Recruiting a Gang

A moment later, Nimrod found an abandoned sewage pipe in the garbage mountains on Tezwork's outskirts.

Hive Cities developed from the ground upward. When humanity began developing a planet, they first established settlements on the surface, then expanded upward over the long years that followed.

Due to population migration and other reasons, most facilities in the Underhive had consequently been abandoned.

He crawled into the pipe and trudged through the sludge formed by industrial wastewater.

Nimrod advanced through the sewage pipe, which was wide enough for five people abreast. After walking a kilometer, his ears twitched. The sound waves he caught painted a scene in his mind of several hundred people fighting.

He continued forward for several hundred meters, and his hearing mapped out a chase and pursuit unfolding ahead.

A scream suddenly rang out. The fleeing person ahead fell to the ground, followed by another scream as the pursuer also went down.

Nimrod listened closely. Other than those two, he could not hear any other living creatures. How had they both fallen?

A moment later, he reached the scene. The two men were already dead in the sewage.

Even in the dim environment, he could clearly see what was wrong with them. Their shoes were tattered, and the flesh on the soles of their feet had been shredded into a bloody mess by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crisscrossing cuts.

Nimrod scanned his surroundings and keenly spotted a cluster of crystals in a corner of the murky sewage.

[Not a living creature. Spine Crystal.]

Nimrod knew that Spine Crystal appeared in Hive City sewage pools, drainage pipes, and other places where pollutants had accumulated for generations. It was less a plant than a mineral growth, resembling coral and consisting of dense clusters of fragile yet razor-sharp crystals.

Any fool who fell into Spine Crystal would quickly discover how terrifying it was. Its sharp crystals inflicted thousands of tiny but excruciating wounds.

The greatest danger came from the toxins and chemical corrosives on the crystals. Once they entered a wound, they turned even the smallest scrape into severe suppuration and ulceration. Without treatment, they would lead to death.

Tragically, most people in the Lower Hive and Underhive had no medical supplies. Stepping on it meant a miserable life would soon come to an end.

[Found an auxiliary ingredient this quickly.]

Nimrod bent down and searched through the sewage. Before long, he found two intact crystal clusters.

He took spare clothes from his backpack, wrapped each Spine Crystal in a shirt and a pair of trousers, then placed them in the pack.

In high spirits, Nimrod continued onward. Several passageways converged ahead, and he saw a platform.

Two gangs on the platform were fighting around a furnace, firing Lasguns cobbled together from scrap at one another.

Among the group on the left side of the platform, whose members had red cloth tied around their heads, the leader raised a scrap Las-pistol and shot down an enemy. He rolled aside to evade an attack, then his eyes suddenly lit up.

He saw a boy who clearly did not belong in the Underhive. His ragged clothes could not conceal his handsome face. He was worth more than this furnace.

He immediately charged at Nimrod and reached out to grab him.

"Kid, get over here."

Nimrod shifted aside. The gang leader grabbed thin air, and as the man lost his balance, the boy seized his wrist, pulled him forward, then drove a silver-gray shard into his abdomen.

He found five power packs on the corpse and stuffed them into his clothing pockets.

To hold the "treasures" they picked up, Mutants had more than a dozen pockets sewn onto their clothes from scraps of cloth in different colors.

The primarch then picked up the Las-pistol assembled from mismatched parts. The moment it was in his hand, he expertly checked the power pack.

[Vostonia's gangs are more skilled than gangs on other planets. Their scrap-built Las-pistols exceed the average standard. It can fire twenty-three shots in total and still has seventeen remaining.]

Nimrod shouted, "Stop!"

Though he was still only a boy, there was not the slightest trace of childishness in his voice.

The two fighting groups heard that rebuke, cold and sharp like the shout of an Arbites officer who occasionally came down to the Underhive. Their bodies trembled, and they all turned to look.

The moment they saw Nimrod, their eyes lit up.

On the right side of the platform, a gang leader who had poked his head out spat.

"Since when did it become your turn, brat—"

Before he could finish, a bright beam pierced the vital point between his eyes, and his corpse collapsed to the ground.

Both gangs were shocked. The distance between the boy and the leader exceeded thirty meters, far beyond the maximum range of a scrap Las-pistol. Yet he had accurately killed the leader. It was simply unbelievable.

On the left side of the platform, several sharp-eyed people noticed that the boy was holding their boss's gun, while their boss's corpse lay at the entrance to the passage.

"The boss is dead!"

The shout jolted both gangs awake. Several people's eyes immediately gleamed. They were all gang captains, and now that the boss was dead, an opportunity to take his place had come.

They immediately swung their guns around and attacked their competitors.

As for the boy, no matter how formidable he was, he was still only a child. Once they became the boss, they could always surround and capture him.

Nimrod had already prepared to roll away and evade, but he unexpectedly discovered that they were even stupider than he had imagined.

He moved at once. Since these people had crossed paths with him, they would become the foundation for his conquest of Vostonia. Now was the time to establish his authority.

"I said... stop..."

As Nimrod spoke, he raised his hand and fired three shots in succession, killing three members of the gang on the left. Two more were killed in sneak attacks by their rivals.

He then dealt with the victor from the other gang and looked at the crowd.

"From now on, I'm your boss. Anyone who disobeys will end up like them."

The gang members were scared senseless. None of them dared move. They had never seen shooting this accurate—shot after shot, one kill per bullet. They had not even heard of it before.

Thus, on Nimrod's first day in Vostonia, he formed his own gang, with three hundred and ten subordinates.

When Nimrod poured all the fungi from his backpack into a large vat, every gang member's eyes glowed green. If they had not feared his precise shooting, they would have pounced like starving wolves.

Nimrod stood on the platform and looked down at the crowd below. Knowing that Underhive people had little education, he spoke in the simplest, plainest terms.

"I won't mistreat those who follow me, but I won't feed useless trash either."

"How much you get depends on what you can do."

"Whether you drink soup or eat dregs depends on yourselves."

He swept his gaze over them. Most had craned their necks and widened their eyes, staring at his feet. Only a small number were still scratching their heads.

"Now I have questions. Whoever can answer them gets to drink soup."

"First question: where are there Giant Rats nearby, at least one meter long?"

The better the quality of potion ingredients, the better the effects after drinking it.

Nimrod was not afraid of them learning the potion recipe. He only needed to ask about two ingredients.

"Me!" The quickest to react was a scrawny bald man. "Boss, Giant Rats are everywhere around here. There are plenty over a meter long too. I can't give you a number, but there are lots in every tunnel and pipe."

Nimrod looked down at the crowd. No one refuted him. They all wore regretful, resentful expressions.

"Very good. You can come up and take the first ladle."

The bald man immediately sprinted forward. When he climbed onto the platform, he twisted his ankle and nearly fell.

He supported himself with his left hand and instantly got back up. As though afraid the boss would change his mind, he scooped up a heaping ladleful.

Smelling the aroma, he impatiently squatted nearby and licked the broth from it.

Everyone else looked enviously at the quick-witted bald man, stretching their ears as they waited for their boss's next question.

"Second question: who knows where to find Wire Grass?"