Chapter 12
#012
1.
Necropolis, second run.
About a week had passed.
In that time, I'd adapted to this city so quickly I could've bragged, "This is why companies hire experienced workers."
So what exactly had happened during that time.....
2.
With the money I'd extorted from the guys who attacked me, plus the cash from selling the corpses, I obtained a Rank 9 fixer license.
Registered name: John Wick.
I ditched balding, M-shaped-hairline James and switched to a much more intimidating-sounding name.
It wasn't hard at all, since it was basically a fake license anyone and their dog could get for 5,000 Bios.
But hadn't I learned that at the Big Dick Office?
Just because you have fixer certification doesn't mean you can get good jobs.
Sweet gigs float around the office network as back-end jobs or subcontract work, and only the petty stuff gets posted on the city bulletin board.
If I wanted to make money fast within a week, I needed my own office.
-BANG!
"FBI! OPEN UP!"
I kicked the door open and stormed in with some slick door breaching.
This was the Get Money Office in District E-11.
According to what I'd looked up beforehand, it was a small-time office run by two Rank 8 fixers working as a team.
"W-what the fuck!"
The two guys who'd been playing cards against each other jumped up in a panic.
The pile of coins and cards that had been stacked high scattered across the floor.
If this weren't the situation, I would've joined in.
"Wow, poker with just two guys? If you're lonely, do you two blow each other too?"
"You crazy bastard, barging in here and picking a fight! Do you know where you are?"
Truth be told, a Rank 8 fixer wasn't someone to take lightly.
There were cases like the Big Dick brothers, where Rank 9 fixers built up experience and got promoted, but....
Some had usable gear, some had augmentations, and some were the type to use "magic."
Basically, they were the kind of ruthless bastards who could full-swing a bat into an unguarded person's head without hesitation.
But no problem.
-Bang!
I didn't even need the Sharingan—no, Laplace's Eye.
Because there probably wasn't a Rank 8 fixer carrying anything as impressive as this revolver.
"...F-fuck... w-what...."
A single shot into the ceiling was enough to take the fight out of them.
"I'm taking over this place. Clear out."
"Y-yes, sir! We'll clear out!"
With their necks tucked tight, the two men plastered themselves to the wall and shuffled toward the entrance.
"Hold it."
"Yes?"
"I'm the boss here, remember? I'll hire you two as part-timers. For every request you complete, I'll split half the fee with you. And in a week, I'll cleanly vacate the office."
In any case, we needed a handover, and I'd need the advice of guys who knew the city inside and out.
"But if you quit halfway, I'll come back and wreck the place again. What do you say?"
The two of them just stared at each other blankly, then nodded with baffled expressions.
"Let's start with introductions. Baldy, you first."
"Ah... I'm Akit...."
"The muscle next to you. You?"
"I-I'm Areng."
"I'm John Wick. Nice to meet you."
And just like that, I became the temporary boss of the Get Money Office.
The Get Money Office was a third-tier subcontract office for Overnus Pharmaceuticals, one of the two giants that ran Necropolis alongside Twilight Resource Development.
Ceres, the death flag from my previous run, was a director at Twilight Resource Development.
The Big Dick Office also, for now, mostly took jobs from Twilight Resource Development.
So this was basically the choice I made to avoid any contact with Ceres as much as possible.
Anyway, the moment I took the temporary boss position, I started tackling every request piled up at the Get Money Office.
Literally, I was taking on anything and everything.
"Hey, hey, hey, guys. Isn't this leaking all over the place?"
"GRAAAH!!! It's leaking! It's leaking! Fuck, what kind of bullshit is this, having to haul away a few buckets of this shitwater?"
"Let's not take jobs like this anymore, boss!"
"What, part-timers get to be picky about work? Shut up and run!"
"What the fuck, since when do you talk to me like we're buddies? This is fucking shitty...."
"Want a bullet in your head?"
"I'm running! I'm already running!"
Illegal dumping of toxic waste.
"Mister, if you borrowed money, you should pay it back. Yeah?"
"J-just a little more time, please...."
"Sure, I'll give you more time. But I looked into it, and your daughter is really quite pretty, you know? Sell her to a brothel and she'd be ace material."
"Hiiik! H-here... here it is...."
Debt collection.
"Areng, that's the bastard, right?"
"Yes, that guy jacked the job fee up threefold, got paid, and then ran without even wiping his ass properly."
"Bold as hell. Good—I’ll count to three, bag his head, and you two beat the shit out of him until he croaks. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Kraaaah! W-who the hell are you guys?!"
"Die! Die! Die!"
Contract killing.
"Kuhahaha, this stuff is high-grade indeed."
"It's designer drugs copied straight from Overnus Pharmaceuticals. On the surface it looks like bath salts, but if you burn it like this and inhale the vapor.... Huh? W-who are you guys?"
"We're prosecutors from South Korea, you junkie bastards. Lock them all up!!!"
Crackdown on illegal drug dealing.
"...But what do you think is in this box?"
"A-Akit... didn't you just hear something inside....?"
"D-don't be ridiculous... how could a person fit in a box this small.... B-boss? What is this?"
"Maybe there's a little sheep inside."
"What nonsense are you suddenly talking about...."
"Tch, you ignorant bastards. Don't you know The Little Prince?"
Hmm.... Probably transport work.
"Boss, I've been wondering for a while, but why do you wear that shitty clown makeup?"
"Akit, what kind of way is that to talk to the boss.... It's obviously for intimidation, isn't it? Like tattoos, right?"
"……."
"Boss? Boss John Wick, you look off today. You haven't said a word since earlier."
"Why are your hands shaking so much?"
"I don't know, fuck off and stop talking to me. I'm fucking exhausted."
The casino guard job was the hardest.
Though our first meeting had been less than ideal, we worked together quite well.
Akit and Areng weren't bad in a fight, but they were dumb as rocks.
Meanwhile, I was the high-IQ genius who could serve as their brain.
On top of that, with Laplace's Eye, which was useful for tracking jobs, my completion rate had more than doubled in just a few days.
It had been about a week since I'd started working with them.
"Guys, today I'm gonna feed you something really fucking amazing."
"Oh! Boss is treating us?"
"Are we going to Hongshen Market?"
"Hold on, you punk."
After finishing today's requests, I took out the stash of Chapagetti I'd been hiding.
Though I'd spent the 5 pt I'd bled for....
Well, it was kind of a celebration party, right?
Besides, since it came in a five-pack, I'd still have two left for Arbel's discharge party once she got better.
"Sniff sniff. Wow, boss. This smells...."
"Didn't I tell you to go wait over there?"
"Aww, why're you speaking so coyly? Got it."
The pinnacle of chemical seasoning, created when Korea's top master's and doctoral minds put their heads together.
In a city that boils up scraps fished out of trash bins and serves them as food, even the smell alone is deadly.
My stomach gurgled.
I'm seriously losing my mind.
Should I have just eaten it by myself?
"There, done!"
But seeing Akit and Areng roll their eyes back and go crazy over it, that regret vanished in an instant.
"B-boss...! This is incredible! How can it taste this good? W-where on earth did you get something like this?"
"You punks. You've worked hard all this time. Eat up."
"Boohoo, how am I supposed to eat normal food now? I'm so fucked for real...."
"It's precious stuff. Eat it sparingly."
"Sluuurp! Slurrrrrrp!"
"Hey, hey-hey-hey, you fucking bitch! Give it back! I said eat it sparingly! Spit it out!"
They looked terrifying, tattoos and all, but once you got close they were pretty cheerful guys.
Of course, that was because I was stronger than them.
If I hadn't shown overwhelming force at our first meeting, Akit and Areng—laughing beside me and smacking each other on the back of the head—might have turned me into ground meat.
Three men sharing three servings of Chapagetti was still not enough.
We passed the pot around and licked it clean so thoroughly there was no need to wash it.
"Wow... this is seriously the best."
"I can die without regrets now."
The two of them sat there dazed, cigarettes hanging from their mouths, faces glazed with bliss.
"Let's call it a day here."
Akit looked like he'd seen a ghost.
"Huh? We're not going out for the night shift today?"
"I've got something scheduled."
"You gave us something tasty, so I thought we were taking on some dangerous job today."
Come to think of it, until now our schedule had been work at dawn, work at lunch, work at dinner, and work at night.
But today was both the day the cockroach nutrient blocks were distributed and the day Arbel, half dead, came back.
Summing up the profits from this past week....
======
:::Challenges (NEW!):::
- Set up a fixer office +5pt
- Complete a contract-killing request +1pt
- Successfully complete a shady delivery +1pt
- Illegally dump trash into the river +1pt
.
.
[Current Points : 132pt]
======
26 points gathered from the challenge objectives.
The total Bios earned was 460,000, and half of that was mine, so 230,000.
The miner's weekly wage I'd seen on the city bulletin board before was 15,000.
And if getting your ass pounded at a brothel called a steam bath paid 50,000 a week plus extras, this wasn't pocket change.
Since a typical back-alley doctor's treatment fee was 20,000 Bios per visit, 230,000 Bios should do the trick, right?
"Wrap things up and head home."
As I put on my coat, Areng, the musclebound hulk, shuffled over awkwardly.
"Why?"
"Boss, it's been a week now.... Couldn't you just keep working with us from here on out?"
"You're buttering me up because I gave you tasty food?"
Akit leaned in too.
"Yes! Honestly, at first I thought you were just some crazy bastard putting on airs, but I really learned a lot."
"I realized that if we're going to survive in this city, we need to be under someone like you! Please take us in!"
Being a fixer definitely paid.
And building a team made more money than working alone.
"Well, let's meet tomorrow and talk."
"You're coming tomorrow? You absolutely have to come! Promise!"
3.
A frail figure.
A young woman was stumbling through Necropolis's night streets.
A rather short stature.
Torn clothes here and there, and small wounds.
Her beautiful blond hair was matted with blood, and her eyes were hazy as if drugged.
It was Arbel.
As you could tell, her consciousness was already half gone.
Both her body and mana circuits had been shredded fighting the attackers.
The long journey from Aden to Necropolis, and from Necropolis back to the safehouse, slowly wore her life away like a drawn-out hanging.
"Hey, look at that bitch. Looks like she's on something."
"Heh-heh, the little miss doesn't know how scary the world is. We should drag her somewhere dark and teach her a lesson."
Her reason was already no longer functioning properly.
The map to the safehouse she'd desperately repeated to herself until the very end was all that guided her steps in her drunken stupor.
But she had to go.
Why? Why? Why did she still have to go despite how miserable this was?
Because it was safe? No. It wasn't.
Because Cedric was there?
Cedric was trash. A bad bastard. But still. She had to go. She had to.
Only fragments, unable to become coherent sentences, swirled in Arbel's mind.
"Hey, miss! Where are you off to in such a hurry?"
"Come hang out with us!"
Two men blocked Arbel's path.
"……."
Arbel stared blankly at the two men.
It was a situation she'd encountered countless times on the way here.
"What, is she mentally ill? Her eyes aren't even focused."
"Even better. Let's have some fun and then sell her to a brothel."
In situations like this. What was it again?
Right. Like this.
"A rabbit falls from the sky."
"What the hell are you saying? Crazy bitch... Ack!"
A pure white shape brushed past the backs of the two men's necks.
The would-be rapists, flinching at the stinging pain, instinctively brought their hands to their necks.
And then.
"Aaaah, aaaaah!"
"E... e... e...?!"
They recoiled in horror at the violently spurting stream of blood.
The two men tried to respond somehow, but unfortunately, once the carotid artery is torn, you lose consciousness within seconds.
Unless a medical team is standing by right next to you, you won't have time to react.
Arbel passed by the now-silent two men.
A little white rabbit, its bright red mouth munching adorably, vanished as if dispersing.
"Here...."
At last, the safehouse.
Arbel took out the key with trembling hands and unlocked the latch.
-Creeeak!
The door opened.
The end of this long journey was in sight.
Cedric.
My no-good little brother.
"Cedric...."
He was wearing a handsome coat she'd never seen before and ridiculous clown makeup.
"I was waiting."
Even so, rather than looking funny, he somehow seemed dependable.
Arbel swayed.
Her small body fell into Cedric's broad embrace.
Warm and soft.
As if it would be fine to fall asleep like this.
"Get some rest. I'll take you to a doctor right away."
This really had to be a dream.
Because Cedric couldn't possibly look dependable.
Arbel gave a bitter smile, nodded, and lost consciousness.