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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator:Bobt
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Following the punk, Locke went down the stairs and came across a large steel door. Opening and entering it, the music that had already been loudly blaring now sounded at the level of thumping noise.
Under the dazzlingly flashing lights, there were tons of people.
Not only humans but also elves and orcs were commonly seen, and here and there, there were beings a head taller than other races, like lycans and trolls. All of them were recklessly shaking their bodies to the ear-splitting club music.
Following the punk who was leading the way, they brushed past a dwarf surrounded by elf and horned women smoking cigars, a vampire couple too busy biting and sucking each other, and so on.
Locke whistled with a snicker, seeing the couple’s appearance that could be either sucking blood or kissing. Two pairs of glowing yellow eyes glanced at Locke.
Locke and the punk went up to the second floor that was made like a balcony overlooking the first floor after crossing the club like that. There were tables close to the railing and also a few rooms with canopies for more private encounters. The punk who had guided the way hurried to a hulk standing there and bowed.
The one receiving that greeting was a polar bear man with a build well over 2 meters tall, a protruding snout, and white fur. Perhaps because of his size, his black suit was tight.
While listening to what the punk was saying, he quietly looked at Locke’s Face, then bent over and stuck his head towards the canopy he had been guarding. After a while, the polar bear man pulled his head out and fully drew back the canopy, gesturing Locke to come closer.
As Locke swaggered closer with his hands in his jacket pockets, the figures of those sitting inside the room were revealed. They were all polar bear men.
“You came instead of Melissa?”
The polar bear, who had been smoking a cigar while sitting at the very back, asked while looking straight at Locke. Locke nodded his chin in affirmation. The polar bear grinned as if it was amusing.
“A cheeky delivery boy.”
But he didn’t seem to want to find more fault with that, glancing at another polar bear man sitting next to him. Then the polar bear who received the eye gesture took out a gray hard case bag from below and placed it on the table.
“The promised items. Take them.”
Locke approached and picked up the bag without any hesitation. And as he was about to turn around, the polar bear opened his mouth again.
“Not going to check the items?”
“You must have put them in well. I wasn’t told to do that much.”
“Hmph, even an insolent delivery boy at that.”
The polar bear crushed his cigar in the ashtray and licked his teeth with his tongue.
“Well, a delivery boy is fine as long as he delivers well. Alright. The deal is done. Go.”
Locke turned around with the bag.
Melissa had said there might be trouble, but it seemed like it would end cleanly like this anyway. Locke also didn’t mind if the job ended like this, with just a delivery without any dangerous situations. Melissa would have to pay him the fee anyway.
At that moment, one of the polar bears, who had been quietly watching Locke’s Back as he was leaving, got startled and whispered to the polar bear. In that instant, the boss polar bear’s expression turned cold, and Locke frowned.
“Hey, wait. Stop right there.”
Locke’s Steps had already stopped before the polar bear’s call. His sensitive ears could sufficiently eavesdrop on their whispers even amid the thumping club music.
Locke let out a small sigh.
Polar bear men, commonly also called Siberian werebears. A race originating from the northernmost part of Eurasia, they had a notorious reputation as Siberian berserkers from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union period. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were also a race that had seeped into the underworld all over the world and formed gangs.
It wasn’t much different here in Midland, so if you gathered ten polar bear men, eight or nine of them were Siberian gangsters. The ruler of the organization commanding those polar bear berserkers was an old man who used to be a Soviet soldier, a madman who longed for the glory of the former Soviet Union to the point of being called nicknames like the White Ghost of the Soviets.
And his name was Romanos.
“My brother says he needs to take a closer look at your face. Don’t go and turn around.”
A few days ago, Locke had hacked one of Romanos’ freezer warehouse servers. To be precise, it was an illegal pharmaceutical facility disguised as such.
Just for that data, there was no need to kill anyone or anything, so he had sneaked in with a terminal, stolen the data from the factory’s server. Like this delivery job, a mercenary’s job wasn’t always about shooting and killing someone.
“Hey! Can’t you hear me? I said turn around!”
Anyway, at that time, he thought he had handled the job quite cleanly, but it seemed like some trace had been left behind. There must have been a closed-circuit camera hidden.
Locke, who had been thinking about other things, gently shook his head and slowly put the hard case bag on the floor. At Locke’s Action, the polar bear who had been acting as a bodyguard in front of the room growled and strode closer. His suit, which had already been tight, now swelled up as if it was really about to burst.
“You little fucker, are your ears clogged?”
The polar bear’s huge hand grabbed Locke’s Left shoulder. With white fur bristling, it looked like a cotton ball was placed on it. However, the grip of that hand and the claws would be enough to tear the delicate flesh of a human. It would have been a moment for an ordinary person to be terrified.
Locke turned his head and made eye contact with that polar bear. The polar bear’s expression froze upon meeting those eyes.
Of course, Locke was no ordinary human.
Without bothering to shake off the polar bear’s hand, Locke went straight for the side under that arm with his left fist. With a thwack sound of skin tearing, the polar bear’s body shrank. The hand that had been grabbing Locke’s Shoulder also loosened.
Locke grabbed that hand again. Pulling that arm, he struck the polar bear’s jaw with his right fist. This time, there was a whip-cracking sound.
The polar bear’s jaw spun once and returned to its place due to the rebound of muscle and bone. But his eyes were already half-dazed and looked hazy. Even while staggering in a daze, his huge body staggered, trying to regain balance.
Locke, who had been quietly scanning that sight, soon spun his body. His leg drew a large arc. Immediately after, a clean roundhouse kick struck the polar bear’s jaw once again.
The polar bear’s body flew a long way in the opposite direction of the hit. The second-floor railing shattered, and the hundreds-kilogram mass crashed to the first floor with a bang. People who had been dancing mindlessly were startled and stopped. The DJ also stopped in surprise, so the music also ceased for a moment.
Their eyes went to the fallen polar bear, then soon moved to the second-floor railing where he had fallen from. Locke, who received the gazes of dozens of people, was dusting off his jacket as if nothing had happened.
“This little fucker-!”
The polar bear boss, who saw the sight of his subordinate being smashed in the room, shouted and rose to his feet. Not only that, but the three polar bears around him did the same. Befitting their nickname of berserkers, their eyes were already burning red.
The polar bear boss slammed the room’s table with both hands and opened his snout wide.
“Rooooaar!”
At the same time as the polar bear boss’s roar erupted, the club music’s beat, which had stopped, began to thump loudly again. The DJ and the club guests, who sensed that something had happened, began to flee outside in droves. Thanks to the dazzling lights, the inside of the club became a pandemonium.
The next moment, seeing the polar bears smashing tables and liquor bottles and running on all fours, Locke lightly kicked the hard case bag he had put down a moment ago. The bag slid into a corner with a rattle.
Having pushed the bag to a safe place, Locke immediately spun his body. The polar bear who had rushed in recklessly to tackle Locke lost his target and rolled on the floor.
As Locke advanced forward while spinning his body, his fist flowed like water and struck the jaw of the guy following from behind. The moment the guy staggered, a lightning-fast combo continued from Locke’s Hand. The sound of skin tearing from consecutive hits to the sides, abdomen, and solar plexus mixed with the club’s beat.
Leaving the guy who couldn’t even breathe and was staggering, Locke turned his body and kicked the jaw of the guy who was rolling on the floor behind him. The guy who had been trying to get up tumbled again.
“Rooooar!”
The moment Locke turned to face forward again, another polar bear who had approached in the meantime tackled Locke’s Waist. As that direction happened to be towards the railing, the bear and Locke flew into the air.
The polar bear’s weight was well over two hundred kilos at a rough glance. If Locke got crushed under that, even his back would be shattered.
However, in that split second of falling from the second-floor railing to the first-floor, as Locke flipped his waist and rotated his feet in the air, the positions of the human and polar bear flipped. As a result, the polar bear became Locke’s Shock absorber. Spider web-like cracks spread on the club floor where the two fell.
Leaving the polar bear who had fainted with his mouth wide open, Locke calmly got up. The club music was still ringing painfully in the ears, and the ceiling lights were also flashing chaotically. Locke lightly rubbed his itchy ear and looked up at the second floor.
The polar bear boss was standing on the railing, looking down at him. His face was all contorted with an emotion that could be anger or bewilderment.
At the same time, a long blade protruded from the back of his right hand. Judging by the strange vibration and the blade part glowing red, it was definitely an illegally modified implant. Seeing that, Locke snickered.
At that moment, the polar bear who had been beaten up by Locke a moment ago finally lost his balance and collapsed with a thud.
As if that was a signal, the polar bear boss leaped. As the build of 2.5 meters jumped like that, it seemed to fill the club’s ceiling. A roar erupted as the guy’s mouth opened wide.
“Rooooar!”
The next scene that followed was cut off like a very old film movie thanks to the continuous flashing of lights.
The polar bear’s fall. The floor shattering and debris rising. The trajectory of the glowing red implanted blade. The white teeth inside the polar bear’s wide-open snout. Locke’s Movement flickering like a ghost. The sparks flying as the implanted blade cut the floor.
And a gray flash for a moment.
The silhouette of the white mass split in two and tumbled on the floor. There was no scream, not even a small groan. The polar bear boss’s breath ceased the moment Locke’s Auror Blade brushed past him. It was as if that blade of light had cut his body and soul.
Locke spun the handle of the Auror Blade in his hand, leaving the polar bear’s corpse behind. And with a clean motion, he inserted it into the scabbard. The friction of leather and wood made a pleasant sound.
“Hmm.”
Afterward, Locke, who had been straightening his jacket by pulling the collar, suddenly realized that the club music had stopped. At the same time, the sound of shoes rushing in droves echoed through the club. Locke, who had been about to move to get the bag on the second floor, paused for a moment to look around.
The club’s door, where all the club guests had rushed to a moment ago, opened with a bang. And from there, humans, orcs, polar bears, etc., in black suits poured out. It must be Romanos’ gang.
At the very front was the punk who had first guided Locke. Seeing the state of the wrecked club and the polar bear boss who had been split in two, the punk’s face turned pale.
Regardless of the punk’s state, the rest of the gang members realized that Locke, the only one standing in the club, was the main enemy and took out the weapons they had each brought. They were firearms of all kinds, from handguns to heavy-sized shotguns.
Leaving the trembling punk behind, one of the gang members stepped forward and pointed a gun at Locke.
“You fucker, are you alone? What the hell are you?”
Locke was unfazed even when he saw the muzzle and the excited gang member. His gaze swept through the gang members aiming at him behind, and finally turned back to the gang member who had spoken to him.
He said,
“What else would I come to a club for? I came to dance.”
“…What the fuck? What kind of retarded nonsense is this guy spewing, what dance?”
“Sword dance.”
When that gang member’s expression distorted strangely, a wooden stick was already in Locke’s Right hand again. Then, from his mind, a gray blade manifested into the world, taking the end of that wooden stick as its exit. The gray Auror Blade shone in Locke’s Right hand as he stood in the middle of the club.
And soon, a dance with gunshots and screams as accompaniment continued inside the club.
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