Chapter 685: I Changed Jobs (1)
[Black bird emblem, you say? Mister Han, those bastards are vicious. Among the Guinders they’re mid–tier, but they’re tough.]
Guinders were basically this world’s mafia. They extorted “protection fees,” smuggled, picked fights – that kind of trash.
[I’ve had those punks shake me down for toll money too. Their main turf is Ganaden in the eastern part of the city.]
[Yes, Mister Han. The Guinders? The cops are trying to root them out, sure. But that’s easier said than done. The harbor and the eastern and northern edges are pretty much lawless zones.]
[The government doesn’t care no matter how many of them die off. They’ve washed their hands of it. I’d love it if someone wiped them out clean.]
The auction house probably knew about Yujin Freight’s failure right away thanks to the dice system, but the other clients and folks in the transport business didn’t. I called up everyone I was still on good terms with and dug up all the info I could on the punks who robbed us.
“There won’t be any problem if we stomp them flat!”
As soon as the words left my mouth, Yuhyun climbed up onto the cab roof of the truck. The fork flashed and shot toward the thugs so far away my eyes couldn’t even make them out.
Screee!
A mafia balloon took the fork to the back of the head and toppled; the bike it had been riding scraped along the ground with an awful screech. The balloon doll’s head shriveled like it was deflating, then its whole body melted away and vanished.
“What the hell!”
“Send the truck ahead and block the rear!”
They were pretty organized. Yuhyun dropped back down into the cargo bed and said,
“They’re tougher than I thought. Even more durable than normal humans.”
Ri– right, hey, have you actually stuck a fork into an ordinary human before, Yuhyun? No way, right. He’s probably just guessing from how often he’s handled my pathetic F–rank body.
“Mister, over here!”
Yerim, standing with one foot on the side of the truck, shouted.
“Three bikes in the lead! Two cars following behind!”
“Mister Noah, ram the bikes!”
This truck was solid. Regular motorcycles weren’t even a tickle. Noah, behind the wheel, simply stepped on the gas.
Bang! One bike that couldn’t dodge in time was launched into the air with a loud crash. The other two swerved side by side to the flanks and aimed their guns at us in the back. Before I knew it, Yuhyun had thrown on his ceremonial coat and stepped in front of me, spreading its hem wide with a flap.
Bang! Bang! Gunshots rang out in succession, but ordinary bullets had no chance of piercing an SS–rank item or an S–rank arm. After blocking the bullets, Yuhyun immediately crouched. I used my little brother’s back as a gun rest and pulled the rifle’s trigger.
Crack! The round flew out and punched through a balloon doll’s head. Instead of blood, there was a faint hiss of air escaping, and in an instant only the bike was left behind as it vanished. Right after, I nailed another one in the chest. Once my stance was stable, my hit rate was pretty good.
“Like I said earlier, be careful with non–combat skills too! We might get penalized! Same goes for items!”
These balloons were technically ordinary people, not fellow awakened. We needed to avoid anything the system could nitpick. It was safer not to use skills or items directly on the balloon dolls whenever we attacked them.
“Bare hands are fine though, right?”
Liette, who’d been in the passenger seat, yanked the door open. The mafia balloons leaning out through the open car roofs raked us with gunfire. But the truck’s bulletproof windows didn’t get so much as a scratch. Liette grabbed the top of the door and sprang lightly into the air. She spun in a neat swallow–turn, ignoring the bullets whizzing past her, and dove straight onto the mafia’s car.
Thud!
“Cuckoo!”
Liette let out this random cuckoo clock sound and flashed a bright grin. The mafia balloon flinched and tried to aim, but her fist was faster. Pop! The balloon burst, and her second punch hammered the car roof. The metal crumpled like paper and collapsed down into the driver’s seat. Screee– The driverless car lurched drunkenly from side to side, then slammed into the guardrail.
While Liette was crumpling one car, Yerim grabbed a gun too. She’d fired a few times before, so her form was looking pretty decent now. Her shots hit the car dead–on, but the problem was that the enemy vehicle was armored too.
“It’d be better to just throw the fork at the car!”
“I’ll just shove the car away with the truck.”
A calm voice came from the driver’s seat. Noah coolly yanked the steering wheel. The truck plowed straight into the relatively smaller car, and while it was jolted to a stop, Yerim leaped in.
“In the movies bullets stick into the cars just fine!”
Instead of bullets, Yerim’s fist punched a hole in the roof. Then she shoved the muzzle into the hole and fired. I heard the rapid pops of balloons bursting and vanishing one after another.
‘Thank god they’re balloon dolls.’
If they were normal people, there’s no way I could have brought Yerim along to do this. Was the newbie system actually being considerate for once? Honestly, the fact that this so–called job game involved bullets flying everywhere was the real problem, but I’d been trying to live a proper, steady life here.
“Loot~!”
Liette, who had ripped the car to shreds, held up the weapons the mafia balloons had been carrying. Yerim came back with a bunch of guns and knives too.
“The shapes are unfamiliar, but I get the basic principles. So, honey, are we gonna rob this whole city now?”
“We are gonna wipe out the mafia, but hold back on looting the entire city for now.”
I mean, it might be virtual, but where exactly was she planning to stop? Liette had apparently lived like this in reality too. I’d heard it wasn’t just one or two guilds she’d plundered.
I straightened up and looked up at the sky. The sun was high overhead. Still a little early for fireworks.
“Let’s go. East.”
Before that.
“After lunch. Mister Noah, bring the lunchboxes and come around to the back.”
We’d already opened up a good distance, so we might as well head straight to their base. We sat in a circle in the truck bed and opened the lunchboxes I’d packed early that morning. I’d mostly used ingredients I’d gotten from a market stall that supplied Hyunjae’s restaurant. They said the stuff wasn’t fit for sale, but thanks to a certain someone who only picked out top–shelf goods to begin with, it was actually better than anything from a regular supermarket. The issues were things like crab legs being a bit too plentiful or the color being a little off. High–end restaurants really did care about appearance that much.
It was a shame; hanging around the market like this was great. If I’d had a little more time to show my face, I could’ve scored freebies or serious discounts even from shops we didn’t usually deal with. This was all the mafia’s fault. They could pay us back every cent of our food costs.
The eastern edge of the city looked like a warzone. The sinking sun painted the sky red, and barricades were blooming down the street like flowers. You’d think the sun shouldn’t be setting when we’d left right after lunch, but the distance was pretty far, we’d squeezed in some shopping time, and, honestly, we’d gotten lost the most. Once we got out of downtown, the roads got complicated. We hit so many one–way dead ends that at one point we literally picked up the truck and moved it.
Anyway, we made it in one piece, and in the meantime the Black Bird Guinders had finished preparing for war. The goons they’d sent to stop us had stopped reporting in, after all.
“Wow, those buildings look flimsy, but they’ve reinforced everything with dirt, stone, and steel plates. They even dug trenches.”
It was honestly amazing that downtown could stay so peaceful with a hellhole like this attached to it. Maybe they were barely holding some kind of balance. Then again, our own world has neighborhoods that are polar opposites too.
“Pongpong, you stay here with your seat belt on, okay?”
Maybe I should’ve swung by home and dropped them off.
Over there beyond the barricade, a mafia doll that had been watching us grabbed a megaphone and yelled.
“Only five of you, picking a fight with us? Your heads must be screwed onto your backs!”
Mm, in our terms, that was basically calling us crazy gutsy.
Yuhyun pulled out a pair of sickles from the truck bed. He buckled on a tool belt lined with thick nails around his waist. The others dug out their own tool belts packed with whatever fit their tastes, some wearing two or three cross–strapped in an X. Yerim had ammo belts instead of tools. She held a big rifle in each hand like they were pistols and had another slung across her back.
“I love busting pinatas~.”
Liette laughed as she hammered nails in backwards along a club that looked like a baseball bat. Next to her, Noah was attaching a thick chain to a hunk of metal shaped like an anvil. Drops of poison fell from the tips of Noah’s claws, melting a hole right through the center of the metal. A DIY morning star, basically.
“Everyone ready?”
I asked as I put my foot on the kickboard. I activated my Teacher skill and pulled a grenade launcher out of Myungwoo’s pouch tucked inside my jacket.
Here we go, folks~.
Thunk! The fired grenade arced across the sunset sky. One felt lonely, so I fired a few more in succession. And soon enough—
Boom! Ka–boom! Fireworks started exploding. The balloons freaked out and stared at me like I was insane.
“Hello, this is Yujin Freight~!”
I mean, I’d basically quit already, but delivery was delivery, even if it was bombs.
Yuhyun hopped on behind me. Liette was the first to kick off the ground. I leaned my back against Yuhyun’s chest and pulled out an assault rifle. The kickboard picked up speed like crazy.
“Fast and accurate! We’re ditching the safety part!”
Express delivery, straight to your head. I never thought I’d be riding a scooter and shooting a gun, but Yuhyun absorbed all the recoil, so I could empty bullets without a care.
“Hand over the candy~.”
Liette’s bat split the barricade. Her toe flicked the crumpled metal plate up with a tap, then she took a full swing and smashed it away. The flying plate loudly popped the mafia balloons one after another.
“Ow, that stings!”
Yerim, hit by the rain of bullets, grumbled and fired back. A round hit dead–center in her forehead, but she just winced slightly, turned the muzzle toward the balloon that had fired, and the horrified mafia balloon popped with a bang.
Beside her, Noah dragged his hunk of metal across the ground with a grinding screech. He approached the building the mafia were hiding in and sniping from with a blank expression, then stomped hard on the ground with a heavy crunch. His arm swung way back to shoulder height and then whoosh– the hunk of metal, as big as a couple of heads put together, slammed into the building.
“Aagh!”
“Gah!”
The walls shook and crumbled like there’d been an earthquake. Then—bang, bang, boom! He started demolishing the building like a wrecking crane with a giant hammer head.
“W– what the hell!”
“It’s a monster!”
That was a bit much. I mean, I got it, but still.
At the balloons flailing around, trying somehow to fight back even while in chaos, Yuhyun flung his hand, each of his five fingers bristling with nails. Every time his hand swept through the air, four balloon dolls burst, exactly.
“They’re still on foot! Run them over with the cars!”
The vans and small trucks that had been waiting behind the barricades and trenches started to move. There was even a bulldozer mixed in. The ground was too uneven for them to pick up much speed, but they were still threatening enough—if we were non–awakened, anyway.
Grind, grind. The bulldozer coming toward us lifted its massive blade high.
“Hold up a sec, bro.”
Yuhyun suddenly slowed down and handed the kickboard over to me. Then he kicked off the ground and leaped high. The sickle flashed from his fingertips, spinning sharply as it flew, and sliced into the joint connecting the bulldozer’s blade like it was cutting tofu.
The next swing sent the sickle through completely, severing the blade. Thunk. The blade fell right in front of the kickboard, and in the next instant Yuhyun was at the bulldozer’s cab. The sickle circled back like a boomerang and landed neatly in his hand. The balloon doll behind the windshield froze stiff when its gaze met his expressionless eyes.
“Sp– spare—”
Slice– The glass parted smoothly. The balloon doll’s head split as well and burst with a pop.
“W– we surrender! We surrender!”
“Please spare us!!”
Cries rang out from all over. Buildings were getting smashed in a row, dust clouds billowing up. Cars and motorcycles were being launched into the air like baseballs. The teenage girl didn’t budge even when shot at or blown up, just grumbling that her clothes were getting dirty.
Looked like things were more or less wrapped up—
Vroooom–! A loud engine roar sounded. Not just one or two, either. This time, not just bulldozers but excavators and big trucks appeared. For a second I wasn’t sure if they were a construction company or the mafia, but if you didn’t have official tanks, heavy equipment really was the next best thing.
“What kind of little punks are you!”
“How dare you show up without so much as a greeting!”
Looked like the other groups had heard the news and come running. We hadn’t even advertised, but word spread fast. Word of mouth really was king.
“What do we do?” Yuhyun asked as he dropped down beside me.
What else. “It’d be rude to just send customers all the way out here back home empty–handed.”
When you’ve just opened for business, you’re supposed to throw in bonuses left and right.
“Attention, Yujin Freight employees, overtime has arrived. It’s unexpected night work, but I’ll make sure to stack on a solid bonus in return~.”
If you’re going to make people work more, pay them more. Twice, three times. On–time quitting is best, but I can overlook it if the overtime pay is good.
Ka–boom! I fired a celebratory barrage to welcome the new customers.
Call 77–8282, and please come back to us lots and lots in the future~.
“W– we’re all that’s left…” one of the balloons kneeling in front of me said.
It was well past sunset, already easily past midnight. Taking down the ones who attacked us was quick enough, but they kept trickling in with time gaps, and apparently they’d already split up the stolen goods. So we had to go ransack the entire area.
“You’ve completely taken over the eastern sector!”
One balloon shouted this while slamming its head into the ground. Saying it like that made me sound like some kind of mob boss.
“I heard the east was on the smaller side.”
“Yes. The harbor is the biggest, and there’s a large Guinder in the north too. They say the harbor even has a warship.”
A warship? That was overkill. What was the military even doing.
“First we give the auction items back, and then…”
What should we do next. Right then, a message window popped up.
[Today’s Dice!]
Oh, this annoying thing again. The mini me on the board was staring confidently at Hyunjae, who was just one square ahead. Not that it mattered; last time the result had been a total dud anywha—
[The Chain Team rolled a 6!]
“Again?”
Just when I thought we might finally get something normal, it was another 6. At least now a high number wasn’t automatically a good thing. Mini Hyunjae strode forward. As soon as he stepped onto the same square as mini me, mini me lunged to grab mini Hyunjae by the hair.
Hey, hey, don’t fight.
Mini Hyunjae dodged smoothly and moved four squares ahead. Mini me hopped up and down in frustration. They were having a grand old time.
I looked down at the white die on the floor.
“Whatever number comes up,”
I lowered the handgun I’d been aiming at the balloons.
“I’m going my own way.”
It’s not like I ever had good luck anyway.
Bang! The die hit by the bullet spun up into the air, then rolled across the ground.
[5!]
The number was high, bu—hey, stop fighting! What are you two even going to do if you brawl it out! Newbie! Take the pieces off the board!
–TL Notes–
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