Chapter 23 Part 1

Who could have guessed this basement was a reward from completing a task, not some punishment?

Hastur shot down his employee’s wild idea right away. “I don’t have his phone number saved. Can’t reach him. So how are we supposed to deal with all this?”

The detective wasn’t home, leaving just one non-human and a gang leader to stare awkwardly at the bizarre pile of corpses that had appeared in the basement of their house, with no clue where to even start.

Truth be told, given Hastur’s or Finnian’s personalities, they’d have just disposed of these bodies—dead for at least a decade by now—and forgotten about digging into any potential cold cases from years ago.

But considering how furious Detective Dustin would be once he learned about this—and the chance it might trigger a whole new series of tasks—Hastur played it safe and gestured to Finnian. “Call the detective.”

Just a few minutes earlier, they had been fretting over Dustin like concerned parents, wondering if he was getting picked on at the police station.

Now here they were, like kids who had wrecked the house and didn’t know how to clean up the mess, nervously dialing the parent’s number in the hopes the adult would bail them out.

The phone rang for a good while before Finnian watched the call auto-hang up. “He might still be getting chewed out? I—”

Ding-dong…

A strange knocking sound suddenly echoed from the southeast corner.

Finnian froze. “Did you hear that? What’s that noise? Is there another room over there in the southeast?”

“No,” Hastur said, frowning as he recalled the layout. “Just the sewer line—”

He snapped to attention. “It’s the drainage pipe connected to the sewer making that sound—”

Boom！！

The deafening explosion swallowed the rest of Hastur’s words. Before anyone could shout in shock and fury, “What the hell?”, grayish sewage mixed with sludge erupted from the sewer grate in the southeast corner. In less than two seconds, it had overwhelmed the floor drain and come surging out.

Hastur and Finnian spun on their heels and bolted, making it a few meters before they both slammed to a halt in unison. “The computer！！”

How had it come to this? He had only claimed a task reward in his own home. Why did it feel like he had stumbled onto the set of a disaster movie?

Finnian whipped back around, arm drawn in as he primed his sonic weapon. He directed the blast of vibrations at the onrushing sewage, then barked over his shoulder at Hastur. “The computer! Get the computer out of here!”

How had it come to this?

Hastur repeated the question in his mind as he extended his mental tentacles, wrapping them around the massive computer and hauling it away.

The ground trembled. Chunks of brick rained down from the ceiling.

As Hastur raced up out of the basement, he could still hear panicked commotion from the floors above, along with the continuous crack of ruptures and the roar of rushing water.

Boom…

Vast quantities of sewage gushed from burst pipes all over the place.

The sudden explosions had cracked walls that housed water lines, and some pipes inside the walls hummed with a ominous buzzing resonance.

Hastur, clinging to a bit of self-delusion, yanked open his game interface with effort. First, he used time stop to transport the computer safely into the yard. Then he fell silent, staring at the sewage frozen in mid-flow along with everything else.

The lair！！ Our lair！！ his inner voice roared in outrage. If this is part of the task reward, I swear the moment I get back to reality, I’ll tear down that goddamn game dev team！！

Hastur forced his writhing mental tentacles to calm down. After all, Finnian was still out in the yard—he didn’t want to lose his versatile, high-output follower to a momentary outburst.

“Why did the pipes explode all of a sudden?”

If it was just from age and neglect, issues would have cropped up ages ago whenever they used the public bathroom or other water fixtures.

For it to blow up like this all at once, some external force had to be at play.

As he pondered, he floated up to the second floor and pulled Ithaqua out of time stop. “Freeze the sewage and the collapsed walls. Minimize the damage.”

Once the mitigation was underway, Hastur headed to the first floor and restored Finnian’s freedom of movement. “I think some of the kids were involved in this ‘accidental’ explosion.”

“How… Oh.” Finnian, who had been frantically stripping off his sewage-soaked leather jacket, suddenly remembered something. “No wonder the gas bill’s been through the roof lately… They piped natural gas into the water lines?”

The gas used in the kitchen was eighty-seven percent methane. If those gang punks had somehow funneled methane into the pipes, letting it build up, it could absolutely cause an explosion on this scale.

“Fuck！” Finnian couldn’t hold back the curse. Hastur eyed the way he reluctantly tossed aside the jacket, unsure if Finnian’s rage stemmed from his crew stirring up trouble again or from losing his favorite jacket. “Is this how they put the lessons I taught them into practice？！”

If it hadn’t been their own lair that got hit, Hastur might have complimented Finnian on his “fine teaching.” But right now, he was all business, urging him on. “We split up. While time’s still stopped, check the kids and see who’s not spooked.”

A howling gale laced with snow pellets swept from the second floor throughout the orphanage.

Hastur drifted up to the second-floor dorms while Finnian charged into the first-floor school area.

The wind whipped his yellow robe into a frenzy as Hastur tore the doors off every dorm room amid the creaking of frozen sewage.

He swept through the dorms and dragged out three deadbeat punks pretending to be sick while playing on their phones; ten more who had skipped evening study hall thanks to good grades and were instead huddled up playing cards; some slacking off in the public bathroom with mop handles as an excuse, when they were really just chatting in a group; others claiming to be in the bathroom but actually sitting on the toilet reading novels…

Hastur: “…………”

*

“Hastur!” Finnian’s voice rang out from downstairs. “Found him! Mike Borg… He’s in the combat training arena on the school’s third floor!”

The system chimed suddenly:

【Sudden Event: Pipeline Explosion completed!】

【Event Reward: 10 Freedom Points】

Hastur: “…?”

Kinda stingy？？

…Not that he didn’t feel bad about their ruined lair, but the payout more than made up for it.

In half a second flat, Hastur’s foul mood blew over. He closed the game interface and floated down from the second floor to the first, his mental tentacles—now hardened into scythe blades—fully back to normal.

He drifted into the school along with the wind and snow, content as an egg yolk jellyfish floating with the current into a buffet of plankton-rich waters. “Why did you blow the pipes?”

No deeper motive—just curiosity. Could they recreate this kind of sudden event?

“Fuck！”

Shrapnel from the pipeline blast had shattered most of the lights.

In the darkness, only dim moonlight filtered through the windows, while burst bulbs still crackled with sparks.

Mike Borg was pinned face-down on the combat training mat, Finnian’s hand clamped on the back of his head, his arms twisted behind his back. His face was right up against the frozen sewage ice.

He ignored Hastur’s question entirely, seemingly unconcerned about being pressed against the foul ice. After struggling futilely a few times, he spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with broken teeth and snow.

“…” Finnian’s knee dug into Borg’s back, his right hand vise-gripping Borg’s wrist. He stared at Borg’s back, his expression complicated.

A couple of seconds passed. He opened his mouth as if to question him, but before the words came, he glanced up at Hastur, puzzled by his calm.

Hastur, of course, wasn’t about to admit, “One pipe explosion netted 10 Freedom Points—worth it.” Instead, he said, “He’s one of your gang members. You probably want to handle him yourself.”

“…Thanks.” Finnian looked a little surprised, a soft, melted warmth in his eyes—like being cheered up by a house pet.

But that warmth vanished the instant he turned back to Borg. “Why did you blow the pipes?”

He bore down harder, nearly cracking the ice beneath Borg’s face with a creak.

Borg pressed his forehead against the mat and sewage, but he let out a muffled laugh. “Why? Why don’t you ask yourself?”

“You lock up a bunch of killers and robbers in a school to play house with you. You really expect some fairy tale where they all turn over a new leaf and ace their classes?”

“Not everyone who joins a gang loves the violence,” Finnian replied evenly. “Some just want to survive. Hell, plenty of them have never even fired a shot in their lives.”

“Right. So you keep the tame trash around and ship every troublemaker straight to the cops one by one, padding the stats for your detective buddy！”

Borg thrashed like a feral beast, but Finnian slammed him back down.

He craned his neck to glare back at Finnian. “That’s the thanks you give Yang? They trusted you, hoped you’d lead Nirvana Gang to rule Phoenix District. And instead, you’re turning Nirvana’s wolves into obedient dogs！”

Finnian seized Borg by the collar and hauled him up. “I’m turning you hyenas back into humans！！”

The hanging light fixture overhead popped with a snap, briefly illuminating the empty combat training arena—and the two men glaring at each other like beasts, chests heaving.

Mike Borg’s plan had failed spectacularly.

When Borg lunged like a rabid dog, Finnian knocked him out cold with clean efficiency, ignoring the nervous crowd of students hovering outside the door as he dragged the man out of the arena.

The only person in the room who could still muster any cheer was probably Hastur. After evenly distributing his ten Freedom Points across his five highest attributes, he followed Finnian out the door while glancing at the task interface.

The instant Borg was defeated, a new system prompt popped up:

【Hidden Character Task Completed: [Great Purge]】

【Taming a big gang is like cooking small fry: first scrape off the grit to get your clean base ingredients.】

After a month of “sweeping,” [Finnian]’s control over the Nirvana Gang had reached 100%.

【The Nirvana Gang’s reputation activity will provide output for you too, with the ratio determined by your reputation level.】

【Nirvana Gang Reputation Level: -1 (When parents in Phoenix District try to shush rowdy kids at bedtime, they scare them: Keep it up and the Nirvana Gang will bust through the door and slaughter us all!)】

【Output Ratio: 20%】

When Hastur spotted the negative number, he nearly thought the Nirvana Gang would dock his Freedom Points. Luckily, it didn’t.

The gang members craning their necks around them had no clue they’d come millimeters from death. They watched the Dean depart, still muttering to one another in that quintessential gang-banger obliviousness:

“The school’s blown to hell like this—classes canceled tomorrow or what?”

“Damn, that’s all you care about?? My dorm’s right by the communal showers—where the hell am I sleeping tonight?!”

“Wait—if all the bathrooms are wrecked, how are we supposed to take a shit??”

“Lord almighty!! Who gives a damn? Don’t forget we’ve got a quiz tomorrow!! I was gonna grind a few more civil service practice questions during evening study hall. Why the fuck did this have to happen now?”

Hastur drifted farther away, listening to the chorus of laments trailing behind him: “…”

…Hard to say.

Exhausted students, slogging like dogs—were they even human anymore? Or just dogs?

The boundary between people and dogs could get awfully fuzzy at times. Wage slaves and students alike slunk through the murky divide, ping-ponging back and forth.

Hastur trailed Finnian all the way out the orphanage gates. He watched as Finnian lashed Mike Borg to the motorcycle’s rear seat. “? You dropping him at the station now?”

“Picking up Detective Dustin on the way back, too.” Finnian snapped his helmet on with one hand and swung a leg over the bike. His long, straight, solid legs braced against the ground as the engine rumbled to life with a deep, throaty growl. “You in?”

Hastur extended his mental tentacles in a flash, yanking himself onto the sidecar seat. “Let’s roll,” he said crisply.

Three minutes later.

The dashing duo, striking cool poses astride their motorcycle, were circling the orphanage grounds:

“Gate keys?”

“Got ’em. Underground bunker?”

“On it—locked. —You lot! What’s with the circus? Exam tomorrow mean nothing to you? Back to the dorms! Blown up? Crash next door!”

After a chaotic flurry of hassle, the two “people” climbed back aboard the motorcycle fifteen minutes later.

Mike Borg stirred groggily on the rear seat. “Why are we he—ack!”

Finnian pulled back his fist, readjusted his helmet, and cinched the strap. “Checks out. Punch it.”

“…” Boarding for the second time, Hastur’s vibe had shifted entirely from fifteen minutes prior.

Ten minutes ago, they resembled arms traffickers bundling a hostage for a station raid. Now? More like a fierce yet frugal supermom hauling her overgrown son out for groceries.

~~~

Passenger capacity aside, Arthur Series motorcycles might outpace even Merlin Series flyers.

Moments after the bike lifted into the air, the gearhead Finnian couldn’t contain himself. He started gushing to Hastur:

“You know the Arthur Series was built around the ‘shock trooper’ and ‘vanguard mount’ philosophy? Picture a battlefield—Arthurs are the blade slicing ahead of every tank and trooper!”

“…” The plump yolk stretched flat in the wind.

Hastur couldn’t wrap his head around anyone getting pumped by blasting headwinds. Even as a god, he favored serene, enclosed cabins.

Finnian didn’t care whether Hastur chimed in. He rambled on about every tweak he’d lavished on the bike and his next upgrades—”high-flow air filter,” “lightweight flywheel swap.” By the time Mike Borg roused again in the back, they’d touched down near the branch police station.

Mike Borg’s second awakening earned him a third knockout.

Finnian slung Borg over his shoulder. Then a police siren wailed from the left street.

Hastur had just wafted down from the sidecar when Finnian—peering that way—snagged his garment hem and dove them both into the bushes. “? Why dodge the cops?”

“Figured no warrant on you at the station. Last drops, you handled solo.”

“No poster for me there. My rap sheet’s not that heavy.”

Finnian murmured as he clapped a palm over Hastur’s hood:

“But I know the guy in that car. He knows me. Not ready for that reunion.”

Hastur’s curiosity twitched. He nudged the hand off his head with a tentacle and leaned out to eye the car screeching up to the station doors.

The driver’s door flew open. An old man with short white hair and a police cap stepped out.

His gaze was piercing and alert, his build impressively erect and sturdy. Police boots thudded as he marched inside, silver epaulets on his shoulders flashing brilliantly.