I work as a sorcerer in the US, and my side hustle is building Gundams.

"O'Brien is my friend, and none of you can take him away from me!"

Lynn shouted, and the two black men were stunned at first, then looked at each other and burst into laughter!

"Haha, Ron, look how skinny this white pig is! He still dares to try and steal our corpse?"

"Yeah, haha, I think he hasn't eaten for at least three days, and he's still bleeding... Oh well, let's just let him be with O'Brien, so he won't be all alone and pitiful!"

A greedy glint appeared in their eyes. The taller of the two men drew a dagger from his waist, chuckled maliciously, and walked over.

The shorter one also pulled out his belt and leaned in with a sinister grin.

"Come on, let us teach you a lesson! With you by my side, O'Brien won't be alone on his way to hell!"

The two were full of vigor and confidence.

But Lynn's lips curled into a smile, and he let out a soft laugh.

"Who said I was going to fight you? That's something only a brute would do. I'm a sorcerer!"

"Curse of Weakness!"

With a soft shout, Lynn was guided by what seemed to be an instinctive feeling, and he unleashed his only skill towards the tallest person closest to him.

A wisp of black mist instantly enveloped the tall black man's head.

In an instant, he felt as if a vacuum cleaner had sucked away most of his strength, and his steps immediately slowed down. His arms felt as heavy as a thousand pounds and he couldn't lift them!

"Now's the time!"

Lynn immediately rushed forward, snatched the dagger from his hand, and stabbed it into his shoulder with a backhand!

"what!"

A painful scream came from the other person's mouth, which startled the short black man behind him who was holding a belt!

"Ron, what's wrong, Ron?"

He rushed over and helped the tall man who was about to fall, asking loudly.

"I suddenly had a craving for marijuana, and all of a sudden, I was completely drained!"

The tall black man had no idea what kind of magic he had been hit by; he just felt, based on his experience, that he was in a bad state!

"I can handle him all by myself!"

Looking at Lynn, who was even weaker than himself, and reluctant to part with Obran's corpse, the short black man hesitated for two seconds before making up his mind to rush up and kill him again. But suddenly he felt his whole body go limp, and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion washed over him!

"Oh no, I'm getting a nicotine craving right now!"

"Hehe, this [Weakness Curse] is really useful!"

Lynn was extremely weak at this moment because he was in a weakened resurrection state.

But these two guys are weaker than me after being hit by the skill!

He deliberately put on a sinister grin and approached the two weakened black men step by step with a dagger in hand.

"Ah, help, help us, spare us, we were wrong!"

The two were already weak, and seeing him like this terrified them even more. They scrambled away, supporting each other, and disappeared at the end of the street corner in no time.

……

"You used [Curse of Weakness] to defeat the enemy. Skill progress +20%, character experience +20."

The system notification reappeared, making Lynn feel a little bit of growth.

"Phew...that was close, I almost got killed right after I transmigrated here..."

But at this moment he couldn't care less about any of that. Instead, he watched their departing figures and breathed a sigh of relief, collapsing softly to the ground.

This world is so treacherous; even human corpses are treated as commodities. I almost got killed by them just now, and turned into warm banknotes...

"Forget it, let's just sell this little black guy as they said, at least we can get some money to buy medicine..."

Lynn stood up and searched the tent, trying to find a cell phone or something.

Suddenly, he saw the door of a tent very close to him be flung open, and out came a bald, burly man who was clearly heavily intoxicated, staggering and talking on his cell phone!

He was staring at himself in disbelief, as if he had seen a ghost!

"Satan above! Lynn, how the hell are you alive again? You were smashed to pieces by that truck!"

Then, in a panic, he knelt down on the ground with a thud, his hands prostrating on the ground as if in worship.

"Almighty Satan, did you make a miracle happen? You even resurrected this fucking guy who got smashed into Lego bricks by a truck? I worship you, I praise you, Almighty God!"

But at the same time, the phone in his hand was still making a clear sound:

"Feed? Feed? You just said you had a body that needed to be collected. Please give us your address, and we will arrange for someone to come and collect it immediately..."

But the tattooed burly man, who was clearly already quite intoxicated, completely ignored him and instead devoutly chanted incantations while continuously worshipping Satan.

Lynn, whose mind was in such a state of confusion that it was about to crash, was about to go up and ask him a lot of questions.

But at that moment, a line of virtual text appeared on the semi-transparent light screen in front of them:

Adventurer, a forest troll has appeared before you. He seems to know you. Talk to him to obtain clues about your current identity, and you will receive a reward.

"Forest troll? I see. In this system, black people are orcs and white people are forest trolls, right? Alright, since the system has said so, I'll try to communicate with him."

"Hey, stop shaking me. I'm so weak and dizzy right now, I can't even remember who you are... You mean I was hit by a truck and torn to pieces?"

Lynn didn't know the other person's identity or how to address them, so he spoke vaguely.

"Me? I'm Mike! You, me, and O'Brien, we met three months ago when we were getting welfare at the food bank. We've been neighbors for so long, and you can't even remember my name?"

The other person's eyes widened in disbelief, as if Lynn not remembering his name was more serious than not answering how he came to be alive!

"Oh, right, Mike, I remember now..."

Lynn tried to bluff his way out, but the other person seemed to have thought of something and grabbed his shoulders, shaking him violently.

"How the hell did you survive? You were smashed to pieces, and it took me ages to piece you back together..."

Lynn was racking her brains trying to figure out how to answer him when she suddenly heard a screeching sound of brakes and a car door opening behind her.

"Hello, we are body recovery personnel from Seattle Paperclip Biopharmaceuticals."

Lynn and Mike turned to look in the direction from which the sound came.

Two men, one tall and one fat, dressed in blue work clothes and wearing white plastic gloves, walked quickly toward them. The taller one appeared to be a young Asian man with black hair and black eyes.

"Hello, everyone..."

Mike's attention was temporarily drawn to them, and he subconsciously reached out and shook hands with the other person's outstretched hand.

"You're Mike, right? You were the one who called to tell us there were two bodies here that needed to be retrieved? One was intact, and the other was broken into eight pieces..."

The taller staff member spoke up, his accent carrying a strong Tokyo University flavor.

"The complete body is this Black man, right? He looks to be in good condition, and you said he's been injected with at least five different enhancement agents, making him highly valuable for research. We can offer you a high price of $500..."

He looked down at O'Brien, who was bleeding from all seven orifices, lying at his feet.

"But where is the one that was broken into eight pieces? Let me make this clear first, we won't give you the full price for such a fragmented body. At most, we'll add up the price of each individual piece and then give you a discount. I think $358 is a good price."

The heavier staff member looked around but didn't see the other target.

"Oh... the one that got smashed into eight pieces..."

As he said this, Mike's eyes kept glancing at Lynn.

He wondered if he had seen a ghost today, or if his excessive consumption of Western tree leaves had caused serious problems with both his eyes and memory.

"Sorry, he misremembered. It's the aftereffect of excessive use of fortifiers and long-term malnutrition. He mistook the cut-up roast chicken he received at the food bank today for dismembered body parts."

Lynn, quick-witted, answered first, and shrugged helplessly, mimicking the habits of Europeans and Americans.

"..."

The two staff members exchanged a speechless glance, then nodded in relief.

It's not surprising that these homeless people would experience all sorts of hallucinations after using too much of the enhancer. They've seen people claiming to have breakfast with aliens, or that they just had a party with Elvis, or received relief meals with Megatron... they're used to it all.

So the tall man took out his wallet, counted out 25 $20 bills, and handed them to Mike.

"Please remember to contact us again when you have stock again. Paperclip Biopharmaceuticals always offers the highest price."

After saying that, the two men took out body bags they were carrying and put them over the "cargo." Then, one of them lifted his head and the other lifted his foot, and they quickly loaded the bleeding O'Brien into their small truck and drove away.

"So, were those scenes really... hallucinations?"

Mike rubbed his eyes hard, and when he opened them again, he still saw Lynn standing in front of him, lively and energetic, and couldn't help but doubt his mental state again.

"Of course, I told you long ago to stay away from those things. You can't control yourself, and one day you'll get yourself into trouble, and then I or some other homeless people will pick you up and sell you to Paperclip or some other biotech company..."

This reason worked so well that the other party began to doubt his previous memories, which shocked Lynn greatly, but at the same time, he went along with it.

[You've completed your conversation with the forest troll and obtained the relevant information, while also concealing the truth about your resurrection! Your Excellent Eloquence skill (Level 1) has been improved by 10%, and you've gained 10 experience points for leveling up.]

Lynn looked down and saw that his experience points on his character attribute panel had changed from 22 to 32, and an additional 10% had appeared after Excellent Eloquence (Level 1).

"Is this system treating real life like a game? Does it actually level up when it reaches 100%?"

Just as he was wondering what was going on, he felt a sharp pain in his chest and almost coughed up blood again.

What he needs to do now is to treat his body as soon as possible, and stop bleeding on its own!

"O'Brien is a mutual friend, right?"

He endured the pain and reached out to pat Mike on the shoulder.

"Yes, that's true. I wouldn't call them my closest loved ones, but..."

The other person stared at him blankly, not understanding what he meant by those words.

"So, if we consider him a good friend, then the money from selling him should be split 50/50, right?"

Before Mike could react, Lynn reached out and took the banknotes from the other man's hand, roughly counted out 13 bills and put them in his pocket, then returned the rest to the other man.

"..."

Mike's throat moved as if he wanted to say something, but he swallowed the words he was about to say.

Perhaps Lynn's previous explanation hadn't completely convinced him that the horrific, fragmented scene he had witnessed was a hallucination; he was still in shock and hadn't fully regained his senses.

"Do you know where I can get these medications? Antibiotics, painkillers, methylcobalamin, or acetylglutamine?"

Mike finally calmed down and hurriedly put the remaining 240 into his pocket, then stared at Lynn with a strange look.

"I know about painkillers. They have them at the Zebra & Dog supermarket over there. You can buy 1000 pills for $9.99."

"But antibiotics are a different story. You know, they require a prescription and are incredibly expensive."

He helplessly shrugged and pouted.

"As for that A or B thing you mentioned, I've never heard of it before, but you can ask Old John. He has all sorts of weird stuff."

Mike gestured towards a clearing ahead where many tents were clustered.

Ahead was an open space resembling a small square, next to which stood a fountain that had been abandoned for who knows how long, with only two legs remaining of the sculpture on it.

There were about seven or eight tents scattered around the square, all of them extremely cheap, with various colored lights shining from inside.

"The tent in the very middle belongs to old John. If you have money, you can buy some rare items from him that you can't get anywhere else."

Mike seemed to have fully accepted the previous "hallucination theory" by now, and led Lynn toward the tent.

"Mike, slow down, I'm too weak. By the way, is there anything to eat?"

Lynn felt like a zombie from Plants vs. Zombies, moving incredibly slowly. He had absolutely no strength left, and his stomach was rumbling like a drum.

"No, I've finished my food too. You forgot, there was a riot when we went to the food bank at noon. The volunteers distributing food scattered, and the food was trampled into mud by the rioters..."

Mike shrugged helplessly, and his stomach rumbled in perfect unison.