The Natives of This World Are Fierce

Blaise had a nagging feeling that the mysterious person had left something unsaid.

"Keep clinging to life, you vermin..." ’It felt like it should have been followed by something like, "Not for much longer."’

’Is this a hint about the end of the world?’

Blaise’s mind raced with wild speculation.

’But what could he do?’

’Blaise knew full well what kind of person he was. ’Scumbag’ might be an exaggeration, but ’thug’ was a title he’d definitely earned.’

He had, after all, snatched plenty of profits for himself and bullied his fair share of the weak.

For him and the two Mexican underlings who had seen it with their own eyes, the existence of such a mysterious, hidden organization now seemed highly probable.

’Thinking back, there were probably quite a few people with the foresight to prepare. The canned goods and medical supplies at the supermarket had been out of stock on several occasions. While it didn’t happen often over the course of the year, it was still telling.’

’But they’d made their disgust for him crystal clear!’

Blaise felt a knot in his stomach. If a major crisis really did happen, he knew that between saving someone else and saving a guy like him, nobody would choose him.

As for the government? With his criminal record, trying to get help from them during a crisis would be a death sentence.

’If he were in their shoes, in that kind of chaos, he’d think it would be better to just shoot an unstable element like a gang boss on the spot.’

His gangster logic was simple and brutal, but it wasn’t without merit. He just had to picture the US Government’s disaster relief efforts over the years to know it was a definite possibility.

High on adrenaline, Blaise was getting lost in his own head tonight.

"Here, take this and get some late-night snacks."

He handed the hundred-dollar bills to one of his men, trying to stop his mind from racing.

Since hundreds were less common, one of his men habitually checked the bill’s authenticity and noticed something strange.

"Huh? There are words on the money."

"Words? Let me see."

Blaise snatched the money back. Looking closely, he saw they weren’t letters at all, but some kind of incomprehensible symbols.

He checked the other bills. Every single one had the symbols.

"What are you guys looking at? I don’t see anything."

The question took Blaise by surprise. At first, he thought his man was just mistaken and pointed to the bill, explaining that they were symbols, not letters. But then things got even weirder.

It turned out that in the entire house, only Blaise and the guy who first spotted the symbols could see them. Everyone else thought they were joking.

Blaise and the Mexican underling exchanged a look, a strange feeling washing over them.

"The fried chicken delivery is here!"

The man watching the security monitors upstairs shouted down, interrupting the "joke" below.

Since the boss and two of the guys hadn’t eaten dinner, they had ordered some fried chicken, fries, and pizza.

DING-DONG.

Half a minute later, the doorbell rang.

The delivery boy grabbed the insulated bag from his passenger seat and waited outside the Door.

The Door opened to reveal a hulking, bald man covered in tattoos, a menacing scowl on his face.

"Uh... sixty-seven fifty. We take cards."

The kid held out the portable card reader and stylus. No matter how many times he delivered to this place, it always made him nervous.

"Here."

The hulking man took the fried chicken, pizza, and fries from his companion inside, then slapped a large bill into the delivery boy’s hand.

The kid looked down at the bill.

"Damn it, another hundred-dollar bill... I barely ever see these, and now I get two in one night? I don’t have enough change!"

"What’s the problem? You want me to just let you keep the change?"

The bald man stared at the delivery boy, his face expressionless.

"No, no, no! I have some in my car. Just a second, I’ll go get it!"

On a sixty-seven-dollar order, he usually didn’t bother bringing much change. A lot of customers would just let him keep the extra three bucks as a tip. That was his working philosophy. But no one was going to tip thirty dollars.

After the delivery boy returned with the change and sped off as if escaping, two of the men scanned the area outside before securely closing the Door.

"What was all that noise?"

Blaise asked nonchalantly while eating pizza and drinking a beer, his mind still on the symbols on the banknotes.

"Oh, that little punk didn’t have enough change."

"Haha, paying for delivery with a hundred is pretty rare. So what happened? Did you scare the piss out of him?"

A black man standing nearby joked.

"Hahahaha..."

Everyone in the room burst out laughing, the tense atmosphere from their earlier discussion about the paranormal incident dissipating.

"That’s the Di Li’s kid. I know his dad. I even let him keep over ten bucks as a tip. Can you believe that brat was still complaining about getting two hundreds in one night? Hahaha."

"Why didn’t you just give him smaller bills?"

"Haha, I don’t know. I just suddenly felt like messing with young Di Li!"

The others laughed knowingly. It was always fun to use their intimidating looks to mess with people.

Blaise picked up a steaming piece of fried chicken and took a bite. Before he could even chew, he froze, a realization dawning on him.

"You just said the chicken place got two hundred-dollar bills... tonight?"

"I didn’t say it, the Di Li kid did. Not sure if he meant tonight."

The underling was confused by his boss’s sudden intensity, but the others slowly started to catch on. A few even instinctively pulled the hundred-dollar bills from their pockets to examine them again.

It was getting late. Two separate delivery orders, both paid for with large bills... It wasn’t impossible, but it was quite a coincidence.

...

At 10:30 PM, a large group of fierce, intimidating men descended upon Di Li’s Fried Chicken. Leading them was none other than Blaise.

When young Di Li saw the posse, he was so startled he almost dropped his phone.

"I’ll get you the rest of the change right now!"

Hearing the commotion, Old Di Li came out from the kitchen. The intimidating sight gave him a fright, but thankfully he spotted a familiar face in the crowd.

"Doni, what’s all this? Did my son do something wrong?"

Doni, the bald man, quickly stepped forward to explain, lest the owner think they were there to wreck the place.

Blaise waited with uncharacteristic patience for Doni to finish his explanation. Then, with a friendly demeanor, he asked where the other hundred-dollar bill had come from. He looked for all the world like a cop tracing stolen money from a double-cross.

He had a powerful gut feeling that both hundred-dollar bills came from the same source.

Old Di Li quickly found the other hundred-dollar bill and handed it to Blaise. And just as he’d expected, it had the same symbols—which, apart from himself and one of his men, no one else could see.

A dozen or so minutes later, Blaise had his answer.

"Floyd Biological Research Institute." He’d never heard the name before. It was located about five kilometers away, right at the edge of Di Li’s delivery range.

Blaise wrestled with the idea of heading over there tonight versus waiting until morning. In the end, he reined himself in and decided to check it out the next day.

...

「The next day.」

As early as 6:00 AM, Blaise found he couldn’t sleep any longer.

He felt like a kid in elementary school, facing his first big test or heading out on his first field trip—a volatile mix of excitement, nervousness, and anxiety.

’If he was going to make a few big gambles in his life, this was it. The only other time was when he’d first started down the wrong path.’

That immense power, that bizarre monster, that mysterious figure... they had haunted his thoughts all night.

The Highway 18 construction zone might have had its glory days, but in the River County of today, the area could hardly be called lively.

The office buildings were visibly dated. Traffic was sparse, and there were few busy shops to be found.

Driving over, it felt like transitioning from a busy downtown into the suburbs. In fact, this area was now effectively a part of the suburbs.

Thanks to the detailed address from the chicken shop, they found the Floyd Biological Research Institute with no trouble at all.

Beyond the white walls and through a large iron gate, they could see a lush, green campus.

"Hey, this place is actually pretty nice. But where is everyone?"

Maki, who had come along, seemed to have recovered his usual easygoing attitude.

Blaise, however, was observing the place closely. Peering through the iron gate, he could see that the grounds were spacious, but the few buildings on them stood in stark isolation. Not a single person was moving about the campus, and there were no signs of life within the buildings either.

"It’s dead silent. Is this really a research institute?"

"Ring the bell and find out!"

The men gathered around the gate, searching for a doorbell button, but couldn’t find one.

"What the...? *This* is the doorbell?"

Maki had finally found the gate’s so-called doorbell. It was an actual bell—a large, bronze bell attached to the side of the gate with a pull rope.

He looked at Blaise, who nodded.

CLANG... CLANG... CLANG...

The sound of the bell, crisp yet sonorous, carried far into the distance.

After several minutes passed with no response, Maki grew impatient and reached out to give the pull rope another violent yank.

CAW!

A sudden, strange cry echoed from above their heads.

The men snapped their heads up. Perched on a dead branch from a large tree inside the compound, extending over the high wall, was a pitch-black crow. It was watching them.

Despite the distance, they felt as if they could see every detail of the crow. It tilted its head, its jet-black eyes fixed on them, unblinking.

CAW!

The crow cawed again, just as Maki was reaching for the bell rope, making him flinch.

"Boss, this place is creepy. Maybe we should just go..."

For some reason, ever since the crow had appeared, an unsettling chill had crept over all of them, as if its gaze could see right through them.