Chapter 19 Part 1

At that moment, the knocker was on the verge of getting a response. Finnian was about to watch the evil god father and son pummel the intruder, while the pair huffed and puffed as they rummaged through clothes… In short, everyone had a bright future ahead!

But the next second: “Ding…”

A crisp, old-fashioned bell rang from within the courtyard.

Finnian stared in shock as his limbs moved against his will, carrying him straight into the school classroom.

Ithaqua was dragged backward by this irresistible force, stumbling repeatedly. He threw up his hands toward Hastur and let out a wail.

“Father!!! Bed sheet!!! Catch it!!”

Hastur, his tentacles dangling with a bedsheet: “…”

How did hanging laundry turn into a disaster movie déjà vu?

The Dean, the only one unaffected, watched calmly as the two staggered into the school—one mounting the podium to start scribbling on the blackboard, the other sliding into a seat behind a desk and fishing a copy of Hacker Basics Theory from the drawer.

Hastur paused to think, then extended his mental tentacles toward the front yard.

At the Orphanage gate stood a group of armed thugs, their hostile intent plain as day, clustered around an old man in a wheelchair.

Behind them, two subordinates hefted massive crates, sinking deep into the mud. The weight was clear—even with cybernetic bodies to help, it took real effort.

The old man sat steadily, propping his temple with one hand and his eyes half-closed. “Keep knocking. Finnian isn’t the type to hole up like a turtle. He… hmm? What the hell are you doing!?”

The subordinate pushing his wheelchair suddenly veered, nearly flinging him out.

Gripping the armrest, the man shoved the wheelchair back toward the Orphanage entrance while yelling in panic. “I don’t know!! My cybernetic body is out of control! There’s gotta be a hacker jacking me!!”

The old man barked decisively. “G! Cut off the enemy’s acce— What are you doing??”

His clustered subordinates all spun around. G and the rest bent to hoist the crates, their faces turning beet red. “The enemy… they’ve seized my brain core! I can’t access controls!!”

They retreated in as much chaos as they’d arrived, their panicked shouts mingling with the old man’s furious curses.

As any gamer knows, plot events wait for the player to trigger them before advancing. That’s where all those “NPC is waiting” and “NPC is still waiting” memes come from.

So after Hastur watched the group beat a chaotic retreat, just ten minutes later, the same crew rolled back up to the Orphanage gate—like a rerun of the past twenty minutes. “Knock knock knock knock.”

The knocker was on the verge of tears. “G! Can’t you regain control yet? What the hell does that hacker want?!”

What bad intentions could the Game System possibly have? It was just diligently keeping the NPCs in peak readiness until the player triggered the event.

Every game works this way. You pass by NPCs mid-plot but skip the quest; next time through, they reset and run it all over again…

And Hastur was that player—endlessly triggering the event without ever picking up the quest.

Inside the school, Finnian and Ithaqua enjoyed a peaceful lesson. In the back yard, Hastur idly stretched a tentacle toward the front yard, then pulled it back. Stretched again. Pulled back.

By the time the lunch bell finally rang, the troublemakers out front had exhausted every ounce of fight.

After Hastur prodded Finnian to open the gate, a few of them shot him desperate, pleading looks, choking out words. “Save… save us. There’s a hacker…”

Finnian, numb after five straight classes, thought to himself: No hackers here—just one evil yellow jellyfish. His face stayed blank. “What do you want? Valtad?”

His voice was wrecked. Even Valtad—who’d been stewing in rage for four hours—couldn’t help giving him an odd glance.

“I figure you can guess, Finnian. You’ve always been the sharpest of Phoenix District’s young blood, the best at weighing risks and rewards. It’s just that soft-hearted mercy of yours that clouds your judgment.”

True to his veteran status, even amid this bizarre mess, Valtad stuck to business.

“I brought a gift. Thanks for saving so many of my colleagues last night.”

He waved a hand behind him. The subordinates—who’d been lugging crates for four straight hours—flashed looks of agony and impotent fury.

But cowed by Valtad’s reputation, they resignedly hauled the crates off the vehicle yet again and slammed them down—”Thud”—right in front of Finnian.

Hastur whipped out mental tentacles at once, clapping them over Ithaqua’s eyes. He gave the fluff a vigorous rub for good measure.

The impact jarred the crate bottoms loose. Thick, black blood oozed out.

Finnian’s expression flipped in an instant—from “I swear to God, I’m beating the Dean’s ass with that clothes pole” to icy frost. He thrust out a hand. His arm surged with power as he wrenched the crate door open.

“Splash…”

Corpses tumbled out in a crammed flood, spilling like gutted fish from a market stall. The stench of blood choked the front yard.

Hastur, who’d been happily watching the drama: “…?”

People? Hey? Why dump trash in an evil god’s lair??

Ithaqua had been basking in his father’s protective gesture. Now he flailed limbs and tail to cling desperately to Hastur’s mental tentacle. “Father! Father, hold on! Let’s see what these guys are up to. What if there’s more to their scheme?!”

Hastur nearly hurled Ithaqua skyward. At the last second, that fluffy texture yanked his sanity back. Three or four raised tentacles drooped. They dove onto the fluffball, rubbing and nuzzling fiercely.

One mental tentacle, still sulky, snaked over the rooftop and dangled by Finnian’s ear. “Need a hand?”

Finnian—seething with fury and murder—was briefly stunned and touched by Hastur’s unquestioning backup. Then memories of disaster flicks like Godzilla versus humanity and the Hydra invasion of Shanghai crashed in. “…Not yet.”

His twitching nerves settled. He drew a deep breath, raising his left hand. His cybernetic body whirred softly, swiftly reconfiguring into a charged cannon pointed straight at Valtad.

“Just so we’re clear: I didn’t grab a weapon because I lack one. I am the weapon.”

“I know that full well, Finnian. And I know you won’t strike me down lightly.”

Fearless, Valtad wheeled right up to the corpse pile. He yanked a fistful of hair, hauling up a head.

“Ring any bells, Finnian? You’ll remember Old Il from last night. Oh, and Short. Yang… Forgive me—bad legs mean I can’t dig their bodies out of this meat stack.”

He stared down at the severed head. “How ridiculous. Lifelong killers suddenly sprout hearts of gold in their dotage.”

Shrugging at Finnian, he let it drop. “Don’t get me wrong, though. I never thought ‘hand off the Nirvana Gang’s operations to stabilize Phoenix District’s security’ was a bad call.”

“Factories and power plants getting bombed every other week? No good for growth.”

Valtad flashed a disarmingly friendly smile. “My one beef is with our old crew. Ambitious as hell their whole lives, bootstrapped the Nirvana Gang with me from nothing. And now they want to bet the future of the gang—and the whole damn district—on some outsider.”

“Absurd, right? Ever heard of gang bosses going soft in old age, pushing for peace by handing the reins to a rival leader? God himself would laugh.”

“They never breathed a word of it to me.” Finnian kept the cannon trained on him. Halfway through his denial, a memory hit: those right-wing old-timers on the cruise ship, dogging him to talk… Was that it?

“Better they never did.” Valtad took a handkerchief from a subordinate, wiped the gore from his hands, and flicked it into the pile. “Doesn’t matter if they had. They’re dead now anyway.”

His gray eyes—sharp as an eagle’s despite the years—fixed on Finnian. “I hope you won’t hold this against me.”

“From today, the Nirvana Gang steps into a new era under my watch. Phoenix District will be the safest sector around within three years… Build yourself another Zane Gang down the line, and maybe we talk partnership.”

“Everyone wins, see? You get your quiet life. I get the reins of power…”

“Lower the cannon, Finnian. You know killing me leaves the Nirvana Gang leaderless and in turmoil. You don’t want Phoenix District descending into worse chaos than this.”

“…” Finnian really didn’t.

If Old Il and Short hadn’t fallen to Valtad, he might’ve smoothly taken the handover.

But now? With all the voices who could’ve swayed the gang into accepting an outsider at the helm silenced forever? Even if he gunned down Valtad here, the rank and file would see it as a naked takeover. Bloodshed on a massive scale would follow.

He could certainly claim ultimate victory in this shootout, no doubt about that. But how many people would die in the process?

If Valtad could really rein in the Nirvana Gang’s criminal activities and maintain order in Phoenix District, then it might not be such a bad—screw that! Who in their right mind would try to make a deal with a tiger???

Finnian spat out a curse and grabbed Hastur’s mental tentacles, which were wriggling around his ear like they were about to subtitle “Fight already!”: “I absolutely do not want Phoenix District turning into a battlefield. Got any bright ideas?”

Striking first shows weakness, and anyway, as long as it wasn’t G8273 touching his mental tentacles, no one else posed any threat. Hastur didn’t even bother retracting them. “We have a school.”

Finnian: “…Huh?”

Hastur reminded him: “Mandatory classes.”

Theoretically, if he could add every single member of the Nirvana Gang to the student roster, he could forcibly control these thugs for at least eight hours a day in school.

Add in morning self-study, evening self-study, and after-school homework (which Hastur was sure would also be mandatory)… If he assigned a bit more homework, these punks would spend at least sixteen hours a day buried in studying.

The remaining eight hours? Hastur didn’t believe for a second that these guys could study continuously for sixteen hours straight without needing rest. Not even energetic teenagers could pull that off! Ha!

Finnian: “…”

The dean had just cracked a hellish joke. Time to chant sutras and knock on a wooden fish for his good karma.

He weighed “eight hours of class a day” against “twenty-four hours of nonstop gunfights” for three seconds and decisively fired off a shot.

Without even glancing at Valtad crumpling in disbelief, he swiftly took down the rest of them with clean, efficient movements while asking:

“But how do we get all these guys on the student roster? I can’t go inviting them one by one, right?”

Hastur proved that an in-game Intelligence of 3 didn’t reflect his real smarts—and that exploiting game bugs in every possible way was just player nature:

“We can get Detective Dustin to help. If the Police Station issues an order forcing all Nirvana Gang members to attend adult education classes at the Orphanage…”

The Game System would update the student roster immediately.

The only issue was whether that order could actually be issued. And whether these outsiders mooching off (Gang members: ? We’re not volunteers here!) the Orphanage’s educational resources would have to pay tuition?

If they did, perfect. The Nirvana Gang hands over money, he upgrades the academy, the academy level rises, and the gang pays even higher tuition…

Yeah, and if the gang members ran out of cash for tuition by then, just schedule some community internships. Count it as part of the curriculum—mandatory execution, but really just forced labor…

Oh, right. Housing.

Having students study sixteen hours a day was tough enough. If they wasted extra time commuting, wouldn’t that be too pitiful? Better to clean up the Orphanage dorms and house the gang members there…

That would mean charging room and board fees, right?

“…” Finnian listened in shock as Hastur laid out his grand construction plans, nearly blasting a hole through the head of this lamp-post-deserving capitalist jellyfish.

Hastur stared back without a shred of shame. “Or do you have a better idea?”

Finnian: “—I’m calling Detective Dustin.”

He’d input half the number when he suddenly remembered something. “Wait, what about Ithaqua? You gonna have him sharing a classroom with the gang?”

Hastur, who’d been shadowing Lv Zhucao for years, knew a thing or two about administrative tricks: “Give Ithaqua a half-month sick leave for now. Say he’s ill. Once G8273 finishes reshaping his shell, he can recover and come back to school.”

Ithaqua couldn’t hold back a sneaky, delighted chuckle.

~~~

First off, anyone who’s ever been sick knows sick leave doesn’t always get you out of homework.

Second, anyone who’s lived through a pandemic knows there’s this thing called online classes.

Ithaqua’s bubble of joy burst on contact, but the adults were already down to business.