[Although the sewer pipes within the enormous anthill known as Mekal Town have long since been reduced to passageways, dampness still remains. As a result, whenever anyone walks through the sewer pipes, pitch-black droplets splash in every direction around their feet. In Mekal Town, rubber boots are not optional. They are essential.]
“…….”
[Moisture creates more than this one problem. Water is the foundation of life, and even rotten water is still water. What this means is that unidentified life-forms, neither Monsters nor insects, are being born near the puddles of Mekal Town.]
“…….”
[Even now, something resembling an earthworm wriggles in the puddle before Akkun. However, there is no need to pay it any mind. It is nothing more than a lowly creature that has no use as a medicinal ingredient and does not even grant EXP.]
“Damn, what an irritatingly noisy bastard.”
Over the three months or so that we had spent together, I had learned just how eccentric a bastard Grid was.
They were usually taciturn, but once they started talking, their words poured out endlessly like a waterfall. It was unbearably noisy. Even covering my ears did no good because the words still formed directly across my vision. It was enough to drive me mad.
‘Will I get used to it as time passes?’
Even if I did, that did not change the fact that my days would remain exhausting for the foreseeable future.
“Haa…….”
SPLASH, SPLASH-
I let out a deep sigh and continued walking.
Before long, I encountered paths that split into two, paths that split into three, and even paths that forced me to choose between going upward or downward.
I thought this every time, but these sewer-pipe passages were like a maze.
Still, once one knew a single rule, finding the way was surprisingly easy.
[Whenever the path branches, several simple symbols such as O, X, △, and □ are drawn near the sewer pipes. They serve as signposts.]
As Grid said, following those symbols would eventually lead to the desired destination.
For example, if one continued following the O symbols, one would eventually arrive at the location marked with O.
I followed the O symbols through the sewer pipes for quite some time before finally reaching a massive iron door.
I placed the Luminous Stone inside my Inventory and gripped the handle, which resembled a ship’s wheel.
CREEAK, CREEEAK-
After turning the handle, I slammed my shoulder into the door.
At that moment, the glaring light that abruptly poured through the opening temporarily blinded me.
My other senses naturally sharpened.
The one running wild the most was my sense of smell.
The nauseating air stabbed into my nose, carrying a mixture of musty alcohol, tobacco smoke, cheap perfume, and cosmetics.
The piss-soaked stench peculiar to low-quality gunpowder was added to the mixture, making it difficult to breathe.
After taking deep breaths for some time and blinking several times, my vision gradually returned.
[Beyond the door lies a vast plaza surrounded by countless junk buildings like a folding screen.]
Players of every description occupied the plaza, although there were not many of them, perhaps because it was still before dawn.
Even Players had to sleep.
Instead, NPCs dressed even more strangely than the Players swarmed everywhere like cockroaches.
To name only a few.
“Spare me a coin! It isn’t fair that only you get to eat your fill! Let me live, damn iiiit! Give me money! Give me food! I’m starving!”
There was a beggar NPC shaking a dented tin can with arms as thin as tree branches.
“Hey, handsome. Stop talking and come with me. I’m going to teach you a thorough lesson today.”
A fat NPC in a revealing outfit and heavy, caked-on makeup openly solicited passing Players while tugging on their arms.
“How about a drink? Or would you like a tour of my laboratory?”
A Scientist with the hair on either side of his head raised like horns held on to a Player while pouring an unidentifiable, grotesque liquid into a glass.
“Aaaaaaah! This feels amaaaaaazing!”
A bald thug screamed in the middle of the plaza.
The mechanical devices dangling all over his body belched steam with a series of loud HISSES.
[This place, filled with deranged eccentrics, is the heart of Mekal Town and its largest commercial district. It is commonly known as the Junk Crossroads.]
In other words, it was a garbage dump.
[The nickname comes from the fact that every kind of garbage overflows through its streets. The garbage in question also includes the eccentric NPCs described earlier.]
‘A bunch of fucking idiots.’
I glared at them with narrowed eyes before pulling a cloth from inside my clothes, soaking it thoroughly in disinfectant, and tying it over my mouth.
The sharp scent of the disinfectant made breathing slightly more difficult, but the place with the most foot traffic in Mekal Town was also the place with the most diseases.
A precaution of this degree was necessary.
CLANG, CLAAANG-
I descended the straight flight of scrap-metal stairs positioned before the sewer pipe and entered a familiar alley between two junk buildings.
[There, countless beggars who resemble corpses are sleeping with their shoulders pressed against one another.]
The beggar who had just been wandering around with the tin can was one of them.
“What are all of you doing?”
I spoke as I placed my bag on the ground.
“Get up. Now. Or would you like me to help you?”
The moment my voice echoed through the alley, approximately half of the beggars slowly rose.
They began to stagger about like corpses summoned with Raise the Dead.
Before long, they stood in a single line before me.
“……We were waiting for you.”
“My legs haven’t moved since yesterday.”
“I can’t see. Are you standing in front of me right now?”
“My voish ish n-not working- My tongue feelsh weird-”
“That’s what happens when you shovel anything you find into your mouths, you idiots.”
I sighed, spread a mat over the ground, and sat down.
I then began taking syringes and the potions I had brought for treatment out of my Inventory one by one.
The beggars all knelt in a line before me and began describing their respective physical ailments.
This marked the beginning of my predawn routine.
I used the lull when relatively few Players were around to make medical rounds among NPCs whose ‘souls were still alive.’
Today, it was the beggars’ turn…… although, to tell the truth, calling it treatment was generous.
Not a single NPC had ever shown any improvement.
That was because their Character Profiles contained words such as ‘Disease’ or ‘Patient.’
Unless those words disappeared, even the greatest physician under heaven would be unable to cure them.
The same would remain true even if I possessed a legendary medicinal ingredient.
Their diseases would never disappear.
There were two reasons I continued seeking out NPCs and treating them despite that fact.
Even when an NPC was controlled like a puppet before Players, they still felt pain within their shell as long as their soul had not vanished.
That included not only mental pain but physical pain as well.
In other words, an NPC with a Patient designation experienced pain with every breath they took, regardless of whether they were dealing with Players, gathering with other NPCs, sleeping, or doing anything else.
I was not a doctor, but I could at least provide emergency treatment or relieve their pain.
That was the first reason.
The second was that the NPCs provided information in place of payment for the medicine.
I questioned the Beggar Chief, who was noisily crunching away on deworming medicine and antibiotics.
“Do you have any useful information today? Perhaps someone who looks like a Red Player?”
“No one particularly noticeable has appeared lately.”
“There must be someone. You probably haven’t looked properly.”
“No, there truly isn’t. Public safety in Mekal Town has been remarkably good lately, sir.”
“Come on~ Don’t lie to me.”
“Why would I lie to you, sir?”
“You raised absolute hell at me when we first met.”
Not long after I arrived in Mekal Town, everyone in the beggars’ den had hurled cans and garbage at me while screaming profanities and ordering me to leave, regardless of what their Character Profiles said.
“That was because you’re a Red Player, sir.”
The Red Brand.
It was one of the penalties imposed upon Red Players.
In Amuse, the color red symbolized every manner of vicious and filthy thing: slaughter, cannibalism, demons, Monsters, blood, flesh, pillaging, and war.
Red Players were people who carried something so horrifying in their very name.
They were often met with hostility from NPCs even when they had done nothing.
“Truthfully…… I’m still a little afraid of you.”
Even though we had known each other for quite some time, the Beggar Chief still struggled to meet my eyes.
Just as he was doing now.
“But isn’t what’s in a person’s heart what matters? Now that we’ve cleared up the misunderstanding, I don’t lie to you, sir. I can even swear on my one remaining front tooth.”
The Beggar Chief showed me his loose front tooth.
His breath was so foul that I recoiled without realizing it.
“Brush your teeth.”
“That costs money too. In any case, public safety truly has been good.”
“……That isn’t good.”
“What? Isn’t it a good thing?”
“Good…… Right. Of course it’s good, but there were Red Players all over the place as recently as a month ago.”
“That is true. There’s no better place than Mekal Town for human garbage to hide.”
“Then where did all of them disappear to?”
“What? You killed them all, sir.”
I looked at Grid.
‘How many did I take out in Mekal Town again?’
[Akkun still seems to be poor with numbers.]
‘Just give me a straight answer.’
[8.]
‘Then excluding the wanted criminals from Arche, I killed six?’
[───.]
Grid fell silent.
It was their way of saying that the question was not worth answering.
‘Hear me out. I killed five people in that backwater village. But you’re telling me that killing only six people in this enormous Mekal Town made every Red Player disappear? That makes no sense.’
[Even lowly creatures such as cockroaches and rats instinctively avoid territory reeking of corpses.]
What kind of nonsense was that……?
Ah, I understood.
‘So…… rumors spread among the Red Players. Is that roughly what you mean?’
[They must have used the Community.]
The Community.
It was a forum for conversation that only Players could access.
For reference, neither Grid nor I had permission to enter it.
I was both a Red Player and an NPC, while Grid was both a Guide and a soul bound to my service.
There were many things that were not permitted to Bugs like us, who belonged to neither category.
It was inconvenient in many respects.
There were some advantages, however.
For instance, we could obtain information before other Players learned about it.
“Enough about the Players for now…… Do you have any other news?”
“I do. Fresh news.”
“What is it?”
“You know about the Scrap-Metal Tower and the Scrap Merchants, don’t you?”
“Of course I do.”
The Scrap Merchants were the upper class of Mekal Town and lived inside the Scrap-Metal Tower at the center of the city.
They were also the common enemy of Mekal Town’s residents.
Indeed, the moment the Beggar Chief mentioned them, the corners of his mouth twisted.
“Yesterday, one of the Scrap Merchants reportedly fled from the Scrap-Metal Tower.”
“Yesterday?”
“They didn’t merely flee. I heard they escaped after stealing a large number of Mana Stones.”
Mana Stones.
They were essentially the hearts of Monsters.
Their value differed as greatly as heaven and earth depending on their size and quality, but even the cheapest Mana Stones were expensive items.
If someone had fled after stealing a large quantity of them, it was certainly a major incident capable of shaking all of Mekal Town.
“Where did they run? More importantly, is it even possible for a Scrap Merchant to leave the Scrap-Metal Tower? Aren’t they NPCs too? Shouldn’t their Assigned Area be restricted to the Scrap-Metal Tower and its immediate surroundings?”
“Well…… perhaps they managed somehow, sir?”
A sigh escaped me of its own accord.
These beggar bastards never had an ending to their stories.
They never reached a proper conclusion.
Everything was always vague and inconclusive.
That was probably why they were beggars.
Still, it was undeniably useful information.
[It appears a quest is about to begin.]
‘I was thinking the same thing.’
The Main Quest that the Three Idiots had so excitedly discussed.
The fugitive’s appearance seemed likely to be its opening signal.
Within a few days, the first quest, perhaps something such as ‘Capture the Fugitive,’ would probably be delivered to every Player in Mekal Town.
The competition would begin then.
However, I had no reason to compete fairly against the other Players.
A Bug like me was not invited to the feast known as the Community.
Instead, I could sneak into the kitchen and nibble away at the ingredients.
This was how I survived in Mekal Town.
While Players exchanged tedious information among themselves, I slipped through gaps in the System and gathered information directly from NPCs.
I could secure information that Players could never learn, prepare for quests that had not even appeared yet, and claim the rewards before anyone else.
Only I could do those things.
[The time to leave has been decided.]
I would devour every Main Quest in Mekal Town and then leave.
Clean and simple.
I straightened my knees and stood.
“Also, it seems the people around here have been wandering somewhere instead of going home lately…… Huh? Where are you going?”
“Do you still have something to say?”
“That Player from the Scrap-Metal Tower has been active again lately. I thought you ought to know, sir.”
“Are you talking about Parakel?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the man.”
……I should hear this before I go.