151 The Thief

Standing on the window's ledge, she looked somewhat like spiderman. The first thing she heard as she stepped out were the screams of pleasure and pain coming from their neighboring rooms. Aida frowned in disapproval.

Artie's voice sounded in her head, his voice sounded mechanical, "Mama why are they yelling?" He had been trained by Xiao Ai to call Aida Mama as well. Xiao Ai spent a whole week with Artie travelling through the internet, teaching him the ropes and how to protect himself. They had become closer than ever. Every time Aida went to check in on the two, they would be giggling and whispering to each other on the side, clearly conspiring.

Going back to the current situation, Aida could only chuckle awkwardly at his question before saying, "They're doing adult things, don't bother with them. You'll learn when you're older."

Artie responded with a bland "oh" before quieting down. Aida could only smile awkwardly, was it already time for her to teach her kids about the birds and the bees. She was somewhat relieved to see that Xiao Ai had intentionally censored a lot of information from Artie and allowed him to remain cute and innocent.

Shaking the thought from her head, she quietly climbed up from her second floor balcony all the way up to the roof which was on the 30th floor. The wind whistled past her ears and she finally felt like she could breathe again. This entire base gave her a sense of disgust and anger as it was filled with negativity.

Looking from her vantage point on the roof, she saw that there were numerous buildings that still had their lights on. Each of them had very "interesting" activities going on in there. She even began to wonder if everyone here just enjoyed voyeurism.

With Artie's help, they had successfully mapped out the entire base so now it was time for her to take a closer look. She silently climbed down and began checking each building systematically. Everywhere she went was a scene of depravity. Men could be seen forcing themselves on others, used syringes were strewn across the streets, and people could be seen openly snorting powders.

It was clear that this base would require a deep cleansing in order to bring order back. This type of behavior may allow for better control over the people in the short term, but it wasn't sustainable. She could only imagine what would happen once their drug supply was used up, those people would surely revolt.

With Artie's help, she scanned the base for strong Variants. Wherever the stronger ones were likely where they hid the more important items like gems and food. It would be useful information for if she did end up having a falling out with the base.

To her surprise, the overall strength of this base was higher than the previous bases they had encountered. This indicated that they had successfully discovered the use of gems. None of them were close to breaking through to level 2 yet. Despite their overall strength being higher, she could see a clear disparity in strength between the people living in the hotels and the rest of the people living on the streets. The hierarchy and discrimination against "useless" powers was very obvious.

After scouting the entire base and identifying where all the important locations were, she headed back to the hotel room the others were staying at. Even though they were both level 2, Aida still didn't feel comfortable with being away for too long in this dangerous and foreign environment.

As she made her way back into the room, she saw that there were marks of a fight with certain parts of the wall burnt while other parts were frozen. Raising an eyebrow, she asked, "What happened here?"

Rose looked down with frustration while Little White simply stared uncomprehendingly at Aida. Xiao Ai, being the only one able to speak, rushed towards her and explained with grievance, "Mama! A thief came and stole all the food from Bro Light."

"WHAT?!" Aida jumped up and was incensed. "Who dares touch our food supply?"

The other two were surprised by Aida's extreme reaction, but Xiao Ai had long expected it. Her Mama was a foodie through and through, touching her food was her bottom line. She secretly laughed while thinking, 'Hehe, baddie thief, you're in trouble now.'

"He seems to have the ability to walk through walls. He walked in here and took the food while we were slee…. uh studying," Xiao Ai quickly corrected herself. "We were very very focused on studying so didn't notice until the last minute."

"When we did, Xiao Ai immediately threw electricity at him which made him freeze for a moment. Then Sis Rose threw ice at him, but he allowed himself to fall through the walls and managed to escape. We could have chased him but Mama told us to stay in the room so we didn't."

Hearing Xiao Ai's explanation, she understood what had happened. She was still mildly surprised that anyone could get away from a level 2 Variant and a level 2 Reaper, it clearly indicated the ability of this thief.

Patting each of them, she calmed down and said, "It's okay, this just means we have to aim to leave sooner. We will be leaving soon and meeting back up with Light. Then we will have good food to eat again."

Aida said this but she was inwardly plotting how to get revenge for the tasty food she no longer got to eat. She was extremely petty when it came to her food.