Chapter 67
Click, click, click.
Why are they so suspicious and worried?
I smiled at the dozens of gang members aiming their guns at me and followed behind Bert.
"Emma's doing well, right? If you touched or harassed our Emma, I might get a bit angry."
"Tsk tsk, see for yourself with your own eyes."
Bert led me to a warehouse in a corner of the camp with an indecipherable smile.
So they were keeping people locked up in a place like this.
The hastily constructed warehouse was quite large but extremely shoddy.
It was still summer, but the Western wilderness gets cold at night.
If she's been captured since this morning, Emma must have had a bit of a hard time.
Maybe Emma would greet me crying as soon as the warehouse door opens.
That was unlikely, but imagining Emma crying and clinging to me was quite a sight.
I chuckled and opened the firmly closed warehouse door with Bert.
"Kyaaah!"
The first thing I saw when the door opened was village girls trembling in fear.
There were about 7-8 of them, and though I didn't know their names, most were familiar faces.
It seemed there were a few more inside, but it was dark because of the night, so I couldn't see the entire interior.
As I took a step inside, not finding Emma...
"Emma, where are... Hmm?"
As I stepped into the dark warehouse, I almost tripped over something on the floor.
It was a person.
Judging by the slim build, it seemed to be a woman, but the problem was...
"..."
The clothes covering the coldly lying woman's body and face were Emma's.
Emma, who rarely went outside Justice Town, didn't have many clothes.
Over the past 3 years working together, I had come to know all of Emma's clothes.
What I saw before me was clearly Emma's outdoor coat.
No way...
Throughout my life, bad premonitions have never been wrong, but somehow I had a bad feeling now.
Even though we had been close for 3 years, it didn't change the fact that Emma was an NPC.
The reason Emma was precious to me was because without her, there was no one to cook for me and fetch water.
But for that, I felt quite angry.
I felt like I might go crazy if I saw Emma's face when I lifted this coat.
Swish.
So I lifted the coat covering the woman with a colder atmosphere than ever before.
And...
"Ugh, cough cough. Who are you?"
"...Who are you?"
...The woman under the coat wasn't Emma.
These clothes were definitely Emma's, but seeing an unexpected face suddenly made me flustered.
As I was dumbfounded for a moment...
"Boss?"
Only then did I hear a familiar voice I knew from the darkness inside the warehouse.
"Boss, why are you here..."
"..."
It was Emma.
Emma approached with wide eyes, as if she didn't expect to meet me here.
I quickly scanned Emma's body condition.
After confirming that she didn't seem to have been harmed, I asked in disbelief, "Ah shit... I thought you were the one lying here. Why did you take off your coat?"
"That girl is Anthony, daughter of Mr. Hector from the fabric shop. She was so cold, so I lent her my coat for a while."
Ah, so this is the fabric shop owner's daughter.
Anthony, whom Emma had covered with her coat, certainly looked cold, as if she had caught a cold.
I glanced at the shivering Anthony and then turned back to Emma.
"...Well, you're not hurt anywhere?"
"Yes, there's no problem at all."
Judging by Emma's calm face, it seemed the Rush and Gold guys hadn't treated her roughly.
Why does this make me feel so relieved?
For a moment, I almost sobered up and let out a deep sigh.
But this behavior of mine must have looked like I was very worried about Emma.
"By the way, why are you here, Boss... Could it be... did you come to rescue me?"
"..."
Emma's face asking that had a strange expectation mixed in.
Did I come all the way here to rescue Emma...
Certainly, the main reason I came here in person was to rescue Emma.
But...
"Don't misunderstand, Emma. I didn't come to rescue you, I came to catch you."
I didn't want to give her false hope through this incident.
"Without you, I have no one to cook for me. Who said you could be absent without leave? I, the boss, personally came all the way here to catch my bad secretary who dared not come to work."
"..."
So I gently trampled on Emma's heart again, which I had trampled on once before.
But Emma's reaction was different from then.
"...That's enough for me."
"...What?"
When I rejected Emma's feelings with harsh words last time, she cried...
"...Boss and secretary. That relationship alone is enough for me. Thank you, Boss."
Now Emma smiled at my hurtful words, though with a bitter expression.
"..."
Was it because she looked pitiful?
Or was it because Emma's face smiling slightly in the moonlight looked pretty?
Or was it because I drank too much and my head was temporarily messed up?
Swish.
Without realizing it, I reached out to Emma and ruffled her hair.
Emma flinched in surprise at my touch.
I whispered to Emma like that, "...I'm hungry."
"..."
"I couldn't eat a single meal today because you weren't there."
At my somewhat whining tone, Emma patted the back of my hand.
"Oh my. Our Kid boss. You must be very hungry. When we get out of here, I'll prepare a meal for you first."
Emma's voice sounded just like she was dealing with a child.
Feeling a bit embarrassed by this, I hurriedly took my hand off Emma's head and turned around.
"...It won't take long, so wait here for a while. Lock the door well."
"Lock the door...?"
Locking the door while being held hostage.
If someone else heard, they wouldn't understand at all, asking what that meant.
Emma also tilted her head at first, but...
"...Ah."
Soon she nodded as if understanding what I meant.
"Yes, I'll lock the door well. Don't worry and be careful."
"...Alright."
As soon as I heard her answer, I went straight out of the warehouse.
"Bert, I've seen Emma's face and confirmed she's doing well, so that's enough. Let's talk about how much debt our Emma owes you."
"Hehe, your woman owes quite a debt to our gang. Let's talk slowly while drinking."
As I came out of the warehouse, Bert closed the warehouse door firmly again with a vile smile.
Creak.
Just before the warehouse door closed, I turned my head one last time and met Emma's eyes again.
Emma looked at me and left final words with her mouth.
Don't worry and go wild as you please.
As expected, Emma perfectly understood what I was about to do.
To have such a partner who understood me so well.
It was regrettable that she had feelings for me, but Emma was indeed an essential existence to me.
I intended to keep Emma by my side until the moment I saw the ending of this game.
Emma was truly an “end-game item” that I could never sell or discard.
"If you don't pay off the debt, we'll have no choice but to sell your woman to a brothel, you know? Hehe."
So I had no intention of forgiving these guys who dared to touch “what's mine”.
***
Bert and I moved to a bonfire far from the warehouse where Emma and the village girls were.
Click, click.
Of course, even at that moment, the Rush and Gold gang members were aiming at me.
It was extremely burdensome to have dozens of men staring only at me.
In such a fierce atmosphere, Bert and I began to talk.
"So... how much debt does our Emma owe you guys?"
Although I had confirmed that Emma borrowed $200 when I saw the promissory note before, I still asked Bert once more.
And...
"$10,000," Bert answered with a sneer as if mocking me.
From $200 to suddenly $10,000.
It was a reproduction rate that would make even locusts cry, but I remained calm.
"The interest has piled up a lot in the meantime? When I heard from Emma last time, it was $200."
"Our interest rates are a bit high."
"If I can't pay?"
"Then well..."
Swish—click.
Bert shrugged and drew his revolver from his holster.
"You'll have to die."
"..."
"$10,000. If you don't pay right now, I'll kill you."
Needless to say, I didn't have $10,000 in my wallet right now, nor could I have.
Bert had essentially declared that he would kill me right away.
"What? Don't have $10,000? Then you have to die."
"Puhaha! Boss! Look at that bastard, he's frozen and can't say anything."
"Look at his pants closely! Isn't he pissing himself? Hahaha."
Intending to mock me thoroughly before killing me, the other gang members laughed at me.
"..."
I looked at those guys and picked up the whiskey bottle beside me.
Thinking it was okay to have one sip of whiskey before dying, they didn't particularly stop me.
So I took a big swig of whiskey and shouted, "Let me make a counter-proposal here."
"...What?"
While they were flustered by the sudden counter-proposal, I continued, "$100,000."
"..."
"If you give me $100,000, I'll let you live instead."
Silence continued for a long time even after hearing my proposal.
The first to come to his senses and open his mouth was the leader Bert.
"...Has this guy really gone crazy?"
He let out a hollow laugh as if dumbfounded and tapped my head with the hard muzzle of his revolver.
"What? You'll let us live if we give you $100,000? Oh my, I'm so honored I don't know what to do."
"..."
"I was a bit nervous hearing you were quite skilled, but this is just a crazy bastard?"
Bert withdrew the friendly smile he had been wearing and looked down at me as if I was pathetic.
"$100,000 is impossible, you bastard. You couldn't get that even if you sold your woman, your mother, and your grandmother to a brothel, you idiot."
"...So you can't give the money?"
"Yeah, can't give it. But what are you going to do? Huh? What can you do without a single gun or knife?"
Tap, tap, tap!
Bert's hand gestures hitting my head with the gun muzzle became increasingly rough.
As I was obediently taking the hits, not only Bert but also the wariness of the other guys aiming at me gradually lowered.
Taking advantage of that gap, I whispered quietly to Bert, "If you don't have money, you have to die."
"So how?"
"Like this."
Inventory.
Bang—!
Crack.
"...Huh?"
Bert's head flew off from the bullet I fired.
The other members couldn't even think of pulling their triggers and just stared at the surreal scene before their eyes.
It couldn't be helped.
To their eyes, it must have looked like a revolver suddenly popped out of thin air.
"You guys don't know with what feelings I came here."
This is, how should I put it...
It was a kind of ultimate move that utilized my only advantage as a player.
The only way I could log out of this damn Western game.
That was to fill the inventory slot, which only had one space, with $1,000,000.
Until today, I had filled my inventory with over $900,000.
But...
[Unable to log out]
[Remaining amount until logout: $0 / $1,000,000]
There wasn't a single penny in my inventory now.
Anyone who entered my office right now would probably see a huge pile of $900,000.
Instead of $900,000, I used the revolver I had put in the one-slot inventory down to the last bullet.
Bang bang bang bang bang—!!
"...!"
"S-shoot, shoot!"
Only after Bert and 5 more died did the guys come to their senses, but it was already too late.
I threw the empty revolver on the ground and picked up another guy's weapon.
"You bastards. Because of you, I left something more precious than my life outside my body."
An unbearable hunger came over me, who had left all the money I had saved for the past 17 years.
A hunger that felt like I would collapse right now if I didn't go crazy and rampage.
But maybe because I drank a lot of whiskey, the guys in front of me looked like gentle lambs.
There was no need to hold back.
Click.
It was time for a massacre.