?"Nick Nick, Chief Zephyx Extractor of Dark Dream?"
Two Veterans working for the city arrived in front of Dark Dream and confronted Nick when he brought out yet another piece of rubble.
"Yes, that's me," Nick said neutrally.
One of the guards handed over a sheet of paper, and Nick read through it.
It was a written order signed by the governor.
Nick was ordered to contact the guards at the southern entrance of the Inner City at 6 p.m. today.
He was ordered to work one shift in the undercity.
Nick looked at the clock and realized that it was already 5:30 p.m.
"We will watch over the company in your absence," one of the guards said with annoyance.
Obviously, he wasn't happy that he had to stand guard in front of Dark Dream for a couple of hours.
Nick put the sheet of paper into one of his pockets and nodded. "Then, I will be going now."
The two guards didn't say anything and just went to the entrance of Dark Dream.
Nick still didn't know what undercity work was supposed to be, but he also didn't care that much about it.
He didn't wait and immediately went to the southern entrance of the Inner City.
As Nick traveled through the streets, he saw many people sitting outside.
They were refugees, and they had lost everything.
Nick also saw a ridiculous number of guards.
He guessed that the governor had probably ordered all the guards to work overtime during this moment of crisis.
Many of the people were walking through the streets in groups, and they were constantly throwing suspicious glances at the people sitting in the streets.
Nick ignored all of the people while he was traveling through the streets.
Eventually, Nick arrived at the southern entrance of the Inner City.
When he arrived, he saw a group of 20 Extractors waiting at the side.
Most of them belonged to Ghosty's Lab, but there were also many from Anatomy.
Surprisingly, every single one of them was a level two Extractor.
Nick ignored them for now and walked up to one of the guards.
There were about five times as many guards near this entrance as normal, and they all looked at Nick warily.
Nick even noticed that several guns were directly pointed at him, which was unusual.
When the guard read through the sheet of paper, he started to frown.
Then, he snorted.
"Lucky bastard," he commented before putting a stamp on the sheet of paper.
Nick took the sheet of paper back, and the guard motioned for him to join the group of Extractors at the side.
Nick didn't answer and just walked to the side, joining the other Extractors.
"Hey, you!"
Nick met the eyes of one of the Extractors from Anatomy.
He was a tall and wide man, filled with muscles.
Behind him, the others were also glancing at Nick.
"Yes?" Nick asked neutrally.
"You're wearing a neutral uniform," the man commented. "Who's your employer?"
"Dark Dream," Nick said.
The man furrowed his brows and looked at someone in the group of Extractors.
It was Kiara.
Kiara just nodded. "Yes, he's our Boss."
That elicited a small chorus of ohs from the group.
This was the Chief Zephyx Extractor of Dark Dream?
Naturally, almost all of them had heard of Nick.
Not because of his power but because of the lack of it.
A Chief Zephyx Extractor who was also a John was so strange and abnormal that basically everyone talked about it.
"Good, you can stay," the big man said.
Nick was not sure what this was about.
The city was in charge of everything, and Nick was quite sure that this guy didn't have any kind of say in all of this.
Nick didn't say anything and just walked over to Kiara.
"Boss," Kiara said in greeting. "I'm sorry that I couldn't show up yesterday. I… had things to do."
Nick just nodded. "I understand."
Silence.
Some minutes later, another Extractor showed up, and the big guy confronted them.
Just like Nick, this Extractor wore a neutral uniform.
"Who's your employer?" the big guy asked.
"Dark Dream," the woman said.
Nick raised an eyebrow.
He didn't know this person.
The big man looked back at Nick.
"Is that true?" he asked.
"I don't know her," Nick said.
That made everyone look back at the woman with narrowed eyes.
"I work in a different department!" the woman shouted in anger at Nick. "I've also never seen you before, and yet I don't claim that you don't work for Dark Dream."
The watching people narrowed their eyes even further at the woman, who got more and more nervous.
Then, Kiara let out a short laugh.
"You claim you work for Dark Dream, but you don't even recognize our Chief Zephyx Extractor," she said.
The woman's eyes widened in shock as she looked at Nick.
The tall guy from Anatomy glared at the woman.
Eventually, she walked to the group, but everyone kept a big distance from her.
It was almost like she had some kind of deadly and contagious disease.
"What's this all about?" Nick asked Kiara. "Why are Extractors claiming to work for us?"
"They're from the Spartans," Kiara said with disgust. "After all their executives died, the Spartans split up."
"Everybody knows that the Spartans are the reason for the city's current state, which is why they try to hide their identities. They wear normal uniforms and claim to work for us."
Nick looked at the isolated Extractor while Kiara was talking.
"She will most likely get into an… accident… later," Kiara said with apathy and disgust.
Nick looked at the Extractor for a bit more.
Then, he looked away.
He didn't feel bad for her in any way.
She was a member of the Spartans, and the Spartans had tried to kill Nick.
The only reason she was still alive was that she wasn't working while Nick was killing all of them in their building.
"It's good that we have their Chief Zephyx Extractor here," the big man commented to one of his friends with a laugh.
"At least that guy's good for something now."