Clockwork Bride

Page 60

As he said this, he turned to look at Angela beside him.

If Angela has indeed been running a mercenary agency for the past few months, she would certainly have access to relevant information.

“There are indeed many jobs targeting smuggling gangs in the recent New Seattle mercenary market.”

Angela nodded in agreement.

"The company just received a new commission today. However, the work location is in the wilderness on the outskirts of the city."

Several large companies have been cracking down hard in the city lately. Smuggling, of course, needs to be done outside the city.

"The wilderness outside the city... this is not a suitable place for beginners."

Hayden raised his eyebrows.

"However, Eric, you're much better than a novice, aren't you?"

065: How to Become a Legend

Although the wasteland outside New Jersey is sparsely vegetated, with most animals extinct and mostly barren land, there are still a few landmarks worth seeing.

For example, south of New Yatu, a group of small companies once planned to band together to build a self-sufficient town in the wasteland. Streets were marked, houses were built, and workers were waiting to arrive. Unfortunately, these companies soon went bankrupt, and the plan was abandoned. Now it's a ruined ghost town, not even worth demolishing because it would be too expensive.

Wild magical beasts or demi-human monsters sometimes roam this lifeless wasteland. Therefore, traveling here alone or as an unarmed mortal is extremely dangerous. But for those in the know, this place is also a goldmine of opportunities.

That's why at this very moment, an old-fashioned clockwork truck loaded with smuggled goods is speeding through the wilderness.

It was a sturdy truck that prioritized practicality, equipped with various weapons and armor to protect against bandits and monsters, and with two huge mechanical chicken legs under the chassis, it took long strides and sped away.

These days, ground vehicles come in many different chassis designs. The most common, of course, is the wheel—wheels have been around since ancient times, are still in use today, and are unlikely to disappear entirely in the future. Tracked ground vehicles are also quite common. As for the most expensive, they are undoubtedly the gravity-defying hovercraft powered by arcane magic.

However, the mechanically reverse-jointed bird-like lower limbs of this armored truck are quite an interesting design. Two chicken-leg-like mechanical feet traverse the wasteland with agility and leaps. Therefore, neither the monsters of the wasteland nor the roaming, hunting demi-human monsters can do anything about it.

So it ran all the way into the ruins of the town, along the dusty old roads. Its huge chicken feet suddenly stopped, scraping against the ground with a sharp groan, but still firmly gripping the high-friction surface, bringing the chicken-foot truck to a halt.

"Men! Get out here and move some goods!"

The driver jumped out of the truck and shouted.

She was a young woman, a teenage blonde, wearing a black leather bodysuit as black as activated charcoal, which emphasized her fair skin and curvaceous figure.

"Get out here and unload the cargo! You bunch of useless bastards! You cower like eggplants the moment you're asked to do anything! Don't you want to come out of the house?"

In the dead of December, with no weather barriers controlling the climate in the wilderness outside the city, the conditions were even worse than normal in New Jersey. Who would want to leave the city? However, the girl's mouth was truly foul, and what she said did make sense. The men hiding in the ruined buildings, exasperated by the insults, had no choice but to rush to the armored trucks to unload their cargo, carrying one large wooden crate after another. They all wore crumpled baseball caps and cheap environmentally friendly enchanted coats, looking like any ordinary low-level laborer.

However, the real lower-class workers obviously wouldn't be found in the ruins of the small town outside New Asia.

In reality, these people are of Russian descent or Russian immigrants, and certainly not laborers. They are one of the world's most ruthless criminal organizations, the infamous Voryvzakone.

Commonly known as the Russian Mafia.

Well-known organized crime groups, like the infamous Italian Mafia or the Japanese Yakuza, tend to maintain a low profile, stay out of the spotlight, and avoid the suspicion of others and large corporations. However, Russian thieves are different. While they may not have the same financial resources as other large organized crime groups, their primary public relations tools are intimidation, assassination, and even street fighting—very simple and brutal, shouting and confronting their opponents head-on in every confrontation.

This isn't always effective, so Russian gangsters are actually smaller and less influential than the Italian mafia. It just goes to show that Russian gangs do have a distinctly Russian identity.

However, at this moment, these most ferocious gangsters did not appear as terrifying as they were rumored to be. Instead, they seemed listless and lethargic.

"Perfume, cosmetics, perfume, face mask... What's this? Skin lotion?"

A burly man opened the wooden crate, checked the packing list, and began cursing.

"Damn it, when did the Volkov family stoop so low as to need to smuggle these women's junk to make money?"

The other men ignored him, but the blonde girl who was walking into the house heard him and immediately cursed back, "Go to hell! You're eating food earned by selling your body, and you still dare to show off? Who do you think you are?"

The big man shrank back and dared not speak again.

So the feisty girl went into the ruined house where a small protective barrier had been erected, found an empty cubicle, and unzipped her leather jumpsuit all the way down. She was completely naked inside, only her full, white body radiating the heat that had been trapped inside.

Her expression was still somewhat unpleasant.

In the past six months, the economic structure of New Yatu has changed, and other large companies have begun to enter the competition, which actually means that the market for gang smuggling has shrunk.

In this era where large corporations dominate the world, aside from things that are too dangerous even capitalists avoid, there are actually very few truly "contraband" items. For the vast majority of goods, as long as you can afford it, you can always find a way to buy them on the legal market.

Previously, when Mitra Corporation controlled New Asia, it would regulate some products. However, now several other large companies have also begun to significantly enter the New Asia market. Items that "the company doesn't sell" are almost impossible to find.

Since there are no "contraband" items, the main profit that gangs can make through smuggling is "profiting from the price difference." Needless to say, this is obviously much less profitable than smuggling and selling contraband.

When monopolistic corporations start doing all sorts of business, organized crime will go hungry. It's truly a ridiculous and tragic situation.

The Volkov family is such an example.

They dared not collect protection money from the city anymore. To revitalize the industrial zone's production efficiency, the Mitra Group was focusing on maintaining order in the city's major residential areas. If a large corporation were to seriously engage with these organized crime groups, the latter would have no chance of survival. In that case, it was better to avoid the company altogether.

However, unlike the Japanese Yakuza and the Italian Mafia, who engage in elaborate and professional activities like nightclubs and casinos, Russian gangsters primarily earn their income through protection money and smuggling. It's not that Russians are completely incapable of those things, but other gangs are certainly better at them. Isn't that a form of market competition?

Incidentally, large companies also engage in spring sales and gambling. So other gangs are also complaining bitterly, but Russian legal thieves are the ones suffering the most in this regard. The Volkov family of Novaya Targa is the city's most prominent Russian gang, yet they now rely on the smuggling of women's cosmetics for half of their income.

How miserable.

The reason they can still maintain their foothold is largely due to their fighting prowess and control over the ruins of this abandoned town. The Volkov family has erected small arcane protective barriers within these ruins to resist the harsh natural environment of the wasteland, creating a smuggling transit point. Smuggled goods transported from other cities via armored clockwork trucks are divided into smaller packages by the Russians in this abandoned town, and then several people smuggle the goods into New Jersey through several secret routes.

Perfume? Cosmetics? Skincare products? How much money can you make smuggling these things? It's nothing compared to selling medicine back then, no wonder the men were dissatisfied. However, the blonde knew, but the other men didn't consider, that if even this smuggling hub were taken over by other gangs, the Volkov family of New Seattle might really be going to starve.

The girl had been assigned to work here by her family, and to be fair, she did a good job, but she genuinely hated it. She'd much rather be doing something else—fighting, hacking, or something else—than helping the family transport smuggled goods. The only thing that gave her any solace was that at least she had internet access.

The StarNet, at least, has reduced many of the limitations and constraints on space.

With a mental command, an AR projection screen appeared in the blonde's field of vision with a flash. She began checking the transit camp's network security system, just for fun.

Data server - working

Communication network - forwarding

Internal and external sensors – scanning

Magic Eye Camera—recording...wait,

It's a bit strange.

The blonde girl stared at the camera's recording.

Several men were unloading cargo from an armored truck. Besides that, there should be a few other people inside the camp doing other work, such as preparing lunch—it was almost noon, and in the dead of December, trapped in these ruins outside the city, if their family members weren't given a hot meal, they really might rebel.

At that moment, internal sensors and cameras showed two men cooking, at least enough to heat the food up. However, the camp's cybersecurity system reported that the two men were in the lounge, completely out of the way of the kitchen.

The blonde frowned and began running a deep system analysis of the camera stream. Was it a system malfunction? But the camera stream was clearly not frozen, because she could see the two men moving on the screen. So she stared closer at the image, bringing her head close to the screen, and then—

...Then she saw the man who was cooking soup turn around, grin at the camera, which was her.

The next instant, a pair of hands suddenly reached out from the projection screen in front of the girl, grabbed her, and dragged her completely inside the screen. The screen immediately emitted sounds of desperate struggle and screams, but clearly no one else heard them. Soon after, everything returned to calm.

Until Hayden crawled out of the screen.

Eric followed behind him, his gaze toward Hayden filled with terror, as if he had seen a cat transform into a human and begin to devour the other cats.

"This is a sympathetic curse based on the StarNet and visual interaction."

Hayden had no choice but to explain first.

"Do you know that there was a very famous Japanese horror film a hundred years ago? After watching the cursed videotape, a female ghost would crawl out of the projector... something like that. I've never actually seen the original version. Anyway, this is just an inspiration I borrowed."

“The people in charge of monitoring network security noticed that our images were not right, so they naturally kept a close eye on us. This triggered the curse I had placed on myself beforehand, allowing us to sneak in through this sympathetic connection.”

Clearly, Hayden six months ago could not have cast such a powerful sympathetic magic based on StarNet security. This was one of the results of his careful study and research over the past six months, delving into the information sympathetic magic knowledge left by Alastor, and combining it with his own expertise in ancient magic.

A curse virus capable of communicating via video conferencing.

Unfortunately, this thing isn't quite perfect yet, since it's made with witchcraft ingredients and its effects aren't very stable. Ancient magic has always lacked the reliable reproducibility of modern arcane magic. Hayden is still tweaking the details; this is just a practical test.

That's right, a real-world test.

"Our job this time is to take over the Volkov family's smuggling estate. Try not to damage the buildings so that the employer can take over directly later."

Hayden began to speak.

“There are many methods I could use. For example, no one else has noticed that I knocked this little girl unconscious yet. In other words, I could transform into her and infiltrate her. But I didn't plan to cause that much trouble today... Why?”

He turned his head and found Eric still staring at him with an incredulous look.

“This is a camp outside the city, manned by a Russian gang of more than thirty people,” Eric replied. “It has a complete defense system.”

Hayden nodded.

Therefore, Eric finally couldn't help but say, "As far as I know, it would take at least a dozen mercenaries to attack such an armed camp. This is not a job that three mercenaries should be doing."

Hayden shook his head.

“You made two mistakes: it wasn’t three mercenaries, it was one. I told you today was just to give you a work experience, so I won’t be assigning you any tasks. Just find a way to protect yourself and don’t die.”

"As you know, I haven't been a mercenary for half a year, and I need to regain my skills through real combat. So today, I'm going to take this camp by myself. Angela won't lift a finger."

That's why Angela isn't with Hayden and the others right now. She's observing from a high vantage point two kilometers away. She won't help unless Hayden runs into trouble.

However, Hayden's reason for attempting a solo run was clearly for practical testing. After his battle with the Vajra Warrior, he had been studying and researching tirelessly for the past few months, and today he was going to test all the vehicles he had built behind closed doors.

"Secondly, your second mistake is—indeed, generally speaking, you need at least a platoon of mercenaries to attack such an armed camp. So that's just 'general'."

Hayden explained calmly,

"If you're just an 'ordinary' mercenary, even if you live to sixty, you won't be able to climb to the top, and your income won't be better than that of a corporate slave."

"Want to make a living on the streets? Want to make a name for yourself? Want fame and reputation? Then you'll have to grab your best weapon, put on sunglasses, storm into this camp, and wipe out all the thieves inside—that's how you'll truly earn a reputation."

"It's impossible to do great things while also being careful about your safety. Now you know how difficult it is to become rich by becoming a mercenary?"

As soon as he finished speaking, Hayden pushed open the door leading to the outside.

"Hold your gun—today we're going to attack head-on."

066: He's just showing off.

Boris Volkov sipped his coffee with vodka. It could also be vodka with coffee, anyway, it's pretty much the same thing.

Within the Volkov family, Boris was considered the second-in-command. At forty-five, he was experienced, shrewd, and extremely fierce-looking. It was said that even the devil feared him, for he was tall and strong, with a large frame, and his face always wore a menacing expression, his eyes, nose, and mouth devoid of any warmth, displaying a deathly pale color.

That is why the family had to send such a trustworthy cadre to oversee the smuggling operations at this time.

Think about it. While the Volkov family won't starve without their smuggling business, if fifty percent of your organization's current income comes from a single trade route, you'll naturally be worried about anything going wrong with that route.

Therefore, despite the harsh climate and lack of recreational facilities, the family members here are well-fed and clothed. Even stationed outside the city, a leader like Boris can meet almost all his needs for necessities.

However, at this moment, while sipping his vodka, he frowned deeply.

Some people, after living long enough on the streets, learn to sense impending violence, just as some can feel their bones creaking before a storm. Boris possessed this ability, this intuition. He was one of the most fearsome figures in the New Seattle underworld, his greatest talent being the ability to carry out murders single-handedly, always sensing the moment before something bad happened. Without this intuition, someone like him would have died halfway through his life.

Boris waved his hand, summoning his phone's projection screen, and tried entering his password on the control panel. Nothing happened. In fact, the entire camp's security network was not transmitting any information. Boris wasn't stupid. He knew what this meant.

"Draw your weapons, stay alert! Something fucking wrong!"

Boris immediately put down his teacup and rushed out of his office—only to find that he had been pranked.

A man dressed in a gray robe, wearing a gray pointed hat, and holding a scepter was rampaging through the ruins of this small town, beating up the sons of his family.

Strange, why didn't Boris hear it?

It only took him half a second to realize: the intruder must have hacked the camp's security network and then cast a "silence spell" on his office!

--------------------------

"You don't know any hacking techniques, right?"

Hayden swaggered through the streets of the ruined town. A group of men, a whole bunch of damn gangsters in armored jackets, opened fire on him, a hail of Cold Iron Demon-Slaying Bullets flying through the air.

Eric swung his arm high, his lightning hammer forging steel, crackling with electricity, shattering all the magic-piercing bullets flying towards him. His enhanced abilities were sufficient to handle this situation, but in real life, there's no health bar. Even as an enhanced human, since he's alive and possesses a physical body, if he's unlucky enough to be hit in a vital area like the heart or brain by a magic bullet, he could still die.

If you're unlucky, even an enhanced human can be killed by an opponent whose strength is far inferior to their own.

This was his first time personally experiencing such a battlefield, and even he couldn't help but feel a chill. He simply nodded in response to Hayden's question.

So how did Hayden respond to the attack?

"Then you'd better not actually be a lone wolf. These days, mercenaries who don't understand hacking are unlikely to succeed. You should at least find a professional hacker teammate, even if it's just to provide remote support."

He raised the rowan wood staff that he had been making since the Mid-Autumn Festival, and planted it in the ground as he spoke, then chanted: "Deep Di Tu Su Zha, A Ruo Mi Di Wu Du Zha, Moonlight Samadhi, illuminate the universe."

And so, moonlight came into being.

After months of time, the rowan wood staff, fully imbued with the power of the full moon, suddenly burst forth with a brilliant light, growing brighter and brighter. Rather than the moon, it was more like a small, silvery-white sun, shining and singing a protective hymn, enveloping the entire abandoned town.

The gangsters cried out in astonishment in Russian. Hayden couldn't understand what they were saying, but none of the anti-magic bullets hit him. Such weak attacks couldn't penetrate the protection of the Moon Staff.

During the last Mid-Autumn Festival, Hayden mentioned that a rowan wood staff imbued with the light of the full moon could be used to cast powerful protective magic. However, he also noted that this was only a basic step; later, he would need to attach some suitable rare treasures to the wood to create a truly powerful white magic staff.