"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Wesker."
Unable to resist, Andrew snapped a photo of Wesker's pig-like face and continued speaking:
"I followed our agreement perfectly and spared your life. There just might be a few... minor side effects. I'm sure you won't mind."
Even unconscious on the floor and wracked with immense pain, Wesker's fingers twitched involuntarily upon hearing Andrew's words.
Judging by his reaction, he must really be enjoying this feeling of a living death.
Finally venting all his pent-up fury, Andrew felt Ann incredible sense of satisfaction, like landing a perfect, critical blow.
With both of his objectives for infiltrating the research institute perfectly accomplished, Andrew's mood finally relaxed.
Glancing around the rest of the room, a series of uniquely designed mechanical pods caught Andrew's attention.
Inside one of them, a member of the Silver Squad with a side ponytail was submerged.
The completely different hair accessory made Andrew realize this was the eleventh clone Anby had mentioned, the one left behind at the research facility: Soldier 11.
But as he looked left and right, Andrew, who had no idea how to operate the machinery, found himself scratching his head in frustration.
The equipment looked so advanced, and it was filled with some unknown liquid; Andrew didn't dare resort to brute force.
Breaking the instrument didn't matter, but if it had any negative effects on Soldier 11 inside, that would be a huge problem.
But just as he was at a loss, Ann, who had been standing silently in place, suddenly blocked his path.
"Who are you? What organization do you belong to, and what are your objectives? Why have you broken in here to take the Silver Squad?"
Andrew's first instinct was to end this with another punch, making his infiltration absolutely perfect, but Anby, who had been silent behind him all this time, suddenly grabbed his raised fist.
Although Ann had always seen Anby as a creation rather than a person, her affection for her wasn't fake.
Plus, she was just a researcher who had never been involved in anything outside of her scientific work. In the end, Andrew didn't throw the punch.
He gave a thumbs-up, smoothly swiveling it to point at himself as he declared:
"I'm just a passing-through Kamen Rider! Remember that!"
'Pfft...'
The sound of Belle spitting out a drink came through his earpiece, followed by the frantic rustling of her looking for paper to wipe the water off her computer.
In response, Andrew chose to mute his mic for a moment.
However, Ann, who had spent her life cooped up in the research institute with no form of entertainment, didn't sense anything was off. She simply committed the name to memory.
As for Ann's question about his organization, Andrew's first thought was that Kamen Riders weren't like Shocker; what organization would they have?
But he had a feeling that unless he could present himself as a better alternative than the military, Ann wouldn't cooperate and tell him how to safely release Soldier 11.
She wanted her creations to be truly preserved. Whether it was the military or Andrew, as long as her meticulously crafted works could be used to their full potential, she didn't care who had them.
And as it happened, this mission had made Andrew realize the inconveniences of working alone. It really was time to consider forming a new organization.
He thought for a moment before continuing:
"As for my organization... it's called the Hunter's Assembly."
Over the past few months, Andrew had witnessed the destruction the Hollow disasters had wrought upon humanity and the entire ecosystem, and it made him think of a hunter's duty.
As long as one lived in this world, no one could remain aloof from the Hollows.
Aren't these absolute world-destroyers precisely the kind of targets hunters are meant to eliminate?!
"Our goal is to eliminate all the Hollows in this world and return it to how it was before they appeared!"
Faced with a goal that no one had ever even considered, Ann was momentarily speechless.
Perhaps long ago, so long ago that even Old Eridu hadn't been built yet.
Humanity truly did aim to completely eradicate the Hollows. But now, no one dared to do so anymore.
They hardly even dared to think about it.
Because to make that a goal was to be constantly reminded of the desperate reality of their situation: that humanity was surrounded by Hollows, with only one last city remaining.
Yet, the man before her spoke with such conviction, as if he were describing a future that was destined to succeed.
Her reason told her this was likely just the man's nonsensical rambling, but her emotions kept insisting that he was serious.
He truly held this as his goal and genuinely believed it was possible to achieve.
"As for our purpose in taking the Silver Squad... having no purpose is our purpose. Do you need a reason to save someone?"
She had considered countless possible motives, but never this one.
For a moment, Ann even thought she had misheard, but in the end, she chose to believe the man's words.
'After all, if I believed such Ann absurd organizational goal, why wouldn't I believe this absurd reason?'
She didn't press further, instead turning to the problems they would face after leaving with the Silver Squad.
"But, aside from the most perfect one, Anby, the other clones are not particularly stable."
The practical problem was that only the medical pods within the research facility could keep the clones stable long-term.
Under the previous, continuous high-intensity testing, the clones' bodies were actually caught in a cycle of near-fatal injury, repair, near-fatal injury, repair.
This meant that the members of the Silver Squad, as test subjects, were already in tatters.
It's possible their condition might improve with long-term care without frequent, severe injuries, but for now, the clones can't live without these pods.
"How are you going to transport such massive equipment out of here without being discovered?"
At the same time, Ann glanced down at the heavily injured, unconscious Wesker twitching on the floor and said:
"Not to mention, he secretly activated a device on his person while straightening his clothes. How will you defeat the troops already assembled outside and escape safely with Anby and the others?"
Andrew realized that this scumbag Wesker had never intended to make a real deal as he claimed.
If Andrew had actually been greedy for the money and agreed to let him return to his troops, forget the money; the Silver Squad handed over to him would have been branded as traitors and targeted for annihilation.
If things had gone as he planned, he could have used the troops outside to both protect his money and achieve his goal of eliminating the Silver Squad.
And he himself would have walked away completely unscathed, without suffering any actual losses.
But he never expected that Andrew wouldn't fall for it, and that he didn't care at all about the Dennies he was offering.
And what was useless to Wesker—the Silver Squad—was Andrew's true objective.
-
Hello! Walnut here! Or... Miku Dayo in this case heheh...
Unfortunately, I had 2 stories deleted from my main account, "Walnut-chan," and I decided to post them here on this other account... I'm counting on your support to recover what we've lost!
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