As they spoke, the two had already passed the Clothing Store. The Boss was already arguing with another customer.
"You really are as rotten as the rumors say."
Boric withdrew his gaze and sneered. "Judging by your tone, the profit margin on this must be pretty good."
"Not bad. Net profit is around thirty to forty percent. There aren't many clothes to recycle, though, so this business doesn't actually make much money."
Weiken removed the cigarette butt from his mouth. "Some of the clothes in these shops are old clothes shipped in from Dawn City and Aines. That's handled by another one of my companies."
"You're not picky, are you?"
Boric scoffed. "You'll make any kind of money."
"Any vast fortune is accumulated bit by bit."
Weiken flicked away the ash and led Boric deeper into the neighborhood. "It was precisely because I never let any opportunity to make money slip by that I got where I am today."
"Looks like you don't think very highly of this place."
Boric's gaze swept over the surrounding crowd. "Did no one here ever help you?"
Their clothes were utterly out of place among the people around them, and an empty space naturally formed around the two of them.
The people nearby instinctively avoided looking at them and steered clear of their gazes.
"The people here have always been greedy and despicable."
Weiken smiled. "If you didn't look so hard to mess with, we'd have already been stripped of everything valuable."
At that, he paused, put the cigarette back between his lips, and slowly said, "But were there good people? Yes."
He pointed at the intersection ahead. "I used to live in a shack three streets to the left from this intersection. It was a tiny, cramped shack, only big enough for a