The world seemed to freeze around me as my entire being focused on the large man that entered the office. The same bulging belly, the sagging jowls, the jewel-encrusted rings that adorned his fat fingers, the disgustingly oily skin, and the swine-like eyes. It was him. The pig that killed Mom. The pig who should be dead but was alive and well as he lumbered into the room.

Kill him! I screeched at Squeaky. That bastard killed her! Kill him! Kill him! KILL HIM!

Squeaky charged forward from her hiding place without hesitation. She turned into a black blur as she climbed the desk in less than a second before facing the corpulent man who just entered the room. She lengthened her claws and prepared to jump at the Baronet, intending to shred the pig's head into a paste.

Master, wait! Taloress suddenly cried out. That couldn't be the Baronet! The Great Helen's murderer is dead!

I hesitated, making Squeaky pause on top of the desk. But he's right there! The pig is still alive and walking! I must have been careless when I gutted that bastard!

Master, the Baronet is already dead, Taloress said softly. I cannot see the person you are seeing right now, but that man cannot be the Baronet. Master already made sure of that. No one can survive being stabbed more than a hundred times.

After listening to Taloress, some of my anger subsided to allow me to see reason again. She was right. I had stabbed that bastard so many times he had more holes than a cheese grater. It was impossible to survive something like that. I had no idea how Taloress could know how I killed the Baronet when she wasn't even alive yet at that time, but I would have to ask her later.

Now that I had regained some of my senses, I realized that the corpulent man who entered the office only looked similar to the Baronet. They had the same body proportions and facial features, but they were not the same person. As my anger further dissipated, glaring differences between the Baronet and the fat man became more obvious. This man was a tad bigger than the Baronet, his nose a bit sharper, and his brows thicker. This was definitely not the Baronet, but the similarities in some of their facial features were too apparent. If I had to guess, this man was a close relative of the Baronet, maybe even his brother.

Squeaky, go back to your hiding place.

Squeak!

Fortunately, the corpulent man was busy talking with the group of people behind him to notice a large rat leaping from his desk and hiding behind a display case that showcased decorative swords.

“I don't care if the Governor sends me his empty threats,” the fat man said angrily as he sat behind his desk, the chair ominously creaking from his weight. “Tell him I'm not paying his ‘war tax.’ What does he think of me, a fool?! I'm not paying a fifth of our monthly profits for some stupid war! And I doubt my money would even go to the army, the Governor would just put it in his pockets! Remmy, the next time a tax collector comes, cut off his head and send it to the Governor's mansion. That ought to send a message to that greedy bastard.”

“A bold move, Purplehood Rutter,” one of the thugs said, a tall and muscled man with numerous tattoos covering his skin. “But I think Governor Gellius' threats aren't as empty as they seem. He has the law behind him, making his demands legal on paper. If we don't comply, the Governor could impose strict sanctions on our company.”

“He won't dare do that,” the fat man, whose name turned out to be Rutter, said with a scoff. “Governor he may be, but he will not dare do something drastic against the Hoods. At worst, he will impose penalties and charge us with the highest fine the law would allow, but no more than that. He'll be stepping around carefully around us with a Blackhood in the city.”

My brows furrowed in confusion as I listened in on the conversation. Some of the terminologies they used were beyond me. What are the ‘Hoods’? The fat guy was called a ‘Purplehood,’ which I assumed was a rank of some sort. It was probably a high rank judging from the fact that Rutter seemed to be a head manager of some sort, which should mean that a ‘Blackhood’ was someone higher up on the ladder. And judging from how the fat man worded it, this Blackhood person had enough power to cow even the Governor of the city.

I managed to glean more information as the conversation continued. From what I could gather, the Hartman Company was one of many other companies in the city that paid a regular tribute to the Governor of Halros. The purpose of the tribute wasn't explicitly mentioned, but I was confident that it was a bribe to the Governor to look the other way regarding the company's shady side businesses. And if I wasn't sure earlier if the Hartman Company was a criminal organization or not, listening to this conversation dispelled all of my doubts.

As the conversation went on, the vile topics of human trafficking, forced prostitution, and extortion had been blatantly brought up, and to my horror, the Hartman Company's large income didn't come from its official businesses, but rather from the illegal ones. It meant that there was an extremely high demand for those illegal services. Hartman Company was a terrifying evil in Halros that needed to be uprooted, but not only did the city look the other way, they were feeding it and making it grow.

I thought I would no longer be surprised by the revelation that the Hartman Company was actually a criminal organization. After all, it was already pretty obvious that any organization in this wretched city was bound to have a criminal element. But I did not expect it to be this bad.

The Hartman Company conducted protection rackets in the outer city and the slums, wherein their clients paid a fee in exchange for their ‘protection.’ When the clients could no longer pay the fee due to poverty, thugs would be sent to ransack their homes and any women found would be kidnapped and put into illegal brothels to work as prostitutes until their ‘debt’ was repaid.

The level of depravity that I was listening to made me wonder if I was spying on demons instead of humans. I could not comprehend how humans could discuss sex trafficking with such casual demeanors as if they were talking about the weather. These weren't people anymore.

“Alright, you can get back to your work,” Rutter said at last as he closed the journal that contained his notes regarding the company's illegal practices. “By the way, before you collect the monthly dues from our clients tonight, tell them the fee has gone up due to the imminent war between Edria and Ocrana. The monthly fee is now five silvers.”

“As you wish, Purplehood,” Remmy replied before proceeding to the exit, his men following behind him.

I initially wanted Squeaky to stay in the office for a few more minutes when Rutter was finally alone to see if I could glean more information from the corpulent man, but I decided to follow Remmy's group instead. I wanted to see the extent of this vile company's crimes, to witness their depraved acts so that I could etch into my mind one of the gravest mistakes I have ever made: conducting business with Rella.

Just the thought of the woman's name made me ill. Realizing that I had been conversing and laughing with a woman who was a member of a criminal organization that engaged in human trafficking made me feel sick to the core, but more importantly, it made me extremely furious. The Hartman Company had sold my clothing for thousands of gold, and I was now realizing that the money they earned from selling my products was probably used as capital for their illegal businesses. I've been utterly fooled.

My previous plan of staying low and avoiding attention to myself went out the window. I had been slighted, and I will not take this lying down. Every debt must be repaid in full.

●●●

Remmy hawked a spit as he walked towards the eastern gate of the inner city, his face set in an annoyed frown. The streets of the inner city were bright and cheerful as people visited the high-end establishments that lined the road, but the jubilant atmosphere failed to lift Remmy's mood. He was extremely annoyed at the new Purplehood that had been assigned to the Hartman Company after the previous one got killed by the Shadow. The new Purplehood was threatening the old ways.

The dynamics between the Governor and the gangs of the city, where they maintained cordial relations through bribery, had been set in stone a long time ago, even before the current Governor took the seat. It went way back to the founding of the city, before the Kingdom of Edria existed. Back then, Halros was an independent city-state constantly threatened by external enemies, and so an alliance had been formed between the government and the gangs that operated within the city to protect both of their interests.

The old alliance had benefited both factions throughout the years, an unspoken rule that took precedence even over the law when the city was assimilated into the kingdom. On paper, the city was owned by the Kingdom of Edria, but in practice, the Governor and the gangs were the true kings of the city.

The problem was that the old alliance was getting strained over the past twenty years when the Hoods came into power. They started as one of the smaller gangs in the city, but in a span of a few years, they managed to swallow the most powerful gang in the city and demanded obedience from the rest. Some gangs refused, only to be killed to the last man as a grim example of what happened to dissidents. As a result, all the other criminal groups capitulated and joined the Hoods, turning it from a simple gang into a full-blown syndicate comprised of all the crime lords of Halros with the Blackhoods at the helm.

The emergence of the Hoods wouldn't have been so bad. It wasn't the first syndicate to have formed in the city over the years, after all. But the issue was the Blackhoods: none of them cared for the old alliance.

Over the years, the Blackhoods had pushed the Governor away and consolidated their power. The power balance between the Governor and the criminal elements that had been maintained since the establishment of the old alliance had been threatened, with the Hoods coming out on top. The strained balance between the two factions had resulted in the gradual decline of the city: with the gangs' actions unchecked, the population of the city was suffering and descending into poverty, which was further exacerbated by the aftermath of the coup more than a decade ago.

As a gang member himself, Remmy didn't care much for the plight of the masses. He joined the Gray Fists when he was still a youth with one goal in mind: to get rich and powerful. If he had to stomp on others, he never hesitated to do so.

But that was just his view when he was still nothing more than a brat blinded by the temptations of gold, and those days were long gone. When he joined the Hartman Company and rose through the ranks, he had to learn a few important lessons that came along with leadership, one of which was that you never push the people that made you money too far. Gangs profited from their victims, but there had to be a limit somewhere. Gangs and their victims were like farmers and their land: if they cultivated the land too much without rest, the only thing they would be left with was a barren wasteland.

And Remmy knew it was only a matter of time until Halros broke from the current state of things. To make matters worse, the new Purplehood was an extremely greedy bastard, and from the way the pig ran things, the Governor would soon reach his limit and dissolve the old alliance. When that happened, Remmy was sure that Halros would descend into chaos when the Hoods and the Governor struggled for control over the city.

“You doin' your monthly rounds?” the guard asked as Remmy and his group reached the gate.

“Yeah,” Remmy replied as he put a gold coin on the guard's outstretched hand. “Things would be a bit noisier tonight, Purplehood raised the protection fees.”

“I'm afraid a gold coin's not enough for our noninterference, Redhood,” the guard said with a smile. “Just like how your Purplehood's raised his prices, the Captain of the Guard had increased the rates. Governor Gellius has been extremely dissatisfied with how you people have been running things lately and removed your… discounts.”

Remmy frowned but did not complain. This was expected after the Purplehood's blatant disregard of the Governor's influence over the past few weeks. “How much?”

“Five gold,” the guard said with a large grin.

“Is that what your Captain said the rate was?” Remmy asked darkly. “I'm going to the Captain after my rounds and if I find out that the rate is actually lower, you better pray you and your family are out of the city by the time I return.”

The guard visibly paled and coughed awkwardly. “Ah, sorry 'bout that, Redhood. I misremembered the Captain's orders. It's three gold.”

Remmy snorted and handed two more gold to the guard before leading his men past the gate. He was sure that the rate was less than three gold, but he allowed the guard his share. The relations between the gangs and the city guards were already at an all-time low, no sense in worsening it further.

When Remmy's group passed the wall, the surroundings abruptly transitioned from a luxurious neighborhood filled with sprawling estates to a rundown district, the buildings packed together tightly like a can of sardines to make use of every available space. The area already had a depressing atmosphere during the day, but the dark night somehow managed to make the place even bleaker.

The night was the time when the inner city truly woke up, when the high-end businesses opened to cater to the debauchery of the rich. Young gentlemen and ladies would party and mingle, drink themselves into oblivion, and find themselves a partner, or partners, to warm each other's bed.

But for the outer city, the night was the time that its inhabitants hid. Doors and windows were locked, lights were put out, and any point of entry barricaded. Some lamplighters walked the dark streets of the outer city to light the few serviceable lampposts left, although they were few and far between, which left the majority of the outer city in pure darkness. Not that the inhabitants complained. The dark made it easier to hide.

“Split up,” Remmy said as his group reached an intersection. “We've only got one night to take care of this district, so we'll have to cover a lot of ground. Go in pairs and come back here in three hours, though if I'm not here yet when you return, you can head back without me.”

His men signaled their affirmation and started scattering towards the winding streets that led to their clients. Remmy left for one of the streets as well to do his rounds, but he left alone without a partner. The only reason he sent his men in pairs was to increase their safety. The city was dangerous at night, and that also applied to his men. As for Remmy, he didn't need someone else to watch his back for him, not to mention that he had an important task tonight that nobody else from his group should know.

Remmy moved down the street like a specter, his red hood drawn over his head. The street was absolutely silent save for his footsteps and the flapping of wings from above. Remmy looked up and spotted several crows flying around. It seemed there was a feast to be had somewhere. He shook his head in sympathy for the poor sod who ended up as bird food.

Soon, Remmy arrived at the building of his first client, a rundown restaurant. There was a pile of garbage at the front that exuded a stench that permeated the area. A faded sign hung above the door, the words were no longer readable. There was no light coming from the windows, but Remmy knew there was someone inside.

“Open up! It's time for the monthly due!” Remmy shouted as he banged on the front door loudly. The door rattled in its rusty hinges, and Remmy wondered if it would be able to withstand another round of banging. No one answered the door. “If you don't open up in the next ten seconds, I will kick this door down and you better pray I don't find you.”

The sound of shuffling feet immediately echoed inside the building and a few moments later, the door cracked open a bit and a glaring eye peeked. “It's not yet the end of the month, ya' fuckin' cunt! Go back to yer boss and tell 'im to read his fuckin' calendar!”

“You will pay the monthly due now or I will kick down your door and forcefully take it from you,” Remmy said with a neutral tone.

“Try it, fucktard! Don't blame me if ya return to yer boss with a busted knee!” the man inside shouted.

Right as the man finished his sentence, Remmy kicked the door violently, knocking the flimsy piece of wood right off its hinges. The man hiding behind the door got knocked away and fell on his ass, his face a fearful mask. A wooden club lay by his side, probably the weapon he intended to use to beat Remmy with, although the man seemed to realize his mistake after witnessing the strength behind Remmy's kick.

A wooden club wouldn't work against an augmenter.

“A-Ah, I'm sorry, Mister Augmenter, I don't know what came over me! Of course, I'll give you your monthly dues! I'll even add extra for your troubles!”

Remmy snorted at the man's quick change in tune. “There has been an increase in the protection fees. The fee is now five silvers. Now get the money, I don't have all night.”

The man scrunched his face at the mention of the price increase, but he quickly got up and scrambled to a back door, returning moments later with a jingling bag of coins. “Here, Mr. Augmenter, the protection fee along with a few extra…”

Remmy snatched the pouch from the man's hand and abruptly left, not sparing a single second more in the ruined restaurant. Time was ticking, and he had more places to be tonight.

Two hours passed as Remmy made his rounds in the outer city. He visited dozens of clients, some of whom lived in decently-large buildings, while others lived in decrepit structures. The former easily paid their dues, albeit with dissatisfied frowns. But the latter…

“You fucking monster!” the woman shouted in rage as she threw the bag full of coins at Remmy's chest. He was quick to react and caught it midair, but the flimsy pouch ripped and sent more than a hundred copper coins flying everywhere.

“That's right, pick it up yourself!” the woman screamed, her eyes red with rage and grief. “If you want the money, then work for it! You greedy bastards have already spent enough time sitting on your asses while you take away the money we work for!”

Remmy had already revealed his superhuman strength earlier when he forcefully pushed his way through the barricaded door, but the woman didn't seem to care. It was apparent that the woman had enough of the status quo and wasn't afraid of the Hoods any longer despite the chance of death from disrespecting their people.

Remmy sighed. This woman was not the first person who openly defied him during his rounds. The state of the city was worsening and the people at the bottom of the barrel were suffering most of the consequences. They were desperate, and that desperation was starting to erase their fear of the Hoods. Remmy had no idea what would happen if they were pushed over the edge, and he knew it wasn't long before it happened.

But despite that fact, Remmy knew he couldn't let himself be treated like this. He represented the Hoods, and they valued their reputation more than a Redhood like him. If he didn't retaliate, they would send another Redhood to make an example of the woman and probably string him along.

“I will come back tomorrow, Dalia,” Remmy said with a cold voice. The mention of her name made the woman freeze, her expression turning fearful for the first time.

“How do you know my name?”

“If the money isn't ready in a neat pouch by tomorrow night, then don't expect to see your son again,” Remmy said, ignoring the woman's question. The woman tried to say something else, but he didn't bother staying to listen and left.

In truth, Remmy's threat could be barely considered making an example out of the woman, but he had more important things to do. Normally, he would have killed the woman and nailed her corpse by the entrance of her home for disrespecting a Redhood, but it was too time-consuming. If he did that every time a client defied him, dawn would come before he finished making his rounds. He had a vital task he had to do tonight and he didn't want to waste time.

Remmy still had one more client to visit, but he veered off from the path that would lead to his last client and entered a side street. The street was barely four meters across, surrounded by numerous dark alleys on both sides. It was a prime location for an ambush since entire groups of thugs could be hiding inside one of these alleys.

As if to prove the point, Remmy stopped in his tracks as a group of gruff men blocked his path ahead. He didn't need to look behind him to know that another group was blocking his rear. He was surrounded.

“Do we have a problem?” Remmy asked out loud, his voice echoing between the walls of the buildings.

“You tell me,” a voice replied from the front. The group of men parted to let a small man walk forward. He was dressed in fine clothing, his shoes polished to a shine, and his fingers decked in shiny rings. The man's height barely reached the chests of the thugs around him, but it was unmistakable that he was the leader of the group. “A Hartman bastard is strutting around in Golden Merchant territory as if he owns the place. You think there's no problem with that?”

Remmy grinned. “What are you gonna do about it, little man?”

“Who are you calling little?!” the little man shouted indignantly. “Teach this bastard a lesson, boys! Don't hold back, the only thing we're returning to the Hartman Company tomorrow is a mangled corpse!”

The thugs slowly advanced toward Remmy, their hands gripping clubs and knives. With both paths forward and backward blocked, Remmy had no choice but to fight. Not like he intended to do otherwise.

The thugs were wary and approached slowly after seeing Remmy's nonchalant expression. They may be lowlifes, but they weren't stupid. Remmy's calm was a good indication that he had something under his sleeve to not fear being outnumbered ten to one.

Remmy didn't want to waste a single second more waiting for the thugs to engage him, so he took the initiative. He braced his feet on the ground and leaped forward with tremendous force, cracking the smooth pavement. The force of his leap closed the distance between him and the group of five thugs in front of him.

Before the thugs could even react, he collided with the man at the very front of the group and rammed him with his shoulder. The sound of a sternum breaking echoed throughout the street as the thug flew dozens of meters away with a concaved chest and bounced on the ground like a ragdoll. By the time the man rolled to a stop, his limbs were all bent in awkward angles while his eyes blankly stared at the sky, lifeless.

“Augmenter…” one of the thugs whispered in fear.

The whispered word was enough to make the first group of thugs flee, but before they could take a single step, Remmy unsheathed his sword and slashed four times, decapitating three of the thugs. The last one accidentally fell on his ass and luckily dodged the first sword swipe, but he wasn't lucky enough to dodge the stab at his head that followed.

The other group of thugs that blocked Remmy's rear saw the events that unfolded and immediately realized that they faced an augmenter. They tried to split up and scatter into the numerous alleys that lined the street, but they didn't get far before they all collapsed on the floor, throwing up blood.

“The food… you fucking poisoned us… you fucking traitor…” one of the thugs whispered with his dying breath as he glared at the small man who was supposed to be his leader. His head slumped to the ground moments later, his face frozen into an angry visage as he died.

“You could have told me you already poisoned all of them so I didn't have to bloody my sword,” Remmy muttered. “That all of them?”

“Y-Yes,” the small man replied with a pale expression as he glanced at the corpses that littered the street. His earlier bluster was gone, replaced with a nervous expression. He was not used to seeing people die. “I only brought ten with me. They were loyal to the Hoods and needed to be gone.”

Remmy wiped his sword on the shirt of one of the dead thugs and sheathed it before eyeing the small man before him. “You're the contact I was supposed to meet? Fang must be pulling my leg to send a midget to meet with me.”

The small man glared at him. “If you're quite done making fun of me, it is best we move on to our business. I can't stay here too long.”

“Fine, what's the message this time?” Remmy asked.

“‘The time is nigh. Prepare yourself.’” the small man said.

Remmy's neutral expression changed for the first time tonight. His eyes widened in shock at the message, then he sent an incredulous look at the small man. “You're not playing with me for calling you a midget, are you?”

“You think I'll joke around regarding this?” the small man exclaimed. “It's hard to believe, but it's true. Fang got himself a very important piece of information that forced him to push our plans forward.”

“What information?” Remmy urged.

The small man was about to speak when a thoughtful look came over his face. He grinned and rubbed his fingers together. “How about a little tip for helping you deal with those oafs? Some of them would have escaped into the alleys if not for my efforts.”

Remmy rolled his eyes before throwing one of the money pouches in his waist at the small man, who deftly caught the jingling bag of coins.

“Payment received,” the small man said with a grin. “As for the information, a rebellion is brewing in the city.”

“A what?!” Remmy exclaimed. No wonder Fang pushed their plans forward all of a sudden despite the large possibility of complications happening.

Their plan to subvert the Blackhoods had been in the works for a year already, with more than a dozen of Halros' biggest crime lords pitching in. Not everyone was happy with how the Blackhoods ran things, and Remmy was one of them. The problem was that not all the gangs wanted to dissolve the Syndicate and would dismantle Remmy's faction if they found out their plans.

Remmy's faction planned to slowly infiltrate the gangs that were loyal to the Hoods and destroy them from within when the time came to kill the Blackhoods. Remmy was one of these infiltrators, and he had already succeeded in infiltrating the tool that the Blackhoods used to control the other gangs: the Hartman Company. The Hartman Company was the biggest and richest gang around and represented the Blackhoods, which was the reason a Purplehood was always put on its helm.

The plan would have been fruitful if they were given more time, but the leader of Remmy's faction, Fang, had decided to push it forward months ahead of schedule because of the rebellion.

“Fang should know that we're not ready yet. Our infiltrators aren't in the proper positions and the allegiances of some of the gangs aren't clear yet,” Remmy said in frustration.

“Fang's got no choice, Remmy boy. If the rebellion is months away, then we would have had more time. But the simple fact that rumors of rebellion are already spreading in the streets means it is imminent. I'm sure the Blackhoods are already aware of it, so we can only hope that our enemies are harried by the revelation as well,” the small man replied.

“Does Fang have an idea when the rebellion will happen?” Remmy asked.

“Fang thinks it would happen on the day of the Spring Festival, but it could happen as early as tomorrow,” the small man replied.

“Then that means we won't have enough time to infiltrate the other gangs,” Remmy muttered. “We'll have to rely on the ones we've already infiltrated. Are you already in position to manipulate the Golden Merchants?”

“I've been in position for weeks,” the small man scoffed. “Don't worry about the rest of us, worry about yourself. Your position is the most important and perilous.”

“I have to get going,” Remmy said as he checked the position of the moon. It was almost time for him to meet back up with his men. Remmy looked at the corpses around them. “Are you sure you'll be fine if you return to your gang alone without your escort? They might get suspicious.”

“Believe me, they will doubt me the least,” the small man smiled. “My allegiance was personally vetted by Blackhood Rella after all.”

“Then the next time I'll see you will be the day the Blackhoods fall from their thrones,” Remmy said as he walked away. “Tread carefully, Kane.”

Kane smiled at the augmenter's receding back. “Same to you, Remmy boy.”

Before Kane left the street, he spotted a peculiar rat in one of the alleys. It was watching him with curious eyes.

“What are you lookin' at? Get!” Kane shouted as he stomped his foot.

The rat scurried away.