After hearing the annoying voice of the clown, I sighed. Really now… Seems like I have no choice but to find that bastard. Oh well. I would have been doing it anyway, because he is my rival, and I can't just let him go to jail. Now, at least, there was a mission tied to all that stuff, and I could earn some points.

So… Let's get going.

"Do you have any idea where that guy… Your brother, I mean, could be?"

Once I voiced my question, the black eyes of the girl shone with blinding light.

"Yes, I mean… I saw, accidentally, a note that his friends left him. It's about the place where they usually gather," she put her phone out of the bag and showed me the map of the city. There was a street market there. It was not too far from Lu's restaurant. By the way, seems like the girl was thinking about going there herself, seeing that she had marketed the place.

"…Maybe we should go there and get him, then. Who do you think?" I proposed.

She stared at me with her eyes wide open. The phone almost fell from the girl's hands. Then she said to me in a very glad voice:

"If… If it won't bother you… Thank you…"

"Good. However, I need to have some stuff done first…"

I said, got up, and then went to the storeroom. When I came back, there was a wooden sword in one of my hands and the magazine in the other one.

While walking, I activated the Extreme Training Mode.

(30-30=0)

Here goes my earnings…

The girl, Yuki, was looking at me with a confused gaze.

"I have to finish my training," I said to her.

"Give me… About ten minutes," I said and positioned myself before the wooden doll.

I was about to go on an expedition to some nationalistic gang's headquarters.

I had to prepare for this, and the only way for me to prepare was to rise my sword mastery.

I grasped the hilt of the sword with both of my hands and smashed at the doll…

…

…

…

The sun was shining through the window, showering the concrete buildings with its golden rays.

One of these rays was falling on the black hair of a little girl that was tied into twin tails.

Yuki was sitting in front of me, just before the window of the monorail that we were riding.

I was standing and grasping at the handrail.

There was no one apart from us in the carriage. There were several reasons for that. First, because it was too early. 17:44. The working day was still going on. The second reason was that the part of the city that we were entering was quite desolate. In the window, I could see a great deal of construction sites and not so many finished buildings.

"I… I've read about this place, by the way…" suddenly started talking Yuki.

I was surprised.

"What about it?"

"It was a… Suburbia before. But the city was growing, so at some point, someone bought all the homes and started building there a commercial street. However, the city was still growing, so it became meaningless and most places here went bankrupt.

After that, some other person had brought everything there and started constructing a residential area… But… He also lost a lot of money, so the construction hasn't been progressing for a long time now…"

I see.

Sounds like a very typical, albeit a Kafkaesque story.

What really surprised me is that Yuki knew all that stuff.

It's probably because she had researched the residence of the gang of her brother. Seems like the girl really wished to go there, but could not do it, because it was too dangerous. Therefore, to find an outlet for her frustration, she started gathering information on that place...

A very heartaching tale, isn't it?

I sighed inwardly and looked at the girl with my special eyes:

[Str: F

End: F

Int: B+

SP: Dishwashing: E+]

Interesting…

So she had [B+] in Intelligence. Who could expect that such a stupid brother will have a little sister so clever?

Everything else was average for a kid of her age.

I have been looking at different people a lot these days, making research about what these Stats actually mean in correlation to the real world.

When it comes to Str and End, let's call them Physical Attributes,

[F] was an average for a kid.

[E-] – a weak grown person.

[E] – a normal grown-up.

[E+] – a sportsman.

With a [D-], you could be very strong, and with a [D] – the hero of the Olympics.

I have not seen even one person who would have an [C] in his Physical Attributes. Even with a minus.

However, to do some research, I went to a Zoo and used my eyes on a Gorilla.

It had [C-] in Strength…

However, that was not the true indication of one's power. Because some specific fighting abilities, like Kendo, were much more useful than raw strength.

A kendo master would probably be an entire level above a normal person. A man with [D] in Kendo will probably be able to beat a person (or animal) with [C] in Str…