Kill the Sun

Nick dropped the corpse onto the ground.

Then, he took out the Peddler Storage Token and showed it.

"I found this storage token on him," Nick said. "I presume you've seen this guy before?"

The two looked at the token with worry.

They were not allowed to give out any data from their customers.

Although…

This customer was dead.

"Yes," one of them said, eliciting a nervous glance from the other one.

Nick nodded. "I want to access the storage, and I don't want to get led to a fake room. I am from the Dregs. I know what you guys deal in, and if a level two Extractor is storing something here instead of the Inner City, it must be bad."

The two guards looked at each other in nervousness.

"Please, follow me," one of them said, opening the door behind him.

Nick nodded. "I'll leave the corpse here. If anything is missing from it when I return, I'll go home with a second corpse. I can afford to spend 15,000 credits on a tantrum."

The guards swallowed again, and one of them called a couple of colleagues to watch over the corpse.

The other guard then entered the warehouse while being followed by Nick and his two "companions".

"You're sure we took the right turn just now?" Nick asked coldly.

The guard swallowed.

He turned around and looked at Nick's narrowed eyes.

"M-may I see-see the token again?" he asked, holding out his shaking hand.

Nick slowly placed the token in the guy's hand.

The guy looked at the token.

"Ex-excuse me. I made a mistake just now," the guard said carefully as he handed the token back.

Nick glared at him.

Nick had used the storage service of the Peddlers in the past, and he knew that they would never store important things upstairs, which was where the guard had just wanted to lead Nick.

Something stored by an Extractor had to be stored in the basement.

Sure enough, the guard led Nick and the others into the basement.

After a bit of walking, everyone stopped in front of a metallic door.

"This is the door," the guard said, his body still shaking. "We value our customers' privacy. So, we don't know what's behind this."

"Open it," Nick commanded.

"Of course," the guard said with a polite but nervous smile as he took out a couple of keys.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

As soon as the door opened, the panicked voice of a small child came out of the room.

Nick narrowed his eyes.

Jonathan and Kiara became shocked.

"Please," the guard said with a polite tone as he gestured to the door.

Nick unceremoniously pushed the door open and walked inside.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please! I'll do anything! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please! Please!"

When the three of them saw what was in the room, they had to take deep breaths, and even Nick's heart sank.

In the back of the room was a rickety bed.

On the left side of the room were some pieces of bloody metal and some bloody scissors.

The corner of the room had some piss and shit in it.

And in another corner was a cage.

Inside the cage was a little girl with several wounds on her body.

Right now, she was looking with pure panic and terror at the three people as she did her absolute best to stretch as much of her body out of the cage as she could.

It was like she was absolutely terrified of staying in this cage.

Or, more precisely, in the place where the cage was located.

The cage was put in a darker corner of the room.

It wasn't fully dark, but it was quite dark.

Everyone knew what that meant.

The Nightmare had been whispering in the little girl's ears for who knew how long.

"I won't bite you anymore! I swear! I'll do whatever you want! Please! Please! Please! I'm sorry!"

"This shouldn't be in here," the guard said with fake outrage. "I swear, we would never-"

"Shut up," Nick said.

The guard didn't say anything anymore.

Jonathan and Kiara looked with absolute terror at the girl and the cage.

Then, the stench of the feces-filled cage hit them.

Kiara turned to the side and puked.

"You can confirm that this is the fat guy's storage unit?" Nick asked evenly.

"Y-yes, sir," the guard answered. "If we had known what-"

"Shut up," Nick commanded again.

The next moment, Nick turned to Jonathan, who just looked at the girl with pure terror.

"Let her out," Nick commanded.

Jonathan's body shook, and he looked at Nick.

After that, he turned to the cage and moved forward.

As soon as he reached the cage, the girl's little hands grabbed Jonathan's body with all their strength, refusing to let go.

"Please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she shouted in panic.

"I-I'll let you out!" Jonathan shouted back in panic.

However, the girl was completely delirious and just kept shouting at Jonathan while grabbing his body.

Jonathan quickly found the lock, but it was made of metal, and he wasn't strong enough to break it.

When Nick saw that, he was annoyed.

Nick stepped forward.

"Out of the way!" Nick commanded.

Jonathan stumbled quickly out of the way.

Then, Nick looked into the little girl's eyes.

"Move back!" he commanded with a dark voice.

The little girl stopped moving when she heard Nick's voice.

"I said, move back!" Nick shouted.

The girl quickly fell back.

Nick grabbed one of the bars and put his foot on the edge of the cage.

Then, he pulled.

CRRRRRRRRRRRK!

The bar bent, and Nick snapped it off.

Then, he did the same thing to a second bar.

"You can come out," Nick said with a calm voice after taking a deep breath.

The girl quickly moved forward and stumbled out of the cage before she bolted to the door to escape.

Nick just grabbed her.

"Calm down!" Nick shouted. "I'm not here to hurt you!"

"I'm here to free you!"