The officer broke out in a cold sweat and steadied his breathing.
"Just out of curiosity, was it you who broke Frank's arm over there?"
The officer turned to Osian and asked as solemnly as he could.
"You?"
"......You?"
Osian's eyes narrowed and the soldier spoke up.
He realized in hindsight that he didn't need to speak up, but it was too late.
Osian nodded in satisfaction.
Yi, this is not right.
The soldier knew his behavior was wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it.Everyone felt the same fear of the powerful.
The people who watched nervously around him were puzzled by his treatment of Osian.
Wasn't it the soldiers who were harsh on the innocent?
But this one seemed to be cowed by Osian.
"For the record, I did not break his arm."
Osian spoke with brazen confidence, not even averting his gaze.
"That thing broke itself."
"......Do you think that makes sense?"
“……What do you think?”
The guard was trying to fight Osian's shameless attitude, but the moment he saw his eyes, his shoulders slumped.
Part of him wanted to walk away, but his sense of duty as a soldier prevented him from doing so.
"The arm, how did it break itself......?"
“The output just increased on its own and then fell apart. It must have been broken from the beginning.”
"A defective product......?"
"Yeah. Like your mask."
"......!"
The soldier's eyes widened at that.
He quickly touched his mask with his hand and breathed a sigh of relief when he realized it was still intact.
Still, the memory of the day was vivid when he closed his eyes.
"So, what are we going to do?"
"That's......."
The officer still hesitated, unable to decide between this and that.
Just then, two other soldiers approached him.
"Senior. I think we've got the situation sorted out. Besides, according to eyewitness accounts, it was all Frank's fault."
"Really?"
The soldier’s face brightened as he heard the words.
"Then we'll just have to take Frank, the troublemaker!"
"Yeah? Well, yeah, but can we leave the other guy alone?"
"Hmmm. You said Frank caused the trouble, so we only need to take him."
The junior nodded nervously and he didn't know why his senior was suddenly so happy.
"Hmph, hmph. Now that we've arrested the troublemaker, we'll take our leave......Ah, be careful not to get involved in incidents like this in the future!"
Not wanting to lose face in front of his superiors, the soldier said the words and quickly left.
Osian smirked as he watched the soldier's back.
‘Next time we meet, I'll have to ask him his name.’
*
"Hoo hoo, I heard the story. I heard you completely destroyed Blood Fist Frank's arm, that's pretty impressive."
Ronan's first words to Osian upon his return to the Violet Fox were those.
He sat back in his seat, his eyes wide and his grin not the least bit suspicious.
"Where did you hear that again?"
Ronan tilted his head slightly to the side at Osian's wary question.
How many witnesses were at the scene at the time, isn't that rumor enough?
Ronan scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
Strange how people are so wary of anything he says.
What the hell is wrong with them?
"Didn't I tell you, I have to do this to be a broker? Besides that, what happened to your ID?"
"They told me to wait a few days and pick it up."
"Well, that's good, because you probably don't have any money in your pocket right now, and I was wondering if you'd like to take a request?"
The naturalness of it all was so great that it felt like an advanced trade secret that I had to live with.
"I suppose that's what you're after, but let's hear it."
"This time it's not just any job, it's a big one."
"A big job. Are we going after a group of warlocks?"
"Hoo-hoo-hoo, that would be a big deal, but thankfully, no."
"That's a shame. So, what's the deal?"
"It's a group job. And since it's a group, the minimum number of people will be at least twenty. So, of course, it's a big job."
Osian's eyes lit up with interest.
"What is it about?"
"A group of thugs have taken over a thermal power plant in the 43rd district, which provides power to the 39th district, and there's an emergency in the area."
Osian suddenly had a question.
"Why is the 39th District's power plant in the 43rd District? Don't they usually put it in their own district?"
"Because thermal power plants emit a lot of pollution, and they make the air very cloudy, so the people of 39th District complained to the 39th District Office to stop the power plant from coming in."
All neighborhoods are alike.
Osian nodded, feeling a twinge of appreciation.
"I see."
"Yes. That's why power plants tend to be built in run-down areas where land is generally cheaper, and there's no one to harm no matter how much fuel they burn."
Of course, people live in the 43rd district but the city doesn't treat poor people who don't pay their taxes as people.
"And these places have been occupied by gangs?"
"Yes. They just stormed in two days ago, and they're demanding money, and if they don't get it by a certain date, they're going to shut down the power plant, which is a big deal, even if it's just for a few hours."
"It's a hostage situation."
This time, the client was a company that operates a power plant licensed by the city of Tirna but Osian found that a bit odd.
"Is it okay for a company to be in charge of a facility as important as a power plant? I thought the city would be in charge of that. It's a public utility, after all."
"Of course, Mr. Osian. Think about it. Tirna is a large city. How many power plants do you think it would take to provide electricity, gas, and other such things to such a large city?"
It's not an easy question to answer for Osian, who doesn't know exactly how big Tirna is but considering that one district is the size of a small city, the number of power plants required would be staggering.
"So usually, the power plants involved in this request are operated by companies that have a special license from the city of Tirna. The city can't manage everything, so they subcontract to companies."
"But when it's taken over by an outside group like this, their credentials are inevitably questioned. Did the corporation do a good job of protecting the plant?"
"It's not that they didn't, it's that they couldn’t."
They knew it would be devastating if they lost the plant, so they hired guards to guard the area.
It's a subcontracted job, and if they keep it well, they can get bigger jobs later.
The problem was that this time the gang was pretty big.
"Even the guards guarding the plant, if they're outnumbered, they don't care about money and would run for their lives."
"So this request is to hire fixers and mercenaries to retake the plant."
A coalition of violent groups illegally occupying a power plant, from the sounds of it, it was definitely not a small group.
"But wouldn't the city get involved in a case of this magnitude?"
"Well, nominally, the city thinks it's a problem between the company and some violent workers."
"I don't think they realize it's a gang, but workers. You mean the city has no intention of getting involved in this situation, and it's all on the corporation."
"Yes. It's a shame for the corporations, but it's a good thing for the industry, because it means a lot of fixers will have a piece of the pie."
And more important than the paycheck was the prestige.
As a fixer, you need to have a reputation to get work.
As a result, fixers would do whatever it took to get their name out there, and it was rare to see a stage set up like this.
"There are probably a lot of fixers out there and this is an assignment where I can get both, money and fame, if I succeed."
Of course, they'd have to be prepared to risk bullets and death for the job.
"What will you do? As I always say, the choice is yours, Mr. Osian."
A group request.
If so, he'll have to work with others but he didn't really care who he worked with or about the money or fame.
Instead, Osian was interested in the karma that would come from pulling this off.
When Osian defeated Blood Fist Frank, he felt a trace of energy, very subtle, build up within him.
It wasn't hard to realize that this was the karma he'd heard about in his dream.
The karma he'd earned as an unknown individual was too small, but he wasn't disappointed.
He knew how to do it, now he just had to execute it and this group request was just the right thing needed to build his karma.
"I'll take it."
*
~An abandoned factory in the 43rd District~
Amidst the rusted remains of steam machinery and rats, more than forty fixers, mercenaries, and hired guns gathered.
"Quite the gathering."
“How could I miss such a big event?”
"I heard that all the gangs in the neighborhood have united, are you sure you're going to be okay, won't this be a recipe for trouble?"
"I'm fine and I don't think the gangs in the 40th Precinct are all that great. They're just going by numbers and this isn't a small group of people."
"That's true."
Even as the mercenaries talked, they didn't neglect to analyze their opponents with sharp eyes.
"See that guy over there, the one with the gun?"
"Twin pistols with the initials K, red hair slicked back. Is that the Gunslinger Kid?"
“They say he shoots so fast you can't even see it. The number of people who got hit between the eyes by that gun is more than double digits.”
"What about that big guy? That's Jonathan Lunsell, steel-skinned. He's a mutant, and he can turn his skin into metal."
"Shit. All the big boys are here."
This was the problem with big commissions.
Even though they had their own names and were confident in their skills, there were many other people who were even worse.
"There's Anna the sniper and David the puppeteer."
"All the crazies of the industry are here. Is this a business convention for crazies instead of a request?"
"Hey. If that's the case, there's one guy here you should be most wary of."
"Who's that?"
"You know that guy over there, sitting still, eyes closed, praying?"
There was a man in his mid-50s kneeling to one side, praying quietly.
He looked like a devout believer, but he was uncharacteristically calm for the tense atmosphere of the scene.
"Praying here? Is he a priest?"
"No. He's more dangerous. He's a reformed human from the Steel Followers."
The mercenary who had been talking in private gulped at the words.
There wasn't a man in the business who didn't recognize the heaviness and bloodshed that the name Steel Followers evoked.
"A madman to be avoided at all costs."
"Yes, he is the craziest man in the room."
As the mercenaries began to organize their list of people to watch out for, they turned their attention to a newcomer to the scene, a young man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties.
His hair was unusually dark, and he had a fair complexion and skin that didn't suggest he'd been doing any rough work.
He looked like he could have belonged to any noble house, with his gorgeous eyes and sharp features but there was one thing that was different.
"What is that, a sword at his side?"
He had no firearms of any kind, just a sheathed sword.
Puzzled, the mercenaries looked at each other.