Woojin was dumbfounded.
After being turned down like that, she was calling again.
Did Lena Cross want mercenary work that badly?
Or did she have some other business?
‘Should I just block her?’
But in the end Woojin took her call.
Because the image of the girl crying over her father's body crossed his mind.
“Hello?”
<Ah, Mr. Woojin! It's me! Lena Cross!>
“What is it this time?”
<Could you really not teach me mercenary work? Please.>
Woojin sighed.
So it came back to that after all.
“I'm not a mercenary. I'm a sanitation civil servant. The nature of the job means I fight a lot, but I'm different from an ordinary mercenary. If you want to be a mercenary you'd do better to find someone else.”
“That's exactly the problem, there's nobody I can trust no matter how I think about it! The only mercenaries out there are men like Gilt Banner!”
“Aren't there people like your father too?”
“Who knows. Even my dad would have had bad thoughts if some girl with no connection to him suddenly showed up asking to be taught mercenary work.”
Woojin was at a loss.
Was this the same girl who had bawled over her father's corpse?
Why was she this realistic?
“So I'm trustworthy?”
“Obviously! You filed the death report for my dad. An ordinary cleaner would have stripped his equipment and left the body lying there.”
There was one thing Lena was mistaken about.
A cleaner could make a body disappear cleanly.
By loading it onto the garbage truck and dumping it at the incinerator.
Of course, Woojin didn't bring that up.
Instead he wiped away the tears the poison gas had brought and looked over at where Gilt Banner's corpse lay.
Had the poison gas all dispersed by now?
“…Why do you want to be a mercenary so badly? It's a dangerous job. If you die your mother will grieve.”
“Without money my mother and I both die anyway. I'm C3 class! The idiots at school are all soaked in drugs, and it would be the same kind of people at a factory. Rather than hang around bastards like that and croak, I'd rather become a mercenary and croak!”
“…….”
Woojin couldn't think of anything to argue back with.
Because the memories of Jinwoo Martinez, who had been C3 grade just like Lena, surfaced vividly.
A crappy world where the only person around you in his right mind is yourself.
Live in a place like that and you start wondering whether you're the crazy one instead.
“…Your father didn't pass mercenary skills on to you, did he? Doesn't that mean he didn't want you to become a mercenary?”
“My father wanted me to become a civil servant! But the situation has changed. The father who would have supported me while I studied for the civil service exam is dead!”
“You have the death benefit.”
“That's……!”
Lena was suddenly at a loss for words and hesitated.
“I'll be honest with you. I'm bad at studying. It doesn't suit me.”
“Being a mercenary has to suit you too.”
“Being a mercenary will suit me! I have a strength other people don't, at least!”
“And what's that?”
Lena's voice suddenly turned cautious.
“This is a secret I don't tell anyone under normal circumstances, but I'm telling you because it's you, Mr. Woojin. Please don't tell anyone either.”
“Why would I go around repeating your business?”
“The truth is I'm of the Wind Clan. My father and mother obtained citizenship and settled in Lemming City. I've been told my talent for wind magic is greater than my father's.”
“……!”
This one startled even Woojin.
The Wind Clan.
They were people who had made their home in the vast wasteland surrounding Lemming City.
People who drove trailer trucks fitted with hydroponic systems and hunted mutant monsters of the wasteland for food.
They were haulers who carried waste the city found inconvenient to process out beyond the city limits, and they were also the ones who extracted primordial mana from the mana storms that occasionally appeared in the wasteland and sold it to the city.
It was thanks to the innate ability they possessed.
The Wind Clan could naturally master wind magic without anyone teaching them.
Like a child learning to walk.
They said it was because they were descendants of wind spirits, though Woojin didn't know the exact truth of it.
Because in [Steel Sweeper] too it was presented as a legend handed down among the Wind Clan.
In any case, if Lena was of the Wind Clan, being a mercenary might be feasible for her.
It meant she had one weapon other mercenaries didn't.
It could be a useful development for Woojin as well.
Relationships in Lemming City where people helped each other without weighing gain and loss were quite rare.
He couldn't know how much help Lena would be, but confirming the possibility wasn't a bad idea.
“Of the Wind Clan, huh……. I'll call you later.”
“Yes! Thank you!”
“Ah. And one more thing.”
Woojin, about to hang up, thought of something and added it.
“Since I have you on the line, let me say this: from now on you don't need to worry about Gilt Banner harming you.”
“Sorry? What do you…….”
“I said you don't need to worry about Gilt Banner. Anyway, stop calling me so much. How many times a day are you going to call?”
“Ah. Sorr—…….”
“Daphne. For the next three days, block every call from Lena Cross.”
“What?! No, wait a moment. Mr. Woojin?!”
<Yes. Understood.>
Woojin hung up.
By now the poison gas Gilt Banner had spewed should have been swept away by the wind.
Woojin approached Gilt Banner's corpse and focused his mind.
At that, the [Gold-Seeking Eye] made the valuable items begin to glow.
The first thing Woojin did was search Gilt Banner's clothes.
And when he found a syringe gun filled with a clear liquid, he grinned.
“There it is.”
<Officer Woojin. Are you going to use that?>
“Yes. It's probably an antidote.”
<There is no information written on the syringe gun at all.>
“It'll be an antidote. There's no way a bastard who uses poison doesn't carry an antidote. There's no other drug, is there?”
Besides, Woojin had Level 2 [Poison Resistance].
Which meant that even if the liquid in the syringe gun were poison, he could endure it somewhat.
Woojin first injected a small amount of the drug into his forearm.
When no adverse reaction appeared, he put the syringe gun back against his arm and pulled the trigger all the way.
A moment later, the pain he had felt in his nose, his eyes, and across all his skin gradually subsided.
With the poison treated, Woojin took out the wire saw and cut away the mounting joint of Gilt Banner's prosthetic arm.
As you could tell from its green glow, the arm itself wasn't a particularly good item.
But it looked as though the wire-launcher parts inside the arm could be removed and sold separately.
The green light indicating an item's value shone in a distinct section.
The prosthetic covering Gilt Banner from jaw to neck gave off no light.
But a component inside it was giving off a green glow, probably the device that stored and sprayed the poison gas.
The most valuable items came out of Gilt Banner's neural interface.
An implant glowing green and an implant glowing blue!
‘The blue one has to be the [Atmosphere Manipulation] magic implant.’
Woojin collected the prosthetics, the implants, and the weapons and equipment Gilt Banner had carried, then got into the garbage truck.
After locking the door, he opened the lid of his own neural interface and mounted the two implants he had just taken, one after another.
Woojin skipped straight past the neural interface's warning about an unauthorized device being connected and installed the implants' contents.
<Combat program Spider Silk Flight confirmed. Do you wish to install it?>
<Installing combat program.>
<Installing…….>
<Combat program Spider Silk Flight installation complete>
…….
<Combat program Atmosphere Manipulation installation complete>
When the implants installed, status window messages rose up before Woojin's eyes as well.
―You have acquired [Spider Silk Flight (Level 5)].
―You have acquired [Atmosphere Manipulation (Level 5)].
Spider Silk Flight was a Tier 1 third-rate martial art.
A lightness footwork that fired a hooked wire and let you fly freely between buildings.
The reason it was Tier 1 despite being quite practical was that the martial art alone couldn't deliver its full performance.
To use Spider Silk Flight you absolutely needed a device that fired a wire and reeled it back in at high speed.
‘I should ask Tall Man to get me a wire gun.’
Woojin sent Tall Man a short message, then checked the next skill.
When he formed a simple hand seal, the mana inside Woojin's body rose and stretched out around him like a spider's web.
The web of mana captured the air the way a net catches fish, and Woojin moved the captured air as he pleased.
Wind blew against Woojin's face and stirred his hair.
‘Atmosphere Manipulation, huh. Not bad.’
Unless you used poison gas the way Gilt Banner did, landing an effective hit on an enemy with [Atmosphere Manipulation] was difficult.
But it could be applied in all sorts of ways in a support role.
‘Besides, magic implants are expensive.’
In the world of [Steel Sweeper] the general perception was that magic was more powerful than martial arts.
Even at the same tier, magic had greater power than a martial art.
Of course, when the tiers differed, the higher-tier combat technique was stronger.
The order of strength was Tier 1 martial art < Tier 1 magic < Tier 2 martial art < Tier 2 magic.
Since magic's power was higher, naturally magic implants cost more as well.
[Atmosphere Manipulation] was a Tier 0 basic magic implant, but it would sell for more than most Tier 1 martial arts implants.
<The Spider Silk Flight combat program has been deleted.>
<The Atmosphere Manipulation combat program has been deleted.>
Woojin removed the implants.
Messages came up saying the combat programs had been deleted, but they had nothing to do with Woojin.
Woojin stowed the items he had obtained safely in the passenger seat and got out of the garbage truck.
Then he let out a groan as though he had forgotten something.
“Ah, right. The smoke grenade.”
White smoke grenade powder had piled up all over the alley like fallen volcanic ash.
<This is bad. Cleaning up smoke grenade powder thoroughly will take a great deal of time.>
“It isn't that bad.”
Woojin put on a mask and formed a hand seal.
At that, wind rose and pushed the powder settled on the ground the way a broom sweeps.
Woojin controlled the wind to gather the smoke grenade powder into one place.
He spun the wind to lift the powder into the air, then wrapped it completely in a sphere of wind.
The powder he had gathered that way he sent flying into the grating of a storm drain.
<That resourcefulness, applying magic you only just obtained! Splendid, Officer Woojin!>
“Then can you give me an addition?”
<Impossible. The alley hasn't actually gotten clean, has it?>
“Fair enough.”
Once smoke grenade powder takes in moisture it turns tacky and sticks to asphalt.
The weak wind of [Atmosphere Manipulation] couldn't make the alley perfectly clean.
To make this place clean he would have to wash it down with water.
“You really are thorough, Daphne.”
<Of course! Being thorough is how I can give you additions when you do well, Mr. Woojin, isn't it?>
“That's……! Hm. I can't argue with it.”
<Ha ha ha.>
Woojin smirked as if exasperated and got moving to collect the garbage bags.
***
The garbage truck came to a stop in front of a garbage bin.
Endlessly repeating labor.
Clear garbage all day and you end up working without a thought in your head.
Woojin shook his head to clear it and, before getting out of the truck, first switched on the Hound T―4 signal tracker.
It didn't seem likely the Tech Junkie would be here, but what had to be done had to be done.
And then a reaction came that differed from Woojin's expectation.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A red dot appeared on the signal tracker and a tone rang out.