Chapter 179: Timid

Grey stood in the dregs of what remained of his shop, shaking his head. This was just fantastic.

’Well, it could be worse. Not like I was treating it all that great to begin with.’

Terran had left with Silva after giving him a threat about not leaving town. Then a timer appeared at the edge of his status screen.

—

[Restriction of the Ward Status in Effect]

[03:23:59:59]

—

With this restriction in place, he wasn’t allowed to step outside of the city for the next four days.

’Fuck me.’

Grey had wanted to go back to the outpost now that he had escaped Edmun for the time being, only for this to happen.

According to the threats Terran had left behind, if he tried to circumvent the restriction, he’d end up with a big pinging arrow on top of his head that any Holy Knight could sense.

At that point, they’d have all the reason in the world to hunt him down like a dog. It seemed that Terran was just as good at pissing him off as Joaquin was.

But rather than feeling the fullest extent of the anger he should have, Grey grinned. Terran was never going to find that tool belt, and the fact he was so restrained in his investigation meant that that useless master of his was worth something.

At the very least, it meant his Holy Squire status held enough weight that he couldn’t just be executed in the streets.

Time was still of the essence, though.

’I don’t know what’s going on with the Bishop, but he didn’t come out of his retreat, meaning he’s probably stuck there for the time being. I’ll need to figure out what the hell is going on with all of this before he comes out.’

If he couldn’t leave the city, there weren’t many options left to him.

It seemed the world was conspiring to give him time to really look through the Mechanical Jaw Lineage Tome.

Grey grinned.

He knew the real reason he wasn’t as upset as he should be.

He was improving too fast.

’By the end of this timer I’ll put your fucking head on a pike.’

Grey turned and faced his ransacked shop.

’Let’s fix this place up.’

**

Grey wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of cleaning. Cleanliness wasn’t something you had the luxury of having a ton of when you lived on a farm.

Well, if you lived on one of those fancy, high tech ones with a mansion in the middle of it, sure. But Grey’s grandfather had never been wealthy although the stubborn old man could have probably sold their land for a few million at least.

Instead of giving Grey a silver spoon, though, the old man gave him a broom and a mop that looked like it had been snatched right off the friendly neighborhood granny’s fanny.

Was he good at cleaning? No.

But he was good enough at making wherever he was at least not look like a pigsty.

Without a care in the world, Grey just yeeted everything out of the door. Honestly if someone wanted to steal that pile of junk, more power to them. Then, when he was left with a completely empty shop, he mopped and dusted everything down.

Only after all that was finished did he come out and stare at the pile of junk scattered across the cobblestone road.

For a small bit, Grey wasn’t sure what to do but then it hit him.

’Right.’

He had already touched all of these things. He knew everything that was here, and it was all documented in his Cyber Space.

’Easy.’

It took Grey even less time to organize everything than it did to throw it all out. Was that because he just put them into slightly less disorganized piles on the outside? Maybe. But who was asking?

Like he said, he was good at making things look like not-too-much of a pigsty. He wasn’t going to be winning any home decor awards anytime soon.

’Perfect.’

Grey put his hands down on the counter, the faint scent of a lemony cleanliness filling the air.

Before him, there was a single cracked piece of a Cyber Core that left him a bit speechless. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. There were 32 units of energy left inside of it, so he immediately topped up his Mechanical Jaw back to 20.1, then rolled the rest of it in his palms, wondering what he should do.

Downloading blueprints took energy, and the blueprint that would fit his needs would definitely require far more than just 12 or so units. Even if he used up half of what was in his Mechanical Jaw as well, it wouldn’t be enough.

Grey reached up, touching the fang necklace dangling loosely around his neck.

The Legendary Set he received was more than just the daggers. Grey had a feeling the strongest part of it all was the wolf Spirit within the fang necklace. But he had never successfully tapped into it during a battle.

Was that because it didn’t come naturally or obviously so he never actively tried? Maybe.

It was hard to find time to test things out when you were literally in fight or flight every second of every day.

However, Grey had always known that the Spirit of the fang daggers would be far more useful to him as the Spirit of a mech.

He had never had a mech with a decent sync rate before. This was why his mechs seemed so underwhelming.

His Mechanical Jaw should be capable of far more than it had shown.

’I don’t necessarily have to download it.’ Grey thought. ’I can just do it on my own. But without Cyber Cores, I won’t be able to complete the Forming process either.’

Grey sighed. In the end it seemed that money was the solution to everything. How was Globb even surviving?

Grey looked up. He already knew the answer.

Globb did small repairs and had his customers bring the materials. Then he probably poured all the money he did make into whatever that armor in the basement was.

Tapping a finger on the counter, Grey lost himself in thought before he grinned ear to ear.

When in doubt, rely on a friend. And the only friend he had in this city was probably a certain humanoid rat.

"OH MEMM, I NEED YOUR HELP!"

Grey left his shop, yelling through the streets without a care, thinking about how he was going to exploit a timid rat man.

It wasn’t long before Grey had made it to Memm’s shop. There were only three technicians that Grey could have learned from at the start. While there were probably more in the city as a whole, these three, at least, weren’t all that far apart.

But Grey didn’t enter or even knock when he made it to Memm’s shop.

The moon was already out, but the shop’s doors were hanging loose, a small bead of light coming from the inside.

A sinking feeling filled Grey’s gut as he slowly pushed the doors open.

Inside, he found Memm. The goggles that made the rat man look like he had just a single eye hung loosely around his neck, right in front of a blooming wound in his chest that splayed his ribs open like a budding flower.

Blood pooled along the ground, an eerie sound of dripping filling the air.