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Home / Emotional Realism Short Story / The Retired Mercenary's Great Retaliation / Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

All Chapters of The Retired Mercenary's Great Retaliation: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

15 Chapters

Chapter 1

The workshop was hot and stuffy, like a sealed can. The heat on the machines lingered, while the air was filled with the smell of machinery, oil, and rust. There was even the smell of burning from welding work.A gigantic fan turned slowly on the high ceiling, but it did nothing to take away the heat. At the end of the workshop, there was a half-opened roller shutter to a door leading to the warehouse, which was filled with rows of metal boxes containing spare parts.Some of the boxes had been pried open. The metal chains had fallen to the ground, and the seals on the boxes had been shredded into pieces. A core asset worth over three million was gone, and every person in the workshop had been summoned.Dozens of eyes fell onto me with looks of curiosity, suspicion, and even gloating. The boss, Tony Chapman, was in his forties and had a big belly. He walked out of the crowd with his gold-rimmed glasses to look me up and down. There were daggers in his eyes as he scrutinized my old

Chapter 2

Tony stared at me while saying the words slowly, "You'll have to pay for it." The workshop fell eerily silent."You don't have to get so serious with him, Boss." A workshop supervisor quickly stepped forward to smooth things over."Yeah, Mr. Chapman. He's just trying to show off."Tony ignored them as he stared right at me. "Do you dare take up the challenge?"The face of my wife, Vivian, flashed in my mind. Vivian was not in the best of health and required medication all year round. We did not have much savings due to her condition, and our daughter Samantha had just entered university, leaving us with insufficient funds to cover her tuition. Since retiring, I had not been able to find a stable job. It was not easy for me to finally get hired at this factory. Dignity was nothing to me if it meant I could make a living, but that did not mean I felt all right with being disrespected."Yes, I do," I heard myself saying. A cold smile slowly appeared on Tony's face. "Good!" He yel

Chapter 3

Lynn did not leave. She stood at a distance with her arms crossed, looking at me with doubt and curiosity."I need something," I said to her.Lynn raised an eyebrow. "What do you need? I've already instructed someone to bring you the warehouse keys."I shook my head. "I'm not talking about the keys. I want the entry records of the warehouse, a copy of the surveillance footage, and the door entry records." I paused before continuing, "I need records from the past three months."Lynn was taken aback while the warehouse supervisor, Wentworth, burst out laughing at me. "Do you really think you're a detective, Leigh? What's the point of investigating this? The thief must be long gone by now."I ignored him as I stared at the ground. Several drag marks could be seen right in front of the metal cupboard. Messy footprints were imprinted in the dust on the floor, but I could still tell they belonged to different people. I crouched and touched the ground gently with my finger.The dust was

Chapter 4

"That means whoever moved the item knows this place well." The warehouse slowly turned silent, and Tony frowned."That doesn't mean anything."I looked at the clear footprint on the ground. "Shoes with a sole like that are only worn by the warehouse's forklift driver."The crowd started whispering amongst themselves as Lynn looked solemn. "Are you sure?"I did not answer immediately, instead walking toward the metal cupboard. The cupboard lock had been pried apart, but the scratch marks were faint. I touched the scratch with my finger. The side of the metal was almost intact, and I stood up to announce, "The lock was pried open after the theft to make it look like it was an outside job."The warehouse was instantly silent as everyone stared at me. A freshly-hired stockkeeper had overturned the security team's investigation results, which had taken an entire day, in only a few glances.Tony looked shocked as he glanced back and forth between the ground and the pried-open cupboard

Chapter 5

The prints could also reveal a person's habits. Most of the time, it only took one footprint for me to locate a person. My captain had once patted me on the shoulder and said, "Remember, the ground will never lie to you."My flashback ended, and I stood up to look at the drag mark on the ground. "The person who took the item used a forklift, and he only drove it once."Lynn was taken aback. "What?" I pointed at the corner of the warehouse. "There is only one drag mark, which means whatever was taken was first dragged toward the forklift. After that, it was moved with the forklift." I looked at the forklift one more time. "If this were an outside job, the thief wouldn't have known where to take the forklift keys."The warehouse was silent as everyone stared at me. Even Lynn was surprised. She looked at me, a middle-aged man in a worn-down worker's uniform with hands full of calluses. It was difficult for her to imagine me as an ordinary stockkeeper. Lynn had no idea what to mak

Chapter 6

"This is atrocious!" Greg yelled angrily because his authority had been challenged. "Mr. Chapman, didn't I tell you before that the warehouse investigation has to be conducted by professionals? How can you allow a stockkeeper to simply look into this?"He went quickly to the screens and glanced at the red warning with a disappointed look on his face. He slammed the table hard. "Damn it! The footage has been destroyed! It could have been salvaged, but everything is gone now because someone looked at it without thinking!"His words were a huge blow to everyone listening, and Tony's face fell. "What do you mean?" Greg pointed at the screen. "Someone tampered with the system and overwrote the footage. We won't be able to continue investigating via security footage anymore."Tony's expression turned darker with every word Greg said. Soon, his pale face turned red with anger as he suddenly turned to stare at me. He looked like he wanted to eat me alive. "James Leigh..." His voice was fr

Chapter 7

"You're in charge of the warehouse's security system, Mr. Walsh. I believe you're well aware of what this number means."Greg's smile froze. There was panic in his eyes, but he quickly calmed down to deny everything. "That's complete nonsense!" He pointed at me and said to everyone else, "Are you sure you want to listen to him? What does a stockkeeper know about a system's records? Anyone would know how to make up these numbers. It's clear that the problem is with the equipment! Stop trying to stall for time with your nonsense!" "Are you sure?" I laughed coldly and turned to look at Lynn, who looked taken aback, while ignoring him. "Can you help me with something, Lynn?" My tone was calm.Lynn was surprised but nodded. "Can you get your laptop from your car and connect to the warehouse's main security camera via data cable?""What are you trying to do?" Lynn looked cautious."I'm trying to pull backend records from the system.""That's impossible!" Greg suddenly screamed. "Bac

Chapter 8

Tony's eyes were not just filled with anger, but also a chilling, murderous look. The sweat on Greg's forehead kept dripping, and his shirt collar was soon wet.I mentioned the last crucial point. "Someone raised the trigger threshold of the warehouse floor. On a normal day, the system's alarm would go off the moment the warehouse door was opened or when someone moved goods at night. However, once the threshold has been raised, the warehouse floor will return to normal, and the anomaly will not be recorded within a short timeframe."When this happens, the alarm will not sound if someone moves an important item away during this time. Once the system starts functioning as usual again, it will leave behind a huge amount of unusual data and make it seem like there is something wrong with the equipment."I looked at Greg. "Once this happens, the loss of an item from the warehouse can be explained as a system glitch. That's when you'll get the opportunity to convince Mr. Chapman to replac

Chapter 9

I stared at the screen silently for a while. Everyone thought I was out of ideas, but I suddenly said, "We don't need the administrator's key." I looked at Lynn. "Do me a favor and buy the most ordinary control panel you can find from the electronics store. Also, get me a decent-quality welding tool, fine welding wire, and a few connecting wires."Lynn was taken aback. A control panel like that did not cost much and was usually used by students to practice their electronics skills. "What would you want all that for, Mr. Leigh?" She could not help asking. "You aren't thinking about using that small control board to connect to the security system's master control, are you?" She was in disbelief. "How is that possible?" It sounded absurd that a small control board worth less than a hundred dollars would be powerful enough to connect to a security system worth several hundred thousand dollars, but I did not explain my reasons.Even though Tony did not understand all these, he now trust

Chapter 10

All I found were minor scratches and some soil left behind on the door crack. I bent down and followed the track across the ground and around the corner of the wall, finally finding a very small piece of torn cloth. The cloth had been stepped on by the specific footprint and had oil stains on it. It was confirmation that someone who worked at the warehouse left it behind.This had been a success! I had used an almost unnoticed clue to find the true culprit behind this theft. My colleagues cheered."That's incredible!""You're really something, Mr. Leigh!""Unbelievable! That's amazing!"Everyone was hugging each other as if they had just achieved a great victory. Lynn's eyes were red as she ran over to me to grab my hands tightly with so much force that it felt like it could crush my bones. I pulled my hands away from hers and said calmly, "We shouldn't be celebrating so early. Locking down on the suspect is just the first step. We still need to continue tracking the culprit to ca

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