Clearing the Game at the End of the World

“Hey, Vex.”

“Yeah, Hepburn?”

“What I’m looking at right now… Is it real?”

“Looking at what you’re saying, then I must not be seeing things right now.”

A quick look at "pawread dot com" will leave you more fulfilled.

Coming out of the Inspection Bureau building, I was worrying about how I would find the two people scattered out in the huge Dome, but it was easier than I thought.

Vex was waiting for me in front of the Inspection Bureau building with some sort of beige-camouflage hood you commonly see the Wasteland people wear, and Ian…

“Sorry, but don’t obsess over me too much, ladies. I’m only here for a short while before leaving again. And I already have someone I love. So loving me… will only hurt you. If you love yourself, then it will be best for you to leave me.”

“Ahh, monsieur! Don’t! Don’t say such things!”

“Just stay next to me, Ian. I’m confident that I’ll be able to embrace every single scar you own, and when the time comes, you will have the time to look back at me, so if you just stay with me for now…!”

Like I always said, Ian isn’t exactly what you could call handsome. Actually, he does look pretty good. He has sharp eyes and a little grungy look. But it all looked pretty uncanny with that metallic jaw of his. No, just looking at the outer appearance, don’t I look much better than him? So why is it that he…

“Hm? Ah, time’s up. Now, it is time for us to bid farewell. Melina, Tiri, Azien. It was only a short while, but I enjoyed it.”

“Ahhhh, no!”

…Is popular enough for the women to start staring death rays at me just because I showed up!

I heard Ian was here for a while, so I looked around, mainly near the housing buildings, and was able to find him at the most luxurious-looking one, surrounded by women that clearly looked rich.

He was wearing a white fedora and dark brown suit that fit snugly on his body. When he got up from his seat, looking like a drunk mafia with his dress shirt unbuttoned, he broke free from the binds of the women and spread his arms wide open while giving me a toothy grin.

“Gyosu! It’s been about a month since I’ve seen you! Has everything been fine?”

“Not as fine as you were, at least.”

“Keheheheh! Of course! You gotta strike when the iron’s hot, you know. Can’t just stay still when our budget and fame is at its peak.”

To my genuine response, the man just gave his signature windy laugh (one of the women in the back who had been staring longingly at Ian fainted at that) and pointed up at the hotel with his thumb.

“Let’s not meddle here and go up to my room to talk. I booked a room because I was expecting to stay here a bit for the business. The place is for caravans from other Areas and Scavengers with contracts, and it’s not bad, I tell you.”

“Uhh, alright. Yeah.”

Not knowing what to say about his mafia + Casanova-like attitude, we just nodded our heads and followed him up the stairs. Watching the women let out cries and wails when Ian walked past them while nonchalantly waving his hand, I was again reminded that the world really was at its end.

“A suite room? Do you have a bad spending habit by any chance? Don’t tell me you got influenced by Koduro…”

“It’s not like that, ya bastard. I booked a small room, but the secretary or something of the Life and Murder’s CEO came by and put in a few words to the owner, and they upgraded it to here. I didn’t use a single penny, so don’t glare at me like that.”

The upper floor that Ian talked about wasn’t just a room in the upper floors, but the entire floor of the four-story building being the entire hotel suite room. It was a little ironic that we needed to walk up the stairs to get to the suite room full of lavish furniture, but well, it was free.

Bringing four glasses worth of milk at my request for a glass of water, Ian added a little brandy to the milk and handed me a bundle that was sitting next to the table.

“Here, it’s a present.”

“Present? What present?”

“Ah, I was walking around town when I found something that reminded me of you.”

Inside the bundle were two boxes about 30 × 30cm in size. Wait. This box… I think I just saw it back in the President’s office.

“Don’t tell me…”

When I opened it up, just like I expected, a detailed wooden figure of me was inside it.

[No.17 Finishing Blow Gyosu Park]

“You damn—!”

“Keheheheh! Isn’t it nice? It’s apparently supposed to be you shooting that Zeus thing. It’s a limited edition, you know? The Area 47 Dome’s Inspection Bureau makes only 50 of these, and the higher class in the Dome all throw money at the guys to buy these things, but they said they kept these to give to us. Ah, Vex. There’s yours too.”

“Tell them to go f**k them and their stupid consideration!”

“That just means our value has gone up to the point where wooden figurines like this sell at the ridiculous market price of 30 thousand Shillings.”

“Banksy’s art was sold for 600 thousand, and you’re telling me a puny figurine like this is 30 thousand…?”

“That was just a special case. You couldn’t reveal your identity to the Dome back then, so the only purchaser were those art guys. If you put that up on the auction for the Dome, then it would have easily sold for over 10 million.”

“The world’s ending, I tell you…”

“They say heroes are popular in a crisis. Since it’s the end of the world, like you said, we’re being practically worshipped.”

After briefly glimpsing over at Synthia and Vex, who were completely ecstatic about what came out of the other box, Ian took a big sip of that weird milk-brandy drink and started talking about what had happened for the past month.

“The total war with the Raptor Society last time. The people are calling it the Breaching Dawn Battle over here, and all of you should know that we’ve gotten pretty famous here because of that battle. In order to calm down the confusion and chaos, the Dome framed us as ‘heroes’ and advertised us all over the place. It must have worked pretty well because the Dome’s citizens completely forgot about the fact that ‘the Raptors successfully invaded the city’s central power system’ and just cheered about the new appearance of their heroes. Covering up an issue with another issue. Your normal average viral marketing, right?”

“Although the effects weren’t that average.”

Like he was waiting for that response, Ian jabbed his finger toward me as he lit up the cigar in his mouth.

“Exactly. As a hustler myself, I knew this was going to bring in some hot customers. But something a little different from what I expected happened.”

“And that unexpected thing is…?”

“That video the Dome uploaded. You know, the weapons on the borderline of being considered Old Times weapons that me and Vex used? I got hundreds of emails every day to my game pod asking if they could buy those weapons.”

I remembered. We took a bunch of things from the Inspection Bureau’s weapons garage, like hand cannons and monomolecular blades.

“Oh, those. But those aren’t for sale, are they? You can’t get them even if you wanted to.”

“Well, I obviously thought so too and turned them all down… but I had a feeling that there just might be a chance. The restriction on releasing this technology was decided by the Dome’s management branch, and from the standpoint of the people that developed and are selling those weapons, they went through all of that trouble to develop this technology only to have it tied to a tiny domestic market because of the rules. That would make them pretty darn annoyed, don’t you think?”

Seeing that the tips of Ian’s top lip curled upwards. I knew what that grin meant. That was Ian’s ‘bad idea’ expression.

“That’s why I contacted [Life and Murder], the biggest, most advanced weapons company in the Dome. There was this and that request. I know you guys are rotting up inside. Let’s try doing some business together. That’s why I spent the last few days at the Dome going around talking to people.”

Ian proudly introduced his plan to us. But honestly, I had my doubts as I listened to it. This was talking about leaking the technology of not just anyone but the Dome, who climbed up to the number one spot in the Wastelands with just their technology. Though it isn’t comparable to the Dome’s newest plasma rifles or Exosuit and shield technology, the hand cannons and electronic weapons that Ian used were the products of technology on a completely different level compared to the Ak-47s and stainless steel pipe machine guns they generally use in the Wastelands. It was obvious that the Raptors would swarm the Marketplace the moment they were released to the public, and there was no way that the Dome would just hand over high-tech weapons to their enemy.

“I mean, the plan isn’t bad… but do you actually think it’s going to work?”

So I was going to persuade him out of it before he went through all the trouble for nothing…

Flutter—

“It did, though.”

.

.

.

.

“Huh?”

What Ian took out of his pocket was none other than a thick contract with the Dome’s seal, Marketplace’s mark, and Life and Murder Co.’s seal all stamped on it.

I snatched the contract out of his hands and carefully read through the entire thing. The contract wasn’t written on smooth paper but rough pages created out of dried pulp, completely handwritten with ink.

You couldn’t mistake it. This contract clearly stated that Life and Murder were going to sell their semi-modern weapons to the outside world through the BDSM Caravan.

“H-how did you do it?”

“Keheheheh, it was good timing. Just when I got here, I could clearly see that the Dome was tight on money. Normally the guys that would be busy acting all orderly and lawful were selling flags and toys and spreading out to other fields of business too. I thought that looked a little suspicious, so I asked around. That underground bunker in Area 45 we all met in… I heard they were going to renovate that place into a new Dome. According to the Inspection Bureau’s announcement, there aren’t any problems with the plans either.”

No problems with the plans, you say… They must have yet to notify the shield part problem to the public.

“Y…eah.”

“But after looking around for a few days, I found many more strange things. As you know, we got some connections in the Inspection Bureau, so we can go into the IB building with no problem, right? When I told them I was there to visit Ezel, the guys at the counter saluted me. I was going to peek to see when my tank would be done, but…”

Snap!

Like he found some incredible clue, Ian snapped his finger before he continued.

“There wasn’t a single Exosuit there.”

“Not a single one?”

“Yeah. Even Ezel was out on a mission. I asked Anne where everyone went…”

“Anne?”

“The lady that was managing the weapons garage. I gave her a warm greeting, then asked her where everyone went, and she said they all went out on a mission around the Dome. They didn’t even go out to Area 45. Everyone was circling around the Dome on patrol. Isn’t that weird? You could see the Raptor’s tank fleet from five miles away, so there isn’t any reason for them to spread out their troops like that for patrol.”

“…”

My thoughts got all tangled up after hearing what Ian said. All of the clues were currently standing alone, and it felt like he was missing just one clue that connected all of them together.

The Dome needed money. Exosuits consumed excessive quantities of energy for usage, and all of that was summed up to money. From the Dome’s perspective, they didn’t have the reason nor any spare money to waste.

Exosuits were the Dome’s ultimate weapon. So they were never exposed rashly and were only used when absolutely necessary. Mainly only when enemies like the Raptors or Type 3 mutants who can destroy entire cities were the opponent.

Since there weren’t any Type 3 mutants nearby, then that meant the opponent was the Raptors. But since the Raptors were massive bulks of metal that the radar could easily detect, it wasn’t necessary for them to patrol the area like that. The only reason why they would need to do that was if the Raptors had a breakthrough regarding their battle tactics.

The trigger that caused a change in the Raptor Society’s strategy. I’ve already seen it before.

“Cyborgs… Well, a little too analog to call it that. Mechanized humans? Is it the guys that had chainsaws and pressure vises as arms?”

As I mumbled to myself to organize my thoughts, Ian’s smirk he had when he was telling us what he found turned into an awed, maybe a little exasperated, expression.

“Damn. If I knew you would have figured it out this fast, I should have just woken you up instead of paying that informant 8 million. You’re right. According to the informant, a few soldiers with superhuman physical abilities and odd prosthetics were in guerilla warfare with the Dome.”

Ian’s answer confirmed that my predictions were right.

Back in the Great War days, they did extensive research to implant mechanized bones and muscles to create soldiers with superhuman strength and abilities, but not only were there physical and mental rejections from the user, but its efficiency was also low, making the user need to carry a large power tank on their back, deterring the entire goal of flexibility and mobility, thus abandoned.

Later, this technology was used as a base to create the Exosuits, and after stealing that technology from the Dome, the Raptors finally succeeded in developing it enough for it to be usable.

“Tactics usually become more unconventional when the allies are in danger…”

“Exactly! The reason why the Dome was rushing so much was because they didn’t have a proper means to stop these guerilla attacks. They apparently did manage to kill a few after sending out all of their Exosuits on full radar, but there’s still an occasional few that gets past them and pack a punch in with a missile, then run away. The citizens are obviously getting nervous, and there’s a limit to how much they can control the news. That’s why they were trying to make the Area 45 Dome even partially active as soon as possible. With the Dome’s overwhelming territory control, the regions where the Raptors will be able to use their guerilla tactic would drastically shrink.”

Inside Gyosu’s head, the information that Ian found out and what he obtained from his conversation with the President started to come together. The reason why they needed to depend on external forces, even using all of that money. Cause of their lack of money. And, the fact that Ian brought this up at this point meant…

He found a solution to their money shortage and a way to rip off some of their money in the middle.

“So, how much did they ask for to get rid of that technology release restriction?”

“Keheheh. They asked for 30%, so I kindly asked the IB worker if they wanted to get beat up. Since the Raptors might buy it, it’s impossible to upload it on the GG Marketplace. The only methods to buy it are direct purchase, where they come to visit the Dome in person to buy the weapon directly from the Life and Murder headquarters, or they arrange a consignment transaction with ‘Caravans verified to have zero chance of betrayal,’ and handing over 20% of profit for taxes.”

“Consigned trading only through verified caravans. Are you a genius? Making a way to budge in like that.”

The limitations of direct trade. That was where our caravan came in. Willing purchasers were all over the place, but it wasn’t like they could all cross through the dangerous Wastelands to come to the Dome. Caravans were groups that went around the Wastelands with all sorts of goods to sell to survivors who had limited mobility. ‘Verified caravans’ was only just how it was written on paper, its actual meaning being that they weren’t going to hand over their products to anyone other than the caravans the Dome runs and us, BDSM.

“Keheheheh, it took a week-long meeting to get to this conclusion. It looked like those weak guys were dumbed out after holding a meeting for a couple of days without sleeping. Thanks to that, we were able to arrange the contract to our benefit. Weaklings. The CEO of Life and Murder was over 60, and he didn’t even bat an eye.”

Fwip!

I was flipping through each page of the contract as I listened to Ian. Separated into tiers, from Tier 1 to 5, there were several dozens of weapons, each with a set quantity, price, and areas it was restricted from being sold. Some were familiar, others completely new, but even just one quick glimpse at it was enough to know that these were all beyond what was considered the standard technology in the Wastelands. The names of the Caravans participating and their respective areas were also listed in it.

… [The following caravans will take 13% m of sales proceeds.]

Goldman Wanderer, Area 42~46.

Dome Caravan, Area 40~49.

BDSM, Area 41~35…

Huh?

“Hey, wait. This…”

“Isn’t it crazy? I told you! I wrote in our names while they were out of it. It’s not the profit but the sales proceeds we’re taking 13% off! If we manage to sell enough of ‘em, our income’s multiplied that much more! Nobody will know exactly how much we sold them for, so that means we could take all of the money when we charge more than what the Dome set the price as!”

“No, not that… Don’t the Areas look a little weird?”

“Mmm, the 30s are a little dangerous, but there haven’t really been any issues recently. Aside from the slightly more vicious monsters, there are actually even fewer people that can come out here, so we’ll have more customers, and since everyone’s holed up in their shelters because of the radiation, we won’t need to worry about getting attacked either.”

No, but the issue is that there’s been a really, really big problem in that area recently…

I needed to set one thing straight. With all the money we already have, there really isn’t a reason for us to risk our lives right now.

“Ian. Why are you trying to make money?”

“Huh? What’s with the stupid question all of a sudden? Did I pour brandy in your milk too?”

“I’m not joking around, seriously. We’re rich now. We have enough to use plentifully for the rest of our lives, so I’m wondering why you still try so hard to make money.”

“Serious, you say…”

Cracklee—

Hahhhhh.

Ian breathed out the cigarette smoke like a sigh to my question, then answered as he took off his white fedora.

“I do it because I want to.”

“…Because you want to?”

“Yeah. Do you always need a reason? We have more places we’re spending it now, so I thought we would need more. Thought this would be a nice opportunity. You should have seen it on your way here. The village or something that grew around our shelter.”

“And… What’s it gotta do with that?”

“You really don’t get it? I know you’re not just going to leave that alone.”

When I heard what Ian said, I checked for a moment to remember whether I ever told Ian what I did at the village. I didn’t tell him a single thing.

“You know, you think too much sometimes. Think simple! Now, if you leave those people alone, they’re either going to brawl each other to the death or leave. If that happens, then we return to our homely and lonely shelter. Do you like that? Or not?”

“But, it’s not that…”

“F**k! Just think about it and say whether it’s nice or it bothers you!”

Ian’s voice forced Gyosu to imagine that scene. The familiar alleyway and the path that people once often walked through. There were blood stains in the underground shop where Geum-pil Park settled down, with only the cold furnaces and traces of two people left behind. It was quiet and safer this way, but…

“It… bothers me.”

“Then we gotta save them. Gyosu, you’re looking too far into the future. Sometimes, you have to move on to see just what’s in front of you right there. Alright? If you want to run a village, you’re gonna need a lot of money then. Even if it isn’t as big as the Dome, we need a wall and defense system strong enough to block off the mutants, and people will start to get married once enough gather and mingle, and then we’ll have kids too. While we’re at it, even if it isn’t city-level, getting a couple of shields for bigger shelters will block off the dust, at least. See? I can think of countless things I want to do! And this all needs money. Things that 200 million won’t be enough for. You still think there’s no reason to make money?”

Glug, glug—

Clack!

After emptying the glass in front of him, Ian tugged up his collar like he was posing and said.

“I’m doing this not because of you but because of me. My first family was shattered into bits, and I can’t leave my second one to turn out like that too. I like the guys that gathered around our house, you know. So I’m gonna need to go through with this contract. Even if it’s a little dangerous. It’s abnormal for wanting life in the Wastelands to be not dangerous in the first place.”

Such firm belief, without a single moment of doubt about what he was doing. It’s times like these when I feel that Ian really did live 10 years more than me.

“…Ughhh.”

“What—you don’t like it? If you really have a bad feeling about this, I can cancel the…”

“No, it isn’t that. I was just thinking about how I lost again.”

“Lose? To who?”

That snake-like mustached man, of course.

‘I ask that you hurry. At least quick enough to classify those who disappeared as ‘missing’.’

I thought I was acting pretty cold when I told him I was going to talk about it with the others.

But the President already knew all of this. That Ian made a contract to go to the Area 30s. He basically had the confirmation of one person out of three already, which is why he let me go so easily.

“Alright, let’s go. We’ll do business, find the missing people, and deliver the box holding the Dome’s hopes and dreams. Let’s do it all. And we’ll get filthy rich after it.”

“Missing people? Box? Hey, what’s all that…”

“Don’t take it back later. It’s already been decided.”

Checking if the President’s request document was still inside of his pocket, Gyosu got up from his seat.

Listening to what he said, I wanted to do this now too. I wasn’t going to take back my decision now, even if they asked me to.