Chapter 007: Reno

Despite his old age, Uncle Roche proved himself to be a very adept pilot. Except for the one instance of turbulence that occurred halfway through the flight, everything else was pretty much smooth-sailing.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” A child-like voice continually echoed through his ears.

Nest sat on a black leather chair. His hands clenched tightly onto the leather armrests, while there were dark bags under his eyes. Even with such a countenance, Nest wasn’t particularly bad with flying. In fact, as a child from a rich family, he often flew from one location to the next. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he spent at least five percent of his life in the air. Most of the time, his flights took him to various parties organized by either the company or his parent’s rich acquaintances.

No, his distress came from the loud, pesky, and irritable angel sitting on the crown of his head.

Niphilili constantly pulled and tugged on his hair, urging him to go faster, as if he was the one piloting the plane and not Uncle Roche. Occasionally, she slapped the top of his forehead with her little hands. There was even a time when she stuck a tiny finger into his ear.

Unfortunately, Nest wasn’t able to do anything. Sitting directly opposite of him was Anya. Her limpid eyes stared piercingly into his own. If he so much as attempted to interact with the invisible angel, then surely Anya’s opinion of him would sink. The last thing he needed was for her to start thinking that he had gone crazy.

… although in retrospect, she might already think that.

“Young Master, you look particularly sickly. Are you okay?” She asked with a flat voice. It was almost impossible to distinguish any sort of emotion from her words.

Nest shook his head. “I’m fine.” He looked out the window. There, he could see an open runway. Scattered throughout the long stretch of pavement were various planes of all shapes and sizes, while located just further away was the airport.

The Reno-Tahoe International Airport. It was a large place, and considering what sort of place Reno was, the airport bore witness to hundreds upon hundreds of people every day.

“We’re here, let’s go.” He shook his head and stood up. After a prompt from Uncle Roche, who sat in the cockpit, the doors opened.

From out of a sleek, cloud-white private jet, a black-haired youth stepped out into the blazing sun.

Almost instantly, he frowned. The heat of the Nevada sun made him sweat.

He was once again reminded of just how weak he had become. An almost year-long sedentary life had turned his skin pale and his constitution sickly. The babbling angel above him didn’t make things any better either. Once they had gotten outside, Niphilili’s enthusiasm spiked. She buzzed around the air like an annoying house fly. It was unfortunate, but Nest did not have a fly swatter.

“Let us go, human!”

“I can smell the artifact!”

“We must hurry, the Great Calamity waits for no one.” All sorts of things spewed out from that tiny little maw of hers.

Nest felt truly bitter. This angel could not interact with the outside world. She even passed through walls and ceilings as if she was a ghost. As far as he could tell, Nest was the only one who could interact with her. By extension, that meant he was the only one here to weather the brunt of her zealous eagerness.

This once again validated his theory that the angel was merely a projection of his subconscious.

Seeing his expression souring once more, Anya couldn’t help but ask again, “Young Master, are you seriously okay?”

“Huh?” Nest blankly turned towards her. For a moment, he squinted his eyes. This time around, Anya was dressed in a complete maid outfit. A black dress that fell down to her knees, while a white apron-like garment was wrapped around the front of her waist. The upper portion was buttoned up, but the fabric on her chest looked as if it was under some serious strain.

She was dressed to the nines, and her outfit looked particularly stuffy, but not a single bead of sweat ran down her face.

“You really do look sick.” She said. “As expected, for a NEET like you, going outside is a struggle, huh?”

His left eye twitched. Nest declined to comment, and instead, he turned back towards the jet.

“Is uncle Roche coming?”

“No, the Oldman said that he’ll stay here and wait.” She answered. “Because we came to Reno under such short notice, one of us has to stay and watch over the jet. Plus, his family has a history of skin cancer. The sun doesn’t do any good for his health.”

Nest thought for a moment, before he nodded. “Well, that’s fine too. We won’t be staying here for long, anyway.”

“Then, where to, Young Master? The casinos? I can’t fathom anything else of interest within this desert city.”

“No, not the casinos.” Nest shook his head. His expression creased, a small frown floated to his lips. “Get a cab first. I need to look something up.” To his absolute hatred, the pesky angel did not have an actual address. The only thing she knew of was the name of the store and its general location. Even looking up the name online proved useless.

Right now, either this antique shop was real and totally obscure, or it did not exist at all. Nest was a bit bitter. This whole thing felt like a giant goose chase.

A few minutes later, the duo hopped onto a taxi and following Niphilili’s vague directions, the two weaved in and out of the sinful city of Reno. Eventually, they arrived at a dingy looking shopping lot near the outskirts of the casino district.

The lot was abandoned, or at least, it was near abandoned. At first glance, this area was very rundown. The only stores still in operation were a thrift shop and a heavily armored laundromat.

As they were making their way here, Nest had heard some things from their taxi driver. This place was part of an impoverished neighborhood overrun by gangs and crackheads. Basically, it was the underbelly of the city. It was the sort of thing that they keep hidden away from all the tourists and gamblers. It definitely wasn’t the sort of place any normal law-abiding citizen would seek out.

Walking around the trash-laden streets, Nest caught sight of a few men with unsightly appearances. Tattoos and bandanas around their heads, and fake gold chains dangling from their necks. Some looked fierce, while others looked sly and underhanded. One wrong step in a place like this and you were illegible for a bullet to the chest.

All in all, it was a very shady place.

Anya looked at him with suspicion. “Where exactly are we, Young Master?”

After seeing the surroundings, Nest was also at a lost for words. Since it was the little angel guiding them, he expected their destination to be a little bit out of the ordinary, but not something like this.

“Er… didn’t I say it before? Sightseeing. We’re just going sightseeing.” He laughed weakly. Even to himself, it didn’t sound very convincing. Regardless, seeing as how Nest refused to give a proper answer, Anya could do nothing but drop the topic. Still, the doubt in her heart remained.

The sight of a sickly young man and a girl dressed in a maid outfit was definitely an unusual one and attracted more than just a fair share of attention. Unsurprisingly, most of that attention was directed towards the girl.

“Is that a real maid?”

“Are they filming some sort of show?”

“Is she a model?”

“Hah, I knew it! Those guys from Br**zers finally bought out the shopping lot! Looks like they plan on setting up a club here and by the looks of it, the girls they’re bringing in are pretty high quality.”

The last comment brought a frown to Nest’s face. Br**zers was an adult entertainment company. Although their main focus was on adult videos, they’ve also been known to dabble on other related industries, such as sex toys, strip clubs and escorts.

In short, they completely misunderstood Anya! Hearing them talk badly about his maid sparked an irritation deep within the pit of his stomach. Although he didn’t like it, a part of him somewhat understood. Although she didn’t look like the sort, what other explanation would there be for such a beautiful woman to be walking around in a place like this?

He discreetly glanced up at her. Anya seemed unperturbed by all the comments, and Nest knew that wasn’t because she hadn’t heard them. Rather, she looked completely clueless. This wasn’t surprising either, since Nest only really knew about the company from all the sleepless nights he spent in his room by himself…

“Young Master?” Anya returned his stare and tilted her head. She had noticed him looking.

“No, it’s nothing.” He shook his head and sped forward.

A few more minutes past. The angel continued to guide Nest forward. Along the way, they met with similar comments and similar gazes. Eventually, a few of the gossiping passersby finally couldn’t hold back any longer and moved into action.

“Hey girl!” A very rough introduction echoed through the air.

Nest gave a passing glance towards the direction of the voice. Just a little bit away from him were a group of what he could only assume were gangsters. They were dressed in baggy clothes, consisting mainly of the colors black and green. He found it somewhat amusing that they matched and color-coordinated their outfits. It was the sort of thing you’d see a family on vacation to D*sney World would do.

They swaggered towards them. Nest caught sight of something metal protruding from underneath their waistline. It was a pistol and they made almost no attempt at hiding it.

They hooted and hollered like monkeys. Of course, such things were directly concentrated towards Anya, which again, wasn’t much of a surprise. It couldn’t be helped. She was simply too beautiful, after all. Anya directly ignored them and faithfully followed after her young master.

Still, they kept pestering. As they approached, Anya couldn’t help but whisper, “You didn’t come here to buy drugs did you, young master? A shady place like this… I can’t fathom anything else being here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He spoke in a confident tone, something which ran completely counter to his inner emotions. “I hear that there was a pretty good antique shop here, so I wanted to check it out.”

“An antique shop?” She raised her brow in suspicion. “Since when were you interested in antiques?”

“Since a while ago.”

“Still, I doubt there’s anything good here…”

After that, he chose to directly ignore any of her further inquiries. He knew that if they really kept going with this conversation, then he would ultimately lose.

At the same time, the guys from before finally arrived. They blocked Anya’s path. Their muscular bodies created a sort of fence that separated Anya from Nest. Of course, their intentions were clear. Their thoughts were completely reflected within their lecherous gazes.

Even if you were a total dumbass, it would be clear to all that these fellows weren’t any sort of good people.

“Come on girl, don’t be so quick to leave.”

“Hehe little miss, are you here to give us a preview for your new store?”

“If you can satisfy us tonight, then I’ll be sure to stop by once it opens.”

“Maid outfits really are great. I’ve never tried that sort of play before…”

Such remarks leaked out from their fluttering maws without hesitation. Although Nest thought that they were quite a cliché set of lines, the guys apparently did not think so. From the looks of it, they seemed quite experienced with this sort of ‘flirting’.

While this was going on, Nest only spared a glance, before he continued along and walked forward. The angel above him looked curiously at the scene, but he directly ignored her. Nest acted as if nothing was happening.

“Would you look at that. Your little boy toy doesn’t even care. How heartless of him.”

“No, no man.” Another thug shook his head. “That’s obviously her pimp, dude. He’s just sending off his girl to work.”

“Tch, hopefully, she doesn’t cost too much.”

The group of thugs laughed amongst themselves, unbeknownst of the minute changes that occurred on Anya’s ice-like expression.

“Come with us, we’ll show you a good time.”

“We’ve got more costumes that you can try on…”

“Ah… he truly is heartless.” Anya’s soft-spoken voice cut through their banter like a hot knife on butter. For a moment, the surroundings turned quiet. The silence was only broken by her next set of words.

She let out a despondent sigh. “But I guess I am to blame too.”

One of the guys reached out towards her. His extended hand suddenly froze, or rather, it was stopped. A thin, pale white hand had grabbed onto his wrist.

For a moment, the thug looked confused, before his expression morphed into one of agony. Anya twisted his wrist. The guy’s knees instantly buckled. He was forced to kneel down, while Anya retained her hold on his wrist.

Another sigh leaked out from her pale lips.

“Young Master is just too aware. He knows me far too well. I can’t play the damsel in distress like this.” She shook her head. “It hurts to be a capable woman.”

As a widespread confusion filled the group of thugs, Anya turned her gaze back over to the man currently kneeling in front of her. “Let’s handle this quickly. My master is getting lonely.”

***

A few minutes passed. Anya jogged up towards a certain sickly young man.

“How could you leave me like that, Young Master?” She immediately complained.

“Leave you like what?” Nest spat out, clearly irritated by her feigned display of weakness.

“Even if I am like this, I can still feel fear, you know.” She argued. “In fact, I was deathly afraid.”

He scoffed. He slightly turned his head back. There, he saw a group of thugs sprawled in the middle of a trash-laden sidewalk. Despite being all unconscious, a groan or two occasionally leaked out. What was even scarier was the fact that a few of their limbs twisted in ways that should not be twisted.

As always, Anya was ruthless.

“…”

Nest quickly noticed that the guns that they had been carrying around were gone. He narrowed his eyes. At the same time, he caught sight of a stuffed brown recyclable grocery bag slung over Anya’s shoulders.

“Did you seriously take their guns?”

She nodded briskly. “They are the spoils of my hard-fought victory.” Anya had responded as if it were completely natural. Dark lines ran down Nest’s forehead. He did not know what was more amazing, the fact that not a single bullet had gone off during the whole exchange, or Anya’s lackadaisical attitude. She acted as if she had just finished a battle with a group of random mobs in an RPG.

“Are you really planning to bring all that home with you?”

“Of course.”

“How are you going to get it through customs?”

“Don’t worry Young Master, I have my ways.” She flashed him a knowing smile.

Nest shook his head in response.

“You do realize that you’re my bodyguard, right? Protecting me should be your number one priority.” He slowly started speaking. “In the first place, you have to seriously stop attracting so much attention. If you didn’t go around dressed in a maid outfit in the middle of downtown Reno, this whole thing probably wouldn’t have started.”

“I can’t do that, Young Master. Whenever I’m outside, I must let others know that I am a maid employed by the Coy family…” she paused for a moment, before adding, “Besides, you were the one complaining this morning about how I wasn’t properly dressed.”

“There’s a time and place for everything!” He exasperatedly shouted.

“Then that time is always and the place is everywhere.” She responded coolly.

Nest sighed. “At least put a bag over your head or something. You’ll attract less attention that way…”

He wasn’t unfamiliar with this sort of situation. In fact, he had experienced a number of similar such situations in the past. Of course, the source of his troubles all came from her. Anya simply attracted too much attention! Everywhere he went, as long as she was with him, then trouble was bound to happen.

“Oh? Are you perhaps jealous Young Master?”

She completely misunderstood his exasperation for something else, but Nest wasn’t in the mood to correct her. Plus, he knew if he said something now, it would only further stoke her ego.

Just as a smug smile floated to Anya’s face, the angel above him suddenly shouted. Nest almost jumped up from the fright. “I found it! It’s here!” she excitedly pointed towards a certain store.

Looking up, he finally caught sight of his destination. A grubby looking hole in the ground that looked even shabbier than the rest of the shopping lot. A neon sign that had long stopped glowing was displayed on the front of the glass door. It read two simple words.

[Antique emporium]