KON POV

It’s after school, and today Venti and I have planned to travel to Taikan Districts to pick up our badge order. While mailing delivery is an option, my paranoid self prefers not to risk it. If something goes wrong, it could mean wasted money and the hassle of tracking down a lost package.

We opted not to take public transport and instead used our SpeedGear for traveling. I need to get used to using it now, and as expected, for a first-timer, it’s challenging. The pressure sensitivity is very delicate; just a slight weight shift could cause me to accelerate forward a notch. Currently, we are traveling at around 40 kmph, and my toes are constantly on their tips, just in case I make a mistake and need to brake.

In other words, I’m nervous. It’s a whole new world compared to my Gearless shoes that I used to practice back in Junkyard. When you can reach its top speed with a single heel press, it puts into perspective how far apart the real thing is from just looking at the TV and videos.

“Take it easy. You will get used to it pretty fast if you rely more on its emergency brake system.”

Venti is right. The fail-safe system is the most easily accessible part of the Gear. On second thought, Venti is taking it easy, matching his speed with mine. Is this not his first time using SpeedGear?

“Venti, you seem very experienced with SpeedGear.” I asked him in between corner turns.

“Oh, I used it often even before I got the provisional license, but don’t tell anybody about that. Haha.”

“You mean your cage fight is a SpeedGear cage fight?”

“Yeah, some of them are. I lost a lot too during my first time using it. It took a while before I became good at fighting with it.

“I see.”

“Also, I wouldn’t recommend fighting against ball-bearing users unless you are me. Their movement patterns are all over the place. Hard to get a read on those bastards.”

“Have you ever lost against them?” I probed.

“Nope, Gahahaha! I just let a hit or two in before I catch them and introduce my fist to their jaw. Most of them are a bunch of cocky idiots who think that they are untouchable. A little pressure and they pop like an amateur Outfighting boxer.”

Venti has a good insight on the cage fight side of things. No doubt our team will be introduced to it the moment we reach D rank and above. If we want to advance to C-rank, our Caged Fight record will also be taken into consideration along with Run & Gun and Hurdle.

I rather not have our Diva, Elizabeth participates in it, so in the end it is up to me huh? Or I can just hope that Zack is open to collaborating with another team. At least with the team, he hasn’t managed to piss off.

Speaking of which, what are they doing right now?

Zack, Elizabeth, and Kuro said that they would be busy for a while and that’s all they told me. Why do I have a bad feeling about this? Are they planning something crazy again behind my back? I sure hope not. Zack pissing off The Bulls are already lunatic enough for me.

“Venti, do you know what they are doing right now?”

“Uh, Noo?”

“You sure?” I squinted my eyes at him while vaulting over a bench.

“Yep, very positive.” He said while dodging a telephone pole.

I’m not convinced, but then again, if it’s very serious he would have told me immediately. Oh well, guess I will just brace myself for another surprise. Wheee……how fun. It’s like a water slide at the swimming pool. I wonder what’s waiting at the end? A shark’s open jaw?

……

Speaking of sharks. I tapped once on Venti to get his attention before I did a couple of hand gestures signifying that we were followed.

2 people tailing at 8 o’clock.

Venti noticed me and just snorted after seeing my hand sign. He is not too worried, but I guess that’s on par with the course. With Area war ramping like this, outsiders who use SpeedGear in one’s area will inevitably be heavily scrutinized.

However, it’s weird that they are still following us even though Venti’s face is not covered by anything. They should have noticed who they are tailing by now, yes? Are they a bunch of newbies who don’t know that Venti is BOA’s Ex-guild leader?

Perhaps they could be. I’m tempted to area of Intent read them but not right now when I’m still getting used to my SpeedGear. I seriously need more practice to multitask my thought processes. At the level that I envisioned, I will need at least three separate thought processes to focus on the path, to chart the path for my team, and to the area of intent read preventing ambush.

Stolen novel; please report.

Easier said than done.

Right now I’m maintaining my area intent of 100m or so, and I almost bumped into objects a couple of times. Not to mention I’m still only running at 60kmph. Some hunt races require you to go as fast as 150kmph with various random obstacles thrown in your way, making your path narrower. Then there’s the A / S-rank race, well let’s not think about those right now and focus on what’s right in front of me, and behind too.

I didn’t realize how much mental stamina is required to continue paying attention to the people who are tailing me. I know I can still improve on it since I wasted tons of energy by being anxious and running with a lot of wasted movements. Luckily Venti is around in case something crazy happens.

The Badge Maker’s store is just around the corner. Once I spotted it, I slowed down a little bit and focused my intent on reading deeper into our stalker.

Ill intent. There is malice in both of them.

I briefly tilted my head in confusion. That’s surprising. Are they Benji’s people trying to get even with us for bashing his head at that mall restroom? Isn’t that Venti’s fault? So are they here for Venti? But their intents are mostly directed at me. They have slight wariness towards Venti though.

We arrived at the front store, but before we went in, I took a glance at our stalker and they wore BOA badge on their jacket. Interesting……I will think more about it later but for now, let’s just focus on getting the Team badge order done. I doubt they will be making a ruckus inside someone’s store.

Inside the store is a simple layout of a counter bar with a couple of tables and chairs for people to wait on. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait long since we were already notified of its completion. All we have to do I just talk to the receptionist, test the final installation, and pick up the order.

However, instead of a receptionist, a guy came and took over the receptionist’s spot. He is around mid-age, with a clean-shaven beard and short black hair. Recalling from the website Bio, his name should be Jurong, the Taikan district’s Badge Maker. He took out the badges to perform the final scan to have it imprint-ready.

“Venti, it’s been a while since I last saw you. You making a new team?” The guy tried to break into a small talk.

“Sup Jurong, yeah. They are good friends. So, how’s life treating you?”

“Eh. Not so hot, but I have been getting more orders lately with all these Area Wars crazes going around. That’s something.”

Jurong peeled off a layer of plastic protection and asked me to tap my thumb finger onto the badge itself. I did as he said and the computer next to him notified the completion of the badge imprint.

User Name: Kon Caspier

Team Badge: Sky Punk

The Badge Maker then proceeds to explain how we can modify the data variables into public or private. User Name and Team Badge are automatically kept public. The rest of the information such as Team rank, Team size, SpeedGear models, Team members, etc, can be kept private.

The maximum number of members this badge can accommodate is 10. Any more than that and we will have to upgrade it to a Party Badge. So on and so forth until Large Guild Badge.

“So how’s BOA faring recently?” Venti asked while tapping the badge to register himself onto the system.

“Heh, you are still worried about them, huh? Not doing too good, to be honest. Cosa Nostra is catching up, and BOA kept paddling on the backfoot despite their wins. They have problems substituting their main players who are tired and overworked. I don’t think their newbies are ready yet.”

“Huh…..”

“You know something, Kon?”

“No, just a thought.”

So what Benji was saying is right. BOA is afraid of using their newer members for these matches because they are not sure who among the recruits are the Vipers. That’s why Benji mentioned the word overworked. Now the real question is, how far has the infection spread?

Last time Benji said it’s one-tenth of the members. What about now?

I can already picture where the direction of the guild is heading. BOA will have no choice but to relegate some of the more important duties to the newbies. They will try to lighten the main member’s load of having to keep Cosa Nostra at bay. Then it is just a waiting game to see BOA’s district being taken away slowly piece by piece through losses and internal tensions.

It will be a different story if they know who the Vipers are among the members, but in this case, badges are useless.

Even with a User name and Affiliation automatically made public, there are tons of ways to bypass the authenticity of a badge’s information. One of them is the fact that Iron Vipers themselves don’t have an official badge that they identify themselves with.

It’s rumored that they use tattoos or other small accessories as a way to verify themselves as Vipers. The rumor will stay as a rumor because it doesn’t take a genius to guess that the head of the Vipers will undoubtedly implement an identity rotation to maintain their secrecy. Meaning they are free to join other guilds when they are already affiliated to another unofficially.

At one point, I had a crazy thought of infiltrating this group of infiltrators by decoding their pattern of identity rotation. In the end, I dropped the idea completely. Upon further inspection, they have a proper hierarchy and I wouldn’t have gotten anything substantial unless I raised to a higher rank than the grunts. Even their captain rank knows little of the identity of other viper members, let alone the identity of another captain.

I have no doubt they have various countermeasures against counter-infiltration. The risk simply outweighed my curiosity so I called it quits before even attempting to do it. Me Infiltrating a Guild of Veteran infiltrators is like a kid trying to lie to an adult. I might as well serve my head on a silver platter.

So, I wonder what’s Venti’s take on all this. He has been hesitating a lot lately when it comes to BOA. I would say, if you want to help them then go for it. However, it’s not my place to say what Venti can or cannot do, because Venti quit the guild under his own terms.

That doesn’t mean I can’t nudge him a bit though.

“Venti you mentioned before that you are good at dealing with members who are misbehaving.”

“Yeah, that was my old daily routine.”

“Their numbers went from 2 to 12 now, so what say you to a bunch of dogs that needs to be disciplined.”

Venti grinned at that. Well, I have my suspicions regarding these stalkers, but If I’m wrong then it’s not my problem. At the very least, it will serve as a way to blow off steam for Venti so there’s that.

But let’s call Elizabeth and Zack just to be safe.

Otherwise, Zack will blame me for not letting him in on the fun.