The Boss of Iron Blood
Iron Blood was one of the organizations that ruled the darkness of the entertainment district.
Its history was still short, but it had grown with such ferocious momentum that it now stood among the most feared powers in the district.
Iron Blood's meteoric rise was owed entirely to the cunning and skill of its boss, a former gamer.
The boss of Iron Blood — Crow.
Neatly dressed in a suit, the man didn't look like a crime boss at first glance. If anything, he gave off the impression of an ordinary salaryman.
His mild features led many to underestimate him, and every one of those people ended up buried in the ground.
At the very least, no one in the entertainment district dared to look down on Crow anymore.
Just moments ago, a group of men who'd crossed paths with Crow on the street had picked a fight without knowing any better — and promptly bid farewell to this world.
Murder was a serious crime, one that could drop a man all the way down to Unknown in a single stroke.
But in the entertainment district, the law meant nothing.
Lawless ground.
Here, bullets were closer than the law.
Crow, having changed out of his bloodstained suit, received a report from his subordinates.
The matter that had been rotting Iron Blood from the inside for the past several months was finally showing signs of resolution.
"You caught Wolya? Seems she got careless — not like her at all."
Wolya of Jucheongwang was a fairly well-known figure in the district's underworld. That was precisely why Iron Blood had hesitated to make a move until now...
"Where is she now?"
"In the basement, sir."
"The basement? I distinctly remember telling you to treat her as an honored guest?"
When Crow glared at him, the subordinate flinched and shrank back in fear.
On the surface, the Iron Blood office was disguised as a legitimate business, but its true nature was a criminal organization dealing in every kind of illegal activity imaginable.
The basement was packed with things that could never be shown to outsiders.
The torture and disposal of kidnapped victims also took place down there.
It was hardly a place to receive a guest.
"You didn't lay a hand on her, did you?"
"N-no, sir. We tried using digital narcotics to keep her docile, but for some reason they didn't work on her..."
"Idiots. Of course they wouldn't work."
These days, the entertainment district was booming thanks to the so-called digital narcotics.
Drugs made of pure program code, leaving no physical trace behind.
A product perfectly suited to this era.
"It was Wolya who built a forced-neutralization program for those drugs and interfered with our business."
Leaving his stunned subordinate behind, Crow headed down to the basement.
When he opened the cell door, Crow squinted at a scene he had never expected.
"A full-body prosthesis, is it? I've heard the stories, but that's a rather strange taste in bodies you have there."
A woman dressed in some kind of doll costume sat squarely in the middle of the room — surprise was only natural.
"Strange? You have no aesthetic sense at all. I made this body specially for today, you know."
Despite being captured by the notorious Iron Blood, Wolya showed not the slightest trace of tension.
She was so utterly composed that Crow almost wanted to ask whether she even understood the situation she was in.
Crow let out a sigh and sat down in the chair across from her.
"Wolya of Jucheongwang. On the surface, the owner of a run-down curiosity shop, but in truth you're on close terms with the big players of the entertainment district. I have no wish to make enemies of them either, so I intend to treat you with all due courtesy. However—"
BANG!
A gunshot rang out.
The bullet grazed Wolya and buried itself in the wall behind her.
Crow, who had fired without warning, glared at her with ferocious eyes.
"Don't get too comfortable. If things go wrong, I have every means of killing you right here and now."
"That's a rather rough way to issue a warning. Isn't that sort of thing usually called a bluff?"
"When you have a face this easy to underestimate, you have to put up a bluff or two."
Crow tucked the gun away inside his jacket.
"Now then, shall we talk? I'm sure you already know, but the reason we took you was—"
"Because I interfered with your disk narcotics?"
"If that were the reason, you'd already be dead. Don't underestimate me. You think playing dumb at this point will get you anywhere?"
"I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Ryu7017. Ryu Hwi."
The moment Wolya feigned ignorance, Crow cut straight to the point.
"Everyone knows there's some kind of connection between you and Ryu7017. Tell me everything you know about him. Where is he right now?"
"Let's say I do know Ryu7017. Why are you people after him? I could understand anyone else, but I don't see why you of all people would have reason to make an enemy of him."
Wolya knew Crow's past.
She knew he had once been a gamer, and that he'd been forced to quit because of Gabriel Darius of Linzea Guild.
"Ryu7017 is hostile to Linzea Guild, isn't he? You hate Linzea Guild just as much. So why go after him? I simply can't figure it out."
"It's business."
"Hm?"
"Whether Ryu7017 fights Linzea Guild or fights that bastard Gabriel, it's got nothing to do with Iron Blood. It's precisely because it's business that I need him. I won't waste any more words. If you don't want to die, talk. Where is he?"
Crow was a man who did exactly what he said he would.
If she refused to cooperate, he would trample Wolya thoroughly and then take her life as well.
Wolya knew Iron Blood's reputation all too well, and decided it would be unwise to provoke Crow recklessly.
"I never imagined I'd end up in the position of a captured heroine. You really can't predict what life will throw at you, even one step ahead. But I'm afraid I don't know where Ryu7017 is either. What a predicament."
"You don't know?"
"He would have noticed I'd been taken soon enough, so he's no doubt already fled. Where he is at this very moment, I couldn't begin to tell you."
Crow clicked his tongue.
"Fine, then. Spill everything you know about Ryu7017, every last detail."
"I can give you his personal history. He worked as an analyst for Linzea while caring for his sick mother, then was framed by Linpel Darius and branded a criminal. He struggled through about three years of hardship, and recently became the talk of the town — something like that?"
Wolya didn't miss the way Crow's expression twisted, just slightly.
"What? Did our similar downfalls at Linzea's hands strike a chord of sympathy or some—"
TAANG!
Another bullet slammed into the wall.
Even with the bullet whizzing past her face, Wolya didn't so much as blink.
"Spare me the pointless commentary. That's not what I want to know. The true nature of the technology he's using — that's what I want. Tell me."
"I'm sorry, but I don't know that either."
"So you really do want to die?"
"I'm simply saying I don't know what I don't know. Do you think the source of Ryu7017's technology is me? Hahaha, aren't you overestimating me just a bit? Not that I'm without confidence in my own abilities, of course."
Wolya let out a quiet sigh.
"That technology is beyond anything I could ever produce. I'm confident that no one — not me, not anyone — could manage it. It is not human technology."
"Nonsense."
Crow snorted as if the claim were utterly absurd.
"Not human technology? Then you're telling me Ryu7017 isn't human? What ridiculous—"
"Is it really so surprising? Yggdrasil itself, after all, exists in a realm that transcends human technology."
Wolya wore an enigmatic smile.
Crow stared at her for a long moment, then clicked his tongue and rose from his seat.
"I have no intention of playing along with your nonsense. You're clearly hiding information about Ryu7017, and I have more than enough means of dragging it out of you. Whether your head will still be intact by then, I can't promise."
"What a strange thing to say. I told you everything I know."
"I intended to treat you as a guest, but you've chosen the drink of punishment for yourself."
With those final words, Crow left the room.
Left alone, Wolya gave a light shrug of her shoulders.
"And I really did tell him everything I knew, too."
Wolya surveyed her surroundings.
She couldn't connect to the net. They must have blocked it by some means.
What to do? Shall I enjoy my role as the heroine who's been dutifully captured... no, if I pull something like that, our partnership would be finished for good.
Ryu Hwi did not tolerate those who stood against him.
Now that Iron Blood had made its move in earnest, Ryu Hwi would surely mobilize everything he had to obliterate them.
Having become a thorn in his side, there was a strong chance Wolya would no longer be able to maintain the friendly relationship they'd enjoyed until now.
"I suppose there's no helping it, Iron Blood. Don't go blaming me for what comes next."
The hand portion of the doll costume split open, and small drone-like devices spilled out from within.
"After all, a puppy that doesn't know its place has just poked a tiger."
Crow could not suppress his foul mood.
His subordinates took great care not to provoke him in any way.
One wrong move, and their heads might go flying.
"Rip every last byte of data out of that doll-woman's head!"
"If we do that, sir, she'll be reduced to a vegetable. From what I've heard, that doll has close ties with the other big players of the entertainment district—"
"Big players? You mean the men who'll all be kneeling beneath me sooner or later? Enough talk. Get it ready."
Crow entered his private office.
Hanging on the wall of the room was a large cloth emblazoned with the words 'Supreme'.
Something he'd used since his days as an active gamer.
Old and frayed, but he still hadn't thrown it away.
Crow leaned back into his ornate chair.
Ryu7017.
The name that had been setting every game labyrinth community ablaze lately.
The endless stream of videos Ryu7017 kept uploading had awakened the dormant instincts of the gamer sleeping inside him.
"Yes... if only I can get my hands on that brat's technology..."
Ryu7017 was ignoring the game labyrinth's system outright.
If he could obtain that technology, he could leave this trash-heap of an entertainment district behind and climb higher than ever before.
Until now, his client — S.E.N — had done nothing but order him to 'observe', leaving him no chance to act.
This was, after all, business, and he couldn't ignore his client's wishes.
And with good reason — S.E.N had been deeply involved in Iron Blood's rapid growth.
But at long last, S.E.N had finally granted permission: 'Move as you see fit.'
Crow had no idea what S.E.N wanted.
But there was nothing left holding him back. Crow moved to act at once.
Since Ryu Hwi's whereabouts were unknown, he had struck at Wolya first.
It didn't matter if she kept her mouth shut.
He had any number of means of prying the contents out of her skull.
Crow connected to the net through the SEED embedded in his body. A flood of information rose into his field of vision.
From among it, he searched for Linzea — and for Gabriel Darius.
"Gabriel Darius."
Crow gritted his teeth.
The man who had hurled him, at the height of his gaming career, straight into hell.
If not for Gabriel, he would never have needed to scrape out a living doing this sort of filth in the entertainment district.
"Just you wait. I'll punch a hole straight through that smug face of yours."
The connection to the net was severed without warning.
In that instant, the net connection abruptly cut out.
The flood of information glowing in his vision blurred and vanished.
"What the—?"
Crow frowned and rose from his seat.
And then—
KWAAAAAAAANG!
A thunderous explosion shook the building.