Outside, drunks cursed indistinctly, women argued in shrill voices, someone sobbed intermittently in a corner, and countless bare feet or tattered shoes shuffled through mud and garbage, a dense, clinging cacophony that never ended.
Inside the cramped room, Home Alone sat on a wooden stool that dug into his backside, his chin propped in his hands as he stared absently at the wavering flame of the oil lamp before him.
He was starting to regret it.
Home Alone had plenty of regrets. He regretted not joining the Holy Crusade Army and heading to the Suvano Region to play with the Snake-Men. He regretted accepting the Intelligence Bureau's assignment and coming to this place called Treasure Island.
He had thought coming to Treasure Island would give him a thrilling, James Bond-style adventure, but the reality was the exact opposite.
Life on Treasure Island wasn't remotely thrilling or intense. Instead, it was utterly dull and tedious.
That dullness and tedium didn't mean Home Alone had nothing to do in the city. On the contrary, he was busy. Almost every day, the Intelligence Bureau agents responsible for contacting him requested his help beating people up or killing them.
Back when he was a newbie, Home Alone would certainly have been delighted to get combat missions this frequently. But he was a veteran player now, and none of the assignments the Intelligence Bureau's Treasure Island branch gave him were substantial.
Either he had to go into some damp, moldy alley to persuade a loose-lipped dockworker to cause trouble somewhere or provide information.
Or he had to visit some petty gang boss who had collected too much protection money and intimidate him with his fists.
Even the most outrageous assignment merely involved stealing letters from an impoverished clerk who had secretly recorded a tax collector's