Another two weeks passed.
By now, Nick had been searching for a Specter for around six weeks.
And still, he had not gotten a single clue.
There had been a couple of leads, but none of them actually led to a real Specter.
It was always just humans.
'Sure enough, the last time I was lucky,' Nick thought with a sigh while taking a break in the marketplace.
'Even more, there was this second group of Extractors that found a Specter in the Dregs.'
'I feel like the other Manufacturers find so many more Specters than me.'
'Although, I get it. They have Investigators, while we don't have anything.'
'How are we supposed to keep up with that? In fact, I didn't even find the Specter myself last time. An Inspector actually told me about the Dreamer.'
'Can I even find any Specter on my own?'
Nick sighed again.
'Six weeks with no leads.'
Nick looked at the people that were passing by him.
By now, the people no longer avoided him.
They had grown used to Nick's presence.
'At least I've gotten plenty of experience in how to find Specters.'
'I know which clues will most likely not produce any result, and I know how to get people to talk.'
'On top of that, I learned a lot about what other people in the Dregs do when nobody's around, and I even learned how the gangs operate internally.'
'If there were any clues, I would probably be able to get them.'
Nick sighed once more.
'However, barely a day passes before one of the Inspectors already finds the clue, and with their manpower, they can get to the bottom of the clue in no time.'
'All the Inspectors meet every day and gather their relevant information, making it much easier to create a full image of the Dregs.'
'Meanwhile, I can only look at a small part of the Dregs every day since I am alone.'
'I really need a team of Inspectors.'
Nick just kept thinking about his current situation in frustration and hopelessness.
He had no idea how to get another Specter.
"Stop! Please!"
Nick's eyes slowly moved to the marketplace.
"You don't want to have some fun? Come on, don't be such a prude."
"No, go away! Please! You can have my money!"
"You can keep your money. I want something else."
Nick just sighed.
Another rape.
In the Outer City, sexual assault was illegal, but nobody really cared about this in the Dregs.
In a certain way, it might even secretly be encouraged since it produced more children, which produced more blood for Kugelblitz.
Of course, nobody actually said that it was encouraged, but the absence of prosecutions for rapists still counted as a statement from the city.
Rapes happened almost every day.
It was a very common sight in the Dregs.
Everyone had gotten used to them, and the people just avoided the situation in the center of the marketplace.
Right now, a younger woman was being beset by two guys. One of the guys was holding the woman's shoulder while the other one was grabbing his dick through his pants with a smirk.
Nick had witnessed quite a lot of these events.
"Stop! This is my last warning! I will bite your dick off!" the woman shouted as the guy was unbuttoning his pants.
"Oh, we got a feisty one, eh?" the other guy said, his pants apparently having gotten a bit tighter around the waist.
"Do you dare?" the first guy said as he pulled the woman's head down. "If you make me bleed, you will lose two liters of your blood. Can you afford that?"
The woman wrestled against her captors' hands, but she wasn't strong enough.
"You already look anemic," the other guy said, slowly moving his finger across the woman's very white skin.
"If you lose another two liters of blood, you will most likely die. Are you so against having a bit of fun with us? We are even willing to pay you five credits each."
The woman gritted her teeth in anger, frustration, hatred, and helplessness.
The people in the marketplace avoided her.
If these two men were just random people, some of the others might have gotten involved.
However, these two guys had the insignia of the Riker Strikers.
While some of the bystanders were willing to put themselves in a bit of danger for their morals, they were not willing to commit suicide for them.
After a bit more persuasion, the sexual assault commenced.
Nick had grown so cold and apathetic to these events that he just absentmindedly watched the woman's head bop back and forth on the guy's crotch in the middle of the marketplace.
As Nick watched, a memory shot through his mind.
He remembered his conversation with that one Investigator who told Nick about the Dreamer.
Back then, Nick had been furious with the Zephyx Manufacturer because they didn't do anything against the Dreamer, even though they had the power and knew about it.
They were willing to just sit by and let the people suffer.
Nick had been absolutely furious with them back then.
Wasn't he doing something very similar just now?
'I have the power to stop this,' Nick thought, watching the crying woman.
'But would that change anything? They are the Riker Strikers, and they are known for going against absolutely everyone that resists them.'
'Sure, I don't need to fear them, but that just means that they will focus their anger all on that girl.'
'At that point, they will probably steal all her belongings and rape her a couple more times before dooming her to die during the next tax day.'
'Intervening now would only make things worse for her.'
'If I am going to interfere, her life is my responsibility since I would have indirectly killed her.'
The next moment, Nick looked at the guy who was pushing his cock into the crying girl's face.
'And if I kill them, I have to pay 5,000 credits per person. Sure, they wouldn't seek revenge on the girl anymore, but 5,000 credits is still a lot.'
'I would have lost 10,000 credits just to save someone I don't even know.'
'Even more, I wouldn't even get to keep the corpses, or I would need to pay another 10,000 credits per person, which means I also can't give them to the Parasite.'
Nick sighed.
'Why is being a good guy so difficult?'