Chapter 96
I never thought I'd miss the sight of those complicated, concrete-choked streets so soon.
Everyone I met kept saying that Area 49 was the lowest district, so I thought the neighboring district would be more or less similar.
There is always an even lower bottom beneath the bottom.
“Ugh….”
Quite apart from the hostile gazes I could constantly feel coming from somewhere.
A truly indescribable, appalling stench permeated the entire area.
I had privately thought I'd grown fairly numb to terrible smells, since even the homeless people staying near the grocery store weren't exactly hygienic.
But this was beyond something that could simply be lumped together under the category of terrible smells.
There were several ‘mountains’ made entirely of garbage right before our eyes, so I hardly needed to add a detailed explanation.
Was Risk City using an American-style waste-sorting system in which nothing was recycled separately? Mountains of every kind of rotten food, furniture, appliances, and household waste were genuinely overflowing everywhere.
To make matters worse, the ground wasn't asphalt but dirt, and thick liquids even darker than oil had pooled here and there from time to time.
“If you wish, I shall remove my mask for you.”
“…No, that’s a little much.”
I appreciated the sentiment, but I wasn't desperate enough to take the full-face helmet from the cat, whose face was covered in burns and scars, and wear it myself.
Maybe I'd get used to it if I endured it long enough.
Please let that be so.
“……”
For now, I was genuinely suffering mentally.
Damn it, if I'd known this would happen, I should have taken Mikhail's role….
For reference, Mikhail Romanov, the brown bear—a homeless corporate mercenary—who had been with us had stayed behind in the streets of Area 49 to keep the nearby residents from touching the wrecked armored truck.
- ……
- What? You're saying you'll drag that truck back by yourself? Even for you, that seems difficult.
- ……
- Ah, no, I meant by calling other people….
After barely deciphering his silent gestures, it seemed he planned to move the truck back to the grocery store with Michael's or the other homeless people's help.
Still, we couldn't simply leave a valuable truck here.
A vehicle was a consumable in games, but in reality, it was valuable enough to be called one of the two great pillars of personal property alongside a house.
…Scurry!
The footsteps I'd been deliberately ignoring came from right near us, atop the garbage mountain.
It seemed to be tailing us, but its presence was far too conspicuous.
It seemed the other two people besides me had already noticed the unwelcome visitor, too.
“I shall handle it.”
“…Are you sure?”
“Hmm?”
The cat tilted its helmet as if it didn't understand what I meant.
Compared to the past, the cat's movements were on an entirely different level, so dealing with scavengers like that would be as easy as pie.
But….
Just then, the bright voice of the woman who seemed set on building a landmark here rang out in my head.
【Outing Event!】
【Random Encounter Occurred!】
Hearing that, I stopped the other two in their tracks.
“Everyone, stop.”
When I raised my head to check the place where I'd sensed a presence, I saw several vagrants in shabby Beijing-bikini outfits straining to pull something embedded halfway up the garbage mountain.
Right after that.
Bang!!
“It blew up!!”
“Fuck, that's it!”
With a cheerful sound like a champagne bottle being opened, the mass of garbage piled halfway up the mountain began pouring down violently like an avalanche.
Then our eyes met theirs.
My excellent hearing picked up even the sound of them whispering softly.
“Wait, those bastards haven’t even gotten this far yet….”
“What? No, they’re really here?”
Belching clouds of smoke, the garbage mountain collapsed over the route we had been supposed to take.
After confirming that, the cat whispered softly.
“…I shall handle it.”
I shook my head at those words.
“No, it’s fine.”
They'd seen our faces. That meant it was over.
I pulled out the smart pistol I had been favoring lately.
The barrel, which had heated up after I fired it from the truck, had already cooled sufficiently.
When they saw me draw the pistol, they panicked and scrambled up the garbage mountain.
“Sh-shit…! Put the gun away, you lunatic!”
“Run instead of wasting time talking!!”
Their identifying information appeared above the holographic dot sight.
[No identity exists.]
[No identity exists.]
[No identity exis─.]
Oh, so you're illegal immigrants?
The vagrants hurriedly hid beyond the garbage mountain, but the lock-on was already complete.
Bang bang bang!!
The three bullets I fired carelessly traced arcs through the air and flew behind the garbage mountain.
“Guh!!”
“W-what…!”
Brief death cries came from beyond it.
Then came the faint sensation of experience gained.
Dealing with the vagrants was over in no time, but that didn't clear the pile of garbage blocking our way.
Paul Lucas, squinting with an awkward smile, carefully spoke to me.
“Um…. Since we've already shaken off Ryan Company's pursuit, I think I can go on alone from here.”
I gave it serious thought.
In any case, I could say that, from my perspective, I'd helped him as much as I could.
To be honest, I had also followed him because I was curious about what the wastelands outside the city looked like.
When I roughly estimated the distance to the outer wall visible in the distance, it seemed we'd have to walk for at least another few dozen minutes before the exit came into view.
‘Can’t be helped.’
Just as I was about to say my final goodbye to Paul Lucas.
“…Gunshots, gunshots!!”
“New people…. New meat…. New….”
“Wahoo!!”
I sensed countless presences beginning to swarm toward us.
What now.
Just looking at their numbers brought cockroaches to mind.
The sight of them actually crawling up the garbage mountain on all fours made the comparison remarkably apt.
“There they are!!”
A scavenger—a vagrant with a mechanical eyeball dangling beneath his face─grabbed it with a finger severed at the joint.
An ominous look turned toward us.
“Ooh, two pieces of scrap. One piece of meat. And…. Hold on. There isn’t a single hard thing on your body except bones?! So, so fresh!”
At that bizarre voice, Paul Lucas quietly muttered.
“They say the people living in Area 50 aren't much different from the scavengers outside the city…. I never thought it would be true.”
Even as vagrants, they couldn't be compared with the homeless people at our grocery store.
Those filthy bastards had been angels compared with them.
“We’re fucked.”
When I muttered that under my breath, Paul Lucas and the cat looked at me strangely.
“They’re only scavengers, after all. You needn’t worry so much….”
I wasn't worried about their existence.
I answered Paul Lucas's question.
“…Are you confident you can deal with this many without getting even a single drop of rotten garbage slurry on your body? For the record, I’m not.”
“Ah.”
That was precisely why I had asked the cat earlier whether it could handle them.
Personally, I found this much more troublesome than when we had encountered the megacorp's mobile special operations agents.
No, even so, this was only one district away from Area 49.
I couldn't believe these people were all in this condition, as if a zombie apocalypse had struck.
While we continued hesitating, several scavengers halfway up the garbage mountain threw ‘something’ toward us.
“What are you spacing out for, hahaha-!!”
Since every scavenger in sight was a filthy vagrant, they seemed to dislike people wearing (comparatively) clean clothes.
I instinctively identified what was flying toward me.
‘…■.’
That [Data Expunged] was even more vicious than the bomb drones that had wrecked the armored truck.
I stepped backward in horror, but.
To perfectly dodge the several ‘■’ flying through the air while spinning, I would have needed a miracle on my side.
And miracles were called miracles because they didn't happen very often.
Splat.
The silence that followed.
“……”
I slowly looked down at the thing stuck to my clothes.
The slower the flow of time seemed, the more forcefully the impact came through.
A smell, a smell that couldn't be physically blocked…!
When my movements stiffened like a rigid mannequin, the scavengers laughed gleefully at the sight.
“Hee, hee, heeheehee!!”
“If you city bastards crawled all the way here without fear, you deserve a taste of filth! Hya-hya!”
As I said earlier.
There is always an even lower bottom beneath the bottom.
I had thought I was somewhat accustomed to filth, but this really was….
Crunch.
Was that the sound of my tightly clenched molar splitting, or the sound of the 【Iron Mind】 trait cracking?
The answer was both.
“…You fucking bastards.”
I would sacrifice this body.
And restore peace to this district.
The fishy smell of blood lingered in my mouth.
* * *
In contrast to somewhere else, the logistics warehouse of the Area 49 grocery store was peaceful as usual─.
With Runrun handling the children's mental education, Rivera, who had been lounging on the grocery store manager's favorite sofa, muttered in a small voice.
“…Come to think of it, I wonder if he’s okay.”
Nova, who had been gazing blankly down at her with half-lidded eyes, answered her mutter.
“What are you referring to?”
Nova was simply standing beside the sofa because she had narrowly lost a best-of-three game of rock-paper-scissors.
A mattress with broken springs, for instance, was something the grocery store manager rarely used, so it fell short of the standard she had set.
Though the two of them seemed to get along one moment and not the next, they always had only one topic of conversation.
At Rivera's out-of-nowhere concern, Nova mulled over several sources of anxiety that came to mind.
For instance, the mafia boss who had suddenly started closing the distance lately.─.
“To get outside the city, he'll have to pass through Area 50. There are lots of scavengers there with sick bodies or heads….”
“……”
But Rivera's concern was purely for Abel Anderson's situation.
Nova quietly fell silent.
It was something Nova had sensed for a long time, but perhaps because Abel Anderson had treated Rivera like a child for a while, Rivera often ended up worrying about Abel Anderson in turn.
Even though Abel Anderson was someone capable of taking down megacorp mobile special operations agents with his bare hands.
But Nova could empathize with her concern to some degree.
Recently, with the security of Area 49 having fully stabilized, the security of Area 50, which had been called its brother district, had instead grown steadily worse.
The polarization had deepened even further.
These days, even the homeless people who went to the dump to collect scrap had almost completely disappeared.
The situation in Area 50 was probably far worse than they expected.
That entire train of thought took roughly 0.1 seconds.
Nova obediently nodded.
“…I agree.”
Nova had never seen Area 50 in person, but it wasn't difficult to guess what things were like there from the photographs posted on the cyberweb alone.
Mountains made of garbage.
And the vagrants who lived there.
At the grocery store, Abel Anderson was known for being the kindest and most softhearted person.
Therefore, they couldn't help worrying about him.
What if he suffered an emotional wound?
That was the unease behind their concern.
* * *
【The player's level has increased!】
My level increased.
It was the result of this insane world's handiwork….