Chapter 37
Repaying a Favor
* * *
I paused to think for a moment, then nodded. Anyway, it would take quite some time before Spring Parsley finished drawing up the schematics.
And those who claimed to rule this area weren’t all that impressive.
Besides…
I was a doctor who had spent eight years on the battlefield. There were plenty of doctors with experience working in field hospitals set up behind the front lines.
But what this woman had done was a little different.
Instead of working at a field hospital in the rear, she had actually roamed the front line itself, making sure that wounded soldiers didn’t die while they were being transported back to the field hospital.
She must have been frighteningly skilled at clinging to the Grim Reaper’s trouser leg.
Keeping even half-corpses alive, no matter what.
That skill was incredibly important.
Thanks to the procedures performed by my family, my injuries healed at a speed that far exceeded any ordinary person’s.
For someone else, her treatment might have been no more than a temporary measure to keep them breathing, but for me, it would lay the foundation for a complete recovery.
Even if the injuries were severe enough to make that difficult…
I still had to be alive so that the relevant specialists could at least try something.
If I arrived dead, it would all be meaningless. Even if Tanya Lysand was a bit unhinged, this was a merit so significant that it was worth forging ties regardless of her peculiar state of mind.
“Alright. I suppose that’s the least I should do to ease my conscience.”
“Thank you.”
I wasn’t being asked to smash an entire organization. All I needed to do was pay them a visit and warn them not to mess with Tanya Lysand’s emergency room.
“Well then, since we’ve brought it up, I’ll take care of it right away.”
As I said that, Tanya briefly reached out and palpated my ribs.
Then she quickly scribbled something down and handed it to me.
“This is a referral. Go see a thoracic surgeon, and if the doctor says you’re fine, then you can go ahead.”
“What, are you not confident?”
At my words, Tanya replied.
“You have money, don’t you? Then you don’t need to cling to me. There are plenty of highly skilled doctors in thoracic surgery.”
If nothing else, thoracic surgeons were brilliant at making money.
It was a field specializing in the heart and lungs, and any problem there usually meant a life-threatening injury.
Since a person’s life hung in the balance, patients couldn’t help but pay whatever fee the doctor demanded.
It was grueling and difficult work, but compared to other specialties, it was possible to make overwhelming sums of money.
For talented residents, thoracic surgery was an extremely popular choice.
“If you don’t have money, you can’t get treatment, though.”
“And that’s why so many skilled doctors flock to it.”
It was a cruel world where if you had no money, there was nothing you could do.
After finishing the conversation, I left Tanya’s emergency room and took the referral to another nearby hospital to get examined.
After hearing that there was no problem, I immediately began scanning the streets and got to work.
I probably didn’t need to kill anyone.
I wasn’t planning to wipe them all out and leave nothing behind. I was only here to deliver a warning not to lay a hand on Tanya Lysand’s emergency room.
If the other side responded cooperatively, I had no intention whatsoever of doing anything brutal.
“This must be the place.”
I slowly approached the shabby building. From inside came the sound of dice rolling, cards shuffling, people shouting over their bets, and the roulette wheel spinning.
Anyone could tell it was a gambling den. But it wasn’t the kind that catered to people with any real money.
People in filthy clothes were staring at the roulette wheel as if it had murdered their parents, their eyes bloodshot and crazed.
Those playing cards sometimes grabbed each other by the collar and started brawling.
Children bustled around the space, thick with the stench of cigarettes, selling tobacco, moonshine, and old, shriveled sandwiches to gamblers, trying to earn a few coins.
“U… uuuuaaaagh!”
A man who had wagered not money but his own finger as collateral had his index finger sliced off on a chopping block, shrieked like a dying animal, and was thrown out.
People who had lost everything clung to others, begging them to lend them money, only to get punched in the face.
They say life is full of joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure. If you wanted to witness those things in their basest, most concentrated form, without question, this was the place.
“Why do bastards running joints like this have no concept of cleaning?”
If they didn’t want to clean it themselves, they could at least hire a few people for the sake of contributing to the community.
They were already extorting protection fees from others, so they could give a little bit of that back.
“There’s not even something like a cashier counter to exchange chips.”
This wasn’t the kind of establishment armed with any spirit of customer service. They didn’t care whether anyone came in or not.
Inside the building, there was a small side room guarded by two burly thugs standing watch at the entrance.
“I have something I’d like to discuss with your boss about the new emergency room. Call him out.”
I hadn’t come here to gamble. I threaded my way past the gamblers absorbed in their momentary thrill and stopped in front of the side door to speak.
“Eat shit.”
And the reply I got was precisely one of the answers I had expected.
“Really, that’s the one thing I find charming about your kind—you lot never even consider having a conversation until you’ve been beaten half to death.”
Since I’d anticipated the answer, I had already decided what I’d give in return for that reaction.
“After saying that kind of crap, you didn’t actually think I’d just smile and let it slide, did you?”
The bastard who had told me to eat shit was grabbed by the collar.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”
My fingers stabbed into the man’s left eye. A pitiful wail echoed through the room. The funny thing was that none of the gamblers around us even bothered to look up, despite the screams.
Even if the building caught fire, these people would still be checking the cards in their hands.
The man whose eyeball had been yanked out while he was still alive was trembling all over, staring at the blood pouring out of the empty socket.
I dropped the eyeball to the floor with a dull thud, then wiped my bloodied fingers across the man’s back as I spoke.
“Unless you’ve got some talent for echolocation to replace your eye like a bat, open the door and lead me to your boss.”
From the perspective of the man whose eyes were still intact, this was sheer horror. I had plucked out a human eyeball as casually as if I were pulling out a mint candy for dessert at a restaurant.
There was no guarantee that the next eyeball candy wouldn’t be his own.
“I understand!”
Fear and terror made people obedient. Strictly speaking, this wasn’t exactly the Featherwing way.
“Then move, you bastard.”
At my words, the man with both eyes still in his head immediately opened the door and guided me inside. Beyond the door was a set of stairs descending into the floor.
As I went down the stairs, a fairly spacious area came into view. It looked like it served as a kind of break room. A few people were sitting on chairs, and half-eaten pizza and beer bottles were scattered across the tables.
“For fuck’s sake, try cleaning up after yourselves once in a while.”
The place already had no ventilation since it was underground, and with the filth piled up, the stench was unbearable. I wrinkled my nose and acted as if I’d just stepped into my own living room.
“Who the hell are you, pal?”
Apparently, that attitude didn’t sit well with the people lounging around the break room. The biggest one among them slowly stood up and asked me.
At the same time, the others also began rising to their feet, each drawing some sort of weapon.
“I’ve got something I’d like to discuss with your boss. It’s about the problem with the newly opened free emergency room.”
I picked up a deck of cards that had been left lying around on the filthy table and shuffled them deftly, smiling.
“If your boss is in here, he can pop out…”
“What the fuck is this asshole babbling about?”
One of them lunged at me, wielding a massive machete in his hand.
With a sharp whipping sound, about thirty cards shot out and embedded themselves all over the man’s body.
The attacker froze mid-step, twitching, then collapsed to the floor as his clothes turned bright red with blood.
“If he’s somewhere else, I’d appreciate it if you gentlemen could guide me to him.”
They had just witnessed a living man turned into a grotesque card rack right before their eyes.
The members of the gang that ran this gambling den and controlled the neighborhood shuddered involuntarily at the utterly horrific sight.
“You… you really think you’ll get away with messing with our Raiden Bakery Association?”
“Hm? What? What did you say the organization’s name was?”
I looked at them with an expression that said I must have misheard.
A gang of thugs running a gambling den, calling themselves a bakery association.
But oddly enough, in Bennett City, naming organizations this way was pretty common.
A small group controlling the neighborhood right next door operated under the name Dallas Veterans Association.
“Bakery, my ass. Have a knuckle sandwich instead.”
I flicked a few light jabs at the guy charging toward me.
My fist, twisting through the air like a snake, knocked five or six of the poor bastard’s teeth loose inside his mouth.
“A… grrgh…”
His mouth suddenly feeling empty, the man stumbled backward, blood streaming down his chin.
In the now-silent break room, I raised my right hand slowly and clenched it into a fist. My knuckles cracked loudly.
“The next bastard gets his tongue ripped out.”
It was a short sentence, but it carried a thoroughly convincing threat.
I began walking toward the men, my steps echoing. I stopped in front of the biggest one.
“Show me the way. Fatass.”
“…”
We locked eyes for two or three seconds. Then I stomped down hard on his foot.
With his foot pinned in place, I twisted his body sharply to the side. With a nasty crunch, the bones in his ankle shattered completely. He let out a piercing scream.
“Idiot.”
I watched him clutching his pulverized ankle and rolling on the floor, then stepped on his other ankle and crushed it too.
“Anyone else feel like playing a staring contest with me? If not, how about you show me around already? What the hell is this nonsense?”
I had already left three of them in pathetic heaps. It wasn’t as though I did this because I enjoyed it.
“I heard you were looking for me.”
I turned toward the voice. A middle-aged man was standing there with a thick cigar clenched between his teeth. One of his hands ended in a metal hook instead of a hand.
“Don’t tell me the owner of this place lost an arm gambling?”
At my remark, he spat the cigar onto the floor and crushed it under his shoe.
“I’ve got my reasons.”
He answered, then used his hook to snag a chair and push it toward me.
“Distilled liquor? Or beer?”
Looked like he was finally planning to treat me like a guest. I sat down in the chair and replied.
“Whole milk and white bread. You’re called a bakery association, so you must have at least that much.”
The man jerked his chin, and a moment later, a glass of milk and a plate of bread were set down in front of me.
“So, you wanted to see me?”
“Do you remember the newly opened free emergency room?”