(No chapter title provided in input)
I hadn't actually played the game directly, but I knew how it worked.
The strategy guides I'd read before starting were more than enough.
Overworld offered many ways to earn money, and the ones I could use right away were three.
Factor in that I had no identity here, and only one remained.
Tracking down and apprehending the wanted men.
It was messy, but the pay looked solid.
A few jobs and I'd have the gear I needed for the early game.
I didn't know the exact amount, but it might just work out.
I lifted my head.
The forest of towering buildings I always noticed was right there.
I'd seen something similar in Seoul back in the old world.
The skyscrapers and the massive billboards nearly hundreds of meters high.
It wasn't exactly the same as what I remembered from Seoul.
A lot had changed since the previous life.
Still, some things stayed the same.
Similar, yet different. Identical in difference.
Was this world built by copying the old one? Or because people actually lived here?
"No matter which way it is—"
CRACK!
"—it's the same. So, where's the broker? I can't remember."
"AAAAAHHH!!"
I twisted the joints of the chasers who had followed me here.
Smiling, I asked, "How did you even find me? Three days ago you met friends of mine. Their group."
"43! It's District 43!! Crazy bitch!! AAAAAH!!"
"So, you need money?"
District 43, a residential area a short walk from the bustling downtown.
A manpower office on the third floor of a building only about five stories tall.
Facing the woman I had finally found after combing through every place that might have jobs, I waited.
Blue hair tied back, square glasses, an intelligent-looking woman.
On both hands, black gloves, but scarred wrists showed where they had been scratched hard.
The appearance fit the word "workaholic" perfectly.
The blue-haired woman, Darin, propped her chin on her hand and twirled a pen.
Her expression showed no interest at all.
More precisely, eyes that said, "How can I trust someone like you?"
It was a natural reaction.
I suddenly showed up and asked for a job without any identity at all.
Anyone else would have reacted the same.
"Even if you say it that way…"
"How can it not work? There's nowhere else I can go now."
I hid the fact that this was my first visit here without any hesitation and opened my mouth with desperation.
Darin's eyebrows furrowed slightly at the words "nowhere else," then she exhaled and pulled a file folder from the desk.
"Hmm, good."
Darin continued, opened the file folder categorized by unknown codes, flipped through pages with her fingers, and pulled out a thick stack of papers.
Profiles of every paper.
Each page had a photo taken from far away and random numbers, no order.
"Even so, I can't introduce work to just anyone. At least I have to check your ability, right?"
"…This is?"
"These are wanted men the city government or corporations have issued. I gathered only the ones whose skills are suitable for verification. Pick however you want."
As Darin said, a bounty amount was written in one corner of the paper with the profile.
From 100,000 credits to 5,000,000.
"Bounty… I guess the office will pass the reward money through when I catch them."
I roughly understood how the manpower office worked.
The office introduced jobs to workers, workers completed the jobs they were introduced to.
Workers received pay, the office took a cut from it.
I didn't know how much they cut.
So find a wanted man with high pay but low risk.
I scanned the faces in the photos with interest and my fingers stopped at one.
Skinny and emaciated, dark circles showing through messy black hair.
Hairy black hair that hadn't been cut for a while covered his eyes.
The photo was blurry as if taken from far away, but it was clear he was holding a gun.
"I'll take this man."
"Perfect."
Darin gave a mischievous laugh.
"His name is Geila Gibtern. A week ago he committed a mass shooting in an apartment in District 32 and suddenly vanished."
"Mass shooting, huh…"
Mass shooting.
Since I was born and raised in Korea, it was a strange event.
In the other world, schools did mass shootings too.
Feeling again how different this world was, I read the personal information written on the paper.
From name to residence, family relationships, sighting info.
Except a few, it was exactly like the wanted posters from the previous life.
"He looks scary? His special note is that he's a magic user. I don't know his exact ability, but considering he broke into the apartment and killed four private security guards while escaping, he's not as weak as he looks."
"Hmm…"
"No organization attached, so I can handle him roughly without worry. If it comes to it, I can bring him dead. Of course, the reward might decrease then. Well, want to try?"
I read the paper carefully and hummed.
The bounty was 2,000,000 credits.
A big sum of money that hadn't been touched yet since I fell here.
The reward I could receive if I caught Geila Gibtern.
Difficulty wasn't bad, and risk wasn't high either.
Yet I was hesitating…
"If I start, I don't have any clue where to begin."
Even though routes were listed, the range was too wide.
I knew how big this city was.
As wide as the city, humans gathered in various forms.
That was why I doubted I could finish this.
Maybe I had started too soon and could never catch him.
"He said magic user, right?"
The phrase "magic user" was in the guide I read before starting.
I knew what it meant and what it referred to.
A magic user meant someone who could use magic.
It was no different from saying ordinary people couldn't handle magic.
"If I can distinguish them, it's convenient."
My intuition started to form where to begin.
Even if it looked like there was nothing to rely on, there was something to rely on if I thought carefully.
My own body was that.
My heavy chest made movement difficult, but it didn't mean I lacked natural talent.
If there was nothing to rely on, I could rely on my own talent.
The only thing I could rely on after falling into this game world without warning was myself.
The talent I had set and created myself, the reverse flow talent I had obtained with my sanity as collateral.
If I couldn't trust that, what could I trust?
I began pulling up magic power like when I used incantations.
Instead of concentrating on manifesting the wanted man, I spread it out widely.
At the same time as my maximum magic power spread widely to cover the distance of the dangerous level, my sensory range gradually expanded.
The reverse flow talent I had obtained with my sanity as collateral functioned in a different direction from the incantation.
Beyond the five senses, in the realm of intuition, everything inside the magic field was sensed.
It was faint, but I could clearly feel their existence.
Realizing that I could sense even the movement of objects to some degree, I smiled faintly.
"This should work."
Maximum mana sensitivity.
By spreading the magic power widely, I assisted the sensitivity and recognized objects far away.
This could cover a wide range.
For now I used magic to assist, but if I became more familiar, I could do it without magic.
Certain, I picked up the paper with Geila Gibtern's profile.
"I'll do it."
The moment I tried to stand up, Darin grabbed my arm.
"Wait a minute. Do you really plan to go without information and act on impulse?"
Darin handed me documents she had investigated about the sighting information and residence.
"Take it. Warning in advance: wanted men are first-come, first-served. Find quickly if you find."
Apprehending wanted men happened in real time.
No matter who caught them or when, so if I was unlucky, a competitor might appear.
If a competitor appeared, the bounty would go to first-come, first-served.
If I was slow and someone else was faster, the bounty could vanish.
But that wouldn't happen easily.
As many as the city's size, there were so many wanted men.
Darin's file folder was almost as thick as a 400-page book.
Among so many wanted men, a competitor.
Even if I calculated the probability, it was too low.
"I'll try as usual."