Woojin appeared from the rear of the garbage truck carrying an old blue tarp.
Was that tarp garbage?
No.
Woojin folded the tarp and put it into the garbage truck's tool box.
After that Woojin climbed into the truck's driver's seat.
Only then did the truck's loading bed tilt and the garbage begin to pour out.
“…….”
“…….”
George Miller and Harvey Garcia, who had been watching, met each other's eyes.
George's head was like a long cucumber, and Harvey's face was like a lumpy potato.
But the look in their eyes was similar.
The sharp, quiet look of men who had pushed through a harsh reality without complaint.
They talked quietly while watching Woojin.
“Current time 15:15. He finished his shift inside twelve hours. His performance rating will have gone up. Victor's defeat is a certainty.”
“And he finished it alone, without a partner. He had the ability to back it up when he provoked Victor.”
“I just thought he was a crazy kid.”
“There was venom in his eyes, granted. But I thought he'd simply snap. You can't do anything with venom alone.”
“…….”
“…….”
“Let's say we didn't see it.”
“Agreed.”
The garbage truck the two of them rode in passed Woojin's truck.
Then it backed into a parking spot in front of the refuse bunker.
Before long Woojin's truck would leave the incinerator.
George and Harvey's truck would discharge the garbage in its bed and leave the incinerator too.
As if nothing at all had happened.
“…….”
“…….”
George Miller and Harvey Garcia were sanitation civil servants of Lemming City.
Veterans with more than five years on the job, at that.
A Lemming City sanitation civil servant is treated as a full hand if he merely lasts six months.
Because the mortality rate is too high.
Anyone with over five years of experience belongs to the top five percent.
The secret that let them manage it was a martial art.
The Heavenly Demon Cult, a pseudo-religion of naturalists that had been wiped out by the megacorps.
The two of them had learned the Heavenly Demon Cult's Tier 3 assassination art, Killing Shadow Step.
With their bare bodies, with no martial arts implant.
They hadn't mastered it perfectly.
In terms of proficiency, perhaps 1 to 2 degrees.
A level that had barely gotten past the threshold, at best.
But it was enough to keep them alive while working as sanitation civil servants.
Thanks to it they had been able to stay quietly neutral without joining the power struggle Victor Kruger led.
Could the two of them seize power among the sanitation civil servants and take the lead on something?
Their fighting strength fell short for that.
Killing Shadow Step was a footwork art characterized by quiet, nimble movement.
It wasn't a direct combat technique.
Besides, George and Harvey weren't the type to step forward and do something.
They would follow someone's orders readily enough, but had no intention of becoming leaders themselves.
The two of them were content simply to keep earning money steadily and feeding their families going forward.
“Will Victor's era continue? Or will Jinwoo Martinez turn the board over?”
“Who knows. Hard to say. Victor has backing, at least.”
Either way, they had to keep their antennae up.
Because a wave of rough water was coming.
George and Harvey closed their mouths and looked out the window.
Its garbage discharged, the garbage truck moved on its own and left the incinerator.
***
The sixth day since the bet with Victor began.
Woojin finished the day's work and headed for District 271.
He parked the garbage truck in a lot between old red-brick buildings and walked the streets.
Before long his destination appeared.
A food truck selling hot dogs.
“You came again today? What'll it be today?”
“Spicy hot dog. And a cola.”
“Yes, sir! Coming right up!”
A young man with a burn scar on his face assembled a hot dog in an instant.
Woojin handed him cash.
This man was an unregistered from outside the city and couldn't use the electronic payment system.
Woojin took his hot dog into an alley and sat down on a suitable stair landing.
When he bit into the hot dog, juice burst out of it.
They must have put chili peppers in when making the sausage; it had a spicy kick.
“Wow! This place really is good.”
It was a shop he had found while coming to buy a tarp a while back.
He had tried it once, found it delicious, and had been coming back regularly since.
Honestly he had no idea what kind of meat it was, and he did feel a little uneasy even while eating it.
But to eat food made by a human being for 8,000 credits?
Spend 8,000 credits on something to eat and you'd normally be eating synthetic food from an automated franchise outlet.
“YO. BRO.”
Just then the person Woojin had been waiting for appeared.
A full cyborg 2.5 meters tall, wearing a fedora and a trench coat.
Tall Man sat down beside Woojin.
“I hear you've got a lot to sell this time?”
“That's right. Quite a few small fry came calling. I got prosthetic arms, and a martial arts implant turned up too. Firearms, of course.”
“WHAT?! A martial arts implant? You took down someone who uses a martial art?”
“That's right.”
“Then why do you look so unharmed?”
“Who knows. Let's call it my competence.”
Woojin shrugged as he spoke.
At that, Tall Man opened his mouth wide in an exaggerated reaction.
The small metal fragments on his face clicked and clacked into an expression of shock.
“SHIIIIIIIT! BRO, just what are you really? At first I thought you were an engineer, and now you're taking down martial artists?”
“Why? Do you have to know?”
“NAH. Just talking. I had no intention of digging into BRO's past.”
You don't go prying into another man's past.
That was common sense among those who crawled through the city's back alleys.
Because everyone carried one or two pasts that were hard to talk about.
Woojin asked.
“So did you bring a martial arts implant today?”
“Sorry to say, BRO. No stock today. I had no idea MY BROTHER was this capable a man.”
“When can you get one? Looks like a good sum of money is coming in soon. Day after tomorrow, say?”
“OK. Then I'll prepare them right away. Any martial art you particularly want?”
“Nothing in particular. Just stock as many Tier 1 martial arts as you possibly can. Tier 2 martial arts too, if you can manage it.”
“As many as possible?”
“That's right.”
“HMM? Anyway, understood. I can do that much.”
“Then today I'll just offload the goods.”
Woojin threw the hot dog wrapper and the cola can into a garbage bin, then headed to the parking lot with Tall Man.
There Woojin sold off every piece of equipment he had taken so far.
After moving all the goods into his box truck, Tall Man spoke.
“11,300,000 credits for the lot. BRO.”
11,300,000 credits was a little more than Woojin had expected.
“Shall I transfer it right now?”
“One more thing before we settle up. I want to buy information.”
“Information? The City Public Service AI would find most things for you.”
“It seems to involve an illegal organization. It wasn't turning up well.”
“AHH. OK. Ordinary City Public Service AIs are set not to access the deep web. So what information do you need?”
“Look into illegal organizations connected to Sand Capital.”
“WAIT A SEC.”
Tall Man's gaze fixed on empty air.
He had connected to his own private information network.
“Sand Capital itself is already an illegal moneylender. They're bastards who run loans targeting unregistered people who've come in from outside the city.”
“Right.”
“Naturally bastards like these have a criminal organization attached. Here it is. The Renick Gang. Alaric Renick is the boss, and they control District 296.”
District 296 was the district right next to Woojin's District 297.
“How strong is the Renick Gang?”
“About ten or so who have Tier 1 to 2 martial arts implants. It's old data, so they could be stronger now. I'll send you the data now, BRO.”
Woojin skimmed the data on the Renick Gang quickly.
Photographs of the boss and of the members.
Information on the prosthetics and martial arts implants they had equipped.
It was a collection of fragmentary information, but Woojin could roughly estimate the opponent's strength.
By game standards it was around the level of a boss-class group appearing in the early-to-middle stages.
“Need any other information, BRO?”
“This much is enough. What's the information fee?”
“1,000,000. I'll take it out and transfer the rest?”
“Do that.”
“ALRIGHT!”
<10,300,000C has been deposited into the account of Mr. Jinwoo Martinez.>
Deposit of 10,300,000 credits confirmed.
Woojin was smiling with satisfaction when Tall Man spoke in a worried-sounding voice.
“HEY. BRO. Don't tell me you're thinking of fighting a gang?”
“Who knows. No telling how it'll go, but probably?”
“Let me say this in advance: don't do anything stupid, all right? Because I can't help you. And a guy I've acknowledged as a BROTHER dying from doing something stupid is extremely unpleasant!”
Tall Man jabbed a forefinger at the air as he spoke forcefully.
But Woojin only smirked.
“I won't die. And if I do fight, I'll fight after preparing properly.”
“WHAT THE……. Where does that confidence come from?”
“Grounded confidence. So get those martial arts implants ready.”
“Good grief……. Anyway, OK. Understood. Just leave it to me!”
Tall Man nodded and climbed into the cargo compartment of his box truck.
Woojin had wondered how he drove with that height, and sure enough, it was a self-driving vehicle.
Woojin climbed into the garbage truck.
Daphne threw out a question in a curious voice.
<Please explain what is going on. Why are you looking into Sand Capital and the Renick Gang? You think you may fight the Renick Gang?>
“Ah, sorry, Daphne. Yesterday my own head wasn't sorted out yet, so I didn't say anything.”
Woojin took a crumpled sheet of paper out of his clothes.
Promissory Note
Debtor : Jinwoo Martinez
Creditor : Sand Capital
Amount Borrowed : 5,000,000C
Interest Rate : 99.1% (3 months)
<What is this? A promissory note for 5,000,000 credits?! I manage your financial information, Officer Woojin, and this is something I have not confirmed.>
“Naturally you wouldn't have known. It's offline data that was never recorded on the institutional network.”
<If something like this existed you should have told me!>
Woojin shrugged and went on with the story.
“I'd forgotten about it myself.”
Woojin had had to comb through every corner of Jinwoo Martinez's memories.
He had barely managed to find the promissory note, too.
“And the promissory note isn't what matters.”
<It doesn't matter?>
“No. Victor is what matters more than that.”
Woojin narrowed his eyes as he spoke.
“That bastard Victor knew I was running a deficit every month. How did he know that? I've been thinking about it this whole time.”
Jinwoo Martinez was a cautious human being.
He never told anyone else about his financial situation.
But even Jinwoo Martinez had had one occasion when he had to spill everything about his circumstances.
Precisely when he borrowed money from Sand Capital.
“During the new hire training period I borrowed money. It was before you were assigned to me, Daphne.”
<You speak as though you were talking about someone else.>
“Anyway, I went to Sand Capital's office and asked to borrow money, and they grilled me about all sorts of pointless things.”
The moment Jinwoo Martinez gained the status of sanitation civil servant, he borrowed money and had the artificial heart surgery.
Right after that something came up that forced him to repay money urgently, and he had to turn to illegal private lending.
“The man who called himself my father ran off with the money I'd saved.”
It was because of the father who had become addicted to narcotics and left home.
The moment he heard Jinwoo Martinez had become a sanitation civil servant, he slipped into the house, stole the money and fled.
At the very moment Jinwoo Martinez was undergoing his artificial heart surgery.
It was a memory that made Jinwoo Martinez weep blood.
“Anyway, back to the main point.”
Woojin cleared his throat and continued.
“So this is what I thought. The only ones who know I have no money are Sand Capital. And yet Victor Kruger knows my financial situation.”
<Then surely……. Sand Capital and Victor Kruger are connected?>
“I think that guess was right. Victor's assigned district is District 296. And what controls District 296 is the Renick Gang. Sand Capital's upper line.”
<It fits exactly! There is definitely some relationship between Victor Kruger and the Renick Gang!>
Why had Victor offered Woojin that bet?
Was it something connected to the Renick Gang?
That much wasn't clear yet.
He would have to learn it in time.
<So what will you do now? May I tell you my honest feelings? As a friend, of course!>
“Of course.”
<District 296 is not your assigned district, Officer Woojin. I do not think there is any need to go out of your way to cause friction with the neighboring district's gang. Honestly, I am worried.>
Woojin grinned.
Daphne was an unbelievable AI that monitored Woojin twenty-four hours a day, but even so, on matters like this her sincerity came through.
“You're right, Daphne. I have no intention of causing friction right now either. It just feels like we'll collide someday.”
He had to build up strength until then.
And Woojin thought that was perfectly possible.
The opponent wasn't even a megacorp.
If he couldn't break a gang that controlled a single district, how was he supposed to get anywhere from here?
“For now it's the bet with Victor. Heh! I'm looking forward to it.”
<I do not understand why you are so confident, Officer Woojin……. In any case, I sincerely wish you good fortune.>
***
The next evening.
The hundred or so sanitation civil servants who collected the garbage of Districts 251 through 300 gathered in the garage.
They clustered in threes and fives, smoking and placing bets.
“I'll put 100,000 on Victor winning.”
“100,000 on Victor for me too.”
“Victor, 100,000.”
“Hey, hey, hey. If everyone bets on Victor there's no bet. Isn't there anyone who'll bet on the new guy?”
The organizer of the betting looked around.
Every one of them had gone as tight-lipped as a toothless old man.
Just then two men's voices came from somewhere.
“We'll bet.”
“200,000 on the new guy.”