Chapter 14 Processing

The group came to the lounge. The warden gave a few instructions and left, leaving only Han Xiao and the others in the room.

"The mission is complete, next is to deal with her."

Han Xiao tossed Sylvie onto a chair, gazing at the unconscious girl with a thoughtful expression.

"I let Sylvie know about her father's deeds. Referencing my past life's experiences, she should change… but it’s hard to say. First, Sylvie only learned the truth after years of war, and she was more mature at that age, with a stronger ability to adapt. Now she is still a child and may still hate me, or rebel and run away for a short time. Second, Langel was already dead in my past life, but he is still alive now, which has an unclear impact on her, but it's likely beneficial."

After thinking about it, Han Xiao decided to observe Sylvie's reaction before making a decision.

In his opinion, keeping Sylvie would naturally create greater value. A ready-made NPC resource, there was no reason to let her go. He even thought about carefully reviewing the employment history again in a while to see if there were any more opportunities to wait for a rabbit to come to him.

Han Xiao was about to reach out to wake Sylvie up when he suddenly remembered Meat Bun was next to him, so he stopped himself, took two steps back, and turned to Aroshia, "Wake her up."

Aroshia stepped forward and slapped Sylvie awake.

"Ugh… my face is so numb."

Sylvie opened her eyes, feeling her face was wooden and a little painful.

She glanced around blankly, saw Han Xiao, and subconsciously wanted to be angry, but suddenly remembered what had happened before she fainted. Her anger vanished, and she felt dejected, looking down at her toes with a look of despair.

She had thought her father was great, but the truth was that Langel was a traitor, a separatist. Even without Black Star, her father would have been defeated by other mercenaries sooner or later. On the contrary, because Han Xiao spared him, her father was able to live. Her hostility towards Han Xiao naturally disappeared.

If the target of her revenge was a traitor, even her own father, Sylvie felt that what she had done was wrong. Langel's end was self-inflicted, and there was no justice to be sought for him.

The glorious image of her father in her heart collapsed. Sylvie's feelings towards Langel became both complex and contradictory. She believed that her father's love for her was real, but what he had done was beyond her acceptance. Her father had been deceiving her all along, and of course she couldn't help but resent him.

As for whether Han Xiao had forced her father to say this, this doubt only flashed for a moment, because Han Xiao was being too obvious, very confident, and undisguised. A little thought would reveal it was impossible—she was just a little girl who had failed to assassinate him. Why would a mercenary group leader famous throughout the galaxy bother to deceive her? Han Xiao personally captured Langel. If he didn't know the true details of her father, why would he suddenly bring her here to question her father in person? Moreover, her father had told her in great detail, and the charges of treason, espionage, stealing secrets, leading the separatists, and so on were all true.

Perhaps when she was investigating before, she still had hope, thinking that those suspicious points were all framed charges against her father, but the originator himself told everything, shattering all her fantasies.

Sylvie looked at Han Xiao with complicated eyes. Although this mercenary leader had been scaring her along the way, his actions were truly helping her. After her father was captured, she experienced the warmth and coldness of human relationships. This kindness from a stranger caught her off guard and made her feel very guilty at the same time.

When the anger that burned her rationality subsided, she sincerely and earnestly said, "Thank you, you are a good person… and, I'm sorry, I'm really sorry…"

Han Xiao raised an eyebrow.

Yo, it seemed that the mind-reconstruction project was quite successful. As expected, the one who tied the bell must untie it.

"Our团长 (tuanzhang, leader) is known as the tender and caring Han the Technician, what do you think?" Meat Bun put his hands on his hips and laughed.

Han Xiao pretended not to hear and sized up Sylvie at this time.

The girl was no longer irritable, and looked a bit quiet and delicate. Having been captured for many days, she looked a bit disheveled, but the dust on her face couldn't hide the beauty of her features. As a popular character in the doujinshi (self-published works) world in his previous life, he could now see that Sylvie was a beauty in the making.

"I don't care about anything else for now. Tell me, which force helped you track my whereabouts?" Han Xiao asked in a deep voice.

Sylvie no longer concealed anything and told everything in detail.

"It's an organization that sells information called 'Mittal'. I took out some of my savings and asked them to pay attention to your whereabouts. I bought the information for this time. The shapeshifting ability user I hired was a freelance killer. He and I jointly formulated the assassination plan. The poison gas and poison liquid were all his things, but he has already been killed by you…"

Sylvie paused, suddenly realizing that Han Xiao had killed another person but spared her.

Was it because he knew her?

Speaking of this, she finally asked the doubts she had always had, "Why do you know me? Did my father tell you?"

"Just a coincidence."

Han Xiao brushed it off and thought about the Mittal intelligence organization.

Intelligence agencies are generally neutral in nature. If customers request information about certain people or forces they cannot afford to offend, they will refuse to sell it. Not provoking too powerful beings is an unwritten rule of intelligence agencies.

And in the eyes of the intelligence agencies, he was obviously not qualified enough. His boss, Ames, was the one they truly couldn't afford to offend.

To be honest, Han Xiao didn't like the feeling of being spied on, but there was no way around it for the time being. This was an unavoidable situation. To solve this problem, he could only strengthen himself, whether it was his strength, influence, or reputation. Only by making the intelligence agencies feel that he was an existence they couldn't afford to provoke would they not sell information about him to the outside world.

'I still need to keep working hard.'

Han Xiao kept this matter in mind, narrowed his eyes, and continued to ask, "What are your plans?"

Sylvie shook her head, looking lost.

Having suddenly lost her goal, she didn't know where to go. The Star Sea was so vast, but she had lost her direction.

"Father… although he is not a good person, he told me all the truth. Maybe he didn't want to burden me, and didn't want me to delay myself because of him. He wanted me to have my own life…"

After calming down, Sylvie understood some of her father's actions. This was to save her, otherwise, why would he want to actively destroy his image in his daughter's mind? Although she still had a knot in her heart, she had no choice but to accept reality. She said in a low voice, "The universe is so big, I should go to different places to see… I hope to find other things to persist in…"

"Want to leave?"

Han Xiao said expressionlessly, "Did I allow you to leave?"

Sylvie was stunned.

"The first rule of mercenaries—all work is paid for. My help is not free. Moreover, do you think the assassination attempt on me is just going to be forgotten like that? I'm in a good mood and don't want to kill you, but that doesn't mean you don't have to pay the price. You have to compensate for all my losses." Han Xiao crossed his arms and snorted coldly.

"I, I don't have money now…"

Sylvie looked embarrassed and fidgeted uncomfortably. She had used all her savings to organize this assassination operation. This was still the money Langel had left her, and she had basically spent it all.

"No money?" Han Xiao said expressionlessly, "Then repay with your body."

Sylvie's eyes suddenly widened, and her face flushed red, she stammered, "Y-you… I'm still a child… I can't…"

The players were shocked and looked at Han Xiao in disbelief.

Damn, so this is what you're really like, Hey Yo Zero!

A kindred spirit!

Meat Bun hurriedly recorded it, feeling satisfied. This was too explosive!

Aroshia tilted her head and muttered to herself, "This should be the behavior of humans emitting mating signals."

Hearing this, Han Xiao almost couldn't hold back his serious expression. He narrowed his eyes and said unhappily, "What are you thinking about all day? I'm not interested in your body. What I want is your freedom."

Sylvie immediately breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Han Xiao nervously, "Freedom? What do you mean?"

"You must work for me for ten years."

"Ten years is too long, can it be less?" Sylvie made a "little bit" gesture with her hand, with a pleading look on her face.

"…Twelve years."

"No, no, no, ten years is good enough." Sylvie hurriedly waved her hand.

"In these ten years, you are my subordinate. If you want to escape or betray me, I won't give you a second chance. Maybe you can escape, but your father has nowhere to run."

Han Xiao said in a flat tone.

Hearing the threat, Sylvie's expression became serious. She wanted to be angry, but she felt powerless, her mood was complicated, she lowered her head and said softly, "I won't escape my mistakes. Ten years is all, I'm still young, I can afford it… Anyway, I have nowhere else to go now."

Having the guts to kill someone doesn't necessarily mean having the guts to keep someone. Since he chose to spare Sylvie's life, Han Xiao naturally wanted to maximize her value, which could create more benefits than killing her. Sylvie was at least an A-level super in her previous life, which could be considered a… ahem, a good potential stock. Bringing her under his command was like adding a quality cadre. Moreover, her talent was in the mechanical system, which perfectly matched his abilities. She could become an assistant. Although she needed time to grow, it was worth the investment.

Han Xiao also wanted an already-formed A-level powerhouse, but it was too difficult to trick experts across levels. There weren't many people as easy to deceive as Melos, and that was with the help of favorable timing, location, and people.

Judging from Sylvie's personality in her previous life, although she was sometimes a bit extreme, she was still a normal person after giving up revenge. Now that she had completed this process many years in advance, she would only be better than in her previous life.

Moreover, Sylvie was a popular figure. In this way, he could indirectly increase the players' enthusiasm for his camp and use various poses to enhance the camp's "popularity."

Although her star thief career that players enjoyed wouldn't appear after she joined his command, she still had a foundation. As long as she was trained, the flavor would definitely not be inferior to her previous life…

As for the possibility of nurturing a tiger to create future trouble, it wasn't Han the Technician being arrogant. Even the players' growth speed couldn't compare to him. If he didn't even have this confidence, then what was the point of wandering in the universe? He might as well go back to Aquamarine to raise pigs.