looked hard in the direction of the sound.
Even if the wind and snow obscured her vision, in a vast expanse of white between the sky and the ground, a black object flying at a distance of only three or four thousand meters was still quite conspicuous...
...
"What... is that?"
Bronya struggled to widen her eyes and stared, holding her breath and concentrating, afraid that she would lose sight of that strange aircraft with a single careless moment. Her gaze followed its flight path in a fan-shaped arc, and then she watched it slowly descend.
"Is that what took Seele?"
After searching painstakingly for half a day and finally finding a suspicious target, Bronya couldn't help but get a little excited.
Without thinking, she jumped down from the tree with a swoosh, deftly avoiding the crisscrossing branches, bent her knees, and jumped straight into the thick snow.
But she was only a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl. Both her age and her physique were very petite. In addition, she was extremely agile.
Even jumping down from a treetop several meters high, with the buffer of nearly half a meter of thick snow, it was not a big deal—but it wouldn't feel good either.
This was only natural.
The current Bronya was just a retired child soldier. Although she had agile skills honed through countless battles and sharp killing techniques, she neither had the Heavy Armor Bunny nor had her body been enhanced by any experiments. She didn't even have any exoskeleton implanted for assisted movement. Her physical fitness was at best slightly stronger than that of an ordinary person.
It was indeed a bit risky for her to make such a move, but Bronya felt it was worth it because it saved time. Although that strange aircraft had already landed, she didn't know when it would take off again.
There was only one chance. If it flew up into the sky again, Bronya would not have a second chance to catch up with it. She could only watch helplessly as it carried Seele away, and then return to the orphanage in hatred and ask Mother Cocolia to use more powerful means to search for her.
But would she?
Bronya wasn't sure about that. So, it was best not to let such a thing really happen.
And so, having made up her mind, Bronya jumped down from the tree without a second thought. Even with enough buffer, she was still thrown off balance, seeing stars.
But she didn't care about the pain in her body. She crawled out of the snowdrift with her hands and feet, her sharp gray eyes firmly locked on the direction of the strange aircraft.
She threw off all her burdens. Besides the woolen coat for keeping warm, Bronya only left herself a pistol and a dagger.
Besides that, including the rifle as a weapon, grenades, ammunition, and even the package containing food supplies, were all abandoned by her without any attachment.
Was it a pity? It was a great pity. Among them was the heartfelt preparation Sin had made for her.
Was it risky? It was very risky. Giving up most of her weapons and supplies was no different from going all in.
But it didn't matter. What she had to do now was to get to that place as quickly as possible, in the shortest possible time. Nothing else mattered.
Food could be snatched, and weapons could be sourced locally. Aren't they just tools for killing? If necessary, Bronya was confident she could easily pierce an enemy's temple with a branch picked up from the ground.
So, you cowardly person who dared to harm Seele, don't run!
A fire burned in Bronya's heart, and she ran towards the enemy's direction at top speed!
"Hiss..."
In the distance, Lin Wei shivered inexplicably among the treetops and muttered to himself, "Strange, why do I feel like I'm being watched by something?"
Did I accidentally wander into some predator's hunting ground
[I knew the plot would be like this]