Chapter 41: An Unpleasant Parting
"I'm telling you, man, not only is your wife alive and well, but the baby in her belly is perfectly safe too."
Ye Lan tilted his head, dodging a bullet fired from Roland's shotgun, and continued, "If you don't believe me, did you ever find Angelica's body?"
"Shut up! You liar, you don't have the right to say her name... Angelica, my Angelica... you think I wouldn't know if she was dead or not?!"
Roland roared and fired a few more shots at Ye Lan, all of which were dodged by Ye Lan, who was now clad in the [You're a Sucker!] E.G.O. suit. While a ZAYIN-class E.G.O. couldn't beat Roland, it was more than enough to dodge some bullets.
As for the Thumb members who had died by Roland's gun, they were shot at point-blank range. Anyone would have met the same fate.
"Roland... I think you should believe him."
Olivier also stepped out from behind a pillar. The old friend, now a Fixer in Hana Association's Section 3, had come to help clean up the aftermath.
"Olivier, have you been fooled by his lies too?"
Olivier's appearance was something Roland had never expected. His old friend from the Hana Association shouldn't have received news of his battle with the Thumb so quickly.
"You know me, Roland. I won't fully believe him until I see Angelica with my own eyes. But... just as he said, none of us saw Angelica's body. It's possible she's still alive. And thinking back on that commission, there were indeed some problems. I suspect..."
"Enough! How many more times are you going to insult me with Angelica's name?! Olivier, this is between me and him. If you leave now, we can still be friends."
Unfortunately, Roland, in his fit of anger, was in no state to listen to their reasoning. Even though a part of him hoped that Angelica was still alive, he couldn't stand the sight of Ye Lan at this moment.
"It's fine, Olivier. You go handle your business. In his current state, who can he even fight?"
Ye Lan said to Olivier, who was standing in a triangular formation with them. Just as he said, Roland was not in good condition.
It was impossible to slaughter the entire Southern Thumb single-handedly without paying a price. Even Roland had sustained considerable injuries during the battle. The most serious was the desperate final blow from the Capo, using the W Corp Singularity dagger in his hand.
Although Roland had dodged the blade itself, the space torn by the dagger had still sliced open his left arm. If he had retreated just a little bit slower, he would be considering which hospital to go to for reattachment surgery right now.
"I say, do you need me to wait for you to find some cloth to wrap your arm?"
Ye Lan deactivated his E.G.O. suit. The [You're a Sucker!] suit on his body instantly melted into a puddle of grape-flavored soda, which seeped into the dance floor without leaving a single trace.
The pleasant scent of grape soda wafted into Roland's and Olivier's noses, reminding them of the colleague they had lost back in District 25.
"...That soda machine, was that you?"
"Huh?"
Roland's question was completely out of the blue for Ye Lan. He paused for a moment before realizing that Roland must have seen the You're a Sucker! Abnormality somewhere.
"Are you talking about the Welch's-brand soda? That is indeed one of our company's Abnormalities. It was probably kept in one of the branches."
Although he didn't know why Roland was bringing this up, Ye Lan could clearly feel the man's killing intent intensify. Suddenly, a possibility popped into his head. "Don't tell me one of you drank the soda and got teleported?"
"Teleported?"
Olivier caught that word. If it was teleportation, then his subordinate Fixer might still be alive. But why hadn't he tried to return to the Association?
Unfortunately, the current situation was not suitable for him to ask Ye Lan this question, so Olivier tucked it away in his mind and silently began to deal with Roland's mess.
Roland, on the other hand, had no reaction to the word. He was simply looking for a reason to be angrier. As long as Ye Lan admitted that the damned soda machine belonged to their company, that was enough.
Using a strip of cloth torn from his suit jacket to temporarily dress his wound, Roland once again drew the tachi from the Mook Workshop from Angelica's gloves.
A battle was about to break out.
Beep beep, beep beep...
A timer alarm on his watch went off. Olivier glanced at the time and said to the two men who were about to fight, "The Backstreets Deep Night is almost here. Are you two sure you want to fight now?"
"Aren't we indoors?"
Ye Lan was taken aback by Olivier's words. They were in a nightclub. According to the rules, the period between 3:13 AM and 4:34 AM was the Backstreets Deep Night, during which the Cleaners could freely dispose of any corpses and living beings still on the Backstreet roads.
However, they could only dispose of what was on the streets. According to the rules set with the Head, anyone or anything hiding inside a building was outside their jurisdiction. That was why Olivier was currently moving the Thumb's corpses out of the building.
But it was because of this action that he discovered something he had to tell the two fools who were about to fight again: the walls of this nightclub had been destroyed in the battle between Roland and the Thumb. At this moment, the nightclub did not count as a regulation-compliant building.
"Tch. You just wait for me."
Roland cursed and immediately turned to leave the nightclub. He was in bad shape. Even if he could defeat the unpredictable Ye Lan, it was uncertain if he could survive an encounter with a tide of Cleaners.
Ye Lan, on the other hand, knew he wouldn't lose to Roland, and he certainly wasn't afraid of the Cleaners who had appeared in the Indigo Noon ordeal.
Although the ones in the ordeal weren't real Cleaners, they had still shown him their combat patterns and preferred fighting styles.
With this experience and, more importantly, his E.G.O. equipment, Ye Lan actually wanted to stay and try to communicate with those liquid lifeforms in jars. He just didn't know if he could understand what they were saying.
After saying goodbye to Olivier, this unresolved meeting came to an end. Roland, having had his fill of killing, left with a stomach full of anger and a body full of wounds. Olivier, having tried to persuade Roland to no avail, was not in a good mood either. Ye Lan had it even worse; he had waited all night for a side gig, only for Roland to go fight the Thumb instead. Not earning that money was a real downer.
Wait a minute, the Thumb is wiped out. Does that mean the money they had in all these establishments is...
Now he really had to thank his old buddy Roland for his generous support.
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