Chapter 85
Lucas Is Dead

Chu Shen walked into the shop. “Lucas. Hey Lucas! That old geezer let me off early today! Can’t wait til it’s your turn~”

Chu Shen walked around the shop for a bit but didn’t see him. “Huh. Guess he isn’t here. Wait. Has he been goofing around the whole time i’ve been practicing!” Chu Shen had that immediate thought resound in him.

For a second he looked absolutely convinced. Then he shook his head. “Nope. Can’t be. What could have convinced him to leave the shop then. A sale, new materials, wait. New materials. That’s right, we were supposed to hunt some beasts today.”

“He must have decided to go hunt some by himself since I was busy training. Oh well, nothing bad could have happened.” Chu Shen smiled. Good old Lucas, he played awful jokes sometimes but at least he was a reliable.

Chu Shen went into the back room to the fabber to go over some designs he was thinking of. After all, the fabber had a quantum processor that could handle all the calculations necessary to fabricate items.

Even so, it was vastly underutilized and Chu Shen designed it that way. It was supposed to also function as a 3-d design room which explained the reason there was holograms on a fabber. But it did not explain the reason they activated once Chu Shen walked in the room.

A holographic projection of Lucas appeared before Chu Shen. The holo Lucas smiled and waved at him. “Hey Chu Shen. If you are watching this, I died.”

………………………………………………………………..

Inside the city, there was a large building. Surprisingly the entire building was built with black iron. Gold and Jade decorated the building. Such expensive materials lavishly used must mean the people who built this were quite powerful.

A sign hung on the fence outside the building. It did not have a word written on it. Only a large black rose decorated the sign. Inside the Black Rose Guild however, all was not peaceful.

Crack….Crack..Crack…Crack

A servant who was dutifully attending the necessary duties of watching the life slips suddenly jumped up upon hearing the cracking sound. Rushing over to the slots on the wall he saw one of the jade slips that was underneath a Rank 3 mission was cracked, meaning the person had died.

As the servant rushed to see who the mission belonged to three more cracks rang out within seconds. Turning, the servant saw, to his dismay, it was the other three slips under the mission.

After finding out who it was that ordered the mission he quickly went up to their office. Knock Knock. “Come in.” A rough voice called out to the servant.

Walking in the servant quickly bowed. A large fat man sat in the chair watching the man with beady eyes. The servant waited, head still bowed not daring to look up. The fat man frowned at this.

Reaching out with the cane beside his desk he tapped the servant on the shoulder. “Hey. I’m not going to blame you for the news, so don’t act so terrified. Now speak up. What did you come to tell me.”

The servant let out a hidden breath. So long as this man gave you his word, nothing would happen. He cared too much about face to go back for a mere servant. He raised his head. “All four of the Hell Squad, Murder, Slaughter, Reaper, and Slayer, have been killed on a three star mission to collect information.”

The fat man frowned. “Remind me of the particulars.” He looked at the servant with a harsh glare. “I assume you did that before stepping into this office.”

The servant nodded. “Of course sir. This was previously a one star mission to collect information on a new forging technique. Two young boys started making fake limbs such as arms, legs, and eyes. A forger named Lai Den became interested in such techniques since he was forging a puppet.”

“So he sent us a mission request. The boy was only at the Martial Student stage but unfortunately he fixed the Agata Family’s crippled boy. So when Slaughter tried to get information from him, it was at the same time that old monster came to thank the boys for helping his grandson.”

“It became a three star because of the possible Agata family support. But Slaughter took his Hell Squad so we assumed there would be no problems. But their life slips have cracked. That is the end of the report.” The servant bowed.

The fat man waved a hand dismissing the servant. He sat there for a little bit before standing up. “Damn. I might have to send someone else, I can’t disappoint Lai Den. He forges most of our weapons we use. The main branch would not be happy if I lost him. But who could I send….”

……………………………………

Chu Shen looked at the hologram for a second before he busted out laughing. “Oh Lucas, Lucas, Lucas. You know as well as I do you can’t die unless this place is destroyed.”

Holo-Lucas shrugged. “Well I had to try. Anyways, I really did die though. My body was destroyed by Slaughter out in the forest when I went hunting. It happened about an hour ago.”

Chu Shen looked at him. “Wait you mean you really did die!?”

Lucas shrugged again. “More or less.”

………………………………..

2 Weeks Earlier

Chu Shen and Lucas bought a small store using their earnings, almost completely draining them. When they did they both used the amulets to link the bracelets to the store.

Chu Shen walked into the back room and saw Lucas opening up his skull.

“What are you doing Lucas!” Chu Shen quickly rushed up grabbed Lucas’ arm that was slowly opening his skull along a vertical seam.

Lucas pushed Chu Shen away with his other arm. “Chu Shen, I’m just moving my positronic brain into this cradle okay? It’s got a power plant, radio signals, and even better, it also has a tachyon communicator I stole from the fabber.”

Lucas pointed to a black box right beside him. Chu Shen shook his head in confusion. “Alright, what is going on.”

Lucas sighed. “You mentioned how dangerous this place is, right? Well I made this cradle to hold my brain. I am even saving scans of my brain to the fabber every ten second and deleting the old one. This way I can live digitally on the fabber if my positronic brain is destroyed. Now, using the tachyon communicator, I can control my body from millions of miles away.”

Chu Shen was dazed for a second before smiling at Lucas and giving him a big hug. “Thanks Lucas, I really don’t want to lose you.”

Lucas hugged him back for a second. Before promptly throwing him into the wall. “Enough lovey dovey, I have work to do.

…………………………………………………………………

Chu Shen nodded. “Alright, so your RC body died. We can assume it was the Black Rose Guild.”

“Correct, they even mentioned it. They were strong too. They didn’t even notice my force field. The first shot from the guy with the bow took it down too. The pistols did trap one for about two minutes and killed the other. I used the railgun to kill the other two.”

“The trapped guy sliced up my body but I had it self detonate so he died. They won’t get anything out of it since all the wreckage is gone.”

Chu Shen gave him a thumbs up. “Best thing we could have hoped for. I guess now it would be best to skip town though. We don’t want such a powerful group coming after us again.”

Lucas agreed. “Definitely. So let’s pack everything together. I think I can fabricate a jetpack though so you can make a get away.”

“Great. Let’s do it.”

1. N/a