Chapter 131: Chapter 91: The Flesh Breeder
"Is he telling the truth?"
John asked on the way out of the restaurant.
Oulos sat with him in the back of the luxury business car.
The white leather massage sofa enveloped their bodies, complete with champagne holders and carpeted flooring—a standard setup for an executive hovercar.
Oulos looked at John.
"What do you mean?"
"I’m going to kidnap an arms dealer from Kanmer Company, right?"
John crossed his arms, lost in thought.
Almost every mercenary newly arrived on the streets of Eden City would have a firearm from either Kanmer or Rongju Company.
The preferred choice for civilians.
Good quality at a fair price.
The weapon clutched by the friendly neighbor before he passed.
The first weapon given to a young thug by the gang Godfather.
Even an ordinary citizen, who spent their life keeping their head down, would at some point find a Kanmer semi-automatic pressed against their body, forced to hand over any valuables.
"Market share, is that what it’s called? Aren’t these company dogs always fighting to the bitter end..."
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
"Blake wants to take out this arms dealer, is it really just because he killed a potential kidnapping target, without any commercial reasons?"
"Don’t use street-level thinking to guess their motives."
Oulos closed her eyes to relax.
She had stripped off her gown as soon as she returned to the car, leaving only a white corset, clearly revealing the metallic lines along her collarbones.
They were the cooling vents of her hacker implants, meticulously decorated with synthetic leather.
A hovering ornament sat beside the car’s table.
She extended a finger to press down the spiraling tetrahedron, comparing it to Eden City, where class population and resource allocation were two inverted extremes.
All John needed to remember was the target.
This time, they needed to kill an Argentine fat man with a terribly complex name: Svyatopolk Legizamon.
Oulos also used prosthetic eyes from Messiah Company, knowing their functionalities and version updates even better than he did.
She asked John to start recording.
She said they needed to retain evidence of illegal detention and the filming of banned Super Sensing Chips, so that when Svyatopolk’s death was announced, it could be revealed to increase the public relations pressure on Kanmer Company.
"Kidnap, understand? Do not expose your identity, don’t use your usual melee weapons, and absolutely leave no distinctive wounds. The mercenary circle is more traceable than you think."
Oulos warned John.
John had an external camera jammer.
Normal surveillance wouldn’t retain his image.
Oulos also added some physical disguise—a ghost mask commonly used on the commercial streets of Owl Town, an unregistered rifle, and a set of motorcycle leather attire.
"Damn, it reeks of sweat and booze, where did you get this outfit?"
"Don’t ask too much."
Oulos lifted his sand scarf and wrapped an electromagnetic patch around John’s throat.
[Equipment: External Electronic Voice Modulator]
"What’s this... Wait, my voice?"
John’s speaking tone completely changed.
"The situation on the ground is complicated, and the disguise must be comprehensive; unless you want Kanmer to come after you?"
Oulos handed him a special pistol.
[Weapon: Needle Sting Electric Eel]
[Module: Non-lethal Voltage, EMP Interference]
"Shoot him once before the kidnapping, it will disable his vital sign detection software."
Oulos continued explaining.
"This guy is extremely wealthy, you know. Emergency response team platinum member. So your actions must be quick and covert, or else the insurance company would be arriving in a hovercar to protect their big client."
John owed Oulos many favors.
This job wasn’t free.
Blake would pay Oulos an equivalent reward, which is why she went through so much preliminary preparation.
John only needed to handle the operational part.
[Eden City - Old Dream Photography Studio [For Sale]]
With technological advancements, the cost of filming with Super Sensing Chips decreased, leading to a surge of stimulating, illegal, and heavy-content productions, entirely overturning the traditional film industry.
Big companies could rely on capital to transform.
Third-rate film productions could only declare bankruptcy on the spot.
More and more dream seekers jumped from skyscrapers, which made the capitalists fleeing with money appear exceptionally shrewd, while the remaining buildings turned old and derelict.
Legizamon bought the entire plant area and transformed it into his illegal filming base.
He listed it for sale under the company’s assets.
On the one hand, it was for legitimate tax avoidance.
On the other hand, it was to deceive people; an unsold listed property was normal, otherwise a plant in operation with no output would easily attract suspicion and investigation from peers and even other entities.
Legizamon liked role-playing.
Every time he dispatched a shipment from the Eden City port, he would discard his arms dealer identity and disguise himself as a film investor.
He lured naive young women to the factory with generous gestures and under the pretense of casting for new films, then brutally murdered them and recorded the assaults to produce illegal chips, selling them on the dark web to flaunt his trophies to other perverts.
Legizamon maintained long-term cooperation with the Ghouls.
He occasionally customized certain requests, like height, hair color, age, and race...
These despicable bash-and-grab men slunk around Eden City, searching for targets to offer to their financial backer, in exchange for more implants, powerful weapons, and substantial cash income.
The Ghouls were also responsible for disposing of the bodies.
The girls who lost the signs of life would be stripped of their prosthetics and thrown into the incinerator, disappearing utterly from the city.
[Mission Objective Update]
[Find a way to enter Old Dream Photography Studio. (Unachieved)]