Chapter 206: The Price of Doing Business

Chapter 206: The Price of Doing Business

Six years ago, in the Mountain Underworld.

Nick meets with Glen in a well-finished wood room with shiny gold treasures hung around.

Sitting in his desk, Glen smiles as a lit cigar stays between his teeth. He removes the cigar and blows out a puff of smoke. “You’re one of my best, Nick. I need you to do someding important.”

“Of course, just tell me the details.” Nick replies.

Glen leans forward. “It’s a rival organization, de Glazards. De bastards are trying to cut off our business pipeline. I need you to infiltrate dem and sabotage dem from de inside.”

“Consider it done,” Nick says as he turns around to leave the office. But just as he reaches the door, Glen says one last thing. “I’ve got no one else as good as stuff like dis as you are. I truly appreciate you.”

Nick smiles as he grabs the doorknob. “Thank you, sir.” He opens the door and leaves the room.

***

One month later, in the Glazards’ base of operations.

Nick wears a fully gray uniform with a stylized G patch on the upper-right part of his chest. In a room by himself, he walks up to a large computer, complete with a wired mouse and keyboard. He types in a password and then uses the mouse to click on a folder labeled “ACTIVE THREATS.” Within the folder is a video titled “YOUR LAST WARNING.”

“What is this?” Nick thinks. “It’s a threat AGAINST the Glazards? Who sent them this video?”

He clicks on the video file and plays it. Glen appears on screen, sitting in his desk. In the video, he says, “You Glazards have been a dorn in my side for too long. If you do not cease disrupting my business, I will move toward war. De Red Mountain will crumble. Blood will be shed. You have until August 2nd to cease or everything will come crashing down.”

The video ends. Nick stares at the screen, completely stunned.

“August 2nd?!” he thinks. “That’s in just two days!! When was this video dated?”

He glances at the date on the file. “July 17th!? That was only two weeks ago, and I’ve been here for nearly a month! Did he lose confidence in me? Does he no longer think I can get the job done? But that’s not my main worry! Red Mountain is where my family lives! They’re in danger! Two more days is not enough to complete my mission! I have to abandon this and save my family!!”

***

Two days later, in a town at the bottom of Red Mountain.

Nick rushes his wife, a woman with rough skin just like his, and daughter, a young girl also with similarly rough skin, out of the house as explosions from long range magic attacks damage the mountain. Rubble begins falling and rolling down to the town, outright crushing some smaller buildings.

“Where are we going!?” his wife asks with rising nerves.

“Anywhere but here!” Nick shouts.

“Daddy! Mommy! I’m scared!” his daughter cries with gripping fear.

“Everything is going to be okay!” Nick reassures.

***

In the present.

“So, Glen just outright screwed you over?” Kurt asks.

Nick nods. “It was a total shock to me. I’ve always known that he’s money hungry. But I didn’t know that he was that paranoid. I had made great progress in my mission… but he couldn’t wait that long. I was furious enough to leave his organization, something Glen does not take kindly. When you join his organization, it’s a permanent position. He’s wanted to hunt me down ever since. That’s probably what he’d say is ‘the price of doing business.’”

“I’m no tactician, but announcing your attack plans to your enemy seems stupid,” Joe remarks.

“In his mind, he thought the threat of destroying Red Mountain, a location important to the Glazards, would cause them to fold immediately,” Nick says. “That did not happen.”

“Where did you and your family go after that?” Kurt asks.

Nick sighs. “Right here to the Undead Underworld.”

Joe and Kurt widen their eyes. “Why here?” they ask in unison.

“I wanted to get them out of the Mountain Underworld entirely after that and this underworld was the easiest place we could get to. Besides, I thought, who would come looking to this place of dread and death? It turns out that I really knew nothing about Glen’s business adventures. I learned that he does business with Zonbi. With that knowledge, I decided I had to keep my family separate from me. They’re somewhere safe now. But I decided I needed to investigate Zonbi and this place. Too bad this current investigation was ruined by Glen.”

“If you knew that Zonbi was one of his business partners, how were you not able to take that into account to avoid getting detected?” Kurt asks.

“They’re business partners, but Glen isn’t usually here during the tournaments. That’s the other two partners, Sergon and Sue. Glen is power hungry, but those other two are just as bad, just in different ways.”

Joe leans forward. “Alright, let’s hear about them.”

“This is relevant to Zeth the most because Sergon is an agent of Hell. He’s very loyal to the Dark Goddess,” Nick states.

Kurt and Joe clench their teeth as Nick continues. “His specialty is assassination. He’s a hitman. If that wasn’t bad enough, because he’s a serpent demon, he swallows his victims, sometimes while still alive.”

Kurt and Joe shudder at the thought.

“The only positive with him is that he doesn’t take orders directly from the Dark Goddess. He’s just a hitman for hire in the underworlds.”

“Does Zonbi hire him to kill people for her?” Kurt asks.

“It’s more like the opposite,” Nick replies. “She doesn’t want him to kill contestants for her tournaments so she pays him to NOT kill them. What he is allowed to do is feast on eliminated fighters who survived if he wants, satiating his hunger.”

“As for Sue,” he continues, “she was the hardest one to get any kind of read on. Out of all the business partners, she enjoys just watching the fights the most. She appears to be some kind of information broker. She’s probably how Zonbi learns about many possible future contestants. But there’s something else about her that I just can’t seem to put my finger on. All I’m going to say is that you shouldn’t trust her, even if she seems nice at first glance.”

“Gotcha,” Joe says. “Anything else we should know?”

“Yes, just one last thing. All three of them are very strong. Do not try to fight any of them for real. You have already experienced Glen handling you two in a 2-on-1 battle without using his full power.”

“To be fair, we weren’t in great shape and weren’t close to using our own full power either,” Joe says.

“Nevertheless, we shouldn’t risk it,” Kurt replies. “For now, all we can do is continue making our way through the tournament. Speaking of, I wonder how they’re doing right now.”

The business partners remain a future problem as the tournament continues.

Chapter 206 END

To be Continued in Chapter 207: Sasha’s Gauntlet