Cyberpunk, but urban

"What did you just see...?" In the library, Roland, who had already healed his limbs, put one hand in his pocket and asked Angela.

Angela responded, “A snippet of the invitation process, through which we can learn about the guests’ stories.”

Roland curled his lips and said half-jokingly, "You actually engage in voyeurism. I didn't expect your hobbies to be so dirty."

"Roland, don't talk to Angela like that."

Angelica, who was sitting next to Angela holding her daughter, glanced at Roland with a smile, and Roland didn't say another word afterwards.

It can be said that although it is not pitch black, it is very silent.

"Angela, please continue to talk to us." Angelica looked at Roland's performance with satisfaction, turned around and said to Angela beside her in an encouraging tone.

"Wouldn't it be more convenient for us to know in advance what kind of guests will come? Besides, this is not my will, but the will of the invitation itself."

After Angela finished speaking, Roland immediately raised his eyebrows, obviously wanting to say something. However, he just offended Angelica, so he didn't dare to do anything stupid now.

Angelica naturally knew what Roland wanted to say, so she asked Angela, "Angela, if the invitation letter can do this, why can't it send the guests into a room full of traps?"

Angela shook her head and said to Angelica, "I can't do that... We can only see this picture when the guests come voluntarily. What's more, the power of the invitation does not belong entirely to me. I am just borrowing it."

Although no emotion could be seen on Angela's face, Roland always felt that the way she and Angelica got along was very strange. No, it wasn't strange...

Roland thought about it for a while, until Angelica called him, he finally figured out how the two of them got along.

"You two... why do you feel like mother and daughter?" This time, the silence was broken by him, followed by Mrs. Angelica's dark face.

"Roland..." Angelica smiled unkindly. Although she did nothing, Roland felt that it would be better to be hit by her twice.

"...Forget it, the child is still here." Angelica took a deep breath and then said to Roland, "Go and receive these guests. Mr. Roland, the ninth-level cleaner, is just the right person to deal with the rats in the back alley."

Angelica started laughing as she spoke. Looking at Angelica's smile, Roland couldn't help but smile too.

Even though he did a lot of shitty things in the past few days, and even his cleaner level and weapons were taken away by an association, Angelica was still alive, which was much more important than these material things.

"Then I, the ninth-level finisher, will be busy now. Lord Darksilence, you just take good care of the child!" After a final joke, Roland left the room and took the projected Durandal to the battle room.

"Angela, let's go meet those rats too."

"Rat?" There was a hint of doubt in Angela's inorganic eyes. She didn't understand this term.

"Well, let Roland and the guests wait a moment. I will first tell you what a mouse is." Angelica sighed and put her dear husband behind her.

"The rats are low-ranking thugs from the back alleys. They have no savings and no power. Their organization is loose and they can't be considered a gang."

"Most of them have lost their passion for life and just look forward to earning money every day, just trying to get by from day to day."

"But... these people are different. I can see hope in their eyes. As mice, they still have the ambition to pursue their dreams. Is this also the power of the Seed of Light?"

Angelica was a little happy. It was more or less a happy thing to see others working hard for their dreams. Even if they would be turned into books by Roland, Angelica had already learned from Angela that they would not die.

"I don't know. Maybe it was the light seed that gave them the desire to pursue their dreams, or maybe it was their desire to pursue their dreams that made the light seed sprout. In any case, the light in their hearts attracted the attention of the invitation letter."

Angela spoke to Angelica without any change of emotion, but after spending the past few days together, Angelica had learned how to identify Angela's emotions.

Although Angela's past is unclear, every time she mentions something related to the Seed of Light, her heart becomes confused, and she manifests it outwardly as imperceptible complex emotions.

So, Angelica took the initiative to avoid the topic: "Okay, okay, don't think about it. Angela, do you know the back alley?"

"Back alley? I know. I know someone who came from a back alley."

"It's not surprising. After all, back alleys are like the blood vessels of a city, spreading everywhere."

Of course, if Angelica knew that the person Angela was talking about was Geburah, the legendary red finisher - the Crimson Mist, she might not have behaved in this way.

But no matter what, Angela's doubts have been resolved for the time being, and it's time for them to go meet these guests.

The entrance to the library...

"This is the library. It's more beautiful than I imagined."

"Hmm~ maybe there are a lot of valuables in it."

Pete and Lenny expressed their opinions on the decoration of the library entrance, while Thor carefully observed the surrounding situation.

Snapped!

The figures of Angela and Angelica appeared before them.

"Dear guests, welcome. This is the library. I am Angela, the director and librarian of the library. You will get anything you want here, but you may also lose the most precious things."

"You are the boss here? We can take whatever we want, right?"

Looking at Angela in front of him who was wearing an elegant women's suit, the ragged Pete stroked his beard and asked her.

"Of course. To be precise, you can take any book you want. If you have the strength to match it, then that's fine."

"How much can that crappy book be worth...?" Thor complained, who was full of doubts about this action.

"If the book contains valuable information, it can certainly be worth a lot of money."

"Ha! Brother! Is this the time to think about that kind of shit? We must seize every opportunity to turn things around."

Pete turned Thor's body towards him, and the look of a desperate gambler made Thor feel like he was about to be burned.

"Then, right here, I hope you can find the book you want." Angela snapped her fingers, and Peter and the other two disappeared, appearing in front of Roland who had been waiting for a long time.

Chapter 67. The Book of Rats

Unfortunately, Pete, Lenny and Hammer, who stepped into the battlefield of the reception room of the general level with great courage, would never have thought that the one they would be fighting against would be a ninth-level finisher who had the strength of a first-level finisher and shared the color title with his wife.

"Hiss... huh... He's just a nerd, not scary at all..."

Peter and the other two stood opposite Roland, and then began to convince themselves. For mice like them, fighting with others has never been an easy task.

Although he dreamed of joining the Finger and becoming a high-ranking member of the Syndicate, in fact, he never thought about how many battles he would have to fight and how many people he would have to kill on the road to becoming the Finger.

"Alas... this is worse than harvesting the internal organs..."

Thor was sighing. Although he didn't know why, the man in front of him wrapped in a suit gave him a very bad feeling. No, to be precise, it should be said that he was very bad.

His heart was pounding, and his intuition told him that Pete's decision this time would lead them into the abyss.

Lenny is the one with the least combat experience among the three of them. As a girl who has participated in the examination village, she is often assigned by Pete to lure targets or harvest the internal organs of corpses.

This also made her the only one among the three of them who could not see the threat from the man in front of her.

"Hey! If you want to do something, do it quickly! Don't underestimate us just because we are rats."

Lenny pulled out his scalpel and pointed it at Roland.

"Are you sure you don't say anything to each other? Maybe this is the last time you talk to each other."

Roland was calm and composed, not caring at all about the knife pointed at him. For him, who had no need to hide his strength, dealing with a few rats in the back alley was less troublesome than changing his daughter's diaper.

"We've already said everything we wanted to say. Come on, there's no need to show mercy. I won't."

Peter raised his dagger and looked directly at Roland. Was he afraid? Of course he was. But he had to pretend he was not afraid, so that Thor and Lenny would fight with him without any worries.

"Then, Roland, the ninth-level finisher, please give me your guidance." The next second, Roland's figure disappeared from the spot.

Before Pete could react, a powerful punch hit him in the abdomen, knocking him flying.

"Pete!"

Hammer shouted and rushed towards Roland. He held a dagger in one hand and a well-maintained hammer in the other.

"Don't hold me back... Pete."

Hiding behind Thor's body, Lenny followed him and rushed towards Roland. According to their usual fighting style, she would take advantage of Thor's struggle with the enemy to bypass them. With her good balance, she would climb onto the enemy's body and cut their throats directly with a scalpel.

"Instead of looking after your companions, you continued to attack me. It was a good choice."

Roland even had plenty of time to make comments. In the eyes of Pete, who was struggling to get up, he was like picking up a chicken. He grabbed the dagger that Thor stabbed at him and threw him out, and Lenny, who was hiding behind him, fell beside Pete.

"Fuck you... this guy is a ninth-level finisher?!"

Peter spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and next to him was a pool of food residue he had just vomited. Roland's punch hit his stomach directly, and if he hadn't gotten up in time, he might have choked to death by the food that came up from his stomach.

"So I told you not to come in casually..."

Thor sighed and pulled Lenny up. He knew in his heart that the three of them probably wouldn't have much chance of escaping safely today.

"Why, you're not going to continue the attack?"

It's not that Roland didn't want to end the fight quickly, but before coming in, Angela asked him to prolong the fight as much as possible and arouse the opponent's emotions as much as possible.

Although he didn't have enough time to ask why, since he was asked, he had to do it.

"Listen to me," Pete said to the two men, holding his abdomen in extreme pain, "He is arrogant and doesn't take me seriously... This is an opportunity. Thor, hold him with me later. Lenny, after we catch him, you crawl over us. I know you don't like killing people, but this time you are the only one who has the chance to hurt him."

"it is good."

The three of them had a brief tactical discussion, and then Peter and Hammer rushed towards Roland from the left and right. They both held daggers, but this time their daggers were just a cover for their plan.

Roland saw all of this and let them approach him. Then, while he was about to offer the dagger to him, he let go and hugged Roland tightly with his arms wide open.

"Lenny!" "Quick!"

With Roland's indulgence, Lenny reached out and grabbed the two men's belts, and in three or two steps he approached Roland's throat.

"Huh, huh..."

She clenched the scalpel in her hand and cut towards Roland's throat.

"It was well done, what a shame."

The next moment, whether it was Pete or Thor, or Lenny who was standing on their backs, they were easily thrown out by Roland and hit the wall on one side.

Lenny and Thor screamed in pain and struggled for a long time but couldn't get up. But Peter, whether by luck or because he couldn't feel the pain anymore, stood up before them.

"…Who are you? Before we die, I hope you can explain it to us."

"Roland, this is my name. I used to be a first-level finisher."

"Ha! A first-level finisher, it's actually a first-level finisher!" The pain in his stomach had already numbed, and when Pete heard Roland's self-introduction, his eyes lit up with disbelief; then, he was excited to die at the hands of a first-level finisher; and finally, he felt regret for letting down his two friends beside him.

"Come on, give me a quick death."

Holding the dagger again, Peter rushed towards Roland without any defense. Then, he died happily as he wished.

"After all, am I just a fool daydreaming..."

The body fell to the ground. The two men who barely got up looked at Pete's body in disbelief. No one moved for a while.

"I don't care... I don't care." Lenny muttered to himself, but the hand holding the scalpel made the handle creak.

"Pete..."

Hammer gritted his teeth and rushed towards Roland, holding the tool hammer high in his hand. Then, like Pete, he fell to the ground and died under Lenny's gaze.

"...I haven't even had time to enjoy it properly...and it's about to end. This kind of ending...I hate it..."

"Brother Thor...I don't care, I don't care..."

tick tock,

Drops of blood slid down the handle of the scalpel, and the blood that fell from the hand cut by the nails fell to the ground, shattering Lenny's last dream.

Chapter 68. The final person visiting the back alley

"Anything else to say?" Roland walked over the books that Pete and Thor had transformed into, walked up to Lenny with an expressionless face, and asked her.

"I don't care... I don't care... Damn it, how could I not care!" She pointed the scalpel stained with her own blood at Roland, and then it fell from his broken arm.

"To be honest, you have indeed changed my impression of the back alley rats. I will remember you." After saying that, Roland took out Durandal from his book and inserted it into Lenny's heart.

"Oh, in the end... my rotten life just ended like this..."

In the very end, this rat who had dreams but no chance to realize them, endured the physical pain and weakness brought by blood loss, and smashed his broken arm on Roland's leg for the last time, as if he was trying in vain to smash against fate.

Looking at the books on the ground and the bloodstains on his trouser legs, even Roland, who was used to seeing life and death, didn't know what to say.

"Oh, it's a tough job."

After the books merged into a bookshelf under the light of the library, Roland left the battle room which was nominally called the reception room.

In the curator's room, Angela, who had watched all of this with Angelica, asked, "Is it really that important to join a well-known gang?"

Angelica looked at Roland who was about to leave the room, and said to Angela: "It is indeed very important in the city. Whether it is a gang or a finisher agency, it is very important to join an organization that suits you."

"It's not that there are no lone rangers in the city, but they tend to die quickly. Only by joining or forming a group can urbanites have a way out and a backer to ensure their own safety."

"Ye Lan, what are we going to do today?"

After washing and getting dressed in the hotel room, Luna asked Ye Lan who was outside the door.

"It's nothing too important. If nothing urgent happens, we can go to the branch of Lobotomy Corporation."