Jake turned to look at her.
“What is your next move?” she asked. “You said you’re gonna target the other bases of Los Demonios, right?”
“When are you gonna do that?” she asked. “Right now or later?”
Jake raised one finger, indicating the former. Catalina understood him. She took a step closer, looking him intently in the eyes.
Jake slightly tilted his head to the side, wondering what was on her mind. He definitely didn’t want her to tag along. She would only slow him down and be nothing but a burden to him. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder why she wanted to accompany him.
He just kept staring at her.
“Oh, right,” Catalina said, holding her PDA out to him. “You need something to write on to reply. Here, take it.”
However, Jake refused to accept the device. Writing was still difficult for him, and he had already spent quite a bit of mana a few minutes earlier when he typed on her PDA. Since he was going to attack another base, he needed to conserve as much of his mana as possible for the impending confrontation.
Once she realized he wasn’t going to take her PDA, she asked, “You don’t want to talk anymore?”
He shook his head. Catalina was puzzled, unable to understand why he wasn’t willing to communicate with her anymore.
“Did I do something wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head again.
“Then why don’t you want to talk anymore?” she pressed, her brow furrowing in concern.
He just kept looking at her without responding. Catalina hesitated for a moment, struggling to understand what was going on in his mind.
“Can I go with you?” she finally asked.
“Alright then,” she said. “It’s probably for the best. You’re definitely better off without me. I’d only get in your way if I went with you.”
She took a breath, gathering her thoughts.
“Anyway, the reason I wanted to go with you is that I simply wanted you to attack one specific base before any of the others,” she clarified. “That’s what I wanted to tell you earlier before we were interrupted. I just wanted to show you the way to the base.”
Jake’s gaze remained fixed on the woman as he absorbed every word she spoke. There was definitely a specific reason for her urging him to launch an attack on that particular base, so he continued to pay close attention.
She proceeded to tell him that she had some friends at Base Ryder. Before becoming a member of the gang, she was forced to do labor for them, just like other survivors who refused to join. While working at Base Ryder, she made a few friends among the other workers there.
Among the workers was a young woman named Melissa. Catalina implored Jake not to destroy Base Ryder after he dealt with the bandits. Instead, she urged him to allow Melissa and the other workers to take control of the base, just as he had allowed with this one.
“Will you do this for me?” Catalina asked earnestly. “Once you liberate Base Ryder, some of the survivors you free can join us here. Yet, these bases are quite small and can’t accommodate many people. If we could have two or more bases at our disposal, it would greatly improve our chances in the battle against Los Demonios.”
Jake agreed with her. He had already made up his mind that instead of destroying the secondary bases as he initially intended, he would give them to regular survivors who had been forced to labor at those locations for the gang. Eventually, Los Demonios would try to take those bases back, and whether the survivors would be able to defend those newfound homes was hard to tell. In the end, it didn’t really matter to him. He was going to give the regular survivors a fighting chance against Los Demonios, but if they blew it, that responsibility lay entirely with them.
“Could you do it for me?” Catalina inquired, pulling him from his thoughts.
Jake responded with a nod and a thumbs-up. Catalina’s face lit up with joy at his response.
“Thank you,” she said in genuine gratitude. “Thank you so much! It means a lot to me. To all of us.”
As Jake began to walk away, Catalina called out, “Wait,” stopping him by gripping his shoulder.
He turned back, wondering what else she had to say.
“I get it, you can’t wait to leave,” Catalina remarked with a lopsided grin. “There’s just one more thing I wanted to tell you. Once you take out all the bastards at Base Ryder, please tell Melissa to give me a video call. And by the way, you’ll probably want to keep the leader of the base alive long enough to get the password for the computer in the security room. Once he gives it to you, you won’t need to keep him alive anymore.”
“By the way, do you need me to show you on the map where Camp Ryder is located?” she asked.
Jake shook his head. When he infiltrated Base Miller, as it was called back then, he made use of the computer in the security room, memorizing the locations of all the secondary bases.
“I guess you already know where it’s located,” she said with a grin.
“Alright then,” Catalina said, finally, letting go of his shoulder. “I won’t hold you up any longer.”
Before she could add anything else, Jake wheeled around and dashed across the base.
He heard Catalina shout behind him, instructing some of her men to open the gate for him, but Jake didn’t need that. He performed a mana-infused jump over the wall. While soaring through the air, he morphed his left hand into a grappling hook and launched it at the high-rise across the street. Once it latched onto the concrete wall, he retracted the cord into his arm, almost instantly pulling himself toward the building.
When he hit the wall, he clung to it with Adhesive Secretion. He quickly crawled up the wall, and a few seconds later, he stood on the roof. He looked around to get his bearings. Once he oriented himself toward the direction of Base Ryder, he took off running.
Upon reaching the edge of the roof, he leaped across the gap to the next building. Without slowing his pace, he pressed on toward his destination.