Chapter 40
#040
1.
Let's quickly sum up the situation.
I chose the option to kill Arbel.
Time limit: 20 days.
Various Premium Fever perks were granted.
While I was searching for a loophole to clear this route while saving Arbel.
From Isis, I even learned that maybe 'true ancestor blood' could work?
—or so she said.
‘So who exactly is the true ancestor?’
‘…….’
Maybe because of some taboo, she kept her mouth shut when I asked who the true ancestor was…
The information Isis gave lined up with something Yiming had said before.
That the biochemical weapon spread for 'Project Z' was actually diluted true ancestor blood.
But Project Z was shut down, so maybe there's still some blood left at Twilight Resource Development?
Or could a charismatic true-ancestor heroine please show up instead?
Please…
“We’ll figure it out as we go.”
I still have plenty of time.
I need to power up, grind achievements, and gather info diligently.
After leaving Isis’s clinic, I headed straight to work.
By 'work,' I naturally mean the Chwihong Pavilion in Yahwawon where Yiming stays.
The night in Yahwawon is dazzling, but the early morning Yahwawon reminds me of a public restroom the day after a record-breaking flood.
“Uweeeek!!!”
“Gyaaaah!!! I lost 300,000!!!! My life is over!!!! Somebody lend me some money!!!!”
Drunks who'd run themselves ragged drinking till late, gamblers who'd spent their very souls at the mahjong parlors, and courtesans holding bodies that countless men had passed through all night, their hollow eyes fixed blankly as they puffed on long pipes.
That last one especially caught my eye.
That gives me the chills.
If I'd been hit by the TS beam back then, I might be sitting over there with them now.
I worship you again today, my warding charm.
“Lord Rowen, good morning.”
“Mm.”
“Please stop by our shop sometime! We’ll treat you to some hot service.”
“Then could I maybe take one qipao with me? The size is about this—”
“Huh…? Of course!”
“Give me a new one.”
As I passed by the brothel district, the pimps in Yiming's employ greeted me.
Since I'd been trailing Yiming around like a goldfish turd these past few days, I'd naturally made an impression as 'some important bigshot.'
After farming up a qipao for Arbel, I headed into Yiming's office.
“Big bro Yiming, I’m here.”
“Rowen, is that you?”
Yiming was already thoroughly drunk first thing in the morning.
The position of district lord was equivalent to a director at Twilight Resource Development, but he was the complete opposite of workaholic Mama Ceres.
I knew it!
“Have a full glass. It’ll loosen you up.”
“Oh, thanks.”
I handed him the honey water I'd brought and asked.
Usually Yiming's face would have lit up, but today he looked gloomy.
“Did something bad happen?”
“Something's got me all fired up.”
“Really? Want to go blow off some steam?”
“No.”
Wait, the section chief Yiming is refusing club activities?
“Then I did bring some newly procured stockings….”
“That’s a no too.”
No! Was Yiming really refusing Ceres's stockings, like some dog turning up its nose at food?!
We're fucked.
This is an emergency.
His tone even sounds more snippy than usual. Looks like our Yiming-ham is having that day.
I wanted to ask what a true ancestor was, whether he could explain the relationship between Project Z and the true ancestor in detail, and whether there was any way to obtain true ancestor blood.
I had wanted to ask him all sorts of things, but…
It wasn't the mood for that.
“Big bro, if I can ease your worries, I’ll help.”
“You? Ah, right. You’re a grade 7 yourself, more or less.”
“Yes, big bro. Technically I’m grade 9, but I can polish off grade 7-level work.”
Yiming seemed to think for a moment, then waved me off.
“No, no, it’s fine. No need for you to get involved too.”
“What happened?”
After a moment's hesitation, Yiming spilled the beans.
According to Yiming’s explanation…
There’s supposedly a fixer office called 'Red Cloud Hall' in the E-Sector slums, made up of a dozen or so grade-8s.
It's an office that mostly takes subcontract jobs from the Red Dragon family’s district lord.
“Those fucking brainless Red Cloud Hall bastards seem to have siphoned off our goods, but we don't have clear proof they did it.”
I knew because I'd seen and heard things.
Overnus Pharmaceuticals takes on a strong cartel-like form and has roots spread through all sorts of industries in the C-Sector.
That means the struggle over vested interests is far more violent than at Twilight Resource Development.
'War' is taboo, but 'proxy wars' through hired fixers are loosely allowed as long as you don't cross the line.
It's not for nothing that there aren't any insurance companies in Necropolis, you know?
Yiming was probably trying to figure out who he should send so he could wrap this up while preserving his dignity, without it escalating into all-out war.
In a world of violence, face is directly tied to authority.
Hmm, this is an opportunity.
Even if I'm Yiming's unofficial youpini, in reality I've only joined a cross-dressing club that almost got shut down because it didn't have a single member.
For now, it's even embarrassing to call me a member of the Hyun-gwi Family.
I went to the trouble of infiltrating as a spy; I can't just find out Yiming's favorite courtesan ranking or the lipstick that defined his life, can I?
To become his true youpini and build more trust,
I need to get involved in the organization's work too.
And since my playstyle is inexperienced anyway, I should be able to rack up some points too.
“Big bro.”
“Hm?”
“What am I to you, big bro?”
“Why are you asking all of a sudden? We may not share blood, but you're my brother.”
“Don't lie to me.”
“What?”
When I went dead serious, Yiming blinked in surprise.
“If you thought of me as your brother! As a man! then you should've told me to go kill those fucking bastards right now!”
“No, I just thought you might get hurt….”
“Big bro!!!!”
I pleaded with all my heart.
“I’m not serving you because I want to live comfortably in your shadow!”
“……!”
“I’m here because, as a man, I want to become your strength! Why can’t you see that!”
“R-Rowen…!”
“Wouldn’t you be prouder of a younger brother like that too, big bro!!! The proud spirit of the Hyun-gwi Family beats in this heart too!”
Yiming's pupils trembled violently.
Then a serious light entered his eyes.
“Can you do it?”
“Just tell me where they are. I'll wring the necks of those chicken-brained bastards in Red Cloud Hall and bring the goods back too.”
“…How vexing, how vexing. Why did I have to meet you only now?”
Yiming closed his eyes tightly, then embraced me warmly.
Shit! Don't do that!
“Come back in one piece, my younger brother. Rowen.”
I answered in a low voice.
“I’ll be back before the booze gets cold.”
Ha… at least I got him to go along with it, more or less.
Honestly, I still don't really get mainland-style sentiment.
2.
So far, this route has had Project Z blowing up while I had basically nothing to work with, keeping people on edge.
But this Premium route gives me a whopping 60 days if I go all the way.
That means I can lay the groundwork for bringing Arbel back to life step by step.
“Even loot farming starts with the fundamentals.”
In that sense, there's one part I'm personally looking forward to.
✧ [Growth Acceleration]: All growth proficiency gains ≪500%≫ UP!
This.
Premium Fever's Growth Acceleration.
Fivefold leverage is a bit underwhelming, though.
I'm planning to see what kind of synergy I get when that stacks with 'High' understanding of death.
In the first place, 'Death Sentence' is the act of pronouncing a sigil projected with mana onto the target.
Since there was no way to compare its effect properly on nonliving things, that was a bit of a pain.
In the end, real combat is best.
And so, I arrived at my old stomping grounds, the E-Sector.
The Red Cloud Hall bastards' hideout was a logistics warehouse on the outskirts of the E-Sector.
Did he say there were fourteen grade-8 fixers?
“If they’re below Sunming, I’ll fold them all.”
And not just any Sunming—drugged-up Sunming at that.
In front of me, the strongest grade-7 fixer alive, they're just a little post-meal exercise.
I hid in the gloomy shade created by the smog and watched the situation.
The warehouse was two stories tall.
Its bare H-beam frame was black with rust.
The first floor was used as storage, and the second floor as offices; light from lamps and the like leaked out of the upstairs windows.
One entrance. Two guards in front of it.
Calling it standing watch would be generous.
They were just cackling at each other with cigarettes in their mouths.
I happened to have something I wanted to test.
In my last fight with Sunming, I'd already reproduced Kisara's slash and fall death.
But I hadn't yet reproduced the instant of having a head blown off by a gun.
“Hoo….”
I drew my mana up.
The sensation of a sticky liquid flowing through my veins.
The image of 'death' itself coalesced into a droplet above my hand.
The distance to the target was roughly 50 meters.
I wasn't about to hesitate now.
I'd already decided what had to come first and what had to come after.
Who told you to start a gangster office and jack Yiming's stuff?
In Necropolis, that's more than enough to make it a life-or-death matter.
“Focus.”
I brought my index and middle fingers together and, with the sensation of firing a pistol….
Aim.
Maintain breathing.
Fire.
Without any sound or warning.
A black droplet shaped like a bullet sliced through the air.
-Puhk!
Almost simultaneously with the discharge of Death Sentence, the head of the man I'd aimed at exploded.
The embers of the cigarette clenched in his mouth scattered, making a tiny fireworks display.
Blood splattered across the warehouse wall like paint.
I thought I'd be able to kill quietly, like a movie suppressor, but the sound of the skull exploding was louder than I expected.
I guess the gunshots had been covering it up until now.
“Huh?”
The fixer next to him seemed horrified by the magic trick of his comrade's head disappearing.
“It's not magic tricks, it's magic.”
This time, I changed the imagery imbued in Death Sentence.
Mana stretched out like a flexible cord and wrapped around the man's neck.
The image I pictured was…
A special forces soldier silently ambushing an enemy from behind and snapping his neck to kill him.
What do you even call this? This thing.
Neck-twist death? Cervical-crush death?
-Crrack!
Anyway, once the mana coiled around his neck.
His head spun like a top wound on a string.
With a sound like cartilage breaking, a brief final 'guhk' escaped him.
“Okay, confirmed this works too.”
It was much easier to reproduce than I'd expected.
Just in case, I'd also kept my most familiar 'slash' on standby.
“Hmm.”
I looked down at my hand for a moment.
Can I feel my proficiency going up?
It didn't seem like much, but maybe things felt a little smoother than usual.
Maybe it was just placebo. Then again, maybe one or two tries aren't enough.
After all, the first time I'd ever used Death Sentence in actual combat was against Sunming.
While I was mulling over this and that, I approached the warehouse.
“Grrrk, grrrk….”
The guy whose neck I'd twisted was still alive.
More precisely, he was still barely breathing and writhing in pain.
I frowned before I knew it.
“Damn, man. Sorry. Didn't finish you cleanly.”
Living as a fixer, I've got the mindset that killing and being killed is fair game, no complaints either way.
Still, I was planning to send him off without pain.
-Shwak
“Rest in paradise.”
I finished him cleanly with an extra hit.
“Hmm, that's strange.”
Come to think of it, the mana felt like it was snagging a bit.
Maybe the resolution was low because it wasn't an image I'd personally experienced or used before?
“Can I get good at this through repeated practice?”
Maybe if I try it a few more times, I'll get the hang of it…
-Clang!
“W-what the hell!?”
“You bastard! Who sent you!?”
“How dare you come after Red Cloud Hall…!”
The side door of the warehouse opened, and men in coats came flooding out.
Looks like they were all gathered together, maybe planning to go to the bathroom.
The Red Cloud Hall bastards drew their weapons and charged me the moment they saw me.
Sixteen in total, even.
Counting the two I'd already killed, that's four more than the intel said.
Well, that happens.
They're just grade 8s anyway, right?
I already beat a doped-up grade-7 Sunming.
In fact, the gap between grade 8 and grade 7 is as wide as the difference between a sheep and a wolf.
Even so.
“Ha, shit. Seeing them all together, there are kind of a lot, huh?”
I formed a hand sign.
Seems I don't have time to experiment and verify things at my leisure.
If that's the case.
“Split in half and die.”
I’ll just blast them with Death Sentence!
3.
Wang Fei is Red Cloud Hall's grade-7 fixer and its boss.
However, he hadn't originally belonged to Red Cloud Hall.
Wang Fei had been the leader of a fixer office called 'Rising Dragon Faction,' made up of four grade-7s, and not long ago he had taken Red Cloud Hall over by force.
Before even two days had passed, he got information from a client and succeeded in pocketing quite a bit of 'merchandise.'
Up to that point, Wang Fei thought this merger was a real success.
Risk always comes with fixer work, and opportunities this big don't come around often.
If the risk was going to be similar anyway, it was better to get in with the Red Dragon family for the sake of advancement.
He'd even finished his level-2 augmentation, and he had three companions of similar level.
On top of that, he'd gained fourteen underlings, so he figured nothing was left but to keep charging ahead.
“Cough, cough….”
But now, looking back, he thought…
He shouldn't have stepped into a monster's game.
Through vision half-dyed red by seeped blood, he could make out a man.
Black hair like the Grim Reaper's and cold, black eyes.
There wasn't even the slightest scratch on him, let alone any sign his breathing was disturbed.
“Ha… something's different? It feels like it's going out a lot more than last time… or not? Is it placebo? It's so mixed up I can't tell.”
Wang Fei's gaze slid over.
In front of the man muttering like a lunatic, it revealed a sea of blood and corpses.
Corpses were strewn about like fish chopped up at a fish market.
‘How?’
He couldn't understand.
With blood draining away and his head turning slowly, he simply couldn't understand.
The moment the man made that bizarre hand motion, dozens of black straight lines shot out in all directions.
With the first move, half the grade-8s were split in two and died instantly.
But they were all fixers.
They had combat instincts born of experience and years.
The ones who survived tried to squeeze through the gap.
They tried to enter as if encircling him from all sides, use their mobility to slip past the 'straight lines,' and even approach by evading outright.
“No. Think positive. At least now I can fire in all directions, right?”
But it was meaningless.
Dense straight lines, like the scribbles of a deranged child, covered the space again and again.
They were at least twice as dense as before.
They were wearing protective garments resistant to various kinds of magic, even zero-grade spells.
That too meant nothing.
One second later, the surviving grade-8s were wiped out.
Within less than three seconds, the grade-7s who had originally been from the Rising Dragon Faction were done for.
Wang Fei, who was desperately evading, didn't last past five seconds before his protective gear was torn apart, and before ten seconds had passed, his limbs were severed.
“Tch, bastards. Seemed like there were some guys who weren't grade 8 too….”
That was the last thing he saw: the man's back as he grumbled while heading into the warehouse.
Wang Fei's eyelids sank heavily.