Remora

Alfred had finally escaped the Keoppip Bazar and had spent his first night in the Mafozalt in an alleyway, so not much has changed.

'I've got a good idea of what this place is like. It's dangerous, but I will have no trouble finding a job here. There's no way the scum of this zone have any time to worry about child labor laws with all the murder that goes on.'

According to the people Alfred has eavesdropped on, the Mafozalt is split up further between two districts. The finer details are unimportant apart from the fact that the zone he's in is run by a Mafia group called "Edgewalk", and they mainly deal in murder/assasination, and there is supposedly a recruitment ceremony going on in the catacombs.

'Now all I have to do is find a way in… or…

Just follow someone.'

Nearly anybody can pick out the difference between a bum and a killer in this location, mainly due to the smell. It's too obvious when there's no reason to hide.

Alfred picked a weaker looking one to tail.

He internally sighed, 'Why's he trying this shit? He's shaking in his boots…'

An easy inference is that he must be a druggy who's gone in over his head, but was already used to killing to a certain extent. Still, it made no difference in the slightest to who is trying out or not, they'll die either way. Be it by starvation, the cold, or a bullet.

With the (albeit middling for the program) stealth skills that Alfred picked up from the previous deathtrap called a reincarnation, there was no way for a paranoid addict to figure out he was being tailed by two people. One was Alfred and another was a remora [1] tailing just behind him.

'Stupid motherfuckers, this isn't a movie, and we aren't friends. Nobody is.'

Just as they got deep enough for nobody on the streets to care, Alfred drew.

*Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!~~~*

*Thud~~*

The first was shot directly in the back of the druggie's head, while the other was stunned with a chest shot then tapped in his eye. Alfred took no chances with this, and right as they dropped, he began to loot.

The first only had a dagger he probably thought would do him good, and the second had another pistol with a bag of bullets. Luckily, it was a similar revolver to the one that Alfred already had, so he just stuffed it into the inside pockets of his jacket and took some clothes off the guy.

'Now that's better. A beanie and scarf will do well enough.'

He didn't even spare the time to move the bodies and continued down the alleyway to the door.

The two he was walking with probably didn't see it since there is next to no light here, but Alfred could. When he stopped walking, the slider opened and a face looked out with a bit of interest. After a second of looking followed by a depressed look, the face almost turned away before Alfred got his attention.

"Oh? Did you do this, kid?"

"What does it look like? You think I would come here without the resolve to kill two numbskulls?"

"I guess not." The doorman shrugged then chuckled, "Heh, you pass."

He opened the door. "Just walk down the staircase, you'll know where to go then."

Alfred took a step in before pointing the pistol up his sleeve at the man. "Don't even try it."

The second the slider opened he was in HSM, and he knew that the guy would pull some shit. When he noticed movement behind him, he whipped the gun to his head without hesitation.

"...I-I give, I give. *Sigh* (Mumbles) usually works…" He carefully placed a short revolver on the stool next to him, "Well, the instructions I just gave are still valid, go down the steps and you'll be in the catacombs. Here's a key that works on that door. Once you're in, it will lock itself, so this is your last chance to turn around."

"Good. Now don't fucking move, or you're dead."

With HSM, Alfred had no issues keeping the gun trained on his head without even looking. After taking the key he scurried down the steps and slipped through the door which, as he said, locked behind Alfred.

"Feeew!~ That was annoying." he said as he lowered himself to the floor. His body, even after the rehab training he did, wasn't fit for constant use of HSM in these types of situations. This made frequent rest key for performance.

Now in the catacombs, Alfred made some observations.

First, it was very mismatched. There were pipes on the ceiling and scattered throughout other areas, but most of the structures were obviously much older than those in the city above. 'This might be from a time before this "Steampunk" age.'

The main material is a large tannish stone brick and the doors are made from (probably) iron.

Down the hall was a lot of noise, so once Alfred was rested he followed his ears.

Due to the way the catacombs were built, noise traveled farther than expected, so the walk took a bit. Eventually he found his way to the destination. It was hard to adjust to the difference in light, but once he did his jaw almost dropped.

"(Mumbles) A big fuck-off course, or something."

A crowd of nearly 230 people trying out had gathered down a staircase that led to what was some sort of massive underground city held up by gargantuan pillars of (hopefully) natural stone with at least 10 and at most 20 square blocks worth of skeleton towers (basically tall buildings with next to no furniture, broken glass, no electricity, etc.).

'So, we'll be fighting in there. That's good for me, I was wondering if I could even do anything with this body.' And, like some, he took a second and noted all of the potential threats. The majority of those were the calmest, least flashy ones. The rest were in obvious groups.

'I guess there is actually a great advantage to being so small, nobody knows I'm here.'

That doesn't dismiss the fact that, if anybody gets their hand on him, he's finished. However, Alfred wasn't interested in that possibility in the slightest since he had HSM and they didn't. With guns and the likely chaos of this many people fighting in this area (if they all fought at the same time), his advantages were good enough.

*Slam!~*

Two large guards slammed the doors Alfred just walked out of closed, signaling at least the end of the gathering process.

Finally, someone walked up to a microphone to talk, which was located in a sealed off room (with most likely bullet proof glass)

*Tap!~ Tap!~ Tap!~*

"Okay!!!" It was a relatively young child, probably two or three years older than Alfred at the least. "You lot should have guessed what you'll be doing today, yeah? We will stop it all once at most 30 of you come back with a proof of kill and a hidden number. You can come back in 24 hours, and in 36 everything will stop."

There was a decent amount of chatter between those in small or big teams. Conversations ranged from those of confusion at the person speaking's age (although that mostly came from the smaller groups) to those of planning. Alfred started counting, 'No group is over 15 people. Shit… it would be much easier if there was infighting at the beginning.'

Four minutes after what was arguably a speech ended, people were led through a stone door after being handed a dirty slab of metal with a number on it. During the wait, Alfred went through his stuff and counted out the shots he had in his two pistols. He loaded the original fully with three bullets from the bag he swiped earlier, which was a simple six-shooter. The other one was fully loaded (also a six shooter). There were nine bullets left in the bag. After counting he left the knife in his sleeve for emergencies.

'All good- wait! He said at most, 30 people could pass, didn't he? Hmm…

He's saying that there's another game within this. 230 people would have to try not to find everything in this area (within the 24-32 hour allotted time, that is). Deaths are also not a problem either since there are at least 50 people that are threats.'

Even if he was overanalyzing it, Alfred still set a new goal in mind: collect as many of those metal pieces and "hidden numbers" as he could. He was already planning on killing people, if not for some "proof of kill", it would be for their weapons. And the extra hidden numbers would reduce his competition.

Anyone who blatantly flashed their guns were either overly cocky, or in a big group. So he already had targets to kill. One chunk at the top of that list was a group of three. One had the most important weapon for him to get, a sniper-rifle. It was some sort of bolt action, and he even had a scope! 'Rich fucks…'

They obviously weren't taking this seriously. Alfred also noticed they were a little tipsy from their smell since they were right next to him.

Finally, he was up to go in. The man handing them out was huge. After finding the number (212) he was to give Alfred on his paper, he asked him, "Name?"

'Uhh-' He took a second to see if he had a name in this world, but couldn't find any.

"Alfred"

The man looked down at a paper and wrote it down next to the number. He proceeded to hand it to him, but didn't let go, "There is 10 minutes left in the grace period. If you try anything visible during that time left -

*Bang!!!~*

- … you'll be shot."

A loud rifle shot that came from higher up where the lights didn't reach echoed around the area. And after the brief one sided exchange ended, he let go.

While paying nobody a second glance, he walked through the door and started running. Throughout the conversation, he was half paying attention to the man and more to the group of three on his list whom he had let walk in front of him.

They all (thankfully) just walked fast towards an edge of the area. When Alfred stepped in after them, he instantly locked on and ran up to an acceptable distance and began tailing them.

[1] Remora: A fish that attaches itself to the side of a shark.