Chapter 3
There were many nameless stalls in the scrap market on Underground Level 19.
They had no signs, required no permits, and paid no taxes.
Instead, there were only knife-men, foulmouths, and debtors.
To do business there for long, you had to know three things.
First, never trust anything that looked intact.
Second, never trust anyone selling something too cheaply.
Third, never trust customers who were too quiet.
Harun had survived twelve years by following those three rules.
Twelve years on Underground Level 19.
That was quite a long time.
Here, no person, shop, or name lasted long. It was the kind of place where someone who had been selling prosthetic arms beside you until yesterday could be found crushed beneath a transport pipe today.
So surviving twelve years here was an impressive feat.
At least, that was what Harun thought.
His stall was at the edge of the market, beside a waste-heat pipe.
The location was poor.
In summer, the heat rising from the waste-heat pipe made it feel as though his skin were roasting, while in winter, the heat would suddenly cut off and freeze his fingers.
Still, it wasn't all bad.
Since people didn't want to stay long in a place like that, there were fewer obnoxious customers.
Harun set up an old tent there and laid out cracked circuit boards, spent batteries, broken magilights, prosthetic joints, and unidentified crystal components.
Most of it was garbage.
But underground, there wasn't much difference between garbage and merchandise.
If it could be fixed, it was merchandise; if it couldn't, it was garbage.
And... if it could be passed off, that was merchandise, too.
With a magnifying lens hanging over one eye, Harun was examining a circuit board the size of a fingernail.
It was a cracked auxiliary processing chip.
By upper-level standards, it was scrap.
“Damn it.”
He scraped the soot from the circuit board with his fingertip.
The mana flow had been severed completely.
This can't be saved.
He tossed the circuit board aside and picked up the next item.
That was when it happened.
A shadow fell over the front of the stall, but Harun didn't raise his head.
Waiting until the customer spoke first was the basics of business.
Responding first could also make him look desperate.
And the desperate side always lost in negotiations.
A brief silence passed.
Then, a low voice spoke.
“How much?”
Only then did Harun raise his head.
A man he had never seen before was standing in front of the stall.
He was young.
According to the scan records, he looked sixteen, or seventeen at most.
But unlike his appearance, his eyes held deep shadows.
There were usually two kinds of youngsters on the underground levels.
Those who were terrified, and those who acted belligerently to hide how frightened they were.
But this man was neither.
His clothes were dirty, but strangely, he didn't look shabby.
Harun clicked his tongue inwardly.
He seemed like a troublesome one.
He looked at the item the customer had placed on the stall.
It was a piece of magitech slightly larger than a palm.
‘What a waste.’
If it was functional, it would have been a fairly high-grade item worth selling for a good price.
However.
A black metal frame, a cracked crystal plate, and severed circuit wires sticking out from the side.
Harun reached a conclusion the moment he saw it.
It was scrap.
“It's garbage.”
Harun scoffed.
“It won't even fetch scrap value.”
The man didn't back down.
“But there’s still mana inside.”
“So what if there is? It doesn't flow.”
Harun tapped the device with his finger.
“The input section is burned out, the conversion circuit is severed, and the crystal plate is cracked. This can't be fixed.”
Normally, that would be enough to make someone curse and walk away.
Well, sometimes people grabbed him by the collar, too.
Those people were easy to deal with. There were more people in the market who drew knives quickly than people who grabbed collars.
But instead of cursing, the man looked down at the device.
“…?”
“You say it can't be fixed.”
The man muttered softly.
Harun frowned.
It was an unpleasant way of speaking. He sounded as though he genuinely couldn't understand.
The man pressed a fingertip against the severed circuit wire.
“The problem isn't here.”
“What?”
“The conversion circuit isn't broken. The flow is backing up here.”
Harun's expression crumpled.
“What do you know?”
“Be quiet and watch.”
Harun was momentarily speechless.
Then the man lightly touched the item.
That was truly all he did.
Zap.
One of the dead circuits glowed faintly.
Harun's one eye widened.
“What did you just do?”
“I found the blockage.”
The man picked up a thin piece of metal lying nearby.
Harun found himself reaching out.
It was madness.
That wasn't a maintenance tool.
It was just a scrap of metal he had picked up from a garbage heap yesterday. Its edge wasn't even sharp, and it had no insulation. Touching the circuit board with it could easily damage even the flow that remained.
“Hey, if you touch it with that...”
The man ignored him and scraped the soot from the circuit board with the tip of the metal scrap.
Then he connected the two severed wires with an extremely thin bridge.
Harun held his breath.
That wasn't something that could be called maintenance.
A proper repairman wouldn't do it that way.
He would use circuit rearrangement equipment, apply a flow stabilizer, and secure the crystal plate's cracks first.
There was an old saying about the belly being bigger than the body, wasn't there? By his estimate, the repair would cost more than the device itself.
And yet.
Vrrrrm.
A blue light came on inside the cracked crystal plate.
Harun's mouth fell open.
“Why is it turning on?”
The man set the device down.
“Because the circuit wasn't dead.”
It was impossible.
Harun snatched up the device.
Mana began flowing inside the crystal plate.
It was unstable, but it was alive nonetheless.
The dead circuit was flowing again.
Without circuit rearrangement equipment.
Without a stabilizer.
Without proper tools.
With a single piece of scrap metal.
Harun looked at the man's hands.
Without equipment.
Without a schematic.
He had repaired an item that had seemed beyond saving with those hands.
A chill ran down the back of Harun's neck.
What was even more unsettling was the expression on the man's face, as though he had no idea how strange what he had just done was.
“How much?”
The man asked again.
Harun couldn't answer.
The price?
The price, at a time like this?
This youngster was asking how much the item he had brought was worth.
Without even considering the value of the skill he had just displayed.
Harun slowly set the device down and looked the man straight in the eye.
“You.”
He spoke in a low voice.
“Work with me.”
***
“Work with me.”
Kael had come to sell the device.
At most, he had expected a bowl of cheap cultured gruel he could eat that evening and, if he was lucky, a place to lie down for the night.
But then, a job had suddenly been offered to him.
More precisely, the old stall owner in front of him was trying to pull Kael into a job.
Kael regarded him for a moment.
The old man with a magnifying lens over one eye had ingrained grease stains on his hands.
Kael noticed the discarded circuits and scrap metal spread across the stall.
And the gaze that had not left his fingertips for some time.
The old man wasn't looking at the item. He was looking at Kael.
“A job?”
Kael asked in return.
“I came here to sell something.”
“I know.”
The stall owner tapped the device with his finger.
“But your hands look more valuable than the item.”
It was blatant.
Kael liked his attitude.
A person who openly displayed his greed was easier to deal with than someone who hid his ulterior motives.
Kael pushed the item toward him.
“Then pay for the item first.”
The stall owner's eyebrow twitched.
“I just brought up the job.”
“That's what you brought up.”
Kael pointed to the device on the stall.
“I came here to sell this, so let's handle one deal at a time.”
There was a brief silence.
The stall owner glared at Kael, but he didn't care.
He was hungry and thirsty. His body had not yet recovered, and he hadn't slept properly, either.
But those circumstances were only reasons for the other side to lower the price, not something he should reveal first.
The moment you showed weakness in a negotiation, the other party would exploit it.
He knew that much, at least.
The stall owner burst out laughing.
“Not bad for someone who hasn't been underground long.”
“I want to live a long time.”
“For someone who wants to live a long time, your way of speaking is dangerous.”
“That's for me to decide.”
Kael extended his hand a little farther.
“The price.”
The stall owner clicked his tongue and pulled several old metal chips from beneath the stall.
“Five credits.”
“Twenty.”
“Are you crazy?”
“You said I brought a dead circuit back to life.”
“So?”
“Then it isn't scrap anymore.”
The corner of the stall owner's mouth stiffened.
He looked down at the device.
He pretended to consider it, but his answer had already been decided.
He wanted to buy the device.
No, more precisely, he wanted to use the device as an excuse to keep Kael there.
If so, there was no need to look desperate.
The stall owner spoke again.
“Ten.”
“Eighteen.”
“Twelve.”
“Twenty.”
The stall owner narrowed his eyes.
“You're raising the price?”
“Because you tried to lower it.”
“You little shit.”
“If you're not buying it, give it back.”
Kael reached for the device.
At that moment, the stall owner pulled the device toward himself.
It was slow.
He wasn't openly trying to block Kael, but he didn't want to let it go, either.
Kael stopped his hand.
Just as he expected.
The stall owner had no intention of letting the item slip away.
“Fifteen.”
He ground out the word.
“And a bowl of gruel.”
Kael considered it for a moment.
Fifteen credits wasn't bad, considering.
Besides, with a bowl of gruel included, he wouldn't go hungry today.
But he didn't nod right away.
He needed to see a little more.
“Two bowls of gruel.”
“Did your conscience get crushed beneath a transport pipe?”
“It's still alive. That's why I want two bowls.”
The stall owner glared at him.
Kael quietly met his gaze.
Several seconds later, the stall owner looked away first.
“Fine. Two bowls of gruel.”
He tossed the metal chips onto the stall.
“Happy now?”
Kael counted the chips.
Fifteen credits.
They didn't seem counterfeit.
Kael slipped the metal chips into his clothes.
“Now you can talk about the job.”
The stall owner laughed as though he couldn't believe it.
“Thank you for allowing me.”
“Don't mention it.”
“I really don't like your tone.”
“If you like the conditions, I might consider changing it.”
“Then you'll never change it.”
The stall owner leaned back in his chair.
The characteristic lighthearted expression of a merchant had faded somewhat from his face.
“On Underground Level 19, scrap is money. A lot of the magitech that comes down from above is broken. Most of it is dismantled and sold for parts. But sometimes, there are items whose value multiplies several times over if they're merely repaired.”
“And you want me to identify and repair them.”
“I've been doing that until now.”
The stall owner tapped his magnifying lens.
“But I only have one eye, and my hands are old. And the items these days are getting more complicated by the day.”
“So?”
“You inspect the circuits. I find the items and secure places to sell them.”
“The split?”
His eyes gleamed.
He had the look of someone finally getting to the main point.
“I provide the market stall, the buyers, protection money, and information fees. You do the hands-on work. The profits are eighty-twenty.”
Kael nodded.
“Then you get twenty.”
The stall owner's face hardened.
“Are you joking?”
“Were you not joking?”
“This is my spot. My buyers. I know how to sell the things you repair.”
“And I'm the one bringing the items back to life.”
Kael pointed to the device on the stall.
“I brought back the item you just said couldn't be fixed.”
“Once.”
“That's why it's more expensive.”
The stall owner fell silent.
Kael continued.
“You want to find out whether repairing that was a fluke.”
His eyes wavered.
That was the answer.
Just as he thought.
More than hiring Kael, he wanted to test him.
If so, Kael had to set the terms.
“Sixty-forty.”
Kael spoke.
“I get sixty.”
“You crazy bastard.”
“Then the deal is off.”
Kael started to turn away.
The stall owner slapped his palm against the table.
Bang.
“Wait.”
Kael stopped walking but didn't turn around.
The stall owner spoke softly.
“Fifty-fifty.”
“I get sixty.”
“You don't have a stall, a status, or any buyers.”
“That's why you need me.”
Kael slowly turned around.
“But you need me, too, don't you?”
The stall owner gritted his teeth.
“You want sixty based on a pair of unproven hands?”
“Then I suppose I should prove them.”
“What?”
“Bring me three items tonight. Ones you couldn't fix. If I save even one, we split it sixty-forty.”
Kael paused, then added,
“If I save all three, seventy-thirty.”
The stall owner said nothing for a long while.
Then he finally laughed.
“You really haven't been underground long.”
“…?”
“Anyone who acts that boldly down here is one of two things. Completely ignorant, or someone who really has something.”
“Which do I seem like?”
“That's what I want to find out by working with you.”
The stall owner rummaged beneath the stall and pulled out an old cloth pouch.
He took out two dead circuit boards and a cracked magilight and placed them on the stall.
“Fine. This is a test.”
“The conditions?”
“Save one, fifty-fifty. Save two, you get sixty. Save all three, you get seventy.”
“Up front.”
“What?”
Kael held out his hand.
“I need tools. Insulated gloves, thin metal probes, a circuit scraper, and something to eat.”
The stall owner let out a hollow laugh.
“You want me to set up an entire workshop for you?”
“That would be nice, too, if possible.”
“Crazy bastard.”
Even as he said that, he rummaged beneath the stall.
A moment later, he threw a pair of old cloth gloves, several metal probes with worn tips, and a small scraper in front of Kael.
Then he tossed over a piece of hard bread wrapped in oil paper.
Kael picked up the bread first.
The stall owner's eyebrows rose.
“Food before work?”
“If I'm hungry, my hands are more likely to slip.”
“That's true.”
Kael took a bite of the bread.
It tasted horrible.
It was hard and soggy, with what seemed like the smell of metal filings soaked into it.
But it was edible. That was enough.
Kael tucked the remaining bread into his clothes and looked at the discarded circuit boards on the stall.
“Let's begin.”
“Let's begin.”