NIKKE, When the Milky Way Blossoms

Because it's a shared map of consciousness, Phoenix doesn't need to ask for details; he can simply access the map in his mind to find the person Anik was talking about.

It was a person wearing a robe and a hood.

a woman.

Even with a robe covering her, it was still impossible to conceal the other person's ample bosom, enough to make one's mouth dry.

Please scan the surrounding area for me.

[We've already scanned her; currently, this is the only woman whose movements seem suspicious.]

Is she the only one?

Phoenix was puzzled when he received the answer.

The red marker on the consciousness radar requires the target to have clear malice towards Phoenix, and since Lecher indiscriminately slaughters humans, it can observe all Lechers within a 600-meter radius.

However, once they return to human society, the consciousness radar will hardly be able to play an effective warning role.

Just now, the radar only identified the human traffickers as enemies the moment they realized the danger.

In such situations, Anik, who has been downgraded to an artificially disabled person, demonstrates her value.

A consciousness map with a radius of 300 meters is not small; Phoenix's limited carbon-based brain simply cannot achieve a global observation of the map.

But Anick can.

She became someone's personal alarm in a way, while also freeing him from the need to constantly monitor the consciousness map.

What is a woman with a great figure doing in an abandoned factory in the middle of the night?

This remote area, which can be described as "the middle of nowhere," has no police station nearby, let alone patrol officers.

Women? Even men walking alone aren't necessarily safe.

Or……

Is this woman very confident in her ability to protect herself?

"You guys go out through the south gate and find a place to hide."

Unable to determine whether the newcomers were friend or foe, Phoenix pondered for a moment before waving to the five mass-produced Nikis to leave. Then, he stood up and, under Watson's bewildered expression, disappeared into the darkness.

Tens of seconds later...

squeak-

The iron gate of the factory on the west side was slowly pushed open, revealing a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through. The faint lights from outside the block eagerly peeked through the gap, leaving a trace on the ground before being mercilessly swallowed by the darkness.

The woman in the long robe and hood stood at the doorway and did not come any further inside.

Thinking about it, that makes sense. This isn't some paranormal enthusiast's game to test their courage, and besides, it's a factory. If you're not careful, you could accidentally trip and fall and die on some metal object.

Inside the door, Phoenix mentally tried to explain the other person's behavior.

Outside the door, in the floating-point image of the consciousness map, the woman had already reached out her right hand to touch her plump, round thigh.

To be honest, Phoenix doesn't have a voyeuristic tendency; after all, he's not a real lecher or a heartless scoundrel.

Therefore, the instant he noticed the woman outside the door taking a cylindrical object from her robe and using her thumb to pry open the pull ring...

He was a little confused.

Fortunately, the conditioned reflexes he had cultivated over a long period of time did not fail him at this crucial moment. In the next instant, he was forced to complete the standard avoidance maneuvers of lying down, covering his head, and covering his ears.

However, to Phoenix's utter surprise, what was thrown in from outside was neither a high-explosive grenade nor a smoke bomb.

Instead, it was the Ark military's Flashbang, which had been out of production for a century.

boom!

The noise, exceeding 100 decibels, pounded into the man's eardrums like a heavy hammer, churning the lymph fluid inside his ears.

My sense of balance vanished completely at that moment.

Instead, there is a nauseating dizziness and a tinnitus so terrifying that it makes your brain tremble.

It felt like hundreds of pile drivers were drilling into the ground right next to his ear, tormenting Phoenix so much that he wished he could puncture his own eardrums.

[It wasn't a flashbang, it was a stun grenade. Phoenix, all they threw in was a stun grenade.]

Within her sea of ​​consciousness, unaffected by the "host's" physical condition, Anik spoke somewhat urgently in her synthesized electronic voice.

[There's a 99.99% chance it was a homemade stun grenade. If it were from the military, you'd be unconscious by now at this close range.]

【…Dear Intelligent Detective】

Even though his mind was still buzzing and he had entered a semi-dazed state, he still managed to suppress his pain and give his voice assistant a bad review.

[The point isn't... that.]

【…】

Six words were enough to silence Anik.

This guy is being realistic. Whether the other side threw a military stun grenade or a homemade one, he's already been hit.

Right now, the most important thing is to find a way to ensure your own safety, rather than getting hung up on why the other party has non-lethal weapons.

"Are you still able to get up? That woman is coming in..."

Anik was in a hurry.

Back then, she had repeatedly confirmed Phoenix's overall rating in the terminal room: excellent self-preservation ability, flexible thinking and logic, and a rebellious streak that wasn't entirely loyal to the Ark. From any perspective, this man was the only choice for her to leave her body and escape the Ark.

Little did she know, just over half a month later, an unexpected earth-shattering bomb knocked down the very person she had been longing to take her down...

We must find a way.

She is an artificial intelligence with a personality; even without powerful computing power and databases, she still possesses the ability to think.

[By the way, those Nikis... since they were smuggled to the Outer Edge, their records must have been cancelled.]

In an instant, Anik found a glimmer of hope in his desperate situation and decisively issued a protection order to the five Nikis outside the factory.

Even if there is a very small chance that doing so will expose her identity and whereabouts.

……

……

"Oh dear~ That strong smell of blood, did a gang fight just happen, Watson?"

The woman, draped in a long robe, swayed as she entered the factory, her voice laced with affected, seductive laughter.

Then, as she too disappeared into the darkness, she turned to look behind her. In the night, a pair of dark red pupils faintly emitted a dim light.

"Hmm~ Why is there a man lying on the ground behind this door?"

Just as the woman was about to step forward for a closer look, a loud bang suddenly erupted from the south gate of the factory.

Clang——!!

After receiving the unstamped "decree" from Anik, the five Nikis rushed in, their eyes fixed on the gray-robed woman, and nervously warned:

"Please watch your behavior!"

In a word,

In addition to these people,

The complex situation inside the factory was far beyond the woman's expectations.

"Huh? You guys weren't taken away?" She turned around, as if she had witnessed a miracle, and a hint of surprise appeared on her face under the hood.

Then, the woman glanced at Watson on the ground, who was also suffering from the shock grenade, and then looked back at the strange man hiding behind the door. A bold and somewhat ridiculous guess rose in her mind.

"Could it be that he told you to hide?"

"..."

The inquiry went unanswered.

Among the five mass-produced Nikis, the least senior one, seeing that the other four remained silent, mustered her courage, stepped forward, and said in a deliberately forceful tone:

"A second warning: please watch your behavior!"

"..."

The woman seemed confused by the attitude of the mass-produced Niki, and after a long while, she finally replied with a smile:

"Hmm~ How about this, we make a deal. You tell me everything you know, and I'll leave immediately after I hear it."

So, isn't that a great deal?

……

……

Fifteen minutes later,

"Sir, how are you feeling?"

When Phoenix gradually regained his senses, he found himself inside an abandoned car shed. Of the five mass-produced Nikis, two were protecting him on either side, while the other three, according to Anick, were guarding the perimeter of the shed.

They cannot disobey human commands, nor can they harm humans.