Although I'm no longer as willing as I was at the start, if I want to continue staying by Astra Yao's side, I have to do these things.
Evelyn thought for a moment and said:
"Your observational skills are excellent. So, I'm adding an extra task to your duties: during all future public outings, prevent paparazzi from taking sneak photos and leaking information prematurely."
To be honest, Andrew didn't want this extra task.
In Andrew's experience, any mission with added conditions was always an absolute pain. It was like a five-reward, one-cart Kushala Daora hunt in the rain—doable, for sure, but just because you can swallow it doesn't mean you have to like the taste.
Besides, Andrew had come here purely looking forward to a good fight. The commission they'd discussed earlier was strictly for a combat bodyguard. With such a huge fee, he'd expected some highly dangerous, secret mission that couldn't be discussed on the Proxy Net.
But this was it?!
Do the big corporations in TOPS really throw money around like this?!
But hey, you're the employer. You call the shots.
After all, having already accepted three million, Andrew's moral compass made him feel that doing nothing would be the real crime.
Too bad. It looked like his chance to test out his new gear was going down the drain.
However, Evelyn's next words made that tiny shred of regret vanish in an instant.
"Since this is an additional task, I'll add an extra one million Dennies to your final payment."
"No problem, leave it to me!"
What regret? It never existed!
As they say, a 5k salary for a 996 grind is a 'blessing,' but a 50k salary is 'hustling.' At this price, it couldn't even be called hustling anymore.
After all, he'd just added 12 new mouths to feed back home. Making money? Nothing shameful about it.
Any Zen-like detachment from money he might have felt after his loan disappeared had vanished completely with the arrival of the twelve ones from the Silver Squad.
In the end, it was a sense of responsibility rooted in his traditional Zhonghua upbringing.
Since he'd started raising them and shouldered that responsibility, he naturally had to do his best within his means.
Otherwise, he shouldn't have gotten involved in the first place.
Now that they'd successfully met up, Andrew and Evelyn stopped standing around outside.
Led by Evelyn, Andrew got a temporary pass from the security guard, and the two of them headed into the building.
It was only when they were getting on the elevator that a small incident occurred.
The moment Andrew, carrying the tower shield and lance on his back, stepped one foot into the elevator, the overweight alarm shrieked like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Evelyn, following behind Andrew, looked at the empty elevator and instinctively thought the warning system had malfunctioned.
Andrew stopped Evelyn, who was turning to find a staff member to check it, and lifted his foot back out. He already knew what the problem was.
Looking at Evelyn, Andrew explained:
"It's mainly because my weapons are too heavy. It's not the elevator's fault."
Evelyn turned to look, somewhat shocked by his words.
The elevator in front of them had been specially reinforced for both payload and load-bearing capacity. According to her intel, it was perfectly capable of transporting cargo.
To be precise, to accommodate the regular use and daily lives of intelligent construct residents, this elevator was actually a freight elevator with a five-ton capacity!
And yet, Andrew hadn't even fully stepped inside.
Although his earlier feat had already shown how absurd Andrew's strength was, it had been a vague impression. Now, she had a more concrete idea.
But having this concrete idea was, ironically, even more shocking than the vague one.
Still, this powerhouse was on her side, which was a purely good thing for an ally.
As for Evelyn, after a subconscious flicker of worry, she was quickly filled with a sense of security. This security wasn't for herself, but for the person she was protecting under her cover identity as a spy.
'With him here, the young miss will definitely be safe now.'
Meanwhile, Andrew glanced at the obviously luxurious tile floor, thinking that if he set his weapons down, he'd probably be hit with an extra bill.
But if he left them outside... what would be the point of him being a bodyguard here?
After a moment's thought, Andrew decided to take the stairs.
Turning to Evelyn, who was staring blankly, lost in thought, Andrew asked:
"Miss Evelyn, where are the stairs?"
Snapping out of it at Andrew's question, Evelyn let out a sigh of relief and pointed him toward the emergency stairwell.
Fortunately, the building wasn't a shoddy piece of work; the reinforced concrete was solid enough.
Although Andrew tried a few times at the start to get Evelyn to just take the elevator and wait for him, she insisted on leading the way in front of him out of courtesy.
And after climbing seven or eight floors with steady movements and not a hint of disordered breathing, it was clear the young woman's words were not just for show.
In no time, they had covered nearly two-thirds of the distance. With 14 floors left to reach the 36th-floor penthouse, the journey so far had only taken them six or seven minutes at their unceasing pace.
But to be honest, for Andrew walking behind, this entire trip was a bit of an ordeal.
Evelyn had a nice, stunning figure, but at 173 cm, even with high heels, she couldn't compare to the 195 cm Andrew.
So, when they were standing close earlier, Andrew's downward-looking perspective meant he couldn't actually see her full figure. Her prominent chest and the suit jacket draped over her back had obscured about eighty percent of her curves.
But add the height difference of a few steps, and things were different. The curves that had been less obvious due to their height difference were now right there, blatantly in front of Andrew's eyes.
The killer was that Evelyn was wearing tight leather pants.
Her full hips swayed with every step right before his eyes. It was a sight that any normal man would find hard to endure.
L0l!c0ns who prefer flat-chested were a different matter, of course.
But for Andrew, whose tastes were perfectly normal, these few short minutes felt stretched out and torturous.
In the end, Andrew chose the 'out of sight, out of mind' approach.
Stepping onto the last stair of the 22nd floor, Evelyn parted her cherry-pink lips and took a small, deep breath, calming the rapid heartbeat from the exertion.
Climbing this many floors, even her well-trained body couldn't help but feel a hint of fatigue.
Just as she turned back to ask how Andrew was doing with such heavy weapons, she noticed his head was constantly looking left and right—anywhere but forward.
For a moment, Evelyn tilted her head down, slightly puzzled.
____
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