"...We'll have to take a detour to visit some old friends from the tribe."
"Hmm, visiting old friends, what an exciting moment."
Mitsuhide spoke calmly, his tone full of flat delivery.
"If you have nothing to say, you can shut up."
Panam, driving, glanced at the Monstrous Figure and shook her head, speechless.
What kind of idiotic decision had she made to let this guy help her?
Panam left the tribe, but not completely.
After all, if Panam had truly betrayed the tribe, according to the Nomads' rules, she would have been hunted down by the tribe until death.
Nomads don't like people who betray their families.
And clearly, this situation didn't apply to Panam. She just had some opinions about the tribe's policies, and thanks to many others sharing those opinions, she didn't consider it a defection from the tribe.
Mitsuhide didn't know what to say about this.
Nomad tribe campsites are usually considered secret, because there are many enemies in the Badlands. Gangs like the Wraiths and other Badlands gangs have always been enemies of the Nomad tribes.
If they found a Nomad tribe's campsite, a siege battle would be almost inevitable.
That's why Mitsuhide said Panam was a bit naive.
To bring an outsider she had just met to the camp. If he were a bad guy, he would then sell the information to the Wraiths, and then there would be fun to watch.
Regardless of the outcome, Panam would definitely hit rock bottom in her life, and believe me, that would not be pleasant.
In the game, it's actually similar. While it doesn't involve selling out the camp, there's a process where you can inform Saul, the leader of the Aldecaldo Family, about one of Panam's plans. Panam would be grounded, and Saul would give V a valuable car.
And Panam would text V, angrily cursing her betrayal.
One can only say that this young woman has a sincere heart, but this world is not very friendly to it.
In fact, if V only completes the main story in the game and ignores Panam's side quests, they would eventually find Panam still living a miserable Mercenary life, without having made any name for herself, perhaps unable to even pay rent.
One can only say that Panam is V's benefactor, and V is also Panam's benefactor. They achieve success together.
The scenery of the Badlands makes one nostalgic: the endless Badlands, the golden sunlight everywhere, the shrubs, and a few scattered tumbleweeds rolling by. That was Berry's lost youth.
She still missed those days of speeding across the wilderness.
If it weren't for her great love for humanity, she would have long since taken V to live in seclusion in the mountains, or rather, the Badlands would be more fitting.
From a dusty main road, they turned onto a dusty dirt road, then twisted and turned on a yellow dirt slope, past towering cactus forests, and a large Nomad camp, encircled by cars and tents, appeared before the two of them.
Mitsuhide clearly noticed that Panam's breathing became calmer when she saw the camp.
This person is always a Nomad, belonging to the Nomads. In the city, she can only get herself into trouble.
Hearing the sound of the vehicle, someone was already waiting in front of the camp.
"Yo, what wind blew the big shot back?"
"Hahaha, is this a person or a ghost? Or maybe I'm still drunk."
The two got out of the car and saw the two people who were greeting them.
A middle-aged man in green work clothes, bald, with only a fringe of black hair around the sides, making one wonder if the desert wind and sand had made him that way, and not from rubbing his head on a bed board without a pillow. He was also missing an arm, replaced with a prosthesis.
The other person also had a missing arm, replaced with a prosthesis. He wore a hood and looked much cooler than the bald man next to him. If Berry were to say, he looked a bit like Alex Mercer from Prototype.
These two men, both missing a flesh arm, seemed to be Panam's elders, because Mitsuhide noticed Panam bumping fists with them, and a barely concealed smile hung on her lips, which was different from her boisterous demeanor just moments ago.
"F*** you."
Panam's smiling response also had a very Nomad style, a bit too refined.
"Hey? And who's this?"
The bald man saw Mitsuhide behind Panam, looking at this East Asian man with tied-back hair and a full beard, he frowned.
"A busybody."
Panam turned back, shrugged, and spoke rather impolitely.
"Mitsuhide, this is Mitch, and Scorpion."
The bald man was Mitch, the hooded man was Scorpion.
Berry knew their identities from playing Cyberpunk.
With this in mind, Mitsuhide spoke politely.
"Yes, a busybody, taking care of a foolish big girl who lost both her car and her cargo."
"Shut up, Mitsuhide!"
Panam clenched her fist and said unhappily.
This guy just loves to bring up sore subjects, doesn't he?
"No way, did you finally drive that precious 'thunderclap' into a ditch?"
But unfortunately, the words had already reached their ears.
"The road didn't break, the horse died first."
Mitch and Scorpion unconsciously laughed.
"No, it was stolen."
Mitsuhide pointed his thumb at Panam, who was standing there covering her forehead, not wanting to speak, and said mercilessly.
"I'll get it back soon, that's why I came to the camp."
Panam said stubbornly.
She was a strong-willed person and naturally unwilling to lose face like this, so she immediately added.
Hmm, she looks like someone who would get agitated even playing a hand-slapping game. She must be fun to tease, Berry thought with mischievous delight.
Panam had returned this time to ask her friends for help, but unfortunately, during her time away from the camp, some other changes seemed to have occurred.
"Our relationship is beyond question, but now, now it's difficult."
Hearing Panam's request, Mitch and Scorpion looked troubled.
"Uh... the old man told us to stay put. Normally, we just collect batteries, broken engines, and stuff."
"Generators? Because of a few broken generators? Are you two kidding me?"
But clearly, their explanation failed to convince Panam.
"Did Saul tell you to interfere? Do you still consider me one of your own?"
Panam offered her explanation, believing it was all Saul's idea.
Saul, the current leader of the Aldecaldo Family, was furious with Panam for constantly offending him. The two had many arguments, which was also why Panam left the tribe.
And now, hearing this, Panam immediately assumed Saul was behind it.
But clearly, this time it really wasn't possible. Mitch and Scorpion shook their heads helplessly, indicating they couldn't help.
"This is a tribe matter, it has nothing to do with Saul. Don't go around accusing people."
Mitch shook his head, indicating that if they couldn't, they couldn't.
However, Mitch then looked up and said,
"Listen, we can't leave the camp, absolutely not. But, but, Saul never said we couldn't take equipment."
Scorpion and Mitch exchanged glances and offered a compromise.
And Panam, after pacing back and forth furiously for a while, also sighed helplessly.
"Alright, fine. I'll take your rifle, and I'll take my other gear."
And so it was. Panam, holding back her anger, didn't speak. She took two crates of weapons and equipment, and also shoved one into Mitsuhide's hands. Although the people in the camp greeted Panam with concern in their voices, Mitsuhide could still sense Panam's discomfort.
It was like waking up from a difficult nap on a stuffy summer afternoon.
Mitsuhide looked at Panam's face, thinking this.
Perhaps he should comfort her, but Berry was very confident in her comforting skills, which were exceptionally bad.
Besides, she never thought comforting people was useful. What the other person needed now was a solution to the problem, and on that point, she had some confidence.
"...Have you ever heard of Miyamoto Musashi? Heh, maybe you haven't."
Mitsuhide felt his opening wasn't very smooth.
After all, Nomads were on the American continent; how would they know about a historical figure from a corner across the Pacific?
"He was a very strong swordsman, once facing a hundred-person pursuit, but he dealt with all of them."
"Hmm, so?"
Panam, driving, stared at the road ahead and casually responded.
"I just wanted to say, fighting one against a hundred, that's an art. And I'll perform that art for you in a bit."
"Heh... hmm?"
Panam hadn't even laughed out loud when she suddenly reacted to something, frowning as she looked at Mitsuhide.
"I mean, you're not trying to comfort me with that, are you?"
"Perhaps?"
Mitsuhide shrugged.
He wanted to say it was the truth of what was about to happen.
"Heh heh, well, save it. I know Mitch and those two well. If they're unwilling to help, they definitely have their own reasons. The tribe truly comes before everything else.
"Besides, do you think I'm some little girl who needs comforting?"
"And..."
Panam Palmer glanced at Mitsuhide.
"Your comforting skills are terrible."
"Uh, thanks."
Berry felt so awkward he wanted to scratch his feet, realizing he had messed up.
"But, that's genuinely surprising."
"Surprising? What's surprising?"
"I always thought you were just sharp-tongued; I didn't expect you had the inclination to comfort people."
"Just kidding. If you knew me well enough, you'd know I'm actually a very friendly person."
"Hmm... right."
Panam Palmer gripped the steering wheel and clicked her tongue at Mitsuhide's shameless words.
"Are you familiar with Stone Ridge Mountain? I heard it's a ghost town now, completely deserted. People either moved back to Night City or fled."
"Then you know most of it already."
Night City's overpopulation has always been an issue, and the Night City Council once made efforts to build several outlying towns around the Badlands.
But all these efforts came to nothing. Merchants and residents attracted by the cheap land prices quickly discovered that the Badlands was a desolate place, lacking water, electricity, and food, and plagued by occasional sandstorms.
Consequently, the plan completely failed, leaving only ruins and empty buildings abandoned in the Badlands.
This problem is severe not just at Stone Ridge Mountain, but across the entire United States, where there are at least several thousand such ghost towns.
Following the ravages of war and overdevelopment, nature no longer welcomed humanity; foraging in the Badlands is an extremely difficult endeavor.
Only Nomads, constantly migrating, are barely able to survive on the land, like the cacti towering on the ground, making one wonder what kind of hardship it takes to sweep away life from these barren lands.
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