After a round of strikes, the leader's face was flushed red from too many slaps, tears streaming down his face. Noid grabbed him by the collar, his cold, green eyes staring intently into his face. He didn't say a word, but the threat was clear.
"Don't... don't hit me anymore... I'll tell you... everything..."
"Wouldn't it have been better to do that from the start?"
The leader knelt on the floor and began to recount everything about the "people transfers."
It all started three years ago, when the city still had a mix of different survivor factions. There were neutral groups and gangs like theirs. One side hid from the doom wandering outside, while the other side focused on survival.
Although they were a gang, they weren't the kind that fought over territory. It was just the structure of their community. Everyone knew that the doom were the ones truly occupying the city at that time, so fighting over territory seemed foolish and ridiculous.
Then, a new organization appeared in the city. They didn't seem like an organization founded by survivors. The first thing they did was order the gangs to submit. With their nature, the answer was, of course, no. A secret war then began.
The gangs were terrified. They couldn't believe how terrifying this organization was, and in the end, all the gangs surrendered and were controlled by the organization, while the organization itself remained in the shadows.
They said they wouldn't interfere with anything in the gangs, as long as they were given a certain amount of "goods" at regular intervals. The goods were living people, and if there weren't enough, gang members would have to make up the difference.
The gangs didn't know what the organization did with the people and didn't dare to ask. They could only deliver the "goods" on time. And the goods were the survivors in the city, mainly from small groups or neutral communities.
The matter was never exposed, but the strongest neutral communities seemed to have sensed something. They all moved to the suburbs, ready to flee at any moment. Neither side exposed the other, and the kidnappings continued over time.
But survivors were not plentiful, and even though they tried to keep the kidnappings to a minimum, the supply gradually ran out. The gangs became worried that if this continued, they would have to contribute their own people.
It was at that moment that the doom suddenly retreated from the city, and humanity reclaimed its dominant position here. The gangs realized this was their only chance to resist, and they immediately allied with each other.
This resistance was mistaken for the gangs fighting each other to the death, which caused the remaining survivors to flee in a panic.
And according to the current situation, it seemed that the gangs had failed miserably.
Not only were more than half of them annihilated, but the remaining half had to pay a heavy price to barely survive.
When Noid asked why the leader had mistaken him for someone from the organization, the leader replied that the organization also had powerhouses like Noid. They were not only strong but also extremely bizarre. It was because of them that the gangs were crushed.
"When is the next transfer of people?"
"The day after tomorrow... tomorrow... tomorrow."
"Location."
"The tallest building... the city hall..."
BOP!
A punch sent the leader sprawling. Noid no longer paid attention to these people. He went downstairs to check.
The mall's parking garage was where they kept people. There were about twenty people locked up there. They were silent, confused, and terrified. They smelled, and they were dirty, clearly having not bathed for days.
When Noid appeared, the people being held captive shrank back in fear. But when he swung open the cages, they were all stunned.
"D-Did you come to save us?"
A man timidly spoke up, breaking the silence. Noid nodded. Everyone thanked him profusely, even kneeling, but he helped them up.
Before he left, he gave the people the keys to all the cars in the garage. He told them to get out of the city as quickly as possible. A few people even thought Noid was a messenger sent by God to save them.
He just smiled lightly as he watched them drive away. Noid was not anyone's messenger, nor was he following anyone's will. It was only his own will that mattered.
Noid didn't go to city hall immediately but went through each of the gangs, taking down their members, and then releasing the people they were holding captive. He gave them cars and told them to leave.
The thugs in the gangs had different reactions. Some cursed, some panicked, some constantly taunted him, saying he didn't know his own strength and cursing him to a miserable death. For these words, Noid would just give them a punch straight to the face and then leave.
"Alright, now the real work begins."
Standing from a distance, looking toward city hall, he muttered softly. Even though he was saving people, Noid had not forgotten his purpose for being here: to find the commissioner. Of course, he hadn't seen her in any of the ten gangs. So, there was a definite possibility that the commissioner was there.
Noid didn't enter through the front door but from the highest part of the building, the rooftop. Wearing his invisibility cloak, he stealthily slipped down like a ghost. He discovered that apart from the first floor, which had guards, they all went down to the basement.
This style was all too familiar to him. After all, he had spent a lot of time fighting these guys. Who else could it be but the Doom cult?
Although there was no evidence yet, Noid felt it was very likely that this was a stronghold of the Doom cult. This was because the information Toriel had provided said that apart from Toriel and Garfeild, the bishop still had one more trusted subordinate, and the territory that subordinate managed was not within the front lines.
Shooting bullets, swinging his staff, a series of familiar actions. The guards quickly fell. Because he was using paralysis rounds, they didn't have time to report or resist.
Noid followed the entrance underground. The stairs ended, and he found himself in a concrete hallway painted white with a dark line at the base of the wall. He chose a side at random.
Because there was nowhere to hide, and the number of enemy guards was very large, Noid was quickly discovered. Surrounded on both sides, he showed no fear and charged forward to open a path, and a series of miserable screams rang out. The first wave of the ambush ended with him stepping over the bodies of dozens of armed guards and leisurely walking down the hallway.
The place was full of intricate passages, like a maze. Even though he moved very fast, he was still caught up to. Facing him was a bizarre figure with half of its head covered in a crustacean-like shell, and bone spikes protruding from its hands. Noid was now certain that this was a Doom cult stronghold because the person in front of him was an incomplete modified fanatic.