Death Leveling Chapter 42

[ … words ]

The perspective of Angelo continues:

The morning came barging in—sunlight hitting past the curtains onto my face and brightening up the whole room.

Suddenly, the doorbell vibrated through my whole apartment.

I got up—I knew who was at my room.

“Hi,” I said awkwardly with my hand hiding behind my head.

“Honey, haiiii!” the woman let out, playfully with a mischievous smile dressing her face.

Moved to the side and gestured with my hands for her to go in…

“Come right in.”

“If you insist!”

She took off her clothes… and clothes.

A minute or thirty passed.

“I’m— I’m done,” I voiced, exhausted.

White women really are the best, aren’t they?

Immediately, she started dressing up.

“You’re— umm… leaving already?”

“Of course—I have a schedule, you know that, don’t you?” she stated without even looking at me.

“Could you…”

I glanced away, with eyes better not verbalized.

“Don’t look at me with those puppy eyes,” she cut me off with her reply—did she know what I was going to say?—is that it?

I anxiously giggled, staring at the floor feeling foolish.

“If you wanted me to stay for longer, you should’ve booked me for longer. Let’s not play games.” Her tone was cold—words assigned only for clients.

“Can I still?”

She paused and then had her eyes skim me. “Depends… will you pay double?”

I paid double. And all I wanted was her company.

She left.

And I was feeling even lonelier than before.

Time for me to go as well; before clocking in, I need to see the director.

Dozens of massive buildings—playgrounds, courts, and hundreds of magic orbs scattered all over the place. “Sunny House,” was it? Glanced back at the piece of paper—had the address.

*Knock knock*

Opened the door and… “hello,” with my head peeping through the door.

“Angelo! Good to see you,” replied an old man with a big beard dressed in a suit. “We’ll be over this in no time—everything’s ready for you.”

I nodded my head, void of words.

Signed some papers and took other ones with myself.

“So, how’s the new batch?”

The director smiled and replied giddily, “they’re sweet kids! You can take a look at them if you’re keen on that—you’ll have a good read on their MANA.”

“Ah… I guess, sure.”

We began walking in the hallway—playful noises of children were all over.

“How’s their memory, if I may ask?—do they remember anything?”

He was ahead of me, stepping without pausing or glancing at me.

“Not too much, but there are bits of trauma here and there—typical stuff, nothing out of ordinary.”

After a momentary silence of a couple seconds, I added another question, “when’s Minum coming? I’m assuming he still hasn’t done his thing.”

“In a day or two, perhaps, not sure.”

“I see.” I wasn’t particularly feeling good in this conversation, but I was compelled to keep my distaste dormant and invisible.

All the children were loud—jolly fuckers, just like children are supposed to be.

Then we went in… after he unlocked the door… and the group of children in this specific room were quiet and gloomy.

[ANALYSIS ACTIVATED]

In spite of us being surrounded by the children, the silence was tangible—no one spoke up, not a word by anyone except us.

“Two or three of them seem to be rather gifted—they’ll definitely be quite the assets, I believe,” I voiced, yet again without a hint of emotions.

“Yes… you must be referring to number 13, 18, and 41—their potential is rather phenomenal indeed, they’ll make great Players.”

“What about names?”

“Uhhh…”

He glanced at them upon that…

“They have their old names, but we’ll be changing them after Minum comes.”

Subsequently, looked at me and continued, “why do you ask?—are you looking to take one of them for yourself?”

Giggling, I replied, “ah… I don’t think I have it in me to be adopting anyone—there’s no way I could handle that kind of responsibility, especially given that I can barely take care of myself.”

“Oh, is that so?”

“But I wouldn’t mind naming one or two.”

The old man put his hand on his beard. “You can go ahead—don’t you have access to stuff like that?—you do log all the special ones, after all.”

“No, no—all I do is handle Players on missions, I don’t have any special privileges like that.”

“Yeah? Well, you do what you must,” he answered for the finale—we parted ways after that, as I had to hurry to the Association and take over the shift.

Went to the Association building… I was late by a few minutes—surely, Fisk won’t hold it against me, will he?

“Hi—anything new?” I asked, with Fisk slowly taking off his headphones. “You’re late!—you’re not sleeping around again, are you?!”

Immediately, I started awkwardly glancing around—there were a bunch of people here, and they all overheard his words.

“Hahaha… that’s very funny! Please, don’t joke like that!”

“Yes, yes—I’m the Jester, after all, all I amount to is jests—flippant and repulsive jests!”

Upon replying that, he raised his hand and his whole body began scintillating and gradually disappearing.

“Adios, dears!”

“See ya, Fisk.” “Take care, mate.” “Adios.”

I took over. “Update me on everything, Scar.”

“Yes, sir—there’s actually an update on the organ hunter situation.”

“Oh?” I let out in curiosity. “An update during the night?—that’s new,” I added.

“The squad investigating the issue had to operate nocturnally—they couldn’t exactly get close during the day without executing them.”

“Fair enough—spit it,” I said as others switched their focus towards me instead of whatever they were occupied with.

“They seem to be collecting corpses rather than organs—it’s rather unprecedented, so we haven’t attained concrete reasons behind their operations yet.”

The way he said the last part was… insinuating.

Peeked at him—I picked up the cues. “And?—I know there’s something more you want to say.”

Scar proceeded to take a gulp. “We tortured one of the subjects, and he claimed ’pale men’ are ’ordering’ them; their larger organization switched to paying bounties over corpses to accommodate the business protocol, in spite of their new partners not paying a dime.”

I tilted my head in confusion.

“And what do you make of this?”

“Well… it sounds like they had no choice—to avoid annihilation, their parent organization had to start paying up regardless of there being no money at stake.”

“Hmm…”

“Either way, this is just one subject—the veracity of these claims isn’t verifiable just yet, but within a day or two we should have all the answers.”

“Abnormal… something is happening.”

“Don’t go getting excited, Angelo,” Scar instantly attached with a grin on his face.

Peeped at him and replied, “I would never—how could I be bored managing Players 12-hours a day?—don’t be ridiculous!”

My smirk retained its quality.

Certainly, a smirk.