Ch.220After the Play Ended (3)

#220

At the same time.

Himena frowned at Jesse, who was disassembling the device attached between the tactical orbital bombardment turret and the terminal.

“Who in the world enters the maintenance department’s computer password into an orbital bombardment control terminal?”

“You told me to try anything, Himena! Besides, as long as the attack stopped, that’s what matters!”

“Hey, you two. Everything worked out, so is there really a need to fight?”

“What if the password was wrong, or if it suddenly fired due to a command input failure?”

“You could just cut off the energy supply! That means smashing the negative glass tube! And engineering-wise, that kind of thing wouldn’t happen anyway!”

“The person who made it is Howard Hughes! Who knows what crazy things he might do!”

“Himena, are you insulting Dexter’s great-grandfather right now?”

“Argh… that’s not what I meant!”

“You two, why are you fighting?”

When Emil Lee, who had brought the other tools Jesse had requested, expressionlessly looked back and forth between them, Jesse and Himena glared at each other briefly before shutting their mouths.

“Dexter is probably fighting hard by himself right now, so we shouldn’t be fighting among ourselves.”

When Judy grabbed Himena’s clothes to stop her, Himena took a deep breath and brushed back her hair.

Judy was right.

Given the situation, Himena couldn’t hide her impatience.

If it had been a normal time, she would have responded with light jokes, but it seemed she had reacted sharply to Jesse.

“…I’m sorry. I was just worried.”

Jesse felt similar to Himena, but thinking it was embarrassing to show such feelings, he bent down and hid his face in the mechanical device.

“…I think I overreacted too.”

Seeing this, Judy smiled lightly.

“See? Isn’t it nice when you both apologize to each other?”

As Judy soothed the two with a bright smile, Jesse and Himena looked at her and chuckled.

Her behavior was motherly, yet she looked the youngest among everyone in the room.

‘It feels like being scolded by the youngest.’

‘Judy is just so cute, I tell you.’

“Please help me with this.”

Meanwhile, Emily, who had been outside, entered the room with her hands full of toolboxes.

The toolboxes were quite heavy, and Emily was struggling to carry them. Seeing this, the three rushed to her and took the toolboxes, saying:

“Why did you bring so many tools?”

“I wasn’t sure which wrench Jesse meant. It’s quite different from the ones used on cars.”

“You could have just left them nearby and brought them one by one.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of that.”

“Silly bear.”

Jesse pouted once, then took out a few tools from the toolbox Emily had brought and started to dismantle the mechanical device.

Seeing Jesse like this, Himena crouched down beside him and asked:

“What exactly are you doing?”

“There’s a terminal here, but looking at the structure, it seems it can be remotely controlled from elsewhere too. And this device right here helps with that remote control.”

“Which means…?”

“The moment we break this device, to carry out an orbital bombardment, someone would have to come into this room.”

But Jesse had something else on his mind.

“But this device doesn’t just seem to receive attack signals; it might have other uses too.”

“Other uses?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure yet. It seems like I should connect this line here, but…”

The reason Jesse appeared puzzled while tilting his head was because there wasn’t just a receiving device, but also a transmitting device.

Without the fully equipped maintenance department, Jesse was relying solely on his intuition and knowledge, which left him somewhat confused.

‘It doesn’t seem to be just for sending signals within the ship, so what is it?’

Jesse pressed his temples as he pondered.

The fortunate thing was that it didn’t contain parts directly developed or manufactured by Howard Hughes, but rather parts commonly used in space.

‘It’s an old machine, but I think I’ve seen these parts in books. Where were they from? I’m sure I learned about them…’

While Jesse was struggling, Judy approached Emily and clung to her, asking:

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning my hands.”

When Judy looked at Emily’s hands, she was wiping off foreign substances with disposable wet wipes she had brought from somewhere.

“Where did you get those?”

“From a place labeled ‘crew quarters.’ There were a few people there too.”

“What? There were people on this ship?”

“Of course, they’re needed to operate such a large ship. But all the strong ones must have been dealt with by Dexter; only scrawny people were left.”

“Scrawny?”

“You know, those types. Always sitting at desks, hunched over, wearing glasses…”

“Ah, I get it. But what were they doing?”

Judy cut off Emily’s attempt to describe the non-combat crew members of Jupiter in detail and asked for a different kind of explanation.

In response to Judy’s question, Emily recalled her earlier conversation, tapped her lips with her finger, and then spoke:

“They seemed to be waiting for something.”

“Waiting?”

“Hmm… saying things like ‘When will they give us orders?’ or ‘If only they would contact us right away…'”

Hearing Emily’s words, Himena frowned.

“Even with all that gunfire outside, they were only worried about that?”

“They just seemed to accept it, I guess.”

“While mercenaries were being turned into blood slush by Dexter right outside their door, they just sat quietly in their room? What kind of bastards are they?”

“Isn’t that actually an advantage for us?”

“Why?”

“The one giving orders to those people must be the commander, and the commander is busy fighting Dexter. In the meantime, we can quickly break the device.”

“Well, that’s what we were planning to do anyway. But I guess it’s good to know the bad guys aren’t planning to come after us?”

Jesse nodded at Emily’s words while swapping wires and components connected to the device, then said:

“And I’ve figured out the puzzle.”

“What puzzle?”

“This device isn’t just for receiving commands to carry out orbital bombardment from this ship.”

“Then what?”

“It has a function to communicate with Jupiter from other ships or ground bases. It’s also a transmitter that can send information about the turret’s durability or overall status.”

“Wait. If it’s a transmitter…”

Judy’s words trailed off, but Jesse nodded confidently and said:

“If we do this right, we might be able to contact OSA headquarters.”

* * *

“Cut the crap!”

-Keeeing!

As a sharp metallic sound and the noise of something activating were heard, Dexter frowned and raised both hands.

“That’s really unfair.”

“Shut up! What do you mean that no matter how much we fight, neither of us will fall? What kind of nonsense is that!”

“Just a hypothesis.”

No matter how steel-like Dexter’s stamina was, he had just been subjected to electric torture and had fought a battle.

Dexter, who had been running non-stop until now, slumped to the floor and explained why fighting with Olivia was meaningless.

Of course, even though he “explained,” it was more like he just blurted out whatever came to mind.

Yet Olivia was considerably shocked.

“Why should I, just because I inherited the same genes as you…!”

Though her words trailed off, Dexter understood well enough.

“I’m upset too. It’s not like I chose to have Howard Hughes as my great-grandfather.”

There’s nothing Dexter could do about his great-grandfather being a womanizer.

‘Wait, is that why I’m dating four women?’

While Dexter was pondering this, Olivia snapped her fingers.

-Snap!

As metallic sounds came from all directions, Dexter grimaced.

“…Oh, shit!”

Dexter jumped into the air from his spot, and bullets began to follow him.

As soon as Olivia snapped her fingers, Dexter knew bullets would slice through the air and immediately evaded.

‘This is driving me crazy, seriously.’

Unlike the human mercenaries, the automatic turrets tracked Dexter’s jumping movements with incredible precision.

Dexter tried his best to find cover, but the automatic turrets were everywhere.

Even if he hid behind cover, the turret closest to Dexter would target his back.

Dexter, who was so desperate he unconsciously stuck out his tongue while running, saw Olivia glaring at him with fiery eyes.

Looking at Olivia, Dexter gritted his teeth while dodging the turret’s bullets and had another thought.

‘Wait a minute.’

Olivia controls the automatic turrets.

If the turrets are controlled by Olivia’s gestures, what would happen if he hid behind her?

‘Olivia has her back against a wall, and there are no automatic turrets on that wall.’

This was his chance.

Without thinking too deeply, Dexter rushed toward Olivia to put his plan into action.

The distance between Olivia and Dexter was only two or three steps, and Dexter quickly reached a distance less than a handspan away from Olivia.

“What the…!”

Seeing Dexter suddenly rushing toward her, Olivia quickly tried to move away.

But when she saw the turret’s bullets heading toward her, Olivia quickly snapped her fingers and then clenched her fist to swiftly deflect the bullets.

‘She’s punching bullets?’

Dexter frowned at the unbelievable sight but immediately hid behind Olivia’s back.

Olivia, who had tried to avoid him, was forced to deflect the incoming bullets while grinding her teeth.

One, two, three.

As qi energy emanated from Olivia’s hands, they seemed to multiply like a thousand-armed Guanyin statue, deflecting bullets with her fists. Seeing this, Dexter recalled advice he had once heard.

‘…For a supreme master, even the fastest hidden weapons are meaningless.’

It was something one of the Heavenly Demon’s subordinates had said.

‘Couldn’t you use those skills for something good?’

Dexter looked at the back of Olivia’s head with disbelief.

Soon, when the automatic turrets stopped responding to Olivia’s finger snaps, she turned her head sharply and said to Dexter, who was hiding behind her:

“Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“My life was in danger, I had to do something.”

Dexter, peeking out slightly from behind Olivia, retorted.

“Then, aren’t you embarrassed?”

“What’s there to be embarrassed about?”

Meeting Olivia’s glaring gaze head-on, Dexter sat on the edge of the desk.

Then, bowing his head, Dexter spoke in a serious tone unlike his usual self:

“I don’t know why you talked about the past, but it felt like you were trying to avoid something.”

“…Avoid?”

“It’s like saying: I had terrible parents since childhood, I was subjected to horrible biological experiments, I suffered that much, so it’s okay for me to harm civilians. That kind of logic.”

“I never said such…”

“Of course not. I just heard it directly from you a moment ago. My brain might not be great, but my memory isn’t bad.”

Dexter sighed.

“But that’s not how it sounded to me. You’re saying aren’t you also of Howard Hughes’ bloodline? Couldn’t you have been taken to a research facility like me? If you were in my position, you would understand me.”

“…No.”

Olivia shook her head, but Dexter continued regardless:

“Just because everyone has gone through shit like you, doesn’t mean they become crazy enough to commit mass murder. The abilities and operations you have could have been used for much better purposes than this crap.”

“…No!”

“Stop throwing tantrums, Olivia Hughes.”

“…I said NO, you bastard!”

-Whoosh!

Olivia swung her fist at Dexter, but despite the intensity behind it, the punch was blocked all too easily.

Holding Olivia’s fist, Dexter looked at her with contempt and said:

“Seriously, was this the end of your plan?”

With her fist caught by Dexter, Olivia couldn’t say anything.

Operation Astrape, the last operation Olivia didn’t want to use.

If the operations she had planned so far had succeeded, she would have used Operation Keraunos, but since Dexter had blocked her and she failed, she was using this operation.

Kidnap citizens from whom Negative had been extracted, create confusion at OSA headquarters to divert attention.

Hijack Howard Hughes’ orbital bombardment ship, Jupiter, leave Earth, and launch an orbital bombardment on Earth to prevent pursuit.

Arrive at the planet where the Galactic Alliance is located and launch an orbital bombardment just like on Earth.

That was the end.

It was simple but a clean operation that would fulfill all her desires by unleashing every possible attack and then ending it.

The problem was that Dexter and his women were on this ship.

Olivia looked at Dexter.

Beyond looking at her with contempt, he was looking at her with a gaze full of pity.

She couldn’t show any more weakness.

She always had to be the wicked villainess.

The past she had spoken of wasn’t a painful struggle.

It was merely a trial that made her stronger.

He should have acknowledged her trials.

That’s why she had told him about her past.

Don’t pity me.

Don’t look at me like that.

‘You can’t look at me that way.’

Olivia shook off Dexter’s hand and opened the desk drawer.

In the drawer was a well-maintained 6-shot revolver, despite its age.

Dexter didn’t interfere as Olivia took out the revolver from the drawer; he just watched her actions.

Six shining bullets were loaded in the revolver’s chambers.

“Dexter Hughes. Great-grandson of Howard Hughes, you’ve mercilessly trampled and defiled my plans.”

With empty eyes, Olivia pointed the revolver at Dexter’s heart.

Without blinking an eye, Dexter looked into Olivia’s empty eyes and said:

“Are you going to shoot me?”

At Dexter’s question, Olivia smiled lightly, but there was no warmth in it.

Olivia pulled back the hammer of the revolver.

She could kill Dexter with the revolver right here, then crush the other four women, and launch an orbital bombardment on Earth with the remaining crew members, and that would be the end.

“No.”

But Olivia’s pride wouldn’t allow it.

When Dexter looked at her with pity, all of Olivia’s actions lost their color.

It became an excuse and a justification for her actions.

Evil should remain as evil.

Not as cheap sympathy.

Olivia raised the revolver and aimed it at her own chin.

“Olivia, wait!”

Dexter tried to stop her choice, but Olivia, with her finger already on the trigger, was faster.

“Get lost, Dexter.”

And with that, the revolver was fired.

The revolver’s name was Colt SAA.

Another name for it was the “Peacemaker.”