Episode 17 — Plundering the Plunderers 1

A few days later.

Even though he hadn't taken on any job, the Professor was hurriedly arming himself and preparing to head out.

"Hm? Professor. Where are you off to?"

Grave, watching a screen from the sofa in the sitting room, spotted him and called out.

"…Ah."

"Where?"

"A dungeon raid… I suppose you'd call it."

"A dungeon?"

The Professor was, at his core, a contractor who specialized in PK work.

So when a man like that mentioned a dungeon raid, Grave set down the potato chips she'd been eating and shot to her feet.

"I'm coming too!"

"Don't. This is work."

"Work? Since when does the almighty contractor Professor take dungeon-clearing jobs?"

At the sound of Grave's raised voice, Shadow came down from upstairs, where she'd been resting.

"What's going on? A dungeon?"

"That's right. Dungeon business."

"Who's the client? We never saw you meet with anyone."

Lately, they'd made sure the two of them sat in on every client meeting.

So that if a client needed more hands, they could hire the women too.

"…This client is…"

"Who?"

"Me, sir—!"

Cuticle came up from the basement elevator, dressed in full magical-girl costume, grinning as she flashed a V-sign with both hands.

"Miss Cuticle?"

"Cuticle?"

"That's right. It's her request."

The Professor calmly began to explain.

Cuticle had run short on the metal she needed to prepare Shadow's new gear, and so she'd put in a request with the Professor.

"Eeeh… you do that even within the team?"

Shadow shook her head at the Professor, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

But the Professor and Cuticle both looked at her as if nothing about it were strange.

"…We've done things this way since the day we formed this partnership."

"So — everything the Professor's wearing right now, every gun he carries, all of it was made from materials I paid, piece by piece, to have collected?"

"Well, it's a teammate's request and not a client job, so the fee is only about seventy percent of the usual rate, but…"

At that, the light in the women's eyes changed.

"Could we come along for this one?"

"Yeah. Going alone is cheap of you."

Cuticle waved her hands, looking troubled at the sight of them.

"Eeeh… if everyone comes, the fee quadruples! That's a bit much!"

"Ugh."

"Tch!"

The Professor watched them deflate for a moment, then shook his head.

"Can't be helped. How about I hire the three of you myself?"

"Huh?!"

"What?!"

Of all people — the Professor, who turned ice-cold the moment money was involved — making a generous call like this?

"…We're going to be moving together more often from here on anyway. Building up teamwork against hostile NPCs isn't a bad idea."

"Really?!"

"Yes! No going back on your word now, mister!"

Grave jabbed a finger at him to pin him down.

"…I make it a policy not to change a decision once I've made it."

"Alright! I'll go get ready — wait for me!"

"I'll go wake up Kiss!"

The two women dashed off to get ready without a moment's delay, and Cuticle watched them go with a satisfied smile.

Back when it had just been the two of them working together, the sprawling mansion had felt hollow and desolate. With more people around, Cuticle found she was much more at ease.

"Say what you like, but you're pretty used to taking care of people, aren't you?"

"Not particularly. It's a necessary process, so I decided to do it."

The Professor fidgeted with his visor, looking troubled.

"Frankly, women are difficult to deal with."

"Figured as much."

"Too talkative, too noisy, and they let their emotions get ahead of them…"

"As expected."

The Professor stared for a moment at the stairwell where the women had vanished, then spoke in his usual flat, dry tone.

"…But their skill is real."

"……."

"Cuticle. Skill enough that I'd trust them at my back — the same as you."

It was a conclusion that suited the Professor down to the ground.

As people, he didn't particularly care for them. But this house's rules had no room for emotional judgment.

"That's the Professor for you."

"…Hmph."

In the end, the entire team deployed, save for Cuticle, who stayed behind in her support role.

Riding in the vehicle, they listened to the Professor's brief mission briefing.

"I'll say it again — this dungeon lies in Black Tiger Alliance territory. The fee's already been paid up front, so don't cause any unnecessary trouble."

"I know. Basic manners for a conflict-zone server."

"Right. I'll be careful."

Every member of the team was a named user seasoned in the conflict-zone servers.

This kind of basic knowledge, they already had down cold.

"Originally I planned to grab only the materials we need and be done with it. But since the whole team's here, we're going to strip the place bare — as much as the vehicle can carry."

The two women's eyes lit up.

What Cuticle wanted was mostly crafting materials. Any equipment drops from the dungeon, they'd already agreed, would go to whoever picked them up.

Soon, a checkpoint sign came into view, and they arrived at a spot where Black Tiger Alliance users stood guard.

"Welcome, welcome. Mind if we check your IDs real quick—"

A rookie user they'd met on a previous job was standing watch, grumbling as he did.

The Professor leaned out from the passenger seat and snapped his fingers to get his attention.

"Huh?! It's the helmet contractor!"

"That's right. Been a while. Your name was… Jet, wasn't it?"

"Wicked Jemmy! It's Wicked Jemmy! You could at least remember my name!"

"…The fact that I can't remember it means you're still a long way from being a named user in the conflict zone."

"Guh!"

Having lightly ribbed him, the Professor gave a nod to the veteran user standing beside him.

"As you can see — the Professor, plus three. We're here to hit the Bandit supply warehouse up top."

"Professor… ah, confirmed. But… plus three?"

Looking somewhat suspicious, the veteran user gestured for the vehicle's window to be rolled down so he could check the inside.

"Kiss. If you would."

"Yep!"

Whis-Kiss flicked the switch on the door to lower the window.

Cold sweat broke out on the veteran's forehead as he took in the faces inside.

"Hey now… you're bringing the whole squad just to scrape up some materials? You that bored?"

"We formed up as a team recently, so this doubles as a bit of teamwork building. I'd appreciate your understanding."

"Well, the fee's already paid, and the Professor's a regular customer of ours… fine! I'll just report it up to Baird Choi."

"Much appreciated."

"You're clear!"

At the veteran's word, Wicked Jemmy worked the checkpoint console and raised the barrier.

The vehicle rolled smoothly up the incline and soon approached a Bandit stronghold, walled in scrap metal, perched atop a hill.

This dungeon was themed around deserters from a security company who'd turned raider, slowly looting the surrounding resources to build up their hoard.

Each individual enemy was nothing special in level, but unlike a normal dungeon, the sheer number that could spawn was infamous for spiking up to four times the usual count.

On top of that, it had a mechanic where it periodically siphoned off a percentage of resources from a nearby mine and stockpiled them in its warehouse — which was why the Black Tiger Alliance, who managed the region, cleared it out periodically as a kind of training exercise for new recruits.

The Professor had handed over a considerable sum to the Alliance to get clearance for this cycle's raid.

"All right. Let's begin."

"Um, Professor. What's the plan?"

"Right… I mean, the briefing was pretty basic, but…"

"Yeah, seriously."

The Professor glanced back at the three of them giving him worried looks, then let out a short laugh and shook his head.

"What I mean by teamwork isn't some soft, cuddly thing like that."

"Huh?"

"What?!"

"……?"

"Each of you do your job like the professional you are. Teamwork falls into place naturally after that."

With that, the Professor tapped his stealth module and vanished from sight!

"Seriously! If that's how it's gonna be, just tell us to do our own thing from the start!"

"Right! I'm actually going to hit you later, you know that?!"

"Ugh. I got my hopes up for nothing."

Shadow was already airborne, clearing the wall in a leap, while Grave dove straight into the back seat of the vehicle, popped the turret hatch, and stood up with a machine gun in hand.

"Kiss! Ram the gate down!"

"Yes ma'am!"

With a heavy roar of the engine, the armored vehicle surged forward and crumpled the flimsy-looking scrap-metal gate flat.

At the sound, humanoid mobs — a mob of Bandits — came pouring out from every direction.

"Enemy! Kill 'em and strip 'em of everything they've got!"

"Meat! Meat, meat! Meeeeat!"

True to their design as habitual drug users who bought their fixes with looted goods, only a handful of them said anything remotely coherent.

Most of them, eyes yellowed or bloodshot and clearly out of their minds, were just spraying gunfire wildly.

"Well, well… I'll send every last one of you to the Virgin's side!"

From the turret mount, Grave immediately opened fire with a machine gun in each hand.

The raiders charging the vehicle began collapsing in droves, their bodies stitched clean across with bullet holes.

Ratatatat!

While Grave was in the middle of blazing away happily, an annoying obstacle appeared before her.

A well-built humanoid mob carrying a riot shield. A Bandit Suppressor had shown up.

"Damn it! Kiss! Can you run those guys down?!"

"The path's too narrow, I don't think so!"

"Tch!"

She was considering a grenade when a familiar shape slid silently up out of the shadow of one of the Suppressors.

"Hmph!"

With a fluid motion, Shadow drove a wakizashi deep into the Suppressor's nape, killing it instantly, then teleported into the shadow of another one.

"Wh-what is this?! This woman!?"

The Suppressor next to it saw its companion go down and swung its shield up in a panic, but—

Bang!

With the satisfying report of a large-caliber rifle round, its head burst open like a watermelon.

Recognizing at once that it had been the Professor's sniping, Shadow melted back into the shadows, while Grave climbed out of the immobilized vehicle and began striding forward, machine gun in hand, pushing into the compound —

toward the warehouse building where the boss mob, the gang's leader, was waiting.

Following behind Grave, having also climbed out of the vehicle, was Whis-Kiss.

"Kiss? You gonna be okay?"

Whis-Kiss had originally been strictly the getaway driver, but ever since joining the team, her playstyle had been changing.

"I'll be fine. Still got some liquor in me… and the Professor recommended I pick up something good."

"What's that?"

"…A cracking tool."

Whis-Kiss showed off the new device wrapped around her arm as if bragging about it.

"Oh? What's that do?"

"…Lets me mess with nearby electronics — move most of them around however I want."

"Huh. That could come in handy."

While the two of them were checking over the gear, short, choked death-cries were already echoing out from the cliffside residential quarter.

Shadow was moving from shadow to shadow, cutting down Bandits before they could even bolt from their homes.

"Wh-what the—?!"

"Hah!"

"Gagh!"

After putting down one more, she gave the dwellings a quick search.

Finding nothing worth taking, she scowled and instead scooped up a heap of points the Bandits had stashed away before heading back out.

The Professor, for his part, had switched on his stealth module to hide himself and had already made his way deep inside the warehouse building.

He had absolutely no intention of engaging the swarming Bandits one by one — the plan was simply to take out the boss mob as fast as possible and move things along.

"……."

While infiltrating through a window and descending the stairs toward the floor where the boss was, a voice suddenly drifted over from somewhere nearby.

"…Sniff, sniff… someone's snuck in, hm?"

"B-boss? What's wrong?!"

"I said there's an intruder. Bring me my weapon."

Only then did the Professor realize the floor he'd infiltrated was, by the dungeon's design, the boss mob's own private bedroom — and he smiled.

Because it looked like this was about to get easy.

—To be continued—