chapter 17

"So tell me, Leonard- is this your plan?" Ryuji stared at the magnificent city right before his eyes, which resembled a bustling metropolis back on Earth where businesses and the economy were booming and exploded, rich and prosperous with skyscrapers reaching toward the very heaven itself.

"Oh yeah, definitely- I'm the one who came up with this plan and all of it credits shall go to me- and me alone, no one else." Leonard declared proudly.

"You mean bringing us into the heart of enemy territory?" Ryuji eye was twitching as he looked at his great "grandchild" before him.

"What do you mean by enemies? I haven't made enemy off of these people...not yet anyway." he purposely muttered the last three words in a low quiet tone, but it seems like the people in the group manages to pick up on it and cold sweat was rolling out.

"How are we going to get in? From here, the security looks very tight." Roger told them as he pulled down the binocular from his face as he pointed toward the distant, armed soldiers and vehicles were patrolling the checkpoint at a regular interval.

"That's for you guys to figure it out, if we were to go with you, it will certainly raise the alarm as based on military laws, we will be marked down as Deserters- and let me tell you… being marked as a deserter is not something to be joked about." the militant leader raised a point.

"Then how are we suppose to enter? The last thing we want is to be shredded to pieces in a storm of bullets- knowing that Leonard here might be fine, but what about us "regular" folks?"

Ryuji questioned the militants' group as he glanced at Leonard.

"Regular folk my ass… tell that to how you managed to survive in contaminated airs and punching a mutated beast to death with your bare-fist just a few days ago." one of the militant crew said in a low and sarcastic tone to which only his nearby comrade and Leonard manages to pick up on into.

The journey toward the territory controlled by the Central Government took Leonard and the other roughly almost three days to arrived, during those time in between, a lot of things managed to happened- the first was Ryuji little display of power- despite his appearances, he found out that Ryuji was quite strong for a spirit in a human body, albeit not as strong as himself currently- however, he is strong enough to rival any rank-eight experts, back in his homeworld.

Ryuji did comment privately that in his current situation his power was weakened considerably unlike himself during his prime when he was still "alive".

But he was strong enough to get most things done within this world, first is to resist the intense dosage of contamination that would definitely caused problem for regular a human and immense bodily power, demonstrated through shattering the skull of a bipedal mutated crocodile-like lizard which the people of this world named "Death Claw", Ryuji wrestled with that thing as an equal.

An action which caused the entire group- other than Leonard to questioned the world, that was a lie- Leonard too, questioned the reality of the world as he could not imagine someone with the appearance of Astolfo to be wrestling with a "Death Claw" on the group and beat it into a bloody pulp with his bare hands.

"Appearances can be deceitful, who would guess that a whimpy coward like this little ancestor here had it in him to pulled off that kind of stunt." Leonard inner chibi let out a long sigh as he remembered the scene of Ryuji going berserk.

"I don't think you should worry too much about being shredded to pieces by bullets, the soldiers at the checkpoint should be able to process you into the city, as it was one of their duty to do so- manpower is a very valuable resource in the apocalypse you know, without manpower, there is no civilization to be built." the militant leader told them.

"That's good to know, so we can just march right in?" Jeanne asked.

"Yeah, something like that, they are told to make it as less complicated as possible for new people that would join the Central Government." the militant leader told.

"Don't they afraid of spies and other undisclosed "threat" if they do that?" Ryuji asked- and once again, he shifted his gaze toward Leonard who was whistling without a care in the world as he peered through his binoculars.

"The Central Government has it own ways on how to deal with these type of situation, trust me, people are stupid enough to tried and pulled that shit- and let just say that it was quite a grand display when they got caught within the first twenty-four hours and got turned into public entertainment in the form of a grand public execution… they're pretty competent in that matter." the militant leader added in a fearful tone.

"They made execution publics?" those words caused some eyebrows to be raised.

"You haven't seemed nothing yet, it's not your average everyday bullet in the head or firing squad- the Central Government showcased their execution in style…" his voice began to dropped as he continued to explain.

"What grand style? Mind give me a few examples?" Leonard was now interested in the conversation, he asked for more details.

"Absolute- a good example is through gladiatorial games on a good day, other time, well- they either go flamethrower or grenade launcher to finish the job," he explained.

Roger and his group, along with Jeanne and Ryuji faces were displaying the scene or sheer terror as they comprehend the militant leader words.

"We're so dead." one mutter.

"That's just barbaric" another one added in.

"I'm starting to like these guys…" Leonard words were unexpected and out of the ordinary compared to what the others were saying as so was his reaction to the situation, he had a face filled with expectation- a great expectation for what's going to happen next.

"Alright then, you guys go ahead...we...be sticking somewhere else- where it's safe…" the militant leader stuttered the words from his sentence.

"Hmm? Fine… keep on an eye on my pet while you're at it." Leonard replied back, he wasn't worrying too much about these group of people from escaping and rat him out later, as he kept a pack of Cerberus's to watch over them for the duration of "his" group stay within the city controlled by the Central Government, if there was any suspicious move, they're as good as food for the pack vicious- yet cute canines.

"Uh...alright… we will do that." he looked at Leonard as he felt an immense threatening presence from behind his back, he- no, THEY knew that the "pets" that belonged to Leonard secretly grinned deep inside, they couldn't wait for his group of militant to do something stupid- for it will give these mutated animals an excuse to shred them to pieces.

"Alright, let go, I want to check out what this "civilization" has to offer," Leonard exclaimed excitedly as he pointed toward the distant horizon with his index finger.

"Guys...it's good knowing you all, I have a feeling that this won't end well for any of us here," Ryuji commented in a dejected tone as he heard Leonard little outburst every time they encountered something new, be it harmless or outright hazardous, in this case- marching toward a regime that ruled it people with an iron fist and like to do public execution, in a very creative and- progressive manner.

"Oh come on, my little ancestor, it won't be that bad… probably, it's not like I'm going to start making enemies left and right the moment I set foot into the city." Leonard retorted back.

*****

Unbeknownst to Leonard and his group, from afar- a silhouette clad in grayish steel and with "eyes" glowing bright gold were spying on them.

"Target...discovered, began calculating capturing procedure," it spoke in a cold metallic voice as it spying on Leonard from kilometers away on top of a tall tree.

Below that tree was littered with corpses of different mutated species covered in dried up black blood.