Chapter 16: Welcome Back From Hell, Sister

Summer nodded right away. "More than ready."

After getting her answer, Archer opened a spatial portal in front of them. He took her hand and led her through it.

[Nooo summer don’t leave us T_T]

[Wait, doesn’t the stream automatically end when she leaves the zone?]

[Yep. we’re about to get kicked out lmao]

[finally. i’ve been watching this for six hours. i need to shower.]

[then go shower??? nobody forced you to stay!]

[I came here to watch an F-Rank guide die and somehow stayed for Archer.]

[Same but I stayed because Summer is funny.]

[Summer please... don’t leave us too soon!]

Summer glanced at the comments and almost laughed, but she continued walking toward the portal.

The moment Summer stepped through the portal, everything around her changed.

The ruined streets, abandoned buildings, and gray sky of Polluted Zone 87 disappeared in an instant. Instead, Summer found herself standing inside the Sentinel and Guide Association Headquarters.

Bright white lights shone above her, and the clean floor beneath her feet almost felt strange after spending so many hours walking through dirt, blood, and broken buildings.

Summer had barely gotten the chance to look around when her terminal suddenly vibrated.

Bzzzt!

A large holographic notification appeared in front of her.

[Welcome to the Zone 87 Headquarters!]

[Mission Completed!]

[Mission: Clear Polluted Zone 87]

[Congratulations on getting out alive, Summer Beaumont!]

[Total Earnings: 7,413,870 Credits]

[Processing currency conversion...]

[Ding! Ding!]

[Bank Balance: $741,387]

Damn it! She had thought that one credit was equal to one dollar. But apparently, ten credits were only worth one dollar.

Summer actually had this information somewhere in the original owner’s memories. She had seen it before, but there were so many memories inside her head that she had pushed this tiny detail aside and completely forgotten about it.

For the past several hours, she had been happily calculating everything as if every single credit was worth one dollar and now her seven million had suddenly become seven hundred thousand.

It was still a huge amount of money, of course.

But somehow, Summer still felt like she had just lost ninety percent of her fortune.

"Welcome back, Mr. Archer Reed!"

A woman in a neat white uniform quickly walked toward them. The moment she saw Archer, a bright and professional smile appeared on her face.

"How was the mission today, sir?"

"The same as usual," Archer replied casually.

Zoey, according to the name tag on her uniform, felt the corner of her eye twitch at how cold his answer was. However, she immediately kept her professional smile.

She was about to say something else when she finally noticed that there was another person standing beside Archer.

That alone was strange.

Zoey had worked at the Association long enough to know that Archer Reed always entered Polluted Zones alone and he did not have a permanent team for a few years back.

Zoey quietly lowered her eyes to the tablet in her hands and pulled up Summer’s information.

[Name: Summer Beaumont]

[Age: 25]

[Rank: F-Rank Guide (ERROR)]

Zoey’s eyebrows immediately rose. F-Rank?

Her gaze slowly moved from the tablet to Summer then back to the tablet, and went to Archer.

"Is there any problem?" Summer asked when Zoey kept looking at her with a strange expression. "I’ve already transferred ten percent of the earnings to Mr. Reed, and he agreed to give me all the credits from the Energy Cells. Is there something I missed?"

Zoey almost choked on her saliva when she realized that Archer Reed had formed a team with an F-Rank Guide.

Even more shocking, when she checked their data, she found out that Summer had successfully guided Archer once, with their compatibility reaching 96%.

Zoey’s professional smile finally cracked. "You..." She looked at Summer, then at Archer, and then back at Summer. "You guided Mr. Reed?"

Summer became even more confused. "Yes?"

As far as she knew, that was literally her job.

Zoey looked at Archer as if waiting for him to correct her, but he did not.

Instead, Archer calmly confirmed, "She did."

Zoey nearly dropped her tablet. She had not watched Summer’s livestream, so she had absolutely no idea what had happened inside Polluted Zone 87.

All she knew was that Archer Reed, the SSS-Rank Sentinel who always went into Polluted Zones alone, had suddenly returned with an F-Rank Guide.

Before Zoey could even begin to process that information, several Sentinels and Guides who had just returned from their own missions walked into the headquarters.

Unlike Zoey, some of them had clearly been keeping up with BeastNet.

One of the Guides suddenly stopped walking and said, "Shit! That’s Summer Beaumont! She really came back with Archer!"

Another Guide looked over, and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. "Damn it! How can she guide him? I took a compatibility test with Archer back then, and do you know what I got?"

She held up nine fingers. "Nine percent! Just nine! Even my grandmother has more teeth than that!"

Summer almost hissed inwardly. Nine percent? She had not even known someone could have such terrible compatibility with Archer.

But then Summer glanced at the expressionless man standing beside her.

Well... considering Archer’s personality, maybe nine percent was not that surprising after all.

Summer quickly pushed the thought aside and turned back to Zoey. "Anyway, Zoey, right?" She asked. "My system told me to have my rank reevaluated at the Guide Association Headquarters. Can I do it here?"

Zoey stared at her for another second. "Y-Yes."

She quickly cleared her throat and tried to pull herself together. "Yes, of course. You can do the reevaluation here," she said, finally sounding professional again. "But there are a few documents you need to fill out first."

She tapped something on her tablet, and several forms immediately appeared on the screen. "Also, since you and Mr. Reed just returned from a Polluted Zone, both of you need to go through a health examination before we can process anything else."

Summer nodded. That made sense.

"Where do I go?" she asked.

Zoey pointed toward a hallway on the other side of the lobby. "Medical examination rooms are down that hall. You can fill out the forms while you wait."

"Alright. Thank you."

Summer turned around and was about to walk toward the hallway when the main doors of the headquarters suddenly slid open.

She did not pay much attention at first since Sentinels and Guides had been coming and going ever since she arrived.

However, when she looked at the person more closely, she realized that the person was familiar to her.

Winter.

She had just walked through the door, or perhaps saying that she had walked in was too generous. Actually, she was barely dragging herself forward.

Her clothes were covered in blood and dirt, and there were dried streaks of blood across her face. One side of her uniform had been torn open, while several wounds could still be seen underneath.

Worse, one of Winter’s legs was clearly broken. She could barely put any weight on it, forcing her to drag it behind her with every painful step.

Her arms hung weakly at her sides as if she no longer had enough strength to lift them.

Winter swallowed hard, her breathing heavy as her eyes met Summer’s.

The difference between them could not have been more obvious.

Winter looked like she had barely crawled out of hell. Summer, meanwhile, looked like she had just returned from a vacation instead of the exact same Polluted Zone.

Summer’s eyes slowly moved over Winter from head to toe and then, instead of showing even the slightest concern, the corners of her lips slowly curved into a smile. "Welcome back, Sister."

Summer tilted her head, her rabbit ears following the movement as she looked at Winter’s terrible condition. "How was your little vacation there?"