Cyber Era Witch
Chapter 357 - 325 Hosoda Yoshiyuki

Chapter 357: Chapter 325 Hosoda Yoshiyuki

Du Qianqian’s head slammed violently against the armored steel and then, like a dried salted fish, she crashed to the ground, rigid and unmoving.

She was near death.

Intense pain pierced through her defenses, electrifying her entire body, instantly depriving her of all senses and reducing her mental faculties to near nothingness, unable to distinguish right from wrong.

Thus, her vision of the world compressed into a jumbled mass of colorful bubbles, with various dazzling patterns interwoven as if a thousand colorful ponies were galloping past her face.

But the entire scene was silent; she couldn’t hear a thing. Du Qianqian instinctively felt something was wrong, yet she was powerless to shake off the dizziness.

Then, the colorful ponies before her eyes were washed away by a sudden downpour of blood, scattering in panic, competing to drown in the sea of blood.

Du Qianqian... let go...

Unit 102 saw Du Qianqian in her current state, fear driving her to tears. Blood flowed down from Du Qianqian’s head, matting her bangs and obscuring her vision. The sight of Du Qianqian’s dire injury overwhelmed Unit 102 with fear, leaving her in a state of utter helplessness.

The thought of possibly having to bring Du Qianqian’s body back made her feel even worse; every Witch would harshly criticize her negligence, and Uncle Xu would spare no feelings in pointing out Unit 102’s shortcomings, one by one.

Being pointed at and judged by everyone was too terrifying a prospect!

While crying, Unit 102 hurriedly ran to the side of the cabin and, with trembling hands, took a healing injection from the red medical kit on the wall. She pushed aside Du Qianqian’s clothes and forcefully injected it, slowly releasing the medicine into her veins.

Du Qianqian lay on the ground, eyes wide open, pupils dilated, until the medicine took effect and color returned to her narrow field of vision. But a spot on her head hurt terribly, as if it had split open, as if several people were taking turns hammering at one spot. She wished she could die immediately.

She felt the Galaxy calling, above the stars, the endless chaos beckoning the Witches home, to the point of their initial creation.

She wouldn’t agree to it.

Du Qianqian’s foggy subconscious grasped at life.

She was convinced that before she died, she had to experience the life of the wealthy, to dive once, ride a horse, ski, skydive, take a private yacht; there was a beach owned by the company that she hadn’t visited yet... These complex thoughts became the crucial threads linking Du Qianqian to the living world.

So, her soul resisted the Galaxy, angrily remaining within her body, determinedly ordering it to continue moving, to operate in order to fulfill her dreams.

She couldn’t die until her ideals were realized!

As a result, her wounds quickly coagulated, and the bleeding slowed significantly, giving her organs a chance to recover.

Gradually, her perception became clearer; she could hear Unit 102’s crying, see her own blood on the ground, feel the weight of her body, and how cold the floor was.

Du Qianqian called out hoarsely, and Unit 102 was shocked and overjoyed.

"Qianqian is alive!" she exclaimed, jumping for joy, still able to see the bloodstain that Du Qianqian left on the cabin ceiling.

A healing injection could only be administered once; repeated use was tantamount to murder. Otherwise, Unit 102 wished she could inject all the healing shots in the medical kit into Du Qianqian!

Unit 102 was just too happy, endlessly cheering for Du Qianqian. To Du Qianqian, she seemed very noisy.

As it was a cheap shuttle machine, lacking an automatic doctor, Du Qianqian had to rely on sheer vitality to resist. In her dizziness, she raised a hand, pointing toward the control panel. Unit 102 was so panicked that she forgot to pull Iron Shell out of the Garbage Hill.

Unit 102 ran to control the vessel manually, causing Iron Shell to withdraw from inside Garbage Hill, shedding heaps of trash along the way.

Most of the mountain was made up of plastic bags and fabric, mixed with eye-catching scrap vehicles and broken home appliances, with rotten food and small objects filling the gaps. Accordingly, when Iron Shell pulled out of Garbage Hill, its windows were covered in sticky, unidentifiable stains.

She had no concern for Iron Shell’s estado, but turned to look back at Du Qianqian with a start; Du Qianqian’s head had a huge gash. Unit 102 couldn’t understand how Du Qianqian had survived.

"Am I badly hurt?" Du Qianqian turned to look toward the portholes of Iron Shell, which were smeared with dirt, obscuring her view.

"No, not bad! Just a small cut!" Out of fear that Du Qianqian would collapse if she knew the truth, Unit 102 told a white lie, her eyes full of guilt as she looked at the large wound on Du Qianqian’s head.

If it was just a small cut, Du Qianqian took it lightly, enduring the pain and sitting on the seat with a calm composure that filled Unit 102 with genuine admiration.

"If the boss finds out, she’ll criticize me..." Unit 102 gasped, unable to help thinking about the extent of the blunder she had made.

They were on a mission to deal with Hosoda Yoshiyuki, but with Du Qianqian already injured, it seemed unlikely they could complete the task.

"First finish the mission... then take me back," Du Qianqian hissed, battling the chill, reaching up to touch her head. Her fingers, still far from the center of the pain, were quickly covered in blood, making her doubt whether the wound was really as small as Unit 102 claimed.

"I’m so sorry!" Unit 102 kept apologizing to Du Qianqian while navigating Iron Shell over Garbage Hill to a stop on the beach on the other side.

Just as the intelligence had described, Unit 102 saw a dirty, polluted beach.

With the driving force of the wind and gravity potential, items from Garbage Hill occasionally rolled down, scattering across the sand, and every time the tides changed, massive amounts of trash were dragged into the water, causing the sea near the shore to stink and swell with domestic waste.

"What do you think..." Pan Ruiyi looked back at Du Qianqian, "Should I set off alone, or should I take you back? Qianqian?"

As she said this, Pan Ruiyi was on the verge of tears again; she knew it was because of her own mistake that Du Qianqian had suffered such serious injuries.

Du Qianqian was in excruciating pain. She looked up at Pan Ruiyi with no pleasant expression, her heart filled with sour and cutting words, just waiting to give Pan Ruiyi a scolding.

But if she blamed Pan Ruiyi, it would definitely cause her great pain.

Even though Du Qianqian was feeling dazed, she could guess how Pan Ruiyi would react to these words—Pan Ruiyi would be deeply pained, spending many days amidst guilt and self-reproach.

Du Qianqian looked at Pan Ruiyi’s anxious face. What was more important: venting her anger, or her friendship with Pan Ruiyi?

This was an easy question to weigh.

She kept all those impulsive accusations and criticisms to herself.

"...You go ahead," said Du Qianqian wearily.

"What about you?"

Looking at the remaining medical supplies in the first-aid kit, Du Qianqian saw tourniquets, disinfectant, and the first-aid manual. She thought about how Lady Farosa could store magic power in a specific medium, enabling one to enjoy the endless benefits of the Law of Recovery even in distant lands. Now, however, she would have to rely on herself.

"...I... can manage," Du Qianqian said with difficulty, speaking was an effort, and her consciousness fluctuated between clarity and confusion.

She also thought about how she shouldn’t have tricked Pan Ruiyi into paying that day. Should good children be deceived?

Pan Ruiyi sighed, donned her Witch Armor, and put on the fearsome Ox Demon Mask, deciding to search for Hosoda Yoshiyuki.

"...Stay in touch..." Du Qianqian took a deep breath, feeling her heart pounding unusually fast, "...Pan Ruiyi, if you encounter him, let me handle the negotiation. We need to take down this dangerous individual, but... the less noise we make, the better."

"Be careful, and if some bad guy knocks on the door, don’t answer it!" Pan Ruiyi, carrying her Short Spear, locked the shuttle hatch and went down to trace Hosoda Yoshiyuki’s whereabouts.

After walking on the beach for 10 minutes, she saw a newly built small hideout on the shore, a simple structure made of iron plates capable of withstanding acid storms.

The craftsmanship was delicate, not something just anyone could put together.

This might be Hosoda Yoshiyuki’s hiding place, Pan Ruiyi thought silently. Ah, to have a fight with such a terrifying person? She wasn’t like Lady Farosa, wielding a Godslayer Weapon, nor like Pan Ruiyi, who once she exerted her magic power, could enter an unbeatable state in close combat.

In comparison, Pan Ruiyi’s magic power was very simple, merely enhancing herself to the extreme.

She carefully examined the hideout, finding it filled with miscellaneous goods, including metal coils, unopened implants, batteries and gasoline, and even a plate of moldy Nutrient Paste, possibly dug out from the Garbage Hill.

She stared at two lines of red ink on one wall.

"Hands build high-rise buildings, feet tread through north and south of heaven and earth."

Just then, Pan Ruiyi heard an unusual sound from the coastline.

She hid behind the hut door, looking out only to see a man rowing a shabby fishing boat toward the shore, draped in a ragged black camo raincoat with a plastic hood obscuring his eyes, his appearance unclear.

He stopped the fishing boat at the dry beach’s edge, untied a rope from behind and, with gloves on both hands, he grasped it tightly, pulling a giant creature from the sea toward the beach with the thick rope.

Pan Ruiyi observed the colossal object being dragged by the man, realizing this wasn’t the strength a normal human should have; his power was comparable to a crane.

As the huge creature was dragged ashore, Pan Ruiyi saw its form; it was a radiation-contaminated, mutated fish, its dull, yellow eyes, each scale bursting upwards revealing bone spurs underneath, and a noticeably forked tale.

"Are you okay?" Du Qianqian asked in a low voice over the walkie-talkie.

"I see someone," Pan Ruiyi replied quietly as well.

The man pulled out a knife from his chest, leaped onto the fish, ready to slice it up.

Then, almost as if he had heard the conversation between Pan Ruiyi and Du Qianqian, he quickly lifted his head, looking towards his hideout on the beach.

Pan Ruiyi was hiding right behind it.

He ran at a high speed toward the hideout, so swiftly he seemed inhuman, like a flying panther.

Pan Ruiyi held her breath, hiding at one side of the door, waiting for him to come before revealing herself for the fight.

The man halted halfway and abruptly crouched down.

He stretched out his right hand and from his wrist device, he launched a rocket towards the hut.