"You look quite smart."
B406's voice softened slightly, but it still held a bone-chilling coldness.
"Then you should be able to guess why your branch of Tide-Followers was targeted by us, right?"
Evans's smile turned a bit bitter.
He tightened his grip on the knife, a spark of mixed anger and helplessness flashing in his eyes.
"Of course I know," the youth laughed self-deprecatingly.
"A damn traitor sold out our Red Ring Tribe. All for some pitiful rations and immunity."
When he said the word "traitor," Evans's teeth ground together.
"He spread the news of 'that incident' throughout the wilderness."
"In just half a month, the rumor that we encountered the Stomach of Glat spread like a plague... every tribe started avoiding us like the devil."
"Like you said, the news has spread across the wilderness."
B406 snorted noncommittally, leaning against the edge of the operating table with a somewhat languid posture.
"So, whatever you have to say about what your tribe encountered, I could just pick any member of your tribe and torture them to find out."
"There are plenty of Consumables lying in the labs right now. Why should I listen to you making demands?"
Evans looked directly into B406's eyes, a heart-stopping deathly stillness in his gaze.
"It's pointless even if you ask, because... I am irreplaceable."
"That traitor... he only knows we encountered the Stomach of Glat."
"But he's just a coward who patrolled the perimeter; he has no idea what actually happened."
"The truly core information was locked down by the tribe for a long time; only a few high-ranking members and the Tribal Chief's confidants know."
The youth's voice trembled slightly, revealing a long-buried secret:
"You might have noticed I'm not very popular in the tribe."
"That's because, under the instructions of some high-ranking members who knew the truth, they began to systematically ostracize and isolate me."
"Under the protection of the Tribal Chief, they didn't dare kill me openly, so they could only spread rumors that the appearance of the Stomach of Glat was due to the misfortune I brought."
"But that wasn't the case."
"The real reason they feared and loathed me was because they believed I was a source of danger myself."
Evans took a deep breath, as if filling his lungs with courage.
He stared at B406 and threw out his final bombshell, one word at a time:
"I was once swallowed directly by the Stomach of Glat."
"And I actually crawled out alive without any protection."
Inside the infirmary, the silence was like a viscous liquid, slowly flowing between the two antagonists.
B406, holding the Withered Claw suitcase, remained in that slightly stiff posture.
Inside his deep blue mechanical prosthetic eye, a complex set of miniature gears was emitting a sharp hum due to high-speed rotation.
Clearly, he was shaken by the major news the Tide-Follower youth had just dropped.
Someone who was swallowed by something of that level and lived to tell the tale?
He re-evaluated the scarred, somewhat malnourished youth before him.
If what he said was true, it seemed he had indeed shed his status as a disposable "unnamed Consumable."
He fell silent for a moment, accepting the answer, and then asked.
"Your conditions?"
"I want you to guarantee the Tribal Chief's safety."
Evans didn't hesitate, his voice raspy but exceptionally firm.
The scalpel was still held against his neck, the red mark beneath the blade stark and shocking under the pale lights.
"The old man who was injured by you while trying to protect me during the capture."
"He must receive the highest level of medical intervention, immediately, now!"
B406's mechanical eye flickered, seemingly pulling up capture footage and personnel lists in the background.
"The old man with the crude mechanical limb who thought he could take on power armor with an old-fashioned shotgun?"
B406's tone was flat, offering a professionally cold assessment. "Not an excessive condition."
"However, it seems you really are a smart one."
"You know very well that it's unrealistic to ask us to let your entire tribe go."
The youth's eyelids lowered, thick lashes hiding the complex emotions in his eyes.
His voice was calm to the point of indifference: "I only care about the Tribal Chief. As for the rest of the Red Ring Tribe, it has nothing to do with me."
"If the Tribal Chief hadn't taken me in, I would have died in the wilderness long ago."
"Deal. I can make the call on such a small matter."
In front of Evans, B406 swiped his hand across the communicator on his wrist and issued the order to treat the Tide-Follower Tribal Chief.
Lowering his hand, B406 looked back at Evans: "Now, you can talk, right?"
Unexpectedly, Evans didn't speak immediately; instead, he tightened his grip on the knife.
"I want to see your direct superior, or the chief... whoever is the leader of you People on the Lake. Only then will I talk."
B406's stoic face twitched, and he let out a cold snort.
"Kid, in this base, I am the field supervisor for this area."
Evans said nothing, just stared at B406 with a look that suggested he was an idiot.
B406's temper flared under that gaze, and he retorted.
"How do you know I'm not the one in charge here?"
Evans sneered, his eyes sweeping over B406's attire.
"You're definitely not."
B406's expression began to contort.
Thus, the scene Ren Yi had just witnessed in Dr. Cyril's office took place.
With a dark face, B406 sent the message 【unnamed Consumable emergency】 to the doctor through an encrypted channel.
On the other end of the sensory link, in Dr. Cyril's office, she quickly responded, demanding a report from B406.
B406 quickly sent a briefing on the cause and effect of the situation.
There was a very long silence on that end, so long that Ren Yi thought the signal had cut out.
Finally, the doctor's fingers typed out a line of text on the keyboard that somewhat subverted Ren Yi's understanding.
【Doctor: You're saying... he claims he was swallowed by the escaped portion of S-099's body and came out alive?】
Ren Yi felt a surge of shock.
This place, the purpose of this organization, why these poor Tide-Followers were brought here...
The cause and effect of this series of events seemed to become clear.
So this "Stomach of Glat" thing is S-099, or rather, a part of S-099?
Ren Yi felt his perception fluctuate unsteadily due to the sheer shock.
"Well then..."
His thoughts drifted a bit.
"This kid couldn't possibly think... that I'm some 'offspring' S-099 spawned during some riot, could he?"
Rate on N.U.
