"I let you live, and even spared your AI friend. I tried to be nice, you know. But here you are..."
Dante could only shake his head. The boy at his feet was frozen still, eyes wide with horror. The needle-like feet of his spider-bots dug into his cheeks, threatening to tear his face apart. His arms and legs were bound, and all around him, an army of fist-sized machines crawled. The cables connected to his neck only made things worse, creating a nightmarish scene that would cause anyone who sees it to shiver.
’Now, how should I deal with this little shit... what was his name again?’
[Finn Ward.] Volcan replied.
He pressed his lips into a line and rubbed his neck, searching his mind for a plan. The most obvious option would be to kill the brat and dispose of him, but for reasons he didn’t understand himself, Dante didn’t want to choose it.
The second one would be to give him what he wants and send him on his way. The Blue Berry was a good weapon, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t get another juggernaut just by looking around. The problem was what the kid plans on doing after the gun falls into his hands. Dante didn’t want to kill him, and that included doing so indirectly by sending him to his death.
As the seconds ticked by, a hint of an idea appeared in Dante’s mind. It wasn’t entirely a solution, but it was a good start. Returning his hands to the pockets of his red jacket, he opened his Storage and took out a certain item. He then knelt in front of the boy and stared at him for a moment, his expression remaining neutral. Letting the silent second stretch some more, Dante finally produced the item he had summoned, fiddled with it for a moment, then turned it to the boy.
"200K," He said. "Pay up."
A digital screen of a small smartphone cast a light that reflected on the boy’s light blue eyes. On it was a simple QR code. The boy stared at the screen, then shifted his gaze to the one holding it. Making up his mind, he went back to staring at the screen. Not long after, a notification appeared on Dante’s OAM.
2000000G had just been transferred to one of his wallets, and seeing the number caused him to smile. After months of being almost broke, his savings have finally passed the million mark once more. If only he didn’t have to burn through most of it in a week or two.
He locked the smartphone’s screen and returned it to his pocket, waiting till the option to store it appeared before choosing [YES]. With that done, he gazed down at the boy, thought for a moment, then asked Volcan to remove the mechanical spider clasping the boy’s mouth.
"First of all, how did you find out where I live?"
The boy might be a skilled Diver, but he didn’t have Volcan’s access to the city’s surveillance system. Finding a single person in a city like Neo-Vatra would have been very difficult for him, so Dante was a little curious about how he managed to do it.
"I... can you untie me first?" The boy asked. "It’s not like I can fight you head-on..."
"No," Dante’s eyes narrowed. "You will answer my questions and nothing more."
The boy opened his mouth to complain but caught himself before making the mistake.
"I... I scattered these little guys around the old highways." He said eventually, his eyes turning to one of the spiders. "Then I traced your routes and narrowed down the search area till I found this building."
"The highways, huh..."
[The small machines must have remained in a single location for an extended period of time.] Volcan said. [Since they did not attempt to follow you, I was unable to single them out from the countless devices that happened to have cameras directed at the routes you were passing through.]
’I... guess that makes sense?’
The concept wasn’t very hard to grasp. Being a modern city of a considerable size, Neo-Vatro had more cameras than its population had eyes. It was a reality most people simply ignore, and since he hadn’t activated Ghost Mode in a while, Dante was well aware that he had been caught on many of those cameras.
The people he was concerned about the most likely didn’t know anything about him so it didn’t matter if he was caught on camera going about his daily life, but all of that went out of the window if someone was trying to find him specifically.
"Alright, next question." Dante lingered for a moment then asked. "Are you in a rush to get yourself killed?"
He did not get an answer despite the boy opening his mouth.
"Your little hideout, I’m guessing no one bothered to check on it in years. What do you think would’ve happened if I blew your brains out and left you there?"
Dante recalled that the basement of that building seemed to have been left untouched for years, and even if someone had wandered down there in recent times, it was unlikely that they had bothered checking on the old storage room. That made it the perfect place to hide a corpse, and if things went well, years could pass before anyone noticed that someone had died there.
It was no different from the under--city and how maintenance workers like Ross sometimes come across the corpses of people who had been dead for a very long time.
"Just to be clear, I seriously don’t want to keep doing this," Dante said. "And you chose a very bad time to bother me. If you’re gonna keep bothering me then just say so. I will kill you now and get it over with."
The boy jolted, then began struggling once more.
"Wait! I just paid you! Are you still going to-"
"Yeah, I don’t remember saying I’ll let you go if you pay me," Dante said. "Besides, what’s the point if you’re still going to keep this up?"
If anything, that 200K was the payment for letting him live through the past three days after he arrived at Hollowgrid. The boy stared at him in disbelief, as if h was just realizing how screwed he was.
"You didn’t answer my question," Dante said. "Are you in a rush to get yourself killed?"
"I... I just want my father’s gun back."
"And what are you going to do with it?"
As the words betrayed him, the kid averted his gaze and gritted his teeth.
"If I remember right, you’re trying to kill Jaguar from the Daggers. I was sure you were crazy so I didn’t ask, but how the hell do you plan on doing that? The bastard probably got Level 3 Cyborgs guarding him, if he wasn’t one himself. Let’s say you got close enough to take a shot. Do you really think that a bullet or two will be enough to take him out?"
"Listen, if you want to get yourself killed, then just do it." Dante ruffled his hair in annoyance. "Just leave me be, alright? I already got back at you for tasing me. Don’t give me another reason cause I won’t hold back next time."
Getting up, Dante gave his resident AI the command to release the spiders. As he turned around to leave, he thought the annoyance he felt would wane, but it spiked several times instead. That’s because he hears the faint stutter of a weakling who gets a boost of courage when their opponent turns their back.
"I-if you want me to leave you alone, give me back the Blue Night!"
Dante’s shoulders dropped and the exasperation he let out came straight from his soul. He pressed his mouth into a line and looked at the boy, anger slowly consuming the melancholy he was left with after waking up. But just as he decided to get some morning exercise by beating the scrawny kid-
A message notification popped up on his OAM.
[Boris: Hey Dante! Get your ass out here already!]
He read the notification first then opened the message and read it again. His confusion must have been apparent as even Finn deflated as the silence stretched. Unable to decipher the meaning behind his big-bellied friend’s message, Dante sent a very simple reply.
An instant later, the big guy sent another message.
[Boris: We’re visiting Ms. Yukimura, or did you forget? C’mon! I’m waiting for you outside.]
What should have cleared the confusion only made it worse. Dante even had to open the calendar app and check if he got the date wrong, which he hadn’t done, obviously. It was Wednesday, November 16, the middle of the week. He scrolled up to make sure that he mentioned that they were going to make the visit next weekend.
’... ah...’ A very loud clap echoed in the underground parking lot, caused by an involuntary face palm. ’I’m a fucking moron...’