Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group

The day after the superhero selection event, Luke finally recovered from the crushing disappointment of failing his interview.

He might not get to be a superhero, but life had to go on.

After missing his chance to join The Seven, Luke had to face the predicament in front of him again.

He had been without a source of income for a long time, ever since losing his relatively steady part-time job six months earlier.

And the most direct way to earn money was:

Get a job.

It wasn't that Luke hadn't tried. But after one rejection after another, he had realized a grim truth.

This world wasn't kind to Baldy.

With that Baldy head, he couldn't even land an interview for a supermarket cashier job or a position waiting tables at a restaurant.

He was even far more likely than most people to be stopped on the subway, questioned, and asked for ID.

Unable to find work, Luke's finances had grown tighter and tighter.

So tight that he had been forced to cut his weekly grocery trip back to once every two weeks.

With nowhere else to turn, Luke went out to try his luck again.

He could only hope some kindhearted boss would take him in.

Luke was wandering aimlessly down the street when a sudden commotion ahead caught his attention.

A group of people who looked a lot like him were staging a massive march down the street.

What made them look like him was that every last one of them was a Baldy.

At the front of the procession, a burly Baldy man was delivering an impassioned speech.

"Why does a tiny minority control the vast majority of the world's wealth?"

"Why are some people born above everyone else while others are treated like ants?"

"Why, when life is already this hard for all of us, do people insist on working themselves to the bone to get ahead?"

"We could all leave work at six, but you insist on staying until ten! You've already met your targets for the month, but you keep chasing bigger numbers! Your boss only wanted to buy a Maserati this year, but you just have to earn him a Ferrari!"

"You don't even spare your own kids! Everyone learns the same things at school, but you secretly sign yours up for extra classes!"

"This huge gap between rich and poor is all thanks to people like you, constantly trying to outdo everyone else!"

"If you want to work so badly, then go ahead! The rest of us can take it easy."

"I, Hammerhead, will change this world. I'll turn it into a society where people who want to work can work, and everyone else can live off them. The Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group, led by me, Hammerhead, will make that dream a reality!"

Behind the burly man, several Baldy men held up a banner bearing the words "Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group" in large characters.

Hammerhead had once been a B-class wanted criminal. He had gone to prison for instigating several violent incidents. Powerfully built and skilled in hand-to-hand combat, he had once taken on twenty people alone and put every one of them in the hospital.

After leaving prison, Hammerhead had reflected on his mistakes. No matter how strong one person was, there was a limit to what he could do. To achieve his dream, he would have to recruit others to his cause.

Hammerhead's dream was simple: refuse to work, spend every day eating, drinking, and having fun, and live life on his own terms.

And so the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group was founded under the slogan "Stop the rat race, refuse to work."

Barely two weeks after its founding, the group had already grown to thirty or forty members.

He had every member shave his head and put on a matching black uniform. It made them easy to recognize, and it drew attention.

Hammerhead finished his impassioned speech, thoroughly pleased with his performance.

Then someone on the side of the street caught his eye.

It was a young man who was also bald and looked down on his luck.

Hammerhead walked over and patted the man on the shoulder.

"Friend, I'm guessing you don't have a job either."

Luke's heart skipped a beat. He could tell just by looking?

Do I really look that Han?

When Luke didn't answer, Hammerhead knew he had guessed right.

So he got straight to the point. "Why not join the Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group?"

"The Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group?" Luke asked, puzzled.

"Join us, and you can eat, drink, and have fun all day without working!" Hammerhead said.

A sudden light appeared in Luke's eyes.

Maybe bad luck really doesn't last forever. Sooner or later, good fortune comes around.

He seized Hammerhead's hand and asked excitedly:

"Seriously, brother?"

Hammerhead beamed with confidence and replied firmly:

"Seriously!"

Luke promptly nodded and accepted Hammerhead's invitation to join.

Both men were delighted with each other.

Luke was already a Baldy, which made him a perfect fit for the group's image. Hammerhead even saved the cost of a haircut.

What Luke didn't know was that the group planned to deliver on its promise of "eating, drinking, and having fun all day without working" through what it called "robbing the rich to help the poor."

Just like that, Luke had been lured into a criminal gang.

Hammerhead was thrilled. He had recruited another member for the group.

He had taken one more small step toward his dream.

As the two shook hands excitedly, a scream suddenly rang out from up ahead.

Hammerhead looked over and saw something with an utterly bizarre shape.

It looked like a huge mass of kelp.

The mass stood as tall as a person and was wriggling rapidly toward them.

Hammerhead froze for a moment. Then he realized it was probably a supervillain with powers.

Something so unnatural appearing in broad daylight could only mean one thing: it was some kind of being with Psychic Powers.

The moment Hammerhead reached that conclusion, he turned and ran.

A superpowered villain was in an entirely different league from a petty criminal like him.

Hammerhead had taken only a few steps when a strand of kelp shot out from the villain.

It stretched for dozens of meters and drove into the back of Hammerhead's head at terrifying speed.

Hammerhead dropped on the spot.

The crowd went silent for several seconds.

The Eat, Drink, and Be Merry Group scattered in every direction.

Luke was stunned by the sudden turn of events. A chill ran through him.

He had only just been promised a life of eating, drinking, and having fun without working. In the blink of an eye, the man who had made that promise lay fallen before him.

Luke couldn't accept it.

He looked toward the culprit.

The writhing mass of kelp had no discernible face, but a voice came from within it.

It sounded like a Young Man.

"How boring. He looked weak, anyway."

"Was he really worth sending both me and Earth Dragon?"

Sorry, I wasn't feeling well and didn't sleep well last night.

I'm working on the next chapter now. It will be posted at nine tonight.

(End of chapter)