Chapter 25: Chapter 24
TL/ED: Hamsterminator
Jin is quick-witted.
That’s because of the thirty years he lived in South Korea.
Isn’t it a country so sensitive to social cues that it gave rise to the term “nunchi culture”? (TL Note: You can read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunchi)
For example, in a survey titled “The Type of New Employee You’d Want to Work With", only 25% of respondents preferred an honest employee who admits to mistakes, making them dead last, while a whopping 67% preferred a quick-witted employee, who came in first.
(For reference, second place went to someone who’s good at greeting others.)
With that kind of ideal employee profile, someone with both sense and manners, it's no wonder making money in that country is tough.
And yet, the citizens of South Korea are expected to make it work!
Anyway, Jin, as a proud Korean man, hadn’t completely lost his roots. Even though all the ups and downs in life had severely cut down his manners stat, his sense for reading the room was still alive and kicking.
So he got the gist of the situation.
That guy lying over there, he’s the seller.
The masked guy, that’s the buyer.
That part was easy.
The problem was the guy with the deep scar near his eye.
Judging by how he was talking like the Artifact was his, and how the seller seemed scared of him... he was clearly the superior here.
Then the answer was clear.
He stole the goods?
At last, Jin had gone from someone who knew nothing to someone who understood the whole situation.
Not that his comment helped him make any friends.
“A thief?”
Henri frowned and looked at Jin.
Then, flashing a vicious grin, he lifted his foot.
“This bastard’s the thief. Right? Am I wrong?”
“Ghhh-”
A suppressed groan escaped from Mikel, whose head was being stomped on.
Even so, the way he clung to the case in his hand, refusing to let go, showed pure determination not to lose it no matter what.
Eventually, he stammered out a response.
“I...found it. Fuuuck...”
“Ha!”
Henri scoffed as if it were the most ridiculous thing he’d heard.
But only for a moment.
Then, with a murderous glint in his eyes, he pressed his foot down harder.
“Let me ask you one thing. How much were you promised? Just how much did they offer for someone like you to even think of stabbing me in the back?”
Even Jin held his breath at that.
He recalled what Khalifa had said about the estimated value.
Which made him instinctively clench his fists.
He stared desperately at Mikel, who was stubbornly enduring.
Damn it. Just say it!
Maybe Jin’s desperate wish reached him.
Mikel, unable to endure the pain any longer, screamed out in a burst.
“...500 million! 500 million credits!”
In that instant.
The expression vanished from Henri’s face.
Jin staggered like a man who had just glimpsed cosmic horror.
And the masked man said nothing.
“What?”
“Fuck! I said it already! 500 million!”
“...Is that true?”
Henri asked the masked man.
Of course, there was no reply.
But Henri seemed to take the silence as confirmation.
He burst out laughing.
“AHAHAHAHA!”
Henri laughed so hard his uvula was practically visible. Then, slowly bringing his head back down, he said,
“Mikel! Mikel! Mikel! I underestimated you. Yeah! That level of nerve, now that’s what it takes to be second-in-command of Sweet Dream. AHAHA! 500 million! Nicely done, nicely done, Mikel!”
Henri, who just moments ago had looked ready to crush the traitor like a bug, now showered him with praise, then turned to the masked man with a wide smile.
“I take back what I said about not selling. So what about the 500 million? Where’s my money?”
...That bastard?
Why the hell is that your money?
As Jin barely managed to come back to his senses, glaring with all his might,
The masked man finally spoke.
The voice was modulated with a faint noise, making it impossible to tell the gender.
“Item first.”
“No one said hand it over right now. I just want to take a look.”
In response, the masked man touched the side of his temple,
And soon after, a chip popped out with a click. Grabbing it, he said,
“It’s a credit chip you can use to withdraw 500 million from Blacknet. If you don’t believe me, feel free to verify it.”
“...I won’t decline.”
Henri said, staring intently at the credit chip.
From a distance, it looked like he was scanning the chip, and eventually, a look of elation filled his face as he nodded.
“Very nice.”
Then, once again, he stomped down hard.
This time, Mikel let out a scream as his hand was crushed.
“Aaaaargh!”
That was the end of his resistance. No one can make a fist with broken hand bones.
"You're noisy, so get lost."
Henri kicked the writhing Mikel away and was about to pick up the case that had fallen to the ground.
When the Gravis fired.
BANG─!!
The bullet split through the night air and burst open the underside of Henri’s forearm, and at the same time, the masked man pounced like a leopard, rolled across the ground, and snatched the case.
It looked like a coordinated move, like they had planned it in advance.
But that wasn’t the case.
Jin was surprised by the masked man, and the masked man was surprised by Jin, both moved at the exact same time purely by coincidence, and that timing had simply overlapped.
So, just as Jin was about to pull the trigger to finish Henri off, he quickly turned the muzzle toward the masked man instead.
“You fucking bastard!!!”
Henri, suddenly engulfed in flames, swung his arm, now replaced by fire, widely.
Fireballs erupted along the arc of that motion and swept forward.
The masked man was hit first, followed by Jin.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
The concentrated flames slammed into the ground, causing a chain of explosions.
In an instant, the road was choked with smoke.
From within it, a flash of blue light shimmered.
THWACK!
In the next moment, Jin’s fist burst through the smoke and struck Henri’s abdomen.
Henri bounced across the street like a skipping stone, screamed, and braced himself on the ground with his hands.
SKRRRRRK-
Digging grooves into the pavement with his fingertips to slow down, Henri’s body began to resemble a fusion of human and flame.
And Jin immediately recognized it.
Pyrokineticist.
A psychic who controls fire.
Why the hell does he have to look so damn cool?
Jin grimaced, remembering how he’d once seriously considered choosing the [Psychic] perk as his second starting star.
By now, Henri had stood back up and screamed with rage.
“My aaaarm...! Fuck! I’ll crush you!”
Whether it was because the psychic ability was affected by emotion, the flames engulfing Henri’s body intensified.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he leaped into the air, and the way he moved looked exactly like something out of a movie.
The flame-wrapped man accelerated by creating an explosion behind his back, grabbed Jin by the waist, and launched into the sky.
Jin tried to brace himself with strength in his legs, but Henri’s explosive charge had enough force to lift him off the ground.
As their bodies soared upward, doing a half-spin in midair,
Jin, through the searing pain of his burning skin, repeatedly slammed his elbow into the head of the one hugging his waist.
“Let! Go! Of! Me!”
But before the flame-man’s skull could crack, Jin’s vision flipped completely.
The blood rushing to his head.
The reversal of heaven and earth.
At that very moment, Henri accelerated once more.
BOOM!!!!
Red and blue light, entangled together, crashed into the ground.
Chunks of shattered concrete flew in all directions.
A short distance from the epicenter of the explosion, Henri gasped for breath with a dry cough.
The flames around him had noticeably weakened.
Even so, he was still alive.
Thanks to using Jin as a cushion at the moment of impact.
Originally, he had planned to drop Jin from midair, but after being hit in the head, he had lost his judgment.
Considering how pyrokineticists gain high physical resistance while emitting flames, what just happened didn’t make any sense.
“You monster bastard. I don't know who you are, but you’re dead now...”
Henri trembled in the shoulders and took a long breath.
He was too worked up from having his arm wrecked.
He had overused his power so much that the flames could die out at any moment.
Just as he calmed his heated breathing and tried to get up.
Grab.
A strong grip grabbed the back of his neck-
“Ghh!”
Henri’s body, thrashing, was lifted into the air.
And a rough voice was heard.
"...I really thought I was going to die. You bastard."
What Henri saw and felt next was simple.
The wind was so strong he could barely open his eyes, and the ground was rushing up toward him.
BANG!!
The Chokeslam struck not the back of the head, but the face, and the ground split open from the impact.
As the body sprawled out flat began to convulse, the flames engulfing it died down, and finally, under the now-absent replacement for the right forearm, blood began pouring out in a gushing stream.
“Huff, huff.”
Jin, who had been watching with bloodshot eyes, finally exhaled his heated breath.
Having crashed into the ground like a rocket from a height of 30 meters, his vision was still spinning. His back wouldn’t even straighten properly, his bones must’ve been completely wrecked.
What’s more, though Jin didn’t realize it, the back of his scalp was peeled and hanging loose. It was truly gruesome, a level of injury you couldn’t bear to look at with open eyes.
If it weren’t for the experience points earned from Henri’s death, an explosion of dopamine in his brain like a burst of fireworks that dulled the pain, he might have just collapsed right there.
It feels like about twice as much as the chameleon beastkin from before.
...Maybe around 2,000 XP?
Thinking that, Jin pushed off his knee with the palm of his hand.
As his body naturally tilted forward, his gaze dropped to the ground, and before long, he saw someone’s shoes approaching.
Even in his utterly exhausted state, Jin lifted his head and let out a faint laugh.
“Why didn’t you run?”
At the end of his gaze stood the masked figure.
No, since both the mask and the hood covering it had been burned away, it was no longer accurate to call her that.
Black bob-cut hair, icy blue-and-white eyes.
With an impression cold as ice, the woman slowly opened her mouth.
This time, it was her real voice, without the noise.
“There was nothing.”
“What?”
Instead of answering, she opened the case with a click.
Just as she said, there really was nothing inside.
Jin blinked, dazed for a moment, and then a barely alive voice called out from a short distance away.
“...I have it.”
It was Mikel.
He was still curled up like a worm in the exact spot where he had been kicked and flung away by Henri.
As the woman turned her gaze toward him and began to walk over, Jin staggered after her, thinking.
No way, she’ll reach him before I do in this condition. What should I do?
The way she walked looked unusually light, and in his current state, Jin couldn’t make any proper estimate.
Well, I’ve got the XP now.
Maybe I should just activate the perk I had in mind.
Jin was seriously considering it when.
“Hey, the deal’s not over yet, right?”
Mikel asked, looking at the woman approaching him.
“Item first.”
The same reply as before.
Mikel bit his lip, but knowing he had no other choice, he took a ring out from his coat.
Then, carefully placed it on his open palm.
Elegant curves, engraved with twisted characters.
And an ominous red light that caught the eye.
Is that the Artifact?
It sure looks the part.
But... doesn’t it feel kind of unsettling?
Jin narrowed his eyes and examined the ring’s design.
At the same time, he subtly wriggled his fingers, toes, and joints, in hidden movements, trying to give his wrecked body time to recover to a usable state.
“...This is why I pulled it out ahead of time. I held onto that case like it was everything, so of course everyone thought it was in there.”
Letting out a chuckle, Mikel continued slowly.
“I’ll take just 300 million. So kill that blood-soaked bastard over there and take the item. That’s enough for me.”
“......?”
Jin tilted his head.
What the hell is this idiot talking about in front of the woman he was originally planning to run away?
But when he looked more closely, what do you know?
His eyes were hazy and unfocused, and his body was covered in burns. Seemed like he’d also gotten caught in the explosion and was half-lucid.
Even so, maybe he was hoping the woman would go along with his offer.
As Jin struggled to straighten his barely functioning back, a cold voice pierced into his ear.
“That’s not the item we were looking for. The characteristics match perfectly, but the mana leaking from it is low-grade. Still, I was fooled until I saw it in person. Most likely a replica from that era. Haa... This is why I didn’t want to come.”
The woman let out a faint sigh and turned around just like that.
With no hesitation in her retreating figure, Mikel exploded.
“Hey, hey! Where the fuck are you going, you crazy bitch! Hey! Hey! Hey! Do you have any idea what kind of hell I went through because of you! Hey! You fu-”
The cursing didn’t last long.
A dagger was embedded in Mikel’s forehead as if it had fallen from the sky. It was buried so deep that the blade couldn’t even be seen.
It was a throw bordering on divine technique, something even Jin, in his current state, knew he couldn’t possibly avoid.
So he held his breath and quietly observed the situation.
Then, just as the woman seemed to be walking away, her voice came again.
“You. Are you a Solo?"
It didn’t sound like a question expecting an answer, and before Jin could even open his mouth, she continued speaking.
“Take the ring.”
“I can?”
“In exchange, tell your client this.”
Her blue-and-white eyes flashed cold for a moment.
"I'm letting it slide today, but if you keep being greedy, the city government's blade will come looking for you."
~~~
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