Orion of Central was walking around on the streets while he held a leather bag full of coins.
At this age, for someone to be around with a leather bag was quite odd—there were dimensional packs, after all. He could also use a storage Favor, not like he had the money to buy any of those, though.
'30, 40, plus 12.... Yes!! I have the money!' Orion closed the leather bag and placed it in his pocket before increasing his pace.
He walked past hordes of people and pushed passersby without being noticed.
After some meters, he made a turn into an alley where he saw a bar. The smile plastered across his face brightened, and he entered the bar.
After coming close to the automatic doors, they immediately opened for him, giving him a view of a completely silver establishment—the floor, the chairs, the tables, the cups, and the bottles!
The owners of this place obviously didn't care to hide any of the tech installed in here, leaving it bare but functional as it could be.
Orion walked in and scanned the area, quickly perceiving his objective: a middle-aged man sitting... sprawled over the table, with a couple of young men around him talking and drinking.
Orion walked to them, almost skipping, but he tried his best to suppress it, not wanting to seem childish. A boy his age obviously needed to be more mature!
"Aska!" Orion called when he reached the table, climbing onto a chair and hitting his hands on the table.
Aska, the man in question, was awakened almost immediately, opening his eyes wide and reaching for his shoulder. "Huh?! Ah! Woawe?!"
He seemed to be intoxicated. The other people around the table laughed at the scene.
One of them, a chubby man with a long beard, addressed Orion with a smile.
"Orion! Good to see you. What brings the pleasure?"
The one talking was called Phan of Fallen, a well-known frontliner Wall in Central.
Orion smiled as he sat down on the chair with a little smug smile on his face, his face barely reaching past the table.
"You guys promised, din't you? That I could enter the First Sanctuary with you all if I got 100 Credits?"
At his words, another man close to Phan, Hill of Fallen, a short backliner, spit his synthetic beverage onto his friend's face, who seemed less than mad to be soaked in spit and alcohol.
The man started to mouth a curse before Hill exploded with a disbelieved "There's no way you managed to gather that much! I don't believe it—show me!" The man Hill had spit into was reaching to grab his neck before Hill dashed to the side of Orion.
The smell of sweat and the iron-ish scent of blood on his clothes was disgusting, but Orion didn't mind—he probably smelled worse.
"Sure! Feast your eyes."
Orion said before pulling out his leather bag and dropping all his 100 coins on the table.
Soon, the people at the table stared at the amount with impressed expressions.
"Wow, he really did it!"
"How can you even achieve this much as a mundane?"
"Didn't we make that much in the last expedition, though?"
"Shush! Let the kid have this one."
At the end, one of the members of the group was hit hard on the head, making him groan in pain, but Orion couldn't care less. Right now, he was too excited, puffing his chest out. It was good to be the center of attention—the good kind of attention, anyway.
Aska was still trying to recover from his drunken state, but of course, he still heard Orion talking about the Credits.
With a hand massaging his forehead, Aska grabbed one of the coins with his remaining one. He analyzed the coin closely, and yeah—they were legitimate Credits.
"Kid... You didn't steal this from someone, did you?" Aska questioned with a concerned tone.
"Of course not! You take me for a fool? I can't rob beggars, let alone you Sparklings!"
Orion retorted with anger, hidden in his tone though, was the fact he absolutely would have stolen these Credits if he could get away with it.
Aska didn't question him further. He just stared at the coins for a while.
With a sigh, he threw the coin back in the pile and laid back in his chair.
"Well, a deal is a deal." Aska announced nonchalantly as he began to clean his ear, trying to portray an unworried, uncaring image.
""""""WHAT?!""""""
All the members at the table spoke in unison.
"Captain, are you serious? I didn't know you were taking this deal seriously," an unknown man spoke from behind the people. He looked at Orion and back at Aska. "And he's just a kid..." He murmured the last part.
"A deal is a deal! Do I have to be repeating myself now?" Aska looked over his crew. They all averted their gazes—they weren't sure about inviting a kid to challenge the First Sanctuary, but they weren't about to challenge their leader either.
"Don't you people have anything else to do now? The First Sanctuary is for tonight! Why aren't you gathering equipment? Scram!"
""""Yes, sir!""""
Almost immediately, all the men around the table assumed a professional demeanor and started moving. One of them began gathering the money of the members to pay for the food and drinks, another started waking people and making them move, while others cleaned their tables and threw their trash away.
'How organized.'
Orion thought with admiration. So this was what a professional crew looked like. Would he ever be part of a crew like this?
On his side, Aska stared at his men getting ready, unimpressed, but he was curious about one thing.
"How did you know?"
Orion was taken by surprise by the question.
"H-huh?"
"How did you know we were leaving at this hour? No, scratch that—how did you know where we were? I'm sure as hell we didn't go around screaming and announcing where we are going, and my boys aren't ruffians. They didn't gather people's attention—we came here unnoticed. So how did you know?"
Aska was truly curious. Of course, anyone with half a brain and minimal social skills could have found them by going around, but he knew Orion. The boy was less than bright—if one could say that... No, he was actually just stupid, and he had zero social skills. He also smelled like a sewer, piss, and shit all over. No one would even try to talk to him. It was already impressive people let him in—in any other case, he would have been kicked out of the store to not beg for food.
Orion hesitated for a bit before replying.
"I... observed, haha." The boy said, embarrassed, scratching the back of his head.