TRPM 367

I followed after Arthur and arrived at a place where two groups of Awakened were fighting.

One group wore armor that brought to mind medieval knights.

The other group had their faces covered, and aside from that their outfits were all different.

Judging by appearances alone, the former seemed like allies… but I couldn’t be certain just from looks, so I looked to Arthur first.

“(The ones in knight-like armor are the guild that handles local security. Join them.)”

On hearing that, I immediately tried to pull a sword out of pocket-space and throw it. But before my blade could move…

Bang!
Bang!

Bullets from Woo Ji-min’s gun hit the enemies.

“(Oh…)”

Ji-min’s bullets had been accelerated by her speed-power and flew at tremendous velocity. They pierced the criminals before they had time to react.

“(Aaaah…!)”
“(The one shooting over there… it’s Arthur! The Aura Master!)”
“(Tsk! Run!)”

Because Arthur’s face was famous, the criminals recognized him right away. They abandoned their wounded and began to flee. Apparently there’s no honor among thieves.

“(Chase them!)”
“(Apprentice knights, arrest those guys!)”
“(Is anyone hurt?!)”

The Awakened who were in charge of security in this area started running after them. Even though their knightly armor looked heavy, they didn’t move slowly at all.

Seeing that, Arthur asked Ji-min,

“(Ji-min, can you use your acceleration ability on me?)”
“(I can. But be careful, okay? If it’s your first time using it you might misjudge the speed and crash into a wall.)”
“(I’ll be fine.)”

Ji-min used her power on Arthur. He moved slightly to get a feel for how much faster he’d become, and then he shot forward.

“Wow… I sped him up about fivefold and he adjusted to it instantly? An Aura Master really is something.”

Ji-min admired Arthur. Even Ji-min, who has powers herself, said it would be difficult to control one’s body at that kind of acceleration. Wait—she used that power on Arthur for the first time today?

“Heh heh.”
“…For now, let’s focus on subduing those criminals.”

Arthur had shot forward and blocked their path, but even Arthur couldn’t stop that many criminals from running alone. Simply killing them would be easy, but from the look of things these criminals shouldn’t be killed.

“So we can’t kill them? Then…”

Ji-min mumbled that and fiddled with a small lever on the side of her gun. She aimed at a distant criminal.

Taang…!

The bullet she fired struck the criminal on the head. Under normal circumstances a bullet like that would have gone straight through the skull, but instead—

Paang!
“(Guh?!)”
“(Ugh?!)”
“(What is this?!)”

The bullet didn’t penetrate; it hit the criminal and released a small shockwave.

“How’s that? It’s the non-lethal suppression function on my custom weapon. The projectile becomes a rubber bullet, and that rubber projectile emits a shockwave that stuns enemies inside the affected area.”
“…So they lowered the gun’s standard lethality and built in that feature.”
“Yeah. Besides that, it’s got armor-piercing mode, elemental shots, and a fire-suppression function.”
“…Worth the price.”

I said that and looked ahead. Thanks to Ji-min’s rounds, most of the criminals were stunned or dazed. Arthur wouldn’t miss that opening, and the armored security guild members were skilled enough that it was only a matter of time before every criminal was caught.

About an hour later.

Ji-min and I were taken to the London Association.

“Why?! I just helped—why am I being dragged in here?!”

“Haha. Don’t worry. William, the head of the London Awakened Association, called you because the compensation matters got a little complicated. They didn’t bring you here to punish you.”

“Compensation?”

Ji-min cocked her head at me. Had I failed to explain?

“I know that security guilds usually receive a portion of a country’s security-related taxes, or they operate by capturing criminals and claiming their bounties.”

When other Awakened who were not guild members help, the guild typically gives them a reward. So the guild that the knight-armored people belonged to should pay Ji-min her reward—but rewards aren’t handed out casually. They calculate how much the assisting Awakened contributed to the capture before deciding the payout, so it can get complicated.

“They’ll check the bounties on the captured criminals and review the combat footage to analyze contribution from multiple angles, so it’ll take some time.”

Arthur entered the room looking tired and said that. I asked him,

“Where did you go?”

“To Rachel. I told her I’d be late because of the compensation stuff so she could go home first.”

He had also said he’d wait at the Association building.

“…You said it might take a while? Isn’t half an hour enough?”

“Normally, yes. But it seems there’s an issue inside The Round Table Guild.”

The Round Table Guild?

“(I’ll explain that myself, little Arthur.)”

A man and woman in armor came into the room. They were wearing armor but not helmets, so I could see their faces—and I recognized the man’s face.

“…King Arthur.”

“If you know of me, this will be quicker.”

He spoke to me in Korean, perhaps to be considerate. I couldn’t not know him: among Britain’s many Awakened, he was famous enough that his existence was known even abroad. For the record, he isn’t the Arthur from the legends—he merely claims to be Arthur reincarnated.

[You know how some people claim to be the reincarnation of a famous general, historical figure, or a god? Those people at least have a sense of the power of stories.]

The Arthur-legend itself grants power; it strengthens the man who calls himself Arthur before me.

[(Compared to people who claim to be Arthur reincarnate or Merlin, he’s not that scary. Don’t be too intimidated.)]

I glanced at the woman beside the self-styled Arthur. I didn’t know the face of anyone claiming to be Merlin, but this woman was not Merlin. In the legends Merlin is usually male.

‘Which women could be close associates of Arthur…?’

Guinevere—Arthur’s wife in the legend. Of course that’s just in the legend; it doesn’t mean the Arthur in front of me and that woman are married. Anyway—

‘If he’s Arthur and she’s Guinevere, they’d correspond to the Round Table Guild’s guild master and an executive. For them to show up personally…’

The thought flashed through my mind, but only briefly. The Round Table Guild probably had no choice but to send their master and an executive directly. After all, I was supposedly one of the world’s strongest Awakened; they wouldn’t send a middling representative.

That meant they had important matters to discuss.

“Actually, among the captured criminals it turned out that one was a major criminal with a bounty of one million dollars… that’s over a billion Korean won. He’s an internationally active criminal, so collecting the full bounty will take time.”

“Ah… so…”

“Hmm… Unless our guild has already received all the bounty payments from each country, it’s difficult to pay the rewards in one lump sum. If we did that, it could destabilize guild operations. So we came to discuss that.”

‘“Discuss”’ was essentially them asking for patience with their situation.

“How should we handle it, Gunwoo?”

Ji-min asked me after hearing Arthur.

“…Why me?”

I had done nothing in this matter. I only followed Arthur; the people who subdued the criminals were Arthur, Ji-min, and the Round Table Guild members.

“No… I’ve never done negotiations like this before…”
“Are you going to dump it on me?”
“Sorry…! But please!”

Ugh…

“May I take this one?” Arthur asked.

“…Arthur, why you again?”

“I want to see Artist’s negotiation skills.”

Ah, right.

I sighed and looked at Arthur, then asked,

“Shall we first confirm the amounts to be distributed to the two of them?”

In the end, the issue arose simply because the Round Table Guild couldn’t immediately pay the money, so we ended up making a normal contract for future payment. However, if the Round Table Guild delayed their payments, interest would be added to the monthly installments. Naturally, they wanted to settle as quickly as possible.

“You’re skilled.”
“Skilled? I just matched the industry average for this sort of contract.”

In Korea, thanks to me the security situation had improved and such bounty cases were rare; but in countries with more criminals, cases like this happen fairly often. I referenced such examples and made a similar-level contract. The Round Table Guild apparently intended to make such a contract too, so the negotiation was relatively easy.

‘…Still, going through the detailed clauses took over an hour.’

I glanced at Ji-min. From the moment the technical terms started, she seemed to give up on understanding and stared blankly into space.

“Good work.”

After signing, Arthur handed the two contract copies to Arthur and Ji-min and kept their own copy.

“Uh… um. Yes! Thank you!” Ji-min finally came back to herself and spoke brightly, as if liberated. She then checked the payout listed in the contract.

“Hmm…?”

She looked at me strangely and asked,

“Gunwoo? Is this for real?”

“It’s real. It could grow if interest is added.”

“I did hear there was a criminal with a billion-won bounty… but my payout is five billion won? Isn’t that a bit weird?”

“Ah, that? The criminals who move with a one-billion-won target won’t have low bounties themselves. Also, Instructor Woo Ji-min’s suppression rounds incapacitated most of the criminals, so her contribution was rated highly.”

Ji-min looked like she was thinking seriously for a moment, then murmured carefully,

“…Maybe I should become a bounty hunter?”

She was a slave to capitalism.