27. Ground Zero (2)

The pub had been reduced to a shambles.

The Madam swept the fragments from the counter and sat down with perfect composure.

“What can I get you off the menu?”
“Milk.”
“Pardon?”
“Getting drunk’s no good. And I’ve business to attend to.”
“You’re the first person in Ground Zero to fuss over a thing like that.”

The old man poured milk into a glass.

Ah. So the old man was the bodyguard as well as the bartender. A Hunter at the peak of Sixth Rank, then, and far too high-spec for a pub’s barkeep.

Never saw him in my past life, though.

Yujin had been a fairly notable regular at the Galaxy Pub, all things considered, and that he carried no memory of the old bartender could mean only one thing.

That he died before then.

That, along with the matter of the Red Spider’s raid. It was easy enough to guess the old man had been caught up in some incident tied to the Madam’s safety.

Yujin reached for the milk set on the lounge counter.

“It’s good.”
“There are cocktails that use milk, like a Kahlúa, so I always keep it fresh.”
“If the mood weren’t this unsettled, I’d like to try a glass.”

The bartender smiled warmly.

Coffee in hand, the Madam crossed to Yujin’s side with a bright smile. Composed even in a mess like this, she had the makings of the future Moon Shadow, and Yujin marveled at her nerve.

“Shall we hear the real purpose that brought you to me, then?”
“I want to get my hands on a ticket to the underground auction house.”
“You’re aware those aren’t easy to come by, I think.”

Slurrp.

The Madam took a sip of her coffee.

“…is what I’d normally say, but compared to the price of my life, it’s nothing at all.”

The Galaxy Pub Madam’s card. Her name sat engraved in gold leaf on black paper, luxurious down to the last detail.

“If you mean a business card—”
“It’s something like my personal guarantee.”
“Isn’t that worth more than a ticket to the underground auction house?”
“Hoho. Outside the Red Spider’s sphere of influence, no place you go will lay a finger on you.”

The guarantee of the Galaxy Pub’s Madam. Within Ground Zero, there was no surer way to secure one’s standing.

“Even as a price for your life, that’s far too generous.”
“It’s good for a single use, so spend my name where you need it.”

Yujin slipped the card into his pocket.

“So, what is it you’re looking to find at the auction house?”
“A mana engine.”
“Does the type of engine not matter?”
“Yeah. Golem core, living armor core, whatever — as long as the output tops Third Rank, it’s fine.”

The Madam slowly skimmed through her tablet.

“Even if you go to the underground auction house, I doubt you’ll have much fun there.”
“So you can check the wares on their side too.”
“It’s a service. Normally I can’t disclose the listings to an outsider.”

The underground auction house is run by the black market, far as I knew — quite the feat, securing that list.

Hmm. He could count himself lucky, then, that he wouldn’t have to waste the ticket for nothing.

“If a mana engine turns up, can you tip me off?”
“As I said earlier, telling you the wares was a service.”

A way of saying she wouldn’t do it twice. Every item in the country whose origin couldn’t be disclosed gathered in Ground Zero, and even so, a mana engine was not to be had.

Hmm.

Do I have to source one myself?

Even if he leaned on Shin Junseok, fabricating a mana engine with the output he wanted wouldn’t be easy. Capital and time. The money he could manage one way or another, but building a single mana engine would devour an enormous amount of time.

I’ll have to look for a gate worth looting a mana engine off of, or something.

He should be satisfied with having made a striking first impression on the Galaxy Pub’s Madam.

The conclusion settled in his mind, and he started to rise from his seat.

“Have you any interest in taking a commission?”

The Madam tossed out the line with a faint smile.

The Galaxy Pub. At a glance it looked like an ordinary bar, but its real business was a fixer’s office that brokered commissions.

Different from your run-of-the-mill private eye outfit.

It gathered commissions from across the whole country, well past Ground Zero, and the fixers the Madam handpicked with her exacting eye saw every one of them through. The prices ran sky-high, and still the deep-pocketed came knocking. That was the very reason the Galaxy Pub stood counted, alongside the black market and the Red Spider, among the three great powers of this lawless zone.

My first plan was to get a ticket to the underground auction house as payment for a commission, though.

Yujin swept his hair back with his right hand. He hadn’t expected a counteroffer: her own card, and then a commission asked of someone she’d met exactly once. Set against his memories of his past life, it was extraordinary treatment.

She’s trying to size up what kind of person I am.

Pft.

Yujin let out a light scoff.

“Sounding me out. Sure you can handle it?”
“It’s just that I’m the sort who can’t easily trust other people. And it’s not a proposal that loses you anything, either.”
“Well, fine. Let’s hear the commission first.”

Heh. Yujin let out a flabbergasted little laugh.

“You’re putting in a commission with me to take revenge on the Red Spider?”
“That’s right. Because there’s no one better suited for it than you.”
“You’ve got nerve, telling me to make an enemy of a faction that holds a third of Ground Zero.”
“Don’t worry. The Red Spider won’t be making any moves.”

The Madam answered with confidence. The Red Spider’s territory was confined to Ground Zero; the moment they stepped into the open, they could wield real power no better than a shadow exposed to sunlight.

Even so, write them off entirely and you’re liable to take a nasty fall.

Yujin folded his arms.

“Coming from someone who was about to get roasted over a fire a moment ago, that’s not exactly reassuring.”
“You just have to clear the gate without leaving a trace behind.”
“You make it sound easy — telling me to kill every last one of the Red Spider crew inside.”

In truth, it was something he’d guessed the moment the commission was offered.

A cold smile tinged the corners of the Madam’s lips.

“Because the dead tell no tales.”

That wasn’t necessarily true. Yujin could speak with the departed. He could override the will of those souls to wring whatever information he wanted out of them, or seize them outright.

No need to mention it, though.

With a wry smile, he swallowed the thought back down into his gut.

“The gate closure goes under my name — that’s the condition, I take it?”

Yujin nodded as if he understood and cast a glance behind him.

“What do you think, Fafnir?”

— You’re asking whether it breaches the contract.

“The Red Spider being rotten bastards is true enough, but killing them is another matter.”

Rescuing the Madam had left the wounded piled up, yet in the end not one of them had died. Fafnir had kept mercy in hand even in the thick of the fight.

— Master. You seem to have some misunderstanding.

— Crack!

Fafnir pressed down with one foot, and part of the floor caved in. The damage from the earlier raid must have built up; the boards couldn’t take even that light press of strength.

— From the moment I took your hand, I was aware I’d strayed from the natural order. Why ask now?

“Put it that way and it makes me out to be some kind of demon.”

— I am your sword. Since when does a weapon ask whether or not to cut?

A sword, huh. The declaration laid down all judgment and entrusted everything to Yujin.

— Besides, those are villains who deserve to be punished.

“Said you’d leave the judging to me, then go on about villains.”

Yujin muttered in a flabbergasted tone.

“Hoho. It seems the deliberations are settled — may I expect a favorable answer?”
“MIS-4 mana engine. Don’t forget it.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve secured one of the mana engines first-produced in America.”

Myth Industry Series-4. Myth Industries was the most advanced firm in magic-engineering, and the MIS-4 was the fourth mana-engine series they had built.

Max output is Fifth-Rank-class. It had a mana-overload problem, so it was an item whose value crashed not long after — wasn’t it?

Myth Industries had used the catastrophic failure of its fourth series as a stepping stone, then released an improved version that struck gold. In his past life too, right up until the world ended, the MIS-5 had stayed the model in common use.

I know its structure, roughly.

Right down to the cause of the MIS-4’s overload, and how to fix it. Not that he had any intention of consulting for Myth Industries.

A reclusive genius alchemist against a major American conglomerate: the scales were simply too different. His business partner he could negotiate with, leash, and put to work. But try to cut a deal with a conglomerate that already threw its weight around in the nation ranked first in the world for raw power, even at this point in time, and he would plainly be used one-sidedly.

Power you can’t control is poison.

For now, he would focus on getting the MIS-4 in hand.

His thoughts in order, Yujin parted his lips.

“Throw in 10kg of Arachne’s thread along with the mana engine.”
“That much I’ll do as a service.”
“Good. I’ll take it.”
“Oh, that’s right. From the show of force you put on earlier, you look to be at the tail end of Third Rank — have you, by any chance, broken past the wall?”

A gate that admitted only up to Third Rank. If Yujin’s level stood above that, entry itself would be impossible.

“I’m First Rank, though.”
“Hoho. We’re looking at this as client to fixer now, so do stop joking around.”
“It’s the truth.”

The Madam blinked. Then realization caught up with her.

“Wha—?!”

She gave a violent start, five question marks popping up over her head.

Dusk settled over the concrete grave. The sun that had lit every corner of the world hid itself beneath the horizon.

On a wooded hill not far from Ground Zero, Yujin’s party crouched hidden in the underbrush, eyes on the faintly glowing gate.

“That’s the place, I take it.”

A barbed-wire fence ringed a wide circle around the blue wormhole. Figures with spider tattoos inked on their shoulders, cheeks, or the backs of their hands stood watch.

“All Hunters. Lousy ones, though.”

Yujin fingered his chin. Subduing several dozen at once would be difficult, and if even one were left alive to carry word back to the Red Spider’s main force in Ground Zero, the clearance and everything riding on it would be off.

“Don’t worry.”

The Madam drove a dagger into the ground.

— Wuung!

A brief tremor ran through the earth, and a blue aura spread out from the blade.

A power of a different order from magic or holy spells: Sorcery, ranked among the special profession-categories.

This is the reason the title Moon Shadow was pinned on the Madam.

Sorcery of the Moon. As the name suggested, Madam Oh Hyeonjeong’s Sorcery could only be unleashed once night had fallen. Conditions and all, in raw potency it reached a level beyond Stellar Rank.

In no time the blue current had wound itself clear around the gate.

Kronos let his interest show.

“You can block magic-based skills, but radio waves aren’t the same thing, are they?”
“Don’t worry. The preparations are already complete.”

The bartender stood with his white hair neatly combed back. While the Madam worked her Sorcery, he had set up a long rod.

“Radio-jamming equipment.”
“You’ve a sharp eye, sir.”
“Well, a little.”

Every means of signaling the outside that the gate was under attack had been thoroughly cut off.

“The commission’s a gate clearance, so I’ll open the way for you.”
“No. It’s a problem if even one slips away, so we join forces.”

He laid the holy spells he’d prepared in advance over Fafnir.

— Leave it to me.

Fafnir bolted out to the right.

“Hmm. I’d lose face if I just stood by and watched, too.”

A pair of swords of differing lengths appeared suddenly in the bartender’s hands, so fast that even Yujin, right beside him, never caught the moment the blades cleared their sheaths. The bartender broke for the side opposite Fafnir’s charge and rushed the Red Spider pack.

“M-monster!”
“Over here — it’s the Galaxy’s bartender!”

The Red Spider crew on guard fell into chaos. The men posted at the entrance were all First-Rank-class. Who could have imagined anyone reckless enough to set foot in the territory of the Red Spider, one of Ground Zero’s three great powers?

— In your next life, don’t go dipping your feet in wicked deeds.

— Booom!

A roar went up as if a hand grenade had detonated. In a single instant Fafnir compressed his strength and drove it into the body of a Red Spider Hunter; flesh and blood had no way to withstand such force.

“Take your eyes off this old man and you’ll be in trouble.”

— Slash!

The bartender carved down the Red Spider crew without taking a single drop of blood on his clothes.

“Hurry, contact headquarters!”
“It’s radio interference.”
“The magic tools aren’t working either!”
“What in the world are we supposed to do…”

The Hunters, who had leaned on nothing but the Red Spider’s name, were wiped out in an instant, scarcely putting up a fight. Not one of the gate’s guards remained.

“It won’t take long.”
“I wish you good fortune in battle.”

Yujin stepped through the gate, full of confidence.