“Okay.”
“The city government is offering a bounty for the mutated creatures appearing there. Apparently, the vagrants in that area have been dying off rapidly because of them.”
“……..”
“The corpses are piling up and rotting, attracting more beasts that then turn into mutated creatures, creating a vicious cycle. So, the city government decided to intervene.”
“What’s the bounty?”
“One million cell [currency] per creature. Catch ten, and you get ten million cell. All you have to do is extract their eyeballs and submit them to the city’s Environmental Agency.”
One million cell per creature… It’s less than the bounty for a wanted criminal, but considering bounty hunting can take half a day, this might be a faster way to make money.
Lenok began calculating how much effort it would take to catch the mutated creatures for that amount.
Considering that catching a wanted criminal usually takes a whole day and earns around one million cell, it doesn’t seem too difficult. However, the fact that he has to find the mutated creatures himself is a concern.
When bounty hunting, he could actively use tracking magic like [Bloody Chase], but it’s questionable whether a similar method would work against mutated creatures.
Jenny, noticing that Lenok seemed to be seriously considering it, closed her mouth and started shaking the shaker.
She was acting distracted even though no orders had come in, which meant she really wanted Lenok to postpone this request.
It wasn’t that he didn’t understand her feelings.
If the unit price of the requests Lenok accepted increased, the commission she earned would also increase.
‘Okay… not bad.’
The auction for the elixir Stemmonia is scheduled for next week.
It wouldn’t hurt to go to the undeveloped area for a day and then decide.
If the income isn’t as much as expected, he can still accept the request.
After careful consideration, Lenok nodded with some hesitation.
“I’d like to hear the details.”
The undeveloped area.
The undeveloped area refers to the vast ruins that stretch across the late 50s districts and the ‘extra districts’ that don’t even have a number assigned to them.
It was designed with an ambitious plan to greatly expand the residential areas for the city’s residents along with the rapid expansion of the giant city of Balkan in the past.
However, after failing to control the 40s districts, which were created first due to corruption and infighting, the 50s districts were treated like abandoned projects in the city government’s policies.
Dusty concrete and steel bars. Construction equipment left abandoned with no promise of when it would be restarted.
A place filled with a sense of emptiness, as if it had been destroyed rather than built.
The organizations that use this place as their base are known to be either completely insane or so malicious that they can’t set foot inside the city.
A hell where vagrants and madmen who have lost their self-sufficiency and been driven out of the city wander aimlessly.
And this was the place Lenok had chosen for his next activity.
“Number 484. Remember the number. They’ll let you in in groups of four, so wait until then, watching the electronic display.”
The receptionist handed Lenok a number tag without even looking at him properly.
Sub-district Management Headquarters 5th station under the City Environmental Agency, located in the 50th district.
It’s a place that registers and manages the identities of various mercenaries who head to the undeveloped area after receiving a request from the city government.
Rather than just telling them to go into the undeveloped area and catch the mutated creatures, they surprisingly seem to care about safety, such as sending mercenaries in teams of four.
Of course, this wasn’t good news for Lenok, who had planned to move alone.
For now, he decided to follow the receptionist’s instructions and wait his turn.
As he sat on a nearby chair and looked around, he noticed other mercenaries who had come to participate in the mutated creature subjugation.
Their appearances were all different, but they all had a look of fatigue on their faces, which made it clear that they were experienced in this field.
‘It’s my first time seeing so many mercenaries.’
He had worked with the Creamgal Mercenary Office, but that office wasn’t that big either.
How often would he encounter mercenaries in his daily life unless he worked with them?
The number of mercenaries gathered at this station alone seemed to easily exceed thirty, so Lenok hid his expression and carefully began to observe them.
The equipment they used was quite diverse, even considering their profession as mercenaries.
Those who seemed to have trained their bodies usually didn’t shy away from melee weapons, and even if they didn’t, most of them had at least one firearm in their possession.
It was only natural. This was the real world, not a game, and there wouldn’t be any unnecessary penalties for carrying multiple weapons.
If Lenok could properly imbue items with enchantment magic, storage and preservation would be much easier than now… As he spent time thinking about such regrets, it was soon Lenok’s turn.
After looking around, it seemed that there were few people who came alone and many who moved in teams, so it took a while for Lenok’s turn to come.
When he went to the electronic display, he saw three mercenaries looking around.
The man at the front, who had made eye contact with Lenok, strode forward and offered him a handshake.
“Hello. You’re number 484, right? I’m Miguel.”
Dark skin and a face that was hard to read. His hand, which was offering a handshake, had hard calluses, and his forearms were firm.
The weapons he used were a short spear and a submachine gun. It was an unusual combination, but a mercenary who had been in this field wouldn’t be concerned with appearances.
He had a friendly smile on his face, but Lenok didn’t miss the way Miguel was looking him up and down in that short moment.
Lenok politely accepted the handshake and greeted the other members of his group who were standing behind him.
Two men, including Miguel, and one woman.
The men were Eriksen and the woman was Claria.
It seemed like the two men would stand in the front and the woman would provide firepower from behind with her rifle.
He lightly raised his magic power and scanned their appearances, but they only seemed to be able to handle the minimum amount of magic power to strengthen their bodies, and they didn’t seem to have any special abilities.
Lenok finished a simple preparation with the three of them and left the station and started walking.
The distance from here to the undeveloped area wasn’t that far.
It wouldn’t be easy to encounter mutated creatures right away just by heading out of the city, but he liked the fact that he didn’t have to wander far.
The three of them seemed to know each other well, and they skillfully continued their conversation without making it awkward for Lenok.
It would be hard to remain silent while working together, so he should consider this an experience.
“It must be tough for people who work outside of Balkan. It’s only recently that the mutated creatures have become so rampant, but they always have to go back and forth to the city with that danger.”
“That’s why they say that if you dig into the factories and buildings built outside the city, there are often shady things going on. It means that only people who do absurd things that the sloppy city government can’t tolerate go outside. Ah, I guess you could call this a prejudice?”
At those words, Lenok recalled the factory where he had first woken up.
A factory that captured people, exploited their labor, and made corpse grinders for black mages to sell to the association… It certainly wasn’t a healthy working environment.
The three of them continued their conversation with occasional chatter, and Lenok added a word or two when they spoke to him.
The conversation flowed on, and they were soon introducing how they each fought.
“One million cell as a reward for subjugating one mutated creature. It’s not an easy task, but it’s rare to find a request that you can accept at any time like this. For mercenaries like us, the existence of the undeveloped area isn’t always something to be avoided.”
“Especially when I’m taking those guys down, my shotgun is a big help.”
Eriksen pointed to the shotgun he was carrying on his back and smiled kindly.
“But Mr. Ban, you only seem to have a revolver. Do you have any other equipment you use?”
Claria’s question, which was asked very casually as they were asking about each other’s recent activities.
However, in that short moment, Lenok couldn’t help but chuckle inwardly as he saw the three of them exchanging glances.
They were trying to hide it, but it was obvious.
They were trying to downplay the importance of it by blending it into the flow of the conversation, but what they were most curious about was predetermined from the beginning.
Since there was no point in hiding it now, Lenok answered calmly.
“I’m researching electric-type magic.”
“…Electric-type, you mean the pure element type?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Only after answering did Lenok feel something strange and frown.
The friendly atmosphere of the mercenaries had changed in an instant.
Miquel with a troubled expression, Eriksen looking at him as if he were pathetic, and Claria with a blank face.
They were all looking at Lenok as if he were a completely different person than before.
Miquel sighed softly and said,
“We were mistaken.”
“In what way?”
Lenok retorted. It was only natural that his words became shorter as their attitude became strange.
“We thought that Mr. Ban was a mage who had mastered popular magic like impact-type. Usually, mages who travel alone try to develop the ability to work with other team members at any time.”
“……”
This was the first time he had heard such an excuse since he started focusing on electric-type magic.
He had heard that pure element types were not relatively favored because their efficiency was low in the early stages of learning, but it was strange that they were so openly rejecting him because he hadn’t mastered the magic they wanted.
Did they plan to drop Lenok from the beginning and move separately? If that was their intention, it made sense.
Even as Lenok was lost in thought, Miguel continued to speak.
“In this case, we might have to reconsider working together on the mutated creature request. We also want to work with someone who can provide sufficient firepower support…”
A tone that implied that Lenok hadn’t made such efforts.
Their ambiguous attitude of indirectly saying that they didn’t want to work together now made him sigh.
He knew there would be time to assess things before working together, but he never thought they would change their attitude so quickly.
The breakdown was coming quickly.
Forcing himself to accompany them here would be like boarding a sinking ship.
He didn’t want to cling on for long.
“Just one question.”
“Yes?”
“When you subjugate a mutated creature and receive the reward, do all four of us have to be together?”
“…That’s probably not the case. Dealing with mutated creatures isn’t that easy, and there could be casualties. They can’t not pay the reward just because the number of people doesn’t match.”
“Then that’s fine.”
Lenok nodded and turned his back.
“Mage?”
“If we don’t agree with each other, it’ll only hurt our feelings if we stay together for too long. We’ve already entered the undeveloped area with the right number of people, so I don’t think there’s any problem with us acting separately from here on out.”
Miquel glanced at him and asked.
“…Are you really okay with that?”
He said that, but his voice was dripping with delight.
The expressions of Eriksen and Claria, who were standing behind him, also became much more relieved.
Even if Lenok was really an inexperienced mage, he wouldn’t be completely useless in this kind of subjugation request, but they just didn’t want to share the reward they received for subjugating the mutated creatures.
If the number of people was reduced by one, the pie they would get would be bigger.
Lenok readily nodded.
“It would have been much cleaner if you had talked about it when we first formed the team. You’ve bothered me for no reason.”
“Ah, no. We can’t be that blunt.”
Miquel’s tone was still polite, but he no longer seemed to want to hide his true intentions.
“Then let’s part ways here. We need to keep a proper distance to achieve satisfactory results for each other.”
“We would be very grateful if you would… Ah, no. Mr. Ban, you must have your own reasons.”
Miquel’s expression, which had been wearing a kind smile, cracked slightly, but he quickly recovered from his mistake.
Lenok nodded and immediately turned his back.
Not all corporations or gangs are bad, and not all mercenaries or freelancers are good people.
They take what’s profitable and discard what’s not.
They were just one of those common people.
Of course, he hadn’t expected to be treated like this by mercenaries, so he couldn’t help but feel annoyed, but he couldn’t just start a fight with the mercenaries here and show off his skills.
He could get some self-satisfaction by crushing them for a moment, but in the end, Lenok would be the one who would lose money on the request if they ended up working together.
Lenok knew that very well, so he had willingly stepped back according to the mercenaries’ wishes.
The important thing was not to waste the money he could earn by having a pride fight with them.
He could save face later in front of the settlement statement.
Lenok pulled up his magic power and extended it freely in all directions, quickly shaking off his 잡념 [잡념 – distracting thoughts] and starting to concentrate.
#
Miquel watched Lenok’s receding figure with a suspicious expression.
“What are you staring at?”
At Claria’s words, Miguel turned his head.
The honorifics that he had been using formally disappeared as soon as Lenok was out of sight.
She smiled as she fiddled with the magazine of the rifle she was holding.
“A troublesome obstacle is gone. It’s annoying to have a freeloader attached to us.”
“That’s right. I’m already annoyed just thinking about joining the subjugation team, and I don’t have the time to worry about such a weakling.”
Eriksen chimed in with Claria’s words.
“He’ll wander around alone for a while and taste some bitterness, then he’ll crawl back into the city on his own.”
Miquel’s group hadn’t rejected Lenok without any backup.
After it became known in the mercenary community that subjugating mutated creatures was a good way to make money, a subjugation team was formed.
About 10 people had gathered and agreed in advance to increase the speed of subjugation and reduce the risk.
Discovered