Leaders. Criminals. Cleansing. (4)

Trafficking. Money lending. Drugs.

All kinds of crimes that took place on a large scale in the tower all happened through one place.

The de-facto ruler of Symphonia's underworld, that was the gang that Ativan ran. Name, none yet.

Everyone just knew that these were the people you do not antagonize.

Maybe if it was on a smaller scale, I wouldn't have had much to worry about. But that wasn't the case.

From store owners trying to live in the tower that one couldn't get out of to people that were forced in here, even the lost and the strong, all of them were to some extent suffering from the gang.

Forcefully making them borrow, obstruction of business, blackmail, murder, forced addiction, and kidnapping.

The members of this operation did all kinds of things, and all of it at the beck and call of Ativan himself.

Not just the members of the organization, but everyone that had suffered under them was against Ativan.

Or.

Against me.

"I don't have to worry about losers that fell from them, though."

"What was that, sir?"

"Nothing. Keep following me."

Through the streets of Symphonia, I dragged the regressor toward the town square. Thankfully, Lutein in the novel had pretty bad shade with Ativan, and the first thing he did after eating the regressor was to head over to the base of Ativan's operations to kill him, and everyone that had come in his way.

I had left seven comments on that chapter.

Thanks to that, I knew the path well and the secrecy as well.

"But… why another… clothes store sir? Can't we Kamazon now?"

That's right. The regressor and I had come to the finest clothing store in all of Symphonia.

"Don't you have points? We're going to buy some stuff. You don't have to worry about converting them to cash with such big stores."

It was impossible to transfer points to people without being in front of them, that's why things like Kamazon had run on cash in the tower.

"No, I mean…" the regressor sniffed as he looked at me, his lips bitten. "Why again? I don't want to meet more people."

"Clothes make the man, regress—I mean, Linguist. Clothes make the man, and you need to be quite the man now for me."

I pushed him inside and stepped in as well. Suits of all kinds hung inside the glamorous store, its interior following the minimalist yet luxurious trend that could be seen in the modern world. Couches and mirrors, coffee and confectionaries, all of them were brought along as well. A place for the best of the best.

In just a few months, though, all of this would become nigh inaccessible.

The tower was already scarce on resources, and at that point of the story, luxury had become an unaffordable commodity, a liability.

"Welcome, dear customer…s…"

The staff of the store immediately stopped in her tracks when she saw the regressor. Her eyes widened and a spark appeared within.

It seemed I had woken up a fashionista's flame.

"Ah…!" The regressor, on the other hand, lost his cool when the staff eyed him. "I am sorry, I'll disappear. I'll disappear from the surface of the world, I am sorry!"

He almost ran away, but I grabbed him by the collar.

The employee then turned toward me and nodded, it seemed being in Ativan's fairly tall and handsome visage was good enough for her standards.

"What can I do for you today?"

"Gravitas."

"Excuse me?"

"I want extreme gravitas."

The employee smiled.

"You're at the right place."

The regressor was kidnapped first. More of the staff of the store then came out, and dragged me away too.