004: Running in the Shadows of the Metropolis

"A 'credit card' is actually a form of debt?!"

After breakfast, Hayden finally explained to the artificial idiot what kind of money she had spent the night before.

"This one begs for your forgiveness, Master! I was under the impression I was utilizing your existing funds. Had I known it was a matter of debt, I would never have been so presumptuous!"

After hearing Hayden's explanation and understanding that using a credit card was, in fact, borrowing money, Angela was finally shocked, even looking flustered for the first time.

"So this 'credit card' is a pact of debt with a bank? Forgive my ignorance, I believed a bank was merely a fortified vault for safekeeping gold coins, which charged a fee for its protection..."

I used all the money I had in my vault to build you.

Hayden didn't say that out loud. He just asked, somewhat curiously, "So if it was money I already had, you could spend it as you please?"

Angela replied immediately, "If the expenditure serves to enhance the Master's strength and well-being, then it is a worthy and proper use of coin."

Her concept of money and banks was certainly... interesting.

"However, incurring a debt is a far graver matter than a simple transaction. As I have placed this burden upon you, it is my solemn duty to see it repaid!"

However, Angela's attitude towards debt seemed extremely serious. She was now getting worked up, clenching her small, white fists.

"Master, I implore you, grant me permission to labor in your name and earn the necessary funds!"

Hayden, however, retorted, "And you have any idea what kind of work actually pays the bills around here?"

Angela thought for a moment and replied, "This one understands that one may earn coin by tilling the soil and sowing seeds, bringing forth a harvest for sale. It is also known that one can tend to flocks and herds, offering their milk, fleece, and meat in the market. Furthermore, crafting fine works of art from the earth's bounty—be it metal, wood, or stone—is another honorable way to secure an income."

Honestly, the more he listened to her, the more Hayden wondered where this AI had come from. What era was she talking about? Unfortunately, even if he asked her, Angela herself didn't know the answer. She didn't even seem to care where she came from.

"That's... a very old-school way of looking at it. Things don't really work like that anymore, kid."

So Hayden decided to put those questions aside for now and deal with the immediate problem of the bill.

"There are no more farmers who till their own fields, nor are there shepherds who graze their own flocks. There are still artisans, but most of them are just exploited by corporations."

Angela still didn't fully understand what he was saying, a look of cute confusion on her face.

It seemed Hayden needed to teach her how the world worked.

"Alright, Angela. Lesson one in city survival. I'll show you how I make a living, and you're going to help me earn back every last coin you spent before this month is over."

Hayden took out his phone, tapped it a few times, and selected a video call. A few seconds later, the phone projected a three-dimensional image of a dwarf with brown skin, grinning from ear to ear. He was dressed head to toe in denim, with a sleeveless jacket, and even had a magical tattoo on his bicep that read "I ♥ Violence." It was incredibly tacky.

"Ahaha! Look who it is! Hayden, you old son-of-a-gun, been a minute!"

The image of the dwarf cowboy spread his arms wide, putting on a friendly face.

"How've you been lately?"

"Not so great, Boss," Hayden replied, with a slight smile of his own. "I'm in a jam. Need a gig that pays out before the end of the month. Got anything good on the wire?"

The dwarf, named Todak, spread his hands. "You bet your boots I do! Amigo, you're the best lone wolf in the Bay District. Lately, all I've had are small-time punks who get scared at the sight of a knife. How could I not have saved a good job for you?"

But in reality, the job he had saved for Hayden wasn't very good at all.

The sky over the port was the color of a blank television screen.

It was raining again in New Atlas today.

Alchemical acid rain returned the pollutants concentrated in the clouds to the earth, making the streets even filthier.

The districts of the elites had their own custom weather services. As long as they paid, the corporations could give them three hundred and sixty-five days of sunshine a year—or any weather they wanted.

So the toxic acid rain naturally ended up elsewhere. In the slums, for example, or the wastelands outside the city. That's why the poor of New Atlas were almost always getting rained on, and also had to endure the shivering westerly winds from the Pacific. In this kind of weather, few people wanted to be outside unless they had to make a living.

In a corner of the Bay District, outside a dilapidated, low-rent apartment building, stood such an orc. He was clad entirely in synth-leather, with broad shoulders and no visible neck, and a tungsten-alloy battle-ax resting within arm's reach. Though it looked barbaric and primitive, an arcanum-enhanced melee weapon in the right hands was actually more deadly than half-assed magic.

Overall, this street orc enforcer was big, green, and looked very dangerous. Which was good. A bouncer's first job was to look more intimidating than the door next to him.

"Hey, Green-skin!" Hayden shouted at him from five meters away. "Is your daddy home—oh, sorry, do you have a daddy?"

The orc froze for only half a second. But before he could grab his battle-ax, Hayden had already extended his right hand, releasing the stored magic in the ring on his index finger.

He made a gun gesture with his hand and shouted, "Bang!"

A searing pillar of fire shot from his fingertip, hitting the orc bouncer right in the nose. The flames exploded, and the pain and impact sent the orc off balance. Hayden seized the opportunity to rush forward, his steel-toed boot connecting squarely with the orc's groin. The bouncer went down with a grunt. Even an orc's tough hide couldn't withstand such an inhuman attack.

On the other hand, Hayden was secretly surprised. He had only eaten one breakfast made by Angela, and he already felt like his body was completely different. He could feel his reactions were sharper, his speed faster, and even the motion of kicking the orc's balls was smoother than before. Was it the effect of those high-end ingredients? Or was it some special power Angela possessed?

Just to be safe, Hayden bent down, picked up the tungsten-alloy battle-ax, and brought the pommel down hard on the back of the orc's head, making sure he was unconscious before tossing the ax to Angela, who was following behind him.

"Is it the Master's wish that I employ this tool to chop people?" Angela asked curiously, brandishing the ten-kilogram battle-ax as if it weighed nothing.

"That works too. But the main point is that this thing could probably sell for two hundred bucks."

Hayden finished, then deliberately looked up at the invisible magic eye on the top of the door.

"Little pig, little pig, let me in. I'm the big bad wolf."

The door didn't open, of course. But Hayden knew that a few rooms away, a large group of orcs were running around, complaining loudly and cursing. Hayden knew these orcs must have recognized him. They thought they were safe behind the door and were trying to stall for time because they were scared.

Because breaking in and beating them up was Hayden's job.

If you were in trouble and didn't want to get the police involved; if you wanted to find a mysteriously vanished shipment, or make someone else's shipment disappear; if someone knew too much about you, had chosen the wrong company to work with, or had suddenly become useless to you. In times like these, you needed to hire a professional.

You needed an urban mercenary.

And this was the freelance profession Hayden had chosen after graduating from college and quitting his corporate job.

This was true "freelancing." Someone like Hayden, who sometimes liked to show off his knowledge, would proudly say that the etymology of the word "freelance" referred to the independent, individual mercenaries of medieval Europe who didn't belong to any mercenary company. So being a mercenary was, in fact, the oldest "freelance" profession.

That being said, the times had changed. Modern mercenaries no longer swung greatswords against spear formations on a battlefield or charged at militia on horseback with lances. Though traditional military contractors still existed, the place where modern people needed mercenaries the most was the city, and the type they needed most were the completely anonymous urban mercenaries who left no trace of their employment and didn't go through official channels.

They were the ones who took on illegal contracts, running wild in the shadows of the scheming metropolis.

They belonged to no organization, had no power to protect them, and relied solely on their own skills and knowledge to make a living. It was very free—so free it was frightening.

This was the profession Hayden had chosen.

That's right. Switching to a corporate drone job might let him live longer. But you had to ask yourself, what kind of life was that, really?

After dealing with the orc bouncer, Hayden took another look at the door in front of him. It was thick, heavy, and reinforced against explosions and anti-magic, with an aura detector that would only open when it read the stable aura of an authorized orc. The orc who had spent a fortune installing this door must have thought he was very clever. Even Hayden would have a hard time breaking down such a high-end door.

So Hayden gave a cold smirk and used a spell to blow up the concrete wall of the dilapidated apartment building next to the door.

This move wouldn't harm the orcs on the other side of the wall. But Hayden still wanted to do it. After all, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

"Confringo!"

After the wall was blown open, Hayden pointed into the room and chanted a second spell. Mana shot out like a cannonball, hitting the wall, and suddenly the entire room was filled with sharp, tiny explosions and the powder of shattered glass. A group of skin-and-bones figures scattered and fled within the room.

These spells were enough to temporarily drag every addict back to reality. They screamed and shrieked, cowering and scrambling to hide under tables. They were all dressed in rags or cheap clothes, most with bloodshot eyes from their addiction. Several had festering skin, many had chapped lips and bitten nails. Six, eight, ten of them, all with blackened teeth and covered in filth, emaciated from malnutrition.

"...Oh my?"

Seeing them, Angela blinked.

"Master, what manner of strange enchantment are these individuals under?"

Hayden nodded, his reply short. "Dream-Chips. They're dreaming."

A fool, with a chip attached, sits there with his eyes closed, tasting fake food, stroking fake women, casting fake spells, living a fake life, living in a dream. It's not safe.

The real world belongs only to those on high. But in a dream, you can be anyone. A CEO managing trillions in assets, an invincible warrior blasting enemies with all sorts of magic and equipment, a superstar adored by the whole world... So this stuff is highly addictive, and addiction makes people abandon reality twenty-four hours a day to chase the dream.

Dream-Chips were that dangerous.

Even in this goddamned American Federation where smoking weed was legal, the production, transport, and sale of Dream-Chips was still strictly prohibited. But it was, indeed, a lucrative business.

"Hmm... This won't do. It's too crude. It's not true happiness."

Angela stared at the panicked addicts, her emerald eyes adjusting their focus several times, as if analyzing something.

But no one else in the room cared what this girl was muttering to herself.

At a table in the back of the dilapidated apartment room, a particularly large, particularly green street orc boss, with half his body replaced by mechanical prosthetics, was staring at the doorway with furious eyes, glaring at Hayden.

"Hayden! You're fucking dead—"

Another orc punk jumped up to welcome Hayden. His phone let out a loud pop, shooting two lightning bolts towards Hayden's chest. So Hayden raised his hand, focusing his will on the runic bracelet on his left wrist to deploy a shield—but the lightning bolts never hit it.

Angela, who had been deep in thought just a second ago, suddenly appeared in front of Hayden, swinging the battle-ax in her hand at a speed that even a ninja's dynamic vision couldn't follow. The two lightning bolts were deflected by Angela with a thwack-thwack, hitting the orc punk in the head and knocking him to the ground.

"Not bad."

Hayden praised her out loud, but was secretly shocked. He could also easily deflect such shoddy spells cast from a phone app, but to reflect them precisely back into someone's face? This wasn't an action movie.

"Please do not trouble yourself, Master. Attend to your objective. This one shall handle any... disturbances."

Angela swung the ax, looking as if she wasn't very skilled with it. The way she swung it didn't look like she was wielding a weapon at all; it was more like she was weeding or chopping wood. But when another orc punk rushed at her with a large knife, she chopped off the orc's arm with one swing of the ax, as neatly as if she were chopping vegetables in a kitchen.

While the other orc punks were stunned by Angela's "chopping people like vegetables" display, Hayden shouted loudly, "Listen up! I'm just here to bust up the place! No one else has to die here! If you want to live, raise your hands and get out now!"

So the junkies, who had spent all their money on Dream-Chips, immediately pushed and shoved, climbing over the orc punk's body to escape. In the chaotic flight, some clever ones grabbed the orc's phone, another took his belt, and someone else ran off with the orc's boots.

Considering his current financial situation, Hayden was actually a little tempted to loot these orc punks himself, but... ah, forget it. He didn't need to stoop to robbing people more miserable than himself.

But seeing this scene, seeing his underlings cowering, the half-mechanized orc boss could finally sit still no longer.

"Fuck you! Hayden! Who gave you the balls to waltz into my turf?!"

He cursed, a large blade popping out from his mechanical prosthetic as he charged forward like a whirlwind.

Hayden immediately raised his hand to aim, but Angela's movements were even faster. She reached out a slender arm from behind Hayden and caught the orc's swinging blade. With a creak, the blade was bent to a ninety-degree angle. Her hand was unharmed.

"This? Huh? What?!"

The orc boss was stunned.

Angela's body was only 158 centimeters tall, and she looked fair and delicate, her slender limbs wrapped in a dress that looked like a wedding gown. And yet, a two-meter-tall cyber-enhanced brute had just swung a blade at this girl, and his own blade had been ruined first?

Unfortunately for him, Angela wasn't stunned. Her body's mechanisms whirred as she began to apply force with the hand holding the blade. The orc boss frantically resisted with his modified mechanical prosthetic, but he felt as if he were futilely resisting a train slowly bearing down on him. His own mechanical hand began to creak and crack, revealing broken wires.

In desperation, the orc boss turned his face towards Angela and opened his mouth, revealing the muzzle of a magic-bullet-firing gun!

The scene was so bizarre it made you question who the real robot was.

Angela didn't know any martial arts moves. So she reached out her other hand and, with a simple, unadorned push, shoved the orc boss in the face. Her movement was faster than the magic bullet leaving the barrel, and her strength was greater than a locomotive's. With a dull thud, the two-hundred-plus-kg orc boss was sent flying, crashing through the wall and getting stuck in a large hole on the other side of the next room.

A miraculous silence suddenly filled the surroundings. The few orc punks who had been about to charge with their boss were all dumbfounded, at a loss for what to do.

"Fuck!"

It was the orc boss himself, his face half-smashed, who finally broke the silence. The other half of his head was beaded with sweat from fear.

"Hayden! Since when did you stop flying solo?! What kinda freak juices themselves up on chrome like that just to be your muscle?!"