A peculiar atmosphere hung over the pub. Even Tumble, who had urged Evan not to accept the request, was visibly flustered by his reaction. The man in sunglasses had also stopped smiling and was staring intently at Evan.
“Do rumors travel that fast? Where did you hear about it?”
“That isn’t important, so let’s move on.”
Evan dragged a chair over to the man’s table and sat down. The sound of aluminum scraping against aluminum cut through the silence.
“Let’s talk business first. What do you want?”
The man in sunglasses stared at Evan for a moment before bursting into laughter.
“Ha, you’re quite a character, brother. Then again, competition in this line of work has gotten fierce lately. This isn’t a bad strategy if you want to pick up even a few crumbs.”
“What do you want?”
Evan already knew everything about this event, including its objective and reward.
He merely needed to confirm it.
“There should be a cross inside the church. We call it the Golden Cross. Don’t get your hopes up, though. It isn’t actually made of solid gold.”
“You want me to bring you the cross?”
“Simple, right? The place is a pit full of corpses at the moment, so it might feel a little unpleasant, but there’s nothing difficult about it. You’ll make cleaner money than the garbage collection crews.”
Evan snorted when he heard that.
“Nothing difficult about it? That’s amusing.”
“Why? Is it difficult from your perspective?”
The man looked Evan up and down and chuckled.
“Well, I suppose I can understand. Mages are very ‘cautious,’ after all. Not that I’m calling you a coward.”
The client responded with mockery, completely unaware of what Evan was thinking.
Evan knew better.
There was a reason the place had become a pit full of corpses.
There was also a reason those corpses had yet to be removed.
He found it ridiculous that the man could shamelessly claim there was nothing difficult about it under such circumstances.
“The reward?”
“An advance of 200,000 credits. Once you bring me the item, I’ll immediately transfer another 400,000.”
“Six hundred thousand in total?”
“That’s the price for picking up a single item in the next neighborhood. It’s practically free money, isn’t it?”
Before Evan could answer, an angry shout came from behind him.
“What kind of ridiculous bastard are you?!”
Evan turned around and saw Tumble tapping the bar with an irritated expression.
“He has to risk his life entering a place where people died in droves, and you are only offering 600,000? What utter nonsense!”
Instead of becoming flustered or angry, the client answered with a sly smile.
“It’s a place where people died, not necessarily a place where more people will die. And the price of a life? Since when has Asle ever paid a fair price for one?”
The man took out a pack of cigarettes and placed it on the table.
The pack was stained with blood.
It was meant as a threat, or perhaps an attempt to seize the upper hand.
While Evan looked down at the cigarette pack, the man pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips.
“There’s no bad blood between us. It’s simple arithmetic. If the bait isn’t to our brother’s taste, he doesn’t have to bite. I can just wait for another fish to come along. And there are plenty of fish in this business.”
“Benefactor, I will find you a suitable job. No matter how I consider it, that church is not…….”
Evan stared at the cigarette pack for a moment, then opened his mouth.
“There’s no need to sign a contract, is there?”
“You’ll do it?”
“In return.”
Evan picked up the cigarette pack and waved it from side to side in front of the man’s eyes.
“This is the deposit. I’m keeping it.”
The man burst into laughter at Evan’s words.
It was not the hearty chuckle from before. He pounded the table as he roared with laughter.
“I like you! Let’s work well together from now on!”
Evan did not take the man’s outstretched hand. He merely stared at it.
The man’s smile vanished.
He controlled his expression, but his fingers nearly trembled from his momentary alarm.
Maintaining a calm face with some effort, he said,
“You won’t even shake my hand?”
The man eventually withdrew his hand.
“……You noticed?”
He raised the hand toward his mouth.
The tip of one finger bent outward, and a tiny flame emerged from the severed section.
Although it had been skillfully disguised to look like a bare hand, it was not a human hand.
Machines implanted into the body in this manner were called cybernetic parts in this world.
Had Evan taken that hand…… the man might have hacked Evan’s neural circuitry and placed him under hypnosis.
Evan’s current level of cybernetics would not have been sufficient to block it.
“How did you notice? Even a third-generation ocular system can’t distinguish this hand from a real one.”
As he said, it could never have been distinguished by sight alone.
The color visible beneath the skin, the wrinkles, and even the subtle pulsing of the blood vessels had all been perfectly reproduced.
However, a black mage’s eyes saw the soul, and the soul’s form imitated the body.
No matter what deception was layered over an impure body, its true nature could not be hidden.
In Evan’s eyes, the man’s soul had no right hand.
“Anyway, you said you’ll do it, so that’s enough. As long as you handle the job properly, the reward will be guaranteed. If you do well, this could also be a good start toward building your career—”
“In return.”
That was when Evan suddenly pressed a finger against the space between the man’s eyebrows.
“What the……?”
The startled man tried to rise, only to stop in a half-standing position.
Evan’s finger pulled slightly away from his forehead.
A grayish-white energy was drawn out from the man’s brow.
Evan lightly grasped its end between his fingers and twisted it.
“Hhk……!”
The man sucked in a breath.
He tried his best to remain expressionless, but he could not conceal the cold sweat that instantly soaked his back.
It felt as though something vital behind the nape of his neck was being twisted.
It felt as though frost were forming beneath his skin.
It was an ominous sensation unlike anything he had ever experienced.
Evan gazed at the pale smoke drawn out like a thin thread and spoke gently.
“If you act disrespectfully or try to test me one more time, things are going to become rather troublesome for you, brother.”
“…….”
“Answer me.”
Unable to force out his voice, the man nodded.
Only then did Evan release the soul he had seized.
As though drawn by a magnet, the soul was instantly sucked back into the man’s forehead.
“Now we’re officially business partners. I’m Evan. And you are?”
Evan offered his left hand.
The man stared at it before reluctantly extending his own left hand.
“Ralph. Ralph Jurgens.”
“Good to meet you, Jurgens.”
Ralph chuckled at the sight of Evan speaking in such a friendly tone, as though he paid no attention to the frosty atmosphere from moments before.
“I’ll admit it. I lost. I underestimated you because you were a mage.”
“You learn quickly, brother.”
“Then we’ll consider the deal settled. Old man! Upload this to the request database! You heard most of it, so I don’t need to send you the details separately, right? Don’t worry, I’ll pay your commission!”
Before leaving the pub, Jurgens looked at Evan and smiled.
“Make sure you come back alive. I’d like to see you often.”
Even after taking a blow, his expression remained relaxed.
It was because he was confident that he had secured the contract regardless.
The hinges made a sharp sound as the door closed. As though he had been waiting for that moment, Tumble approached Evan.
“What were you thinking, accepting a request from that worthless bastard……?”
“He’ll be useful for a while.”
“Useful? That street bandit looks useful to you?”
Evan stared at the door Jurgens had left through for a moment before shifting his gaze to the cigarette pack.
He lightly placed a finger on a bloodstain that had dried at some unknown time.
When he slid his finger across the cigarette pack…… the red stain was pulled out in a thread that followed his fingertip.
Tumble noticed what was happening belatedly and opened his mouth.
“……Impossible.”
Blood was merely a collection of cells that carried ingested nutrients throughout the body.
To a black mage, however, blood was a medium connecting the body and the soul.
Blood spilled from the body carried resentment.
The red energy drawn out like a thread pointed in a single direction.
Evan turned his head toward it.
All he could see was a dull metal wall and a neon light with its power turned off.
But he could guess what lay beyond that wall.
“The city.”
The place where the resentment within this blood had been engraved was the city itself.
The great and radiant Floor City.
“A cigarette pack stained with blood from the city…….”
Evan smiled.
It meant Jurgens had come from the city.
“No one travels from the city to Asle without a reason.”
When Evan released his concentration, the thread of blood instantly returned to its original place.
He shoved the cigarette pack into an inner pocket of his cloak and stood up.
Tumble, who had been watching with unfocused eyes, belatedly regained his senses and stammered.
“D-do you happen to have a bank account or a personal virtual wallet?”
“I don’t have a bank account, but I have a virtual wallet.”
It was not a wallet one carried around.
It was a wallet implanted inside the body in the form of a chip.
Most possessions in this world were stored in devices implanted within the body.
Evan had only two cybernetic parts implanted in him.
A virtual wallet and a system implant that monitored his health.
Both were basic implants automatically given to the player character when the game began.
The old man nodded after hearing that.
“This is a registration terms agreement. You may think of it as a certificate proving that you have entered a business relationship with our pub. The brokerage fee is ten percent, regardless of the type of request. Write your contact code here, and I will transfer the 200,000 credits immediately.”
Evan picked up the pen and looked at the old document before raising his head.
“They probably haven’t sent you the money yet.”
“Business is not truly conducted with goods. It is conducted with trust. This is the method I prefer to use when earning trust, so do not concern yourself with it. Take the money.”
Evan stared for a moment at Tumble’s grinning face, his teeth bared.
Then, without realizing it, Evan smiled faintly.
“I never dreamed I’d hear the word ‘trust’ in this world.”
“Hmm?”
Evan shook his head and signed the agreement.
“Hold out your wrist.”
When Evan extended his wrist, Tumble brought over a reader.
The reader’s sensor recognized the chip implanted inside Evan’s wrist, and the transfer was completed immediately.
【SYSTEM: Verified currency deposited into Virtual Wallet.】
【Added: 200,000c】
【Wallet Balance: 209,000c】
Wow, I’m rich.
Evan immediately felt warmth and security settle over his heart.
However, he could not afford to let his guard down over such a small amount.
This was a neighborhood where a single bottle of water at a hotel cost 40,000 credits.
When he thought about it, the contents of his wallet amounted to only five bottles of water.
Even accounting for pure water being far more valuable than in reality and the hotel’s premium pricing, it was hardly a generous sum.
“Ha, no matter how much I think about it, this is regrettable. That job is absolutely not worth doing for such a paltry sum.”
“I know.”
“Then why in the world……?”
Because Evan knew that the true reward for this quest did not end with a handful of petty cash.
‘There’s a separate ‘true reward’ to be obtained from this quest.’
Evan swept the hem of his cloak aside and rose.
“Tumble.”
“Yes, Benefactor.”
“May I ask you for a favor?”
“Of course. You need only tell me.”
Evan requested several things from Tumble.
After hearing the requests, Tumble scratched his chin in confusion.
“What could you possibly intend to use such things for……?”
“It won’t be difficult, will it?”
“Of course not. Please sit for a short while.”
While Tumble went to prepare the ‘items,’ Evan recorded his new task on the display.
【To Do: Retrieve the Church’s Symbol.】
【Note:
I will be paid for retrieving the church’s cross.
However, that ‘cross’ is the true reward I will claim for myself.
They must never have imagined that I know the truth behind the cross.】
The church’s Golden Cross.
It was actually Asle’s ultimate reward item, normally obtainable only after completing several scenario quests.
***
The church was not far away.
Despite the short distance, the surrounding scenery changed dramatically as Evan drew closer to his destination.
Asle District B, where Tumble’s pub was located, at least possessed the basic trappings of a place where people lived, even if it was a wretched neighborhood.
Although it was not legal, a distinct commercial district had formed where money changed hands, and people who followed money naturally came and went.
However, District C, which lay beyond that territory, was not a garbage dump in a metaphorical sense.
It was a literal garbage dump.
There were hills made of garbage, and the terrain itself had been transformed by the waste. Roads had to be laid and maps drawn according to the positions of the garbage heaps.
The garbage came from the city.
Evan frowned.
It was not because of the filth.
The sight reminded him of when he had first entered this world.
That was not a pleasant memory.
He arrived at the church.
It stood alone in the middle of a wasteland of garbage heaps.
It was the only brick building in the area.
How old was it?
Perhaps there had once been a time when this place held something sacred.
“Hmm.”
But now, through the eyes of a black mage, this place was brimming with power.
“So many people died here. Its energy is more sinister than a cemetery’s.”
The place was filled with resentment and lingering thoughts.
To the eyes of a black mage, all of it looked appealing.
After staring up at the church for some time, Evan walked toward its entrance.
As though sensing his approach, the curse lurking within the church began to stir.