The first thing came to Light’s mind when thinking about making a Virtual Reality was money

Even fools know without money, nothing could be done

And Light is far from a fool, in some ways.

He could be an unmotivated guy but as long as he set up an aim for himself, failure isn’t an option to him, just like how he pass each and every exams with only 5 minutes of book reading before the tests.

He will need the strongest hardware personal computer possible to run one of the “would be” most complicate software. We are talking about Virtual Reality here, a fake reality, the more “real” this system is, the more it demand in hardware and software. You can’t have it without money. I’m talking about a lot of money. Even big corporations spend millions coin to develop it but still unable to success in create all the false information for human’s sense with their VR machine. Maybe their already gave up on a full-dive device.

How would you raising fund for this project if you was in his shoes?

There are many ideas pop-up in Light’s mind: Help from his family, work and save up money, sponsor, take a loan, call for donate form public,…

Asking family for help, save up money by working and many other options soon out of Light’s mind since it was pathetic and may cost all his life and there still be no progress. Donate from public soon out of question too. Like hell people would donate their money in a suspicious project of a guy no one ever known. Sponsor or take a loan means the project would become dependent on an external factor and any fruit the project bringing would be took away from Light. Asking for sponsor from companies sound possible but the chance Light getting kick out after he was forced to show all his cards is simply too high but not showing the cards give him no chance for a sponsor. Take a loan is the same, Banks will not accepts an investment of something that risky from an unemployed and the amount of money if the loan was possible also insufficient; Underground’s Loan is a different matter since you only need to exchange your own safety for the money. The problem is you will never able to erase the debt. The cunning dark credit organization will do anything to make you unable to pay the debt in time and have to be their living ATM to the rest of your life. There are so many options but the right option is only one. It’s hard to choose the right one in the ocean where thousands of pros and cons floating around.

“There is only one way to earn a large sum of money in a short time without any instant harm, I guess”

Light let out a long sigh. The method to earn cashes Light about to take action isn’t something he could make public: illegal actions. Since Light already pick a target in mind, the only problem left was “when”, “how” and “where” should he make a move.

I bet when you read to this line, you are somehow realize how will Light earn his fund for the project or should I say, to pillage it.

Having the resolve doesn’t mean having the courageous to do something dangerous. Having courageous to do something dangerous doesn’t mean having no worries that can’t cause waver when executing the action. A waver can be deathly in the action Light was about to take.

To get rid of the waver and also strengthen the resolve, there are so many way. Fighters or many athletics usually listen to music or stay in a silent place to keep their mind in peace. Some want to stay alone and focus…

To Light, his desire for a different life was what pushing him to do this thing, his hope for a change in his relationships with people around him also a reason.

So to get rid of all the wavers inside him, Light choose to see people he loved

Not to meet them in case this would be his last time seeing them

But to gain strength and overcome obstructs in the unknown future

His careful grand parents

His kind former “one-day senior” at work

His energetic collage who work in the light-food stall

The ones he loved, right before his eyes but was so close but so far away.

There will always an invisible barrier between him and them.

They were living in a different world where Light did not “live”, where he was only “exist”.

Light would be able to stay beside them someday, not so far away. As long as what he was intending to do successes.

In their same world

At less, that was what Light believed

That was a rainy day

Because Light picked a rainy day

So there would be less people on the streets

To lessen the witness as much as possible

His targets were two men who just walked out from an alley and jumped on a motorbike. No! More preciously, his aim must be the bag their carried with them.

Despite the world became a better place, there are places would not be better, at less, in a long time.

Light’s place is one of those. Compare to the more developed of the world, the Western, the Eastern parts are mostly developing. Surely, a developing system will be full of holes and there are many people who would use these holes to their advantages.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Political corruption, despite the disappeared of wars, political corruption was not disappear. Since brute force no longer is an option, compromise became alternative. The political corruption became more serious problem than ever. The area Light was living in was the top ten of this in the world, officially!

Where was the dirty money go?

It’s not likely Politician could shamelessly pay their daily life’s expense with this kind of money, because it is dirty.

They have to “wash” it first. In the name of investments

There would be companies that do nothing but somehow their profit every year always is sky rocket. These companies would somehow invest in gamble business and financial business. The flow of dirty money would go through the hands of normal citizen and the dirty money will successfully “washed”. There would be 10 to 20% lost in the progress. To people in this business it was an acceptable expense to “wash” the dirty money. It was very hard to chase after the flow of money in developed countries from the Western. It’s harder here where 80% of the world population lived. Eventually, people who are in charge of the shady company will be arrested. Unfortunately, the law indicated the person who will take responsibility for a company in front of the law is the director and CEO of the company. You may say: what wrong with it? In Light’s place, there are people who hire dirt-cheap to sit on the director’s chair and sign the documents, taking all the responsibility by himself. Do you get it now? The people behind these directors will never get catch. After all, this is the law people with power made to legally avoid the law.

The two mans on the motorbike were nothing but people who keep the flow of dirty money running. They were bringing the “clean” money from their “warehouse” to their “checkpoint” before return all the money to their boss.

Or it was what they supposed to do

…

Light thought of killing people countless time before

“People who smoke in public are nothing different from mass murderers. Why my life shorten because of them and they act like nothing? I want to kill them so badly”

“That car almost hit me! How the hell can he took the certificate to drive it? He should die so he can’t threating anyone life anymore”

…

Every time someone did something that can threating or shorten Light’s life, he wants to kill. It’s like his survivor instinct despite he himself lack the will to live. Still, killing someone is not that easy, because people need a reason to kill. If not, they are nothing different from wild animal. No, even a wild animal have reason to kill so killing without a reason even seem lower than an animal.

”This world is an object. The closer an object get to the light’s source, the more darkness it left behind” was Light’s counter when someone bring up a silly righteous ideals to talk to him, like forgive a murder and let him kill others victim after then or saying not kill animal for food but still eat meat just fine. It’s just how he looked at the world, a place full of hypocritical people.

‘These two are bad people who live on other blood, so kill them will make this world better, right? The money will be used to develop the VR technology, which if success would bring huge changes for the world. Isn’t it also a good thing? I’m doing good deeds for this world so there is nothing should make me waver’

Will killing a murder be counted as a murder?

Will robbing from a robber is counted as a robbery?

Can take away stolen things from a thief is a wrong thing?

‘Since negative x negative = positive, things will be alright!’ Light told himself, calm down from his mix of fear and excited

A bike slam into the dual who was driving the motor from the side

People usually think throwing something like a bike is unlikely, at less for a distance over ten meters, but it is something easier than you thought

A weight throwing athletic can throw a 10 kilograms weight over 30 meters easily. Light’s bike is a hollow frame bike that is less than 20 kilograms and combined with his ability to calculate the flows of force and change its after a quick calculating the direction of forces, throwing a bike over 20 meters wasn’t too hard.

Light threw the bike

The truth was… Light followed the 2 mans with his bike. He waited them to pass a desert area and executed the mentioned above action, with a litter bit help of the bike’s inertia.

Found these people from the underground weren’t too hard in the place Light lived. Since they work for the political and help backing from them, the police force normally don’t oppose them despite not openly support them in the public’s eyes and so these people actually brag about their work to sow fear in others surround them.

Most regular people in Light’s place afraid of these underground people

But not Light

Lost the balance, the two men’s motor crashed with the ground, so their heads. The law said people who drive a motorbike or machine supported bike have to wear helmets. These two did not wear any helmet.

Actually, Light never seen any of people in this kind of business wear any helmet when driving on the road. Could we say this is how they proved that they don’t give a shit about the law?

“You rip what you sow!” Light said to the two lying man who bleeding badly on the road. Blood flew out from their ears and noses, indicated their brains has been damaged. The two unlucky villains would never think their life end that day in a desert and dirty place like this under the heavy rain. More than 80% these people will die in a case like this if Light leave them be.

‘If they follow the law, there is no way they would die like this. This is nothing but divine retribution for them’

“It will be better if the world have one less of you people” Light declared as he grabbed the two head and slam it to the ground few more times. To Light, his feeling of guilt no longer there as long as he see his doing was the right thing. Since the police force in this region has all been corrupted, he would let himself stand above the law.

The distortion from disbelieve in the law

It will be a pain if any of the two stay alive and tell the other about this “incident” but doing too much will make this look clearly an assault and the others will be on guard. If this two die here, all people can thought of is they got into an accident, slipped in the rain but unfortunately, without the helmets, the two’s head crash into the ground and made them die. The lost money could be thought of as some greedy people who pass by took away and only known by people who known about it but these people would never tell the police about this money since everyone known the reason. Will you call the police if the beautiful girl you kidnap to use as a plaything escape from your hide out or when the money you robbed from someone else get stolen? This case is the same. At less, the corrupted police force can’t openly finding lost dirty money for the people of underground since there are still media organizations out there keeping an eye on them.

Cash isn’t popular in this world since all you need pay for something is a card with money in your account but to the undeveloped parts of this world, cash is encouraged to use by the governing system of these regions because cash is harder to observe than account’s number. Cash left no record. The political in these regions bring up their incomplete system to refuse using card when trading inland and unwilling to complete it. They just purely avoid upgrading themselves since the better system equal to the less of holes in there and their benefits would be decreased.

The bag Light took from the two dying man have over 400,000 coins in there. It’s called “coin” but the cash is special papers with numbers on them to indicate its value so 400,000 coins isn’t as heavy as you imagines. Let say a developing region’s average income is 200 coins per month and the developed region’s average income is 2000 coins per month, people in the developing region will need to work 2000 months,167 years of working to earn this much money and it’s about 17 years of working for a regular people in the developed region. This much will be enough for Light to obtain the latest PC and pay for other project’s expenses since the VR project will be a money-eating beast.