After spending half an hour searching for gangsters, Peter was on the brink of giving up. When he originally read the information on where to find them he thought the place would be full of them. And he was right in believing that but what he failed to consider was that wanted criminals don't like to advertise that they are criminals.
Usually the ones that were easy to identify were either strong enough to protect themselves or rookies who didn't fully realize their circumstances. This is why Peter ended up passing a large number of potential targets without noticing a thing.
He eventually found two that he could confirm to be gangsters. They were spray painting the Firefly logo on some cars parked on the street. He had some doubts about whether he could fight them. After all he had no idea how to measure someone's strength, all he could go on was that the stronger members probably had better things to do than graffiti.
So Peter waited behind one of the cars until the two of them to get a little further apart so he could fight them one at a time. The opportunity came when one of them walked to the other side of the road to start painting on another car.
When he felt like neither one was paying attention, he ran out from behind the car and using his momentum hit the one that stayed in place over the head with his stick. It was enough to knock the man out, but the impact was also very loud.
Realizing that he was probably noticed, Peter touched the falling man and prepared to fight with his remaining opponent.
[Successfully absorbed class 1 agility blessing.]
[Result: AGI +0.05, MGC +0.01, EXP +10]
He was still in a good condition and decided to attack first, trying to repeat his earlier strategy. Unfortunately, despite landing another successful hit, it didn't have nearly as much of an effect as before.
The stick broke upon impact with the man's head who was thrown off balance but remained standing. The attack also had more force behind it than before, making the unprepared Peter hurt his wrist.
[Health: 93%]
[Stamina: 90%]
Neither side had a weapon so they were forced into a fist fight. The gangster had no fighting experience nor training, which should have given Peter the upper hand under normal circumstances, but he was probably even more inexperienced, so in the end the two of them were just flailing at each other, trying to get a good hit in.
The stalemate was broken by Peter, who found the broken piece of the branch on the ground and started to retreat towards it. The man didn't notice and just continued to swing at a seemingly panicking Peter, until he stepped on the branch piece and fell to the ground after being pushed by the opponent he thought he was winning against.
Peter tried to hit the man while he was down but lost his balance and ended up just falling on him, turning the fist fight into wrestling. The fight wasn't a pretty sight, and it only ended when Peter managed to grab his opponent's head and slammed it into the concrete, making him finally pass out.
[Health: 79%]
[Stamina: 68%]
[Successfully absorbed class 2 endurance blessing.]
[Result: END +0.1, MGC +0.02, EXP +20]
[Level up!]
[On demand identification authorized.]
The reward for leveling up was extremely useful. It probably would have made today's fight a lot less stressful and it would certainly help out in the future.
Peter called the local police and told them about the two gangsters. A few minutes later an officer arrived to identify the two passed out men and confirmed that there was indeed a bounty on them.
After handcuffing the suspects, he was about to send the reward money to Anthony but Peter stopped him, asking him to use his own account. The officer had a disapproving look in his eyes but did as he was asked.
The total reward for the two was 60 UC which wasn't a lot but it would do for a first attempt. Now all Peter had to do was rush home and spend a quarter of his earnings on milk along the way.
The day's plan was an undeniable success, he got stronger, earned money and got some experience in his newfound profession. The only problem was that he didn't count on getting injured. Most of it would heal after a good night's sleep but until then he had to cover up his injuries.
This whole ordeal was supposed to be a secret and it would be very difficult to keep it that way when he had a bunch of bruises all over his body. The only thing he could do was try to cover it up as much as possible and stay out of sight.