Having completed the mission and delivered his speech, Li Qingyu threw down the pipe and melted into the crowd.
In high spirits, he headed towards the Water Guild representative. Even from a distance, he noticed the queue of rats from the Lower Hive – a chain stretching from the market stalls near the Great Lift all the way to the slums. A thousand heads, no less.
He was about to push his way through when he saw Reyno with a dozen guards. Reyno waved, and Li approached.
Reyno was beaming; news of the massacre had already spread throughout the district.
"Mr. Honest Business, you're quick!" he chuckled.
"Where's my reward?" Li replied coldly.
"Come on."
Reyno led him deeper into the building. The "safe zone" of the Lower Hive was a fiction, but the ring of shops around the Lift, controlled by those from the Middle Level, was truly protected. Here, any madness was punished quickly and harshly.
The crowd buzzed as Li Qingyu was allowed inside.
The Guild shop looked simple: pipes were embedded in the load-bearing walls, and workers poured water into cheap containers.
Reyno led his guest into an office and gestured to a box:
"Here, your payment."
Inside were a hundred packs of water purification tablets and ten replacement filters.
An excellent haul. His problem with clean water was solved.
*Ding!* Quest completed. Reyno's relationship increased: Level 0 → Level 1. Unlocked items: filters, tablets, filtration-fermentation distiller, energy drink, canteens, yeast.
The high-energy drink worked like in "Arena Breakout": drink it, and your stamina bar was full. With one bar, Li could run three kilometers, and a can allowed for another three. The price was ten talons.
But the distiller – a whole module for the purifier, with a moonshine-making function. Li's eyes lit up.
"How much for this one?" he nodded towards the unit in the corner.
Reyno laughed: "You wanted to make your own brew. But it comes out sour – undrinkable. Take it now."
"Name your price."
"Five thousand, and it's yours. It's just gathering dust anyway."
Li counted out the bills. Reyno smiled; it was a bargain, but profitable – a good enforcer would be useful.
He took out two cans of energy drink: one for Li, one for himself. They drank. The soda reminded him of sweet "Red Bull" – a pleasant aftertaste, but Li already had plenty of energy.
"I like it," he said. "Anything else?"
Reyno pulled out a crate. "Eighteen cans, ten each."
Li paid one hundred and eighty coins. A clean transaction – no favors. They were similar in that regard.
"Is there any more work?" he asked. "Anything. In the Hive or outside."
Reyno pondered. There was work, but could he trust this butcher?
Li added, "I work on a 'job first, then money' basis. If I fail, you don't lose anything."
Reyno studied him carefully. This guy wasn't simple. He'd reached the Middle Hive, completed the task with overachievement...
"There's an option," he finally said. "An important job. I don't know if you'll be interested."
"I'm listening."
"Before the war, we had a monitoring station for the Water Intake Lake. It tracked groundwater and wrote data to a memory panel. But the rebels came suddenly, and the technicians couldn't evacuate the storage unit in time."
"You want me to retrieve the panel?"
"Exactly. It's the key to the Hive's water supply. If you bring it back, you'll get a hundred thousand. Anything you find is yours."
"There are rebels there," Li frowned. "Do you think anything is left?"
Reyno took a metal key from his pocket. "Below the station is an underground sector. A hermetically sealed door made of ceramite. You can't get in without the key, unless you blow it open with melter."
Li took the key. A notification flashed in his mind: "Quest item received: Key to the monitoring station's dungeon. Durability 1/1."
He hid it and said, "Deal. Prepare my hundred thousand."