"Interlude" / "Pursued"

After all, most thugs were rotten people who lived one day at a time. That was how they found their own organization and means of survival.

But this time was different. Completely different.

A bunch of rotten people from the gutters had actually bared their fangs at a lion!

This was no simple assault on the police. They had exchanged fire with the Guard Department after it arrived!

This was an open trampling of the nation's machinery of violence. This matter would not simply be over.

This should not have been Hoshiguma's problem to handle, but she came anyway, because this would not be an isolated incident. A hidden current, like the one that had somehow brainwashed these people, was violently and bloodily stirring up a massive reshuffle in Lungmen's gray areas.

The leaders of the outer-ring gangs and their families had all disappeared. The boss of the Ursus gang had suddenly died a few days ago. The leader of Black Hand had died in a car accident, whose culprit had fled and still had not been found.

These leaderless gangs were either slowly destroying themselves through infighting or being gathered by an unseen force, becoming incredibly aggressive and greedy.

They had always been rotten people, but at least they had known the basics of seeking profit and avoiding harm. They knew whom they could provoke and whom they could not.

Now they had lost all sense of self-preservation. They even dared attack the cops. They had gone completely mad.

Even from the distorted face before her, Hoshiguma could see that he felt no fear at all. Instead, like a vicious gambler who had wagered everything, he glared at her ferociously, as if he wanted to bite Hoshiguma to death.

"Big Sis."

Yan wanted to step forward and put the hood back over his head, but Hoshiguma stopped her.

"No, it's fine. I've seen plenty of people who wanted to kill me. This sort of thing is nothing."

"What do we do with him?"

"We didn't catch many survivors in that firefight... Give him to the Guard Department. Consider it doing them a favor. As for the rest, let Nine worry about it."

Without paying any more attention to the man who seemed to be collapsing into madness, Hoshiguma left the room.

The hidden current was slowly dragging the underworld into the abyss. The gangs were splitting apart uncontrollably, but once the Guard Department got something to use against them... No, they probably already had it. The moment the firefight began, they had gained an excuse to deal with everything. The gangs were probably already thinking about their next move.

When that time came, the Guard Department would not care whether another faction had caused the trouble. They had wanted to deal with them all along. Now that they had a reason, how could they let them go?

For now, preventing those madmen from causing even greater trouble and finding a way out for the people around them had to be considered.

But what could they do?

"Big Sis, has the Speaker told us what we should do?"

It was not just her. Yan, walking behind Hoshiguma, was also concealing her worry. Anyone in the underworld could see the hidden current. It was as if everyone had crowded onto a raft. Before, they had barely managed to coexist, seeing each other without ever truly meeting.

But now the little raft was about to capsize. Everyone was thinking of how to save themselves. Even Hoshiguma might have to find her own way forward.

"The Speaker... hasn't given orders for the next step."

"But..."

"Yeah, I know. I'm anxious too."

Hoshiguma did not hide her worry. Every day she stayed here was torture. It was like wanting to do something without knowing what to do; if she kept wasting time like this, perhaps she would accomplish nothing.

Looking at the city's sky, she could see a corner of the Guard Department building beyond the low houses of the busy district.

The enormous Guard Department emblem stood atop the building.

The Guard Department?

Suddenly, an idea flashed through Hoshiguma's mind.

It could hardly be called an idea, but perhaps... perhaps it could work.

"Yan, do me a favor. Quickly—the faster the better. No one knows when Lungmen might... change."

"Tell me. I'll do it."

Even if it meant going through fire and water, Yan would do whatever Hoshiguma asked.

"Get me some Guard Department uniforms. Not many, but hurry."

"...Huh?

"Guard Department uniforms?!"

P.S. I only discovered recently, after repeatedly checking references while writing, that Beatrix's name appeared in a dialogue in Rewinding Breeze. In other words, Talulah, Chen, and Swire already knew one another at school. So I'm planning to give Swire's younger version a little more screen time. Heart~

Interlude

"Ugh~ This is so hard to understand."

Sitting before the table and staring at one corner of it, Yelena was dazed by the five-pointed star that seemed to have been seared into the surface by a branding iron.

She could not understand it.

At least, Yelena could not understand what the Sarkaz young lady had said earlier.

Sacrifice was a technique for communicating with souls.

If angels symbolized salvation, then demons possessed eyes that could discover.

Eyes that could discover the depths of the soul.

Because they made deals with souls, demons could always see through a person with ease.

But Yelena was not a demon. As she looked at the pentagram drawn by one, she could not quite understand it.

If there was no reaction at all, then it probably meant there had been no resonance.

"Ugh... What does resonance mean?"

She could not figure it out.

"Well, it's normal not to understand it yet. Even learning ordinary spells is a long process."

A metal hand rested on the girl's head. Pianna comforted her like a caring older sister.

After all, magic truly was not something one could master easily just by possessing talent or anything else.

But Pianna had never really intended to teach Yelena, either.

This was merely a transaction. She would give the other party what she wanted and receive the child's trust in exchange. It was that simple.

There was no such thing as after-sales service.

Of course, that was not entirely true. If a customer was willing to pay extra when buying something, the merchant would naturally be happy to provide excellent after-sales service.

But the girl could not yet produce the additional price. Naturally, the devil would not provide after-sales service.

"Is that so...?"

"Of course."

Wearing the highly approachable smile of a lady, Pianna's smile was like a spring breeze, easily winning the girl's trust.

After all, I'm teaching you someone else's life's work for "free."

How could a demon lie?

Right?

Meanwhile, at the outermost edge of Lungmen, there was a place known as the slums.

Infected people could be found everywhere. A city like Lungmen, a bustling transportation hub with a mixed population, naturally gathered many of them.

But even here in Lungmen, where many races lived together, there was no real place for the Infected. The people here were merely less resistant to the Infected than those in Ursus. At least, the Infected could build small camps on Lungmen's outermost fringe—the poorest places, where the city's light could not reach—or find shelter in abandoned buildings.

Despair still spread through this place. Most of the Infected were like walking corpses, living one day at a time. They leaned against walls and stared at the sky with cloudy, numb eyes.

Those slightly better off found poorly paid manual labor on the edge of the city. After all, the Infected were not all physically helpless. Why could their strength and bodies not be another way to earn money?

Unfortunately, the bodies of the Infected were considered unrecyclable waste. They could only perform physical labor, not get close to people normally. As a result, robberies were common here. Yet when vicious criminals tried to rob someone and take advantage of them as well, they often lost interest after seeing the large patches of Originium Crystal covering their victim's body.

After all, no one would sleep with a dog that had smallpox. Male or female, it made no difference.

But because the area was poor and its security was complicated, even the Guard Department could not reach it effectively. The state of law and order here was obvious.

Poverty was the soil in which crime grew.

At this moment, several Sarkaz were staying in an abandoned residential area.

There was no real owner here. Homeless Infected gathered in twos and threes beneath the abandoned houses, caring little if a few more squatters arrived. The Sarkaz mercenaries likewise did not care who was around them.

They were mercenaries, not pampered young soldiers. One-third of the dirty work in this world was handled by mercenaries.

"Where did that guy go?"

"He said he was taking a side job, then disappeared without a trace."

"Hmph. Maybe he died somewhere. Mercenaries who work alone never have good endings."

Sharp-tongued, cruel, and utterly lacking in sympathy—that was the Sarkaz mercenaries.

War and business were all that mattered. No Sarkaz would spend much thought on anything other than killing.

That was only natural. If one wanted to ask what kindness meant in Kazdel, that land shrouded in war, one only had to count the burned corpses left unburied among the ruins and trenches.

That was the price of useless emotions.

At least they were still a team, so they possessed the most basic trust. Even before profit, they had the faintest hint of reliability.

Only the faintest hint.

After all, a good friend and a mortal enemy were separated by nothing more than a sheet of paper. Loyalty and friendship extended only to one another—or perhaps not even that.

"Shut up."

Just as everyone was cursing the man for mishandling the job, a low male voice silenced them.

A mercenary was leaning against the wall in the corner, his whetstone and blade throwing off sparks.

"That man may be dead, so the money has to be divided again."

"How?"

The man neither agreed nor disagreed. He was the leader of this group—the temporary leader, at least.

He slowly walked out of the building. Yet beneath Lungmen's curtain of dark clouds, sunlight still could not reach this land.

"We have to see how he died. The way he died determines what he was worth. Of course, we can't let this matter end there."

"I know he said he was going to make some extra money. I think he went to a gang in the suburbs. Their people came by earlier to discuss the price."

One of his subordinates recalled this.

"Then go there. Make those Feline people give us an explanation. I paid to hire you. Every death is a loss. We can't just let this go."

As he spoke, the man lifted the longblade leaning against the wall.

"Let's go. We still have work to do today."

......

P.S. I only learned these past few days that signing a contract in the middle of the month doesn't qualify for the full-attendance bonus!!!

All that work for nothing. The calculation starts from the first day of the month for the bonus, so I'll keep updating four thousand words a day for the last few days of this month and stockpile some chapters. Next month, I'll start releasing them explosively. After all, the full bonus is worth more than two thousand yuan.

So I can only update four thousand words a day for now. Please understand. Next month I'll become the five-update Ruri again. Why isn't a mid-month signing eligible? That's far too much of a one-sided rule. Sob sob!!!!

I'm so poor I'm about to eat dirt. Waaah.

Also, someone suggested that I revise the earlier chapters. I think that makes sense, so this month's task will probably be to stockpile more chapters and polish the earlier content, making the prose a little more enjoyable.

Chapter Sixty-Seven: Tracked Down

"Excellent. Absolutely excellent."

"As expected of my ally. You've done me a huge favor."

Looking at the portrait drawn from the description, Koschei gazed with satisfaction at the facial sketch hanging on the wall.

The most likely successor to the Taiko Group family. That sort of leverage would make the perfect trump card.

Inside the safe house, Duke Fedia of Ursus admired the sketch carved from memory.