Grey's mercenaries turned to the homeless man with a suspicious gaze, then glanced at the teen to see his reaction. He gave them a signal to accept, making the homeless man narrow his eyes.
"We're looking for a place to drink that doesn't sell horse piss," Mark gruffed. "Do you know a place? I wouldn't trust you to shine my boots but you look talented at drinking."
"What an astute observation!" Skyhawk grinned, getting back in character. "I'm a world-class expert in the art. Let me show you around for a small price, of course. Say… three drinks?"
"One," the mercenary scoffed.
"Two," Skyhawk countered.
"One," Mark replied in annoyance.
"Sold!" the beggar grinned, getting up with an unsteady gait. "Right this way!"
The mercenaries looked down at the instrument case and hat with money. "Aren't you going to take that?"
Skyhawk looked down in confusion. "Oh yes, yes-yes-yes, such is this humble man's livelihood. Thank you, good traveler."
Everyone's eyes glazed over at the man's strange antics. However, they waited for him to pack up and followed him down a busy street.
He kept getting distracted, leading to frequent scoldings, but the drunken man eventually led them to a food shop called Martha's Twisted Noodles which had a lower sign that read 'Real Food,' making Grey shudder again.
On the inside, Skyhawk led everyone to a booth in the back. Once they sat down, the beggar pushed the wall making the entire thing move like a flap. It was the most surreal sight anyone had seen.
However, they didn't question it and quickly filed through the wall, leading them to a large steel door at the end of a dark hallway.
Before they reached the door, Skyhawk's appearance glitched, and his body dissolved, uncovering a young man in his mid-twenties wearing a sharp suit. The switch was so dramatic that everyone was stunned into silence.
"This is it," Skyhawk said, looking at the teen coldly. "I have no idea who you are or how you found this place, but you can't pay to get here and haven't done what's required. So expect to enter the furnace if you walk through that door. However, you're young, so I'll let you leave under surveillance if you have the common sense to walk away."
Grey turned to the man with a cold gaze. "If I ended up here by purchasing information, you're not doing your job well, now are you?"
"You got your warning," the man scoffed. "You five; you're staying out here. Mr. Death Wish can die inside on his own. We'll figure out what to do with you once he's dead."
The mercenaries tensed up and prepared to draw. However, the teen put up his hand.
"Don't die needlessly; you five will die before your brain decides to aim," Grey said dryly. "My life's in my own hands until I return. So stay calm; you have no idea where you are, so you should survive if you stay cool. Understand?"
Mark and the others winced, feeling torn between life and duty. However, they nodded after getting a sharp glare.
Skyhawk narrowed his eyes in interest, unlocked the steel door, and opened it just far enough for the teen to fit through. "I pray you live. That way I can kick the shit out of you for spitting on my goodwill."
"Let me get stronger first," Grey smiled, casually walking through the door. "There's no satisfaction beating me if I die after one hit."
When he got through the door, his entire body felt like it got set on fire. An explosion of energy washed through, and a sharp pain assaulted his mind.
-
─┈━═[Sub-Quest Complete]═━┈─
Full Information? [Yes/No]
—Full Quest Result Information—
Sub-Quest: Find Lockjaw
Status: Complete
Score: F-
Quest Steps
Join the Widows [+0 CP] [Failed]
Assassinate Mr. Smith and Earn Thurman's Trust [+10,000 CP] [Failed]
Kill Bill on Planet Tarantino for Thurman [+50,000 CP] [Failed]
Return to Widows to Obtain the Lockjaw Location [+5,000 CP] [Failed]
Obtain 1,000,000 zecta [+50,000 Exp (Adjusted)] [Success] (1)
Gain Access to Lockjaw [+50,000 Exp (Adjusted)] [Success]
Hidden Reward: Interest of the Gods
Note: Nothing about what you've done makes sense, but it is entertaining. You're still an idiot for walking into your death; try not to die on us.
─┈━═━┈━═━┈━═━┈─
-
After recovering, the teen read the notification with a frown. "You're always watching, eh? Well, hopefully your quest for entertainment supersedes my desire to circumvent equity."
Before he could complain, a flurry of notifications rapid-fired like a machine gun in the corner of his eye.
-
─┈━═[World Announcement!]═━┈─
Player Greed has become the first player to complete an A-Class Sub-Quest.
Their achievement has made history and will get recorded in the Myriad Record for all eternity.
─┈━═━┈━═━┈━═━┈─
-
─┈━═[User Has Leveled Up]═━┈─
Exp requirement: 50/50
Level 0 → Level 1
Stats have increased!
You have earned one skill point!
─┈━═━┈━═━┈━═━┈─
-
─┈━═[User Has Leveled Up]═━┈─
Exp requirement: 100/100
Level 1 → Level 2
Stats have increased!
You have earned one skill point!
─┈━═━┈━═━┈━═━┈─
-
…
─┈━═[User Has Leveled Up]═━┈─
Exp requirement: 25,600/25,600
Level 9 → Level 10
Stats have increased!
You have earned one skill point!
─┈━═━┈━═━┈━═━┈─
-
"So you can fail parts of missions...." Grey muttered. "I wonder if you can go back? No… not likely in some cases. I can destroy the whole storyline like this… well, Ryker Corp made that possible. So that's a them problem not a me problem."
"Can you figure out how to wipe your ass on your own time?" a woman yelled from the room at the end of the stairs. "It's bad enough I have to hear a bad excuse why you're here."
The teen chose [No] with his thoughts.
"My apologies," Grey called out, walking down the stairs. "I just thought I'd gain a small bit of power so you wouldn't feel so bad about killing someone defenseless."
The woman, tinkering on an object down the stairs, stopped moving. He couldn't tell whether she was preparing to laugh, yell, or kill him for his joke.
After making it to the bottom of the stairs, he tried to avoid the walls in the room and face forward to the woman tinkering with a laser cannon at the table.
It was a white object that looked like a 21st-century mouth thermometer, with the back being three times the height as the front, which was a foot in height.
The exterior was white with a sleek outside, using sharp, glossy-black accents. Half of it was taken apart with internal mechanics and wires displayed.
He had no idea what it was, but he knew it wasn't something to play with.
The woman was a beautiful brunette with a shaggy pixie cut, shaved on lower roots. So when the shaggy hair moved out of the way, it revealed the sharp buzz cut underneath; it was fashionable.
"I don't know whether to kill you for your decision to joke around or praise you for being able to joke around," she chuckled dryly.
"I'd appreciate the latter," Grey smiled lightly.
"Oh, I'm sure you would," the woman cackled with madness swirling in her eyes, picking up the weapon and looking at it from another angle.
"I take it that you're Mavis?" he asked, carrying the conversation.
"I am," Mavis replied. "And judging by your abnormal knowledge, I'd bet money you're one of those transmigrators."
The teen's eyes widened in surprise, looking at her strangely. He remembered that the military NPCs also knew about the transmigrators, so it didn't surprise him that much. However—
"And I'd also bet you came here thinking this was a game and you were invincible," she chuckled before lifting the cannon and pointing it at him. "I hate to break it to you, kiddo, but you're not. I'll have people snipping you at graveyards until your soul is toast if you don't tell me what the fuck you're doing here."