Vol 4 Chapter 8 (1/2)

Chapter Eight – Besides correct judgment, there is also compa.s.sion

Note: We now have a translator for Eclipse Hunter, whose work you will see in the next volume. Thank you for your patience!

Translators: Laridae, Rednut

Proofreaders: Sora, Zephynel

Elian was frustrated to the max. They had originally eaten quite heartily: the food was fresh and delicious, the waiter was cute and friendly, and the restaurant was beautifully decorated. Even though the price was a bit high, just looking at Daren’s food portions, it made one feel the price was worth it!

The person paying isn’t even you, Eli responded silently in his heart, having heard his thoughts.

Who knew that as he was peeling the shrimp, Eloise was chewing the lobster, Eli was quietly cutting the steak, Ezart was gnawing on a drumstick, and Daren was currently bringing back two big platefuls of food back to his seat...

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rang out and a crowd of people rushed in. One of them yelled loudly, “No one is allowed to move! Everyone get down on the floor, both hands up in the air!”

The people in the restaurant all froze. Everyone, holding various kinds of food, had their eyes fixed on the same place – the gun-bearing criminals at the door. Then, another burst of gunfire rang out. The guests in the restaurant began to scream and attempted to flee. However, the only door was blocked by the terrorists. In the end, they could only cram into the depths of the restaurant.

At this time, five guests still sat at their table. In the midst of the chaos, they stood out in particular.

Elian shoved the peeled shrimp inside his mouth and slurred to the people, “Now, now, let’s not act rashly and scare them off...Dar, hurry up and eat what you want.”

Daren finished the two large plates of food at an alarming speed. Upon hearing Elian’s words, he nodded his head and simultaneously finished some more food.

Eloise simply held her lobster and squatted down on the floor to continue eating. Anyway, didn’t those criminals want her to obediently get down on the floor?

Eli set down his fork and knife, used a napkin to wipe his mouth, and then squatted next to Eloise.

Ezart impatiently grabbed a few drumsticks, and then sat on the floor and continued to eat.

At this time, about a dozen more criminals walked in, firing machine guns randomly. It did not take long until they got the situation under their control, and everyone was forced to crouch in the empty area in the center of the restaurant.

It all happened too fast, and even for someone who eats as fast as Daren, it was impossible to finish all the food on his plate. Since there were a few people who had not crouched yet, he had to hold his two large plates in his hands and hide his body among his friends as he worked hard to finish his food.

Although the atmosphere was tense and a lot of people began to sob quietly, there were still five people who didn’t show the slightest bit of anxiety, lowering their heads to eat in bitter silence.

“Maybe we won’t have to pay now,” Eli said wistfully.

“Oh!” Elian’s eyes suddenly shone. That meant he didn’t have to repay Eli either.

“Dar, give me some.”

Eloise finished her own lobster and finding herself still unsatisfied, turned to the side to ask for more from Daren, who was still holding two huge plates of food.

“Okay.” Daren readily tossed a crab over.

“I want some too.” Ezart reached out and unceremoniously took a piece of cake.

Eloise immediately glared at him, saying, “What’s a man eating cake for?”

“Strange, so only women can eat cake?” Ezart took a bite of cake, replying peevishly, “Then are you saying that Dar isn’t a man? He’s the one who got the cake.”

“That’s different! Dar’s so cute, he’s naturally suited to eating cate! You big porcupine-head, why are you eating cake?”

“You…”

“Silence!” the gun-bearing thugs roared.

Despite the warning, these five weren’t concerned one bit, but the people squatting next to them were afraid of being dragged down with them and thus glared at them. They also scolded, “Youths don’t know what’s good for them,” “Hurry and shut up,” etc. They were simply so fierce it was impossible to reconcile this with the previous image of them pitifully sobbing, so the five could only obediently close their mouths.

“What exactly do they want to do?” Elian secretly asked Eli.

“Terrorists only take hostages for money,” Eli responded lightly.

Elian laughed bitterly for a moment. “Then forget it, of course we’re not scared of them-- but there are too many bystanders here. If we start fighting now, some people might be hurt. Therefore, this situation should be left to the government to take care of. Let’s just be obedient hostages. I think they only want money and won’t kill the people here to get it.”

Eli nodded, saying lowly, “They just want to get the money and leave. They probably have no intention to kill.”

Upon hearing this, Elian felt even more rea.s.sured. He even had a “Terrorists, you did well, helping save me from such a large bill and even conveniently preventing Dar from going on a toy shopping spree” sentiment.

Daren ate about a plateful and felt a bit full, so he stopped eating. He gave the remaining half of the plate to Eli and Ezart to fight over.

“Waah! Wah…”

“Don’t cry, child, don’t cry! Don’t be afraid, Mom’s here.”

Daren turned around curiously. Crouching not far from him was a mother comforting the child holding her hand. Although tears still hung in from the corners of her eyes, she used a gentle voice to tell the child not to be afraid.

So this was...a mother? Daren examined the two curiously.

Perhaps the baby was able to sense the abnormal atmosphere, and cried on and on despite the cooing of the mother. It cried so hard that the once smiley face had turned red from all the effort.

One of the terrorists anxiously stared at the baby at first. Then as the baby cried and shouted louder and louder, he actually pointed his gun at the mother and her baby and screamed, “So darn annoying! Tell him to shut up, you hear me? Or I’ll shoot the both of you!”

In a panic, the mother hugged her child, her comforting turning to urging, “Child, darling, don’t cry, quickly stop crying!”

Don’t cry! Or else you will cause your mother’s death! Daren clenched his fist, desperately shouting in his heart.

The infant, however, only cried more loudly.

“b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” The agitated terrorist carried his gun and walked towards them, with a fierce look on his face.

Elian and her friends became alert with stern looks in their eyes.

“What are you doing? Don’t cause trouble!” Other thugs saw that something was wrong and hurriedly tried to stop him.

“It’s all right.”

Suddenly, one of the thugs opened his mouth, and all the other thugs quieted.

This was their leader, Daren decided.

The leader walked steadily towards the mother and the baby with a gentle smile on his face. He mildly scolded his confederates when he pa.s.sed them.“What’s with all this rage? This infant is quite cute!”

The leader walked in front of the mother and reached out his hand to tease the little infant. The infant actually stopped crying, curiously looking at this stranger.

The leader reached out and tried to cuddle the baby. Confused, the mother was not sure what to do at first, but she seemed a little bit more relieved when she saw the smile on his face. Without her realizing, the child was in the terrorist leader’s arm. Holding the baby, he leader cooed and rocked the baby as he walked towards the window.

Daren didn’t relax one bit. He thought, to become the leader of these vicious thugs, this person definitely isn’t some infant-loving good guy.

“Isn’t the sky outside pretty?” the leader asked the infant, smiling. The infant giggled.

Danger! Daren’s mental alarms went off, and he instinctively positioned himself to react to the slightest sign of danger.

The leader broke the window in one shot, grabbed the baby with one hand, and stuck it outside...

The mother froze, stunned, seeming to not understand what had just happened.

Even the criminals were speechless at their leader’s confusing actions.

“Time’s almost up, so I’m taking this chance to remind the people below that the things should be ready.”

The infant!

Daren watched as the infant was about to be dropped out the window. At this time, however, the microchip warned him not to move. Going to save the infant would alarm all the criminals and lead to greater casualties. Sacrificing the infant to wait for the best time to intercede would save a lot more people.

Besides, at this alt.i.tude, he would have to reveal his steel wings to save the infant. At this moment there were too many reporters outside and he would be photographed, thus violating the master’s orders.

The microchip reasoned it out very completely. Not saving the infant was the best choice.

At this point, the leader let go. The infant cried out “waah” once.

“My child!” the mother shouted hoa.r.s.ely.

Daren moved. He quickly rushed to the window, so quickly that the leader didn’t even have time to react before he’d already jumped out to follow.

After Daren hugged the baby, they began to feel the power of gravity. The steel wings’ activation would still take a few seconds. He needed to buy some time. He immediately inserted his right hand into the department store’s wall.

However, he was too heavy. This bit of support wasn’t enough to allow him to stop and couldn’t even decrease the speed by much. He also had to adhere his soles to the wall, and then, finally the rate of falling began to decrease.

Gunfire!

Daren heard it suddenly. Although there was only one shot, he heard the gunfire from the place he was before. Surely it wasn’t because of his reckless behaviour, right?

Ezart, Elian-ge, and the others were still upstairs!

He was very anxious, feeling that even the Steel Wing’s flight was too slow, so he simply began to run up the wall, instantly returning to the roof.

From the transparent window he could see Elian in front of the infant’s mother, waving his light sabres to block the terrorist’s bullets. Standing next to Elian, Ezart and Eloise also had weapons raised. Eli supported the heartbroken mother.

However, the terrorists had a lot of hostages in their hands. They pointed their guns at the other people, wanting to stop Elian and the others.

Seeing this, Daren’s heart jolted. Placing the infant under his tight s.h.i.+rt and protecting its life securely, he shattered the window.

At this time, all of the gunshots were concentrated on Daren Solaris, but he used the copper steel wings to block most of the bullets and dodged some of the others. Only a few grazed his body, but the harm caused was not substantial.

“Daren says,  ‘Quick! Take the opportunity to defeat them,’” Eli whispered to the others.

Elian immediately said, “Ezart, the five on the left; Eloise and Eli, the three on the right.”

Once Ezart heard “five on the left,” he promptly charged toward them. Eloise and Eli had rushed out at the same time as Ezart. Although Elian’s directions hadn’t left his mouth yet, it didn’t matter. Without a doubt, thoughts are faster than words, and Eli had long been “listening” to Elian’s instructions the whole time.

Their speed was so fast that by the time the terrorists reacted, the three had already taken out two of the enemy.

Elian was a dual-wielder, a blade in both his left hand and his right, cutting off two enemies’ right hands. As they were injured, their guns naturally fell to the ground, and they also collapsed and wailed incessantly.

Ezart used his fist to send a guy flying, who then knocked into one of his comrades and sent him flying as well.

Because Eloise had come out to go shopping and hadn’t brought her meteor mallet, she could only mimic Ezart and use her fists to resolve everything. With one blow, she made one person crash through the restaurant’s gla.s.s screen and continue to fly back through the restaurant’s gla.s.s door. He then fell to the floor, unable to make a single sound.

Eli silently appeared behind a terrorist, and then silently stabbed a knife into his body and just as noiselessly returned to Eloise’s side.

Although the terrorists were able to realize what was happening when their companions were pummeled down one after another, they still directed their attention to these more-terrible-than-terrorists guys.

Even though they had machine guns in their hands, they were not able to do anything about the team. One by one, the terrorists were defeated.

“Attack the hostages!” The leader, seeing that the situation had gone wrong, immediately shouted.

The terrorists immediately pointed their guns at the crowd, who panicked and screamed at once. Rounds of gunshot echoed in the restaurant, and everyone in the crowd thought they were dead for sure… However, they did not feel any pain after the gun had fired.

They raised their heads and looked up.

A huge silver wing covered them all. Under the wing, a young boy with his face hidden faced them, and blocked all the attacks for them.

“Waah!” The baby was startled by the gunshot and started crying.

“My baby!” exclaimed the mother. She ran to the silver-haired youth and faced him, both terrified and with hope in her eyes.

Daren took the baby out from his clothes, and handed it to the mother. On seeing its mother the baby stopped crying, and crawled eagerly into her embrace.

“Child! Oh, my child!”

The mother looked at her child, unharmed, with teary eyes. Then she looked up at the young boy. The fear in her eyes had vanished, and grat.i.tude and tenderness was all that was left. She spoke softly, “Thank you! Thank you…angel.”

Her voice was all too soft and gentle, nearly inaudible in this mess of a gunfight. Yet Daren heard her particularly well. That “angel”...did that referr to him? To think a mother would actually call him an angel...

“Dark Sun!”

Elian’s frustrated voice finally snapped him out of his trance. Only then did he realize that Elian was standing behind him and blocking bullets for him using his light sabres.

Daren turned around and looked at the situation. The terrorists should not have been a match for them, but they were constantly forced to stop their a.s.saults and protect the hostages to keep them safe.

Seeing this, Daren retracted his wings. Although the wings were good for blocking all the bullets, its gigantic size would make him clumsy. Also since the liquid metal that formed the wings was coming from his limbs, his bones would become weaker when he had his wings out.

“Elian-ge, hang in there.”

“Huh?” Elian fell dumb for a moment, his twin light sabres still spinning to parry the bullets shot at him, scattering them everywhere.

“Plasma strands, activate!”