“Ah, of course, when I said I'd kill you I meant it figuratively.”
With the sanitation civil servants gripped by shock, Woojin laughed lightly and shrugged as if it had been a joke.
“There's no way I'd kill a fellow sanitation civil servant. I'm not even on duty right now. Kill a C1-grade citizen and that's murder. I was only…….”
Woojin smiled faintly.
“…trying to prove my ability.”
Woojin walked toward the fallen Victor Kruger.
He put a hand on his hip, stood at a slant, and looked down at Victor.
“Quit whining, you bastard. I pulled the strength out of it right before it landed.”
“…….”
Victor twitched and pushed his upper body up from the floor.
He looked at Woojin out of the corner of his eye like a frightened mutt.
Woojin looked at him and shook his head as though he found it pathetic.
“The ‘then die’ method of explanation really is effective. The bastard who was making all that noise a minute ago has clamped his mouth shut, hasn't he?”
“…….”
“How does it feel getting beaten by a new guy? Hm? The death rate is high and the work is filthy hard, and instead of helping you tried to neural hack the new guy. How does it feel getting beaten by him?”
“…….”
“Get up. Let's see your ability. Let's see what you were relying on to throw your weight around. What exactly were you trying to do, threatening colleagues who came back after busting their asses all day?”
“…….”
“Completely cowed, aren't you? Boys. Your boss is scared. What are you all going to do now?”
Woojin spoke to the sanitation civil servants of Victor's faction.
Their reactions fell into two kinds.
The first were those who still couldn't believe this situation.
The second were those who had noticed the balance of power had shifted and were sending Victor uncomfortable looks.
Victor too seemed to feel the power he had gathered slipping away between his fingers.
He swiveled his head around like a creaking machine, then finally found his voice.
“Do you think I gather colleagues just out of a hunger for power?”
Woojin dug at his ear as though he had little interest.
“It wasn't that?”
“I do this for the sake of every sanitation civil servant. Weak men like us have to band together and help one another. Even men like us gain strength when we band together.”
“Oh? So you had some justification after all?”
Of course Woojin didn't believe Victor's words.
Victor was a bastard who had tried to neural hack a colleague.
A bastard like that, looking out for colleagues?
Obviously it was a face-saving story to get himself out of the present situation.
Just then a message came up on Woojin's neural display.
<Don't believe Victor. That guy's a bastard who joined hands with a gang and sells narcotics.>
<He threatened us to sell narcotics. Said the garbage truck always runs the same course, so business would be good, like an ice cream truck. Absolute bullshit.>
<Don't be fooled. He's a filthy bastard who equipped his prosthetics with narcotics money.>
<He just talks a slick game. That bastard threatened me! And then he's looking out for colleagues? Fuck! I want to sew his mouth shut!>
They were messages flying in from sanitation civil servants who had been harassed by Victor.
Woojin found himself laughing.
The moment Victor fell, reports damaging to him came pouring in, didn't they.
How much hell must Victor have raised for it to come to this.
“Sanitation civil servants have to band together. That part is right. I agree with it too.”
Woojin looked at his sanitation civil servant colleagues and spoke.
“I understand that everyone is so overwhelmed by their own work that they have no room to help anyone else. And our job assigns each of us a district to begin with, so it's hard to help others anyway.”
Woojin looked at Victor again and spoke.
“Even so, banding together is right. The harder it gets, the more you should band together and help each other. And if you can't help, at least offer some comfort.”
“That's exactly what I was…….”
“And trash bastards like Victor have to be cut out fast.”
“What……?”
Woojin grabbed Victor by the collar and lifted him up.
Victor, taller than Woojin, came up easily.
“A bastard who tries to neural hack a new guy and orders colleagues to sell narcotics is a colleague? We have to band together? A gang's mutt spouting nonsense.”
“Kuh……! You son of a bitch!”
Victor seized Woojin's neck with both hands.
The metal prosthetic pressed down on Woojin's carotid artery.
An unpleasant smile rose on Victor's face.
“You idiot bastard! You let your guard down!”
“Let my guard down?”
Woojin tilted his head with a face utterly unmoved.
Then he caught Victor's prosthetic arm with his left hand.
CRRNCH. GRRRRK.
SNAP!
An outrageous grip bent the prosthetic arm out of shape.
The arm's internal circuits broke and electricity sparked.
“Who let their guard down, exactly?”
“F-fuck!”
SHNK!
A curved blade sprang out of Victor's prosthetic arm.
The blade raked at Woojin like a bird of prey's talon.
GRRK. SKRRK.
But the blade couldn't harm Woojin.
It only produced a sound like metal being scraped.
Woojin rolled his eyes upward and asked Daphne.
“Daphne. This guy is trying to kill me. So if I kill him now it's self-defense, right?”
<He has brought a blade to bear, so it is self-defense.>
“Don't give me that bullshit!”
Victor thrashed.
He held Woojin's neck and stabbed wildly at Woojin's body with the blade.
But the blade only made metallic sounds.
Woojin didn't so much as blink.
Still holding Victor by the collar, Woojin drove him down into the floor.
THUD!
That was the end of it.
Victor's neck broke and his skull caved in.
The convulsing body went limp.
―You have gained experience.
―You have leveled up.
―Current Level : 9
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
A heavy silence covered the garbage truck garage.
The astonished eyes of the sanitation civil servants gathered on Woojin.
Woojin took those looks calmly and spoke.
“The Victor who raised hell with you all is dead. And I have no intention of seizing power like Victor or doing anything to you.”
The sanitation civil servants held their breath and listened to Woojin.
“But if there's one thing I want……. It's that you help one another and live that way. I know you have no room to spare, but there's a difference between trying to help and not, isn't there? I'll help as far as I can, too.”
Woojin shrugged.
Then he waved a hand back and forth.
“That's everything I have to say. Now clock out fast and go wash up. And go drink some disgusting cheap beer or something.”
***
George Miller and Harvey Garcia couldn't take their eyes off Woojin.
Victor hadn't been a weak man.
He had invested a fair amount of money in prosthetics and had abundant combat experience.
Victor had been stronger than the two of them, the strongest of the cleaners here.
And Woojin had toyed with that Victor like a man handling a child.
He had sent Victor to the next world with overwhelming strength.
‘It reminds me of when we were learning Killing Shadow Step.’
‘The Heavenly Demon Cult! The strong reign!’
A single individual can surpass even corporations and governments.
Anyone can learn a martial art and challenge for the seat of the Heavenly Demon.
The strong rule everything.
That was the core doctrine of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
For the megacorps and the city government it was a teaching that could never be tolerated.
The megacorps and the city government were the system.
The individual must be subordinate to the system.
The chaos of an individual surpassing the system must never be allowed to exist!
And so the Heavenly Demon Cult was destroyed.
George and Harvey had been converted in a VR chat and had barely managed to learn Killing Shadow Step through remote instruction, but the Heavenly Demon Cult's teaching was one thing they had taken in fully.
The strong reign.
For two men holding that set of values, Woojin's violent course of action made quite an impression.
“Looks like the other cleaners are pretty impressed too.”
George looked at the cleaners.
The cleaners who had been ground down under Victor were gathering around Woojin, offering thanks and amazement.
Cleaners who had always sneered with eyes as dead as a frozen pollack's, reacting this hotly and this fervently?
“Neutrality. The time to throw it away may have come.”
“Mm.”
Harvey nodded at George's words.
But they didn't join the boisterous crowd of cleaners cheering and shouting.
They only sent Woojin a message saying well done, along with a small-value coupon.
Not, of course, something they did expecting a reply.
<Thanks for the coupon. And for staying quiet when you saw me at the incinerator.>
George and Harvey looked at Woojin in shock.
Woojin saw the two of them and winked.
Then he went back to dealing with the cleaners as if nothing had happened.
George asked Harvey.
“Did you get a reply?”
“Yeah. You too?”
“Mm.”
“I see.”
And with that George and Harvey left the garbage truck garage.
With small smiles on faces that had always been bleak.
***
That day Woojin went drinking with the cleaners who had come over to him.
He paid the bill himself.
The cleaners thoroughly enjoyed a group outing of a kind they had never experienced in their lives.
<Why did you treat the cleaners?>
Once the outing was over and he was back at the dormitory, Daphne asked.
“Just so sanitation civil servants help each other and get along.”
<Hmm? I do not follow.>
“It'll help later.”
Woojin's goal was to become at least an A3-grade citizen.
For that he had to get promoted, earn certifications, and raise his credit rating.
And what was needed for promotion, certifications, and a higher credit rating?
Money was needed.
And to obtain money?
He had to grow strong.
But could he push through this brutal Lemming City by growing strong alone?
‘Absolutely not.’
Woojin knew the power of the megacorps, the power of a group.
To stand on equal footing with men like that, Woojin needed a faction of his own.
That was why Woojin had treated the sanitation civil servants well.
They were no help right now, but seen over the long term, the sanitation civil servants as a group would become one of Woojin's solid supports.
He could also run a business using the sanitation civil servants.
Though that would require satisfying a few conditions.
“Anyway, nothing wrong with getting along.”
<Is that so?>
Daphne raised her tone at the end as if she didn't quite understand.
Then, as though it had just occurred to her, she spoke.
<Come to think of it, what will you do about the 5,000,000-credit private loan? If you do not repay it quickly, heavy interest will accrue.>
“Daphne. Do I have a legal obligation to repay that loan?”
<You do not. It is an illegal financial transaction that was never recorded on the institutional network. However, if you ignore it the gang will come and take the money by force.>
“They will. So let's leave that one alone for a bit.”
A wicked glint flickered in Woojin's eyes.
***
The next day.
Woojin went to work as always.
He was cleaning around a garbage bin set between old buildings when a greeting in exaggerated intonation reached him.
“YO! BRO! Working hard to keep the city clean again today!”
Tall Man appeared with a hearty laugh, wearing a dark brown fedora.
An enormously oversized trench coat wrapped his 2.5-meter frame.
Woojin stopped work for a moment and went over to Tall Man.
“So, did the martial arts implants come in today?”
“OF COURSE. BRO! I brought five! And one of them is a Tier 2 martial art!”
“Oh. Impressive.”
In the game he had only ever brought three at most.
“HAHAHA! I put in some effort for a BROTHER I've acknowledged. Now, pick what you want!”
Tall Man spread his trench coat wide to either side.
A shelf was fixed to the front of Tall Man's centipede-like trunk, and five cylindrical devices were laid out neatly on it.
Tall Man pointed them out one by one and introduced them.
“Small Stream Heart Method, 19,000,000. Severing Sword Art, 15,000,000. Willow Leaf Body Art, 14,000,000. Shadow-Cutting Leg, 13,000,000. And last, the only Tier 2 martial arts implant, Fierce Tiger Heart Method, 30,000,000!”
“Hmm…….”
Woojin currently had about 27,000,000 credits.
Which meant he could buy only one of the five martial arts Tall Man had brought.
And Fierce Tiger Heart Method was too expensive to purchase.
Woojin glanced at Tall Man.
Then he smiled more warmly and amiably than ever.
“Brother. I'd like to ask you a favor.”
“Short on money, BRO? Up to a point I can let you pay later.”
“No, that isn't what I mean.”
Woojin pointed at all five martial arts implants, from Small Stream Heart Method to Fierce Tiger Heart Method.
“All of these martial arts implants together — I want to borrow them for exactly one day. Couldn't you lend them to me for around 10,000,000 credits?”
“WHAT?!”
At a proposal he had never heard or seen before, Tall Man's logic circuits tangled for a moment.