WeTried Translations
Translator: [IncomeElastic]
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Genius Engineer That Mega Corporations Are Obsessed With ◈
Chapter 50
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I Hear My Kid Owes You a Lot
Knock. Knock.
At the clear sound of the knock, Rita and I raised our heads.
[ Current Time: 00:18 AM ]
"...It's a little late, isn't it?"
A knock at this hour.
Old man Gordon wasn't the type to knock. Serena usually came in the moment she knocked. Rex always called to book ahead, and Vivian never failed to send a message before she came.
Which meant anyone who waited politely at the door without a word of notice wasn't a regular, at least.
"Zino. Let's stay quiet until the customer leaves."
"...Okay."
Rita got up from the sofa.
"I'll get it, since I'm staff."
She'd said the exact same thing the night Rex came. Which meant Rita felt something was off, too.
"...Be careful."
Rita nodded and opened the door.
A woman stood outside.
She was enormously tall. The doorframe Gordon had built was enormous, and she nearly filled it.
Beneath a black coat that fell to her ankles, her thin, long limbs showed. Hair the dark brown of dried leaves hung straight to her waist, and she looked to be in her mid-thirties.
And brown eyes.
Those brown eyes grazed Rita once, then moved past her to me. From the top of my head to the soles of my feet. Very slowly.
The whole time, she never blinked once.
"You're Dex."
"Yes, I am, but who are...?"
"I hear my kid owes you a lot these days."
The woman went on before I'd even finished.
"Figured I should say hello."
"...Your kid?"
"Serena."
Serena's family? A sister, maybe? She didn't look like it, though...
The woman tilted her head slightly. As if looking down at me.
"Hmm."
The brown eyes swept over my face once, my arms once, then returned to my face.
"Pretty face, but you look scrawny."
"...Excuse me?"
"I heard she's been here four times this month alone. Wanted to see what kind of guy you were."
"She comes to get maintenance."
"I heard she stays a good while every time."
"...I'm thorough about my work."
The woman let out a small snort. I couldn't tell whether she believed me or not.
Apparently she saw me as some guy clinging to Serena.
It was unfair. I wasn't the one clinging, they were. Even after the maintenance was done, it was always Serena who stayed on and chattered for ages before leaving.
While I was thinking that, the corners of the woman's mouth slowly curved up.
"Everyone calls me Queen Mantis."
Rita and I went rigid at the same time.
The Mantis Crew, who ruled District 5. There was no need to ask who was called queen there.
Serena's boss.
'...Fuck, I'm fucked.'
For starters, the stolen goods taken from the Mantis Crew's workshop were sitting in my garage.
What if she recognized them? She might decide I was connected to Black Dog.
And, surprisingly, I was connected to Black Dog.
Rex was one of our garage's VIPs, after all.
"Wait outside."
At the woman's words, the man behind her bowed his head without a word and withdrew.
Then Queen Mantis slowly stepped into the garage.
Click. Click.
At an unhurried pace, Queen Mantis began to look around the garage. The gun workbench, the parts disassembler, the incinerator, the shelves and storage lockers.
Then her gaze stopped in front of the prosthetic procedure table.
Queen Mantis said nothing. She only stared at the table for a long time.
'...Fuckfuckfuckfuck.'
A bead of cold sweat ran down my spine.
She started walking again, then plopped down on the procedure table and crossed her long legs.
It was where Rex had lain. Where a Black Dog executive had lain, the boss of a crew now at war with Black Dog was sitting.
What a small world.
"Nice procedure table..."
The woman slowly ran a fingertip along its edge.
"Where'd you get it?"
In an instant, several answers flashed through my head.
Say I bought it as stolen goods, or say it had been in this building already.
But the moment I met Queen Mantis's unblinking stare, every one of those answers scattered.
My survival instinct lit up. An instinctive sense that I couldn't lie in front of those eyes.
"I got it from a customer."
"Which customer?"
"I can't tell you that. It's the customer's personal information."
Silence settled over the garage.
The woman looked at me for a long while, then smiled, slowly.
"Is that so?"
That was all. She didn't press further, and she didn't get angry.
That was somehow scarier.
"My kid's arm, though. It's been taking a beating lately, hasn't it?"
It wasn't a tone that waited for an answer. The woman switched which leg was crossed over the other and went on.
"There's this one guy in Black Dog who suddenly got strong. She's been having a hard time because of him."
Cold sweat poured down again at that.
The reason Rex the Butcher had grown stronger was also me.
And only then did I realize why Serena had been showing up so often lately.
I'd repaired both Rex and Serena.
I hadn't meant to, but as far as business went it was a perfect virtuous cycle. I'd actually made quite a lot of money. Apparently it was bad for my life expectancy, though.
The unblinking brown eyes slowly followed a drop of sweat rolling down my temple. And at the end of it, they stopped, as if confirming something.
The corners of the woman's mouth rose slowly.
"...I see."
See what?
What was that supposed to mean?
"One more thing."
The woman leaned forward slightly. Her long hair slid down over her shoulder.
"The night Red Thorn died."
My heart beat a half-beat late.
"She came here, didn't she?"
That night.
The silver-haired woman who'd rolled in covered in blood. The scraped-away safety valve. The chip lodged beside it. And the voice whispering with a smile in dead eyes.
'A secret just between you and me.'
How much did she know?
Was she fishing?
"When the customer came is also the customer's personal information. I can't tell you."
The woman laughed.
And without even getting up from where she sat, she lazily raised her right hand.
Vwoom-
A green light blade extended from her wrist.
From a wrist with nothing on it, a blade forged of pure mana shot out. Curved slightly like a mantis's foreleg, the blade stopped a finger's width from my throat.
Hmmm-
A low hum rolled out. The green glow spilling from the blade lit the woman's face from below.
The light reflected in her brown irises, and for a moment even her eyes looked green. As if the mantis that had looked like a dried leaf had finally shown its true color.
Cheonroe Light Blade, Mantis.
A prosthetic arm function that compressed mana into the shape of a blade, drew it out, and sustained it.
Just from hearing that, you could tell the mana consumption was quite large.
A weapon beyond what a low tier, no, even a mid tier, could ever use. Which meant...
'High tier, Tier 7 or above at the very least.'
Click-click-click!
The sound of Rita hitting three buttons in a row.
Tick-. ...Tick-.
Two more after that. The last one came with noticeable hesitation.
The sound of blue sparks. Then amber light flared up and stained the garage walls. The gauntlet was absorbing the electricity leaking out of Rita's body.
In the dark garage, green light and amber light stood face to face.
"If you move."
The woman didn't even turn her head toward Rita. Her unblinking eyes were on me alone, from start to finish.
"I can't guarantee this man's life."
The presence behind me froze on the spot. Only the amber light on the wall wavered, as if breathing.
"Rita."
I spoke without taking my eyes off the woman.
"It's fine."
"Let's make a deal."
The woman said it in a whisper.
"What did she say here? Just tell me that."
The blade drew in a little closer to my neck. My skin stung.
"Then today, nothing ever happened between you and me."
My life and the secret were placed on the scale.
Honestly, the math wasn't hard. An engineer who sells out a customer gets no next customer. It's closing day, that day. I'd seen plenty of what happens to that kind of engineer in Fupunkalypse.
And above all.
'I'll take whatever I hear from a customer and whatever secrets I share with a customer to the grave.'
I'd promised that.
I'd said I'd take it to the grave.
I just hadn't expected the grave to be this close.
I looked down at the green light nearly touching my throat, then met the woman's eyes again.
What should I do? How could I break out of this?
In that moment, my head suddenly began to race.
This woman seemed to already know everything.
The way she'd surveyed every piece of equipment in the garage, and the questions she was asking me, made that plain.
The reason she'd come here and asked about the night Red Thorn died had to be the same.
This woman... already knew everything. She'd come to me only to confirm it.
'Maybe Serena already...'
In that case, my odds of living were better if I held out with feigned ignorance to the very end than if I opened my mouth and talked.
An engineer who keeps the secret to the end would be more trustworthy than one who spills it just because their life was threatened.
Of course, it wasn't certain. Maybe opening my mouth and spewing out every truth was the way to live.
But... my survival sense was telling me otherwise. That I must never tell the truth.
I decided to trust myself.
"No matter what you say, I can't tell you a customer's personal information."
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