"The last member, you say..."
The suited man echoed Victor’s words and all eyes turned in Dante’s direction.
"Pfft!!!" The fat guy’s cheeks bulged for a moment, then he burst out laughing. "You... you got me there, Vic! I almost believed you!"
Clearly no one else got the joke, as indicated by the heavy air.
"So your name is Dante?" The purple-haired woman pressed her body against Dante, showing complete disregard for the others. "Would you like me to call you that, or would you prefer darling instead?"
"... How about you get off of me first, Ms..."
"Wha~t?" She furrowed her brows and pouted. "We haven’t even done it once and you already forgot my name?"
"Just... move. I really don’t want to deal with you right now."
She might not mind, but Dante was still capable of shame.
"Only if you promise not to run this time."
"He won’t be running anywhere," Victor stepped in. "So how about you cut it off till we’re done?"
Turning away from Dante, the woman directed her smile at the fixer, though something about it seemed entirely different.
"Victor~, don’t think I’ll forget that you made me wait~"
Though he smiled back, everyone could see the shiver washing over the rugged man. Dante glared at him as well, having realized that he had been led to a trap.
A little over a week ago, when he returned the data chip from the gig he took at the time, Dante vented about how terrible his night had been to Boris while Victor listened. To think that, even after hearing what he had gone through, the fixer didn’t even bother to give him a warning.
A message notification appeared on his OAM and the sender was none other than the fixer.
[Victor: Just play along for now. No need to make things more complicated for me.]
The words were like a few gallons of highly combustible biofuel spilled directly into a rising flame. Dante was about to launch into an unrestrained rant, but someone beat him to it.
"Hey!" The fatty jumped to his feet and walked over, sending tremors through the floor. "I’m starting to think you weren’t joking. The last member? This brat? Have you lost your mind?"
[Multiple hostile entities detected.] Volcan said. [Beginning Evaluation...]
Hearing the AI forced an instantaneous shift in Dante’s state, and he immediately turned his gaze to the others.
"Calm down, Greg." Victor held his hands in front of him. "It might not look like it, but I know what I’m doing."
"You’re right, it doesn’t look like it!" The fatty went on. "You said this is gonna be a big job. One of a kind! You want us to buy that when you’re putting a kid on the team!!?"
Dante’s facial muscles twitched. Normally, he had no problem with people bringing up his age or calling him a kid, but the condescending tone didn’t sit well with him, especially when it came from the world champion in obesity. The bastard makes Boris look skinny.
Thankfully, the purple-haired woman moved away just as Dante’s blood began to boil. Although she offered him a hand, he ignored it and got up on his own.
"Seriously, did you drag me all the way here just for some game?"
"Calm down." As the arguments continued to rain on him, even Vic was starting to get annoyed. "I’m the one responsible for putting the team together, and I chose each of you for a reason. Do you think I would bring in just about anyone?"
The fatty was about to resume his rant when someone else spoke up.
"I don’t know, Vic, but this doesn’t look right."
The speaker was the giant who opened the door for them just now. He wore a simple black hoodie and sweatpants, and going by his athletic build, one couldn’t help but wonder if he had just walked out of a gym.
He was a dark skinned man with not a single strand of hair on his head. On the right side of his face, a flame-like tribal tattoo surrounded his eye, formed from a number of bold, black curves and sharp angles.
As Dante gazed at him, a translucent red filter appeared over his form, and from it, a line of the same color extended toward a small screen. Words appeared on it a moment later, accompanied by Volcan’s voice.
[Threat Evaluation: Level 02 Advanced Cyborg. This individual is mostly geared for strength and endurance. He has several bionic organs, in addition to torso-level subdermal armor. His leg muscles seem to be enhanced with a nano-fiber weave, while the knee and ankle joints seem to have been replaced. His arms are entirely bionic.]
Dante’s expression hardened with each word the AI spoke and his glare grew so intense that it drew the giant’s attention.
"Don’t take it personally, kid," He said. "I don’t mean to belittle you, but this is a major deal for us professionals."
Suppressing a scoff, Dante turned away just as another screen appeared, this one connected to the fat fuck.
[Threat Evaluation: Level 2 Ascended Cyborg. This individual has four artificial limbs, and the majority of his organs are bionic. In fact, he seems to be missing a few that are usually found in the human body. There are several batteries and processing units operating inside him. His physique seems to be nothing more than a shell meant to mask the volume of his implants.]
Dante had to do a double-take after hearing Volcan’s report. As it turned out, the fatass wasn’t just a fatass but a walking machine disguised as the king of the obese people.
’Wait, only Level 2?’
The guy was the size of a tank. If his body was truly stuffed with bionics, then shouldn’t he at least have the destructive power of one?
[Most of his implants don’t seem to be tuned for combat.] Volcan said. [From my perspective, he appears to be a mobile processing unit.]
Dante recalled the van he saw outside and suddenly everything seemed to click.
"The heck are you looking at, boy?"
The not so fat fatass didn’t react too well to being stared at. Having concluded that he was a powerful Cyborg geared for Diving, Dante looked him in the eyes, which was a bit difficult since he had shades on. Remaining silent for a moment, he said in an even tone
"Just wondering how much I would make from selling your corpse."