As soon as the mission notification went out, the apartment went berserk. Even from the terrace, he could hear people rushing out of the building.

How could they not when Aiden was giving them generous rewards?

Other than the young females, no one had gotten a reward from the battle. Even those engaged in clean-up only got minimal rewards. They were clearly dissatisfied, and now that Aiden was giving them another opportunity, they rushed to take it.

All this time, Aiden kept his eye on the creature through his scope. Whenever it tried to move, he fired another shot in the distance to keep it pinned to the ground.

Despite the shot, the creature kept clawing at the rubble around it. It had given up on finding the source of its troubles and just wanted to get away. However, with a useless leg, it could barely move, let alone get to cover.

[Host, some of the residents are wondering if they should bring weapons.]

"Full gear," Aiden said. "Put everything in the system, show on discount. Forget it, just give them temporary access to beginner Evo-Gear. Just delete them from their inventory after the mission is complete."

He was planning on letting them have a taste of actual power. That way, if someone had gotten too comfortable with their life in the building, experiencing the evo-gear would start a hunger for power in them.

[Understood.]

While the system was left to execute his order, Aiden watched the creature try again to get up for the umpteenth time. It got one leg under itself, planning to kick itself off the ground.

"Why can’t you just play dead instead?" Aiden sighed, loaded another bullet into the chamber, and fired.

Just like that, the creature’s other leg gave out as well, sending it back to the ground. It let out a howl in pain, and stopped moving for a second, then it started dragging itself toward the nearest collapsed building with all its might.

"I guess you’re not that smart after all," Aiden muttered, cocking the gun again.

He adjusted the scope and put another shot into the ground directly in front of it.

The creature flinched back from the impact, scrambling sideways in a panic, and ended up moving away from the building instead of toward it. Back into open ground where Aiden could see it clearly.

It stopped again, almost like it understood that whenever it tried to move, only then would the bullet be fired.

So it stayed still, pretending to have died, and waited. It wanted to lure over whoever was after its life and then kill it and replace its injured organs with theirs.

When no shots came anymore, it raised its head and turned slowly in the building’s direction. Although it couldn’t see the building, Aiden had an unsettling feeling that it had finally figured out exactly where he was.

I’m overthinking things. If it were that smart, it would have played dead long before losing its second leg.

Figuring out the angle of shots from twelve kilometers away wasn’t child’s play. But if the creature had indeed managed it, then Aiden’s earlier assessment of the creature would have to be changed by a considerable amount.

Just then, the system arrived with an update.

[Host, the first team is crossing the border now.]

Aiden pulled back from the scope for a moment and turned towards his system map. On it, he could see the small moving shapes of his people rushing towards the creature in a steady stream.

"Even that old lady is there, huh?" Aiden smiled. "I guess she wants to avenge her son, but we can’t have that, can we?"

In between hundreds of people, the granny was probably planning to sneakily kill the creature. Even if Aiden killed her after that, it wouldn’t matter to her, as she would have avenged her son.

Aiden couldn’t let that happen since the creature, if tamed, could prove to be an asset.

Besides, he could just tell one of the wolves or some random tenants to stop her. But that didn’t sit well with him. He had clearly mentioned in the mission that he wanted the creature captured alive.

Yet the woman still wanted to fuck around, and as the saying goes, you fuck around and find out. The woman had done the first half, so it was Aiden’s right to execute the second half of the saying.

So, he did what any benevolent man would do and sent his absolute puppet an instruction via a voice note.

[Trip that old lady.]

As soon as he did, Marcus turned around and saw a hovering mark above the lady.

Aiden hadn’t fully appreciated until this moment just how many people were living in his building now. They poured out through the barrier’s edge in groups, wolves at the front setting the pace, residents and workers filling in behind them.

If someone were to lose balance and fall, they would certainly be stomped to death. It would be the cleanest dirty job.

As for Marcus, he was already blind when it came to Aiden. He didn’t even stop to think what he was doing and, under the guise of moving traffic, fell behind till he was standing next to the old lady.

Before anyone knew anything, he stuck his leg out and tripped the old woman. She tried to grab someone or something to balance herself, but Marcus kicked her again till she was on the ground.

"Argh!"

The woman screamed, but it disappeared somewhere under the noise of three hundred running. The woman still tried to get up when a boot caught her shoulder, shoving her back on the ground.

The woman kept trying to get up, and the same result followed until she was too beaten up to continue.

[Host, I should remind you about the declining number of tenants.]

[Without finding another source to add new tenants, perhaps you shouldn’t kill the existing ones. This much should suffice as punishment.]

Aiden seemed to consider it for a moment, then sent another voice note to Marcus.

A few moments later, he noticed a few people lifting the old lady and bringing her back to the apartment for treatment.

Other than that, the landlord didn’t care about her well-being and put his eye back to the scope, just to see the creature turn towards the noise of thunderous footsteps.

It had heard them coming.