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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Simzy
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One day, while I was holed up in my room enjoying games all day as usual.
An unexpected guest came to visit me.
“Mr. Smith?”
What is he doing here again? Did Natasha send him?
Smith, with a somewhat stiff expression, spoke cautiously.
“…Yes, hello. Mr. Shun. May I borrow a moment of your time?”
Startled for a moment by his sudden appearance, I was about to welcome him in casually, but then I hesitated.
Ah, come to think of it. Right now, at home….
“…Just a moment, I’ll be right back out.”
Smith, who had nodded, took a step back from the front door.
I quietly closed the front door. And I turned around and scanned the interior of the room, which was currently occupied by several invaders.
Catherine, in a shameful state, wearing a tank top and dolphin shorts, lying on the sofa and rolling around.
Andrea, who knows where she sold off her schedule to, was enjoying a classic game with Catherine on an old computer they had bought from an antique shop.
Eve, sitting next to Andrea, was in the middle of guiding her with the mindset of entertaining a newbie.
“……”
No matter how I thought about it, it was a sight that was hard to show to others.
I took the coat hanging in the styler, put it on, and quietly put on my mask.
“Where are you going?”
Catherine, who had been lazing around listlessly, saw me and her eyes lit up.
At the same time, the gazes of Eve and Andrea also turned to me.
Ugh, this is burdensome.
I waved my hand in the air.
“Just going out front for a bit.”
“If you’re going out, shall we go together?”
Catherine landed lightly on the floor.
It seemed Eve and Andrea were also preparing to get up.
I waved my hand even faster.
“No, it’s Mr. Smith who came to see me. I’ll be right back.”
Of course, Smith hadn’t said I had to come alone, but at my attitude, Catherine flopped back down on the sofa.
Good, now’s the time.
I opened the front door and said to Smith.
“Let’s go quickly.”
“……Pardon?”
He must have thought I was going to let him in, so he looked puzzled when I said let’s go outside.
“There’s a good cafe for talking right in front of here, you know.”
Regardless, I led Smith onto the elevator.
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A break with a warm cup of coffee.
To think the world was this peaceful and warm.
“Whew….”
I let out a short breath and savored the moment.
I needed some time alone anyway.
Smith’s appearance had become a good opportunity.
Of course, it wasn’t like I was really alone.
I put down the molecular coffee I was drinking on the cafe table.
I looked at the orc sitting in front of me.
It must have been difficult for the orc with his massive muscles to sit in a normal cafe chair, as he expressed his discomfort with his body, shifting his posture here and there.
In the end, Smith, who had given up on sitting comfortably, took a sip of the drink he had ordered with a slightly tired face.
His filed-down tusks, which he had made invisible, briefly revealed themselves, sharp like fangs.
“So.”
I asked about his business from behind the black smart sunglasses Smith was wearing.
“What brings you here today?”
“…Um, first of all, I would like to say in advance that the reason I came to see you, Mr. Shun, is for a strictly personal matter.”
A personal matter.
Since this had never happened before, I decided to focus a little more on Smith’s voice.
Perhaps his stomach had settled after drinking the warm coffee.
Smith let out a breath, hoo, just like me.
“You can speak comfortably, we’re not exactly strangers.”
In truth, we weren’t that close. It was a smoothing of the relationship for basic social communication.
I thought about Smith for a moment.
He was polite, unlike an orc.
He had filed down his uncomfortable tusks, unlike an orc.
He was respectful to his superiors, unlike an orc.
Hmm. He was an orc who was in the top 5%.
“…First of all, as I mentioned last time, my hometown is Redwood. It’s a neighborhood that’s hard to speak well of.”
“……Uh.”
I tried to recall for a moment.
If it was last time….
That was…, hmm.
Ah, I remembered.
When I was dragged away, as if kidnapped, to Drek’s cyberware specialty shop, Smith had also come there under Natasha’s orders.
He had said it then. That he would stop by to see his brothers in his hometown.
I nodded and answered.
“Yes, I remember. But why that…?”
As if his throat was dry, Smith wet his throat with coffee again and confessed with a troubled face.
“I am truly sorry to call you for such a matter, but I was wondering if you might have any information, Mr. Shun.”
So what is it?
No, in the first place, if it was about information, since the place he worked at was the most famous mercenary brokerage in the city, there must have been many people he could ask without having to come all the way to me.
“My brothers in Redwood, I haven’t been able to contact them lately….”
Smith carefully continued his explanation.
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Catherine, who was lying on the sofa in a handstand position, asked me, wiggling her bare feet.
“So where have you been?”
I put the coat back in the styler and answered her question.
“Just to the cafe right in front.”
After lightly brushing off the outside dust from my body, I naturally sat down in front of the computer as if flowing into it.
Andrea, who was still sitting in front of the computer, engrossed in hunting, turned her gaze and looked at me.
“Smith, that’s him, right? The orc subordinate from No Answer. Was he a bodyguard?”
“He works as a bouncer, and as a bodyguard. Actually, it seems like he’s in charge of a lot of things.”
Even though she had taken her eyes off the monitor, Andrea’s keyboard and mouse moved busily.
…She’s become a pro gamer.
As if she couldn’t read my expression, Andrea asked another question.
“What was his business? Did the boss want to see him again?”
“I’ll tell you the details after I look into it a bit. But for now, it wasn’t the boss who called.”
“Hmm….”
Andrea, who had let out a short groan, turned her head back to the monitor.
She was in a posture that looked like it would give her forward head posture.
I thought of the fans who would shed tears of blood if they saw her, a famous influencer, in this state, but Andrea didn’t seem to care much about that fact.
I asked Andrea a question in return.
“Is it fun?”
Even though I didn’t say what was fun, she answered my words right away.
“…It’s strangely addictive.”
Andrea added to her explanation.
“Virtual reality games, since you have to move your body directly, the fatigue is much greater than the fun. But since this one doesn’t have that, if the purpose is just to relieve stress, I think this one might be better.”
It was a persuasive argument. If she was having fun, then that’s all that mattered.
I followed Andrea and logged into the game.
I lightly pressed the jump key and checked my bouncing character.
Next, I operated the direction keys to move my character to the message board in the town.
The main function of this game.
I was thinking of using the underworld community.
Because the relevant information that Smith had asked me about might be here.
Even though the game’s updates were actively being carried out, the number of characters loitering in front of the message board was still considerable.
I moved my character among them and clicked on the message board.
[Why are the denture implant bastards acting up so much] [9]
[@@@@Trading at a 1:5000 ratio@ @@@]
[Kantaros drop, STA 10 armor for sale, make offer] [3]
[Mod, separate the RMT board already before I commit a real cyber terror] [5]
…….
Why is the message board in this state?
It felt very different from when I had seen it before.
To grasp the situation, I clicked on the last post I saw.
[Mod, separate the RMT board already before I commit a real cyber terror]
This is the final warning
ㅡ lololol what can you do
ㄴ I own numerous pictures of a robot furry old man dragon crashing into or being crashed into by a flying car (OP)
ㄴ F*CKING MOD SEPARATE THE BOARD QUICKLY!!!
ㅡ I clicked on the post laughing but I got goosebumps;;
ㅡ This was the real final warning; I’m not coming to the board for a while
Hmm.
It seemed it would be hard to find the information I wanted on the message board.
I should quickly suggest to Eve to subdivide the categories of the message board.
Perhaps because they were underworld people, the cyber terror threat was also very scary.
I closed the message board.
A chat from a familiar nickname came up in the log.
[ P2034871140(Warrior): Yo! Guild master! You left a while ago, but you’re back on so soon ]
What on earth does this person do for a living?
Well, seeing as he’s been enjoying this game since long ago, he must be someone who lives in the underworld.
How can a person be on every time I log in.
“Hmm.”
Still, an underworld person is an underworld person.
I answered that person, that bum, that Jeon-bungie, in a whisper.
[ RealMageHere(Warrior): Can you recommend a decent information broker around here? ]
[ P2034871140(Warrior): Hmm? Didn’t I recommend the guy who was in the information organization last time? InfoSellerNo.7, or something, that warrior guy ]
That guy….
My trust in him has dropped a lot.
In the first place, at that time, the thing he sold to me as information on Smile John was, on the contrary, a trap by Smile John.
As I didn’t answer, he continued to type.
[ P2034871140(Warrior): What’s it about? Since you’re the guild master, I’ll help with what I can, so just say the word ]
At the purity of this warrior, who still believed in the guild master (with numerous escape records), I felt small.
But that was that. What I needed to ask, I would ask.
[ RealMageHere(Warrior): By any chance, is there any recent news related to Redwood? ]
At my chat, he stopped whispering.
It was a little while later that he typed again.
[ P2034871140(Warrior): …That place is a very closed-off area, isn’t it. I don’t know much about it either, and it’s probably the same for other information brokers. ]
Since it was the answer I had been expecting, I didn’t pay it much mind.
Since it was an area where it wouldn’t be strange to get shot if you weren’t an orc, on the contrary, I would have gotten goosebumps if he knew information about that area.
Because.
[ P2034871140(Warrior): …You didn’t by any chance think I was an orc, did you? ]
[ RealMageHere(Warrior): No, of course not ]
Because it was information that usually only orcs would know.
[ P2034871140(Warrior): Even if you’re the guild master, I can’t just let a misunderstanding like that slide ]
[ RealMageHere(Warrior): I really, really didn’t ]
Since it was no different from a curse equivalent to insulting one’s parents, I apologized to him with all my heart.
When I was finally able to be forgiven by him was after I had apologized for about 30 minutes.
I don’t think he was this angry when I took the raid item and ran.
That’s how diverse, and deeply rooted, the hatred for orcs in society was.
It wasn’t for nothing that I thought well of a sincere orc like Smith. Besides, the ‘four-eyes’ who had taken care of me at the garbage dump was also an orc.
In the end, unable to find the answer I wanted, I leaned back in my chair.
The brothers who lived in Redwood weren’t answering their calls.
…….
Come to think of it, isn’t it just a normal thing? They might get back in touch after some time has passed.
And Smith had said it too.
That his brothers didn’t really like the sight of him living a decent life outside the area.
There was also the possibility that they just hadn’t answered the call.
Ugh, hmm.
Well, what’s the use of me worrying about it now.
If the situation really becomes serious later, Smith will contact me again then.
With a light heart, I tossed the memory of meeting Smith to the back of my mind.
And, contrary to my thoughts, there was no contact from Smith.
A week later.
The news came that he had gone missing.
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