I am a female swordsman.

………………

"That was a really brutal cut... All the ribs on the right side are fractured, and a few bone fragments have pierced into the lung... It makes almost no difference whether they're pierced or not; the right lung is practically torn apart... But it's not a big problem; repairing it with biomaterials is perfectly fine. First, we need to clean the wound; the burned and necrotic tissue must be removed..."

Huang Quan's muttering almost scared Zack out of his wits, especially after learning that Huang Quan was a quack doctor with no medical experience whatsoever.

But Huang Quan's skillful manipulation of the human body quickly made Zack obediently shut his mouth.

Cleaning and injecting different types of biomaterials, her wrist remained as steady as a mountain. Using the onboard medical instruments, she swiftly removed broken bone spurs; throughout the process, her hands moved like butterflies flitting among flowers, her precision and efficiency impeccable.

In this extremely dangerous situation, where a single stab could potentially freeze a blood vessel in Sith and cause him to spurt out, Mado Yomi still had the extra energy to chat with Zack.

While Zack wasn't fully aware of Yomi Mado's identity, he had already gotten a pretty good idea of ​​his own. Fortunately, Zack was smart enough not to reveal the whole truth.

Hmm, life is truly amazing...

Huang Quan was speechless at the thought of his employees causing trouble. Z City was a ghost town, and the land of an entire city had been abandoned. Couldn't they use their brains to think about why?

No matter what, this used to be a city!

In modern times, the economic impact of a city is at least astronomical, representing the stable lives of hundreds of thousands of people. To abandon it means that the danger involved far exceeds that number! Of course, Huang Quan's occasional creations to amuse himself before discarding them also deserve credit!

Young people these days, they really know how to court death.

"Dr. Mado, is Cisner alright?" It wasn't until Huang Quan took off her mask and stepped off the lab table more than three hours later that Zack dared to stop her and ask.

During this anxious wait, Zack took the opportunity to send a private message to Cloud, telling him not to come over.

This communication, which should have been submerged in the vast sea of ​​data, was detected by the system because it took place in Huang Quan's private domain. The system promptly captured a screenshot as a log for the host to review later. This screenshot even unearthed Zack's past communication records, and Huang Quan's expression when he sees these later will surely be quite interesting.

"Don't worry, the first aid measures were very thorough, and the materials I used afterwards were also of high quality. Unless she gets slashed again, she can't possibly die."

And you'd be hit by a giant's blade.

It's important to know that Huang Quan used biological healing materials cultivated with the flesh and blood of the demon Garoa. Their healing and regeneration abilities were visible to the naked eye; in fact, they could regenerate and multiply infinitely as long as there was energy. Although the effects weren't as exaggerated as the original, it was still a life-saving, miraculous material!

According to Huang Quan's plan, this thing will be developed in the direction of reducing rejection and enhancing regeneration and proliferation. After several or dozens of generations of elimination, it will be able to produce an emergency medical spray.

It can heal 99% of any physical injury with just one spray. If humans had this, they could basically defy the heavens. They might even be able to solve the problem of lifespan along with it.

"Mr. Mato, are you done with your work?"

Before he could even exchange two words with Zack, Saitama's slightly embarrassed voice came from outside. He was also feeling uneasy; he had carelessly smashed Mado Yomi's toys to pieces, which was far too much for his old neighbor, and he needed to apologize to her in person.

Chapter 86 The Remaining Person

The quack doctor Huang Quan's medical skills were barely trustworthy, and the reason she saved people was, as Saitama knew, entirely out of interest.

"Mr. Mado, I think I took your toy figure apart."

Saitama looked rather distressed, and after shouting "Yomi," his eyes seemed to roll back like a dead fish. It wasn't just demolished; it was practically blown to bits!

He's currently unemployed, occasionally taking on roles as a hero out of pure interest—a job with virtually no income. His monthly earnings are barely enough to make ends meet, and he lives frugally. Meanwhile, someone like Huang Quan, who clearly has plenty of money, could make Saitama freeze at the cost of a single Giant Warrior figure.

If Huang Quan were to lose his temper and demand compensation from Saitama, there would be absolutely nothing that could be done.

"Toy figures?"

Huang Quan, caught off guard, looked on in disbelief, wondering when he had developed such a unique and unconventional hobby.

"It's the one you were welding on that big iron frame with the electric welder before."

With Saitama's gesturing explanation, Huang Quan finally understood what this figure was all about. Well, it was three meters tall, fully armed, and capable of single-handedly destroying a city. Huang Quan had created this thing to pass the time, haphazardly modifying it according to his own wild ideas. Finding it unreliable in combat, he tossed it into the Ghost City's laboratory, where it remained idle as a security force.

It doesn't seem like a big deal that one of them was dismantled.

"fine."

Yomi Mado, with her extravagant lifestyle, said she didn't care at all. After all, she was the one handling all the Shinra legacy in Z-City, so dismantling a mere Colossus was no big deal.

Having received a reply, Saitama finally breathed a sigh of relief and took his leave without lingering. Early to bed to avoid hair loss—Saitama had it firmly in mind. Watching his old neighbor depart, Huang Quan rested his chin on his hand, remarking that the hairline issue they'd joked about before was now slowly becoming a reality…

It would be absurd to say that Huang Quan was completely unaware of the massive battle that took place in the ghost city. With her strength, even without intention, she was well aware of the fluctuations of a large city.

The colossus went berserk, and Huang Quan did not stop it.

Sometimes, the monotony of daily life needs a little surprise to spice things up, and Huang Quan, who was going a bit crazy with her experiments every day, quite liked these unexpected events. So she didn't rush over to stop it immediately; she just wanted to see which unlucky guys had activated the Colossus.

The result was indeed somewhat unexpected for Huang Quan at the time.

The Giant Warrior was dismantled. In Ghost City, including Yomi, there are only about five beings capable of achieving this. Saitama is one, Yomi is one, and there are probably three more hidden underground monsters. Of course, even if you combine all the monsters in Ghost City, both overt and covert, they wouldn't be enough for Yomi to handle with one hand.

The current state of the Yellow Springs is quite intriguing.

Or perhaps I unconsciously switched my mindset, considering things from the perspective of the Shinra Chairman to see if there were any clues. After all these years, for Shinra employees to suddenly break the tranquility of the ghost town sounds like a coincidence, yet there are also signs of deliberate intent.

And this employee seems a bit disloyal...

………………

"Are you really an employee of the company?" Zack was a little skeptical, but the other party's explanation of Shinra's basic situation and the company's regulations was incredibly fluent; no one but an employee could do that.

"That's right, but not entirely. If we're talking about departments, I should be in human resources, but the people I serve aren't any senior executives in the company, but rather government members of parliament."

Mado Yomi's identity is indeed as described.

She has some connections to Shinra, some to government foundations, and some to the Hero Association—basically, she's everywhere, but not deeply involved. This gives Zack a basis for trusting Yomi, after all, she just saved their lives.

Sisner is still lying on the testing table, but his condition has stabilized, and he is expected to wake up in twelve hours.

Zack, on the other hand, almost ruined his wrist and suffered relatively severe internal bleeding.

He persevered and didn't give up because of his willpower!

It was Mado Yomi who noticed the groans beneath Zack's tough exterior and quickly tended to him, lest this tough guy collapse and become a corpse, making things even more complicated later. Faced with Zack's curiosity, Yomi organized her thoughts and, drawing on past events, slowly recounted the story from Mado Yomi's perspective.

"Back then, the company and the government consortium withdrew from Z City for some reasons. I also received the news of the withdrawal, but it was not a forced withdrawal."

As Huang Quan showed Zack around his workshop, his pale fingers occasionally brushed against the metal artifacts, their silvery-white color creating a strangely cruel beauty.

“I originally planned to leave with the company, but this place has a lot of significance to me, so I decided to stay since it wasn’t a mandatory evacuation. Actually, many people made the same choice as me in the early days. After all, it’s a place where we’ve lived for so many years, how could we just leave like that?”

"There are still company people in this city?" Zack was already somewhat numb.

"There shouldn't be any more, because the environment is getting worse and worse." Huang Quan shook her head. Not everyone has the power to make the environment adapt to her, and not everyone can use the company's leftover materials and laboratories at will.

Zack felt inexplicably relieved after hearing this.

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but look intently at this refined and unassuming woman. Don't misunderstand, Zack wasn't thinking about anything beyond friendship. Even if he was all brawn and no brains and not as shrewd as Cisner, he could still figure out one thing: why was Mado Yomi able to use the company's leftover resources and laboratories so easily?

This involves a permissions issue.

Ask any questions that come to mind!

Zack directly posed the question, to which Yomi Mado replied that because she had lived in the city for a long time, the autonomous AI had granted her many permissions in order to maintain operation in the absence of other employees.

Heaven can bear witness that she truly did not use any of the authority of the [Shinra Council Chairman] during this process.

To make the city more closely resemble the wasteland scenario, Huang Quan truly had no intention of interfering. However, fewer and fewer people were living in the ghost town, until today, only two people remained in the vast city… If the AIs weren't granted permissions soon, those minimally operational labs would probably crash on their own.

Zack's expression was complicated after hearing the explanation.

It's clear that if they want to do anything in the ghost town in the future, they can't get around this black-haired, red-eyed woman!

Chapter Eighty-Seven: Larvae

Zack didn't say he talked to Huang Quan for long either.

He understood the saying "the more you say, the more mistakes you make," and his intuition told Zack not to deal with this seemingly harmless and gentle woman too much. He'd wait until Cisner, the intelligent man, woke up from his coma before making any plans; he was just a reckless brute.

Zack tried to speak as little as possible, but Yomi Mado clearly showed considerable interest in him.

Any boss who sees an employee secretly plotting something will instinctively become curious and want to find out what's going on, and check if it's related to work.

Zack couldn't very well keep a cold face when faced with his savior's casual conversation.

Besides, he wasn't that kind of person, so he could only rack his brains to deal with Yomi Mado's questions. To be fair, Yomi's questions were very straightforward: what were they doing in Z City? Did the company have new plans? Did he plan to move out? But Zack's beast-like intuition always felt that behind these seemingly mundane questions, there was some huge pitfall waiting for him to foolishly jump into.

Although he was very careful and meticulous, he couldn't withstand Huang Quan's inhuman observational abilities.

It is very difficult for ordinary people to judge whether a person is lying.

However, experienced people can judge a speaker's emotions through micro-expressions, body language, and even changes in pupils and eyes. Going further afield, sensing the speaker's heartbeat, body temperature, breathing rate, and even emotional intuition and thought reading—methods bordering on the fantastical—can easily detect whether someone is lying.

Coincidentally, ever since Huang Quan's strength leaped to an inhuman level, the natural bodily reactions of ordinary people are like cells under a microscope in front of her, and basically nothing can hide from her.

Unless the other party's self-control over their body is at a level similar to Huang Quan's, it can be said that they have successfully deceived Huang Quan. Otherwise, any lie is a joke in the face of all-knowing observation!

"I had to come to Z City for some reason and didn't want the company to know. They're caught in a dilemma when I, their employee, ask them questions. This could be the prelude to becoming a traitor..."

Yomi Mado still wore a gentle smile, occasionally chatting with the absent-minded Zack beside her.

With her limited access, knowing what her employees have been up to recently would be incredibly easy.

"Mado, have you always lived here alone?" Looking at the cold, lifeless room, Zack suddenly blurted out this question for some reason.

Then he received a meaningful look from Yomi Mado.

Generally speaking, starting with this sentence is meant to spark discussion. Indeed, from a normal person's perspective, it's strange in itself that a single woman has lived in a ghost town for so long without moving.

"really."

Before Zack could ask any further questions, Huang Quan satisfied his curiosity.

“Because this city is not only where I used to live, but also where I have been waiting for a vow. That happened twenty years ago, and if it weren’t for your reminder, Zack, I would have almost forgotten how long I’ve waited.”

Twenty years!!

How many twenty-year periods does one have in a lifetime? For a normal person, five twenty-year periods is probably the limit. Yet Mado Yomi claims to have lived in this godforsaken place for twenty years, solely because of a vow. Zack finds this incredible. Therefore, he can't help but feel respect for Mado Yomi.

"Twenty years ago, I owed some people a debt of gratitude."

The catastrophe that occurred twenty years ago in the primitive regions of Europe nearly wiped out all of Shinra's employees. While pursuing ancient myths, the team encountered an Ultimate Star Species contaminated by Jenova cells. This was no ordinary calamity; it was a creature whose primary goal was to devour planets and evolve, striving to adapt to all environments in the universe, transforming its physical body into a nascent form of a freely adaptable world-being.

This evil god, known in the ocean of light, is called the Unspeakable Evil God!

This ultimate being plays celestial music that drives humans mad, polluting and destroying everything, yet it must be revived from the earth's veins, and it attempts to fly towards the Antarctic continent.

Huang Quan was not present immediately.

It was those employees, filled with a spirit of self-sacrifice, who, in the face of being contaminated, devoured, and slaughtered, used their extraordinary human will to delay the escape of the evil god's larva.

This precious time successfully delayed until the arrival of the Yellow Springs Sword.

As for the Yellow Springs and the evil god's larva, that's another matter. In short, most of these well-deserved human heroes are dead, and those who survived are either insane, crippled, or corrupted into monsters.