Out of consideration for a favor, Amos took Kisho with him and headed toward his home in District Five.
Calling it a home, it was really just a small tent pieced together from wooden boards and scavenged waterproof cloth—though compared to the garbage nest Kisho had been staying in before, it was already infinitely better.
Amos stood in front of the tent and carefully scanned the surroundings. Only then did he lift one corner of the tent flap and walk inside, sitting down on a "bed" made from wooden planks covered with dried grass.
"Find a place to sit wherever. I don't have anything here anyway, so I won't be entertaining you."
"Even if you did, you definitely wouldn't take it out to entertain me," Kisho said, hooking a box over with his foot and sitting on it.
"As long as you know that, no need to say it out loud."
Amos sneered once, then grew serious.
"You want to know where that thing came from, right—you know Lashan Mountain?"
Before he even finished speaking, he shook his head, not waiting for Kisho's response and continuing on his own.
"Sigh, pointless question. How could you possibly know."
Kisho: "..."
"Lashan Mountain is famous worldwide for spice stones. From those stones, an addictive substance can be refined. Currently, about eighty percent of what's circulating on the market comes out of Lashan Mountain."
Disgust was written all over Amos's face.
Kisho asked, "So if I want to find the 'raw liquid,' I have to go to Lashan Mountain?"
"It's not that simple." Amos shook his head. "You have to consider three problems."
"First, there are over a dozen families in Lashan Mountain, big and small, who made their fortune from that stuff. How do you determine which one you're looking for?"
"Second, after you've identified them, how do you get inside?"
"Third, after you've infiltrated them, how do you obtain the inhibitor? That thing definitely counts as a secret—it won't be easy to get your hands on."
Kisho rested his chin on his hand and asked sincerely, "Do you have any suggestions?"
"I suggest starting with the White Eagle Association."
Amos raised two fingers.
"First point: Solzt is dead. That group of people under him can no longer get things from him, but they definitely won't just sit around waiting to die. They'll look for other ways to obtain it themselves."
"As long as they can continue supplying what the other side needs, the transaction will still go on. Those people don't care who the trading partner is—they only care whether the goods can be sold for a good price."
"Second point: do you know where the Elders' Council of Meteor City gets the firearms and heavy metals to build their own power?"
Kisho guessed, "By trading with outsiders?"
"Exactly. In a place like Meteor City, it's actually very easy for people with strong force to appear—ah, perhaps Nen users. More importantly, people who leave from here have no traceable identity or records. No criminal records while alive, and no compensation needed after death."
"With such useful weapons, how could the outside gangs possibly let that go?"
"So the rulers here are trading with outsiders..." Kisho paused. "Exchanging muscle for resources?"
"Mm. That's also the fastest way for Meteor City people to go outside," Amos said. "If you don't have a gang backing you, someone without an ID can almost never—"
Before Amos could finish his sentence, the expressions of the two people inside the tent suddenly darkened.
"Someone's coming," Kisho lowered his voice. "They approached suddenly, but after getting close to here, they slowed down."
Amos's face sank. "They're coming for me."
"You're that sure?" Kisho thought for a moment and asked, "Looks like someone's been watching you for a long time. This person can use Nen?"
Amos glanced at Kisho, but didn't ask why he would say that, or how he knew someone had been watching him all along.
He said coldly, "More or less. Annoying as hell. A bunch of trash."
"It's fine. You just started learning Nen. Your 'Ten' isn't very proficient yet. Disperse your 'Ten' now and you can still disguise yourself as someone who can't use Nen." Kisho thought for a moment.
"We can gamble that he won't notice. I'll hide in a bit—if things really go bad, then I'll—"
...
The next instant, before Kisho could finish speaking, he met Amos's eyes. He flashed behind Amos, lifted the waterproof cloth at his back, and hid in the narrow gap between the tent and the mountain wall it leaned against.
Then, a deep male voice came from inside the tent.
"Young master."
"Ah." Amos responded indifferently.
"Young master has been getting quite close to a certain someone lately." The man let out a cold laugh and continued, "This subordinate advises young master that if you want to stay alive, it's best not to touch things you're not worthy of touching."
"Ah." Amos's voice remained extremely calm, so calm it was as if he had no temper at all. "I understand."
"Hmph."
After leaving his warning, the man sneered coldly and sized Amos up from head to toe. After a long moment, he let out a contemptuous, disdainful snort and turned to walk out of the tent.
Before he could step out, he suddenly stopped.
The man stared at his own chest in disbelief. A thin dagger was embedded there, having entered his entire body from behind. One corner pierced through his chest, running straight through his heart.
"You..." The man's eyes were filled with shock and disbelief. No matter what, he couldn't understand how that dagger—thin as paper—had pierced through his Ten and entered his body.
"—Shh." Amos wrapped one arm around the man's shoulders, forcing him to fall backward, while covering his mouth.
"Shut up, trash."
Amos held him tightly, strangling his throat with deadly force. Until the moment of death, the man couldn't utter a single word. His eyes were wide open, dying with unclosed eyes.
With a "bang," Amos let go, and the corpse fell to the ground.
"Hey, come in. It's dealt with."
Amos pulled out the dagger embedded in the corpse's heart, wiped both his hands and the blade on the corpse's clothes, and spoke toward where Kisho was hiding.
Kisho lifted the waterproof cloth and walked back into the tent. Looking at the body on the ground, after a moment he frowned slightly and asked with some hesitation, "Is it really fine to just leave it here?"
"Mm." Amos nodded lightly. "Once I learned Nen, it already meant it would be a fight to the death."
"Tch. So that means..." Kisho curled his lips. "All that talk about owing me a favor and bringing me here—this place was just a base you were planning to abandon anyway."
Amos looked at Kisho and tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Correct answer. But there's no reward."
Kisho ignored him. After thinking for a moment, he said,
"Now that I think about it, you intended from the very beginning to get information about Nen from me."
"That day, you were completely fine at first, but after you saw me, your expression started to go wrong."
"When I chased after you, there's no way you didn't notice. But if you wanted to shake me off, you could've just run through the residential area. With all that messy cover, there's no way I could've found you—you deliberately wanted me to chase you all the way to the garbage mountain, to see whether I, without protective gear, would be affected by the toxic waste."
"The direction I wandered on the garbage mountain barely had any people, yet those two who wanted to rob my biscuits—one shouting, one ambushing—were probably following on your signal."
"And you were right under that garbage mountain. That mountain is full of medical waste, which doesn't match the 'good places to find garbage' you told me about."
Kisho stared at Amos and stated firmly, "You were monitoring me."
"Oh my, you found out. Hmm..." Amos looked at Kisho. Suddenly, he smiled, revealing a row of neat white teeth. His small canine bit lightly at his lip. "What should we do? Do you want to kill me right now?"
Kisho: "Is there something seriously wrong with you Meteor City people? Why do you keep putting death, death, death on your lips at every turn?"
"'You people'?" Amos raised an eyebrow.
"Forget it." Kisho couldn't explain it to him, so he simply changed the topic. He glanced at the corpse on the ground. "What are you planning to do next?"
The smile on Amos's face faded. He stared intently at Kisho and asked,
"Aren't you curious who I am?"
"I don't care who you are. At least right now, the two of us are grasshoppers tied together, forced to survive."
Kisho looked utterly helpless.
"You already knew that learning Nen would draw people who monitor you, so you deliberately brought me here and killed him in front of me. Tch—wasn't it just to drag me onto your boat? Fine, I'll get on, okay?"
Amos gazed at Kisho and slowly extended his hand.
"Happy cooperation."
Kisho speechlessly extended his hand and shook his. Under the witness of the corpse, the Fog–Boat Alliance was officially established.
Kisho knew he had been constantly "used" by this guy called Amos, but the reason he was still willing to continue cooperating with him was that while Amos achieved his own goals, the people who cooperated with him could also achieve theirs.
Although Amos had deliberately guided things, still... in that situation, following the information Amos provided really was the best choice.
"How terrifying," Kisho sighed inwardly.
The children of Meteor City are all monsters!