Let You Down (5)
The next day.
"Guess there was no need to run," the owner of the Chrome Oasis greeted me as I returned from the orphanage. He chuckled and slid a glass of beer toward me. "I took care of the body. You certainly made a scene."
I drank black tea from my thermos instead of the beer. "Do you offer cleanup services too?"
"After-sales service. We were the ones who passed on the job, after all. Cleaning up the trash is part of our duties."
He was a man with a remarkably strong professional ethic for a broker.
I asked him, "Got any other jobs?"
"...Already?"
There was no reason to rest. I had completed the mission, but the harvest itself was a mere 300 WP. I had to move quickly if I wanted to buy a ticket.
"I'm not the type to idle around."
Besides, while WP was important, there was something else I needed even more.
Real combat experience as a spellcaster.
Real combat was entirely different from merely hunting monsters. Human malice and hostility were full of infinite variables, writhing like living organisms. The instinct to survive stopped at nothing. Simply put, it was 'a situation where every function of the brain is dedicated solely to killing the opponent.'
That was real combat.
"Well..."
The bartender opened his hand. From a camera embedded in the center of his palm, several wanted posters projected upward as holograms. "Take your pick."
I scanned the list, focusing primarily on violent criminals. Most people would avoid them, but my compatibility made dealing with violent criminals far more advantageous. One guy caught my eye.
Just looking at his face sent a chill down my spine. He was a massive, obese man whose fat hung beneath his neck like stacked tires. The WP reward was exactly 700.
"Bico. What about this guy?"
The bartender clicked his tongue. His eyes looked as if he were staring at a pile of toxic waste that was impossible to clean up.
"...Personally, I wouldn't recommend him."
"Why?"
"Name's Bico. The Butcher. He's a vicious criminal. They say he butchers travelers in a cold storage facility on the outskirts of the city. He's killed several vigilantes, so even we can't touch him easily. He's turned the entire cold storage facility into a workshop..."
He had a lot to say, but I didn't ask for any more details.
"I'll go with this one."
The darker the evil, the more they flaunted their malice and accumulated bad karma, the easier they would become my prey. It felt a bit twisted, but what could I do? This reversal of compatibility was my talent, after all.
"Huff, huff, huff...!"
With every step he took, rolls of fat jiggled, and a metallic wheeze escaped his mouth. Bloody water splattered from his squelching footsteps.
Bico, a.k.a. the Butcher. The serial killer who had reigned as a terror on the outskirts of Raynos for a very long time was now waddling frantically through the cold storage facility.
"Huff, huff, huff..."
The space was packed tight with slaughtered corpses and butchered pigs hanging from hooks. Though shrouded in pitch-black darkness where nothing could be seen, Bico kept running, constantly glancing to his sides and behind him.
Tap. Tap.
The sound of a cane echoing from somewhere was terrifying. It washed over his back like a cold blade pressing against his neck.
"Huff, huff...!"
Just then, a faint light flickered across Bico's retinas. Eyes wide, breathing heavily, he dashed toward it. In that split second—
Snap!
"Aaaargh!"
The ground bit viciously into his ankle. It was a bear trap made of pure mana. Bico thrashed around, clutching his leg.
"Argh, aaaargh!"
When he reached down to pry it open, thorns sprouted from the trap, impaling his hands.
"Gah!"
Tap. Tap.
The footsteps drawing closer were slow and steady.
"Y-you... you son of a b-bitch!" Bico screamed, glaring into the darkness.
Tap. Tap.
Yet, the chilling sound continued to approach, unhurried and relentless.
Sweating profusely, Bico waited.
Tap. Tap.
He calculated the origin of the sound. Licking his lips, he bided his time. Drops of sweat stung his wide, bulging eyes.
Tap. Tap.
Now!
He hurled his butcher knife.
Thud. The sound of the blade sinking into something echoed. It was a satisfying sound. Bico smirked.
"I-I got you, I got you! You piece of s-shit!"
"...Pfft."
To his dismay, a dry, mocking chuckle drifted from the darkness.
Soon, the shadows parted, revealing a pair of glowing, icy-blue eyes. A gaze so sharp it felt like a physical blow to the heart. Bico trembled violently. The butcher knife was hovering in the air, right between his eyes.
"They said you could even cut through mana. I guess it wasn't an empty boast," the intruder murmured in mild admiration. The butcher knife was embedded in his barrier. With this much force, it could probably slice through a warrior's body like a radish.
"W-who... who are you..."
"Why does every bastard like you say the exact same thing?"
He grabbed the hovering butcher knife in a reverse grip, aiming to plunge it straight down into Bico's face.
"..."
However, Bico was already bleeding out, on the verge of death. The dozens of bullets riddled through his flabby stomach and the trap clamping his ankle were proof of his impending execution.
Seol Ha-woon lowered the knife. There was no need to dirty his hands.
He turned his back on Bico.
"W-where... where are you going...!"
Bico stuttered. He was cunning and clever, but his emotional intelligence seemed practically nonexistent. If one dug deep enough, every criminal had some kind of sob story. But then again, everyone had a story.
"W-where... take me... take me with you!"
Bico crawled along the floor, still tethered to the bear trap. Seol Ha-woon placed his hand on the wall as he stepped out of the cold storage facility.
Crackle. Mana sparked like electricity, and a bright blue magic circle spread across the entire warehouse door.
Crack, crackle...
A freezing wave of mana surged. Frost rapidly coated the surfaces, freezing both the interior and exterior solid.
Bico would become a frozen corpse inside. I didn't feel a shred of sympathy. Even though he was a Labyrinthin, freezing to death was far too merciful an end for a piece of trash like him.
Wanted Criminal Eliminated
+ 700 WP
Jeka, the owner of the Chrome Oasis, had been benefiting quite a bit lately from the spellcaster who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
"Who the hell is that guy anyway?"
"Don't know the details."
Name: Ha-woon. Gender: Male. Class: Spellcaster. All other information: Unknown.
For five days, he had hunted wanted criminals. He tracked down and killed only the serial killers and human scum who plagued Raynos. Thanks to him, rumors about him were spreading rapidly throughout the city.
"Strange fellow. Sounds like he's only picking jobs that don't pay well," a runner remarked, and Jeka nodded in agreement.
There were plenty of lucrative requests available other than hunting violent criminals and bounty hunting. Yet, this man was strangely obsessed with criminals.
"Hey, Jeka. Did you hear?" another runner asked, playing with his beer glass.
"Apparently, similar things are happening in the east."
"The east?"
"Yeah. Some swordsman showed up and has been making a ruckus... I heard his name is also two or three syllables."
"...Is that so?"
Jeka brushed it off. Strange things were always happening in NaN. It was just that kind of world.
Chime.
Right on cue, the door opened. The runner who looked over first chuckled.
"It's the corporations. They have a frightening knack for finding people. Did you hit the jackpot, Jeka?"
The newcomers wore sunglasses and looked like they belonged in the city center.
"Jackpot, my foot. Have you ever seen me take a percentage cut?"
Jeka always handled things on a case-by-case basis. He only took flat fees. He believed that eating too much would only give you indigestion.
"Come on. Corporations pay brokers a separate bonus anyway."
"Well, that's just... network maintenance fees."
Meanwhile, two men in suits and gas masks sat down at the counter. Jeka asked them, "What can I do for you?"
Taking off their gas masks, they asked, "We heard there's a decent spellcaster in this area."
Hunting criminals was easy. Of course, I had encountered a few who were stronger than my 'usual' self, but thanks to the properties of my mana, resolving those encounters wasn't particularly difficult.
Perhaps it was due to the unique difficulty scaling of Labyrinth Exploration. The saying 'the world is wide and there are many masters' didn't apply to the labyrinth. This was because the labyrinth was a confined space. There was a high probability that my current level was already in the upper tier of the entire world.
At any rate, after grinding for a week, I had earned 5,000 WP.
It was a decent sum, but I needed far more. Even more than the 10,000 WP required for a ticket.
◈ Description: Tea leaves carefully grown in a fertile garden plot.
It was a sack of tea leaves I had received from the orphanage director. It weighed nearly 10 kilograms, and in order to bring this back to my original world, I had to invest WP.
Spend 1,000 WP to store this item in your inventory?
If I got too greedy, I would end up like the monkey with its hand stuck in a jar, unable to let go of the banana. But there were just too many tempting items. Aside from this sack of tea leaves, there was also this.
◈ Description: Refines raw ingredients into snacks of various flavors. All toxins within the original ingredients are completely removed.
This was a box-shaped item I had looted from some criminal. If you put ingredients inside, it would refine them all into snacks. It didn't matter what the ingredients were. Rotten, bruised, or melted—it turned everything into snacks. Since it even removed toxins, it was an item that would double, no, triple or quadruple my survival rate in an emergency. The required WP to keep it was also 1,000.
◈ Description: Infuse mana to summon a pony. The pony lasts for a short duration and requires 24 hours of mana recharge afterward.
Next was the Pony Projector. It was shaped like a car key, but if you infused it with mana and turned it on, it projected a beam that summoned a pony. I had found this while shopping online. I asked the owner of the Chrome Oasis to order it for me. This was also 1,000 WP. Just keeping these three items would cost 3,000 WP. I was starting to think that I needed to aim for a massive jackpot rather than just bounty hunting.
"Would you like to take on a new job?" the bartender asked, his timing impeccable. I sipped my black tea in silence, gesturing for him to continue. "Rumors about you have been circulating lately. A corporation came looking for you." He slid a document toward me.
"...A corporation?"
"Yeah. A spellcaster like you is always highly sought after by corporations."
I picked up the document.
Estin Corporation's Proposal
📍 Location: Raynos City Center
🎁 Reward: 3,000 WP
A quest worth 3,000 WP. The document stated that the specific details of the mission would be explained in person, but the reward was far greater than beating up five violent criminals.
"Think it over. You'll earn a lot more doing this than hunting trash around here."
"...I'll do it."
There was no need to hesitate or weigh my options. I stood up immediately.
"Hey, spellcaster." Jeka called out to me as I was about to leave. He looked a bit reluctant to see me go. "I get the feeling that if you leave this time, I won't be seeing you for a while. Where are you from anyway? Is there some island out in the Outer Sea?"
The Outer Sea. Is that what the people of this world called the regions beyond the labyrinth?
"Just curious, that's all."
Jeka was an inquisitive man. Perhaps it was just a typical broker's casual attempt to gather personal details.
"...It's better if you don't know."
That was my only reply.
Your world is a labyrinth. You are not real, but merely a byproduct that will vanish along with the labyrinth. Sometimes, the truth is too painful to accept.