＜ Episode 7 ＞
No matter how rumors say it’s a fast slum, not many people know about what just happened.
wajik.
“Gagging!”
If he had heard the news about John, who had crushed Sleep, who was called the best solver without much difficulty, he would have saved himself, but most did not, and thanks to him, John had no choice but to continue the battle.
thud!
“Uh uh uh!”
“Shouldn’t you have listened?”
Seeing John approaching with a tired face, aiming a revolver, Robert muttered incomprehensible words with a face full of fear.
Spotting John’s back through an alleyway, Robert and his team blocked John, claiming they were lucky, and drew their weapons, ignoring John’s invitation to get out of the way.
Although John had a reputation as a fixer, Robert and his party were also quite good fixers, and they were equipped with expensive implants at the slum level, so their confidence was natural.
In addition, the tired look and the appearance of John with his clothes damaged here and there ignited their judgment, and they rushed toward John without a word, but what happened afterwards was a completely different ending than they thought.
‘Where did I go wrong? how?’
bang!
The thoughts of Robert, who survived alone with his limbs smashed, could not continue.
45 caliber bullets going through your head, no one in the world would be able to do the act of thinking.
“after.”
John looked around and sighed lightly.
After briefly looking at the four corpses, each of which had lost the light of life or ceased functioning, John skillfully searched the corpses, gathered useful items, and put them into his bosom.
“This is fine.”
Kwajijik!
John’s hand dug into Robert’s chest and pulled out a device soaked in blood and oil.
Robert’s body, which had already ceased to function, was shaken once, but John didn’t even raise an eyebrow and rubbed it on Robert’s collar and put it into his bosom.
“It’s nice to have an unexpected increase in income…”
No one believed in banks in the slums, and most residents hid their wealth in secret places or carried it with them.
It was the same for the solvers, so the goods that came out of the arms of Sleep and Robert and the others were enough to blow away the fatigue of battle.
But that’s only for a moment.
“…isn’t this the only meaning?”
John’s fighting style is heavily dependent on weapons and consumables.
As you gradually get used to your abilities, your dependence will decrease, but isn’t that right now?
He demolished more than half of his entire property to replenish weapons and consumables at most, but he had consumed more than half of them in two battles.
The fact that the shotgun he had been using for a long time became scrap metal made him bitter.
“I can’t.”
The time when John, who had been thinking for a while, was about to make up his mind and take another step.
“There! John is over there!”
With a loud cry, men with ferocious expressions rushed in, and John sighed and took out his revolver.
***
“…so you’re here again? I left as if I would never see you.”
“So it is.”
Seeing Gilbert snorting and glancing at him, John turned his gaze away with an embarrassed expression.
It was only after entering Gilbert’s store that the continuing raids stopped.
Even among the shops in the slums, the ones equipped with unrivaled defenses were the ones that couldn’t be seen as ordinary merchants, starting with Gilbert himself.
Above all, raiding Gilbert’s shop meant taking on a fight with a competent arms dealer and fence, and few solvers went that fast.
In addition, they noticed that something was strange in the fact that none of the fixers who attacked John survived.
Looking at John like that, Gilbert wet his head and headed towards the countless piles of scrap metal piled up on one side of the store.
“…Anyway, that’s great. I would have thought that the other guys would have defeated Slip as well.”
“Did you know?”
“Who do you think is accepting the scavengers’ stuff? Besides, there aren’t many that can dispose of things as good as Sleep’s.”
Even in the slum, Luna’s worst place, those who are at the bottom are the scavengers.
And since it was a story that such scavengers were able to get through today thanks to John, John couldn’t help but put on a strange expression.
Gilbert, who was looking at John like that, opened his mouth cautiously.
“…Have you awakened this ability?”
“So it is.”
Gilbert’s expression hardened at John’s very plain affirmation.
“… with the thing from 67?”
John smiled at Gilbert’s cautious attitude of asking the best question in District 63 at the moment.
“no. I was curious about that, but that’s fine.”
With that, John took something out of his bosom and put it down, and Gilbert’s expression became strange when he saw the object.
The box, barely large enough to fit in the palm of your hand, looked rugged, but made of hard alloy, it seemed unlikely to budge from a moderate shock. But he couldn’t believe it was storing things the way Gilbert expected.
“A data storage device.”
“I think so too. But I couldn’t figure out the specifications.”
Inside the box was a device the size of a finger, and complicated lines and modules engraved on one side indicated that this device was connected to somewhere.
“Hmm.”
It took a while for Gilbert, who took out the glasses on which the hologram was projected, to carefully examine the items here and there.
Soon, with a careful hand, I put the device back into the box.
“I guess it’s not a normal thing.”
“hit. It’s something you don’t find in the slums.”
Gilbert, whose expression hardened, continued.
“It’s a rare item even in the higher districts. It is a storage device widely used for security purposes. Even if it looks like that, it has electronic security as well as a magical position.”
“Magic?”
John jumped at the sudden word.
A power that was proudly among the four forces that the old woman presented to him.
Although only one day had passed, the word magic was too heavy for John, who was desperately experiencing the power of this ability.
“yes. I don’t know the exact details, but I do know that it was treated magically. This line is proof of that.”
I thought it was a simple decoration because it was complicatedly intertwined, but looking at it again, I felt a sense of incongruity.
“···This.”
“It seems that this ability has definitely blossomed. Do you feel a sense of incongruity? I heard that people with abilities can recognize the remnants of other powers.”
At Gilbert’s words, John drew the fragments of power circulating inside his body with his eyes.
A strange light shimmered in John’s eyes, and he saw the faint glow of the line that entered his gaze.
“···Right.”
Gilbert, who was looking at John like that, said calmly.
“This kind of device itself is not common, and it is more so when it has magical treatment. Then there is only one conclusion.”
An ominous premonition welled up in a corner of John’s heart.
“This is a wizard’s thing.”
“···Damn it.”
John’s face contorted at Gilbert’s affirmation.
***
For the residents of the slum, the existence of the talented is the object of admiration and fear.
Everyone knew that no matter how powerful they were armed with devices and replacing their bodies with steel limbs, they were no match for the powerful.
It was because the activities of the talented people who were reported occasionally made me doubt whether they were the same human beings.
And among those with abilities, the most feared is the magician.
Unlike other talented people, magicians who explore and exercise magic that is close to learning are all twisted and single-minded.
He did not hesitate to make extreme decisions for his own purposes, and since most of the accidents involving magicians are related to magicians, they are objects of overwhelming fear rather than admiration.
***
“…There must be a reason for the rapid growth of the Gulag family. It makes sense if there is a mage behind it.”
Gilbert muttered with an attitude that he finally understood.
Divided into 10 slums, each one is so vast that it is virtually impossible for a single organization to take over.
However, the Gulak family, which was just a common gang, started to stand out from one day and ate most of District 67 without realizing it.
It was not a normal case, and it was a strange thing even in the eyes of Gilbert, who was collecting information from other areas due to his job, but now the mystery has been solved.
“I won’t stop.”
“yes. Honestly, considering the number of fixers you’ve killed, the ones in our district won’t bother you anymore. Calculations are not right.”
No one takes the value of life as lightly as the people of the slums.
On the contrary, as a person from a slum, he considers his life more important than anything else.
By now, rumors should have spread that Slip and other fixers died at John’s hands, and it could be affirmed that there were no people aiming for John, except for a few of the deadliest.
“But the Gulag family is different. As long as the wizard is behind, he will come back to retrieve the item at any cost.”
The device engraved with lines emitting a subtle light looked more ominous than anything else in the world.
It was an item I picked up hoping that it would turn into money because I kept it in my arms, but there was no such thing as a disaster.
“···Perhaps.”
“Impossible.”
Gilbert said firmly to John, who opened his mouth cautiously.
“If it’s an electronic device, how can you use your hands, but it’s magic. It’s not something a fence like me can handle.”
I don’t know if the fence in the upper area can use their hands somehow, but this place is a slum.
Although Gilbert is one of the best fences in the slums, magic is beyond his ability.
Gilbert looked at John, who was glaring at the device with a wrinkled expression on his face, and then started fiddling with the implant planted in the back of his neck.
“… you really came. I bumped into the Carpaccio gang.”
“I’ll be thrilled.”
Soon after, with a beeping sound, a message arrived at the communication device on John’s wrist.
It was an urgent message from the relay station’s bartender and other personal informants, but John didn’t even think to open it.
Because I felt like I knew it without checking the contents.
“The Carpaccio gang aren’t easygoing guys, but if there’s a wizard behind the Gulak family, they won’t be able to last that long.”
At Gilbert’s words, John smiled bitterly.
“What are you going to do?”
At Gilbert’s question, John glared at the device again.
In terms of nature, I wanted to pulverize this ominous object and scatter it everywhere, but it is said that it is a magical object.
I couldn’t do that because I didn’t know how it would be hung, and I couldn’t throw it away anywhere.
It was rumored all over the place that John already had things, so there was no excuse for throwing them away.
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More than anything.
Gangsters in the slums are not communicative opponents.
Rather than having a conversation, they fire bullets first, and only respond to conversation when they recognize that each other has suffered significant damage.
In addition, since they came from other districts, they would not choose any means and methods, and since John had to receive a letter of introduction, he might end up at the relay station or kill the bartender.
‘…Then it’s troublesome.’
Brokers who can give out letters of introduction are not common, and you have to build trust again to go through other brokers.
After a lot of thought, John had to come to a conclusion.
“Show me the weapon list.”
To use the most common form of communication in the slums.
＜ Episode 7 ＞ End