Chapter 373: The New World
Edinburgh hadn’t changed much since the last time Valerie had been there, over a month ago. The buildings were still a mishmash of old, historical buildings that were being consumed and overtaken by the clean and the square. Like a Parasite of modernity overtaking the classical.
Graffiti still painted most of the walls, regardless of when they were build, trash littered the streets and cars still whizzed past her on the road and high above. And all of this was still being overlooked by the Corpo-blocks and the even taller Corporate Towers. Monuments to their capitalist overlords.
What had changed was not the city, but the people. For one, there was an air of excitement and happiness that was unusual. The air buzzed with an energy that was usually reserved for special events like Sportsball games or... whatever else it was the normal people liked.
Fact of the matter is, people were generally excited about their new capabilities. Often showing each other tricks or what they could do, chatting amongst friends as they swapped hints, stories and the likes.
In fact a lot of the holographic adverts had been taken over by Dawd, as the corporate overlords naturally tried to maximise their profits from it, using the Avatars of famous players and E-Celebs to sell their products or simply showing clips from popular streams before blasting you in the face with the fact you could ’Only Watch It on-" insert crappy website here, and don’t forget the seventeen exclamation marks and a hidden cost or three.
Even the people were walking advertisements for the game. Their bodies plastered in the merch, each proudly emboldened with the logo of the game. Hats, T-shirts, Shoes. Even underwear.
All of the change and excitement in the people was almost enough for Valerie to overlook the increased security. Not just in the police, who had doubled both their patrol frequency as well as their officer members as they took more ’Mecha-pigs’ with them - The nickname for the robotic police officers that often accompanied the flesh and blood police.
But there was also a large presence of a secondary group, who were much more armed and had an air of authority that even the police struggled to match. That was mainly because their authority came not from a badge, but the power they actually held as individuals.
The badge was just there to let them get away with sometimes overusing that power on civilians.
This authority was the private armies that companies hired under the general flag of the Enforcers. Magical soldiers, armed and ready to take down the magical threats. Many of these soldiers had fully cybernetic limbs, and had seen previous combat in the Corporate Wars, as could be seen from the distant look in their eyes.
Valerie’s eyes drifted past the Enforcers. Despite their weapons, magic and pumped up sense of entitlement and importance that many of them had, she did not feel threatened by them.
She could sense the levels of mana that were curling off of them. Although the general mass of players had finally discovered the existence of Sources in Dawd, none of them had yet developed enough magic power to develop one here.
These Enforcers were the closest. Sitting at the very cusp of forming one, but it was still nothing compared to Valerie and the rest of the Fate-Breakers.
"Val, Did you here me?" Lucy said as she jabbed Valerie in the shoulder.
Valerie blinked softly, stopping herself from staring at someone who was showing off a full length back tattoo of Dawd’s Logo, and flashed Lucy an innocent smile.
Lucy looked completely normal, with no signs of her previous race change. Her skin had returned to the same slightly tanned it used to be. There were no horns on her head nor a tail growing from her rear. All of that was thanks to the gemstone choker that Lucy wore. A Shimmer Charm, a combined effort from Valerie and Elise.
"W-what? Sorry, I was thinking of something else." Valerie muttered bashfully.
"Sigh, Of course you were. I said, Can we trust this guy? The blacksmith you are taking us to."
"Hmm? Oh, right. I have no idea." Valerie answered matter-of-factly.
"But the last time I said that about someone he turned out to be from the future and helped us out a lot, even if he is an ass. So here’s hoping I can hit a good roll on the dice this time around too."
"Even if he’s an ass?" Lucy giggled, nudging Valerie gently.
"Exactly," Valerie laughed back, "Even if he is an ass. Just means he will fit right in with the rest of us."
***
Following the same instructions as last time, Valerie led Lucy to Smith’s shop, which was much easier to find now that she knew where she was going.
However when they entered, using the same code phrase as before, it wasn’t as quiet as she was expecting.
The room was already small and cramped, so having a majority of the space filled with a towering, muscle bound individual that was more machine than man made it nearly impossible to squeeze their way inside.
It also made the pair of short women seem even more feeble and tiny.
"-Sure this will work against those new cops?" They heard the man say as they entered.
Smith, comfortably seated behind his counter, simply glared at the man without an ounce of car or traditional customer service.
"I have made it exactly as you told. If it does not work, blame shitty designer. Not me."
The man growled lowly, slamming his hand down and dragging his item, a gun that looked like it interfaced with advanced military cybernetics, off of the counter before he turned.
Surprise flashed across his face when he saw the two girls standing in front of him, before a lecherous smile spread across his lips. His eyes scanned over the pair, literally as they were cybernetics that looked like welding goggles that were welded onto his face.
"You will leave now. Leave other customers alone. They do not care about your business, you do not care about theirs."
Smith spoke lowly.
The lecherous man glanced over his shoulder, glaring at the fully organic man, before any thoughts that were crossing his mind died a swift death. His face twitched with annoyance, before he pushed past the pair of them and left.
Smith, not having even risen from his chair, turned his glare away from the departing cyborg and towards the girls in front of him.
"What do you want?"