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A figure came scrambling out of the doorway, like a rat being smoked out of its nest.
His eyes were unfocused due to extreme fear, his pupils dilated, almost unable to find a focal point.
Bruce subconsciously pointed his muzzle at him, his eyebrows twitching.
"There's actually a survivor?"
His voice held a hint of surprise; the situation on this ship was even cleaner than they had expected—unnaturally clean—so the sudden appearance of a living person seemed incredibly jarring.
Noah said nothing.
He raised his hand, and the concentrated beam of light from his Tactical Flashlight instantly tore through the gloom of the corridor, accurately illuminating the man's face.
Under the intense light, that face appeared even paler, with every wrinkle at the corners of his eyes and the sheen of oil on his skin clearly visible.
To Bruce, it was a typical East Asian face, but he couldn't tell which country he was from, nor did he care.
However, Phoenix Bell and Noah's gazes narrowed slightly at the same time.
Almost the moment they saw the contours of that face and the features of his eyes and brows, they recognized the man's nationality.
Japanese.
The man was blinded by the dazzling light; he groaned in pain and instinctively used his arm to shield his face.
Light leaked through the gaps in his arm, allowing him to see Bruce MacWeen standing on the flank.
That well-defined face, with its typical Anglo-Saxon features, made his heart race.
An American!
He was saved!
A surge of immense joy dispelled the fear in his mind; as if grasping at a final lifeline, he scrambled toward Bruce on all fours, crying out in heart-wrenching, heavily accented Japanese-English:
"Hello! Hello! Save me! My name is Ishii Shin, I came here for a business banquet!"
His voice became incredibly shrill due to excitement and fear, carrying a sobbing tone.
"I drank too much and fell asleep in my room... I overslept... By the time I woke up, outside... everyone outside had turned into monsters! It's terrifying! Please, take me away from here..."
As he spoke, he struggled to grab Bruce's leg, his posture humble to the extreme.
Phoenix Bell watched his clumsy performance with cold eyes and interrupted him coldly in fluent, pure American English.
Her voice held no warmth.
"What did you come here to buy?"
Ishii Shin's crying and crawling came to an abrupt halt, and he froze where he was.
He gave a sheepish smile that looked worse than crying.
"This... this is a trade secret... It might not be convenient to say..."
His eyes began to wander, not daring to meet Phoenix Bell's gaze.
Just then, the piercing beam of the flashlight suddenly went out.
The corridor was instantly swallowed once more by the suffocating darkness and silence.
The sudden disappearance of light caused Ishii Shin, who had just adjusted to the brightness, to fall into temporary blindness.
Everything was pitch black before his eyes, and his heart, which had just settled slightly, leaped back into his throat.
A faint voice, as if from the depths of Hell, sounded in his ear.
The voice wasn't loud, but it carried an ice-cold, bone-chilling chill.
"Is Ishii Shiro from the same Family as you?"
Ishii Shin's body jolted.
He hadn't yet recovered from the shock of the darkness and the question; instinctively, out of a sense of Family honor rooted deep in his Bloodline, he straightened his back.
He didn't even pick up on the murderous intent within those words; instead, he felt a strange sense of pride at the mention of the name.
"That's right, he is indeed my grandfather..."
Before he could finish, his eyes finally began to adjust to the darkness.
He finally saw clearly that the figures standing before him were no longer blurry shadows, but two distinct, young Eastern faces.
They weren't the Asian-American soldiers he had assumed.
That sharp gaze, that pine-like upright posture, and the unmistakable temperament belonging to another ancient nation between their brows... Ishii Shin's pupils snapped into pinpricks the moment he saw their faces!
The fear, humility, and fawning on his face vanished without a trace in an instant, replaced by a distorted expression of shock mixed with extreme hatred.
He was like a cat that had its tail stepped on; every hair on his body stood on end!
"You two... you're not Americans! You're actually Chi—"
That insulting word only managed to escape his throat as a single syllable.
A large hand, seemingly forged from steel, accurately seized his throat.
All sound was trapped in his windpipe.
In the next second, Ishii Shin felt his feet suddenly leave the ground.
He was lifted off the carpet by that single hand, suspended in mid-air like a chick.
"Ugh... ugh-ah..."
The sensation of suffocation instantly enveloped him.
His hands desperately tried to pry away the hand gripping his neck, but it felt like an ant trying to shake a tree; the fingers were like five steel bars, remaining motionless.
His face quickly turned a deep purple from lack of oxygen, his eyes bulged uncontrollably, and his mouth hung open in vain like a dehydrated fish, trying to suck in even a sliver of fresh air.
His feet kicked wildly in the air, striking the void with light thwack sounds.
Survival instinct made him give up on prying at the hand; he reached out with his other hand, waving frantically toward Bruce, fingers splayed in a gesture of plea.
Bruce MacWeen watched this scene without any change in expression.
He simply watched Ishii Shin's face, distorted by suffocation, then shrugged and spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.
Then he turned around, turning his back on the comical scene, pulled a piece of gum from his tactical vest pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth.
"I'm going to have some gum over there. Carry on."
His voice was muffled, as if he were merely mentioning an inconsequential trifle.
Noah held the struggling Ishii Shin like a dead dog, his cold gaze sweeping over the man's pained face before exchanging a look with Phoenix Bell.
Without a word, the two turned and entered the cabin bedroom that Ishii Shin had burst out of.
"Bang!"
The door was slammed shut, completely cutting off everything in the corridor.
Noah gave a casual toss, throwing Ishii Shin onto the thick carpet of the room like a piece of trash.
"Cough... cough, cough, cough..."
Ishii Shin lay on the ground, propping himself up with his hands, his body hunched as he coughed heart-wrenchingly, greedily breathing in the perfume-scented air of the room.
Tears and snot flowed uncontrollably, making him look utterly pathetic.
Noah looked down at him, his voice devoid of emotion.
"Who sent you here?"
Survival instinct and the near-death experience he'd just had left Ishii Shin's mind blank.
But instinctively, he struggled to his feet and stumbled toward the nightstand.
However, he had only taken a single step.
He felt his nape suddenly tighten.
That devilish hand had once again seized his fate.
Immediately after, his legs once again lost contact with the floor, and he was hoisted up from behind by sheer force.
Noah gripped his neck from behind, suspending him in the air like a ragdoll.
Phoenix Bell ignored him entirely, walking with steady steps straight toward the nightstand Ishii Shin had tried to reach.
From the drawer, she pulled out a black hard-shell briefcase.
"Click."
The combination lock was easily bypassed by her using a specialized technique.
She opened the bag, took out the documents inside, and switched her shoulder lamp to low-light mode to begin skimming through them.
In the stack of papers, the one on top was an authorization document from the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Beneath that document were several blank, bearer checks from a Swiss bank, along with several sets of personal identification for different identities.
Noah pinned the nearly fainting Ishii Shin back onto the floor, stepping on his back to keep him prone like a dog.
"What did your country send you here to buy?"
Ishii Shin's face was pressed into the carpet, his voice muffled by the pressure, but his tone was full of the venom of a dying struggle.
"You... you won't... find out anything! A warrior of the Great Japanese Empire... will never yield!"
Hearing this, Noah and Phoenix Bell, who was still flipping through the documents, both showed nearly identical, cold, and amused smiles.
That smile made the temperature in the room seem to drop several degrees.
"I just love that defiant look of yours."
Noah's voice was soft, yet carried a playful tone that made Ishii Shin's skin crawl...
Outside in the corridor, Bruce MacWeen leaned against the wall out of boredom, the mint flavor of his gum already chewed away.
The room's soundproofing was excellent; he couldn't hear a thing.
Just as he was about to swap for a new piece of gum,
"Aaaaah—!!!"
A scream so shrill it reached an extreme burst from behind that closed door!
The sound was filled with indescribable pain and terror, as if he were undergoing the most brutal torture in the world.
The scream lasted only a moment before coming to an abrupt halt, as if it had been forcefully choked off.
Bruce's chewing motion paused for a second.
He expressionlessly picked at his ear, then gave a helpless shrug and continued chewing.
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