"... So, are we going to have an issue if I put away my gun and walk over there, into stabbing range?"
Still not entirely convinced that they had an understanding, Tom inched half a pace closer with his pistol still raised as he continued talking with the smiling assassin.
"Why don't you come over here and find out, human?"
Although Tom had never seen it in that light, the way the assassin with the fox-like smile pronounced the word human really made it seem like a slur, and that was starting to piss him off.
(Don't try to bundle me in with these people, sure we might look the same to a beastkin, but I got way more microplastics in my body, and that has to count for something.)
While Tom wondered if there was some magical, god given way he could get the beastkin to thrust-
"... Is this better?"
Figuring their cover had already been blown the second he spotted that hostile drone, Tom revealed his true identity by releasing devine mana.
The effect was immediate; as Tom's true identity as a living saint spread throughout the room the smiling assassin's expression froze in place before breaking.
"... I guess."
Realising he didn't have the equipment nor the personnel to deal with a living saint, the assassin stepped back and let Tom have the city lord for the moment.
"Hey buddy."
While the city lord couldn't make heads or tails of the current situation, the lord thought he could convince the man approaching him and get him onto the right side.
"Get me- UGH!"
He couldn't have been more wrong though, as the second the lord opened his mouth Tom punched him in his oversized gut with an open palm.
"That's not how this works, are you ready to hear how this works?"
Staring into the city lord's face, Tom knew his answer even before the words had left his lips, still, letting the victim experience what happened when they didn't play by the rules was USIE enhanced interrogation 101.
"W-wha- ARH!"
"Wrong answer."
As Tom didn't like the lord's answer he punched him again, this time with more power before grabbing his pinky finger and twisting it the wrong way.
"AAAARHG! O-okay!"
"Okay what?"
Having a broken finger at his hand, Tom squeezed it and broke it a few more places to enforce compliance.
"O-okay I-I'm ready to hear how this works!"
"Great~"
As Tom's eyes turned completely cold, Lisa felt a shiver go down her spine.
(He's doing it again.)
Having travelled together with Tom for a long time, Lisa occasionally noticed Tom slipping back into a kind of trance where he would be cruel, sadistic and cold-hearted. While she didn't know this yet, what Lisa was seeing was the old Tom and the kind of person he was before he was transported to this world.
"Okay. The way this works is that I will ask a question, you will answer said question in a quick, effective and precise manner. Failure to answer or an answer not up to my standards will incur a penalty."
"Oka- ARGH!"
As the lord spoke before Tom asked a question he instantly incurred a penalty and lost the use of another finger. Waiting for the city lord to stop his incessant screaming, Tom was about to break another finger when he finally got it under control.
"Good. First question: Who ordered the lockdown that covers the south?"
"The suppression unit- ARGH!"
"Not good enough, I said I wanted precise answers."
"Adam Randall, head of the Randall family and leader of the suppression unit! He has the high council and the king wrapped around his pinky!"
Focusing his line of inquiry, Tom finally gained some new information about his primary target.
"And where would I find this Randall fellow?"
"I-I don't know, the Randall house is in the capital though!"
While that answer didn't lead up to his standard, Tom decided to move on as he could later cross check it.
"The soldiers and mages he gets to do suicide missions, what do you know about them?"
"What!? I don't- AGH!"
"This one you need to answer, so do that before you run out of fingers and I have to ask my disciple to shield her eyes."
As Tom only had 6 fingers left to work with and the lord hadn't exactly proven cooperative, he feared that he had to start using 'other' techniques that were far less safe for general audiences.
"Wait, you encountered suicide soldiers?"
That's when the assassin with the fox-like smile spoke up, having listened in on the ongoing 'conversation' this was something he had not expected or already knew about.
"Yeah, a company of… 60ish soldiers, half of them mages."
"It was about 90, and most of them were mages. Only a few of them acted as mobile bulwark to protect the mages that chugged spells at us."
Filling in the details Tom left out, Lisa thought back to that day a few weeks ago when Tom, herself and the elven village had been attacked by human soldiers wearing cheap equipment that was hastily thrown together to look legit.
"And how were they on a suicide mission?"
"Be-"
"Whoever has it out for me threw them away to figure out exactly what I was capable of."
Figuring the cat was already out of the bag, Tom cut off Lisa and explained everything himself.
"WHAT!? THAT FUCKING INGRATE! I SHOULD- ARGH!"
"Did I tell you to speak?"
Hearing what the head of the suppression unit had done, the city lord became irate and Tom sacrificed another one of his fingers to get him to calm down.
Although Tom didn't know it at the time, human mages were a bit of a rarity, so throwing away nearly a hundred of them in a single attack wasn't an issue the kingdom's nobility would leave alone as they had all spent a stupid amount of taxes recruiting and training them; even if they ended up as adventures.
"What the- Fuck."
Cutting himself off mid sentence as he was alerted through his neural uplink of hostile troop movements, Tom realised he had run out of time to collect intelligence.
"We're out of time."
Tossing his halligan tool to Lisa as he updated her on the situation, Tom turned to the group of beastmen assassins.
"Trouble is coming, so I suggest quietly slipping into the night while we distract them."
"... Just like that?"
While the leader of the assassins realised Tom's distraction would be a huge help, he didn't understand why he was being so generous all of a sudden. Instead of answering immediately, Tom drew his pistol and unceremoniously executed the city lord with a two round burst to the head.
"Consider it an apology for ruining your op, and a thanks for the extra information you provided. But don't get things twisted, we're just following our plan while suggesting how you might make use of that."
Making it clear that he was thankful for the intel they had provided while also stating that they were running a distraction whether the beastkin assassin made use of it or not, Tom extended a hand towards their leader as to cement their deal.
"Fine I'll owe you one."
Reluctantly agreeing to the living saint's somewhat forced settlement, the beastkin assassin's fox-like smile returned as he shook Tom's hand.
"See you around, Tom."
"Well no need to be a stranger."
Tossing the assassin a radio, Tom watched him look at it and wonder before silently stowing it and leaving.
As the assassin's left, Tom grabbed his bag of holding™ and pulled out his M-909X and attached a magazine, inserting the belt and charging the action.
"6 detachments are moving in from all directions, we're extracting per the original plan."
Pulling the pin on a X-91 thermal grenade and tossed it into the corner of the now deceased city lord's office, Tom left with Lisa in tow.
"Roger, what about the Wasp's?"
"48 standing by for tasking, but I'm spending those to slow down the reinforcements. Third and fourth wave have just launched, they'll be your tasking when they arrive so wear your headset."
"Vilco."
Making sure her radio was working, Lisa attached her headset to before she checked her rifle. Hitting the street hard and fast as fire started spreading throughout the city lord's mansion, Lisa and Tom immediately ran into a detachment of city guards.
"YOU THERE! HA-"
Bringing his light machine gun to bear, Tom let loose a burst from the hip that decapitated the guard of their leadership. Watching the guards scatter like baby spiders, Tom brought his SAW up to the shoulder as he continued firing, cutting through the main concentration of guards while Lisa picked off the splitters with precise semi automatic fire.
"Clear."
"... Clear. That thing rips."
"Indeed."
Seeing another group of guards down the road, Tom brought up his weapon and started spraying, using the tracers to quickly adjust fire as he mowed them down without much effort.
"Bound."
"Bounding!"
With guards closing in from all directions, Tom and Lisa made their way south-south-east towards the wall section under repair.
"Two to the left, stick them."
"Rog."
Finding a pair of guards hiding in ambush, Tom relayed the information to Lisa who started suppressive fire as Tom broke into a run.
"Wha-"
Quickly flanking the pair of guards, Tom didn't bother aiming or even looking as he gunned the guards down.
"Hunker down."
Directing Lisa to take cover, Tom counted to 3 as he initiated contingency plan #3, detonating a pair of high explosive artillery shells buried near the outer wall, right next to the section of the wall which was under repair. The effect was immediate and brutal, as the detonations ripped open a 30 metre wide hole in the wall just ahead of Lisa and Tom.
"Go!"
Breaking into a sprint, Lisa flooded her body with mana and started sprinting through the newly opened hole in the wall, the ground beneath her feet still hot. Following right after Lisa, Tom ignored the guards finally organising in town, after the shocks of the night it finally seemed like they were starting to organise and collect themselves.
Now finally with a coherent command structure, the guards wanted blood.
"Go for point #4! Contingency #2!"
"Got it!"
Not bothering to deal with the approaching guards, Tom and Lisa hauled ass through a nearby forest, not too fast for the guards to miss it, but not too slow for the guards to catch them.
"Where did they go!?"
"This way!"
Having lost the pair of terrorists in the night, one of the surviving guards saw a light in the distance and commanded his comrades to follow after it, unknowingly dooming them all. Running through a forest at night, even with lanterns, they were mostly blind, that's why none of them noticed a small wire stretching across the forest floor.
One of them did however notice the click when the wire snapped.
"Huh? What wa-"
While Tom didn't have access to landmines through his resupply, he did have access to explosives, radio triggers for safety, wire triggers, ball bearings and lard along with his extensive training and experience with asymmetrical warfare.
And so, with the use of a few thousand points, Tom effectively wiped out the tail following them in one (glorious) blast.
"Hold here."
At Tom's word, Lisa collapsed to the damp forest floor in exhaustion, sucking in air as running with the gear she had in the middle of the night had taken a lot out of her.
"What's… Our… Status?"
"The guards have routed, so we've lost our tail. We're setting up here and waiting for the suppression unit, it's time to teach this Adam fuckface a harsh lesson."
While Tom had expected his opponent to try and catch them the same way he did last time, this time he wasn't going to just sit back and take it or try and run away.
This time, it was time for them to learn, learn exactly what it meant fucking with a wetwork veteran with over a hundred years of experience and a grudge.
"I went through 7 mags, how's your gun?"
Having regained enough stamina to sit up straight again, Lisa immediately went to work checking her rifle and refilling her spent magazines as she asked Tom how he was doing.
"Well, I didn't have to do any kind of sustained fire, so the barrel is fine. As for rounds, I went through one and 'something' boxes of ammunition."
With no smart weapon system integrated into his neural uplink, Tom had no way of knowing how much of his current belt was left, sure he could approximate it was about half just judging by the weight, but to check he needed more information.
"What the hell does 'something boxes' mean?"
"Give me a moment."
Grabbing the M-909X by its shielded barrel near the action, Tom slapped the box magazine with an open hand as a barely audible moan escaped his lips.
"Hmm, between 70 and 60 rounds judging by the jingle… What? The slap™ is a time honored tradition, don't you fucking dare disrespect that."
"Whatever, you're still fucking gross."