Chapter 50: Disrespect

  As I approached the rusted metal door that separated the stairwell from the open roof, I began to hear voices interposed between the shrieks of the drone engines. I couldn't quite make out the words, but I did hear laughter and could tell there was a sense of joviality to whatever was being said.

  I briefly considered taking things slow and quiet so that I had a decent chance of sneaking up on whoever or whatever was out there. The roof of a block, even this supposedly smaller version, represented a square Li and had chimneys, raised parts, and weird spinning things I had no idea the purpose of. They might be few and far between, but there were things I could use to hide behind and set an ambush.

  I abandoned that plan about a second after finding the door to the roof locked, or jammed, or otherwise not opening when I pulled the lever-shaped handle downwards. Irritated, I growled and stomped a heavy kick onto that same handle. Something inside the door mechanism snapped, and it flew open with an echoing crash as the metal of the door slammed into the metal of the outside wall.

  Any possibility of stealth now well out of my reach, I instead strode out onto the roof like I owned the whole block. Which, as I am Lu Bu, and I was in residence there at the time, was functionally true. I conquer wherever I travel and rule wherever I reside.

  A fact that grew more and more true throughout my life. I wish you could have seen it. Once I was free of the shackles of 'restraint' that Ding Yuan insisted his adopted son must wear, it wasn't long before I was forcing armies to flee with my mere presence alone.

  The sight that greeted me atop the roof was a little surreal, and more than a little annoying. A pair of boys who were on the older side of being teens turned to face me as I strode through the door. Both could only be raindrops as they were heavily armored in what my HUD immediately identified as Evolution Suits. The closest to me was a bulky, blue and white painted affair that replicated the body of a large, muscular man. The light brown haired teen, whose head was popping out the top, revealed that he was quite a bit smaller than the armor suggested.

  [Class: Vault Keeper]

  [Level:4]

  [Evolution Suit: Beowulf Mark 14-Glacial edition]

  [Evolution Suit Level: 6]

  Hovered over his head. Diaochan could tell me this sort of information easily enough, but for some reason, she could never tell the subclass of people wearing Evolution Suits.

  The second raindrop's suit was black with four silver limbs protruding from its back. They were longer than he was tall and segmented. It was obvious that they were meant to evoke the idea of a spider's legs. Three of the legs were suspending the teenager while he sat cross-legged in the air, with the fourth curled beneath him to act as a chair. This Evolution Suit was a lot less bulky than his companion's, though what that meant for their respective strength levels I had no idea.

  [Class: Syntax Adept]

  [Level:4]

  [Evolution Suit: Anansie- Ungoliant Variant]

  [Evolution Suit Level: 5]

  This boy had the darkest skin I had ever seen, and his hair was a curly mass of similar darkness. It was unusual that there was no mark number next to the name of his suit, but I understood that these things were forged by different mercantile sects, the so-called 'corporations', and each 'corporation' had its own ways of doing these things.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  The paler boy in his Beowulf armor was idly playing with my spear a few feet away from his companion, and my pack of supplies was torn open and scattered around the pair of them. The pack, which I had purchased less than two hours ago. That was the annoying part.

  What made the scene surreal and confusing wasn't either of the teenage raindrops, but the ten or so scout drones, which were lined up next to each other and perfectly still. That was except for one pair of them, which were in the midst of…racing? It had to be that, they were neck and neck as both ran at breakneck speed directly towards the edge of the building as their engines screamed with the effort of going as fast as they possibly could.

  Within only a few seconds, they had reached their destination, that is to say, both charged heedlessly off the building's roof and plummeted to their inevitable destruction.

  "Ohh, number three takes the W," Said the darker-skinned boy with a shake of his head. "I really thought number six was going to win that one."

  "As much as I'd like to gloat and take more of your money." His friend replied in a quietly amused tone. "We have some company." The one in the spider suit turned his head to look at me with an expression I can only describe as disgust.

  "Hey there, Lowbie." He said with the same contempt I could see plastered all over his features. "This is a private party, so unless you are delivering the girls or the drinks, you can go right ahead and fuck off."

  His friend laughed at the words in a high-pitched tone that grated on my nerves almost as much as the arrogant dismissal from the boy still sitting in the air.

  "That is actually such a good idea." He said with a smile. "If I put in a call to those Yantra losers, I bet we can make them drop off some of the bitches from around here."

  The dark skinned boy's expression of disgust deepened at that suggestion.

  "I'm not putting my dick or my tongue anywhere near a girl from one of these lower tiers, this whole place is filthy, and you just know they have like diseases or parasites. If we are doing that, we need to bring our own sluts with us."

  I had kept striding towards the pair of them as this exchange took place, and I could see that their Evolution Suits were in much better states of repair than Fabio's. His lizardlike armor was all scratches and chipped paint; these two looked like they had come out of the forge yesterday.

  "Leave," I said with just the slightest touch of threat in my voice. "But not before you give me my spear, my supplies, and my drones."

  The white and blue armored boy looked at the spear he was idly tossing from armored hand to armored hand.

  "Oh, this garbage is yours? I'm basically doing you a favor by tossing it out for you." While he spoke, I reactivated Man Within Ogre, which had only two minutes left before the duration expired. The spear that the pale teen was playing with leaped into the air and flew the fifteen feet back to where it belonged in my hands.

  "Maybe I wasn't clear," I said out loud as I ignored Diaochan's frantic attempts to get me to flee. I had already let one event like this slide without retribution, and while that had already proven itself the correct move, I wasn't about to put up with this level of disrespect. They dared to speak to Lu Bu that way? Fabio might have poached my drones, but he had been apologetic and polite about it.

  These two had ruined my bag, scattered my supplies, and now that I looked closer, I could see they had drunk two of my bottles of wine! There was no possibility I was going to let this go. Diaochan wasn't in proximity mode and I hadn't allowed her to display herself in my vision, but her voice was still in my ears and information scrolling across my HUD.

  "Fuck off right now, or you will find yourself courting death like you woouldn't beleive."

  The dark skinned boy's class and Evolution Suit were more utility-based than those of a direct combatant. It didn't mean that he couldn't fight, but Diaochan was informing me that he had hacked the purple drone-beasts, and that was why they were acting as suicidal entertainment for the pair of raindrops.

  "Courting death?" The boy in the Beowulf armor repeated with another of his high-pitched laughs as he turned his head to look at his friend. "Get a load of Shakespeare over here."

  The raindrop in the Anansie armor snorted and raised both of his hands in gnarled claw shapes and began rapidly moving them like he was counting on a Suanpan. As he did, the image of six glowing red eyes flared before his face, obscuring the top half of his head.

  Which of course was the moment that the pack of ten drones split apart from their tightly packed line and began to lope on their clawed feet in all directions so that they could surround me, much as the metal beasts had done in the darkened parking garage at the base of the block.