Chapter 66
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 66
I set out after reviewing the money laundering intel Heilas had sent.
The outskirts of Akbaran were littered with ruins. There were all sorts of reasons for their abandonment. Some areas had been left derelict after development plans fell through, while others had been written off entirely by law enforcement—overrun by vile outlaws, scum even the gangs had cast out, swarming like rats.
The place where I now stood was one of those abandoned ruins. Even the residents of the Lower District didn't dare set foot here. It was a lawless zone stripped of even the bare minimum of order the gangs usually maintained.
'Ground made unstable by reckless development.'
I looked down at the uneven, buckled earth. As I walked, there were places that dipped sharply. In the worst spots, the ground had sunk so deep that the bottom was invisible.
The moment the instability was confirmed, the corporations behind the development pulled out. It had been a wasteland ever since.
Since it had originally been slated for an office district, high-rise buildings rose in dense clusters. The deeper I went, the more half-finished structures I saw—nothing but rusted skeletons standing exposed, casting bleak shadows.
"Is it around here?"
I walked on, following the guidance on my retinal display.
Traces of past glory lingered here and there in the remnants of the once-grand buildings. Until the ground instability was discovered, this had been one of the most promising office districts around. Several corporations had even announced plans to relocate their headquarters here.
"E-Excuse me, sir."
A hunchbacked old woman in shabby clothes blocked my path. I stared at her, then scanned our surroundings. Vagrants and outlaws darted between the shadows like rats.
"What do you want?" I asked, tilting my head slightly.
"I-I don't know what you're looking for, but... I can g-guide you. If, you know, there's a proper r-reward..."
She crept closer as she spoke. Her filthy hands reached out, trying to cling to my arm.
Crack!
I kicked her. Not out of some noble pride, nor out of a petty don't touch me with your filthy hands attitude.
It was simply because her intentions were glaringly obvious. Hidden beneath that pitifully hunched back was a lethal weapon.
Whir, clack!
Four mechanical arms, like spider legs, burst from the old woman's back as she went flying. She used them to snag a building railing.
"Heh, hehehe..."
Letting out a creepy chuckle, she scrambled up the outer wall and vanished.
'I kicked her meaning to cripple her, but...'
I couldn't hide my irritation. It had felt like kicking empty air. Reflexes like that meant she'd undergone an obscene amount of illegal cybernetic modification—shaving away her lifespan and soul in the process.
Once the ambush failed, many of the eyes watching me from the shadows turned away. They'd realized I wasn't easy prey. Anyone hunting for easy marks would lose interest in me now.
Step, step.
I kept walking, guided by my retinal display.
'The final destination of the laundered funds.'
Before this place became a ruin, a private security firm had kept an office here.
According to Heilas's investigation, the laundered funds had all pooled at that very firm. Its name was Deadronin.
'A premium security firm for VIPs who demand absolute confidentiality.'
That was the best way to describe Deadronin. They didn't deal in credits. Instead, they accepted valuable antiques, artwork, or sometimes intangible assets like information as payment. Because of this, the money was impossible to trace.
'VIPs demanding secrecy would have preferred untraceable forms of payment.'
The shell companies connected to the Arena converted credits into untraceable assets and then transacted with Deadronin at irregular intervals. Sometimes they even routed payments indirectly through other firms. Without the authority of a high-ranking Imperial official, following the money would have been all but impossible.
'That's why Nikolaos wanted to dig deeper.'
Now that the full picture was surfacing, the whole thing reeked of foul play.
I stopped.
The arrow on my retinal display vanished—I'd reached my destination.
I frowned hard, wondering if this could possibly be right.
Whoosh—
The surrounding air was being sucked underground.
Looking down, I saw a massive sinkhole carved out by the ground collapse. Its diameter had to be at least a hundred meters. High-rises, snapped by the impact, had slid down into it.
Beep, beep.
I raised my terminal and restarted the map guidance.
Even after double-checking, this was the place. Dammit.
I spat a curse and stared down. High-rises, snapped like toys, lay heaped atop one another. Somewhere down there was Deadronin's office.
With a grim look, I stared into the abyss—then leaped.
* * *
Squelch.
At the bottom of the sinkhole, stagnant rainwater that had never evaporated sat rotting in puddles. I picked my way through the collapsed structures, inspecting each one.
I stopped in front of a building smothered in thick moss and mold. The one I was looking for leaned at a sharp angle, its main entrance crushed into a mangled ruin.
Crunch.
I slipped inside through a broken window.
The building's power was cut, of course. The interior preserved the exact chaos of the collapse. Scattered furniture and household junk had piled up against the corners of the slanted walls.
'They didn't even clean up after the accident.'
I saw several corpses. One had a length of rebar driven straight through the back of the skull and out the mouth. So much time had passed that the white bone and the metal had fused together, as if they'd been one thing from the very start.
A centipede as thick as my forearm clung to the tip of the rebar. Sensing me, it scurried quickly into the skull. A gruesome sight. It made my own scalp itch.
'Deadronin's office is on the ninth floor.'
I looked for the directory board on the wall. Aside from a coat of dust, it was intact.
Because the collapsed building tilted diagonally, my sense of balance felt wrong. I consciously corrected my equilibrium as I moved down the corridor.
Step, step.
The staircases were severed in places. I climbed the walls, leaping lightly from one floor to the next.
At the seventh floor, the building was snapped and bent, and the hallway sloped steeply like a slide. Lose my footing, and I'd slide right out the window.
I pressed on, focused on where I placed my feet. Soon I spotted the sign marking the ninth floor. Here the tilt was so severe that the floor had become the wall, and the wall the floor. The doors sat directly above my head. Everything was jumbled, yet there was a strange regularity to it—like a geometric maze.
'Just standing still makes me feel sick.'
The human brain craves stable symmetry. I was no exception. This warped, twisted space filled me with a suffocating unease. The structure itself, defying all intuition, threw my senses off balance.
I scanned the doors on the ceiling, hunting for Deadronin's office. After passing five doors, I spotted a nameplate missing several letters. Filling in the blanks, it spelled out Deadronin.
Rip!
I sprang up, grabbed the ceiling door, and tore it off. A pile of clutter that had been leaning against it came tumbling down, along with a thick cloud of dust that had clearly stagnated for over a decade.
Reckless as I was with my own body, I had no desire to inhale all of that.
I pulled a filter mask from my pocket and put it on. The mask expanded to fit the contours of my jaw before snapping tight.
Wearing a filter mask rendered my sense of smell useless. Since it dulled my combat senses too, I rarely used one unless absolutely necessary.
Brush, brush.
I brushed the gray dust off my shoulders and head, then studied the pile of debris. Data chips and documents lay scattered everywhere.
Clatter.
For now, I gathered only what looked useful for the investigation and stuffed it into my belt pouch.
Scrape!
Once I'd finished digging through the clutter, I reached up toward the ceiling and pulled myself into the upside-down office.
Whirrr.
My right prosthetic eye hummed, widening its visible spectrum. Once my vision cleared, I looked around. A standard office layout—the kind you'd find all over Akbaran's business districts.
'If the organization behind this could assassinate Nikolaos... they wouldn't have left anything that leads back to them.'
Combing through Deadronin's office was practically grasping at straws. Unless they'd made a massive blunder, there'd be no meaningful evidence left.
But the enemy obstructing my investigation was thorough. Which meant... they'd want to sever every tie and scrub away every trace.
Hummm.
I drew my sword. Crucis, perfectly suited to these ruins, glowed as if to pierce the darkness.
Before coming here, I'd finished my preparations. I'd rested plenty, and I'd tuned my prosthetic body to peak condition at the Imperial Guard maintenance shop.
...Today, I was in perfect form.
Click.
I reached up to my chin and pulled off the filter mask. The turbid air scraped against my windpipe as it crawled down into my lungs. It felt like smoking dozens of cigarettes at once.
"Phew..."
I opened my mouth and tasted the air on my tongue.
The acrid tang of energy particles was there, laced through the dust as if trying to hide. So faint that anyone without razor-sharp senses would never have caught it.
'If they want to stop the investigation, killing me is the surest way.'
I hadn't come here just to search Deadronin's office.
'If I come alone, the enemy will show themselves.'
Given everything that had happened, it was nearly a certainty. They'd already killed Nikolaos—there was no reason they wouldn't come for me next.
Rustle.
I lifted my head and looked up. It was a window where, moments ago, no one had been.
But now someone perched on the frame. Even I could barely sense their faint presence.
"Good to see you again, Luka."
I knew who he was from his voice alone. Same as before—the sealed, full-body combat suit. His red eyes glowed, flickering as they looked down at me.
His name was Rick Silva Nunez, one of the Empire's most wanted. Better known as Rick Kaiser.
The man who'd snapped my neck and left Felix crippled for life was standing right up there.
I tried to call for Imperial Guard backup, but buried this deep in a sinkhole in the ruins, the signal couldn't punch through. Or maybe a jammer had been deployed nearby without my noticing.
No outside help was coming. I'd have to get through this on my own.
Whirrr.
I drew my shock pistol, Ruina. It was already preheated, its energy bound and ready. A blue glow of energy particles pulsed along the circuits of the barrel.
My custom weapon, built specifically to take on Rick Kaiser. Ever since my defeat, I'd run countless simulations of this fight in my head.
There was no need to trade words with a rebel insurgent.
Thoom!
I pulled the trigger.
Crash!
The energy-infused round detonated on impact. Shockwave energy rippled out in every direction, swallowing the area in a circular blast. Walls and windows caught in the explosion were scorched and blown apart into flying debris.
But Rick was already gone. I'd expected as much. Pivoting hard on my left foot, I swung Crucis behind me.
Whoosh!
Rick, who'd closed in on my back, jerked away. Even he couldn't dodge cleanly. The chest of his combat suit tore open, shredded by the tip of my blade.
I spun Crucis in my grip, resetting my stance, then thrust out Ruina in my left hand, keeping Rick square in my line of fire.
Rick brushed at his chest, his voice colored with disbelief.
"...You really are a combat genius. To think you've come this far in so little time."
Praise from an enemy. But it felt good.
And I'd feel even better if he died by my hand.