“Ah…
I don’t recall ‘surviving a point-blank shockwave’ being in the temporary worker’s job description.” Lynn coughed violently, waving his hand through the thick, acrid smoke filling the apartment.
“Does this count as my first protagonist-level inciting incident?” He shook his head, ears still ringing from the concussive blast, and squinted through the haze toward the kitchen.
“Exusiai?” he asked tentatively, his voice raspy.
“Are you still alive?” A muffled, tragic groan echoed from the kitchen.
“My…
apple pie…” ‘Ah.
She’s alive.’ Lynn blinked through the settling plaster dust.
Exusiai was half-stuffed into the oven, a large stainless-steel pot wedged firmly over her head.
Smoke curled lazily around her halo.
He turned his attention to the living room.
Just moments before, Texas had been striking a rather cinematic pose by the window.
Unfortunately, since the epicenter of the blast was the adjacent bedroom, the shockwave had caught her at a terrible angle, launching her across the room.
Waving away another thick cloud of pulverized drywall, Lynn finally spotted her.
The Lupo was buried under a collapsed section of the partition wall.
Her slender figure was completely hidden beneath the heavy chunks of masonry—save for her fluffy tail, which stuck straight out of the debris, twitching in a distinctly comical manner against the gray wreckage.
“Hey?
Miss Texas?” Lynn patted a chunk of masonry near his knee.
“If you’re still breathing, give me a squeak.” “…Mm.” A muffled grunt vibrated from beneath the ruins.
The bushy tail gave a listless, irritated flick.
It looked so pathetic that Lynn had to fight the sudden urge to reach out and pull it.
“You can still talk.
That’s a good sign,” Lynn said.
“Need a hand?” “No.
The structural damage took the brunt of it.” The tail suddenly stiffened, regaining its usual vitality.
With a sharp, flexible sweep, it cleared the immediate layer of dust.
Texas shoved her palms against the cracked floorboards, pushing herself up and sending broken bricks clattering to the side.
Despite taking a glancing blow from the shockwave, the Lupo girl seemed largely unharmed, though her usually pristine face was smudged with white lime dust.
She shook her ears, sending a shower of pebbles to the floor, and frowned.
First at Lynn, who looked entirely too innocent, and then at Exusiai.
The Sankta had finally extracted herself from the oven.
She was still wearing the pot like a helmet, weeping over a charred lump of pastry stuck in her hair.
Texas let out a long, weary sigh.
“My apple pie…” Exusiai cried softly.
“My hair…” “Hold still and bear it.” Texas strode over, effortlessly yanking the pot off Exusiai’s head.
Ignoring the Sankta’s teary-eyed protests, Texas drew one of her lightswords.
With a swift, precise flick of her wrist, she sliced away the scorched, sticky ends of Exusiai’s hair.
In a matter of seconds, the long-haired courier was reduced to a short-haired one.
Texas sheathed her blade, nodding in satisfaction before turning to Lynn.
A flicker of apology crossed her stoic features.
“Sorry.
You ended up catching the crossfire of our mess.” “Who else could it be?” Exusiai dropped to her knees, staring mournfully at the pulverized remains of her dessert, completely ignoring her impromptu haircut.
“It’s definitely those rival crews.
My poor, innocent pie…” “My thoughts exactly,” Texas said.
She rolled her shoulders, stretching her stiff joints, and cast a cold glance out the shattered window.
“They likely tracked us here and rigged the bedroom to send a message.
It’s a standard intimidation tactic in Lungmen.
As long as there are no casualties, it usually doesn’t trigger a full-scale gang war.
Just a warning to back off.
Our last delivery must have stepped on someone’s toes.” Lynn surveyed his ruined apartment.
“So, what’s the protocol for me now?” “We head straight back to Penguin Logistics.” Texas looked at his bewildered expression and sighed again.
“You don’t have a place to sleep anymore.
You’ll stay in the company dorms.
The space is going to be a bit tighter, though.” “Tighter than this place?!” “It’s a communal dorm with a shared bathroom.
Just don’t accidentally use anyone else’s things.” “Apple pie…” Exusiai whimpered from the floor.
“We’ll buy the ingredients on the way back,” Texas said smoothly.
“You can bake another one at the safehouse.” Leaving Exusiai to mourn her culinary tragedy, Texas drew both of her lightswords.
The glowing blades cast a harsh light against the settling dust as she stepped cautiously into the smoldering ruins of Lynn’s bedroom.
She swept the area with the practiced eye of a veteran courier, looking for tripwires or secondary explosives.
The perpetrators had been thorough; aside from a single, scorched arrowhead embedded deep in the reinforced masonry, they had left no physical evidence of their identity.
However, on the one wall that had miraculously survived the blast, a few pieces of paper remained pinned to a corkboard.
Most were incinerated, but one sheet of heavy, film-coated paper hung perfectly intact, its edges barely singed.
‘Is this that novel he was supposedly working on?’Texas plucked the surviving page from the wall, shaking off a layer of soot.
She scanned the elegant, almost unnerving handwriting.’Title: The Darkest Hour”Premise: As is common knowledge, the human spirit is fragile and ultimately meaningless.
We know that certain images and suggestive words can completely dismantle a normal person’s logic and morality.
So, what exactly must be done to achieve such an effect?
How can we resist the illogical horrors of this dark world?
The answers lie within this book.”Author’s Note: This is the master file!
General settings!
I refuse to add bookmarks or an index later because it’s too much of a hassle!
Exusiai keeps nagging me about wasting paper, and I don’t want to either!
Once written, no revisions!
The lore is locked!
If I retcon anything, I’ll chop off my own hand!”Settings Directory: Mental Pollution and Eldritch Entities: Pages 1 to 3 Origin of Demons: Pages 4 to 7 R&D and the Possibility of Biological Engineering: Pages 8 to 14 Organizational Structures and Political Motivations: Pages 15 to 19 Religions and Cults: Pages 20 to 27 Special Spells and Originium Arts: Pages 28 to 33 Societal Impacts and Crisis Decisions: Pages 34 to 39 Character Profiles: Pages 40 to 66 Plot Outline: Pages 67 to 70 Main Text: Not written yet.’Texas stared at the paper, her ears twitching in mild disbelief.’He wrote seventy pages of worldbuilding and hasn’t started the actual story?
Can this guy really make a living off writing?’ She scratched the back of her head, glancing around the gaping hole in the bedroom wall.
If an author already had an outline this detailed, the lost drafts could easily be rewritten.
There was no reason to linger in a compromised location.
The enemy’s numbers were unknown, and a secondary ambush was highly probable.
After quickly scavenging a few surviving necessities from the wreckage, Texas ushered Lynn and Exusiai out the door, abandoning the ruined apartment to the Lungmen night.
Shortly after the Penguin Logistics crew vanished into the alleys, the apartment’s battered front door was kicked open.
A squad of heavily armed officers flooded the room.
“Nobody move!
L.G.D.!” “Stand down.
The perimeter is clear.” A massive figure stepped through the doorway, towering a full two heads above the standard tactical officers.
He moved with a heavy, deliberate grace, his boots crunching over the shattered glass as he walked directly into the blasted bedroom.
For a long time, the towering inspector stood in silence, his sharp gaze sweeping over the scorched fragments of Lynn’s apartment.
Finally, he crouched down, his large, gloved hand picking up a half-burnt scrap of paper from the debris.
He blew the ash from its surface.
His eyes narrowed as he read the eerie, prophetic sentences and the chilling societal projections scrawled on the surviving notes.
He stood there amidst the settling dust, the silence stretching out until he finally released a heavy sigh.
“There’s nothing of value left here,” the massive officer said, his voice a low rumble that carried out to the L.G.D.
squad in the hall.
“Looks like a standard gang vendetta.
Send word to the local syndicates—tell them not to cross the line.” “Yes, sir!” The officers saluted sharply and filed out to secure the perimeter.
Left alone in the ruins, the towering figure quietly gathered the remaining scraps of Lynn’s notes, folding them carefully into his palm.
His expression was unreadable as he turned and walked out into the dark.