Glock Glock

Sam was shocked by what he saw; the person he had pointed his gun at was just a child. He couldn't believe that there was a child here and had to compose himself the moment he saw him. The child looked terrified, who was no more than seven years old.

"Hey kid, what are you doing here?" Sam questioned the moment he saw the child, putting away his gun in an effort to calm him down.

The kid remained mute, and eventually, Jason walked into the room. He noticed the child and looked around. There was no way that this child could have survived on his own, but there was no one else here.

"Sam! What are you doing?" Jason asked as he saw Sam's gun hidden behind his back, as if he was about to harm the kid, but that wasn't the case.

"Nothing, nothing… I was just asking our little friend here if he was alone," Sam said with a smile, but he had noticed that the shoes responsible for the mud weren't the same as the ones the boy was wearing. They were the shoes of an adult, not a minor, but Jason knew they couldn't let down their guard, even though he was a kid.

[Ding!]

[Side Quest Received!]

[Eliminate The Child!]

"Wait…!" Jason involuntarily blurted out, prompting everyone to look at him because this was out of the blue.

"There's no way I'm killing a kid!" Jason thought to himself because he knew if he did this, he would never get over it. It would haunt his conscience for a very long time. He was ready to accept whatever penalty came, as this was where he drew the line.

[Penalty: Player Will Lose An Eye!]

Now this was something that Jason didn't expect; he thought it would be another stat-related penalty, and that was something he could live with, but losing an eye was far too extreme.

Jason didn't know why Chronos was asking him to do something so sick, but he couldn't do it.

"H-Hey kid! Take off your clothes," Jason said, with Sam looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Not that, you sicko! I want to see if he's infected! The zombies outside are fresh. What if he ran here and they followed him? What if they were once together?" Jason presented a very good point that Sam couldn't ignore.

"There's also a chance that they brought the child here and sealed him inside to protect him from themselves, if they were infected, that is. They saved the child before they died," Sam said, presenting another plausible theory.

The child was staring blankly at them, and it made Jason uneasy because the child was looking at him as if he knew what Chronos had just told him.

"Hey kid! I said strip!" Jason threatened, and the frightened child obeyed the moment he heard how hostile Jason was.

"Yo, take it easy," Sam tried to calm Jason down because this was a tad bit too extreme for a child, but he also knew that time was against them. They needed to return as soon as possible, but Sam didn't know why Jason was suddenly erratic. However, he knew he couldn't leave him alone with the child.

The child was done stripping, and Jason checked him for marks, but there were none; his skin was flawless. Sam heaved a sigh of relief, but he noticed that Jason looked disappointed with this outcome because if the child was infected, Jason could kill him without burdening his conscience, but that possibility was now out of the window.

Jason soon heard a clicking sound and turned to see Sam pointing his gun right at him.

"Stand down, Jason," Sam commanded, but Jason couldn't believe Sam's audacity. How dare he point a gun at him?

"Sam, put your gun down, don't do anything stupid," Jason responded, and the only reason he remained collected was that he knew Sam would never pull the trigger. He wasn't that kind of person, and he wasn't capable of killing him in cold blood.

But was Jason wrong? X did order the extermination of citizens that pushed against the barricade, so Jason didn't know these people nearly as well as he thought he did.

"Jason, I will not ask again," Sam warned, but Jason couldn't believe that this was happening. However, he also had no intention of losing an eye. He was thinking and thinking, but he decided that if he had to kill the child to save his skin, he would do so, even if it eats away at him. Jason just needed to lie to himself well enough for him to do this. He told himself that killing the child would save them, but this delusion wasn't enough to strengthen his resolve because he had the chance to think about it and realized it was absolute bullshit.

Jason waited to see if Chronos would give him an option that could potentially maneuver him out of this situation , but there was nothing that could be done, and Jason also realized that he didn't have any EXP to even buy a skill should it be made available. Leveling up reset his EXP, but luckily, he had allocated his stats just before the mission. This included his dexterity, but he also knew that he was no match for Sam. The fact that Chronos couldn't even display it further supported this.

"Fine…" Jason conceded as he took a step back, and Sam lowered his gun at the same time.

"I don't know what has gotten into you, but now isn't the time to play good cop, bad cop…" Sam reminded Jason, but both men soon heard a gun cock behind them. This was undoubtedly the sound of a shotgun, and Sam picked up on it as he could tell them apart.

"You should listen to your friend," a masculine voice said, and Jason caught a case of Deja Vu.

"Not again," Jason muttered to himself as both he and Sam dropped their weapons.

"Don't tell me this is how I die?" Jason thought to himself.