Evan had spent quite a long time traveling outside the city before arriving in Asle.
Asle was a slum built over the remnants of an old downtown district, and its population density defied imagination. That was what made it special among Floor City’s countless satellite regions.
Yet even here, he had been unable to find any traces of or information about the Yender Amulet.
It was about time he began thinking this.
‘Let’s enter the city.’
Whenever the slum dwellers thought of the city, they tended to picture some sort of utopia.
‘If I can just get into the city, I’ll be able to escape this shitty life.’
‘I’ll make a fresh start in the city. The first step matters, right?’
‘They say it’s harder to find a building under a hundred stories there. Surely there’ll be one home for me among them?’
However, Evan had already accumulated plenty of experience before entering this world, so he knew very well that such thoughts were absurd fantasies.
The city was not the radiant sanctuary the slum dwellers imagined as they gazed up at it.
Hundreds of millions of people were packed into an area about the size of Seoul. How could such a place possibly be heaven?
There were two simple reasons Evan had excluded the city from his investigation until now.
First, he had no suitable way to enter. Second, he wanted to proceed cautiously.
In other words, he did not want to risk his life recklessly.
Find information and grow stronger.
Once he had done enough of both, he would enter the city.
And now, he was certain that the time had finally come. If he could not find even a trace of it in Asle, then he had to make a decision.
Lara, who had been watching Evan with her yellow eyes, smiled faintly.
“Uh…… You don’t know what your eyes look like right now, do you? That’s exactly the look of a slum dweller who’s decided he wants into the city. Or, put another way, the look of someone who’s about to get shot dead at a security gate.”
Evan studied the file name on the monitor Lara had shown him.
【Yender Project】
“Can’t you check what’s inside?”
Lara shook her head.
“What if I paid you more?”
Lara stared at Evan, then shook her head again.
“I won’t say it’s…… impossible. But safe? That’s a different question. From here on, we’re talking about risking our lives. But why bother? Is this data really worth that much?”
“Our lives, you say.”
“The numbers don’t add up. Not for me, and not for you either, mage. If you mess with Vertex, one day you’ll end up as construction material for some artificial lake. And that’s the luckiest outcome. If they drag you off to a basement somewhere…… Someone at your level knows what kind of bastards Vertex are, don’t you?”
Lara was firm. Evan understood her reasoning, so he said nothing more.
Of course, that did not mean he was giving up. There was simply no need to do it now.
‘There are definitely things I can expect once I enter the city.’
For now, merely learning that much was enough.
Evan nodded and accepted the laptop Lara handed him.
‘Now I can finally use the internet.’
The real city network, not the Asle intranet that was little more than a secondhand trading community.
It felt ironic that using the internet was more difficult in a world hundreds of years more advanced.
“I reset all the access permissions. I also assigned a dummy ID as the administrator, so you shouldn’t have any trouble connecting. Just be careful not to get tracked.”
“What exactly should I be careful about?”
“Don’t download anything strange, ignore spam emails, and don’t watch porn.”
The warnings were so familiar that they were almost reassuring.
“Oh, right. Before you go, give me your contact information, mage. Going through Sam every time is annoying.”
“Looks like I won the bet.”
Lara blinked several times, then opened her mouth in disbelief.
“You mean the bet about who’d ask for the other’s number first? Don’t get the wrong idea. This is business.”
Evan snickered and held out his wrist, exchanging contact information with Lara.
“I’ll contact you if I make any progress on the Golden Cross data. Well, you can always call me first if you want a date. I’ll at least pretend not to see through you.”
After confirming the system message that said her contact information had been saved, Evan turned and walked away.
As he was about to climb the basement stairs, a voice called from behind him.
“Hey, Mr. Mage.”
Evan glanced back.
“Thank you for saving me. I mean that.”
Evan looked at her for a moment, gave a shallow nod, and climbed the stairs.
***
Evan watched for a moment as Hammy gnawed open a bag of snacks and performed the curious feat of tossing them into its own mouth, then spoke.
“Hey, you said you’re an ancient bastard, right?”
“What kind of baseless way of addressing me is that, you dark mage bastard? Say that I am a great being who has existed since ancient times. I am not a being of such meager stature that a bastard like you may address me that way…… Cough! Cough! Hack!”
“Here. Water.”
“I nearly died!”
Evan had no idea what this weight of existence was supposed to mean, but the weight of a hamster that had nearly died choking on a snack did not feel impressive in the slightest.
In any case, this meant Hammy also knew the ancient era when artifacts had first been created.
Then it was bound to be of great help. Not merely because the Yender Amulet was an artifact.
Evan stared at the dagger on the table for a moment, then picked it up.
He bit his finger until blood welled up. A drop soon fell onto the dagger’s pitch-black blade.
The blood was absorbed in an instant, leaving a faint red sheen across the blade’s surface.
After testing it several times, Evan had gained a rough understanding of the dagger’s ability.
As expected, it could absorb blood and release it whenever he wished.
Evan had already known about this blade.
“This is definitely an artifact too…….”
However, he had not known it possessed an ability like this.
Why had he not known?
The answer proved easier to find than expected.
It was also the first time he felt that this parasitic hamster might actually be useful.
“What you people call artifacts are tools dark mages made for their own use long ago. Of course they only function properly in a dark mage’s hands.”
“They were tools made for dark mages?”
“The people back then called them ‘Arcane Implements.’ If they knew later generations were lazily lumping them all together as artifacts, they’d be so furious they would leap straight out of their graves. Heh heh.”
That was why Evan had not known.
In the world of the game, dark mages had already gone completely extinct.
“In other words, people today don’t even understand the true nature of those objects. You’re the only one in this age who can draw out their true power. Isn’t that amusing?”
“It is interesting.”
More important than the amusement was the clue he had found to becoming stronger as a dark mage.
Hammy rolled its body over to face him.
It looked dissatisfied with something.
“That aside, you ungrateful bastard.”
“What is it now?”
“I’m fulfilling my role as your Familiar this well, yet you, hm? Don’t you ever think you should repay that kindness as a dark mage?”
“Tell me what you want. Stop circling around it.”
“I’m hungry! Feed me!”
The bastard had just emptied a bag of snacks larger than its own body, but Evan understood what it meant.
After thinking for a moment, Evan raised his palm.
He currently had nine souls he could use freely. One of them was special, since it belonged to a mage.
‘……One should be fine.’
He summoned the soul of a thug. An orb of dark blue flame floated above his finger.
“Here.”
“A human soul!”
The moment Evan handed it over, Hammy rushed forward, clutched it tightly in both paws, and began devouring it with a crunch, crunch, crunch.
It looked no different from a hamster eating a sunflower seed. The creature finished it in an instant, patted its belly, and sprawled out again.
Evan had been half-expecting something to change.
‘I know very well how strong it was when I first met it at that church.’
This world was not populated solely by weak small fry like the gangs he had encountered so far. The more ways he had to protect himself, the better.
While Evan remained lost in thought, Stella looked over from where she had been working at the computer.
“What have you been thinking about all this time? You have been talking to yourself quite a bit as well……. You have already finished the snacks. Do you like sweets?”
Evan saw no need to tell her that a gluttonous hamster had eaten the entire bag by itself.
Hammy quickly scurried inside Evan’s cloak.
“…….”
Stella approached and set down a drink.
“Did you not find much?”
Evan glanced at the laptop screen on the bar counter.
“I suppose it was half and half.”
“Half and half?”
After having the corporate employee’s laptop hacked, Evan had immediately connected to the network and searched through news articles.
As expected, most of them were useless. Of course, the sheer volume meant he would need to search more thoroughly.
‘By contrast, the Golden Cross data contains a smuggling route into the city. If it can be decrypted, getting into the city will be easy.’
If this had still been a game, all it would have taken to break the encryption was luck. A player who was a Net Runner could also decrypt it directly.
Now that it was reality, however, the entire process was unbearably troublesome.
“Still…… this isn’t bad.”
He checked his virtual account.
【Wallet Balance: 4,968,000c】
After spending a little here and there, Evan had realized that this was a considerable sum even in this world.
In Asle especially, it was the kind of money most people could scarcely imagine seeing.
He thought about where the money had come from.
The young child Evan had rescued at the church.
The child’s parents had believed their child was dead and had reportedly placed this bounty to find the mastermind responsible.
‘They offered five million credits just to find the mastermind behind their child’s death.’
This was a world where people dying was nothing unusual, and the money had not been offered to save their child or even to avenge them.
It had been offered solely to find the mastermind.
“In a slum like Asle…….”
Evan had wanted to ask Tumble who they were, but gave up when the man firmly declared, “Protecting a client’s identity is a matter of trust.”
After all, protecting other people’s identities also meant protecting Evan’s own.
‘Still, I should probably find out who they are.’
Just as he thought that, the back door opened with a creak.
It was the middle of the night, after Rosegold Pub had closed for business. Anyone visiting now would either be a client looking to commission a job or a fixer looking to accept one.
Or…….
“……What business do you have here?”
An unwelcome guest.
Stella’s sharp voice told Evan without him even turning around that unwelcome guests had arrived.
There was more than one.
They surrounded Evan from behind as he sat at the bar counter.
“Hmm…….”
Were they the remnants of the men who had attacked Lara? Had they come for revenge? How had they known he was here?
From inside his cloak came Hammy’s amused voice.
“Eight bastards. And they’re a little…… different from the small fry you usually deal with.”
Evan could feel it too.
The presences behind him were different. They were not the weak, blustering type of street thugs.
Evan stared fixedly at the dagger on the table, but did not move.
Any careless motion could invite a preemptive attack.
Stella approached the bar counter and glared.
“Who are you people? Do you know where you are, barging in and trying to intimidate us? Who sent you?”
“We have business with him.”
The voice was devoid of emotion.
“You are the Savior of the Church, correct?”
It was an unexpected title.
Not Evan, his name, nor mage, but the “Savior of the Church.”
That was what people called Evan on the Asle intranet.
Evan did not answer. He merely raised a hand beneath his cloak.
‘Sacrificial Rite.’
“We have no intention of causing trouble. Come with us.”
“What do you want?”
“The Master is looking for you. You will hear the details when we arrive.”
Evan glanced at Stella.
Behind the resolute expression on her face, he could feel an emotional tremor in her soul.
Rosegold Pub would remain an important base for Evan in Asle. It would be quite troublesome if a disturbance broke out here.
For that reason, he obediently rose from his seat and turned around.
“All right. I’ll come quietly.”
Beneath Evan’s cloak, hidden by his casual words, the soul orb at his fingertips burned away.
‘Soulcraft·Erode, Harvester’s Judgment.’
An illusion made it seem as though time had stopped. The creaking hanging lights dimmed all at once.
An intricate circular magic array settled onto the floor around Evan, then transformed into black mist and evaporated in an instant. At the same time, the lights returned to normal.
Evan’s soul and the souls of the eight burly men were connected by hazy threads.
Of course, only Evan and his Familiar could see any of it.
‘……Heh heh. That’s an interesting trick.’
Ignoring Hammy’s snickering, Evan leisurely walked between the men in suits.
“Now then, I won’t try anything and I’ll follow quietly, so you can quietly lead the way.”
He decided to find out where their base was and what kind of people they were.
With luck, he might catch one of the fish that swam in the vast pond that was Asle.
‘If they really are that sort…… they’re probably the Bones Clan.’
The Bones Clan.
One of the major gangs that ruled Asle.
It appeared consistently throughout the game, and its boss was a popular named NPC, so there was no way Evan would not know it.
Evan followed them in silence.
They crossed Asle District A and headed toward the center. The buildings, which had grown endlessly denser, suddenly vanished.
A vast circular clearing.
It felt as though they had crossed a typhoon made of buildings and finally entered its eye.
The broad sky that abruptly opened overhead was almost disconcerting.
At the center of the concrete clearing stood a concrete building.
Perhaps it had never possessed proper outer walls, or perhaps they had fallen away at some point. Either way, the ruins of the high-rise, with nothing left but reinforced concrete, resembled the fossil of a giant.
Evan knew this abandoned building.
Gray Ribs, a landmark that always appeared in Asle.
“This way.”
They climbed the crumbling concrete stairs without end. Every floor was another succession of empty space and darkness.
The men in suits walked comfortably through the darkness. They clearly had infrared vision in their cybernetic eyes.
Even without cybernetic eyes, Evan was just as free in the darkness.
They had climbed perhaps a dozen floors when lights suddenly appeared.
On the far side of the vast space stood a single solid-wood table, several chairs, and a wooden cabinet that felt strangely out of place.
Various bottles of expensive liquor were arranged inside it.
“Oh, you finally made it.”
And…… a strangely familiar voice.
The person sitting in an armchair across the wooden table was someone Evan recognized.
“Did you have any trouble on the way? You are an honored guest, after all, so I sent quite a few escorts.”
Evan studied his face in silence, sat down on the sofa opposite him, and spoke slowly.
“……I didn’t expect that good deed back then to lead to a sight like this. It really does pay to do good, doesn’t it, kid?”
The figure smiling across from him was the boy Evan had rescued from beneath the corpses at the church.