Chapter 10: The Deal

In the world of bounty hunters, the best hunters often found clever kids to work as their assistants. The assistants called their hunters Boss, while the hunters called their assistants Tails. No one knew when the tradition had started.

Most assistants were children, but the work was far from easy. It could be deadly. When hunters went after dangerous monsters, their assistants might be used as bait. If the hunters found themselves under a hail of bullets, the assistants had to fight alongside them.

Even when they faced death together, some hunters had no intention of sharing their fate with their assistants. The assistants were the ones who got betrayed or used as human shields, often before they were even grown.

Yet plenty of young people from ordinary families still longed to become a hunter’s Tail. Bounty hunting wasn’t respectable work. It was dangerous, but it paid well and offered a chance to rub shoulders with the upper classes. Children from poor families especially hoped it would let them change their fate.

Hunters were cleverer than foxes. Quite a few had spotted an opportunity: aside from a handful of excellent hunters who still followed the old traditions, most charged exorbitant fees to take on assistants under the pretense of training them. Many families paid the tuition, only for their children to die on the job soon after. Then the hunter could take on another assistant and charge another family. It had become a livelihood in its own right.

That was how Qiongna had sent Wuxue to her Boss. Wuxue was luckier than most. Wuxue’s Boss had come from the slums herself and had treated her well, which was how Wuxue had made it this far.

Wuxue had long since graduated, and it had been years since she’d stood behind another hunter. Now she walked behind Torre, doing her best to hide her sharp edges and make him look like a real hunter.

After a short walk, they reached the delivery point. A gray jeep was already parked there. The driver sat inside with a masked man holding a gun, while a blonde woman leaned against the passenger-side door.

She wore a tight T-shirt, with a denim jacket tied around her waist. Her snug jeans showed off her curves.

“Torre?” The woman looked him over.

“Yeah. Yes, that’s me. I’m Torre.”

His answer left Wuxue speechless. She’d never met a bounty hunter who seemed so unsure of himself.

“New to this?” The woman raised an eyebrow, her expression full of contempt.

“…” Torre’s face reddened. “Yeah. I just started.”

“No wonder you seem so clueless.”

The woman didn’t bother to soften the blow, but quickly got down to business. “Where’s the package?”

“I… My Tail has it.”

Torre glanced back at Wuxue and waved for her to bring it over.

Wuxue shot him a look. Since she had the package, she should have asked whether they’d brought the money first. But Torre had already given the game away, so she had no choice but to walk over with the black box.

“Your Tail’s a little old for the job,” the woman teased, reaching for the box.

Wuxue hadn’t seen the money, so she wasn’t about to hand the package over. She clamped onto the black box and held on tight. The woman looked like a tough customer, but she wasn’t as strong as Wuxue. They struggled for a while, and the woman couldn’t get the slightest advantage.

“Payment first,” Wuxue said bluntly, looking the woman in the eye. She wasn’t going to let Torre take the lead this time.

The woman let go and shot Torre a cold smile. Then she signaled to the armed man in the back seat. “Get the money.”

The man climbed out, took some gold ingots and a box of anti-inflammatory medicine from his bag, and handed them to Torre. Only then did Wuxue notice the purple morning glory carved into his gunstock. She knew that mark well. It belonged to the Purple Fang Society, a hunters’ organization from the south.

Hunters often needed to work together. Over time, those who got along or had complementary skills formed business partnerships. Some of those partnerships grew into societies that supported and protected one another, making sure their interests were safe.

The Purple Fang Society was a fairly well-known hunters’ group.

Wuxue had dealt with them plenty of times. They often took on jobs that crossed national borders.

She looked at the black box in her hands. It seemed like an ordinary thing, but if this was a Purple Fang job, there had to be more to it than the money they’d offered.

What did the black box contain? If this had happened before, Wuxue might have investigated. Now, she just wanted to take the money and leave.

Once Torre had been paid, Wuxue let go of the box. The deal was done, and she didn’t want to linger. She turned to Torre and motioned for him to hurry. They set off without another word.

Turning your back on an enemy was never smart. Wuxue kept a hand on her gun and listened for anything amiss. All she heard was the woman’s phone ringing. The person calling her was someone Wuxue knew all too well…

“Skok, you finally decided to call me.”

“A woman? I don’t have any pretty women here. And the Purple Fang Society has forbidden us from taking jobs like that. I can’t help you.”

“Is that so? You found yourself a pretty girl? If she’s local, don’t get caught.”

“A woman from the Red Iron Wasteland?”

The woman laughed. “People from there hardly count as human. Ha! Congratulations on getting yourself a bargain…”

Wuxue was deeply offended by the woman’s words, but the conversation had nothing to do with her. She hurried away with Torre. They couldn’t keep Qiongna waiting. Maji still wanted her dead. She either had to run, or kill him before he tried again. First, though, they needed somewhere safe.

Wuxue knew how bad things were. She had a sizable amount of savings, enough to support her in retirement and pay for Qiongna’s treatment. But if Maji wanted her dead, the moment she touched that money, he’d be able to track her down.

Before, she wouldn’t have been afraid of someone like Maji. Now she was a pariah, the infamous Su Wuxue. Even the organization she’d relied on had cast her out. She had no confidence she could take on Maji and his Brotherhood alone. And she had Torre and Qiongna to worry about, too. Torre hadn’t completed his job, so Maji might have put him on the blacklist as well.

After thinking it over, Wuxue settled on a safe place: Iron Furnace Town. Merchants flocked there, and they never cared what sort of person you were. They only cared whether the outcome benefited them. Wuxue planned to find Torre a few small jobs, then see if any of the traveling merchants had heard anything about Maji. Running away couldn’t go on forever. She needed to deal with the threat.

After filling their clunker with gas, the three of them set off for their destination.

Three days was neither a long time nor a short one, but the trip was a rush from start to finish. They were always on the road, and it felt as if they were living off whatever they could find along the way. Wuxue worried that Qiongna wouldn’t be able to handle the rough ride. Sure enough, it was hard for her to hide how much pain she was in. Wuxue caught her secretly spitting up blood several times.

So when they reached Iron Furnace Town, Wuxue didn’t hesitate. She took them straight to the best hotel in town. Worried Qiongna might sink into despair thinking about her illness, Wuxue took her and Torre out to look around. A town full of merchants was bound to have plenty of things to do.

Iron Furnace Town was a typical small town in the Jinye Kingdom. Blacksmiths were everywhere, and white steam hung constantly over the streets. Neon signs shone through the vapor, revealing the names of the shops. At their entrances, robots did the heavy lifting. Their shells had oxidized to a bronze color from years of exposure to moisture. Some had rusted through, exposing the wires beneath their iron plating.

The Jinye Kingdom had thousands upon thousands of robots like these. No one cared what happened to them. If one broke, they repaired it; if it fell apart, they threw it away. If they ran out, they built another. The robots here were no more valuable than the people in the slums.

“It’s so lively here,” Qiongna said, linking arms with Wuxue as they threaded through the crowd.

“This isn’t even the busiest part. Ironhammer Castle is farther down, and it’s much livelier there. But the capital, City of Myriad Gold, is the busiest of all. We can visit them one city at a time,” Wuxue said with a smile.

“Is it really all right for you to be having fun?” Qiongna tugged at the hem of Torre’s coat as he walked ahead. “He’s here to learn from you, not to play.”

Torre stopped, turned, and put a hand on Qiongna’s shoulder. “I’ve already started taking jobs. You just need to rest. Leave everything else to me.”

If Wuxue had any affection left for Torre, it was because he loved Qiongna with all his heart.

Qiongna took Wuxue’s hand. She was now more than half a head shorter than Wuxue.

“Your support over the years has made life easier for Torre and me,” Qiongna said. “Now you’re helping him get started in the business, and you may have to look after him in the future, too. Thank you, Wuxue.”

“Thank you,” Torre echoed at once.

Qiongna’s words unsettled Wuxue. It had to be because she knew she was terminally ill. That was why she was in such a hurry to thank Wuxue for taking care of Torre.

But Wuxue knew that without Qiongna’s help in childhood, she might never have escaped that poverty-stricken place. The dancing girls over there might have been her fate.

“This is just me paying you back,” Wuxue said, suddenly feeling awkward.

The three of them fell into an uncomfortable silence. After a moment, Wuxue pointed to a building nearby.

It blazed with lights. Suddenly they all went out. A monster tore the building in half, sending bricks crashing to the ground as it roared with laughter. Smoke billowed up, and the monster vanished. The building was still standing, with four glowing words floating above it: Monster Beer.

It had only been a perspective-bending holographic advertisement.