Chapter 110
Chapter 110
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 110
Chapter Title: Black Letter (5)
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[Welcome to the Neofront Cybercity Bulletin Board.] 📰 Anonymous (123.456) Question About the West Outskirts Velvet Circle Quest (Spoilers) Recently took a corporate commission in the city and headed to the west outskirts. They told me to wipe out these Velvet Circle guys or whatever. The quest description said they were bad guys selling orphans into prostitution, so I just shot every single one I saw, per the request. But I picked up this weird security file called 'Black Letter.' What the hell is it? It's got insane locks on it—even top hackers can't crack it, and it's not quest trash, so no clue what to do with it. And the most ridiculous part: after I beat all the thugs, the Paradise residents suddenly charge at me and attack ;; They clearly saw me freeing them—why the hell are they doing this? Affinity should've gone up, right? But boom, [Extremely Hostile] on everyone, and they all swarm me. Even the hookers come at me bare-fisted with no weapons, so I just shot them all to clean it up, but isn't this a straight-up bug? Progression makes zero sense. [NFCS_Screen_Capture_2079_08_10.jpg] (Screenshot of the devastated Paradise landscape, underground street prostitute NPCs massacred)
💬 Comments (12) — Anonymous Boo, poster is trash. — Anonymous Please get out of our village, you monster!!!! — Anonymous Poor Isadora ㅠㅠㅠ ⭐ Top Comment — Anonymous That letter drops as a unique item when you build up enough pain gauge on the fleeing Isadora and kill her... Wow, this guy's personality is total trash ㄷㄷ — Anonymous Total scum, right? Congrats on passing the beast test! — Anonymous (123.456) (OP) What the hell;; curse all you want, but can someone explain first! ◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "......"
Isadora, walking down the corridor, lightly tapped her ear to activate her auditory implant.
The conversation from the salon she'd just left rang out crystal clear.
["...Lies..."]
["Yes, I knew."]
The voices of the two, transmitted through the hidden bug.
The moment she heard it, Isadora's heart sank.
"...!"
Her legs went weak; she had to lean against the wall and stop for a moment.
'She knew...? How?'
It was utter confusion.
Could they really have suspected something and come looking for her?
'...No. No way that's possible.'
The Black Letter was the ultimate secret—top-secret among top secrets.
Even in the organization, only a handful she trusted most knew of its existence. It was her final ace.
They wouldn't betray her, and even if they did, it wouldn't play out like this.
'More than anything...'
If they'd known about the data, they could've just intimidated her or taken it by force.
That would've been the far easier, simpler path from the start.
As someone who dealt in all kinds of intel, Isadora had known that for ages.
The Church had ties to major corporations in the city.
Compared to them, Velvet Circle was just a pack of suburban gutter rats—nothing more.
Mafia posturing or not, she could've crushed them with a flick of her finger.
So if they wanted it, they could've just taken it.
In a world where might makes right,
that was the city's natural law.
If anything, the Church's choice to leave Velvet Circle alone all this time was the odd one.
It had long been an unsolved riddle for Isadora.
'Why the hell...'
She'd finally cracked and asked the Church's leader directly when they met.
But the answer from the top was utterly unexpected.
"......"
Isadora mulled over the man's final words.
'You're already doing a fine job, so we're leaving you be?'
Before she could even parse the meaning, a scoff escaped her lips.
"Ha."
As Isadora walked the corridor, the mafia boss facade she'd worn out of habit faded bit by bit.
Once the mask was off, all that remained was the weary face of a worn-out woman.
No longer hiding, her features showed raw fear, anxiety... and jealousy.
'How the hell is this doing a fine job.'
Glancing around, she took in Paradise's garish opulence.
Isadora owned it all, but...
'What the hell does any of it mean?'
What she did as Velvet Circle's boss was run this den of vice.
Yes, Paradise was truly the best answer she could muster.
A red-light district where homeless kids sold their youth penny by penny just to survive.
"......"
The familiar wave of self-loathing gripped her ankles once more.
Isadora shook it off and quickened her pace.
Click-clack, click-clack—the sharp echo of her heels crossing Paradise's lavish halls.
The faster she walked, the more hollow the sound reverberated back from the empty space.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Gutter-rat Isadora.
That's what they called her as a kid, drifting through the city's back alleys with the orphan packs.
It wasn't really an insult. The other kids had nicknames too—buckteeth, shrimp, wonky-eye—whatever stuck.
Isadora and her friends were your typical orphan gang, scraping by on begging and pickpocketing in the shadows.
She couldn't even remember why her parents vanished—it was too long ago.
She'd just been living that way as far back as memory went.
But this merciless city wouldn't even let them cling to life like that.
"ODPD! Run!"
"No way! Isadora's still—!"
Back then, the Omega Detroit City Government's Correction Bureau rounded up vagrants, homeless, and orphans periodically under the guise of "public safety," shipping them off to the outskirts.
Leeches like that lingering downtown would just turn criminal and slumify the place, or so they claimed.
And above all, citizenship in this city wasn't some free birthright.
It was a public service you paid the city to keep.
Fail to pay, and poof—your rights vanished.
The little gutter rat, exiled like that, endured every humiliation in the suburbs.
"You damn brat!!"
"Kyaa—!"
Beaten half to death over a scrap of bread, left to shiver through rainy nights with a soaked body.
For a penniless kid tossed out with nothing, starvation wasn't far off—it felt inevitable.
If not for running into a certain brothel pimp one day.
"Oh dear, kid. Sleeping here could get you in big trouble."
"...?"
From that day, Isadora worked odd jobs at the bar.
The woman who'd taken her in—a self-proclaimed madam—insisted she call her that. She was a real oddball.
Starting with sheltering orphans in the cramped outskirts, where scraping by solo was tough enough.
Isadora wasn't the only stray she picked up. More "siblings" trickled in, straining the shop's finances more with each mouth, but the madam never turned a kid away.
"Madam, why are you helping us? You can barely make ends meet yourself."
She couldn't hold back the burning question—it slipped out like a mistake.
The madam stroked the girl's head and murmured softly,
"Isa, you'll understand someday. What really matters to people isn't money."
"What is it, then?"
The madam just smiled.
That year, at sixteen, Isadora started working the floors herself.
To ease the madam's burden.
The other kids followed suit in their own ways, pitching in.
Precarious, but leaning on each other, they scraped through.
Were those memories... happy? Who knows. They didn't last long.
At nineteen, the madam got caught in a nearby gang turf war and took a bullet.
She'd pushed an outcall job in another zone for living expenses that day—and met her end.
No savings, no proper treatment. She just died.
"Isa... take good care of the little ones..."
What an idiot. What meaning did all that self-sacrificing goodwill have in the end, when it killed her?
Anyway, Isadora naturally took over the bar.
She didn't refuse. It was the only life she knew.
And she had a knack she never knew about.
"Ugh... our boss... that... Salvatore idiot... got duped by those morons... tch, that east zone turf... handed it over... and next week's shipment... half... just givin' away half... I'm fuckin' pissed... what kinda scam is that..."
"......"
She was a natural at piecing together intel.
Drunken ramblings, loose-lipped boasts, their looks and expressions—she used it all as clues.
Once aware of her talent, Isadora spent years weaving between gangs, sowing discord with sly words and forged info. Making them doubt, attack each other.
The gangs that drove the madam to her death danced in her palm and mutually destroyed themselves.
The orphans she inherited seized the gangs' remnants and built real power.
That was Velvet Circle's origin.
Isadora devoured her surroundings without scruple—concubine to power players one day, gang boss the next, whatever worked.
In a world where everyone eyed others' scraps, you couldn't stop once you grabbed something.
Eventually, Velvet Circle dominated the entire west outskirts as a mafia powerhouse.
The gutter rat once booted from downtown now had wealth, power, everything unimaginable.
But she still couldn't grasp the madam's words.
['Isa, you'll understand someday. What really matters to people—']
"......"
When would she ever find that answer?
The riches from whoring and dirty deeds couldn't fill the void.
If anything, the doubt grew.
Survival or not, what the hell had she been doing all this time...?
She started sinking into those answerless thoughts more often.
That's when a group of kids caught her eye.
"Those kids...?"
Her underling answered,
"Ah, looks like orphans booted from the city recently. Want me to clear 'em out, boss?"
Kids in a spot like her old self.
Isadora didn't pity them much.
Just curious.
Why had the madam taken in unrelated orphan brats back then?
That's why.
"...No."
That curiosity sparked her looking after street kids.
At first, pure whimsy.
"We can really sleep here...?"
"...It's so good. Thanks, boss."
But their clumsy thanks stirred something warm and fuzzy inside.
She got it, belatedly.
This small act of kindness, when she felt filthy herself, made her feel just a bit better—like a good person.
Maybe this was the meaning of life the madam meant.
"......"
Before long, Isadora was doing the same foolish thing.
But she was a mafia boss, and Velvet Circle wasn't an orphanage.
She grew attached, but couldn't shelter them for free forever.
Diverting the hookers' earnings to kids with no payback would breed resentment soon enough.
So, like her past, she gave older orphans a choice:
Sell your body under Paradise's protection, or head out alone now that you're grown.
It was bitter, molding her beloved kids into whores with her own hands.
But reality left no room.
People trafficking, goods trafficking. In the suburbs, gutter rats fried and boiled to survive.
Paradise was her best answer.
She'd consoled herself that way. No more was possible—she was sure.
Until the Church appeared.
"Radiance Church? Handing out free food?"
First report from an underling, and Isadora just snorted. Scoffed.
In these outskirts, twisted gutter-rat lives couldn't be fixed with half-baked goodwill.
They'd show their true colors soon, or if genuine, it'd just strangle them eventually.
Like the madam long ago...
"......"
But against her predictions, the Church didn't vanish.
They started saving more people, like miracles.
Daily reports flooded in from the Church-held east and north zones.
Bread for the starving, healing for the sick.
They truly helped, asking nothing in return.
'How... how can they do that?'
Even awe crept in.
It looked like the perfect answer to the question she'd pondered forever.
So she despaired.
If that was the truth, true salvation...
'Then what the hell have I been doing all this time?'
Her unavoidable Paradise, turning kids into whores—what was it, really?
The moment certainty cracked, profound self-loathing swallowed her heart.
"......"