GWTM 09

“A new job?”

Sector 49. Jenny’s bar. Renok had been frequenting her workplace for over a dozen times now. The dim, gloomy lobby of the bar was starting to become familiar. Renok, sipping the whiskey Jorden had handed him, echoed Jenny’s words.

“Yes. Van, you’re not planning on coming here just to chase bounties forever, are you? Honestly, if you wanted to be a bounty hunter, there are places with much better conditions than this.”

“Hmm….”

“I know you enjoy this work, but frankly, the payout is limited unless you capture a high-risk criminal with a kill order. Or do you genuinely want to chase after those psychopaths?”

“No, I don’t.”

The worst criminals, who were directly wanted and tracked by the Valcan government, sometimes had massive bounties reaching hundreds of millions of Cell, but that wasn’t Renok’s goal. Criminals capable of committing crimes while evading city-wide pursuit were likely to possess powers that were as difficult and formidable as Renok could imagine. There was nothing to gain from a direct confrontation with such monsters right now.

Seeing Renok show a hint of interest, Jenny immediately continued.

“Of course, I’m not a cruel woman who would force you to stop what you want to do. But if what you told me before is true, you’ll need a significant amount of money to forge a new identity, won’t you?”

“……..”

“With your magic, there are countless jobs where you can earn a large sum of money much more easily. Surely you’re not still dwelling on that nonsense I spouted about testing your ability, are you?”

Renok, who had been listening to Jenny silently, let out an unconscious chuckle. Her skill with words was quite impressive. The maneuver to subtly push Renok into a more expensive job was obvious, but her mix of flattery and provocation didn’t offend him. From her perspective, she would naturally want to handle jobs that would earn her a higher commission.

Eventually, Renok nodded.

“Fine. What job would you like to recommend?”

In fact, she was right. Beyond the 20 million Cell needed to forge an identity, he needed more money to expand his activities into various areas. He couldn’t stay in the cramped hotel room forever, so he’d need to find a place to live, and his efforts to improve his health would also incur costs.

He had been repeating the work in Sector 49 until now to familiarize himself with the surroundings and to avoid drawing attention prematurely. He had to be careful. If Renok let his guard down even slightly and made a mistake, his talent would immediately stand out, and he would attract unwanted attention. While gaining recognition from others was good, that was for after Renok was sufficiently prepared and had the strengthto protect himself. Renok still couldn’t guarantee his own safety in these Sector 40 districts where all sorts of criminals roamed.

At Renok’s words, Jenny’s face brightened, and she smiled broadly.

“Good decision. Do you know how many jobs in this business need a mage? Van, you can just pick and choose.”

She said that and immediately led Renok to the back of the bar. This wasn’t a conversation to have in the open lobby, apparently.

They sat across from each other at a corner table in the large cavity behind the bar, the one Renok had visited when he brought in Taylor Evans’ body. Jenny immediately brought a file folder and pushed it across the table to Renok. It was a report completely different from a wanted poster, with small, tightly packed print. Renok picked it up and quickly read it.

As his eyes scanned the document, Jenny spoke from across the table.

“This is about the Charlotte Corporation’s new cosmetics factory recently completed in Sector 42. There was controversy because 80% of the construction cost was covered by city government subsidies, suggesting collusion, and there’s a lot of talk because of testimonies that the skin lotion to be manufactured at the factory was subjected to mass human experimentation.”

“Human experimentation?”

“Yes. If you look at page 8, you’ll see details that they skinned human faces entirely during the fourth review stage to create the most perfect environment for regenerating dead skin.”

Renok’s brow furrowed as his gaze moved to the page Jenny mentioned. The report contained not only simple text but also very graphic photographic evidence.

“If that’s the case, hasn’t the truth already been revealed? I don’t see what more needs to be done.”

“What are you talking about?” Jenny frowned in response to Renok’s words.

“The truth or whatever, a company like Charlotte Corporation won’t back down from the factory because of photos like this. It’s a project with government subsidies poured into it; do you think they’ll care about a rumor of something shady?”

“……..”

“The ones who planned this job aren’t the city government; it’s the Baritz Corporation. They recently started venturing into the cosmetics business and want to check Charlotte’s expansion into the market.”

Baritz. Even Renok, who hadn’t been in Valcan for long, had heard the company’s name. Products bearing the Baritz brand were ubiquitous in supermarkets and markets, and the familiar wing-shaped logo was even attached to the front and back of cars driving through the streets. They were probably one of the leading octopus-like conglomerates in this megalopolis.

“Baritz put forward two conditions when they circulated requests to agencies like ours. One, to damage the manufacturing factory beyond repair. Two, to secure the production process algorithm data for the lotion they produce. They offered 50 million Cell for the first condition and 300 million Cell for the second.”

The total reward for success was 350 million Cell. An astronomical amount. It was hard to imagine receiving such a high payment for handling just one job. However, Renok easily grasped the meaning hidden between the lines.

“Does that mean the reward can be claimed even if only one of the two is successful?”

“Something like that.”

“……It’s safe to assume that the second condition is virtually impossible to achieve.”

“Exactly. Sharp mind, as expected of a mage.”

The difference in rewards for the two success conditions in one request was excessively large. Considering the difficulty of the job and the gap in the payouts offered by the client, it was likely that breaking the security of the Charlotte Corporation was dozens of times harder than simply destroying the factory.

Jenny shrugged as she took the file folder back from Renok.

“Frankly, stealing the algorithm data is ridiculous. It means infiltrating the factory system management server, breaching Charlotte Corporation’s firewall, and extracting the data. You’d need more than 500 million Cell to hire a hacker or engineer with that level of skill, wouldn’t you? Baritz is just trying a trick to get a hacker to work cheaply.”

“Do hackers get paid that much?”

Even with high competence, the labor cost for those working in cyberspace exceeding 500 million Cell per job was a fresh shock to Renok.

.

The Start of the Job

“It varies greatly depending on skill, but a company like Charlotte Corporation would have poured in top-tier engineers to build their firewall. It’s only natural for a skilled person who can break through such a robust security network and extract data undamaged to be paid hundreds of millions of Cell.”

“I see….” Renok nodded with a serious expression.

Once he seemed to have understood the explanation, Jenny waited for his decision in a relaxed posture. Renok didn’t realize that the questions he was asking were very basic and close to common knowledge, but Jenny patiently explained in detail. This happened because she mistakenly believed Renok was a mage who had been training in seclusion, isolated from the modern world. Mages who practice very old, orthodox magic often dedicate themselves to training in remote areas rather than relying on modern civilization, and Jenny and Jorden assumed Renok was one of them. Especially since Elemental Mages often don’t even appear in their schools until they reach a certain stage, it wasn’t surprising that Jenny and Jorden made that mistake.

After careful consideration, Renok slowly nodded.

“Okay. Destroying the factory should be possible.”

He had been momentarily mistaken while catching fugitives, but the work he was doing was not about being a righteous crusader eliminating heinous criminals. It was simply about securing his own share in a world of corporations and criminals where profit and resentment were exchanged. The choice of whether to maintain his morality and values in the midst of it was entirely up to Renok.

Jenny grinned at Renok’s acceptance. “Then, since we’ve roughly agreed, let me introduce the partner who will work with you on this job.”

“What?”

“Come in!”

With that, the side door behind the cavity opened, and someone entered. He was a man with a muscular, trained body, visible even though he was covered in a thick leather jacket. Wearing an inexplicable wrestler-like mask over his face, he had various pieces of metal dangling from his back.

Jenny casually introduced the man to Renok. “This is Dylan O’Casey. He’s a mercenary from the Antares Office. A very cheap man who gets called in to work all over the place.”

“Jenny, what is my new partner going to think of me if you talk like that on our first meeting?”

“I don’t know. A psychopath wearing a wrestler mask?”

“Hahaha!”

Despite Jenny’s icy remark, Dylan burst into loud laughter, approached Renok, and offered a handshake.

“Dylan O’Casey. Mercenary. Your partner for this job. So, you’re a mage, huh?”

Renok reluctantly shook his hand and replied. “….I’m Van. I use Electric-type magic. But what do you mean by ‘partner’?”

“Exactly that. It seemed like too much work to handle alone, so I was looking for another person.”

“This annoying woman said it couldn’t be done alone. She said she might hook one today, so I was waiting.”

“……..”

The atmosphere briefly turned cold at Dylan’s utterly unreserved words, but Renok calmly brushed it off.

“Next time, I’d appreciate it if you told me which partner would be waiting for me.”

“…..I’ll keep that in mind.”

Renok wasn’t overly displeased about the unexpected partner. The work he was doing was comparable to finding jobs at a labor agency. It wasn’t entirely surprising that he wouldn’t know what job he’d be doing that day or who he’d be working with on-site. If a partner seemed like they would be a hindrance, he could simply cut them loose. It was a place where it wouldn’t be strange at all if Dylan were thinking the same thing.

“So, will the 50 million Cell success fee be cleanly split 50/50 between the two of us?”

Dylan scratched his mask at Renok’s question. “You’ll have to take out this woman’s commission, won’t you?”

Jenny quickly interjected. “I didn’t tell you, Van, that you’d have a partner, so I won’t take a commission this time. Jobs directly commissioned by Baritz don’t come around often, so I was a bit hasty. I apologize.”

Dylan whistled silently. Renok narrowed his eyes at her decision to cleanly give up a not-insignificant 10% commission and back down. Make a mistake, and quickly rectify it on the spot. While it was a desirable way to handle things, Renok didn’t fully believe she made the mistake by accident. She was likely testing Renok’s reaction this way, seeing how far she could push the boundaries. If Renok had gotten angry and raised his Mana here, she might never have even mentioned the word ‘partner’ in such a job again.

In a way, Renok let Jenny maintain her current attitude, but it wasn’t a bad thing. Maintaining a certain level of goodwill and a moderate relationship wouldn’t be a long-term loss for him. This was especially true for Renok, who planned to rely on this method for funding for the time being. If she truly crossed the line, it wouldn’t be too late to deal with it then. The initiative in this relationship was already slowly shifting toward Renok.

Unaware of Renok’s thoughts, Jenny clapped her hands together and changed the subject.

“Right, then let’s take a look at the factory blueprint in Sector 42.”