Chapter 13 - The Slum of Slums

Two days ago, he had robbed Gaunt Man. It had been a mind-numbingly boring event involving absolutely no violence, and so wasn't worth describing.

What was worth mentioning, however, was the new arsenal of weapons he had on him. Once Iria had been taken care of, he used those to rob yet two other weapons stores. That was a slightly better experience, involving much screaming, a creative exaltation of insults, and a toy he had bought on a whim that released dead fish on command.

Uari was really leaning into the rat bastard personality he was developing. Or was it that he was just regressing back into his former personality?

The queue for the lustreport was getting on his nerves, so he stepped out of the snaking line and padded back to the kiosk leisurely to purchase a VIP ticket, discarding the original one he'd bought. He doubted anyone had ever purchased that specific ticket at a physical kiosk; any rich person would probably just command their butler or servant to buy them digitally.

The moment the Geeglecoin transfer was completed, the kiosk's ageing speaker system coughed to life and began to belch: "WELCOME, WELCOME, A VERY IMPOR-"

Uari punched the kiosk lightly, his cheap and trusty sonic ring immediately cutting the sound waves. "False alarm!" He called cheerily, aware of how stupid he must look punching the kiosk after triggering its never-before-heard VIP alarm.

He vacated the space quickly after shutting the entire kiosk down with a light discharge of lustre from a newer ring he had bought. Attention was unhelpful here.

A harried-looking man dressed formally in a suit stepped up to him and, having watched his actions with the kiosk, refrained from the typical ass-kissing that was frequent with the other nouveau riche. Uari liked him instantly.

"My name is Dituri," the man introduced himself quietly when asked, as Uari was shown into a lavish waiting room. Another waiter deposited tea and snacks on the table in front of him, and he forced them to make small talk while preparations were made to allow Uari prioritised entry to the lustreport.

The service was excellent, and Uari bemoaned his inability to speak more with Dituri before he was whisked off and delivered to North Southernland in record time. He would've liked to hire the man; perhaps another time.

The lustreport placed him right in the centre of Cayman Hills, in North Southernland. It wasn't much different from the rich areas of South Southernland—well-dressed people milled about, heels click-clacking on the concrete-paved floors of the city. Others, ostentatiously dressed, stepped out of vehicles and walked into buildings, tittering loudly.

He hadn't been here last time. With Wizah, they had skipped around the outside of the city before she had taken him on a wild goose chase in an attempt to befuddle him. The joke was on her, though, because he was literally just going to ask people where the biggest slums of North Southernland were.

Gejuth, slum of slums, was about a two-hour walk from the Cayman Hills. Uari elected not to teleport over or anything of the sort, savouring the saunter and occasionally stopping for a snack. The heat of North Southernland warranted frequent water breaks, and Uari was glad he had updated his wardrobe to deal with the heat.

Being rich was amazing. Uari was never going to give it up.

Gejuth was low and spread out for miles, and Uari wasn't able to even discern the other end of its borders. Squatting on a taller rooftop on the edge of town and armed with a strong pair of magnifying glasses, he began to spy for recognisable landmarks and people. He was fairly certain the base was located quite deep inwards, but he found a familiar-looking metal shack very quickly. The rusty, creaky sign looked like it was very close to melting or breaking off its hinges entirely.

From there, it was a simple matter to retrace the route he had taken with Wizah, because by that point the heat and their lack of supplies had forced her to give up the meandering in favour of beating a quick retreat into the shade.

He traced the route until he couldn't see any further, then made his way to the outskirts of Gejuth. He selected a seedy-looking man who'd had the misfortune to enter a dark alleyway after a young girl and knocked him out. With his new rich-person toys—gods, how convenient everything was now—he modelled his temporary physical disguise after the man, then took his clothes for good measure.

He gave a guilty pause, staring at the naked man lying unconscious on the hot, baked pavement in the sun.

In the end, he left the man with some rags and a bit of hidden cash for his trouble. If he was unlucky enough to get robbed while he was unconscious, well, Uari had decided he didn't really care.

The disguise allowed him to troop steadily towards the location of his last attempted interrogation. Residents ignored him and children avoided him. He did not stop to drink, because in Gejuth no one had access to water that conveniently, and in under an hour found himself blistering under the heat of the sun, robes sticking to dark skin as he watched the hut from a distance.

When he had been inside, dealing with Glasses and Planthead, he had sensed three people outside the doors. Iria had said there were four, however, so he knew there would be at least one more person capable of shielding their presence from him.

No one came near the hut although he stayed there, spying, for several hours. As Uari mused on his next actions, a familiar figure walked by: Wizah.

If she had undergone the memory wipe like these goons had said they would put her through, she likely wouldn't remember what they had gone through in the past few weeks. It was also surprising that she was still holed up around here instead of returning back to her little clinic, but he wouldn't complain.

She was, after all, going somewhere, and that meant Uari would be dogging her every step as she led him to where he wanted to go.

He considered the situation while he tailed her. Despite the organisation's size, they weren't all experts in combat. In fact, although it felt as though they had been trained, the training felt mercenary. It was just enough for them to get things done without compromising the whole community. Uari might have been one of the few in the organisation who would have been classified as a more advanced fighter or tactician.