Putato meticulously re-tiled the room's floor. He had just injected Obana with the potent sedative left over from Gyeong-mi's encounter; she'd likely be lying quietly underground for quite a few days.
After all, for just a head, the dosage was a bit overkill.
Pulling out a heavily modded portable player, Putato slotted Shamisen's personality chip into it. A scornful emoji immediately flashed on the small screen.
Putting on the headphones, Putato heard a synthesized female voice.
"Get my chip out of this piece of junk! This low-grade hardware will ruin my stability. I'll have a personality breakdown in less than a month!"
"Shamisen, right? Your boss, Obana, has been taken out. Got any feelings on the matter?"
"You want to hire me? Fine. I only have one condition: take proper care of my personality chip."
"That quick?"
"Let me put it in plain English. Most prosthetics on the market are generic, but I'm a Green Journey special edition. To keep the chip active and stable, it requires meticulous maintenance."
"I don't give a damn who my boss is right now. Since Green Journey collapsed, I literally can't find another job! Do you get it?!"
Damn!
So it was for such a practical reason. It seemed Obana was the only one previously willing and wealthy enough to keep Shamisen around.
Putato nervously checked his account. He had some cash, but his primary account was almost empty. How was he supposed to afford this?
"Is that Stasis Preservation Packaging useful for you? Can you rough it out for a bit?"
"Why are you so strong, you pauper? How did you even beat me?!"
The emoji on the screen turned furious.
"Absolutely not! That thing can only keep me active. My personality chip's internal structure must be calibrated and maintained, otherwise, I'll have a personality breakdown the moment I'm taken out!"
"Go to Obana's basement quickly and put me in the backup Prosthetic! Those were all custom-fitted and modified."
"That place exploded and collapsed. I doubt anything's left."
"Why are you, Putato, a pauper?! You're making me so mad! Forget everything else, I'm doomed!"
Putato never expected Shamisen's maintenance alone would be such a hassle. He thought it would be plug-and-play like with the Brotherhood of Iron.
"Do you, uh, have a secret hideout like Obana, with years of savings inside?"
"Pauper! The entire Green Journey was destroyed! Do you know what 'destroyed' means?!"
His communicator suddenly rang. The caller ID was Olga.
Putato didn't connect immediately; instead, he fell into contemplation. He'd had an idea before at Good Office, and now was the perfect time to test it.
"Pauper, I told you to take me out first! This trash, without even a sensor, is an insult to my personality! I'd rather just die!"
"Anyway, no one can afford to hire me!"
After a quick search, Putato immediately showed a mysterious smile.
"I have an idea."
"Don't waste time. Even buying those used parts would cost a fortune."
"Why don't you try to make money directly? I don't have that much money to store your equipment."
"Are you kidding me?! Do you know what I was doing when I was nine?"
"Reading books?"
"Helping out a butcher. So, guess what I was doing when I was nineteen?"
"Hanging out with a Syndicate?"
"Working as an assassin for the Association. Always number one in my division for performance."
"If you want me to kill people directly, no problem. But right now, I don't even have a Prosthetic! Pauper, can you stop tormenting me?"
Putato immediately understood; Shamisen was purely a killing machine, completely inept in any other area.
"No worries. I've got a gig lined up for you. As a Prosthetic being, mastering speech or singing should be a breeze. But first, we need a virtual avatar."
It wasn't that Putato had any grand intentions; he simply wanted to use Shamisen's streaming fame as a springboard for the lone wolf Fixer, Vanda. Moreover, a high-quality "worker" like Shamisen was much more useful than a schemer like Obana.
If he ever needed backup in the future, he'd just have to swap Shamisen into a high-end Prosthetic body. At minimum, she could go toe-to-toe with a Grade 1 Fixer. Her combat experience and adaptability were off the charts, capable of handling all sorts of missions.
"I can't. I have zero clue how to perform."
"Cut the crap. If the stream doesn't make money, you're dead meat."
Picking up a bag of cash, Putato quickly headed out to buy a computer. This time, he carefully patched Shamisen in and opened a random streaming account to test the waters.
"Don't tell me Green Journey's ultimate cyborg doesn't have hacking skills."
Under Putato's urging, a cute avatar instantly appeared on the screen, and a smooth electronic female voice spoke.
"What now? You want me to sing to attract viewers? Why wouldn't they just download a music player instead?"
"Who said anything about singing? With your personality, you're better off just reading comments."
"Where are the people even going to come from?"
[Use this account to become an Idol LiveStreamer in The City.]
"Feel it. The City is helping us again."
Putato clicked to edit the stream's title.
[Heed the will of the Prescript. To save a collapsing City, Urban Girl provides answers online.]
"You're f***ing insane! The Index will crush your skull!"
"Don't worry. The Prescripts won't bother with me."
Immediately, the streaming site seemed to suffer a system glitch. Every recommendation slot was replaced by Urban Girl's stream. Shamisen instantly panicked and went on mute, while the comment section flooded with users praising the streamer's insane courage.
"I—what am I supposed to do?"
"Like I said, learn from whatever they're commenting. If you don't know how to reply to a message, send it to me. I'll handle the answers."
Seeing that this matter was sorted, Putato immediately changed his clothes. He still had to get back to Olga.
...
K Nest checkpoint.
Putato retrieved his belongings from storage. His Workshop throwing knives were all neatly organized within his Workshop Mindcord. He strapped on his Dimension Gloves while contacting Olga.
"Damn it, Vanda, why didn't you pick up when I called you just now?"
"What's up? You sound like you're in a hurry."
"It's the Void Fist. Word is this Syndicate has a massive control fetish. Any territory they take over, they ban other Syndicates. They refuse to let anyone else belong, so a ton of Syndicate members are being pushed out and running wild. The area you're in has become a total mess lately."
"On the bright side, commissions have been popping up everywhere during this chaos. Do you have time?"
Hearing this, Putato got genuinely excited and began rushing toward the Molar Office.
"Of course, no problem. I'm still waiting for that promotion!"
"Uh, I should probably give you a heads-up. Based on your current commission volume, it might not be enough. Most of your completed jobs were simple tasks from when you were a Grade 9 Fixer. The Hana Association specifically told me to tell you that your resume is too thin."
"You understand how it is. We Fixers aren't just gladiators seeing who can fight best; it's about whether you can make money. You need to do more Urban Myth level commissions or lower to prove yourself. No one is going to believe someone could fake that many jobs."
Putato understood. It was just more overtime and the corporate grind: something he excelled at. Plus, while doing commissions, he would definitely run into other Syndicates. It was the perfect time to find his next target. Smiling Faces was led entirely by Wang; trying to usurp power there was way too difficult.
He planned to use this opportunity to have Yixin put in a good word so he could gracefully exit Smiling Faces.
Even if the next Syndicate he encountered wasn't as high-tier as the Urban Nightmare Smiling Faces, or even the Urban Legend Stray Dogs, he could make up for it with volume!
"By the way, Sister Olga, I wanted to ask: how does a Fixer actually join the Wings of the World?"
"You're quite the sweet-talker when you're asking for favors, aren't you?"
...
Molar Office.
Olga's elbows were propped on her desk in a posture that was anything but professional, but she couldn't care less. It was just Vanda in front of her, after all.
"The Wings of the World? You're trying to fly before you can even walk?"
"Ah, well, I know a few friends in L Corp, so I thought about developing my career within the Wings."
"Fair enough. My good friend Myo works for the Wings too. Though I've got zero love for R Corp: working year-round is just too painful. They even strip away your time for a drink; I don't know how Myo puts up with it."
Scratching her long hair, Olga sat up straight, her chest lifting off the desk as she tossed a commission, one that had been partially hidden under her elbow, to Putato.
"If you're looking for the simplest way, it's undoubtedly becoming a Taboo Hunter contracted by the Wings."
"Even though every Corporation has extraordinary strength, there are always plenty of lunatics desperately trying to poke into their Singularity technology, even if it brings the whole place down."
"These greedy bastards are actually quite skilled, so the Wings often hire Grade 1 Fixers to sweep up the trash for them. Fixers of that rank are still very rare."
Putato nodded thoughtfully. Fixer grades in The City were indeed very useful; at the very least, even the Wings of the World recognized them.
Christmas had already passed this month, meaning the launch date for the Seed of Light was drawing closer. His goal was to become a Grade 1 Fixer by next month!
"Hey, hey. You're not actually thinking of becoming a Grade 1 Fixer just to join L Corp, are you? How much have you had to drink?"
"Let's talk about this commission."
"The client is a Fixer from the Zwei Association. He said his son recently had some kind of 'awakening' and ran away from home. He wants us to bring him back."
"That's it? Can't he handle it himself?"
Having experienced so many major incidents, Putato didn't even feel like this counted as a serious commission. The Zwei Association was literally responsible for maintaining peace and order; couldn't the client just solve it himself?
Pulling a mystery novel from her drawer, Olga gave a nonchalant shrug.
"Vanda, don't go thinking all Fixers are like you. They're just small Offices under the Association, managing maybe one or two streets. Calling them security is a stretch: they're more like property managers. They don't take as many commissions in a month as our Office does in a week."
"His son ran off beyond their street. What's the Office going to do? Besides, he said his son joined the Depreciation Gang. That's already reached Urban Myth level commission territory."
"I'm on it."
Grabbing the commission file, Putato acted swiftly, hailing a ride to the Depreciation Gang's location.
He remembered clearly that he had dealt a heavy blow to this Syndicate back when he was with Smiling Faces. How could they have resurfaced so quickly?!
[ Shamisen:
- User 23432 [1000 Ahn]: Streamer, can you stop just reading comments?
"..."
- The Index - Esther [50000 Ahn]: Is this also part of a Prescript?
- Roland [20000 Ahn]: Streamer, aren't you dead yet? When did the Index get this interesting?]
[ Putato: Just read questions under 10000 Ahn once. Don't forward them to me!]
Looking at the messages nearly flooding his communicator screen, Putato's face darkened. Was this idiot trying to spam-bomb him?
The City's currency is the Ahn. However, a single hot dog costs two or three thousand Ahn. Putato suspected the only reason there wasn't runaway inflation was because The City periodically had massive die-offs, physically suppressing financial crises.
Still, Putato didn't expect to attract the attention of an Index member so quickly, nor Grade 1 Fixer Roland. The latter was likely retired by now, living a quiet life with his wife in the Backstreets: no wonder he had time to watch streams.
[ Putato:
To Esther: The Prescript only needs to be fulfilled.
To Roland: Mind your own business.]
Stowing his communicator, Putato hurriedly hopped out of the car. He looked up to see a clean, orderly entrance to a scrapyard. Beside it, plastic bottles, newspapers, and scraps of paper were taped to the wall with yellow adhesive to form the large letters: Depreciation Gang.
The originally smashed main gate had been reinstalled, though the mountains of trash inside remained the same.
THUD THUD.
The moment Putato knocked on the iron door, a head popped out from behind the wall. The person seemed to be standing on a ladder, looking down through the wire mesh to inspect Putato, wearing a familiar style of wrinkled T-shirt.
"Have you ever hugged anyone?"
The cryptic question made Putato hesitate for a second. He gave a tentative nod, but the person immediately climbed down the ladder and ignored him.
What was the deal with that?
Puzzled, Putato knocked again, unsure what was going on here.
"Have you ever hugged anyone?"
"No."
The person left again. This left Putato completely bewildered, so he simply kicked off the wall and flipped over the wire mesh.
Below, three young men in faded white jeans were visibly startled. They scrambled to grab nearby weapons, still stunned by Putato's agile moves.
Putato noticed they were wearing armor fashioned from layers of paper. They didn't rush him immediately; instead, they pushed over a four- or five-meter pile of trash nearby.
BOOM!
The massive, terrifying Crusher instantly appeared in Putato's hand. With one sudden swing, he swept away all the flying trash, even creating a lingering gale of refuse.
"We—we surrender!"
Seeing the bandage-wrapped freak pull out such a terrifying weapon and wield it so effortlessly, the three threw down their weapons and raised their hands in fear.
Putato hadn't expected the Giant Workshop philosophy to be so effective in The City; it was an easy way to make these thugs recognize the gap in their strength.
"I'm a Fixer here on a job. Looking for Mapi. Where is he?"
"Uh, who's Mapi?"
THUD.
The Crusher hit the ground, and the impact made the three feel like their feet had briefly left the earth. Their legs turned to jelly, and they slumped to the ground, unable to imagine what would happen if that thing hit them.
"Wait, wait, wait! No one needs to give a name to join the hug meet-up! As long as Palara invited you, it's fine!"
Skeptical, Putato followed their directions and saw a clean building on higher ground. It was completely out of place next to the mountains of trash below. He pushed the door open, only to see a dense crowd of people huddled together.
The people were all dressed in clean, worn-out clothes that were nearly white. They wore full-coverage hoods that only showed their eyes. Now, they all stood up in unison and turned to look at Putato, radiating a collective sense of oppression.
"Please wait a moment, everyone."
A beautiful woman who looked familiar to Putato stood up. She raised both hands, signaling for everyone to sit down quietly, exuding an indescribable charisma.
That is Palara?!
Smiling Faces had clearly killed him last time. There was no way someone like her had access to something like a regeneration ampule.
Full of suspicion, Putato followed Palara all the way up until they reached a deserted rooftop. There was no smell of trash here; there was even an outdoor swimming pool.
Putato stared at the pool and realized this was the same place he had been with Elena. The memories of that night and Elena herself felt like a surreal dream.
Thinking of this, the anxiety and dread lingering in Putato's heart began to fade. Only now did he realize how much he had finally relaxed.
"Putato, what are you doing here?"
Palara looked at Putato curiously. Putato snapped back to reality and looked at her with equal confusion, but inwardly he was startled. How did he get exposed so suddenly?
"Who's Putato? I'm the Fixer, Vanda."
"Oh, I was the driver. You don't recognize me?"
"I'm really not Putato."
"Fine, Putato. I'll call you Vanda then, okay?"
Dammit!
Every time Putato adjusted his identity, he would intentionally change his makeup and posture. Not to mention Vanda had the lower half of his face wrapped in bandages and wore leather gloves on both hands. How did she spot him instantly?