Living for ideals is admirable. The sight of someone chasing dreams is too dazzling to bear. Defiant against piercing malice, refusing to let self-serving opportunists win, Gloria’s hope was an unreachable fantasy to Danan, a utopia he’d never touch. Releasing Gloria’s collar, brushing off the fingers stroking his mechanical arm, Danan clenched his teeth, spitting blood from his gums.
“Do whatever you want,” he growled.
“…”
“We’re strangers. Once this is over, we’re done. No matter how many times you call me friend or say my name, back in mid-city, we’re nothing. I live in the undercity—our worlds are literally different!”
Right—Gloria was just a partner bound by mutual gain. No bond, no shared heart. Averting his eyes from Gloria’s sad gaze, Danan’s mechanical fingers creaked as he clenched his fist, slamming it into the wall.
“Danan…” Gloria said.
“Enough. Stop messing with me. Move forward or turn back. Just… don’t talk, Gloria.”
Glancing at the motionless girl, hands clasped at her thighs, Danan stepped toward the stairs. Radiating a razor-sharp intensity, like a knife that cuts at a touch, he exuded raw emotion. Gloria watched him, then turned to the Secret Ninja. “Isuzu, take care of her.”
“Understood. Her name?” Isuzu asked.
“None yet. Once we’re done here and back in mid-city, I’ll handle the paperwork. Take her to Chikuan, Isuzu.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Customer,” the girl said.
Gripping Isuzu’s hand, she bowed deeply, her mechanical eyes—set in a featureless face of parched muscle fibers—fixed on Gloria.
“I have no merchandise value. Why buy me, marked for disposal?” she asked, her synthetic voice flat.
“My selfishness,” Gloria replied.
“Give me a clear reason.”
“Adults must sacrifice—it’s unavoidable. Reaching adulthood brings duties, repaid with rights and some freedom. That’s my view of adults. But kids are different.”
Pausing, Gloria crouched to meet her gaze, gently touching her shoulder, embracing her softly.
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“You… children, shrouded in the fog of the future, must be protected by adults. Even weak adults can easily kill weaker kids. So, we adults must fulfill our duty to protect them. I don’t understand undercity rules or the faint laws in its chaos. But… I can’t forgive mid-city folk who bring sin back, who carry evil.”
He stroked her nylon wig.
For the girl, an adult’s touch was trauma itself. Adults who violated, humiliated, and laughed as they broke bodies were evil, warped, and vile. To endure processing children her age until her own disposal, she’d killed her heart.
She couldn’t express emotions. She’d forgotten how to move facial muscles to smile. Losing the name of the pure tear welling up, she let a muffled synthetic sound escape her voicebox speaker, wrapping her maimed hand—missing index and middle fingers—around Gloria’s neck.
It felt like her first touch of human kindness. Born in a violent world, she wailed, rubbing tear-soaked muscle fibers.
“Isuzu, go,” Gloria said.
“What about you?” Isuzu asked.
“I’ve still got work. My… friend’s waiting.”
“And this man?”
“Tie him up and leave him. He can’t escape… I won’t let them.”
Glancing at the man, slumped in despair, Gloria reached into his suit pocket, pulling out an old Zippo lighter, flicking it open and closed.
“Danan.”
“…What?”
“Sorry for the trouble.”
“Yeah.”
“I won’t trouble you again. Promise.”
“…Fine.”
Let’s go, Danan muttered, Gloria stepping beside him.
“Danan, I’m Silentium Commander Gloria. Sorry… I should’ve introduced myself sooner.”
“Don’t care.”
“Huh?”
“You’re mid-city, I’m undercity. Like I said, once this is done, we’re done. No point caring, right, Gloria?”
“…I’ll introduce myself anyway.”
“…”
“I want to stay friends. Sure, our values and lives clash, but isn’t it rare to have someone you can argue with face-to-face, Danan?”
“…”
Surviving alone was enough. Stepping on others to live meant victory. Suppressing emotions, bearing sin’s weight—that was undercity life. It rejected humanity.
Noble idealists and base survivalists were oil and water. Danan knew they couldn’t mix, had given up trying. Grasping unreachable dreams was like seizing stars. No, he didn’t even know what he sought, unable to see the stars of desire. A beast groping in darkness—that was Danan’s self.
Thus, facing Gloria terrified him. Marching through a despair-soaked world, torching a blood-and-violence path with ideals, burning desires in a bonfire—Gloria’s resolve scared him.
If desire ruled, Gloria would be just another man like Danan. Forcing Gloria to kill, clouding his eyes with despair, had reassured Danan. He’s human like me. But seeing Gloria’s kindness to the girl chilled him again. Why didn’t he break after such sin? How could he speak such pure words? Despite resisting murder, killing to survive, how could he show kindness?
In the undercity, murder, fraud, robbery, trafficking—sins were normal, numbing the mind. Trampling kindness, killing softness, was survival. Mid-city softies would break here. Even undercity folk like Danan could go mad in the Crucible’s sin-soaked pleasure district. Yet… Gloria endured, sane.
It wasn’t just strength. His unyielding self, his steadfast beliefs, made Gloria terrifying. Unlike Danan, who merely clung to survival, Gloria lived for more.
“What’s wrong, Danan?” Gloria asked.
“…Nothing.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“It’s none of your business. Stop talking, Gloria.”
Brushing off Gloria’s nudge with his mechanical arm, Danan hesitated, then stepped toward Hydro de Benzene’s fourth floor.
