Although the mission had a time limit, Jack was in no particular hurry. After so long underground, finally having a chance to breathe the human world's air—he intended to savor it.
Even if I'm planning to slack off, I can't be too obvious about it under the boss's nose.
His gaze lifted to the high-speed train streaking across the elevated bridge in the distance. A decision crystallized.
Step one: disguise as human. Step two: take a train to M City.
It's decided.
Leaving the desolate no-man's land behind, the city ahead gradually regained some semblance of vibrancy.
Vehicles flowed ceaselessly. Pedestrians hurried along the streets, most wearing expressions tinged with barely detectable wariness and fatigue. On a distant commercial building, a large electronic screen cycled through recruitment advertisements for the Hero Association, interspersed with warnings about Monster disasters.
Finally. Feels a bit like a modern metropolis.
Jack casually declined the third wave of young women who'd bravely—and blushingly—approached to ask if they could add him on their messaging apps. Polite. Firm. Uninterested.
Then his attention snagged on a scene further down the commercial street.
Several flashy, thuggish youths were making their rounds. House to house. Visiting.
Cigarettes dangled from their mouths. Expressions oozed arrogance. Hair and clothes exploded in colors like a rainbow had vomited on them. Baseball bats and iron pipes swung loosely in their grips. Passersby took one look and immediately detoured.
Each time the group emerged from a shop, they'd curse loudly—the intensity of the curses often correlating with whether they clutched a few banknotes or a healthy stack.
The shop owners, mostly elderly, dared not speak. Facing this pack of local bullies, they could only swallow their anger and pay to avoid trouble.
Suppression. Helplessness. The air thick with it.
Jack stopped.
A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched his lips.
Startup capital. Right here.
You're the ones.
Compared to the sweet, soft-spoken young women, he found these arrogant thugs far more interesting.
Women only slow down my money-making speed.
(Rich women are the exception.)
Soon enough, the thugs finished shaking down the entire street. They swaggered into a secluded alley at the end, gathering in a tight circle to excitedly count the stacks of banknotes in their hands—varying thicknesses, varying hauls.
"Hahaha! Good day today, Big Brother!" A skinny man with dyed yellow hair fawned over their leader—a burly, flat-topped man with a scarred face.
"Hmph. These old geezers know what's good for them." The burly man patted his bulging pocket proudly. The night's take. He sneered. "Tonight—we hit the new nightclub. Golden Silk Cat. I hear the fresh girls there are really something."
"YES!"
"Big Brother's the best!"
"Tonight we drink until we drop!"
The thugs howled like excited ghosts, already fantasizing about the night's promised debauchery.
None of them noticed the tall, handsome, cool-looking god who had, at some point, silently appeared at the alley entrance. Blocking their exit.
"Huh?"
The burly leader's survival instincts—such as they were—flickered first. He frowned, impatience bleeding into his voice.
"Hey! Kid! Where'd you crawl out from? Can't see we're busy? Move!"
The other thugs noticed now. They turned, surrounding Jack with practiced ease. Mocking smiles. Malicious grins.
"You looking for death, pretty boy?!"
"Whoa—those clothes don't look cheap!"
"Damn, he's handsome! Even more than me!"
"Boss, stop talking. Let's just beat this pretty boy up and teach him a lesson!"
Jack's gaze swept across them calmly. Calmly cataloguing. Finally resting on the burly man's bulging pocket.
He sighed.
"There are national laws. And there are industry rules."
Pause.
"Local gangs these days. So impolite."
"Ha…?"
The burly man stared as if Jack had just uttered the funniest joke in existence. He exchanged glances with his crew. Then they all burst out laughing.
"Polite?" The burly man stepped forward, a sinister grin splitting his scarred face. He raised his hand—a massive, fan-like palm—and swung it toward Jack's face. "I'll teach you what polite looks like!"
*SLAP. *
A crisp sound.
But not the sound of a palm striking flesh.
The thick wrist stopped mid-swing. Caught. Effortlessly.
Jack's grip tightened. Casually.
The burly man's face drained of color. A pig-like shriek of agony tore from his throat. His wrist dangled at a sickening angle.
"L-Let go! It's broken—broken—IT'S BROKEN!"
The boss's screams were unmistakably real. The thugs' laughter died. Uncertain glances ricocheted between them.
The burly man, furious and shocked, gasped through the pain and twisted back to his crew.
"Bastards! What are you standing around for?! GET HIM! KILL HIM!"
The thugs snapped out of their daze. Curses erupted. They grabbed their weapons and charged.
The next moment—
A dense chorus of bone-cracking sounds filled the alley. Agonized screams followed. Then, abruptly, silence.
Jack emerged from the shadows, looking refreshed. His dark gray wool coat remained immaculate—not a single wrinkle, not a speck of dust. In his hand, he casually weighed a thick stack of banknotes: the teaching remuneration voluntarily offered by the local gang, now fully educated in the importance of politeness.
"Ha." He pocketed the cash. "Look at that. Money."
He walked away without a backward glance.
Behind him, in the alley's depths, several limbs bent at anatomically improbable angles protruded from the vicinity of an overturned trash can. Fresh trash had clearly just been disposed of.
The money in his pocket was ill-gotten, technically. Jack felt no psychological burden whatsoever.
Black-on-black. Thief robbing thief. Perfectly legitimate.
Theoretically, he was a complete unregistered person in this world. He hadn't exactly arrived through official immigration channels.
The good news: this body had started human. The fused memories contained plenty of information from his pre-Monster days. Enough to navigate.
After some thought, Jack headed straight for the nearby police station.
The process was surprisingly smooth. He reported his original name and identity information. Received a temporary personal ID card. No complications.
Bank next. Same procedure. Reported his old card lost, received a new one, deposited a portion of the teaching remuneration.
Finally—the electronics section of a large shopping mall. Jack purchased the latest smartphone model.
His fingertips glided across the smooth screen. Familiar app icons. Familiar operating interface. A strange feeling welled up—like being in a different era.
Buzz~ Buzz buzz—
The phone vibrated. New message notification.
Jack tapped it open. A balance change alert from the bank app.
"Uh…"
He stared at the string of digits. Probably the total sum of a regular office worker's salary for several years.
He scratched his chin.
"…So it seems I didn't actually need to do the black-on-black thing. The money was enough?"
Pause.
"Eh. Who cares."
A second of silent mourning for the unlucky thugs. Then he moved on.
Not entirely without gains. The enthusiastic interaction with the local gang had helped him reconnect with society as a human. A feeling of being alive again. Worth something.
He checked the map on his new phone. Bought train tickets. Strolled onward.
Z-City's high-speed rail station soon came into view. Jack scanned his ticket, boarded the train, found his seat.
The carriage was nearly empty. Only a handful of passengers—Z-City's decline reflected in its departing trains. Jack's specific car had no one else at all.
The train slid into motion. Scenery outside the window began to blur past.
Inside the empty carriage, only two sounds accompanied the journey: a faint whooshing from the train's movement, and the rhythmic clack-clack of wheels passing over rail joints.
Jack leaned back in his seat. Let his mind go empty.
Then sat upright again.
Leaving Z-City. No one around.
A slow smile spread across his face.
Isn't the current environment just… perfect?
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