Work on a Rainy Night

Philosophy was one of the things that could trigger mental problems, but reality was far more frightening.

Karyl lowered his head, and a foul, mixed stench reached his nostrils.

He knew where it came from. In the Shantytown three hundred meters away, workers were burning corpses.

The emaciated bodies of workers who had coughed themselves to death on hard beds by the roadside were piled up and burned, one after another.

As human muscles and tissue burned, they smelled almost like beef from Karyl's distant memories. The fat was greasy, and the skin crackled like burning charcoal.

Hair smelled the worst, like sulfur, only several times stronger. The process usually began with the smell of charcoal and sulfur, followed by muscle and tissue. Finally came the internal organs, at which point the stench became unbearable.

Karyl looked away, and the blazing pyre vanished from his sight.

The workers didn't eat those corpses, but that didn't mean nobody had tried. It was just that everyone who did had died afterward.

Now, they ate the nutrient paste they'd been handed with that scene before them. Their fellow humans crackled in the pyre while hundreds of dark figures shared out the nutrient paste in their dilapidated shacks and on the streets.

Once you saw a scene like that, you never forgot it.

He turned, leaped away, and began running through the darkness. The Great Purge was now seven days away, and the gangs were growing increasingly restless, especially in Quintus.

Thugs patrolled their territories everywhere, eyeing everything suspiciously, while their leaders held tense discussions in basements and buildings.

The Vengeful Spirit was no longer a secret. Lately, Karyl had been more conspicuous than ever, even deliberately leaving behind plenty of evidence of his existence.

But that wasn't what concerned the gangs most right now. Their unrest stemmed from the destruction of the Skolevok Family.

The Skolevok Family, which had planned to take control of the entire Hive City once and for all, had been destroyed. The gangs had learned the news through their own channels.

With the vast majority of medium and large gangs having sworn loyalty to the Skolevok Family, this explosive and terrifying news nearly broke their hearts.

Of course, bad news always came one thing after another.

Some gangs had tried to switch their allegiance to other great families, but the news they received had plunged everyone into a terrible silence.

There were no more "great families."

Every family capable of promising the gangs a future had died one night. The nobles who remained were now busy tearing into one another and fighting for territory.

The Upper Hive had never been so chaotic. The once-quiet nights had been torn apart. Armed nobles in silk and powder were excitedly looting the vacant titles and positions.

As for the Great Purge in the Underhive, and what the gangs wanted—

Who cared?

Even the gangs themselves didn't know if the Great Purge would take place as scheduled in seven days. They knew what day it was supposed to happen, and they'd been making preparations in earnest all this time, but...

If the noble families who'd started it had disappeared, was there any point in holding the event?

If they asked Karyl, he would tell them there was.

It was absolutely necessary.

He leaped over a silver spire and casually patted the Thirteenth Gargoyle of the Night Haunter, as if saying hello.

The iron monster silently watched him disappear into the darkness. Half a minute later, a murky raindrop fell from high above and shattered on its head. Faint gunshots echoed from three blocks away.

The Gargoyle didn't move.

--

It was raining.

The rain irritated Charles, who was on patrol. He didn't like rainy days. He never had. Even though it rained five days a week in Quintus, more or less, he still didn't like it.

In the past, he would complain about it endlessly to his only friend.

"Rain makes the air so damp, Mao. Don't you think?"

He'd go on and on until Mao finally got fed up, pointed a gun at him, and told him to shut up. Only then would he be satisfied and fall silent.

He really liked it when his only friend pointed a gun at him. He had no reason for it; he just liked it.

At the thought, the pale young man gave a nervous laugh.

A strange twitch appeared in the chemically ravaged muscles of his face. His smile began to spread wider and wider until it became a terrifying spasm.

"Damn it."

He muttered and punched himself hard in the nose without hesitation. The horrifying act did more than just twist his nose crooked and make it bleed; it also stopped the spasm in his face.

Charles shook his head helplessly, pulled a syringe from his pocket, and injected himself.

The murky chemical fluid slowly drained from the syringe, bringing heightened senses and chaotic perceptions with it. Time stretched out in his perception. Charles shook his head absently, leaned against the wall, and began banging the back of his head against it.

If you turned back time by a year, he wouldn't have wanted to inject himself with the drug called "Quick." But he had to.

Injecting it and enduring all the symptoms that followed was the only condition for joining his gang. A year later, if he went six hours without injecting a dose of Quick, his muscles would spasm.

"Mao, I hate the rain so much," he mumbled, leaning against the wall.

Though he was banging the back of his head against it, Charles didn't feel any pain at all.

He kept muttering, a low, incessant murmur rising from his throat. His eyes rolled back, and he leaned against the edge of the wall almost without realizing it. He was nearly forgetting who he was.

That was what Quick did. It made you forget your own name. His fingers began twitching nervously, and a familiar sensation returned: the feeling he'd had the first time he killed someone.

He'd cut a man's throat with a knife, then torn it open. The sticky sensation of blood and flesh had left Charles unmoved. He'd only wanted to get it over with quickly.

Wait, who was Charles?

"Mao, I want to die so badly. Joining a gang really sucks."

He heard someone say in a low voice, "All we do is kill, kill, kill. What's the point of killing? I only wanted to dress better and eat better. I don't want to take Quick."

"Quick?" a voice asked.

The man named Charles nodded absently. Blood was running from his nose. It trickled out and mixed with the rain, running down his ravaged face.

Quick had ravaged his mind and eyesight to the point where they were almost beyond recovery. He wouldn't return to normal until the drug wore off.

So he had no idea who was talking to him.

"Quick," his fractured consciousness said. "Quick. I hate it so much."

"I think I can see why," the voice said in a low tone.

The downpour crashed against the buildings overhead and shattered, breaking apart with a tremendous roar. The acidic rain gradually washed the filth off the road, but before long, it would leave fresh grime behind.

The cycle went on and on, as always.

"I want to die, Mao," his fractured consciousness said. "I can't go on living. I don't want to kill people. I really don't."

"Do you really want to die?" the voice asked. "The process isn't pleasant, and for someone like you, the end can hardly be called a peaceful rest."

"Who's talking?" his fractured consciousness asked suspiciously.

He was still banging his head against the wall. The back of his head had begun to bleed, and his blood filled the gaps between the bricks.

"Does it matter?" the voice asked. "You just want to die."

"Ah, yes."

His fractured consciousness answered absently. He had no idea where he was, nor did he know who he was talking to. But he wasn't lying.

He was too dazed to lie.

"I want to die," he said. "Anyone. Just kill me. And kill the Quick, too."

"Quick is a chemical substance. It isn't alive."

That low voice spoke through the rain. "I can only kill things that are alive."

"Alive?"

"Alive."

"What about me? Am I alive?"

In the downpour, Karyl gazed at the person who'd asked the question.

He had a pale face, marked by the unmistakable bruises of violence. Blood still dripped from his nose. His eyes were vacant, and there was nothing in his black pupils. The corners of his mouth twitched nervously as he kept banging the back of his head against the wall.

A microcosm.

"You used to be," Karyl said.

He reached out, followed by a muted thud. A corpse fell to the ground. Quick still affected him as he died, so he would never know who had killed him.

In truth, he hadn't known anything at all.

Karyl raised his head and looked at the sky, chopped into fragments by stacked buildings and neon lights, then left the alley.

He had four gangs to deal with tonight. The number had been carefully chosen. He would finish everything within six hours and be done with today's work.

In fact, anyone who had investigated his movements would have noticed something.

Ever since two heirs of the Skolevok Family had been hanged from the tower of the Glory Warlords, gangs had been vanishing without a trace every day along the length of that twenty-five-story tower.

At the current rate, by the time the Great Purge arrived, no gangs would remain within four blocks of the tower.

Efficiency was always important, Karyl thought.

He shattered the curtain of rain and stepped into a low building. Music throbbed beneath his feet, and voices surged all around. A narrow passage stretched downward before him, its walls filthy, graffiti made of blood and grime gleaming across them.

The stench of too many people packed together filled the air. Mixed with the smell of acid rain, it created a powerfully overwhelming stink.

Karyl, however, remained unmoved.

A cold blue light flashed in his eyes, and the walls began to warp. The building materials melted within seconds, turning into boiling, searing liquid, but the structure's foundations remained untouched.

Karyl closed his eyes.

Now the corridor could accommodate him.

He opened his eyes and walked inside.

The night was still long, but it wouldn't last much longer.