94 MATTERS OF MONEY (1/2)
At one of the staircases connecting the twelfth and the thirteenth decks, there were two guards and a group of three Dustbin Diggers, the latter of which was forcibly taking an item or two from every person looking to use the stairs. A small cage filled with downcast cats they had caught was nearby. Unlike other parties, they had used a three-legged rat as bait. Pocketing some coins by handing the cats over to the referee was on their minds.
”I'm getting tired of waiting. What if that bastard never shows up and spends his time hiding somewhere on this deck?”
”How long can he hide?”
”He's been quiet as a mouse, but he's gonna come out eventually, and when he does, he'll suffer. The sooner he comes out and admits his guilt, the better it is for him.”
Just then, a light brown-haired man with the number 330 tattooed on his cheek climbed down the stairs. None of three members of Dustbin Diggers dared to look him in the eye. Even the guards just kept their heads tilted down until he swaggered into the distance.
”Whew, what's a guy from the seventh belt doing here?”
”Maybe he's a reviewer.”
”But he isn't wearing the uniform.”
”Well, it's not an obligation, right?”
As the three members chatted, Burton entered the street and came into their view.
Their expressions brightened as Burton came from the direction the light brown-haired man just went in. ”That purple hair… he's the one.” The three of them forthwith charged Burton like annoyed beasts while carrying garbage baskets on their backs.
”You seriously expect to fight me with that baggage?” Burton said, ”I'm getting excited.”
”Don't underestimate us!”
”Well, what a surprise. You saw through my sarcasm. Very good. Well done!” Burton clapped, incensing them further.
”You are dead meat!” they roared.
”Am I now?” Burton smiled and waited until they closed in. As the closest man launched his fist, Burton sidestepped and used his lead leg to circle the three men at high speed, then stopped in front of those three again, causing them to freeze in their footsteps and look at him with bafflement. His sheer speed and expertise in moving nimbly made three bellies cramp. ”Along the way, I've come across a few members from your gang or guild or whatever you call yourselves. I've dealt with them, but now I'm not in the mood to waste my energy on you hoodlums,” Burton adjusted the unkempt shirt collar on the one standing in the front. ”Tell your boss to spend time on why I had to fight his men rather than on finding me so he could get his little revenge. If not, I'll be forced to shift my focus, in which case, his whole world will be turned upside down, understood?” Burton politely smiled.
”So the boss who sent you guys here hasn't yet spared a thought for me,” Burton casually said, ”or he's not among those dozens of light-under-bushels.”
”You little!” the three of them couldn't control their anger, but the one in the front acted first by recklessly throwing a punch.
Burton grabbed the fist with ease. ”Taking me lightly just because I was having a peaceful conversation, are you?” he twisted the wrist, causing the man to scream. The other two men attacked him. Burton used the man he was holding a shield from one of the attackers. At that moment, the third man grabbed his arm and tried to twist it with brute force. Burton kicked in his knee, forcing him to lower his head in pain. A swift punch to the face made him crash on his back, crushing the basket and the food items inside. A foul smell wafted about. In a flash, Burton whooshed through the gap between the remaining two men and pushed them down to the floor by their faces. His palms continued to iron their faces. ”I try not to take any pleasure in crushing the weak, so stay down, or I might crush you like a bug.”
Other than wincing, there was no response from them, so Burton stood, rubbed his hands, and walked away.
”Enjoy your time because your days are numbered,” one of those three men gathered courage and shouted while still staying down.
Burton, however, didn't stop until he reached the staircase. He glanced at the cage full of felines. ”Cats may feel safe in a cage but never satisfied,” he kicked it, sending it flying into a wall. The cage fell, and the door broke open. The cats speedily scurried out and away in double-quick time.
”Y-You!” the three men found themselves boiling in rage. ”You are courting disaster.”
Burton faintly smiled and then sought to climb the stairs. The two guards blocked his path. After he gave his name, they checked it through the updated list. His name was there, so they took his signature and thumbprint and then changed the tattoo on his left wrist from twelve to thirteen. Afterward, they moved away and made way for him. ”Please go ahead.”
Burton climbed the stairs as he unfolded his sleeves. ”I hope I can find the ring,” he looked a bit sad and down-hearted as he remembered about his precious ring. ”Once I find it, I'm sure I can buy it no matter the cost.”
At Drill Clinic, a few hours after the incident with Lirzod and Nick.
The dog that Lirzod had brought was still unconscious at the corner of the room. Though Lirzod had put the dog on the bed, Mulyk had moved it to the corner and then proceeded with the skin-deep treatment.
Beren was lying unconsciously on a bed, with his severed arm reattached using what looked like thin tree roots. Hundred was also resting on a neighboring bed, for he was transferring his blood to the boy using a mosquito needle. Two moderately hardened veins made out of cloud leeches connected the mosquito needles to a white translucent bottle made by hardening a cloud turtle stomach that was capable of converting any blood type to universal donor type, though its capabilities waned with usage. Usually, a regular cloud turtle stomach could be used for about thirty times with no problems, as long as it wasn't utilized in a continuous period.
As for Beren's left eye, it was gone. A leaf was covering the eye socket now.
Mulyk pressed the vein a little at a spot and controlled the speed of the blood flow, for the vein took time to regain its natural shape. By pressing it at different points with varying applied force, she was able to precisely control the rate at which blood coursed through the veins, both from the donor and the recipient.
”He'll be able to use his arm again, wouldn't he?” Hundred asked in a bit of a somber tone.
”The arm was ripped out with brute force-fu,” Mulyk replied, giving away just a bit of emotion in her tone, ”so he won't be able to use it well anytime soon. After that, it depends on his luck. If he meets some good priest or healer, then he may be able to use his arm like in the past. In any case, with my treatment, he should be able to do menial tasks in about twenty weeks, assuming he takes proper rest, of course.”
”Twenty weeks, huh. That's a long time.” He glanced at Beren. ”I wonder how he'll handle it when he's in such a state.”
”His physical suffering is one thing, but what he suffered mentally is what he should be more worried about,” Mulyk said while briefly rubbing Beren's feet. ”I've seen many patients. Incidents like these will take away all the confidence from his heart. At best, he may stay weak. At worst, his hands may fail to make fists even when fingers get pointed at him or his people for no reason.”
Hundred didn't say anything, for he was also referring to the same thing. After suffering such a mental trauma in the hands of his father, how would he spend twenty weeks while being handicapped? And there might not be anyone to help him, either.
Mulyk narrowed her eyes as she gazed upon Beren. (He might get back to his usual self if he's a son of a gun like the scar-faced brat, Lirzod. He was one hell of a guy seeing how he brushed aside the experience of an explosion that took him close to death, and also bovine enough to bring a dog into my clinic.)
Meanwhile, on the same deck, in S Block, the surveillance room's entrance had two cherry blossom trees on either side, with leaves falling piece by piece.
Both Sariyu and 777 came out of the room. Judging by the way she carelessly stepped on the cherry blossom petals, it was easy to tell that she wasn't in a good mood. After all, she had been kept in the surveillance room for many hours only to learn they didn't have anything she required.
”These idiots wasted my time for nothing,” Sariyu ground her teeth to vent her frustration at the surveillance staff who called themselves as inspectors. She glanced at 777, setting off a cold breeze at his face, ”Didn't you say that there are eyes everywhere on this ship? Why didn't they get the feed of what was happening in the test hall?”
”U-Uh, I didn't say that there are eyes everywhere, but I only said that it's better for us to think that way when we are outside our rooms,” 777 replied in a definite yet soft tone. ”After all, they can't put surveillance on every street. Like the name sounds, it mainly keeps watch on those who previously committed crimes, at least as far as I know. That said, it's unexpected that they didn't have the footage of the test hall as well. Probably, the surveilling system failed for some reason. Why do you want to take a look at it so badly anyway?”
”I just want to know what exactly happened back then before I go meet those brothers?”
”What?” 777 was momentarily surprised. ”You want to meet them?” His eyes took on a haunted look. ”For what?”
”To make an apology.”
”Huh?” 777 seemed to be puzzled and even somewhat distressed. After mulling over things a bit, he voiced his mind, ”Do you really want to apologize to those guys after everything they've tried to pull? They almost killed your friend Lirzod.”
Sariyu subtly clenched her fists, but then loosened them a second later. ”Yeah, but he's not dead. That's what matters now. The life of my friend is more important than his feuds. If all it takes is an apology to erase the bad blood between them, then I can't just sit and do nothing.”
777 just stayed silent.
”Also, I need to ask them about something else, too…” she said, and the memory of the explosion came back to her mind. (How did a simple punch explode like that? Even the one throwing the punch got blown away. Something just wasn't right. I should first go and ask the referee and hear his side of the story. Then I'll head over to those brothers.)
Meanwhile, elsewhere on the twelfth deck, a kitten had been following Lirzod, but he shooed it away, yelling, ”I'm not your mother. Go away, or the dogs might get you!”
Still, the kitten kept meowing nonstop as it followed him.
”I don't have any food if that's what you want. Leave!”
Still, nothing changed.
Just as he was getting tired of the kitten's dumb pursuit, the mother cat came over, grabbed the kitten by the neck, and moved to safety by entering an abandoned room through a broken window.
”Whew…” Lirzod breathed a sigh of relief, but there was wonder on his face, for there wasn't a single cat raised or born in Helenia, his hometown. If a feline were to enter the town, people would chase it out right away either directly or with the help of dogs, so he rarely ever saw them before. ”Just what is a cat? They can't guard like dogs, but they eat all the time, and they crap everywhere,” he thought as he kept going. ”They seem to enjoy freedom more than the dogs and maybe even mankind. Humans have school, stress, jobs, taxes, and obligations, but cats—just meow. Such confounding creatures...”
Just then, someone put a hand on his shoulder. The hand was heavy and gripping. When Lirzod glanced back, there was a man in a smiling mask, his eyes swelling out through the mask, giving the vibes of a creep. ”Don't move.” He put a revolver near Lirzod's waist, though most of the weapon was kept hidden in his long sleeve. ”Keep walking.” He cocked the hammer.
”W-What do you want?” Lirzod's heart skipped a beat, but he began to walk.
”Not much,” he replied, walking side by side. ”You don't need to worry too much. I'm one of the Nice Folks, so I keep my word. Hand over the money you earned in the staff-spinning competition, and I'll walk away without touching so much as your hair.”
”What?” Lirzod was startled. His face lost some amount of blood. ”But I already gave it away.”
”Stop lying,” the masked man's voice turned hoarse. ”You don't want a bullet in your liver, trust me.”
”I-I'm telling the truth,” Lirzod's voice turned a bit shaky. ”You can check my pockets.”
The masked man paused for a moment and commanded, ”Show me your pockets.”
A bead of sweat trickled down his temple as Lirzod pulled out the pockets, and he was right. His pockets were empty.
”Whom did you give it to?” the masked man's eyes sparkled with spleen as he pressed the revolver into Lirzod's waist. ”Lie,” he leaned closer, ”and I'll find you and put a hole in your head. No one will ever know who sent you into your grave.”
Lirzod frowned. His blood was up. His right arm instantly smacked the masked man's hand.
BANG!
A cracking noise echoed in the street as the bullet split the air into shockwaves and ricocheted off the wall.
The revolver fell out of the masked man's hand, and at the same time, the air pressure the rotating cylinder gave off tore the cloth on Lirzod waist and bruised his skin.
However, in that split second, Lirzod promptly swiveled and elbowed in the masked man's face from the front.
The masked cracked and broke as he abruptly crashed on his back. Blood poured out of his broken nose, and his sight turned blurrier than that of an aged lady. By the time he regained his sight, Lirzod was checking the revolver.
”How do you remove the bullets?” Lirzod was bemused. As he worked on the revolver, he unknowingly pointed the muzzle at the masked man and himself a few times.
”W-Wait… don't shoot me,” the masked man faltered as he got back to his feet. He was no longer wearing any mask. His red nose turned bluer by the second as it was the same with Lirzod's waist, though Lirzod didn't show any trace of pain in his face.