Chapter 41: The elusive ore, black gold

The sky had fully grayed by the time they’d reached their destination, although it wasn’t fully black just yet. That world’s version of the ‘sunset’ still freaked Haruto out a fair bit, but he’d gotten just a bit more used to it after the first night.

“So, this is the place where we’ll find everything we need?”

“Just as I said. Could it be you look impressed?”

“Somewhat. I don’t see what exactly is so ‘peaceful’ about it, though…”

If he had to describe that place, it wouldn’t to it justice to simply call it a ‘city’ or ‘town’, but rather an enormous, thunderous carnival parade spanning an unending number of square miles.

Though none of the countless buildings were nearly as tall as some of the ones he’d seen in Chariot City, they still surpassed Kataki’s scale for the most part. Their wide fronts themselves were, for the most part, barely even visible, as they were completely covered with an obscene variety of lamps, LED strings and the blinding glimmer of neon signs, flickering and twinkling uncontrollably. Every building, without exception, be it residential, business-oriented or otherwise, was topped off at the roofs with overwhelming lines of glowing billboards and boastful boomboxes, spreading out a cacophony of unfamiliar jingles and songs the boy could barely tell apart, and, as far as he knew, had otherwise never even heard about.

There was a single exception to that, however. Off in the distance, placed around the western end of the city, there was an ample, oddly daunting building, which towered several meters far above all the others. It wasn’t nearly as well lit as the others, sporting only a few clusters of neons here and there, and although he could see a mostly metallic interior structure past its outward appearance, most of its external looks, from walls to balconies and even sills themselves, seemed to be built entirely in see-through glass. Quite strange. But then again, few things in that world seemed normal to him.

It became stranger, though, the more thought he put into it. It turned out that picking out all of the most drab, average, monotonous people from this epoch and another and jumbling them all together in the same space could have the least average results possible.

All that light, still… Those colors… Blue, red, purple, yellow, and several others he struggled to keep up with… It almost made him feel at home, for a moment. It reminded him of the festivals from his childhood. The ones he’d run away from home just to see from up close. It didn’t take him long to remember, however, just how far from home he was. This wasn’t Saitama. The people walking all around him didn’t match the average Japanese citizen, after all. Pagat’s populace matched the one from Kataki in how random and misplaced it looked.

The residents themselves, though, did not seem to care a bit about that. They moved around back and forth, chattering amongst each other, checking out the neverending arrays of shops and food stands, the musical numbers and attached karaoke parlors. Every once in a while, he’d spot a giant, glittering balloon in the shape of some random critter or another being carried around by dozens of paraders in fast-moving rows. Cats, dogs, monkeys, bears, and even a dragon once in a while. It was unbelievable. Haruto could barely even get behind half of it as the two of them moved around that neverending party of a city, the lights so strong and the music so loud he had barely even noticed the night sky had already finished setting in. The girl glanced at him dubiously, unsure what to make of his expression.

“Having fun, master? Or maybe it’s not your cup of tea?’”

“Do these people do… this everyday?”

“Well… Not everyday.” replied Suzuka. “More like, every week.”

“... I’m so shocked I don’t even know what else to say…”

“Hey, it’s not that weird!” she giggled. “You’d be surprised what some of these people get up to when they realize they have what’s basically infinite retirement ahead of them. I’ve seen some of them try to launch homemade rockets toward the sky to check out if space existed here, blow up inside the rocket halfway through the journey and respawn with their legs dangling on tree branches.”

“... Wow. Just, wow. Did they ever find out if there was a ‘space’, at least?”

“No. They never reached it. Doesn’t stop them from trying again once in a while.” she chuckled some more.

“Crazy bastards…” he couldn’t help but laugh, too.

Good, bad, mediocre… It made no difference, to a large extent. Put people in the right place, at the right time, with the right company… They could all be the same. Unless, of course, they suffered from some sort of crippling insanity. Or had weird obsessions with beating people up, or ‘Pizza’ for a surname, anyway…

“Well, if I had to be honest, this is probably the most hospitable place I’ve been to in this world yet. Quite pleasant, though I guess they could tone the lights down a bit…”

“Yeah, I’ll have to agree on that.” she shrugged. “In any case, you still want to take care of business first, right?”

“Right. For today, I want to see if we can't find some extra plating for my car, maybe even your bike. Like, some good armor that could even take gunshots and stuff, you know?”

“I get what you mean. Something like that wouldn’t be on the cheap side, though, at least if you’re aiming to cover all of our weak spots. I never got anything like that myself, since I’m pretty much always vulnerable riding a motorcycle, anyway…”

“Good point, yeah. Still, I want to see what we can afford for tonight. Tomorrow, you’ll have to show me whatever farming points and quests they have here. We have to hurry up and improve some more, if we want to fight Pi– I-I mean, that guy off, right?”

“Right. The first shop I wanted to show you should be right along this way.”

“Oh, and about the liquid spear… Any ideas where we could fix this again…”

“Oh, that… That’s a bit more complicated. That gauntlet isn’t just made of an ordinary metal like copper, or steel. It’s not something you can just seal back into place with only a few bucks. Even with your skill, you could try to fix it again, but it won’t amount to much to join the pieces together in place, if you didn’t actually connect them properly. You could get it back and working for a while with a few uses of the auto-crafting menu, but it’d probably just break down all over again with just a few uses. It’d be a waste of your power, honestly. It would be best to seal it properly.”

“So, we’d need to find a specialist for the job, huh? That won’t be easy, will it?”

“Not really. It probably won’t come for cheap either, master. It’s a very rare weapon, indeed. The materials are almost nonexistent in the Cyberway.”

“You mean, that dark iron stuff? What’s so special about it, anyway?”

“It’s not iron, master. It’s an extremely rare alloy, which only occurs naturally in the Cyberway. Black gold.”

“... Black gold? For real? That’s what they called it?”

“I’m serious. It has similar properties to the normal, more convenient gold we knew from our living world. However, this ore in particular is supposed to be nigh-indestructible against anything, be it a bullet, or a nuclear warhead.”

“Which is clearly bullshit, or else it would still be intact.”

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“That’s the interesting part. The other factor that sets it apart from common gold, is its weakness to assigned abilities.”

“What? Like, you use an ability next to it and it just pops?”

“Not necessarily, but… Well, if you hit it hard enough with one, it might just shatter to pieces. It’s the only known way to mold this particular ore.”

“Ah, noted. So that guy that was using the damage multiplier on his bullets the whole time basically saved me thanks to that one rule. That’s kind of jarring…”

“It’s true, though…”

“Do you know where we can get it fixed…”

“That weapon, in particular? No… But we can look for it. There’s always someone.”

“I hope so.”

According to Suzuka, the first upgrade store they’d be giving a look at was just about half a block away, and they’d just have to move a little further to reach it, avoiding the crowds as they went.

A familiar visage, however, stopped the boy in his tracks, which prompted the girl to do so as well.

“Damn…”

Looking deep into the cluster of people, he spotted a couple more of the familiar guys in suits moving around suspiciously, glaring around towards people at random and spouting random chatter in closed tongue.

“I didn’t think the Godfather’s goons would track us down here so quickly…” she muttered, biting her lip.

“Let’s take a small detour, then.”

They changed courses, taking a turn to the far right instead of proceeding forward as they’d originally intended to, which took them to a quieter street, where the music was lower and the balloons were mostly out of sight. The people, as well, were slightly fewer.

“No, this isn’t good.” the boy attempted to retreat, cautious. “This place’ll just make us easier to spot.”

“There’s still enough of a crowd for us to blend in. Trust me. We can’t go back, or we might run into them again.”

“Fair.” he sighed.

For the next several streets, they hadn’t noticed any more hostiles, which prompted Haruto to ease up just a little. The shop was just one turn away, now, according to the city’s map. He sighed in relief, since he’d figured they would make it there just fine. But before they could turn the last corner and reach their destination, however, a sharp voice called out.

“I found you!!”

 The sound prompted the two to turn around, readying their ability switches with one hand.

Haruto squinted his eyes, trying to get a hold of wherever the threat was coming from. He was sure it the voice had been directly at them.

“I’ve finally found you…” the rampant voice returned.

(There!)

He spotted its owner just a few feet behind them, standing close to the street’s opposite corner.

It was a small, scrawny-looking girl in a middle-school sailor uniform. She had short blue hair tied in a messy bunch at the back, falling just around her shoulders.

“Who’s that?” muttered Suzuka.

“I have no idea…” he stammered, at a loss.

What that person talking to them? Was she a part of the Godfather’s crew!?

(Shit… What do we do now?)

The girl skipped over to the two of them, hurriedly, though she did not seem interested in attacking them. She stopped just short of him, beaming him a blinding smile as her big, green eyes looked up at him. With an awe-struck tone as though she’d just jumped through a ring of fire without so much as a burn, she spoke up to him again, seeming to completely ignore the redheaded girl next to him.

“We finally meet again… Big bro!!”

“.........?”

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