The corridor lights on the executive floor flickered as Neville sprinted through the passage. His footsteps muffled as the red emergency lighting bathed everything in an ominous crimson glow. It transformed the corridor into something out of a nightmare.

[Host, the control room has been taken over. The pilot crew is gone.] Shelly reported, understanding the gravity of the situation.

"Damn it." Neville cursed under his breath, pressing his back against the cold metal wall as he peered around the corner.

The intruders had not attempted to redirect the ship’s course, hadn’t made any demands, nor announced it. The navigation systems remained untouched, the communication arrays deliberately jammed rather than destroyed.

This didn’t look like a normal hijacking.

They were after something. Something specific.

"They’re after Grayson," Neville concluded.

Of course, they would go after the big boss. After all, Grayson had made a lot of enemies before and after the original timeline.

’Shelly, can you send a distress signal to Julius? He should be able to catch up quickly.’

[Attempting encrypted transmission... Signal sent, host. However, the response time is estimated at fifteen to twenty minutes. The jamming field is making long-range communication... a little complicated.]

Fifteen to twenty minutes? It’s better than nothing.

Neville moved carefully through the corridor when a peculiar smell hit him. He smelled something like this before. It was when the masked man freshly killed someone.

When he peered in the direction of the source of the smell, he saw two familiar faces, Julius’s men, lying crumpled on the ground.

They looked like discarded puppets with their uniforms stained, wet, and darkened. The emergency lighting made it impossible to distinguish the red from the shadows, but Neville didn’t need to see clearly to understand what had happened.

The guards Julius had left to protect them were dead.

"No..." he whispered in horror in the silent corridor.

Neville knelt beside the nearest guard and pressed two fingers against his neck. There was nothing, and his skin was already turning cold.

"What do we do now?"

Neville’s head snapped up at the voice.

Two figures emerged from the adjacent corridor. Tactical masks hid their faces, and their bodies were clad in matte black combat suits that absorbed the emergency lighting.

His heart stopped. ’Stealth Mode.’

[Activating Stealth Mode.]

Neville pressed himself into the shadows behind a support column, his breathing deliberately slow and shallow.

"Guard the corridor," the taller mercenary ordered, gesturing with a light pulse rifle that gleamed wickedly in the crimson glow. "The leader said that the target is secured, but there might be others. We can’t have others interfering with the mission."

"Copy that." The second mercenary moved to take position at the junction point with a light pulse rifle at hand.

Target secured.

They had to be talking about Grayson.

’Shelly,’ he breathed, deliberately slowed. ’I need equipment. Weapons.’

[Understood, host. Accessing the system mall. Recommended items for current tactical situation: combat knife, smoke grenades, and a—oh my, host, you’re actually going to do this, aren’t you? (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥`)]

’More weapons.’

[Transferring items to Inventory.]

Neville carefully extracted the combat knife. The weight felt wrong in his hand.

He had watched a few combat-related videos online, but he had never done it before. Watching and doing it were completely different. He had only brawl with pure strength rather than strategically.

Mechas were a different subject entirely. After all, he had a vast knowledge of different games and watched videos. Its operation was more in line with neurological than physical, really.

The first mercenary had moved further down the corridor, checking rooms. The second remained at his post, attention focused on the junction ahead. Neither of them had noticed the shadow detaching itself from behind them.

Neville moved.

One hand covered the mercenary’s mouth while the other drove the blade up and in, finding the gap between helmet and collar where armor gave way to vulnerable flesh. The man’s body seized, a muffled sound of surprise and pain trapped behind Neville’s palm.

Hot liquid spilled over his fingers. The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils, sharp and immediate and horrifyingly real.

Three seconds. That was how long it took for the struggle to stop.

Neville lowered the body to the ground with care that felt absurd given what he had just done. His hands were shaking. His stomach was churning. But his eyes remained fixed on the second mercenary, who turned after hearing the sound with a pulse rifle rising.

It seemed that the second kill would be messier.

Neville crossed the distance before the man could position his rifle. His knife flashed in an arc that opened the mercenary’s throat in a spray of crimson. The man’s finger twitched on the trigger, but the shot went wide, scorching a black line across the ceiling as he collapsed.

The corridor fell silent.

Neville stood over the bodies, breathing hard, blood dripping from the blade in his white-knuckled grip. His reflection stared back at him from the polished surface of the wall. It was an image of a stranger with hollow eyes and a face splattered with red.

"I killed them," he whispered. "I actually killed them."

[Host...]

"It really felt different to kill for the first time." His voice cracked.

Neville bent double, retching against the wall. Nothing came up, but his body heaved anyway, trying to expel something.

[Host, I’m so sorry. But you don’t have time for this. (╥﹏╥)]

Neville closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to steady. The nausea retreated—not gone, just pushed down.

"Tell Julius to hurry," he said, already moving to strip the gas mask from the nearest body. His fingers fumbled with the straps, still shaking, but he managed to secure it over his own face. "Give them our location in real time."

[Message Transmitted.]

He pulled the dead mercenary’s tactical vest over his clothes, adjusting the straps until it sat properly on his smaller frame. The gas mask hid his features, and in the dim emergency lighting, he might pass for one of the attackers at a casual glance.

"Time to crash the party," he muttered and set off.