The group readjusted their positions, no longer attacking one by one, but approaching from different directions simultaneously.
The person in front reached out and grabbed the cane. Isaac simply pulled, coaxing the person to exert force, and then suddenly let go. The person was caught off guard and staggered backward, bumping into his companion next to him. The two of them were squeezed together, and Isaac grabbed the end of the cane and pulled it back.
The other two pounced from the left and right at the same time. Isaac dodged to the side, causing the man on the left to miss his grab, and then elbowed him in the back.
The man on the right moved closer, trying to hug Isaac's waist. Isaac flicked his wrist, and his cane jabbed the man in the lower abdomen. It was a light touch, but it made the man gasp and bend over like a boiled shrimp.
After poking with the cane, it didn't stop there. It then made intimate contact with another person's calf, causing that person to hiss and their knee to buckle.
"Idiots! Back off, surround them, surround them!" the leader shouted.
Instead of rushing forward to deliver the food, the men took a few steps back, forming an encirclement, and grabbed whatever tools were at hand. Although they didn't have anything like an axe that could kill, they had sticks and bricks.
"Heh, kid, you've messed with me." The leader waved his wooden stick. "Business aside, you dare mess with the Boot Gang? Begging won't do you any good now! We'll teach you a lesson on who's in charge in Deer Lane!"
"Um, is it possible to reconcile?" Isaac asked, squatting down.
Before him, the leader, lying on the ground, stared at Isaac lying in his line of sight, speechless with emotion.
Shouldn't that be his line...? Why is this guy asking if they can make peace after beating up a whole group of them all by himself?!
Isaac was also helpless about this.
Although he had never been in contact with gangsters, he had heard that these gangs seemed to prefer to settle things with their fists.
There's no way around it. I don't quite understand their way of doing things, but a beating should make them more agreeable, right?
Isaac glanced at the leader, and seeing that he didn't speak, he stood up and turned to the other side of the warehouse.
A man was huddled in a corner against the wall, shrinking back. Seeing Isaac turn to him, he swallowed hard and said, "Don't... don't hit me! I... I know what's good for me!"
Isaac walked towards him, stopped in front of him, and stared at him. This man's figure and appearance were unremarkable among the people in the warehouse. He hadn't been at the forefront of the fight, but had stayed behind and shouted a couple of times.
"Are you the one really in charge of making the contact?" Isaac asked.
The man was taken aback. "You... how did you figure that out?"
"Both escalations were caused by you. The first was, 'Is this kid playing us?' The second was, 'I think this kid's asking for trouble.' While the others were still discussing how to handle the situation, you had already gone so far as to threaten physical violence, seemingly unwilling to let them talk to me and wanting things to end quickly."
The man's eyes flickered, Isaac continued, "They don't know anything about the goods, nor do they know who I am. They just took the money and came here to wait for someone to deliver the goods."
"But you don't want me to talk to these people for too long, reveal too much information to irrelevant people, and you also don't want me to leave with the things, so you want to stir up trouble, make me back down, and hand over the things first. As for whether we stay in touch afterward, that's up to you."
The man opened his mouth, intending to retort, but then realized he seemed to have been seen through, and there was no point in arguing. In the end, his shoulders slumped, and he sighed, "You have a sharp eye. I thought you were putting on quite a convincing act."
The leader, lying on the ground, clutched his stomach and struggled to sit up. " Joey, what do you mean? Were you one of these guys who sent you to mess with us?"
"Boss, it's not what you think, uh, it seems so..." Joey scratched his head, "But I can't tell you the truth. It's a job assigned by the higher-ups, and I have to play along."
"So you just stood there watching us get beaten up?"
Joey pouted, "I didn't want to watch you guys get beaten up either, but I couldn't stop them. Besides, who would have thought this guy was so good at fighting? All of you couldn't even take a single stick from him."
"You!" the leader cursed, "So, we, the Boot Gang, have been nothing but a front for them the whole time? I even bought you drinks a few times!"
Joey felt a little guilty. The leader cursed a few more times, "I'll settle accounts with you later. Right now, you finish your mess with this guy and don't stay in my warehouse. It's bad luck!"
Joey felt like he'd been granted a pardon and waved to Isaac: "Let's go, let's talk somewhere else."
Isaac pushed open the warehouse door, Joey followed him out. They came to an alley, walked a distance, and then Joey leaned against the wall, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. "Sigh, after this whole mess, with you exposing me, I can't stay in Boot Gang anymore."
"Are you a member of the Cult, and also a member of the Boot Gang?"
"Pretty much. I was just a gofer in the Cult. They didn't want official members to directly receive the goods, but they also didn't want to be completely unaware of the rendezvous process, so they found a gang willing to run errands, and me as an informant within that gang."
Isaac understood. The official members of the Ghoul Cult didn't want to risk being caught by showing up directly, so they found Boot Gang with their informants. On the surface, they had an unrelated gang handle the handover process, while Joey, who had a dual identity, was assigned to monitor the entire process.
If there are any problems with the handover, Joey will handle them; if everything goes smoothly, he will remain silent. If he is caught by the Joint Investigation Bureau Joint Investigation Bureau, their focus will definitely be on the leader who is suspected of having direct business dealings with the Ghoul Cult, not a lowly henchman who just looks like a lackey.
Judging from Joey's behavior, the Cult's attitude was quite clear: they didn't want to actually meet Isaac; they just wanted to get the ring and get away with it.
"Anyway, I'll do whatever the Cult tells me to do, and I'll continue as usual with the Boot Gang." Joey exhaled a puff of smoke. "But after this incident, the Boot Gang is finished. Working for the Cult has completely alienated the Boot Gang. Those guys will definitely tell everyone when they get back that Joey betrayed us and made us get beaten up."
"I doubt anyone from the Cult will back me up. With things turning out like this, they'll just think I've handled things poorly. Sigh..."
"So what do we do now?" Isaac asked.
"What can we do? We'll definitely have to go back to the Cult, Boot Gang."
"... I was asking about the ring." Isaac smirked. Who asked you?
Joey snapped out of his daze, flicking off his cigarette ash. "The ring, you brought something with you, after all. Now that things have turned out like this, the Cult will eventually want to see you. I'll take you to someone who can talk to you, but you have to let me see the ring first."
Isaac pulled out the ring, Joey stared at it for a moment, seemingly trying to identify some feature. "The thing... it should be real. Let's go, follow me."
He turned and walked deeper into the alley, with Isaac following behind, keeping a meter or two away.
Who on the Cult's side is in charge of this matter?
"You'll see when we get there. My job is just to get you there; the rest is not my responsibility."