"My greed would be the end of me one day..."
Ryuk cursed to himself as he looked at his left arm.
Right now, there was nothing but a stump.
But instead of massive amounts of blood dripping from it, what shocked Ryuk was the fact that there were only electric sparks and heaps of severed metal.
His arm—it was robotic!
This was something Ryuk had absolutely no idea about! To think his hand was actually metallic.
No wonder he had felt like his hands were stronger than normal—something he had noticed after mistakenly snapping the hands of a thief who had tried to rob him of his cores one fateful day.
But if his hand was metallic, then there could only be one person responsible for that.
"Seems like Uncle Bob has a lot of explaining to do today," Ryuk thought to himself as he tore his attention away from his hands.
His eyes lit up brilliantly as they landed on the carcass of the rat.
In the end, he had managed to kill it.
This rat was a true mutated creature, and its core sold for hundreds of star coins. This was an absolute treasure.
Immediately, Ryuk's remaining right hand gripped the hilt of his knife, buried in the rat's eye.
With a grunt, the knife tore upward, severing the creature's skull entirely.
The sound of something metallic clashing on the ground echoed, drawing Ryuk's eyes to the ball of scrap that had fallen from the creature's skull.
He rushed to it, pulling the bloody flesh off and revealing a brilliant red light that shone across the world.
It was a circular ball, seemingly made of metal. Within, one could see brilliant shining motes of light resembling fireflies trapped in a jar.
The object exuded a mysterious aura that numbed Ryuk for a few seconds before he quickly snapped out of the trance. A big smile curved up his lips.
The core of an Enhanced Mutant Beast [E-Grade].
All his life, Ryuk had only hunted Feral Beasts [F-Grade] and had been prevented from hunting E-grade beasts by his Uncle—something Ryuk deemed stupid since he believed he was just as strong as the E-grade beasts. And they sold for much more than the Feral-grade beasts.
But this time, he had an excuse that might let his uncle cut him some slack.
Turning to look into the dark space up above, he saw the orange light of the sun that was slowly dimming.
Instantly, Ryuk's eyes flashed as he grabbed the core off the ground and moved toward his bag at the side.
Opening it up, he saw a small pile of cores inside. Quickly, he tossed the core into it before scurrying away from the garbage island.
There were rumors that at night, Dominant Beasts [D-Grade]—the absolute terrors of Sector E—came out to hunt. Their power was enough to chill even greedy ones like Ryuk himself, so he knew he needed to leave the place as quickly as possible, or he would be doomed.
Besides, Uncle Bob would already have started worrying by now.
A little more than an hour's walk later, Ryuk found himself exiting the metallic wasteland as he arrived outside the rusty iron door.
Beside it was a small building where people dressed in shabby, torn clothing could be seen moving in and out, most of them holding bags that jingled with the sound of coins while delivering boastful laughter.
They were just like him: sewage core hunters.
It was a dangerous job—one where over 70% of hunters would be out of the business within three years, either dead or rendered immobile—but it was undeniably rewarding.
Ryuk walked through the doors.
The familiar smell of sweat and alcohol lingered in the air, and his cold eyes scanned the room, quickly settling on a corner table where an old man could be seen smoking a pipe.
Ryuk received a quick glance due to his severed arm, which was still sparking with electricity. But it wasn't shocking that his arm was robotic.
Even in this room, there were more than enough men who had their body parts replaced with robotic components.
In this place, the more robotic parts a hunter had, the more experienced they were thought to be.
Those with no robotic parts were either amateurs or cowards who dared not challenge more powerful beasts.
Ignoring the gazes, he moved to the side table where the old man, eyes closed, puffed on his smoke stick with a stiff expression, occasionally nodding his head as if listening to music.
Ryuk only rolled his eyes before slamming his bag onto the table with a loud bang, enough to make the man open his bloodshot eyes filled with streaming red veins.
"Got another pile of garbage to exchange, eh, Ryuk?"
The man's thick voice boomed through the air, white smoke slamming onto Ryuk's face.
His eyebrows quivered a little.
As much as he had been around smoking, he absolutely hated the smell of it. Still, he didn't have time to complain.
"You exchanging or not?" Ryuk asked, looking at the man with an uninterested, curved lip.
"And what if I say I'm not?" The man smiled tauntingly as he took a long drag from his smoke stick, exhaling the entire cloud onto Ryuk's face, watching curiously as a vein popped on Ryuk's forehead.
"Then I'll find someone else whose eyes haven't been replaced by scraps of metal blinding them from seeing a true treasure," Ryuk explained with a mocking smile.
The man's eyes flashed with a hint of anger but quickly settled as he looked at the dirty bag Ryuk had placed in front of him.
"A true treasure, my ass!"
"This is nothing more than a bag of the shabbiest cores, selling for just 50 star coins. Something barely enough to fill my cigarettes for two days. And you call it a treasure?" Jack asked mockingly.
Of course, this wasn't his first time exchanging cores with Ryuk.
Sometimes, even Jack was shocked by how much value the brat placed on trash—not completely worthless, but calling a pile of E-grade cores a treasure was plain delusion.
"What about this, then?"
Ryuk dipped his hand into the bag and brought out the core.
Immediately, the brilliant light flashed through the room, turning a few heads toward Ryuk.
Quickly, Jack snatched the ball from Ryuk's hand, stuffing it into the drawer before anyone could get a good look.
He stared at Ryuk with a mix of shock and suspicion.
"So what do you say, Blind Jack? You exchanging or not?"