Chapter 29

The holy land of mercenaries, California.

Countless mercenaries head to the Mercenary Agency early in the morning, mingling with ordinary office workers and self-employed individuals on buses and subways.

As the morning sun rises, a massive population movement begins.

Meanwhile, Amon and Sonia’s morning arrives relatively late.

“Ugh…”

“Are you awake?”

Amon, who had just finished his dawn prayers, prepared breakfast for Sonia.

Sonia’s commute to school was always later than others.

Though the Vatican, which provided her scholarship, might have thoughts about it, she had no intention of becoming an elite Holy Knight through the Seminary.

All she needed was sacred magic.

Thus, she didn’t need to cram her schedule with lectures, worrying about grades.

As a result, she enjoyed a much more relaxed and comfortable timetable than her peers, with late mornings and early evenings.

Even so, the Vatican couldn’t bring itself to cut off its support for her.

The one feeling regret was the Vatican.

‘They must value her potential as much as mine.’

Though Amon didn’t know how the priest had reported it, the Vatican seemed to value not only Amon but also their connection with Sonia.

Otherwise, they wouldn’t have left her room untouched, only requiring her to maintain her graduation credits.

“Yawn~”

“Snap out of it. You’ve got jam on your mouth.”

Wiping the sleepy Sonia’s mouth, the two finished their slightly late breakfast.

After getting ready, the two started their day an hour later than everyone else.

“Have a good day~ Take care at school~”

“You too, don’t get hurt~”

Sonia headed to the academy, while Amon went to the Mercenary Agency.

It had been a month since Sonia enrolled in the Seminary and Amon became a mercenary.

Despite the short time, Amon had learned a lot.

‘I was a frog in a well.’

His fashion sense was one thing, but more importantly, he had been ignorant of the current state of the mercenary industry.

Amon, who had been stuck in the mindset of 50 years ago, had thought he was updating his knowledge through internet searches, but that was his arrogance.

In this industry, where information and equipment performance are directly linked, the advancements were beyond what Amon had imagined.

Like how engineering had exponentially advanced during the world wars.

In a world where daily life was akin to war, technology had developed at a similar pace.

‘It wasn’t just simple weapons…’

Over 50 years, the weapon systems hadn’t fundamentally changed, nor had the laws of physics.

Bullets still flew through the power of gunpowder, and if that wasn’t enough, magic was added to the mix.

Those unsatisfied with cybernetic implants added magic tattoos to their bodies for special functions, and some even underwent genetic modifications to surpass human limits.

This much was still within Amon’s 50-year-old knowledge.

But what had changed in this world?

It was the existence of entities.

Entities weren’t just exploited in power plants.

Their body parts, or the byproducts they created, were used in every possible tool if they could be utilized.

The same went for mercenaries’ equipment.

Their gear had functions Amon couldn’t even begin to predict.

‘Even that gorilla had a storage function using the infinite staircase…’

Amon recalled the insane gorilla he had encountered long ago.

In the mercenary industry, it was common practice to illegally modify grenade launcher implants to add infinite storage capabilities.

Though strictly illegal, it was a secret known only among mercenaries, not something you could find on the internet.

If Amon hadn’t disabled that grenade launcher first, his body might have been lying next to some nameless police officer’s remains.

Realizing this, Amon revised his plan to dive into dungeons immediately after becoming a mercenary.

There was still too much he didn’t know about this world.

Not just dungeon monsters, but people too—if he rushed in without knowing, he could easily get backstabbed and killed.

Thus, Amon decided to build his foundation slowly, from the ground up.

Starting with the errands he had always done.

From there, he progressed to not just odd jobs but also delivering rewards for completed missions.

When a mercenary completed a request, Amon would start from Paballoma, verify the completion, and deliver the reward to the mercenary.

Depending on the request, he sometimes got the chance to observe the process of completing the mission alongside the mercenary.

After repeating this for a month, he eventually earned a nickname.

‘Paballoma’s Dog.’

A play on Pavlov’s dog.

When a mercenary completed a request and rang the signal, Amon would appear with the reward, making it quite fitting.

Though there were many errand runners, only Amon earned this nickname because he was a mercenary.

On his first day, he boldly obtained his mercenary license, only to end up doing errands.

The mercenaries mocked him as a coward.

Amon was well aware of the nickname.

How could he not be, when they openly teased him?

Ding, ding.

“Hey, mutt. Bring us some booze.”

A mercenary rang the signal and called out to Amon as he entered Paballoma.

Amon, with a friendly smile, obliged once again.

On his way to deliver the alcohol, a mercenary deliberately bumped into him, spilling some of the drink.

Amon, unfazed by their bullying, steadfastly continued his errands.

You have to give back what you receive. Otherwise, they’ll see you as weak.

In the rough mercenary industry, where this sentence was a virtue, Amon’s actions only fueled the mercenaries’ sadism.

A harmless toy they could bully as much as they wanted.

That was Amon’s reputation among the mercenaries.

Despite this, Amon had never lost his temper.

Not because he was saintly kind.

Rather, Amon preferred actions over words.

The reason he suppressed his anger was simple.

‘They’re just lowlifes who’ll die soon anyway.’

There was no greater waste than getting angry at people who were going to die.

Amon didn’t do anything special to them.

It was just that the mercenaries who bullied him were all of the same rank, and their deaths were part of the cyberpunk world’s natural order.

‘Fools who don’t know how important the basics are…’

They saw Amon as nothing more than a delivery boy bringing reward envelopes.

But errands weren’t just simple deliveries.

If that were the case, they would have used a delivery person, not Amon.

To hand over the reward, one needed to verify if the request was properly completed and if any issues arose during the process.

This required knowledge that a regular delivery person wouldn’t have, so lower-ranked mercenaries were often assigned these tasks.

The errand-running mercenary would learn what was ideal for completing certain requests, which weapons were best in specific situations, and more while delivering rewards.

They also picked up on secret contact methods, ideal infiltration routes, small tips among mercenaries, and the procedures for repairing and completing requests.

There was a lot to learn from running errands.

In fact, those who called Amon a coward were often blinded by their admiration for mercenaries and the ease of access, not realizing how dangerous it was.

Such people didn’t need Amon to get angry—they often ended up in garbage trucks, cleaned up by the Cleaners.

Moreover, Amon was confident in his approach.

Because the boss of Paballoma supported his methods.

– “Kids these days…”

Amon recalled the boss’s words.

– “If you want to be a mercenary, you should build your foundation step by step, like you’re doing. Kids these days don’t understand the importance of basics.”

The old man in the wheelchair explained that 50 years ago, lower-ranked mercenaries were given errands to slowly gain experience.

Amon was following that old setting from the third game.

But after the legendary mercenary known as the Mercenary King opened the era of great mercenaries, everyone and their dog flocked to the Mercenary Agency to become mercenaries.

Since then, lower-ranked mercenaries no longer bothered with tedious errands.

Many would grab guns and knives immediately after registering and dive into missions, while those who stayed behind to build their foundation through errands were mocked as cowards.

This trend continued for 50 years, and now, among lower-ranked mercenaries, doing odd jobs to build a foundation was seen as being a sucker.

Most agencies didn’t bother to change this.

After all, there were plenty of applicants.

The good ones survived, and the talentless ones ended up in landfills or sewers.

However, the boss of Paballoma, with his strong pride as a Mercenary Agency head, thought differently.

– “I don’t like it.”

The old man grumbled as he maneuvered his wheelchair.

Back in the day, even lower-ranked mercenaries had the basics down, but now, lower-ranked mercenaries skipped the basics, leading to frequent failures during secret contact stages.

Thus, nowadays, secret requests that would have been given to lower-ranked mercenaries in the past were only assigned to silver-ranked or higher.

Even silver-ranked mercenaries were just greenhorns, so the boss grumbled that only gold-ranked mercenaries were trustworthy.

Amon empathized with the boss’s feelings.

Not only had Amon played through the boss’s era, but the boss was also a legendary mercenary before he became a grumpy old man.

Now in a wheelchair, he had been the protagonist’s supporter in the true ending of Punk City 3.

In the true ending, the protagonist went missing as an international fugitive, and the old man had been hiding that fact, but Amon knew.

Thus, Amon listened to the old man’s words.

‘Though his tongue is rough, his pride is solid.’

He would never send Amon on dangerous errands.

Instead, he would send him to places where he could build his foundation.

As proof, in the past month, Amon had never been in danger while running errands.

Moreover, some of the mercenaries sent by the boss were good people, and Amon had picked up many tips from them.

Thanks to this, Amon had been steadily building his mercenary foundation without any issues for the past month.

He would likely continue until the boss told him he was ready.

With that in mind, Amon silently continued his errands.

Drawing a cross to suppress his anger.

However, that day was different.

“Hey, religious freak.”

“…?”

Amon turned his head at the voice coming from behind.

Though it might not have been directed at him, it hit a nerve.

Turning around, his gaze met that of a woman.

‘Huh, it was me.’

A woman who clearly had business with Amon was glaring at him with raised eyebrows.

She was a beauty with black hair and red eyes.

As Amon reacted, she immediately spoke to him.

“Is this a church? What are you drawing crosses for?”

What’s this?

Why the hostility?

Amon was confused.

Was she just picking on him because he was an easy target?

That was highly likely.

Mercenaries were the type to trip you and pour tomato soup on your head, so picking on him for drawing a cross was understandable.

But regardless of his thoughts, Amon’s mouth moved naturally.

“The Lord said, ‘My temple is always in your heart.'”

He couldn’t say he was drawing the cross to suppress his anger, so he tried to phrase it as nicely as possible.

But his answer didn’t seem to sit well with her.

“Hmph, you religious freaks are always like that. So, was it your god who told my mom to donate all my dad’s wealth to the church? To expand the temple in her heart?”

“Ah… That’s…”

Amon genuinely felt sorry for her.

“Though I don’t know the details, if that’s what happened, then I have no right to complain about you calling me a religious freak.”

At first glance, her words might have seemed like an insult to the goddess.

But Amon didn’t confuse the standards for blasphemy.

Blasphemy was using the goddess’s name to commit evil deeds or needlessly insulting her name.

In contrast, the woman’s words were ambiguous.

If a believer did something shameful in the goddess’s name, it was only natural to be criticized.

The goddess might be perfect, but humans weren’t.

As someone who prided himself on being a healthy believer, Amon humbly accepted her criticism.

Her anger was justified in Amon’s eyes.

However, the woman across from him was utterly bewildered.

She had expected some kind of rebuttal, but he just accepted it so coolly?

Caught off guard by the unexpected reaction, she stammered.

“Uh…”

At that moment, another Cactus Head Mercenary behind her chimed in.

“What? So I can curse too? That bitch ruined my life—Gahk!”

Thud.

His words didn’t get to finish.

In an instant, Amon had separated his sword from its sheath, tripped the mercenary with the scabbard, and pressed the scabbard against his throat.

With the cold blade at the mercenary’s mouth, Amon spoke.

“Your tongue is cursed. Shall I cut that viper’s tongue in half?”

Amon’s blade lightly touched the tip of the Cactus Head Mercenary’s nose.

Drip, drip.

Perhaps because it was a sword from the Hixen Group’s security team, even the slightest touch cut the mercenary’s skin.

The mercenary’s face turned pale.

Fearing his nose might be cut off, he moved his lips with a muffled voice.

“I’m sorry! I must have gone crazy for a moment… I’ll tithe at the church, so please forgive me!”

At the Cactus Head’s desperate apology, Amon left a vertical mark on his nose as a warning.

“Don’t let there be a next time.”

The Cactus Head nodded frantically.

Blood flowed from the vertical wound, turning his nose red like a clown’s.

The mercenary covered the bleeding wound and fled the agency.

After the commotion, Amon wiped the blood from his blade with a handkerchief and turned back to the woman.

“Where were we?”

Amon smiled as he met her gaze.

Meanwhile, his hand continued to wipe the blood from his sword.

Seeing this, the woman thought.

‘Did I just mess with a crazy person?’

Surprisingly, she wasn’t far off.

---