“Test?”
Bres was somewhat puzzled.
“I told you, didn’t I? I’ve heard about your situation. You won’t take this, you won’t take that… Pretty picky, huh?”
Sabrina’s question came through the receiver with intense pressure.
“I just hope you can demonstrate the ability that matches those conditions. That’s my only requirement.”
“As you wish.”
Bres responded calmly to the voice on the other end of the line.
“So, what’s the job?”
“It’s a job from a small shipping company called Delaifu Transportation Company. Their cargo was hijacked while passing through the Third District.”
“Let me guess, the cargo is illegal, right?”
“Of course. It’s a few boxes of illegal combat prosthetics, no markings, no inspection reports. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have come to me.”
That explains it.
You can’t go to the police for illegal combat prosthetics.
Of course, even if they did, the cops might not help anyway.
Bres glanced over at Qiao Anni, who was wrestling with the wardrobe.
Come to think of it, her cyberbody had no markings either, and was also illegal.
But its quality was clearly leagues above what was circulating on the market.
At least he had never seen a cyberbody on the black market that could balance both stealth and combat capability like this.
“Any leads on who took the goods?”
Bres asked after his brief reflection.
“It should be the Forest Gang. The client said the culprits had the Forest Gang’s mark on them.”
The Forest Gang was a long-established gang in the Third District, but according to Bres’s intel, they’d been having a rough time lately, with their territory gradually shrinking.
“Why have they been acting up again lately?”
Bres asked.
“Now that the most powerful Giant Gang is gone, they naturally start to show themselves.”
Sabrina’s voice was thick with anger.
“That idiot Veles—only after I cleaned up his mess did I realize he’d been violating intermediary principles to prop up his own power, secretly helping the Giant Gang and leaking information. No wonder they’ve been so cocky these past few months…”
“Heh, I knew it.”
“In the end, they must have ticked off some big shot from who knows where, and their heads went up in fireworks along with the Giant Gang’s idiots. As a result, I had to clean up all the blood for these people.”
Sabrina sighed.
‘That “big shot” had just been throwing a tantrum over a dress.’
Bres glanced at Qiao Anni on the sofa.
“Getting off track. What you need to do is bring the goods back intact, understand?”
“Understood.”
“The client promised a decent cut, and you’ll get your share when it’s done. Of course, if you can’t even handle this, I’ll have to reconsider your value and trustworthiness.”
“I understand.”
“Then I’ll be waiting for your good news.”
Sabrina hung up.
Listening to the beeps from the receiver, Bres slumped into his chair.
“Got a job?”
Qiao Anni had already put away the clothes and came over.
“Sort of. But the new intermediary doesn’t seem to trust me much.”
“The old one was about the same, I’d say.”
“Cut it out.”
“Ouch.”
Bres lightly tapped Qiao Anni’s head with an old newspaper and stood up from his office chair.
“Come on, let’s go to the Third District.”
“That place again?”
“In a way, it’s related to what happened last time.”
From Sabrina, he learned that the rise of the Giant Gang had been Veles’s doing.
Now that the Giant Gang’s core members were dead or injured, their former territory naturally fell back into a vacuum.
The Forest Gang was definitely looking to vent their frustrations after months of being suppressed.
They must have targeted those boxes of combat prosthetics to replenish and expand their own forces.
Bres went to the sign behind his desk and pressed a hidden button.
The entire sign flipped around.
“Whoa.”
The hidden compartment behind the sign was filled with all kinds of weapons: pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, and various odds and ends.
“I spent a fortune on these. What do you think?”
Bres said with some pride.
“Mmm, very nice…”
Qiao Anni looked at the small arsenal, as if remembering something.
“You spent so much on this, what about next month’s rent?”
“…”
“We’ll worry about that next month!”
A few hours later, inside the Illusion Bar in the Third District.
The speakers in the bar were blasting metal music at maximum volume, the tremendous noise making the ceiling tremble.
In the center of the dance floor, crowds of men and women in bizarre outfits writhed wildly to the intense drumbeats.
The clinking of glasses and the thud of bodies colliding echoed through the bar.
In the office above the dance floor, a man in a suit and tie stood leaning on a cane.
The leader of the Forest Gang, Belmont Forrest, stood before the huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the scene.
His figure was stooped, and his foot tapped along to the rhythm.
Belmont was in a great mood.
Because not long ago, the Giant Gang, which had been competing and fighting with him at every turn, had been finished off.
Those bastards must have offended some big shot, and ended up all blown to bits, along with that double-dealing intermediary Veles.
After getting wind of it, Belmont immediately took action.
He reorganized his men, upgraded weapons and equipment, and soon reclaimed all the lost territory.
Not just the businesses that had been taken from him—the Giant Gang’s restaurants, their bars—Belmont intended to devour every last bit, leaving nothing behind.
As if he had actually swallowed something, Belmont licked his lips with lingering satisfaction.
Oh, and that Pei Lun.
The detestable face of that bastard named Pei Lun still appeared before his eyes.
That guy was built like a bear and had implanted a new model cyberbody.
His men had been as fragile as paper in front of him, and Belmont had been forced to hand over a lot of territory just to barely survive.
But now everything was different.
Pei Lun had become a drooling wreck lying in a hospital bed.
According to the men Belmont sent to scout the hospital, he would likely spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
And he seemed to have become a mindless invalid, unable to even take care of himself.
The Giant Gang was destroyed, and Pei Lun was alone.
Those arms of his had once nearly shattered his men, his strongholds, everything he had.
Now even his arm cyberbodies had been removed to pay for his medical bills.
Once that money runs out too, he’ll probably be dragged out of his hospital bed, taken to some black clinic connected to the Hyena Gang to have his whole set of organs harvested, and finally dumped in some garbage heap for the stray dogs to gnaw on.
When that day actually comes, should he go to the hospital to “visit” his old rival?
At the thought, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Just as Belmont was still immersed in his grand vision of the future, a subordinate interrupted him.
“Mr. Belmont, there seems to be a situation.”
“Situation?”
Annoyed by the interruption, Belmont quickly composed himself.
“Tell me.”
“There’s someone who looks suspicious.”
“Where?”
Belmont frowned and took the tablet his subordinate handed him.
A figure appeared on the screen.