Chương 10: Call Me Boss

Machi suddenly stopped eating her strawberry cake. Aren noticed at once.

"What is it?"

"A bad feeling." Her brows drew together. A moment ago, unease had struck her without warning. She knew the sensation. Her sixth sense was warning her. Aren's eyes narrowed.

"Uvogin and Nobunaga are in danger?" Machi shook her head.

"No. We are." Before she could finish, a hoarse, arrogant voice came from outside.

"Gehahahaha! Machi, and you pretty boy inside, get out here! Uvogin and Nobunaga aren't around this time. Who's going to help you now?" Aren immediately looked at the monitor. A malformed, one-armed man stood outside with nearly twenty underlings behind him, grinning like he had already won.

"Oss." Machi stiffened.

"Why is he here? He tried to sneak out of Meteor City and got hunted by the elders. How did he survive?" Oss had once been the strongest local fighter after Uvogin's trio. With a gang under him, he had clashed with them more than once without being completely crushed. Not long ago, he had grown tired of life in Meteor City. Since he could not get permission from the elders to leave, he tried to slip into the outside world in secret. He failed. The elders' bodyguards had hunted him down.

Machi had assumed he was dead. People chased by the elders rarely survived. The gap between Nen users and ordinary people was that large. Yet Oss was alive. He had lost an arm, but his life remained.

"Why would he dare come here?" Machi said.

"Even if Uvogin and Nobunaga are away, all we need to do is hold out until they return. Then he loses." She could not understand his confidence. But the warning from her sixth sense was too clear. The situation could not be as simple as it looked.

"If you know what's good for you, come out," Oss shouted.

"I don't want to ruin such a perfect place. Walk out on your own and I'll give you a clean death." His greedy eyes crawled over the houses. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. White walls. Proper stairs. Wooden railings. Clean rooms that did not belong anywhere in Meteor City. This was how people were meant to live. This was the kind of place worthy of him. His underlings stared as well, restless with envy.

"Damn, this place is perfect."

"Boss Oss is amazing. I'd give ten years of my life to live here."

"Look at those walls. And those stairs. Are those wooden handrails?" Their voices piled over one another. Aren stood.

"Machi, stay here. I'll go meet them." He did not want to fight before learning Nen unless he had no other choice. That did not mean he would hide after someone stepped onto his doorstep. Aren considered himself weak, but with high-speed regeneration and object creation, he was confident he could last until Uvogin and Nobunaga returned.

"I'm going with you." Machi stood without hesitation.

"Machi, you..." Aren stopped halfway through the sentence when he saw the look in her eyes. For someone raised in Meteor City, being told to hide behind him was not protection. It was dismissal. If she could not stand with the team when enemies came, then she was dead weight. And Meteor City teams did not keep dead weight. The original Troupe would be the same. Even non-frontline members fought when a battle came. That was the rule of people born here. Oss might be too much for her, but his underlings were not.

At the very least, she could keep them from surrounding Aren. He nodded.

"All right. Oss is mine. The small fry are yours." Machi said nothing. She only nodded and followed him outside. Oss grinned when they came out.

"Gehahahaha. Smart choice. Don't worry. I keep my word. I'll make it quick." Then he saw Machi behind Aren, and his eyes lit up.

"Machi, how about coming to my side? Do that and I promise you won't die. You can keep living in this perfect place too. You'll just be sharing my room. What do you say? Gehahahaha." His underlings burst into laughter.

"Yeah, come over here, Machi. Boss Oss will take good care of you." A throwing knife answered them. Oss's expression changed. He tilted his head and avoided it. The underling behind him was not so lucky. The blade sank straight into the man's forehead. Momentum carried him backward and dropped him heavily onto the ground. Blood spread beneath him while the ugly smile remained frozen on his face. Aren pinched his nose lightly.

"Has anyone ever told you your mouth stinks? Please stop talking. I might actually die from the smell." Oss ignored the provocation. He had survived in Meteor City alone, built a gang, and even escaped a Nen user's pursuit. He was not as brainless as he looked. This entire move had been planned. He had deliberately spread the rumor that Allen intended to join forces with Cullen to attack Uvogin's base. The goal was to lure the fighters out.

If all four left, he would sneak into the base and ambush them when they returned. If only Uvogin or Nobunaga left, he would intercept the one alone, kill him first, then attack the base. If both Uvogin and Nobunaga left together, he would do exactly this: capture Machi and Aren, the two members he believed had little combat power, and use them as leverage. He had fought Uvogin's group often enough to know those two valued their companions. With his hidden trump card, Oss believed he could finish them.

But now something felt wrong. He had not seen where Aren's throwing knife came from. The loose house clothes Aren wore did not look like they could hide weapons. After being hunted by Nen users, Oss knew very well that people with strange powers existed. That was enough to make alarm bells ring in his head. For a moment, he considered retreating. Then he looked at the perfect houses behind Aren, and greed forced him to stay.

"Who are you?" Oss asked, his voice colder now.

"I've never heard of someone like you around here." He had known Uvogin's trio had become a group of four, but he had assumed Aren was nothing but a pretty face. None of the nearby forces had recognized him, so Oss had judged him to be some lucky dead weight Uvogin had taken in on a whim. Now he looked very much like a possible ability user. Aren watched the caution settle over Oss's face. For someone who looked like a brute, the man was surprisingly careful. Aren suddenly felt like playing along.

"Call me Boss," he said.

"If that's too hard to remember, 'sir' works too."