"Regardless, that doesn't change the fact your fate lies in my hand right now," I replied with a lazy shrug as I picked him by the neck and raised him to eye level.

'Maybe if you've gone out of your way to think about logic and benefits before abducting my guy, you wouldn't have ended up like this,' I idly thought as I began squeezing, causing him to claw at my hand.

"So maybe you should choose your words before you let them out of your mouth before I change my mind and kill you right here and now," I stated in a wintry tone, letting him fall to the ground, coughing while clutching his neck.

"Now, here is what's going to happen," I remarked as I squatted next to him. "You're going to release my subordinate, transfer all your credits to me, and show me where you keep your weapons," I added as I looked him in the eye.

"Unless you want to die, that is," I concluded with a smile as I stood up, gesturing for him to do the same.

"Now listen here, punk-" Marcus tried to say something doubtlessly vulgar, but suddenly a voice coming from right above our head interrupted him.

"The first and last won't be necessary, boss," said the voice as the speaker dropped from the ceiling, landing on his knees in front of me. "As you can see, I already freed myself and did a bit of poking around, so I know where they keep their weapons," the man added with a smile while gesturing towards himself after standing up.

"Awe, it looks like we ended up wasting our time here," Briar said with a smile as she made her way towards me, giving my supposedly kidnapped subordinate a once over.

"Well, I only managed to free myself thanks to the ruckus y'all have been causing," the man said with a smile, shrugging his shoulder. "And I figured you'd want to loot up the place since you're already here," he added as he turned to look at me.

'I didn't feel this guy's aura.' Was the only thing going in my mind as I listened to the man's words. 'If this guy can hide from even me, then he shouldn't have been caught by Marcus' goons. Something is fishy here.

"Good job," I remarked with a smile, not showing any of my thoughts outwardly. "Now then, you heard the man Marcus, just hand over the credits, and I'll let you be," I added as I turned to look at Marcus, who looked like he ate a fly.

Marcus didn't say anything this time, and I took it as a silent agreement. I quickly informed him of my account number, and he begrudgingly obliged, transferring roughly 7000 credits to me.

"And now it's time to make sure you've learned your lesson," I said as I looked at Marcus, creating a short aura sword as I did.

"You lying piece of shit!" Marcus exclaimed in an outraged tone. "We had a deal!" he added, nervously looking at the sword.

"And we still do, but the deal was for me to let you live, and it doesn't cover what I'm about to do," I said with a light chuckle, swinging my short sword before Marcus could get a word in.

"My arm! You bastard!" Marcus shouted in a hate-filled tone, using his left hand to clutch what was left of his right arm after I chopped it off right below the shoulder.

"I'll fucking kill you!" he shouted and continued to alternate between screaming in pain and shouting obscenities and curses at me.

"This guy is seriously annoying," Briar said with a frown as she looked down on the screaming Marcus. "Why don't you be useful and throw him away somewhere, four-eyes," she added as she turned to look at Clark, causing him to look at me for instructions.

"Go back and get some people to loot this place and haul our hard-earned prize to the compound," I instructed as I looked at Clark. "Take our friend here with you too, and throw Marcus here in the nearest trash bile you come across too while you're at it," I added, causing Clark to sigh as he gestured for the "rescued" man to help him.

...

"So, are you going to tell me what this little act of yours was about, or do you intend to make me beg for it?" Briar said in a playful tone, suggestively wriggling her eyebrows at me as she did.

"What act?" I asked in a neutral tone as I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"I've seen what you can do in the game, and you took way longer than needed to take care of these common thugs," Briar said while giving me a side glance.

"And I know for a fact that you're not afraid of some gangs seeing you as a threat if you killed that piece of garbage," she dismissively added, waving her hand to the side.

"I also know you're not dumb enough to cripple an enemy instead of killing them as that would only make them more likely to retaliate," she concluded, pausing and crossing her arms in front of her chest, waiting for my retort.

I stared at her for several seconds with a deadpan expression, finally sighing in defeat. "I need Marcus to hate me enough to retaliate," I said with a shrug of my shoulders.

"He's dumb enough to do that, but not dumb enough to do it on his own," I explained with a smile.

"And how is that a good thing, exactly?" Briar asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Because Marcus would reach out to other gang leaders on the same level as him to help him get rid of me," I replied with a shrug. "And whoever agrees to help him is already viewing me as a threat, meaning I'll have to take care of them sooner or later," I added, raising a finger.

"And they'll be small fries capable of more or less the same things Marcus himself is capable of," I added, raising another finger.

"So you plan to flush out everyone who could come after us through Marcus?" Briar said with a look of realization.

"Only half correct," I replied while shaking my head with a smile. "I also intend to rob them blind the same way I robbed Marcus to pay off my debt," I added while making a money sign with my hand.

"The fastest way to gain wealth is by robbing it from others, after all," I concluded with a light chuckle.

"That's pretty smart!" Briar said while nodding in satisfaction. "But why did you hold back while fighting Marcus' goons?" she asked, suddenly remembering the matter.

"Well, I can't say for sure that only small-time gangsters would help Marcus, and there were people watching the fight," I replied with a shrug. "So I didn't want to reveal all my cards to catch anyone strong enough to be a threat off guard," I concluded with a smile.

"Makes sense," Briar said while giving me an impressed nod. "With a little bit of luck, we can even snowball and earn a huge chunk of credits while getting rid of any future threats," she concluded, seemingly enthused about the incoming fights.

"One can only hope," I remarked in a neutral tone, giving her a nod.

...

Inside a dark square room with no furniture except for one leather chair, a woman wearing a strange black helmet sat on the chair, seemingly asleep as he lay there motionless.

However, the woman, Oracle, a high-level broker from Fallout town, was not sleeping but browsing a database through an advanced, state-of-the-art virtual reality helmet that allowed her to read and view any new reports at the highest possible efficiency.

'Nothing out of the ordinary, it seems. Everything is as it should be in Fallout town.' Oracle thought to herself as she viewed the reports her many subordinates had sent her today.

'Hm, what's this?' A report, which whoever subordinates sent it to her titled "Variable" caught her eyes, and she opened it with mild interest.

"A new group of unknown origin, lead by a missing scavenger thought dead, has appeared in Fallout town and almost destroyed one of the local gangs after the latter group kidnapped a member of the former group."

These were the report's content, and it came with a video recording of the incident.

'Interesting, but not much of a variable. I really need to have a word with whoever sent this report,' Oracle thought to herself, but she still opened the video out of curiosity and boredom nonetheless.

The video showed Kaden killing numerous gangsters in cold blood, easily and quickly enough despite some struggle here and there, causing Oracle to frown.

She finished watching the video and removed her helmet, pushing several buttons on her chair. The room lit up after her action, with several projectors appearing on the corners of the room.

The projectors loudly hummed as they lit up, projecting a holographic video of the fight inside the room.

Oracle stood in one corner of the room, watching the fight as if she was there, her eyes lighting up in a blue color as streams of data flashed past them.

"Analyzing, tone, posture, body language," Oracle remarked in a robotic voice after watching the entire video in real-time again.

"No fear detected."

"Probability of lying: 99.9%."

"Measuring speed, guesstimating strength."

"Results inconsistent."

"Conclusion: Target is holding back."

"Browsing database to determine plausible reasons for the target's actions...,"