The Birth of the Phantom Troupe

Northern district of Meteor City, church, backstage in the screening room.

Blazing midday sunlight streamed through the stained glass, casting rainbow colors across the oak floor.

A small group led by Chrollo had gathered there, eagerly discussing a name for their new team.

"Uvogin, usually only groups with thousands of people can be called troupes!"

Chrollo sat back in a faded velvet chair, looking up from the yellowed title page of a poetry collection at Uvogin beside him.

There was so much knowledge in books, so why wouldn't Uvogin even take a look?

"You need thousands of people to be a troupe?"

Uvogin's booming laughter rattled the oak cabinet, and his muscular arm rested against the spine of the dubbing script.

"I can crush a hundred men all by myself!" He deliberately pressed his sawdust-covered palm into Machi's purple hair, making the girl leap up like a cat with its fur standing on end.

"Don't touch my hair! It'll stop me from growing taller!" Machi shook off Uvogin's hand, irritation rippling through her violet-blue eyes.

The toe of her slender foot landed squarely on Uvogin's straw sandal, but he only laughed harder.

"Phantom Troupe?" Paku repeated the name twice and nodded with satisfaction.

"The wandering travelers represent everyone in Meteor City."

"The performing troupe represents everyone's performances."

"It's a fitting name!"

She voiced her support, looking toward Chrollo, who was still pondering.

"Phantom Troupe... troupe members..." Nobunaga mumbled around a stalk of grass, snapping shut the script he used to voice the Green Warrior.

"Phantom Troupe is a good name. From now on, we'll be troupe members!"

In the shadows of a corner, Feitan raised his narrow black eyes from Torture Records, his pale fingertips brushing over dried black grime between the pages. "Whatever makes you happy."

His already hoarse voice carried a chill like metal scraping against metal.

"Click~"

While everyone was engrossed in the conversation, Sarasa quietly closed the wooden door and slipped out of the room.

While checking the videotapes today, she had discovered that only three volumes of the cartoon remained on them! If they didn't want to run out of programs to show at their performances in a few days,

finding new videotapes had become an urgent matter.

"I remember Chrollo said he found that videotape in the southern district's..."

"Garbage Mountain No. 7!"

She silently repeated the place Chrollo had mentioned, her straw sandals deftly avoiding the rusty nail-studded boards in the corridor.

"If I find everyone some new videotapes, they'll all be so happy!"

With that thought in mind, Sarasa quietly slipped out of the church and headed for the southern district.

Shack district, on a bed.

Harvest!

Carl gazed at the miniature estate before her and silently gave the command.

To avoid the possible dangers of the estate expanding,

he had deliberately gone to a shack in the outside world five minutes early.

And as soon as he gave the command, the number of Bomb Pomegranates stored in the warehouse officially reached 101!

[Hum~]

[Farm owner level eligible for upgrade. Confirm upgrade: yes/no?]

The system's mechanical voice rang out.

Without hesitation, Carl gave a mental command:

"Upgrade!"

As soon as the command was issued, the miniature estate suddenly blurred.

When the hum of warping space faded, Carl's sea of consciousness abruptly expanded.

A brand-new estate had appeared, with eighteen plots arranged in two rows and separated by a green path down the middle.

[Estate owner: Carl (level 2)]

[Space unlocked: farm]

[Arable plots: 18]

A transparent panel appeared automatically, allowing Carl to fully grasp the situation inside the estate.

Picking up the six pieces of pumpkin she had brought outside earlier, Carl silently said, Enter.

"Hum~"

Space and time swayed, and the estate's uniquely warm sunlight fell upon her.

Carl put down the pumpkin in his hands and strode over to the nine newly opened plots. He looked around and touched them, unable to stop the corners of his mouth from rising.

Each plot was a meter long and a meter wide. Excluding the path, the estate was now eighteen square meters, wasn't it?

"Sow, Nen Komugi!"

After standing there grinning foolishly for a while, Carl managed to compose herself and scattered Nen Komugi seeds across the nine newly cultivated plots.

"Water~"

As the estate's cool spring water fell, tender wheat shoots broke through the soil. In the blink of an eye, they passed the seedling stage and advanced rapidly into the tillering stage.

[Two-season crop: Nen Komugi]

[Time to maturity: 23 hours, 59 minutes, 55 seconds]

[Irrigation requirement: satisfied]

"Now all that's left is to wait for the harvest..."

Carl sat down casually beside a field ridge and gazed at the panel in satisfaction.

With the nine new plots, he only needed to wait twelve days to harvest a hundred plants of Nen Komugi.

If the stock of Bomb Pomegranates hadn't been running low and urgently needed replenishing,

he wouldn't even have needed twelve days!

"Knock, knock, knock~"

Just as Carl was lost in pleasant imaginings, a crisp knock suddenly came from outside the estate.

"Carl, are you home?"

"It's Sarasa!"

Hearing the voice through the outside-world interface, Carl remained unmoved. Just because someone knocked, did he have to answer?

Though the original owner had been a fellow orphan of Meteor City, Chrollo had been his only friend. At most, he and the others had merely known one another!

Now there was only one Bomb Pomegranate left in the warehouse. Unless something unusual happened, he had no intention of going out at all!

"The elder in charge of the streets asked me to tell you that you haven't gone out to collect garbage in four days."

"If you don't go out and help clear the garbage soon, he'll take back the shack you're living in!"

When no one answered from inside the shack, Sarasa had no choice but to continue.

It happened to be her turn to clean the garbage district today, so the elder in charge had asked her to stop by and call for Carl.

But judging by the situation, was Carl not in the shack?

"Clang, clang, clang~"

The rusty sheet-metal door was pulled open. Carl tightened the black robe around her and said calmly, "Let's go."

He had spent so long in the estate that he had genuinely forgotten about this: the shacks in the shack district belonged to Meteor City, and those who lived in them had to work for Meteor City in exchange for the right to stay!

And work in Meteor City amounted to nothing more than cleaning up and collecting garbage.

Seeing the youth finally appear, Sarasa breathed a sigh of relief. "I thought you weren't in your shack! You scared me to death!"

"Which garbage district's roads did the elder tell us to clean?" Carl asked with a deep frown, closing the sheet-metal door behind her.

If not for the original owner's sheet-metal shack, he really wouldn't have wanted to go out!

Sarasa patted her chest and looked up with a smile. "The main road in the Seventh Garbage District."

"That's not too bad. Let's go," Carl said after recalling the route.

"Hey, Carl, wait for me! I still wanted to ask about your relationship with Sister Sheila."

Seeing Carl walk straight off without any intention of waiting for her, Sarasa hurried after her.

"Enemies," Carl said coldly, glancing at the girl as they turned a corner.

Even after several days had passed, he still despised scum like Sheila!

Sarasa's expression stiffened, and her earlier eagerness subsided considerably.

She had only wanted to ease relations between her companions, but judging by this, there seemed to be no room for reconciliation anymore...

The road in the Seventh Garbage District... It's still some distance from Meteor City's outskirts, so it shouldn't be very dangerous!

As Carl walked over the uneven dirt, a map of Meteor City slowly appeared in her mind.

Meteor City wasn't large. Four residential districts, a city center where the Council of Elders lived, and a shack district surrounding the entire city made up the whole place!

Each of the four districts-east, west, south, and north-had its own garbage districts to manage.

By number, districts one through three belonged to the eastern district.

Four through six belonged to the western district.

Seven through nine belonged to the southern district.

Nine through twelve belonged to the northern district.

Each garbage district had a different number according to its distance.

The Seventh Garbage District, as its name suggested, was the garbage mountain closest to the southern district.

The danger level was low, but that didn't mean there was none at all!

To make it easier for vehicles to travel through and thereby increase the garbage mountain's storage capacity,

the residents of the shack district were organized every few days to clean the major roads around the garbage mountains together.

The cleaning wasn't a heavy task, covering a few hundred meters at most. The main problems were that it was dirty and time-consuming.

Since Carl already lived in the shack district, she wasn't very far from the Seventh Garbage District.

After passing a few intersections, the two came face-to-face with a hunched old man, with a crowd of shack-district residents behind him.

"Elder, Carl is here."

Sarasa lowered her head and addressed the old man respectfully.

Carl followed silently behind the girl, saying nothing.

The original owner had always been like this, which saved her the trouble of saying anything more.

"Mm, go on in."

The elder, whose clothes were covered in patches, nodded and motioned for them to join the group behind him.

No one spoke along the way.