In the City, forget about making a name for oneself; even just to survive, the easiest way was to join a gang in the Backstreets. But joining a gang was also the least likely way to make a name for oneself.
These organizations, formed by Backstreet thugs who banded together and gave themselves grandiose names, usually ended up as just a line in a Fixer's commission, and a string of numbers after the commission was completed.
And being a Fixer was a better, though more difficult, way to survive, and even to make a name for oneself.
Pass the Hana Association's evaluation, get a Fixer's license, then join a Fixer office, or even start one yourself.
In any case, once you became a Fixer, you had the right to take on commissions and earn money. If your skills and reputation steadily increased through continuous commissions, you had the chance to become a Color Fixer, making your name known even in the Nests.
But usually, most Fixers could only achieve the first step: their skills and reputation would grow with each commission. In the end, faced with the dead end called "talent," they would become an unknown part of the City. But at least, with this power and reputation, they could live cautiously.
Of course, for Ye Lan, all he needed to do was find a way to get a Fixer's license and then get his application for a Fixer office approved by the Hana Association.
Skills, he had them. Reputation, he didn't care about.
He had two purposes for establishing this office: first, to find something to do before returning to the Library, and his identity as a Fixer would also make it easier for him to get involved in the events that would occur in the collapsed L Corp Nest.
The second purpose was to gather the surviving employees of the Lobotomy Corporation branches and recover the Abnormalities they contained. Ayin's plan had no provisions for those branch employees. So he, who had allowed Angela to take the Seed of Light, had to, more or less, give them a hand.
This might not be out of sentiment, but it was definitely out of Ye Lan's sense of morality.
"I am Olivier... Are you that Ye Lan?"
The 185cm tall Black man squeezed into his Hana Association uniform, looking with a cold face at the man holding a little girl before him.
"Yes, and no," Ye Lan, sitting opposite him, smiled faintly and pushed the application he had just signed over. "I am indeed Ye Lan, a level 5 employee of L Corp's main branch. Oh, I should say former L Corp now. But, the person who issued the commission and I are not the same Ye Lan."
Taking the application, Olivier looked at it and said to Ye Lan, "What, are you trying to say someone impersonated you to issue a commission?"
"Angelica is not dead. She is in a safe place right now," Ye Lan didn't answer his question directly, but instead gave him more important information.
"How is that possible?! Roland, he..." Olivier was also stunned. Roland had indeed not found Angelica's body. Not only him, but the Azure Reverberation also hadn't found his sister.
Although they both claimed Angelica was dead, the fact that there was no body seemed to support Ye Lan's claim.
"Hmph, until you show her to me, I can at most only believe you halfway."
Ye Lan smiled faintly. For Olivier to say this meant that he already had a certain degree of recognition for his claim. It was just that his overly cautious personality wouldn't allow him to say the word "believe" before seeing it with his own eyes.
"That's fine. I don't need your complete trust anyway. As long as you can fairly issue me a Fixer's license and submit my office application. I imagine as long as no one blocks it, everything I need should be easily achievable through the proper procedures, right?"
"...Indeed. Just a normal Fixer and office application. It will definitely be approved once submitted," Olivier read every line of the application carefully and finally said to Ye Lan, "If there is nothing else, I will take your application back to the Association."
Ye Lan stopped Olivier, who was about to get up, and said to him, "Don't be in such a hurry. There are still a couple of things. First, Roland. That guy now sees me as a complete liar and won't listen to a word I say. I suspect he'll do something stupid, and we'll have to clean up his mess then. As for the second thing... the guy who impersonated me to issue the commission, how much was the reward?"
"I will naturally keep an eye on Roland. As for that commission... I calculated it. The An in your account was just enough to pay for the Fixer's license and the office, as if it was calculated perfectly..."
As Olivier said this, his expression turned a little strange. After all, the number was too precise, as if it was intended to not leave Ye Lan with any startup capital.
And that was indeed the case. After all, the one pulling the strings was the Violet Tear. Even if she couldn't see Ye Lan himself in other timelines, by observing the people around him, she could easily calculate how much funds he currently had.
After talking a bit more about Roland, Olivier took the documents and left the cafe they were in. After paying for the three of them with the last of his cash, Ye Lan and Luna had no more money to their names.
"Looks like we'll have to make do today. When the documents come through tomorrow, we'll take on a commission to earn some living expenses."
Ye Lan smiled helplessly and returned with Luna to their house in the dilapidated District 9. Although the house had been damaged to some extent during the Pianist incident, with no money in their pockets, they had no choice but to stay there for now.
"At least we still have plenty of ingredients to eat at home. But will the money we earn from commissions be enough for the two of us to live on?"
Luna didn't have much faith in Ye Lan's plan. A newly-minted Grade 9 Fixer, with a burden like her, who would choose a combination like them to handle a commission? They might end up with insulting jobs like finding a cat.
"That's not so bad, is it? We have a place to live. As long as we can earn a little money to eat, that's enough, right?"
"Are you kidding, Ye Lan? Don't you have to go back to that library to find that big sister? By the way, the person you said was a secret, the one you like, it couldn't be that big sister, could it?"
Lying on the dusty sofa at home, Luna's eyes lit up as she stared at Ye Lan.
"You're just imagining things," Ye Lan tapped her on the head and continued, "As for the money problem, there's actually another channel to earn it. Do you want to take a guess?"
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