Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

It had been about a week since Yuriko met and sparred with Tiger Lao for the first time. The days somewhat blurred together after the first two, turning into an amalgamation of concrete, bright, neon lights, mindless television shows, and the gritty feel of Junktown as she made her walkabout. An entire week where nothing truly of note happened, at least in the greater scheme of things. She learned and adjusted a lot though, not just with her Anima purity but also with how she saw and reacted to this place.

Dragon Fall City was nearly a desert. Not just in the environment, which it somewhat was. The ground outside the city limits, which ended about twenty-five leagues from Gate Consortium’s tower, was practically a wasteland. Dry, red earth, crisscrossed with cracks. Even when it rained heavily, nothing grew.

Well, some did, but she was sure it was tucked away in hidden cul-de-sacs, valleys, ravines, or little nooks and crannies that some enterprising people tried to return life to.

But it wasn’t just the physical environment but the Elemental energy environment. When they first exited the Gate, Yuriko noticed the thinness of Elemental energy and the presence of a minute amount of ambient Chaos. It was actually much worse inside the buildings or in Junktown. The Elemental energy was so thin that any attempt at casting a spell required an Elemental core. Otherwise, it took so long to gather Elemental energy that a Magus would have been shot full of holes by then.

She hadn’t really noticed the difference until Gwendith pointed it out. Most of her spells were Radiant empowered, and she also knew how to convert Elemental energies. Actually, it had almost been instinctive. She was a Transformation Stage Ancient after all. But for the others, converting Elemental energies was tedious and time-consuming. It could be done, but there was little need to, especially since Animus could substitute for Elemental energies. Gwendith had tapped into her Animus core to open up the walls and shape the living rooms—the apartments’ blueprints wouldn’t match the current layout. Thankfully, the floors were well supported, so their renovation didn’t do anything to destabilise the supports. The only thing they couldn’t move were the toilets and shower area.

Speaking of that, it actually cost 1 AC everytime the water closet got refilled. How stingy. Operating the shower cost 10 ACs for ten minutes, too. At least the water was clean and warm. Not hot, but warm. Gwendith bought several drums to fill with water, and she heated them to her specifications rather than relying on the shower, since the water pressure fluctuated every now and then.

Everything costs ACs in Dragon Fall City, even things that shouldn’t. Power for the apartments, the thing that runs the lights, the televisions, radios, refrigerators, and the thing that charges up the devices, was at least paid for on a thirty-day cycle rather than a per use basis. The sinks cost as many ACs as a shower, and there was no actual kitchen, now that she thought about it. No stoves, ovens, or even a firepit to cook food in. They had to buy from the vending machines near the lift lobbies or go to a shopping floor if they wanted better food. It costs more there, of course, nearly three to four times for mediocre food. The highest-end restaurant in the 101st Floor Shopping District had dishes that cost a hundred ACs at the cheapest.

Everything in Dragon Fall City cost ACs, and those who couldn’t maintain a certain level of wealth weren’t allowed to stay at their residences. The Green Zone, for instance, required each resident to have at least ten thousand ACs to remain on the lower floors, the 106th to the 110th. Where they lived, each individual needed a hundred thousand ACs in a bank account. And they must show an income transaction that was worth ten thousand ACs every thirty-day cycle, too. First failure meant a sanction and a fine, while a second consecutive failure would force them out of the apartment. The saving grace was that the ten thousand AC transaction covered each apartment, rather than an individual.

Elsie showed them a trick to get around that requirement, which was to open an account specifically set to pay rent for the apartment. Put in ACs just before rent was due, and the account’s auto debit would take care of the payment. Gwendith and Elsie set it up the day after.

On the 10th Day of Earth was their appointment with the Adventurers’ Guild. Yuriko wondered why it took so long, an entire three days after they sent the request. And when they arrived, Yuriko couldn’t help but be confused, and disappointed. She had expected the Adventurers’ Guild hall to be like the ones she saw in Bresia and Herrera, large buildings with hundreds of adventurers inside, looking for missions, resting after missions, and drinking, and gambling. Instead, Dragon Fall City’s Guildhall was nothing more than a small room, barely larger than an apartment. Even if it was set up in Tower 1D-L5-07, and all the up on the 300th floor. They had to pay an entrance fee to go up that high, and it wasn’t cheap: ten thousand ACs apiece!

Most of her earnings from killing those two Scourge had been consumed, just from that! And what was worse, the guildhall was nothing more than a registration space. They went in, submitted their old IDs, and got updated with another one. They had to pay another fee, equivalent to the entry fee, though thankfully, only four of them were adventurers.

Then they got their pictures taken, thumbprints, signatures, and a linked bank account. Then, they were given a code to download and install an app into their devices. The Adventurers’ Guild Hall Eternal Tower Branch app.

Only when Yuriko explored the app did she realise that maybe it wasn’t so bad. It was essentially a mission board, community board, mission completion, and payout function all rolled into one. No need to go to the annoying space up in the Blue Zone every time they needed a mission, completed one, or if they wanted to post a mission.

Only, the displayed local membership in the app wasn’t as large as she expected, not for a city this size. Barely a hundred thousand members in a city that was several dozen million strong. Maybe more than a hundred million, she wasn’t sure. Elsie said the number was up there, but the census wasn’t exactly public.

“You downloaded that junk?” Elsie said one afternoon while Yuriko was browsing the AG app through REI-space. No, she had not shown the gang girl her tab. “Fixnet’s better. Jobs aren’t so sticky and pay’s not docked.”

“Fixnet?”

“App to connect operators with fixers,” Elsie clarified. “And yes, I breached your Autotab. You need better counter-intrusion software.”

“So you’ve said, but I’ve no idea where to get better,” Yuriko muttered. She finally noticed the thread Elsie used to connect, but since it piggybacked with the thread connecting her tab to the mega building’s REI-space, she hadn’t immediately noticed.

“I can connect you lot with someone, or you can pay me to build one for you,” Elsie offered.

“How much?”

“Subs, one thousand per cycle per device.”

“Eighteen thousand per cycle?” Yuriko frowned. That was as much as they paid for already. When she mentioned it, Elsie shrugged.

“Sanda’s not bad, but their low-end stuff gets used up quickly. You won’t get an update until the next cycle.” She shrugged. “What you’re really paying for are the updates. Spacewalker thieves break the programming for counter-intrusion often enough that common weaknesses get patched up pretty often. I swear, space thieves work for security corpos to convince subscribers to keep paying.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, I guess,” Yuriko admitted. Well, the ACs had already been paid this cycle and bank account subscriptions are pretty secure, especially after Elsie told them to insure their accounts, paying more ACs to the bank so that putting their ACs there actually cost them ACs instead of earning them from interest. It wasn’t percentage-based, thankfully, but apparently, once the ACs go high enough, the insurance eventually goes up to just cancel the interest. It didn’t surprise Yuriko that those who didn’t insure eventually found their ACs stolen.

Such a sad state of affairs. ACs were earned fast but lost just as quickly.

Over the week, she’d found and killed half a dozen more Scourge, always while it rained. It now made sense why paying for a weather app was part of a Scourge killer’s kit. Just as easily were the ACs used up. In food, ammunition, gear, and other stuff. Gear, mostly, clothes, armour, and more guns for everyone.

Funnily enough, melee weapons weren’t out of style. A couple of days ago, Yuriko saw a warrior with a curved sword hanging off a scabbard at his waist while also having a shotgun strapped over his shoulders. There was no shortage of combat knives and throwing knives, and she saw a fair bit of warriors lugging a battleaxe on their backs. Those weren’t plain melee weapons though, and they were usually some kind of trick to them. Whether the blade vibrated at such frequencies that they cut through normal steel like a hot knife through butter, or the blade heated up to a white radiance, there was always an edge to such weapons. And of course, armour was just as expensive and just as tricked up. Not that Yuriko needed anything tougher than her own Anima anyway. She tested a chainsaw sword against her aura, and all it did was blunt itself up. Those things were loud.

So, she spent her days hunting down Scourge, but only as targets of opportunity. Most of the time, she wandered around Junktown. On foot, at first, but Elsie eventually brought her to a vehicle merchant, one that sold motorcycles.

“I know you can run fast, Yuri, but look! Motorbikes are cool!” Elsie gushed as she drooled over a gorgeous model painted red.

Yuriko looked at the marvel of mortal engineering and somewhat agreed. It looked great and no doubt riding it would feel good too. Was it expensive? Yup. But she had ACs burning a hole in her bank account so she splurged on a black and red Kanegawa Bladedancer. It looked better than Elsie’s bike and cost about two hundred thousand ACs. Yup, the entire week’s Scourge pay down the drain, ehehehe.

Afterwards, she spent some time, about a dozen hours, getting used to the bike. It wasn’t much faster than she could run, and definitely slower than her flight, even restricted as she was now. But it had some storage space, looked rather sleek, and the way it thrummed as she twisted the throttle made her tingle all over. Hmm, the only problem was that it ran on a derivative of petrol, several dozen times improved over what had been available in Irvalla. Unfortunately, it still meant that the bike’s range wasn’t more than a couple of hundred longstrides on a full tank of fuel.

Half of the time she roamed Junktown, Fluffington accompanied her. The wolf pup was sometimes mistaken for Scourge, but unlike those pests, he didn’t attack anyone. Plus, standing beside her, by the time they noticed him, they would have eliminated the thought of his Scourge-hood.

Almost every day, Yuriko spent some time in Tiger Lao’s street-dojo, as he called his place of instruction. Matsumi had sort of grown on her, and she indulged the girl’s curiosity. Somewhat. No secrets were truly shared, but she gave the girl some tips on expanding her Anima.

It turned out that Matsumi had lost her arms and lower legs in an accident a couple of years ago, though calling it that had been a stretch.

What would one call someone deliberately trying to infect others with the Scourge anyway?