1.
Adrian’s Neon City outskirts tour began.
Though calling it a tour of the outskirts made it sound grander than it was.
Chicken-coop apartment blocks that brought to mind Kowloon Walled City, the one that had once stood in Hong Kong before being demolished.
A market where red lights and neon signs glowed to life.
I’d never really described the outskirts of Neon City properly before.
What was the point of describing a garbage dump?
Though it did make a great backdrop for a movie.
I’ll admit it coolly!
This place really is hell.
The outskirts, where the weak struggle to survive and the strong thrive.
"...This is fascinating."
"It is, isn’t it? I didn’t understand it at first either."
Why did Punklorde leave places like this alone?
The reason was that the gap had widened under the logic of innate levels.
If your level was high, you were strong.
If your level was low, you were weak.
Some kind of shackles, some kind of fetters—because survival of the fittest and capitalism applied everywhere.
Those with high levels didn’t want to mingle with the low-level people.
And the low-level people naturally propped up the high-level ones.
In other words, a garbage dump had been born.
"So... the low-level people are all gathered here, then."
"Right. From the moment you’re born, your abilities, status, and future are all fixed."
What a load of shit.
If I weren’t only LV.9, I wouldn’t have rolled down here either.
Let me summarize it neatly in status-window style.
=======
▶ New Area (!)
Fate decided from birth.
Trash that crawled up from the bottom.
Failures who rolled out of the city.
This is the graveyard of losers abandoned by the planet Punklorde.
Neon City’s "outskirts"!
▶ Tip
- Don’t casually accept meat offered by others. Sometimes human meat is mixed in.
- Kindness in this place should never be taken at face value.
- If you keep going south, you’ll reach an area called Scrap Mountain.
- If you keep going north, you can enter the inner part of Neon City.
- Sometimes an unidentified STAGE appears.
========
"For fuck’s sake."
The starting point really was a godawful place.
If I’d at least been born into a family instead of as an orphan, and if I’d lived in the inner part of Neon City, I wouldn’t have had to deal with this bullshit.
I got possessed as the second son of a reckless count’s family.
Why couldn’t it have been something like that...!
"Is it livable here?"
"It’s a place where people live, so yeah. Just not a peaceful one."
"Is Silver Wolf from here?"
"...Yeah."
This isn’t my hometown.
My hometown is Korea, a country somewhere far away.
I don’t have a shred of patriotism, though.
But after rolling down into a miserable place like this, I’m reminded all over again that Korea really was GOTY.
Korea....
"What about you, Adrian?"
"I’ve got a hometown somewhere far away."
"Can’t you tell me where?"
"You wouldn’t know it even if I did."
"Hmm."
"It’s a planet called Earth. Not many people know it."
"Well, it is the first time I’ve heard of that planet."
How long had we walked?
The place we arrived at was in front of a clothing store.
"...Why are we here?"
"I didn’t like your clothes from the moment I saw them."
Hanabi had a vibe similar to Silver Wolf’s.
I kept thinking she looked like an untapped lottery ticket.
Given enough time, Silver Wolf would definitely get stronger.
The status window still hadn’t shown a quest, but I had a feeling Hanabi would be the same.
"Hmm... let’s see."
"Adrian, what about mine?"
"Yours is already custom-made."
"...Really?"
I knew Silver Wolf’s taste in clothes well.
The kid liked flashy clothes too.
That much was obvious from how she only wore eye-catching blue and gray outfits. She preferred thin, light clothes and hated anything that covered her up. Everything she wore was practical and easy to move in.
"Look forward to it."
I spent some money!
What mattered more than buying clothes for my own kid and dressing her up?
I’d asked the pawnshop owner to handle it.
So there was no need to worry about getting ripped off either.
"Then... let’s pick out Hanabi’s clothes."
Leaving behind Silver Wolf, who was looking excited, I chose clothes that would suit Hanabi.
"Mister, you must have money."
"Why?"
"Because you’re walking around with two girls. I’m jealous."
I listened for a moment to the clothing store owner’s grumbling.
He must have been feeling pretty lonely.
"Hanabi... come here for a second."
"...I don’t have any money, though."
"I’m just trying to build goodwill, so come here first."
I tried several outfits on Hanabi and checked which ones suited her.
Don’t underestimate two years of experience at a Gangnam hostess bar.
It was hell trying to cater to old ladies.
Ah!
Memories that don’t exist!
In my head!!!
As the two years I wanted to forget most in my life surged up in my mind, I clutched my head.
The two most turbulent years of Han Siu’s twenty-seven years of life.
How long had I been looking through clothes for Hanabi while sealing those memories back up?
At last, I found an outfit that suited her.
A white shirt that had no business belonging in a back alley.
A matching band that cinched her waist, along with a white skirt.
And finally, a small coat that didn’t really fit the look, but would keep her from getting cold.
Aside from the white skirt, it was practically a school uniform, but didn’t they say the face makes the fashion? Hanabi, properly dressed up, was beautiful.
"Oh...."
"Want me to rip your eyes out?"
"No!"
I gave the clothing store owner a warning after he stared at Hanabi with an interested look.
Hanabi looked at herself in the mirror, then carefully decorated her hair with the hairpin I’d given her.
"Do I look pretty?"
Hanabi touched her hair and the hairpin on top of her head shyly.
Her looks were on Silver Wolf’s level.
Damn, she’s gorgeous.
"You’re pretty."
Her long, slender legs looked like they belonged in a photo shoot, and her face was beautiful.
She was a little short, but that’s only a problem for men. For women, being short isn’t a problem.
"You’re fucking beautiful."
I emphasized it once more.
I meant it sincerely, not as flattery.
"Ugh...."
"I’ll buy this for you. From now on, don’t wear those shabby clothes anymore. Wear nice things. Your face is too good for that."
After handing the clothing store owner the credit points, I left the shop.
Silver Wolf was staring at me again, her face sulky.
If I left her like that, she’d keep getting more and more sharp-edged until she turned into a full-blown spiteful Silver Wolf.
I hadn’t realized she’d be this jealous.
Really, I hadn’t.
"Silver Wolf, come here."
"Hmph. Why?"
"Stop pouting already. You know I only have you."
My only companion.
My comrade as I pushed through this hellish life.
And... embarrassingly enough, the person I cared about.
Silver Wolf’s final words from the second loop still sat in my heart like a thorn.
I’d never forget them until the day I died and disappeared from this world completely.
Even if something happened and Silver Wolf abandoned me.
I couldn’t abandon Silver Wolf.
I’d grown too attached.
At first, when I picked her up, I’d only planned to use her as a disposable pawn and a way to check the status window before tossing her aside.
I buried my face in Silver Wolf’s neck.
Without saying a word, Silver Wolf hugged me back and buried her face in my neck too.
"Jealous little moments are cute and all, but if you keep going, you’ll be rude to Hanabi."
"...If you know that, then do better."
A proud little wolf’s jealousy moment?
This stuff is rare, you know.
How long had we been hugging and feeling each other’s warmth?
"Um, when are you two planning to let go?"
"Hmph. If it bothers you that much, why don’t you leave first?"
Before I turned my head, I missed the way Silver Wolf smiled like a winner and mocked Hanabi.
I also missed the way Hanabi was looking at the two of us with a slightly empty gaze.
"All right, then. Let’s keep going with the outskirts tour!"
Enough with the flirting!
We could do that at home.
After properly dressing her, I resumed the outskirts tour.
Of course... there were still problems.
Why the hell do these bastards keep popping out like random mobs in the bushes?
"Heh-heh-heh, hand over everything you’ve got!"
"You’re walking around with two girls? Then those two girls are mine...!"
- Bang!
- Boom!
Thanks to me sprinting forward and landing a kick, mob #1 folded in half at the waist.
Mob #2 didn’t even finish his line before his head exploded from the slingshot Silver Wolf fired.
So my name still hadn’t gotten around yet.
There were a lot of lowlifes trying to rob us without thinking.
"This is one of the outskirts’ specialties too."
"...This?"
"Those mobs that pop out whenever they’re bored. The weak cannot survive here...!"
Hanabi stared at the two corpses with a tired expression.
I took her around the outskirts properly after that.
It wasn’t something to brag about, but from an outsider’s perspective, there was a lot here worth seeing.
"This is the outskirts’ Kowloon Walled City!"
"What’s Kowloon Walled City? Silver Wolf, do you know?"
"No idea. Adrian says weird things I don’t understand sometimes. You just have to let it go."
Chicken-coop apartments packed together tightly, with buildings layered over each other like a maze.
"The market is... really fascinating."
"Don’t eat anything carelessly. Human meat gets mixed in here sometimes."
"...What?"
"Sounds fake, right? It’s real."
A twilight market glowing red, where if you were unlucky, they’d mix human meat into what they sold.
"I had no idea a mountain of scrap metal even existed..."
"It’s where all the trash, data, and byproducts of every imaginable kind of imagination gather."
"That’s nostalgic, Adrian. Remember when you found ship parts here and bought me a game console?"
"Of course I remember."
Scrap Mountain, a graveyard of data made of dozens of mountains of scrap metal forming a range.
How long had we wandered the outskirts?
By the time I was getting hungry and my legs were starting to ache...
"Let’s stop here for today."
The boundary between day and night was so blurred that you had to check a clock to tell the time.
In the dark night, Hanabi stopped and spoke to me.
"Are you okay?"
"...With what?"
"If you’re tied to the troupe, to the troupe leader, I think it’d be better to get out."
Hanabi’s body gave a slight jolt.
Maybe I’d hit the mark, because the eyes looking at me wavered.
"Can you save me?"
"...Hanabi."
"Don’t pity me like that. You’re starting to annoy me."
As if switching masks.
Hanabi’s expression changed.
"Hanabi? You give a name to someone you just met? How ridiculous. How utterly ridiculous. I... I am...."
"Hey, why are you...!"
"Silver Wolf, don’t."
Something was wrong.
All of a sudden, as if a switch had been flipped, Hanabi’s eyes turned bewildered and she glared at me.
"I don’t need any of it. My life will never come down from the stage. The mask I wear, my life, my role—they won’t ever change."
"...."
"Goodbye, the person trying to play prince."
She tossed away the hairpin I’d given her.
Then even stepped on it before walking past me.
She was trying to act calm on the surface, but...
I’m pretty damn shocked right now, you know?
Weren’t we close?
Why the hell did the sudden-flip switch get pressed all of a sudden!!!
"We... were getting close, weren’t we?"
Hanabi’s mood had changed so abruptly.
The reason I was being careful with my words was simple.
Hanabi was stronger than me.
I walk the Path of Elation.
Even in the previous loop, when the pawnshop owner was murdered, I could instinctively tell he had been killed by someone walking a Path similar to mine.
"I was only immersing myself in the role of a pitiful orphan and guide."
"...Grit."
Flames sparked in Silver Wolf’s eyes.
After summoning her slingshot and hanging a sword at her waist,
the air felt like it was one spark away from igniting.
"Forget it, go. If the act is over, then it’s over."
The reason I couldn’t dig any deeper into that girl’s inner story was simple.
Looking at Hanabi, who had reached a level I couldn’t even dare to touch, I got the feeling that fighting her would mean death.
She also walks the Path of Elation.
I also walk the Path of Elation.
Silver Wolf also walks the Path of Elation.
Silver Wolf hadn’t properly used the power of Elation yet, so maybe she didn’t know.
But having seen even a fragment of Elation myself, I couldn’t fight Hanabi.
If I’d been in a foul mood, I might have charged at her anyway, but with Silver Wolf behind me, I couldn’t act recklessly.
"Farewell, Adrian."
She turned her back, and the faint afterglow of flames vanished.
"Haa... fuck."
Weren’t we on good terms!!!
Why the sudden flip, you crazy bitch!!!
The untapped Hanabi lottery ticket was bye-bye.
Any thought of recruiting her as an ally if things went well vanished straight up into the sky.
"Adrian, you should’ve fought her. Even if you didn’t kill her, you could’ve at least taught her a lesson...!"
"No way. If I had, we’d all be dead."
I was curious as hell, but digging deeper was awkward too.
Just as I was about to brush it off as a thread of fate already cut clean through...
- Quest 발생!
"Wait, what?"
A blue-green window rose up and covered my retina.
『Quest - Fireworks of the Companion』
▶ Conditions hidden
- Difficulty: 最上
- Success Reward: An item containing a 4-star blessing, a 4-star apparatus, title enhancement for [One Who Walks the ■■ Path].
[ 1. Chase after the truth behind the incident and Hanabi’s story. ]
[ 2. Give up. ]
"Huh...."
She was important enough to trigger a quest.
Honestly, I wanted to hit option 1 right away and start Professor Han Siu and the weird troupe.
But...
"Can I even handle this?"
Hanabi? Can’t beat her.
Troupe leader? Honestly, I don’t think I can beat them either.
Other capable people in the troupe? I don’t think I can beat them either.
I, Adrian Servet, have excellent self-awareness.
It was driving home once again that I was still a total weakling.
Status window.
The difficulty was even written in Chinese characters as "highest."
I had no idea how hard this would be.
"GG, I give up."
If the save point got tangled up, there’d be no answer.
Sorry, Hanabi—let’s meet in the next life!
The moment I was about to press give up and head home...
- Crackle!
The status window told me to go fuck myself.
"...Status window? Hey, you fucking bastard!"
Option 2 shattered into pieces.
Some familiar fanfare sounded in the distance.
- Special conditions satisfied.
- The option will be forcibly selected.
- Adjusting the timeline and world line....
"Ah, you crazy bitch!!!"
Status window, you crazy bastard, you’ve never once helped me in my life!!!
Was it just my imagination, or was Aha raising a middle finger from the sky?
I wanted those two to hold hands and die together.
- Quest changed.
- Difficulty has changed.
"Your mother, you goddamn bastard."
Kneeling and once again screaming to the heavens, I was watched by Silver Wolf with a sigh.
Silver Wolf, Silver Wolf!!!
We’re fucked!!!
This is not the time to sigh!!!
- Special conditions hidden
- Revealing the special perk in exchange for adjusting the difficulty
=======
♠ ◆ ♥ ♣ - 『Special!』
【A special gift prepared by the Aeons!】
【Too weak that it makes you want to cry? This perk was prepared for someone like you!】
❖ - The growth rate of all proficiency and synchronization has increased by a whopping 「1000%」!!!
❖ - Trap items in the shop removed! 1-star items will not appear for a limited time!
❖ - The appearance rate of important quest figures greatly increased!
❖ - Rewards enhanced! Exciting rewards await you!
Time limit - [ 720 : 00 : 00 ]
Countdown begins.
Permanent death if the quest is judged impossible to clear.
=======
"Cancel it."
I was foolish enough to not understand the will of King-Grand-General-Emperor-Majesty Aha.
lmao, bro didn't even have a choice. 'Mama didn't raise no p****, take the buffs and go.'