Chapter 24 - Sold!

Ashe quickly dashed backward, barely dodging the sharp knife aimed at his stomach. after making the heavily condensed cleaver, he had slightly under one-third of his demon energy and most of it was enhancing his vision.

'What is happening?! Why are these random people trying to kill me?'

Ashe couldn't think for too long as the man with the knife quickly lunged a second time.

Demon energy started shifting from his eyes to his legs before Ashe leaped down from the elevated walkway to what used to be the riverbed of this canal.

The man that stayed back tilted his flashlight to keep Ashe in the spotlight while the other man jumped onto Ashe, knife in hand.

Another quick dash backward made the man miss wildly.

"You're not getting away from us, filthy Azel!" The man screamed after getting up from the missed attack.

The other man also dropped down, keeping the flashlight on Ashe.

'These people are maniacs!'

"How about we just go our separate ways and forget about this! There's no need to spill blood." Ashe shouted. However, the two men only snickered at his words.

'Sigh... I guess there is no way around this. Sap did say I need more of those threads right?'

While the thug with the knife slowly approached Ashe, the cleaver that was now out of their sight started moving on its own. Its edge was dulled making it more of a blunt weapon.

"Let's spill some blood then!" Ashe screamed, trying to act like a maniac, while slightly cringing internally.

*Crack*

The moment Ashe finished screaming the flashlight got shattered by the fast-flying blunt cleaver leaving the two men in darkness. Ashe however, was perfectly fine. All he did was focus all his demon energy back into his eyes, making it so he could see slightly in the dark.

"What the hell!" The man with the flashlight screamed. He didn't even get a chance to see the flying cleaver that broke his only light source.

With one quick bash, from the flying cleaver's now dull blade, the man in the back got knocked out.

Ashe could have knocked out the other as well but he waited for him to pick up his backup flashlight.

Soon Ashe was illuminated yet again this time a floating cleaver was visible behind him.

The man then looked at his comrade that was laying on the floor. A face of horror soon looked back onto Ashe.

"We were… just joking! Ha ha… we just thought we would scare you a bit that's all!" The man said while fumbling with his words.

Ashe didn't say anything in response, he just made the crimson weapon fly into his hand. A big unnatural smile appeared on his face, hoping to scare the man a bit more.

The man quickly realized that he wasn't getting out of this situation with words so he started running away.

Ashe sighed audibly before throwing the cleaver.

*Thud*

Another body dropped to the ground. However, glory over a dominated battle wasn't on Ashe's mind.

'Now what am I going to do?! Do I just leave them here?'

'If I did, they could go after me again. Since I'm a mutant finding me in the registry wouldn't be hard.'

'Shit! Even if I do leave them here, they might die of the mutated moles. Killing them here would be the easiest solution…'

'No! I can't kill them. But they did try to kill me… and if I did kill them I could probably take their soul.'

'What am I thinking! Even if I wanted to I doubt I could kill them. Even if they aren't good people they're still people.'

After another couple minutes of thinking Ashe decided to leave them both in the building with the beast corpse. Whatever happened to them, be it death or a mild concussion wasn't his problem.

However, out of curiosity, he decided to hide a small amount of demon energy in one of the thugs' back pockets. This would let him know how well he could track the position of his demon energy, and hopefully where these men will end up.

With his mind slightly at peace, he picked up his backpack and decided to leave. This time he didn't use his flashlight and just walked in the darkness. After reuniting with his cleaver and using its energy on his eyes, his night vision went from slightly blurry to decent.

As he walked back, the memories of the beast's knowledge of this sewer system kept appearing in his mind.

'This place is a lot bigger than I thought. It even connects to the outer city. Now that I think about it I don't have the documentation needed to sell this beast corpse, so using this route I could bypass the checkpoint.'

And Ashe did just that, he turned around and back toward the building. He then walked past it using the dry riverbed, after walking for a while he started seeing branching paths which he ignored.

'Oh... that's the limit I guess. I can barely feel the demon energy anymore, and I definitely can't move it anymore.'

After another couple of minutes of walking, he saw a heavily reinforced part of the ceiling.

'That must be the wall.'

The beasts haven't gone beyond this point as their burrow was located in the inner zone of the city.

'I'm sure I can find a way.' Ashe thought. He was smarter than a beast after all.

It didn't take long for him to find something.

Right in front of him, multiple canals joined together before leading to a dead-end. However, unlike the simple stone-like canal walls before this one was made of metal.

As Ashe got closer, a faint hum could be heard from the other side of the metal wall. Another thing that caught his attention was a metal door hidden behind an indent in the sidewall.

This door was akin to something one would see at one of the many beast shelters spread around the city.

Ashe walked towards it and listened for a bit.

The same humming could be heard from this door as well.

'It should be fine…'

Ashe pulled the door open, he was quite familiar with them at this point. A loud creaking sound echoed throughout the canal as the door opened.

Ashe took a step inside. The square room he found himself in was almost as large as his entire apartment. Different panels with screens, buttons, and meters filled the room. All of it was also covered by a layer of dust.

To Ashe's left was a giant window that he had to walk over to, to see the amazing view it held. The room he was in overlooked a giant room that run so deep even he couldn't see the bottom. All the way down, or at least as far as Ashe could see, an intricate machine stood tall. It looked like a crude amalgamation of pipes and steel but that's only because it wasn't supposed to be pleasing to the eye.

The machine emitted a rumbling sound, not too dissimilar to a washing machine.

Ashe stood in awe, he had never seen a machine this big. After a few seconds, awe turned to panic.

'If this machine is on then I should probably get out. I was lucky enough that this room seems abandoned or else I'd get caught already.'

Ashe looked around again, the room he was in as well as the room it overlooked were in complete darkness.

'Maybe I don't have to leave.'

His thoughts were shrouded by greed, if he would sell the beast's corpse legally, it would have to wait until he got back from his expedition. Having to report where he found the beast as well as probably having his mutation abilities reevaluated would take more time than he had right now.

Ashe took out his flashlight and lit up the room he was in. In the corner to his right, he found a set of stairs.

After that, he redirected the light into the larger room behind the window. Normally this wouldn't have helped, the small flashlight wouldn't light up much. But with all of Ashe's energy concentrated on his eyes, even this small flashlight helped him discern more details.

Along the edges of the room was a catwalk made out of a metal grate. It connected the room Ashe was in to a staircase leading upwards, which he guessed was somewhere outside.

'I'll approach slowly and quietly. If at any point I'll get spotted, I'll run back here and lose them in the darkness.'

With this simple plan in mind, Ashe walked to the staircase that led up to the catwalk.

He made it across with no issues and slowly ascended the final set of stairs. On the top was a dimly lit locker room with two doors.

The room was dusty and the only light source was a small gap under one of the doors. The other door didn't have a gap underneath and was built much sturdier.

Ashe approached the sturdier door. Right as was about to grab the handle a subtle cold breeze wrapped around his hand. He quickly realized that this was the outside air flowing through the old keyhole.

He grabbed the handle and tried to open the door but it was locked. Ashe frowned for a second before an idea popped into his head.

'I've watched a couple of videos on how lock picking works on these old locks. It can't be that hard.'

And it wasn't. Ashe was easily able to make a key using demon energy inside the lock.

Ashe opened the door. He found himself outside at a corner of a large facility, that was surrounded by a metal grate fence. It was still before sunrise and there weren't many lights around the compound.

He looked around looking for any cameras but couldn't find any at first glance.

'Okay, this is it…'

Ashe locked the door behind him before putting on the hood of his brother's hoodie.

He focused his energy on his legs before sprinting to the metal grate fence. He made it in just under 7 seconds. Then he quickly scaled the fence and dropped to the other side before running off.

_______

It took Ashe several hours before he made it to the same neighborhood where the scavenger group was located. He had to walk around almost half the city since the outer city didn't have public transportation.

On the way, he practiced by making small blades of demon energy with different condensation levels. With this, he got a lot more familiar with this fairly new aspect of his ability.

It was already bright outside when he approached the old-school-looking bar.

Ashe took a deep breath before entering the building. The inside was fairly empty, he only noticed a bartender and a single person talking together.

He walked to the front of the counter.

"Hey, is Mark here?" Ashe asked the bartender.

The bartender looked at Ashe and her expression turned sour.

The bartender quickly grabbed Ashe's hand and dragged him to a back room. When she closed the door behind her she started yelling.

"What are you doing? Take off that hoodie!"

"What's wrong with my hoodie?" Ashe responded. He did also take it off, as at this point he had suspected that something was off about it.

'First the two thugs in the canals and now the bartender, what's wrong with this hoodie?'

"Did anyone see you walk in with that hoodie?! We just got on Stella's good side, so you better have not screwed it up."

"No one saw me… why is this hoodie so bad anyway?" Ashe responded. He was curious about why his brother's old hoodie got this reaction from people.

"You don't even know?! How did you… never mind. That hoodie is the uniform for the Azel gang, and this establishment has recently started working with the Stella gang. So please don't wear that in public."

Ashe didn't respond immediately, he was lost in thought

'A gang?! Why did my brother have a gang uniform? This has to have been a mistake, right? Maybe one of his friends gave it to him by mistake…'

Noticing that Ashe was rethinking his action the bartender left the room and went back to the front of the bar.

Before Ashe could contemplate further a voice spoke out to him from behind.

"Scout! You're here, why didn't you message me?"

Walking up to Ashe was Mark, the leader of his last mission.

"I… ugh… forgot," Ashe said sheepishly. He was entranced in his demon energy while walking.

"It doesn't matter, if you want your payment just talk with the boss." Mark pointed to a door before continuing.

"Also… I heard about what you did back in the wilds. A person that can stay cool in the heat of things is just what we need. Maybe you could join my crew on a couple of runs, it'll pay more than your average scavenge run."

"Umm… I'm sorry but I was just about to quit." Ashe responded with his head lowered. Even though he didn't know Mark for long, he could feel as if he cared about him. Almost like an older brother…

This last thought made him ignore the awkward silence and head for the boss's room.

He needed to hurry

Get this done with, then save dad, then save Josh. He would save his questions for him.

He opened the door, completely forgetting to knock.

A slightly plump man was sitting at his desk with a startled look on his face that quickly turned sour.

"Where are your manners brat." The man said.

Ashe walked over without even a slight change in his demeanor. But to the plump man's surprise, the kid apologized.

'What a weird kid.'

"What do you want." He said in a slightly softer tone.

"Firstly I want payment for the job I did on Monday," Ashe responded.

"Ah… that was you, I heard you did well." The man then reached into his desk drawer before taking out and handing Ashe an envelope.

"Secondly I want to quit."

The man froze for a second before a slight chuckle left his mouth.

"You do realize quitting isn't free right?" He responded.

"Yes. Thirdly I wanted to ask if you'd be interested in some beast parts."

Ashe then took out a couple of claws from his backpack.

The plump man's smile was replaced with surprise as he quickly picked up a claw and inspected it closely.

Ashe didn't know this but the man had a mutation that allowed him to inspect the quality of materials.

'Interesting… just slightly under mid-tier.'

"How did you get this?" The man asked with a serious expression.

"The abandoned sewer system up north."

The man sat back in contemplation.

"I can take one claw as payment for leaving and I'll buy the rest of them off you for 100$ each."

Ashe didn't give this offer much thought before he accepted. Beast parts never had a consistent price, and he didn't even know the tier of the mole beast.

"I also have the head of the beast," Ashe added, before taking out the head from his backpack.

The man picked up the black fur-covered sphere with curiosity.

It was the first time Ashe saw it in a well-lit room so even he found it interesting.

The most striking detail was the thickness of the individual strands of fur. Each was as thick as a noodle.

Secondly, the beast didn't have an eye at all. When Ashe saw the red glow he just assumed it to be an eye, when in reality it was coming from beneath the skin.

"I don't think I can give you more than 40$ for this." The plump man said.

"That's fine."

Without delay, the man took out a couple of bills from his desk drawer before separating them and handing Ashe 1540$.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

"Likewise," Ashe responded, before leaving the room.

He left the building shortly after and started planning his next move.

'Tomorrow is a free day, and today isn't over yet either. If I want to get ready for the mission my best bet would be to get more of those threads and make a new ability. What did Sap say? Fear, anger, despair, greed, and… lust. I think there were more but I don't remember.'

'Do I just harass people on the street? Seems a bit mean. I'll try to look for some shady people instead, worst case scenario I'll go back to random people.'

With a new plan in mind, Ashe put his hoodie back on. It was a blessing in disguise, if someone would attack or harass him just for wearing this, then he wouldn't feel bad at all scaring them half to death.

His brother wore this after all. They could have gone after him as well.