episode_0127

I was able to satisfy my curiosity about the dark control room at the end of the corridor only after chatting affectionately with Yuki for a long time.

It wasn’t that I stepped inside myself; Yuki, who seemed to have a deep knowledge of this black market, explained it to me.

“That’s where the black market’s operators are, and they don’t let anyone in. If you’d gone any further, you probably would’ve been met with bullets right away.”

“They’re savage bastards, not even putting up a warning sign. If it were about 90 years ago, I could have sued them and extorted a hefty sum in compensation…”

Unfortunately, for minor disputes like this, they won’t even accept a lawsuit filing.

Of course! Nothing is impossible if you line their pockets.

As I watched the fluffy white tail sway left and right, mischievously alluring my eyes with every step, a sudden urge to do all sorts of things popped up, but I hammered it back down with a whack-a-mole hammer. I then directed a question at the turnstile, which looked less like a black market and more like a place without even goods or merchants.

“But for a black market, it just looks like a bunch of aimless hoodlums gathered here, wasting time. What do they sell here?”

“Oh. You don’t know about the black market, do you, Jun?”

“Wouldn’t most people not know? This place was originally a perfectly operating subway station just six years ago, you know?”

It might have existed in other forms, but it’s only been established in this subway station for five or six years at most.

Minor gangs come and go quickly, but for a group with some scale, five years is nothing.

“I think I mentioned it before, but it’s a bit hazy… In Japan Town, there are five most influential organizations. The vigilante group Neo Shinsengumi, the yakuza alliance East Japan Alliance, the illegal augmenters, and… us too!”

Yuki proudly puffed out her chest as if expecting praise, her nose tilting up proudly.

“You guys?”

“What does that disbelieving retort mean~?”

“Well, it hasn’t even been a year since you were just that fur-lover club, has it?”

“I can’t refute that…”

What state was K.I.T.S.U.N.E. in when I first saw them?

They were nothing but a ragtag group that occupied a single hole-in-the-wall shop, barely even a gang, more like a gathering of hoodlums, weren’t they?

Of course, I fed them all sorts of things, significantly raised their standing, and cooperated with the Neo Shinsengumi, making their combat power quite respectable, but…

As for whether they’ve truly become big players sharing the interests of a district, one naturally tilts their head in doubt.

This isn’t because I’m looking down on them, but simply because there really wasn’t enough time for the organization to function properly.

“Anyway! I’ve only mentioned four so far. This black market is the last one!”

“Hmm…”

For all that, the guards seemed to be of low quality, but perhaps the fact that so many guards were stationed in such a desolate place proved its power in reverse.

“Jun, you’re thinking, ‘What kind of market is this when I don’t even see goods, let alone anything resembling a stall!’ aren’t you?”

Could a monstrous item capable of reading people’s minds have emerged among bioware?

Only the insolent teenage vampire maid inside my head reads people’s minds as she pleases, after all.

‘Please cease your slander.’

‘See? I can’t even have a monologue to myself, can I?’

‘…’

When I go back, how will I have to placate the sulking girl this time?

As I worried about the utterly terrifying capriciousness of adolescence, Yuki’s footsteps halted abruptly.

And the loudspeaker, which I had thought was broken because it had been silent until now, woke from its long slumber, emitting a brief crackle.

At that sound, not only Yuki but also the guys wasting time at the turnstile and the station all simultaneously turned their gaze to the loudspeaker that had begun broadcasting, as if on cue.

Even with dozens of pairs of eyes instantly fixed on it, the loudspeaker simply spat out brief information like a machine.

“Line 3 in 30 seconds. Candy & Juice. Unless you want to die, stand behind the yellow line. Open for 30 minutes.”

Static crackle—

That was it.

“Candy & Juice?”

“Hmm~ I wasn’t particularly interested in that, but… since it’s your first time at the black market, do you want to take a look?”

At Yuki’s suggestion that seeing is believing, and there was no need to buy anything, just to take a look, I nodded.

I had come here precisely because I was curious about how the black market operated, so there was no reason to refuse.

Rumble rumble rumble—!!

Descending the stairs, we arrived at the station, where the chill had deepened.

Even though all devices should have died and stopped, the sound of something rapidly approaching from afar struck my ears.

A mechanical beam of light burst forth from the dark tracks, and that light slowly drew closer.

Screeeech—

As the brakes brought the massive vehicle to a halt, I winced at the long, high-pitched sound, while Yuki, with her far superior hearing, covered her ears tightly.

When the unpleasant noise ceased, a train whose interior was blocked off with iron plates or scavenged planks appeared.

Its automatic doors, utterly unrefined and bearing no resemblance to their original form, opened to the sides, and the people who had come down to the station with us boarded the vehicle as if they had been waiting.

The interior of the boarded vehicle was surprisingly quite clean.

That is, for those who secretly conducted business hidden underground.

Although discarded syringes and pill bottles were visible on the floor, there were no traces of congealed stomach acid pancakes or brain matter pasta, so it seemed they did clean.

“This is…”

“Does it make sense to extort 600 credits for five doses?!”

“If you don’t like it, get out. There are plenty of other people who will buy it besides you, idiot.”

“I heard the purity of Exentanil isn’t good at all these days. Do you have anything else you recommend?”

“Military combat stimulant, 10 doses for 2,000 credits!”

Ignoring minor things like the crunching of broken pill bottle fragments underfoot, the way things were set up, there were two people in each car compartment, having converted them into what looked like individual stalls.

They displayed syringes and ampoules containing all sorts of illegal and military-grade drugs, complete with price tags, and even sold narcotics without any pretense of modification.

In this day and age, it doesn’t matter if you sell narcotics as long as you pay taxes, but considering the prices are much cheaper than aboveground, they’re probably paying little to no taxes.

I tapped my forehead at the sight, thinking the EPSB would be thrilled to rack up achievements, but then I clucked my tongue in exasperation at the sudden realization that the inside of the jacket of a guy leaving with 3,000 credits worth of drugs seemed to be an EPSB patrol uniform.

‘Well… a place of this scale would naturally have made deals and paid bribes. And just deals? They’d probably even offered their services.’

To think I was flustered for not realizing such an obvious fact.

It seems I still have a long way to go to become an excellent person suitable for the 22nd century.

“So ‘Candy’ and ‘Juice’ were… pills and drugs.”

Like ‘ice’ or ‘sugar powder,’ Candy and Juice were just common slang terms for widespread drugs.

If they were truly selling sweet candies and healthy drinks full of liquid fructose after all this, it would have been impressive in its own way, but my expression couldn’t help but become strange.

That was because I had no particular interest in drugs.

And I glanced at Yuki, giving her a look packed with the meaning, ‘You do that kind of thing?’

No matter how many desperate lives overflowed in Eclipse Point, those who resorted to drugs were truly irredeemably stuck in the gutter.

“No! I don’t! I was just trying to show you how the black market works, and this just happened to be the compartment we entered!”

Taking Yuki’s barrage of hits as she pleaded her innocence, I still intended to look around once, slowly walking through the train car.

It was said to be stopping for 30 minutes, wasn’t it?

“Hmm! Hmm! Each of lines 1, 2, 3, and 4 categorize and sell different items. They stop at a station like this twice a day to sell their goods, then go to another station and sell… and it repeats.”

“So, it’s a mobile makeshift store.”

“Yeah. If you want to go to another station, you can just ride along since it moves according to its route anyway. If you want to sell something, you can apply for a consignment sale with the black market, and you can sell your goods anonymously.”

I had wondered how they could classify and operate by item like this when most black markets were individual sales, but this was how it worked.

“What do the other lines sell?”

“Line 1 sells all kinds of weapons and implants… Line 2 sells confidential information or high-level information chipsets like martial arts, Line 3, as you can see, sells drugs, and Line 4 sells ornaments? And so on.”

“That’s quite substantial.”

For a mere underground community, that is.

“Well, it’s a black market where ill-gotten goods from all over Eclipse Point flow in. Although I said they were big players in Japan Town, they’re actually a major organization that spans the entire Eclipse Point. They also seem to be connected with several megacorps.”

“How many corporations do they have to buy off to run a business like this… Still, with this kind of infrastructure, wouldn’t many organizations covet it?”

“Yeah. That’s why there have been several wars, but the Black Market won all of them, so they’re still here, right?”

Does that mean they have latent power, unlike what appears on the surface?

Yuki, who had been scanning the stalls to see what was being sold, soon seemed to lose interest, nudging my shoulder with her head and hurrying her steps.

Come to think of it, many mercenaries who primarily use bioware would use drugs as a supplement.

As expected, about half of the passengers and customers had at least one bioware part attached to a visible area of their body.

“Somehow, Jun’s gaze seems to be slandering me again…”

“It’s just your imagination.”

And even then, it’s only those who use cheap parts or try to keep up with cyberware output; if you have top-grade implants, you don’t really need it.

Of course, it’s not wrong that you’d get stronger if you used them together, but what reason would there be to use drugs that rapidly shorten your lifespan when you’ve gone to the trouble of wrapping yourself in top-grade implants?

The bioparts Yuki and Kana have implanted are also hard to find anything superior for civilian use, so there’s no chance of them becoming drug-addicted cursed beasts.

As I gave one arm to Yuki, who hooked her arm through mine, and continued walking, I was stopped at a stall.

“Haha! Sir, are you interested in this item?”

“Hm?”

The person manning the stall was a tall and handsome man, neatly dressed like a corporate salesman rather than someone who worked in a place like this, with his hair slicked back with wax.

Should I say his appearance didn’t match his behavior?

Looking at his stall, it was lined with a somewhat different type of drug than combat drugs or narcotics.

“You have a beautiful lover with you!”

“How rude. She’s my partner!”

Despite Yuki bristling her fur in displeasure for some reason, the man continued his sales pitch without a change in expression.

“Oh, I see! My apologies! Anyway, what do you think of this item that just came in? It’s a product from the famous Walter Pharmaceuticals, and it can make your partner even more attractive by promoting specific hormone secretion and temporarily expanding the mammary glands!”

I was dumbfounded by the man’s explanation as he pushed forward a medical syringe filled with a transparent liquid.

Hormone secretion and mammary gland expansion, that instantly makes me think of breast milk.

“…I don’t want to inject drugs sold in a place like this into my woman.”

“Haha! You’re worried about stability, I see! Don’t worry! This item is a genuine product from Walter Pharmaceuticals, bought by the CEO of a small company with refined tastes to use on his lover! However, he requested a consignment sale, saying with great regret that he no longer had a use for it!”

“So, it’s an unopened genuine product?”

“Of course! The Black Market works day and night to always deliver only the highest quality goods to our customers!”

I wished corporations had even a fraction of that spirit, but if they did, the world wouldn’t be in this mess, would it?

“Ugh… A special order from a pharmaceutical company must have cost a fortune, what kind of per—”

“Perverted bastard. I like it too. Hand it all over.”

A stinging glare pierced me from the side, but it was an item worth enduring such mental agony for.

“Additionally, how about an ointment-type sensitivity amplification spread? It makes ‘squeezing it out’ even more enjoyable!”

“That too.”

The stinging glare intensified.