079. If a katana 't break through armor, who exactly is it meant to cut?

  【Yered a side quest—《Teach the Cowards a Lesson》】

  【Type】: bat

  【Duration】: 1 Natural Day

  【Difficulty】: D

  【Description】:

  "A bunch of cowards left me to almost get beaten to death. Beat them up."

  Three friends abandoned you out of fear, betraying your past friendship pletely. This is something you ot tolerate. Use your strength to teach them a lesson, or simply kill them and make a name for yourself.

  【pletion Criteria】:

  A. 《Rule by Force》—Use physical means to beat Rito, Jiro, and Seinosuke until they submit to you.

  Reward: 200 experience, Rito, Jiro, and Seinosuke will bee your ckeys.

  B. 《The Traitor's End》—Kill them.

  Reward: Random (Based on mission rating; the higher the rating, the better the final reward.)

  ——————————

  “A quest already? Alright, let’s do this.”

  Caramel Snail staggered toward his targets. This quest could give him 200 experience, enough to level up his 【Street Kid】 profession. Meanwhile, everything around him felt strange and new.

  Tianhuan was a bizarre try. Neon lights flickered everywhere, and hover cars zipped by, but people still wore oversized robes, bowing their heads and stantly saying, "Hai hai, arigato."

  Part futuristic, part retro.

  Uhe artificial sun’s glow, they crawled like ants. Metal spikes piled up he subway station's vents to prevent homeless people from sleeping there. The cold sunlight cast a gray filter over the world, yet in the distahe Hojo Group building romantically projected a holographic sakura blossom rain onto the streets. But if you reached out to catch the eleic petals, all you would see in your cyberic eye was shattered fragments of nothingness.

  People's eyes couldn’t keep up with the speed of hover cars, yet their wallets emptied faster thahe people oreets walked in a daze, hurriedly moving along without a shred of hope for life.

  Bleakness was the perfect description of Nuliang City, Tianhuan’s rgest industrial metropolis.

  Like all pure industrial cities, Nuliang City had terrible w and order. The tra poputioed an unstable social enviro, with mines, factories, and urbanized districts everywhere. Workers became addicted to the industrial eai, uo hold onto their earnings. Workers from all over would fangs and anizations, initially to protect themselves. But the power of these anizations grew, and over time, Nuliang City became a dark city rife with gangs and evil.

  Did the Tianhuan gover not care? Acc to Saga Ki’s audio diary, he anxiously stated, "(The Tianhuan gover) better not get involved. For the sake of cost, all these tasks are outsourced to the major pahe Samurai of the s will filter the ey like a sieve, leaving only the obedient civilians. The corporations will throw students into the mines, shove wanderers into factories, and make them work day and night until they die. Even their ans will be harvested afterward and offered to the pany's executives as ‘corporate bes’ to ence workers to work overtime."

  Everywhere oreet, juumbled like zombies, their mouths drooping, eyes hollow, limbs twitg strangely—making Caramel Snail deeply uneasy.

  Even though he was in a civilized city, Caramel Snail felt a chill run through him.

  To escape the terrifying atmosphere, he pulled up his hood, plugged in his headphones, and randomly tuned into the news broadcast:

  “Good m, good m, good m~ People of Nuliang City! Wele to today’s news from the Red Squad. I’m your stinky old bro, Kim Jaesik.”

  “Did you sleep well st night? Of course, you did! You had to! You weren’t allowed not to! You had to kneel and cp while doing it! In the grand and glorious Tianhuan Empire, His Majesty the Ring King doesn’t allow ao be unhappy!”

  The host, with a uianhuan at, said sarcastically:

  "Last night, the Hojo Group released a new ‘Koi’ series smart submae gun. It fires 300 rounds per minute and automatically targets gaps in armor—but guess what? What does that have to do with you? Its 3,000-zhu price tag is so high that even shooting you peasants wouldn’t be worth it. It’s a rich man’s toy, but don’t worry—in the world of smart ons, Tianhuan has won!”

  “The annual Kowloon Gathering is ing up again. The Hojo family, the Inawashiro family, the Inoue family, the Ishite family, and 17 other major s will gather in the capital, Jionankyo, to worship the a dragon god and showcase the divine ons crafted by tens of thousands of craftsmen this year. The Grand Onmyoji will draw dragon blood, anointing the best ons with dragon energy—but, then again, katanas ’t break through nanotech armor, so who do you think these swords are meant to cut?”

  “Retly, the anti-rotest anized by the Red Squad was fully suppressed, and the leader of the riot, ‘Greatwo Night Song,’ was arrested—how wonderful! So, opposing the invasion of the Huameida Archipego is a crime? If, one day, the Red Arrow Empire invades Jionankyo uhe guise of ‘rec lost territory,’ are the anti-war students protesting in Red Arrow’s capital also criminals?”

  “Last Wednesday, the Red Squad suffered severe blows from Tianhuan’s military gover and groups, and 200 brave warriors were brutally killed. Prime Minister Park Jung-sun even decred that the Red Squad is a terrifying anti-human anization. But what did the Red Squad do? They robbed wealth from the s and gave it to the poor! Oh, how terribly anti-human!”

  “rades, the Red Squad will keep fighting! As long as the evil military regime and rule tinue, as long as the Samurai remain loyal to the deg Ring King, the Red Squad’s battle will op! All hail the great ‘Bight’ Greatwo Night Song!”

  A pedestrian brushed past Caramel Snail, suddenly bumping into his chest. The man grabbed the earphone cord and tried to snatch his terminal, preparing to flee.

  “You son of a—!”

  Furious, Caramel Snail clutched the terminal in his pocket, causing the earphone cord to go taut. The robber stumbled, and Caramel Snail immediately pounced on him, trying to snatch back the earphone cord.

  Realizing he was losing, the robber preteo shield his head, but uedly, he pulled out a switchbde and lunged for Caramel Snail’s throat.

  “Shit!”

  Instinctively, Caramel Snail flinched but then remembered this was a game. He balled his fist and puhe guy in the nose.

  Maybe it was the slight bat awareness 【Street Kid】 had given him, or maybe it was all the pent-up anger he’d been holding siering the game, but Caramel Snail’s punch was fast and hard, breaking the guy’s h a solid hit.

  Hiss—

  Fortunately, the knife was blocked by his colr and didn’t ght through. It only left a small cut on his neck. Caramel Snail hadn’t adjusted the paiings yet, and this angered him further. He instinctively elbowed the guy’s wrist, letting the kab into his body while grabbing the guy’s throat and smming his fist into his fad throat three times. He then grabbed his terminal and smashed it into the guy’s temple.

  The knife-wielding robber, who had been so aggressive moments ago, colpsed to the ground, lifeless, covered in blood, with one of his eyeballs caved in.

  【You killed lv1. 'High School Dropout Han Zihao'—Overall damage tribution: 100%, earned experience: 25 points】

  “Huh?”

  Caramel Snail stopped pung, looking fused.

  “Did he... die?”

  Only then did he realize that the robber he had beaten to death still had a yer of soft peach fuzz on his face—he was young, barely out of childhood, and his frame was thin.

  I... killed a kid?

  A high school student, not even an adult yet. He attacked me, but I didn’t have to kill him. He died because of me—I beat him to death...

  Despite knowing this was just a game, Caramel Snail felt deeply unfortable. Seeing the bruised and bloodied face, the caved-in eyeball, and smelling the fresh blood lingering on his hands—Caramel Snail suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to vomit.

  "Ugh—this is disgusting..."

  Saying this, he quickly added the 25 experience points he had just gaio 【Street Kid】, then picked up the switchbde the uy had dropped. After looting the body, finding 400 zhu in s, he fled the se as fast as he could.

  —Realistic as it was, guilt was still guilt. But when he remembered that the uy had almost killed him, the sense of guilt quickly dimio almost nothing.

  If he had been prepared to kill, he should have been prepared to be killed iurn.

  Tianhuan's police force was notoriously unitted. Or rather, in Tianhuahs just weren't sidered a big deal. On average, 70,000 people died each year from gun violence. Ordinary disputes and cases of excessive self-defehe police couldn't care less. If you mao escape without getting caught, good for you.

  Caramel Snail ran for quite a while, notig that no police cars had been dispatched. He marveled at Tianhuan’s police force's bewildering dedication to their jobs, all while cheg his wounds.

  Not too bad. That high school kid probably haden in a while; although he’d stabbed Caramel Snail several times, none of the wounds were fatal. The cuts barely reached the subeous fat. Caramel Snail bought some high-proof alcohol from a street vending mae, poured it over his wounds to disihem, ed them in cloth strips, and stopped w about it.

  【Street Kid】 gave him a very basic starting skill—【Brawling】: Allows for crude strikes against enemies and increases the ces of instinctual dodging and blog.

  Other than that, the 19-year-old 'Saga Ki' had det physical stats: 【Strength】 at 6, 【Dexterity】 and 【stitution】 both at 6, and 【Willpower】 at 5, which was typical for a normal person. As for 【Charisma】, it was a little pitiful—thanks to 【Street Kid】's i scruffy aura, his 【Charisma】 was only at 3.

  Luckily, he didn’t need 【Charisma】 right now.

  Just as Caramel Snail hurried along and was about to reach the run-doartment building that was his target, he suddenly heard a faint sound in the alley.

  Thud.

  A very soft noise, like a piece of jelly hitting the ground, with only a bit of dust stirred up.

  If he hadn’t been so close, he probably wouldn’t have noticed such a subtle sound.

  What could that be? A corpse? Or something else—

  For some reason, maybe because he had just killed someone, Caramel Snail was on edge. Instinctively, he sought cover by pressing against a wall, cautiously leaning over to peer into the alley.

  The dark alley was empty, except for a calico cat standing on a trash , its fur bristling, back arched, baring its teeth and hissing:

  "Waaaah—meow!!!"

  It was the sharpest sound Caramel Snail had ever heard in his life. The harsh resonance made his heart unfortable, his skin crawling with goosebumps—but the most uling part was that he noticed the cat wasn’t hissing at him.

  Its gaze kept shifting, as if it were watg an invisible figure sloroach, cirg around him. Suddenly, the cat’s eyes froze, fixed on a point just behind his shoulder.

  Caramel Snail's pupils tracted. He had a vague sehat something was there and froze in pce, uo move a muscle.

  "Yo."

  FAL