Varian shrugged with a helpless expression "If it's on my planet, people would've—"
Boom!
Boom!
Varian and Edwina halted in their footsteps as a body passed in front of them and crashed against the wall right next to the small road.
Kacha!
The dust rose as pieces of stone, metal and soil flew out from the crashed site.
The men and women scurried off. Since the streets were narrow, and were filled with people, Varian thought stampedes were bound to occur.
But everyone moved masterfully, deftly avoiding bumping into each other and evacuated the street in a few seconds.
Varian even saw an old woman using her walking stick to jump over other people.
By the aura she emitted, she wasn't even a body awakener!
Then there was a kid who hugged the thighs of a muscular man and escaped!
What the hell was going on here? Are these people trained agents or something?
"Cossa brotherhood?." Edwina muttered and touched his shoulder. The next moment, they appeared on top of a building a few blocks away from the crash scene.
Varian easily made out the silhouette of a man coming out from the broken wall.
The man's shirt was torn and dust covered much of his face. Another striking fact of his features was a shark tattoo.
"He's from the Cosa Brotherhood. They're one of the top gangs of the city." Edwina introduced.
'One of the top, huh.' Varian noted that down and went back to observing the fight.
The Cosa man wiped the blood dripping down his lips and yelled.
"One of these days, Imma kill you motherfucker for good!"
In response to him, a solid rock flew out and reached his face in the blink of an eye.
The man crouched in a flash and looked up in a snarl. "You too bitch? You betray the brotherhood?"
The targets of his anger were a scrawny man and a short-haired olive skinned woman were standing at one of the entrances of the street.
"I'm a woman, you faggot! I ain't joining no brotherhood." She yelled and flicked her hand.
A spiky thorn made of compact soil was created and shot at the Cosa man.
"Y-You!" The man was obviously enraged. With veins popping up on his forehead, he roared and sped up towards her.
Each of his step covered tens of meters and easily dodging the earth thorn, he reached her in the blink of an eye.
"I'm still your senior, bitch!" With a cold smile, he punched down at the now pale woman.
"W-Wait!" The woman hastily put on an earth wall, but it was swiftly broken under the man's punch.
She turned to the man beside her and called out to him in a pitiful tone. "Sir, help!"
"Hmph!" All she got was a cold snort followed by words that were sharper than knife. "Your only purpose was to track him. Viper gang doesn't need any traitors. Die!"
And she died as the Cosa man punched her face into pieces of flesh and bones.
The Cosa man quickly turned to the scrawny man and raised his fist. "You too will—huh?"
Before he could finish his words, his body shuddered as he looked down to see a sword passing through his heart.
"Cough. Cough." The Cosa man coughed out blood and raised his fist once again in an attempt to hit his enemy one last time.
But.
Shuaa!
The Viper man pulled the sword out of his chest and slashed it on his neck. Like a broken foundation, blood spilled out and his headless corpse collapsed joined the woman's corpse which was in the same condition.
The blood spilled everywhere and of course, on the face of the scrawny man. He licked his lips lightly and muttered. "Wonderful."
It was only then that Varian observed this man also had a tattoo—it was on his tongue.
The tattoo of a viper.
"This man belongs to viper gang. Caso Brotherhood and Viper gang have been locked in a feud since a year." Edwina said casually and turned to him.
"Both of them are under the suspect list of Betty kidnappers. You asked why they want to kidnap her, right?"
"Hm." Varian nodded lightly, but kept watching the street. The Viper gang man picked picked the space rings of the dead, jumped onto a hover bike and drove off.
He didn't even bother clearing the corpses.
"These gangs need resources to grow stronger. And who do they try to kidnap?"
"Every person who can provide those resources. Wealthy businessmen, awakeners that are strong but not too strong, researchers, officials…" Varian paused abruptly and arched his brow.
Shortly after the man left, people flooded the streets. Someone dragged off the corpses and threw them into a sewer.
Then the hawkers started yelling once again.
"Fresh Sea Lion tendrils ! Special Discount!"
"Imported Ores! Buy now and sell later!"
There were bargainings, arguments and some fights in the street. But no one, not a single soul mentioned a word of the previous murder. Nor did they speak about the corpses that was floating in the sewer beside the street.
There was not a shred of difference from before the murder.
"What the fuck is wrong with them?" Varian felt a sense of alienation. Even though he had seen more deaths on the battlefield, this was something different altogether.
"What do you mean what is wrong with them? They're perfectly fine." Edwina was more surprised by his reaction that what happened on the streets.
"I can understand that they can't intervene or even talk about the gang fights. But come one, I can hear it clearly, even their heart rates didn't change looking at the corpses. This is just abnormal."
Edwina raised a brow and considered his question seriously. In the end, she just shrugged.
"Happens everyday. I mean, I just wanted to show you the streets and stuff, but we came across a murder. Well, if you go sightseeing to any place, the chance of encountering something like this is over 50%. Public see this everyday and get used to it."
"…."
And that was when Varian realized he was experiencing the two-word term.
Cultural Shock.
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A/N: Releases of last 2 days have been halted due to filling priv. It's sorted out now. The updates will be normal from the reset.
Apologizes for the inconvenience and Thank you for your understanding.