The sudden turn of events made the Hive City Law Enforcement drop their jaws, even their captain, who was throwing a tantrum on the ground, stared in disbelief.
"That kid… is a Navy Heir, and a probationary Sergeant???"
Muttering began to spread through the crowd, most people looking at the usually arrogant Hive City Law Enforcement with schadenfreude.
"You lawless lot dare to extort Imperial Navy Childer of Loyalty Voidsmen-at-Arms Officers now, do you?"
"We didn't know! He wasn't wearing a uniform, ow!"
Sergeant Louise mercilessly smashed the butt of her gun into the Hive City Law Enforcement vice-captain's chest, making him stumble and fall to the ground.
"Ow, we were wrong, we were wrong. We were blind and didn't recognize… Ow!" He hadn't finished speaking when the corporal named Lydos next to him kicked him, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt.
"Blind? So you just pick on the easy targets and mess with them, huh! Damn it." Corporal Lydos grew angrier with each blow, cursing vulgarly.
To be so united in their hatred, it might be because they came from the family of a deceased Navy Sergeant living in the Middle Hive.
"Ow! Ow!" The vice-captain was kicked to the ground, rolling and scrambling, screaming incessantly.
Whispers started nearby.
"That guy grabs people and extorts them every day; if they don't give in, he beats them. He's finally getting his comeuppance today."
"Their captain deserves it even more; he's worse than anyone at exploiting the common people. He indulges thugs and has ruined so many families."
"He's a thug himself. There were a few good people in the team, but they were forced to transfer."
"They even dared to label a Navy Childer of Loyalty as a heretic; what else wouldn't they dare to do?"
The captain of the Hive City Law Enforcement hid behind other Hive City Law Enforcement, not daring to utter a sound.
Seeing that the whispers were pushing him into the spotlight, he covered his bloodied mouth and nose, glared fiercely at the gossiping onlookers, and swung his baton, ordering them to shut up.
Swoosh—The baton swinging in mid-air was instantly snatched from his hand by a corporal.
"Hey, you're the one who labeled the Childer of Loyalty a heretic, right?" the corporal demanded indignantly.
Corporal Fidio handed the baton to Horatio.
He was looking coldly at the law enforcement captain sitting on the ground.
Hearing the corporal call him, the law enforcement captain shivered in fear.
"I was wrong, I was wrong, please be magnanimous and overlook my mistake, ow!"
He apologized in the completely wrong direction, facing Corporal Fidio instead of Horatio, and before he could finish speaking, he was struck down by Horatio.
Several Soldiers from the Childer of Loyalty Marine team watched the other bewildered law enforcement officers with their weapons, tacitly allowing their new classmate to teach these unpleasant scumbags a lesson.
Imperial Loyalists serve the God-Emperor, and punishing evil and promoting good is fundamental to a Childer of Loyalty's duty.
"This strike is for your tyranny, for intimidating innocent good people."
"Ow, ah." The law enforcement captain shivered, rolling miserably on the ground, his crisp uniform, armor, and face covered in mud and grime that hadn't been cleaned in thousands of years.
"Good!!"
"Teach these trash, these parasites, a good lesson!" A few low cheers came from the Middle Hive crowd watching.
Every Middle Hive person living here had inevitably been bullied and harassed by the Hive City Law Enforcement and their thuggish lackeys.
Now that the tables were turned, seeing them humiliated, the onlookers, while secretly afraid that these scumbags would later seek revenge, also felt a surge of satisfaction.
Horatio struck the captain's hands with another backhand swing of the baton.
"This strike is for your abuse of power and accumulation of ill-gotten gains."
"Ow, stop! Stop! Ah ah!"
A swift, merciless strike landed on the law enforcement captain's face, sending spit flying and a broken tooth rolling out of his mouth.
"This strike is for you calling white black and falsely accusing good people."
Each strike was accompanied by the restrained anger and suppressed cheers of the onlookers, and the wailing of the law enforcement captain, together staging a rare drama in the Hive City.
After three strikes, the law enforcement captain's face was swollen like a pig's head, and his hands resembled carrots.
The Female Sergeant had no intention of stopping the probationary Sergeant; instead, she glared fiercely at the other Hive City Law Enforcement.
Just a fierce glare from those highly deterrent purple Sky Eagle eyes would make these lackeys, who bore the title of enforcers but were completely loyal to the Guild Alliance, shiver in fear.
Horatio indifferently tossed the baton onto the law enforcement captain, then clapped the dust from his hands.
"Now scram!" the Female Sergeant cursed with a look of disgust, her purple eyes filled with revulsion.
"Thank you, thank you! Wuwuwu." The law enforcement captain knew what a great sin it was to slander a Childer of Loyalty.
If an Imperial Commissar had been present, he would have been shot on the spot, and it wouldn't have been enough to atone for his sins.
With a single shout, the group of people who had been so arrogant instantly vanished.
They couldn't bear the sin of clashing with the Childer of Loyalty Marine, and they certainly didn't dare to pull out their guns.
If they happened to injure these precious God-Emperor currency, the Imperial Navy and the Commissariat would likely bring the Military Police to the Vegas F-Sector Enforcer Building the very next day to arrest people.
Even if the Emperor himself came, he couldn't stop them from executing them on the spot.
Moreover, even if they wanted to fight, they couldn't win! In hand-to-hand combat or drawing a gun, how many mortals on the entire planet could be a match for these elite Loyalists? Not to mention this group of Middle Hive law enforcement who spent their days bullying the weak and fearing the strong, and were lax in their training.
"Student, this is your money; please keep it safe. It's not safe here, and it's best to leave as soon as possible if you have nothing else to do." Sergeant Louise's tightly furrowed willow-leaf brows relaxed slightly as she handed the money to Horatio, a faint smile on her cold face.
"Thank you, senior, I'll leave after I eat." Horatio took the money and handed one banknote to the chef Hanzi's daughter.
"Alright, if you need anything else, you can come find us. We'll be patrolling and supervising this area." The Female Sergeant put her helmet back on and glanced at the trembling Half-cat person girl on the ground.
"Really… these guys ran fast, they didn't even care about the thief and just ran off, and we're not going to enforce the law either."
"If you don't mind, I'll handle it."
The Female Sergeant looked at Horatio, nodded slightly, and said, "As the owner, of course you can. Farewell."
"See you." Horatio saluted.
"Please do not obstruct, keep the road clear. Please do not loiter, to avoid danger." At the Female Sergeant's shout, the Childer of Loyalty Marine all saluted Horatio in return, then signaled the crowd to gradually disperse and resumed their patrol.
[So Childer of Loyalty Marine do this kind of thing too. This seems like a patrol mission that earns academic credits?] Horatio thought to himself, watching the Female Sergeant's departing figure.
"Respected Childer of Loyalty Voidsmen-at-Arms Officer, your meal is ready." The girl walked up and said respectfully.
After learning that the young man in front of her was a probationary Sergeant of the Imperial Navy Childer of Loyalty, her attitude became even more reverent and admiring.
"Don't be so formal, I'm just a Soldiers."
"Then you are the strongest Soldiers, the precious currency of His Majesty the God-Emperor! Sir!" The girl showed a sweet smile and praised, while performing an aquila salute to Horatio.
Horatio did not speak, responding with a smile.
[The respect Imperial people have for Soldiers is truly well-deserved; their eyes are practically glowing.]
In the Imperium, becoming the God-Emperor's currency is a great honor.
In the eyes of ordinary residents, the Astra Militarum is a place only warriors chosen from tens of thousands are qualified to enter.
And the combat power of the Loyalists is more like a living legend, truly possessing the level of instant kill as described in war god texts.
[Alright, now how should I deal with this thief?]
Horatio turned to look at the girl on the ground who was silently licking her wounds.
In the memory of the "Labor Union" leader, he had thousands, if not tens of thousands, of such petty thieves under him. It was not easy to find a job that could fill one's stomach in the Hive City, especially for discriminated-against abhumans. Petty theft had begun for them since their infancy, when they were crying for food.
It wasn't that the organization he built deliberately harbored filth; in the face of starvation, morality was powerless, and the rules set by the Upper Hive people were nothing but waste paper.
The principle that if you're caught stealing, you should stand tall and take your beating, is universally true. But since this little thief had already been severely beaten by the Hive City Law Enforcement, Horatio didn't intend to lay a hand on her again. Instead, he planned to see if he could use this Half-cat person to sniff out some clues for him.
"Hey." Horatio called out indifferently.
The girl reacted, looking at Horatio, her pupils, which had narrowed due to stress, became wide and round again, her eyes moist, trembling all over, not daring to meet Horatio's gaze, even her upright ears drooped, and upon closer inspection, were also slightly trembling.
"Want something to eat?"
The Emperor doesn't send hungry Soldiers to war, and of course, the consequences of forcing them to do so have been countless throughout history. So Horatio decided to give her some sweetness first, at least to keep her from starving to death in front of him.
This sentence made the Half-cat person girl look up at him in surprise, tears streaming down her face, carving two furrows, her eyes sparkling with incredible confusion.
"How long has it been since you ate?"
"Food… a long time…" The girl mumbled, her head bowed.
"Sir, I've seen this Half-cat person recently; she's been eating discarded broken bones for a long time. These past few days, I wanted to throw out some leftover food from guests, but she couldn't even snatch it from other beggars," Yin Shuyao said softly from the side.
"Alright, so it seems she really has no work to do?"
"Finding a decent job here is too difficult. Aside from the flesh trade or more depraved professions, these ostracized beast-type abhumans probably can't find a proper job to support themselves, sir."
Yin Shuyao's words made Horatio realize that it wasn't just the Lower Hive; the current living conditions of abhumans were like this.
The Imperium is an extremely xenophobic polity.
Although more than ten thousand years ago, the Emperor himself issued an edict granting imperial citizenship to some abhumans who were deemed harmless and could integrate into human society.
But now, with the Emperor himself sitting on the Golden Throne, unable to move, becoming the 'God-Emperor,' the current Ecclesiarchy is constantly intensifying its propaganda of 'non-my-kind alien' racial ideology.
They excessively emphasize the purity of the human skull, ostracizing and marginalizing abhumans, thereby transforming internal Imperial conflicts to achieve a distorted stability.
In the end, apart from the not-so-bright Ogryn and the small but quick-witted Ratlings, who have the option of joining the military, those abhumans who still retain some bestial traits find even the military only cautiously opens a crack in the door for them.
The military can accept fools, but cannot accept those who don't follow orders.
Without work, they cannot afford the cost of living, and these abhuman species who cannot make ends meet can only resort to petty theft.
The "broad-minded, all-embracing" Hive City planet, this tolerance, is only for pure humans.
Thus, most of the hiding abhuman species fell into destitution, reaching the Bottom Hive, or even degenerating and consorting with heretics.
The bewildered girl sat on the ground, like a lost kitten.
Horatio squatted down and offered a handkerchief to the Half-cat person girl.
"Come here, I'll get you something to eat. Then I'll ask you some questions. As long as you answer well, I'll make sure you're full."
He knew the habits and living areas of Cat People, a nimble abhuman type.
Those places were sparsely populated, most prone to harboring filth, and were the best locations for rituals.
And Cat People naturally had an allergic reaction to Chaos forces.
The fact that she had lived this long clearly meant she had cleverly avoided these areas.
Although he hadn't found a Diviner, he might still get clues about that Slaanesh cult from the Cat People.