NPC Code: Red Riding Hood

After dodging Clement's attack using my lightning speed, I exited the place. Without uttering a word, my body left the setting, but landed against a rock near the base. I was actually near the player's hideout. But thanks to the trees covering my vicinity, Clement had no clue where I went with my electrical speed.

"Should we chase them?" a soldier asked Clement. 

"No. Let her escape. She will come to us eventually," Clement replied to the soldier as I finally left the place. "Red wouldn't let that opportunity slide, especially when my father's inside this base. She doesn't even know how we shaped Mainland into this research facility. What a stupid girl.

Those were the last words I heard after landing on the base's borders. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard that the game developers were inside that building. And it came from Clement, an NPC that Asimov created. 

Thanks to my two glowing eyes, active [shadow walk], and my lightning speed, I escaped that den. Within a few minutes, I found myself leaning against a boulder, right next to the cliff I stationed earlier.

Since the threats inside that base were too much for me to handle, I retreated. I could only hope to put my things together before fighting them once again. If I planned on breaching that place, I should know what to do and the location itself. 

"It would be easier if I had some friends to help me…." I murmured, while looking back and forth around my surroundings. 

If we hadn't attacked Alice, maybe we could have faced this base without disbanding. If only we knew that this event would happen, our group could have stayed together. Instead of those things, Match left me, while I abandoned Okami and Ryoshi. And their absence would haunt me for the rest of this journey.

I trod all the way back towards a cave that I found and made it my hiding spot. But after a few hours, I would relocate once again to shake the soldiers off my tail. 

Those players won't stop at anything until they chop off my head inside this game. Since I killed most of them before, they wanted revenge. If I was in their shoes, I would have done the same thing.

As soon as I arrived at my temporary shelter, I patched up my wounds and restored my mana using my unused potion. It was the last one, since I used it all from my previous battle against Alice. And if I could guess it right, I needed around a few more hours to heal my wounds. 

With these conditions in mind, I covered the entrance and snuck myself inside the cave. I fiddled with my systems and activated my [shadow walk] despite being inside this place. It was my countermeasure against soldiers that would have any stealth abilities and a plan to stab me in the back

But I pushed those thoughts aside and closed my eyes, letting my body do its magic. 

It took me three hours for me to wake up from this nightmare. My mind still remained frozen in place, but my body wanted to move around. 

The entire goal of my journey was right in front of me. All I had to do was to push through my limits and kill whoever stands in my way. However, how could I do that after shattered Match's perspectives towards me?

After all that had happened, I didn't want Match to lose faith in my words. I promised to change for the betterment of myself, hoping that Match could understand. But with these chains limiting me to fight against Clement, I didn't know what to do about it.

I stayed inside the cave for hours, debating what I should do to breach the gates. I didn't have to fight Clement, but that guy would bring the fight to me. As soon as I stepped foot inside, that kid would hunt me down like a rabbit inside the forest. 

Although I had the speed to outrun him, I was nowhere near powerful to take Clement down. With my current abilities, there was nothing that I could do to stop Clement from his tracks, not unless a miracle happened.

Besides Clement, I had to deal against some soldiers surrounding the base. Even though those players were nothing compared to Okami or Alice, their guns could still bring me down. And I would be up against a hundred of them, with weapons that could kill me.

"If only I had some allies, maybe I could somehow do something about Clement and those soldiers…." I whispered, while clicking my tongue.

But I knew that would never happen. I could rely on Stormfly, but I doubted he would help me with that problem. Stormfly wouldn't risk his people to die for the sake of saving me. And if I was in his shoes, I would have done the same thing.

Before I could do all that, I left the cave and looked for another hideout. I went far and low trying to find some place that the soldiers wouldn't visit. 

After some few attempts, I gazed above the ancient tree and set my eyes on the enlarged bough. That branch was enough to hold a bungalow from the Mainland. Well, it looked like that, considering the system's descriptions.

I did not have any option for this situation. So I climbed the bark and made my way towards the bough. That branch never danced with the wind even though my body continued pressing against it. I even tried jumping multiple times, but the bough never budged an inch.

"This is perfect," I exclaimed to myself, and prepared to sleep once again.

However, my ears caught something from afar. Upon focusing on my four, cracking sounds of twigs echoed in the surroundings. Every step that those entities made announced themselves in the world. It almost felt like those sounds came from boots crushing those tiny pieces of Nature, as the group progressed onwards. 

Even though those beings tried their best avoiding any obstacles, their feet continued destroying the dry leaves and branches on the soil.

Within a few seconds, those figures emerged from the bushes. And when I squinted my eyes, uniforms of soldiers welcomed my sight. There were five elite soldiers walking around the forest, lurking in every direction. They lowered their heads and maintained their distance against each other, hoping to catch anything, especially me. 

Each of the soldiers armed themselves with weapons I had seen before around the base. And as soon as they noticed something strange in the corners, they raised their hands  and fired their weapons. 

Those hand gestures must have been their signs to know the location of their teammates. After confirming everyone's position, they would relentlessly rain down their bullets at the targeted place. 

It turned out that the area the soldiers shot at was just a rabbit hopping towards its hole. Unfortunately, the hare did not make it out alive after getting hit by those dozens of shells. My orbs viewed it all from above, which made me a spectator of everything that happened. As luck would have it, those soldiers below me did not have a clue about my presence.

But that thought was far from the truth when one soldier glanced around. She told her leader about what the soldier felt. But the one in-charge neglected her voice. That officer ordered everyone that they needed to scout the scenery without wasting time looking for me. 

"Clement's words was to look for the girl with the red hood. But we need to be quick, or else that girl would kill us….We all saw what happened before, right? We don't look for her above or below. Our eyes should be straight ahead," the officer exclaimed, while telling everyone to follow his lead.

But as soon as the girl noticed something different, she turned around and bent her head. I jerked backwards and used the wall of leaves as my wall, wishing that the soldier wouldn't notice me. 

Luckily, that soldier averted her gaze and returned to her troops, who finally left the scene. I let go of the bouquet of leaves and heaved out a sigh.

"If they found me here, those soldiers would have already killed me!" I mumbled, while feeling my heart beating faster than Okami's legs. 

As soon as my heart had finally slowed its pace, I resumed enforcing my shelter with leaves and covered myself with it. After completing my decor, I snuggled my way inside and used the bark to lean on. Those spare leaves that I found became my blanket, which I embraced in this resting session.

I opened my system again and inspected my current health points and mana. According to my system, I didn't lose much of my HP and mana. My health healed around seventy percent of my life, while my arcane was around sixty percent.. I only needed a few hours or minutes to return to my fighting shape. After recovering my powers, I would think of a plan to breach that base! 

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