Chapter 322: Our Boss Is a Son of Calydon! (Patreon)

On the Outer Ring highway, a truck wound its way up the steep path, loop after loop.

It had been a bumpy ride, but you could just about call it steady.

"Urp... Where's the steady part? I think I'm about to ascend to heaven."

Belle sat in the passenger seat with a hand clamped over her mouth. A few glistening drops clung to the corner of her lips.

Don't get the wrong idea. That was vomit she hadn't wiped off yet.

She grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her mouth, then turned a furious glare on the culprit behind it all.

"Uh, sorry, Manager. It's been ages since I got to drive this freely. I got a little carried away."

Billy, in the driver's seat, scratched his head. He'd quit the biker life years ago, but the speed and passion of a biker were etched into his bones, and his foot had stomped down on the gas before he knew it.

"We're on a dangerous cliffside road! Could you please be a little more careful?"

Belle sighed helplessly, no longer sure whether this trip had been a mistake.

"Don't be so tense. It's just a little wind and frost. Think of it as a novel experience."

Geno, wedged into the empty space between the two of them, spoke up to soothe her. Belle's expression didn't ease one bit.

"I really envy how full of energy you are."

Belle just didn't get it. How were Geno and Billy so lively? Was this some natural gift boys were born with?

She couldn't figure it out, so all she could do was pray the trip would end soon. Otherwise she'd be dead before they even reached the Outer Ring.

"Don't worry, Manager, we're almost at the destination. It won't be long. Just hang in there a little longer."

As he spoke, Billy eased off the speed a bit more to make sure Belle didn't get any worse.

Geno was about to say something when he suddenly seemed to sense a presence. His head snapped up and he stared at the slope not far ahead.

"Billy! Watch out ahead! Hit the brakes!"

"What?"

At Geno's cry, Billy instinctively followed his instruction and slammed the brakes, wrenching the wheel at the same time so the truck slewed sideways across the road.

With a harsh screech of tires, the truck carrying Geno and the others came to a stop in the middle of the road.

The moment they stopped, a rumbling sounded from just ahead.

With a deafening crash, a huge boulder slammed down in the middle of the road, blocking the way forward completely.

"T-that was close! If Geno hadn't warned us just now, we'd be flattened by now, wouldn't we?"

Belle patted her chest, still shaken as she stared at the scene before her. Her face, already pale from carsickness, went even whiter.

But where had that rock come from?

"Geno, how did you know... Geno?"

Belle meant to ask how he'd known the rock was coming, but when she turned around, Geno had vanished from the truck without her noticing.

In the driver's seat, Billy's face turned grim.

"Manager, stay in the truck. Don't get out, whatever happens."

With that, Billy opened the door and jumped out. He drew the twin pistols tucked at his waist and aimed them at the road behind the boulder.

"Come on out. I can see you."

At Billy's challenge, a crowd of people popped up out of nowhere and appeared right in front of him. Every one of them held a weapon like a water pipe, a wrench, or a crowbar.

The young man leading them saw how arrogant Billy was acting and raised the Holy Sword of Physics in his hand, pointing it at him.

"Pretty cocky, aren't you? Do you know whose turf this is? Did you get our permission to drive on our turf?"

"Your turf? This is a public road out in the suburbs. Since when does it belong to you?"

Billy arched an eyebrow. So these were highway robbers? It felt like he hadn't run into this kind of thing in ages.

"Of course it's ours! This is the turf of the Sons of Calydon! Tigers have to crouch here and dragons have to coil up! Nobody leaves today without leaving something behind!"

The young leader was bursting with swagger. But the name he'd just dropped, the Sons of Calydon, made Billy's face darken more and more.

"Hey. You just said the Sons of Calydon, right?"

"Y-yeah! What about it?"

Billy's aura changed abruptly, giving the young leader a sharp sense of danger. With the black muzzles of the two pistols staring him down, he felt utterly unsafe.

But perhaps to preserve his shining image in front of his underlings, he kept bluffing, stiff-backed.

"I-I'm warning you! Our boss is the Red Scarf of the Sons of Calydon! You know the Red Scarf, right?! He's the strongest fighter in the whole Outer Ring!"

"The Red Scarf, huh? Interesting. Then why don't you take me to your boss?"

Billy's expression grew even uglier. Paying no mind to the danger, he advanced on the robbers with both guns raised.

That only threw the underlings behind the leader into more of a panic. One look at their gear told the story: pipes and crowbars were the best they had, which showed how amateur they were.

Faced with Billy's loaded guns, the rabble quickly grew nervous.

Then a blond man with a foxlike smile stepped out from among them.

"Easy there, friend. No need to get so worked up. We're only after money, so why make such a fuss? If this ever reaches our boss, you won't get a chance to regret it~"

Billy looked at the fox-faced man, and his expression didn't improve in the slightest. He cared deeply about words like "Sons of Calydon" and "Red Scarf."

"Cut the crap. If you've got the guts to come out and rob people, you'd better be ready to get robbed yourselves!"

Billy's tone turned nastier, and one of the so-called "bandits" cracked under the pressure completely and began to tremble.

Just then, a commotion broke out among the "bandits" and drew Billy's attention.

One of the robbers had suddenly collapsed with eyes bulging and limbs twitching, and he was soon sprawled on the ground.

"Hey! What's wrong with you?! I'm not that scary, am I?"

Billy froze at the sight. Sure, he was a little angry and hadn't reined in his aura, but surely that wasn't enough to scare someone into this state?

While everyone stood there baffled, nobody noticed the blond man who had spoken earlier quietly slip back into the crowd. He was soon nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, the robber on the ground began to change in a strange way.

"Ugh... Aaaagh!"

With a roar, the fallen robber's body began to swell violently. Then his skin turned a deathly white, like plaster dust, and he swiftly took on a different form.

It was a form familiar not only to Billy but to Belle as well.

"A Sacrifice?!"