*

  I looked around once more, and the space greeted me with pure, unnerving silence.

  There was no single discernible sound aside from my own slight, ragged panting.

  My eyes glanced over the scattered, twisted dead bodies of those white dwarf-like creatures, littering the rocky floor of the dungeon below where I stood.

  Then, something caught my attention, rolling towards the west of my line of sight: a small, orange-coloured object, tumbling almost weightlessly across the uneven ground at the far end of the cavern.

  I quickly walked towards where the object was heading; I didn’t bother to chase it down.

  It finally bumped against the far wall and lay still.

  I got close to it and picked it up.

  It was a discarded wrapper from some kind of food or snack.

  It had a brightly coloured picture of some processed food that I clearly hadn’t ever seen, let alone eaten before.

  The mere sight of this wrapper, this phantom promise of sustenance, made my stomach rumble again, a hollow, aching cramp.

  I couldn’t read the fancy lettering of this particular food product’s name, but I knew damn well that stuffs like this always had details printed on them – information about where and when they were made.

  So, I turned it over to its back and checked the fine print.

  I saw “Higashi-sumiyoshi” clearly printed as part of some address, which might possibly be where it was manufactured, or maybe just sold, or some other useless shit.

  The southern and central parts of Higashi-sumiyoshi were notorious slums, much like my own Sumiyoshi shithole, while the northern part lay within the more affluent Conquest district.

  Some of the older guys back home used to mention it having a few operational factories.

  I looked away from the crinkling wrapper in my hands, down to the dusty ground, and tried to mentally trace where this piece of trash could have possibly come from, how it got down here.

  I walked slowly towards that general direction, scanning for any clues, and soon I reached a dark corner that looked like yet another dead end.

  But then I noticed, tucked away on the left side of that gloomy corner, a small, almost hidden opening, about the height of my knee from the floor.

  I knelt carefully on one knee and observed it closely, my senses on high alert.

  There was some kind of weird, green, semi-solid, mucous-like substance clinging around the rough-hewn walls of the opening, with tiny bubbles slowly forming and popping on its glistening surface – it almost appeared like the damn thing was breathing, alive.

  I cautiously placed my right palm a bit closer to it, and I began to feel a very soft, almost imperceptible sensation of moving air, a faint, cool wind.

  My internal worries, the gnawing dread that had become my constant companion, were a bit lifted by this, even if there was a good chance this was just my desperate mind screwing with me, offering false hope.

  I then drew my head forward, leaning in, to make absolutely sure I wasn’t just giving myself a line of bullshit.

  I took my left ear and pressed it closer to the small, slimy opening, then closed my eyes to solely focus all my attention on my hearing, straining for any sound.

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  After some long, tense seconds, I could definitely hear extremely faint sounds, distant but distinct.

  They were recognizable, almost achingly familiar: it sounded like someone was shouting, far off, and some kind of heavy vehicle was moving, its engine rumbling.

  I’d had that creeping, gut-twisting feeling that I might not ever make it out of wherever this bloody place actually is, that I’d never get back to my own world.

  But that soft, almost ghostly wind and the very distant, muffled noises of human civilization completely crushed that suffocating doubt, at least for a moment.

  Finally, some fuckin' good news for a change!

  I was so freaking happy, a surge of raw relief washing through me, that this truly wasn’t some isolated, inescapable Fort, and that I could, maybe, just maybe, get the fuck outta here.

  I almost started trying to widen the small opening right then and there, before I remembered, with a jolt, that there were fresh, dead Arcane-beings lying behind me.

  Elixirs. Prime elixirs for the goddamn pickin’.

  I quickly rushed back to the piled-up white-dwarf corpses and began the grim, messy work of harvesting their most valuable internal organ – the heart (or, more accurately, their arcane-core).

  I took out a medium-sized, thick nylon bag from my battered backpack and started stuffing the bloody, still-warm body parts inside it, the coppery smell filling my nostrils.

  I really, really wanted to pick up their little spears too, because they looked stylish as all hell, surprisingly well-crafted, and beautiful, unique arcane-weapons tend to be far more valuable to sell on the black market.

  But I can’t just go around carrying noticeable, exotic shit like that on Osaka’s streets, not if I don’t want to be iced by every cop, Enforcer, or rival scavenger in a five-mile radius.

  Halfway through the gruesome task of harvesting the hearts of the white-creatures, I suddenly recalled the ‘elf-queen’ and that weird ‘black tear-drop’ thing.

  Since they seemed to be distinctly different, and were definitely superior in the hierarchy to these common white-creatures, their parts would definitely fetch a shitload more coins in the right markets.

  I quickly ran up to their remains and started carving out their hearts.

  The ‘elf-queen’ seemed to have one, a delicate, pulsing organ, but the ‘black tear-drop’ didn’t have a heart, or, in fact, any discernible internal organs for that matter.

  It was just a solid, unsettling chuck of black, foam-like, rubbery meat inside its strange, hollow body.

  I wasn’t too shaken up by this discovery, because it wasn’t the only damn Aggressor I’ve seen that doesn’t have a proper mana-core.

  A lot of Aggressors are known to not have hearts or even what you’d call internal organs; I’ve seen it with my own two eyes plenty of times.

  For example – not all Zipper-spines, Glue-fish, or those nasty Spike-fuckers have hearts you can carve out.

  That didn’t matter too much in this case, since its unique meat and skin could still be sold, probably for a decent price, in the slum’s back-alley markets.

  I used my newly acquired short sword to roughly tear off several large chucks of flesh and rubbery skin from the ‘black tear-drop’s’ corpse.

  I then reached back to the ‘elf-queen.’

  I gorged out her luminous eyes and her surprisingly sharp teeth.

  As I hacked her once-beautiful face to unrecognizable pieces, my eyes fell upon the still-visible infant in her transparent, now-deflated belly.

  I couldn’t possibly carry all the potential elixir material from in here, so I wanted to prioritize carrying the ones that might be of more significant value in the cutthroat market.

  I dug into her belly with my bare hand and the short-sword, the blade grating against small bones, and roughly chopped off the infant’s head.

  My nylon bag was rapidly running out of space, it had little room left for any more elixir.

  So, after harvesting the ‘elf-queen’s’ arcane-core, her teeth, her eyes, her infant’s tiny arcane-core and its severed head, and some choice chucks of flesh from the ‘black tear-drop,’ I figured I was about done.

  Then I suddenly remembered the unique weapons I’d initially passed on, and an idea sparked in my head.

  I used the short sword to quickly chop off the ornate heads of some of the more interesting spears and stuffed them inside the bulging nylon bag along with four of the better-looking short swords.

  I then crammed all of that into my long-suffering backpack.

  I threw away the chipped and bloody short sword I’d used for all this harvesting, since it was now extremely dull, chipped, and caked in gore; it would be worth less than shit in its current sorry state.

  I immediately ran back to the small, slimy opening, began widening it with frantic effort, and then started crawling awkwardly through it into the unknown.

  I hooked the strap of my heavy backpack with my foot and dragged it along with me as I crawled and squeezed my way through.

  After several long, claustrophobic minutes, I finally crawled through the last of that disgusting, puss-like gel, out to the other side, into blessed, open air.

  I could now clearly hear the distinct sounds of construction machineries, a distant thumping music, and other, more normal, city noises.

  I dragged my bag the rest of the way through and quickly put it on my back.

  Then I looked around, blinking in the relative brightness.

  I appeared to be in a filthy, trash-strewn alleyway in some unfamiliar residential neighbourhood.

  I walked straight out into the street, and in such a short goddamn time, my ragged, blood-soaked appearance attracted a few openly curious, and hostile, stares from various passers-by.

  I looked right and left, my head swiveling, trying to figure out where the fuck I actually was.

  I had no fuckin' clue, none at all, but it was crystal clear I was somewhere within the Conquest district, based on the fancy, well-maintained buildings, the clean, paved roads, the almost breathable smell of the air, and the expensive, fashionable clothes worn by the people that hurried past me, pointedly avoiding eye contact.

  Fuckin' luxurious, a whole different world.. my own world in the slums.

  I didn’t recognize a single landmark here, and I sure as hell didn’t dare try to ask anyone for directions.

  Best case scenario – some nosy fucker would immediately report me to the local policemen or, worse, the Enforcers, who would then proceed to beat me up for sport, drag me to their station, before finally telling me to bail myself out with some of my hard-earned shits.

  And the worst case scenario – some local, territorial gang would realize what I am, a vulnerable outsider, see my loaded backpack, and then find a quiet way to corner me before beating me senseless, robbing me blind, and possibly fuckin' killing me for kicks.

  I just walked slowly along the side-walk, keeping to the edges, my eyes darting around, looking at addresses on the buildings and street signs, trying to read the unfamiliar Kanji.

  I did this for several tens of agonizing minutes, basically going to and fro aimlessly on that same stretch of side-walk (it was bloody confusing, and I was getting nowhere).

  As I walked by a certain fancy-looking shop I was sure I’d walked past at least twice before, a bald, stern-looking old man wearing a clean, crisp apron suddenly walked out and up to me.

  He asked softly, yet with an undeniable undercurrent of harshness in his voice, “What you doin’ around here, kid? Are you lost or somethin’?”

  I gripped my backpack strap tightly, my knuckles white, and sized him up quickly with my eye.

  This motherfucker might just want to try something funny.

  Crooks and predators do come in all ages and sizes, after all.

  He was also an E-Grade, but the old fuck felt weaker than me.