Capítulo 15: Chapter Fourteen

"The Red Circle? B-but that's were- Lieutenant, please reconsider!"

"Would you rather have me send him off to the outer zones?" He asks in a monotone, making her swallow her next words, but not for long as her spirit seems to ignite back very quickly.

She keeps talking to this indifferent man, but ignoring her pleas he grows tired of her voice; as does I; and simply gives out an order to the soldier on the side, making him approach us with a strange machine in front, resembling a black rectangular box on wheels with a screen shining on his side and a hole over mine. Before turning around and leaving, the lieutenant goes to the soldier's side and speaks something to him in a low voice , completely ignoring Julia who is left fuming on the side.

"Put your hand in." The soldier says to me, which only makes the girl more infuriated, but even her, after being ignored to an embarrassing point, stops talking, especially when the man with the scars leave us without a second look, not even going to the trouble of addressing us again.

"Didn't you hear me? Put your hand in."

"He doesn't understand." She says between gritted teeth.

"Tsk, such useless brat, and you wanted that commander Owen put him somewhere else? At least he can have some use in the Red Circle, I may even pay him a visit later hehe."

"Y-you! Is because of freaking soldiers like you that this city is like this!"

"Oi! Watch your mouth civil, don't want that pretty face of yours to end up at the asphalt now do we? Hand!"

At that he launches forward and tries to grab me but I'm still annoyed by the previous man rough handling so I decide to pull back and dodge, and thinking it was some sort of luck of mine the guard tries again, only for me to avoid his hand once more.

"What the, are you going to disobey direct orders civil?!"

"Sorry, he is just confused! He doesn't understand!"

"Look, I've been standing in this shit hole for eight hours now and I not going to wait, at the end of my fucking shift, for this brat to calm down or whatever. Give. Me.your.hand!" At that the girl stays in front of me before he can try to grab me once more, and after some discussion she turns towards me with a complicated look as she reaches out without touching, stretching her palm up.

"H-he needs your hand and he won't let you go until you pass through this procedure, even more without an id. Is quick and painless, even though it looks very shady. So, here, do like this." At that she shows what I'm supposed to do, putting her hand inside that mechanical thing, and even if I really did not trust nor wanted to do that shady thing it seemed like it was a big deal and something that would cause me pointless trouble to try and skip.

So I put my hand inside and wait, watching as the soldier has his face illuminated by that strange screen, his gaze going down as he pokes the machinery here and there a few times.

Without warning a quick clack sound comes from inside the machine and with it a cold material gets in contact with my skin.

"There it goes. Done. Now get a move on!"

At that I take my hand off before it gets pulled roughly by the guy, and so I'm able to have a good look at the thing that now shined against my wrist.

It was a metal bracelet of some sort, its silver material glinting against the light, made mostly of hard metal and yet with flexible parts in between intertwining that made it one size for all, but the most intriguing was the red line printed on mine.

Looking at that the girl sighs, brushing her hair and making me realize that she had one of these too, actually, all had that, the soldiers, the ones behind the desk, the girl, and yet it was not quite the same; hers had a cross carved, and the soldiers had a black line on theirs, some passerby have green or simple grey on theirs.

I look back at mine, the only one with a red line around here, and out in the air the bright color receives many glances of people going about, and by the looks of it not a good type of look, more of… disgust?

Strange… so is some kind of system? To tell people apart? But how they do that, and why? Humans are such complicated creatures, far more than I expected it seems…

But now, looking at the girl, then the soldier, I realize that I'm finally free to explore my hunting grounds! Without realizing; or carrying really; I start walking away from the entrance and deeper into the city, leaving the girl behind, thinking and mumbling to herself, having her notice, only minutes later, that I was already gone and about, earning a new set of cute curses from her part.

I walk on foot forward towards the main path surrounded by separating grid metal walls of what seems to be a queue area, now mostly empty of people since they had already gone over ahead, leaving me to have a clear look at the lines draw on the floor, and at the huge screen in the middle of this big road with color, arrows, and scribbles on then, probably informing something important that I could not understand.

But what catches my eyes the most is the thing standing underneath the huge screen with a soldier in it; some type of machinery that I would learn to be a mecha, a robot of sorts with big arms and legs that, beyond making it look stronger and terrifying, made so that it could carry around an enormous flamethrower with huge tanks of gas on its back, a deadly weapon indeed.

Would be an interesting thing to fight against, but a little unfair since I'm resistant to heat… and he has a mostly open chest with a human inside that I could cook on the spot… it worked more like extensions of arms and legs than a full armor, the thing could use some improvement in my opinion, just have a look at my impeccable carapace and you can tell the superiority.

But still, a little better than squishing humans and ghouls under my feet… that reminds me when I fought against a pack of wolves for territory… yeah, interesting indeed.

Behind all of that, however, was the excruciating bright part of the city, tall buildings pointing to the sky, a spiky one that ended in a round structure with flashing scribbles lighting up on its sides, forming huge drawings made of colorful light, such blinding flashing decorations all around that worked worse than the sun in my eyes, and that was a given; but of course all of that stood behind the mecha and other soldiers, yet beyond another wall, and something told me I wasn't welcomed there.

Seems like a recurrent theme around these parts, wall after gate after wall.

With the watchful eyes of the soldier inside the mecha on me I look at the floor and I don't need to think much to come to the conclusion that I should follow the red line, a fading color to the side that leads to a dark corner of the place, with a single blinking arrow that had crooked a little over the years.

Well seems like I'm going to the fun part of town.