5:30 PM
With the red-light district's various proprietors respectfully seeing him off, Orsaga left that morally dubious place behind.
5:50 PM
Neutral Zone – Green Avenue – No. 115
Right on schedule, Orsaga arrived at the designated location.
According to the signage, it was a charmingly decorated dessert shop.
Hanging above the door was a wooden sign:
"This shop has been reserved for a private event. Please visit another location."
"…What the hell is with that ugly handwriting…"
It was so bad that if the translation system of the Matrix Purgatory weren't auto-decoding the characters, most people wouldn't have been able to read it at all.
Muttering his complaint, Orsaga pushed open the door.
Right inside, perched on a seat near the entrance, was a short-eared cat with an adorable look—so cute that Orsaga casually imagined how delicious it might taste roasted.
Sensing that the gaze directed at it was less-than-friendly, the cat—who had just been grooming itself—froze in place like someone hit a pause button.
After a few seconds of awkward eye contact, the cat silently hopped off the seat and slunk away into a corner.
Only then did Orsaga finally shift his gaze to the rest of the shop.
All the other tables and chairs had been cleared—except one.
Two women sat there.
Both were watching him, clearly confused about what that strange moment with the cat had been about.
One of them, clearly the one in charge, met Orsaga's gaze and gestured toward the seat across from her.
"Welcome. Please, have a seat."
No ID confirmation was needed.
The moment she saw Orsaga, she knew he was the one they were waiting for.
After all, Li Hanhe had described him quite vividly:
The creator of the venom Grenade—silver hair, red eyes, absurdly handsome, and a bit mentally off.
A guy like that was almost impossible to confuse with anyone else in the entire Matrix Purgatory.
They'd originally thought Li Hanhe had exaggerated, but in retrospect... he'd been rather conservative.
Especially Luna—the vice-captain and a former psychologist.
The moment she laid eyes on Orsaga, she realized his mindset was... different. Possibly dangerously so.
In most cases, even a slight element of coercion during a business meeting would stir up some resistance—whether irritation, unease, or suppressed aggression.
But not with Orsaga.
His gaze was completely calm.
No contempt, no hostility, no arrogance—just the same detached indifference he might show to a stranger on the street. Honestly, he'd looked more interested in the cat.
At least in that fleeting moment, Luna had seen a spark of curiosity in his eyes—like someone who saw a plastic bottle on the sidewalk and suddenly got the urge to kick it.
Uneasy, Luna discreetly sent a private message to the woman beside her.
After a quick glance at her phone, the woman—Elté, team captain of Heart of Elté—greeted Orsaga calmly:
"Nice to meet you. I'm Elté, the leader of the Heart of Elté team."
She motioned toward her companion.
"This is Luna, our vice-captain."
"Greetings, solo operator—Orsaga."
Orsaga nodded politely and shook hands with both of them.
Once he'd ordered a few desserts and a coffee, Elté got straight to the point:
"There's no need to dance around it. You already know why we're here. Originally, I was going to let Luna handle this alone. But considering the importance of the issue, I decided to come in person."
She slid a printed list across the table.
"We're prepared to offer a fair price for the venom Grenade manufacturing method. You can pick anything from this list—whatever you like. If the value isn't quite balanced, we'll adjust accordingly."
She wasn't wasting any time.
The item list read like a collector's dream:
Earth, Fire, Water Spirit Orbs (from Chinese Paladin)
Blacklight Virus (side-effect-free version)
One Ring of Supreme Power (The Lord of the Rings)
Hulk Serum (The Incredible Hulk)
Muscle Refinement Scripture (Hong Kong comics edition)
Celestial Treasure Almanac (missing final tier)...
After skimming the list, Orsaga got a rough idea of the value on offer.
To be fair—this was a strong package.
From a standard Purgator's perspective, cobbling together just a few of these would be enough to build an excellent enhancement setup.
Even a pig could be turned into a Super Saiyan pig.
But Orsaga wasn't your typical Purgator.
After finishing the list with an unreadable expression, he calmly asked:
"Do you have reward points?"
That caught Elté and Luna off guard.
Top-tier Purgators typically didn't care much about reward points. Most high-level items required special permissions to purchase. And once you had that kind of access, it was usually faster to just barter with other Purgators.
The Heart of Elté team only wanted the grenade recipe so they could arm mid- to low-tier members and prepare for certain high-risk scenarios.
So Orsaga's request was... unexpected.
Elté paused for a moment before replying:
"We do. You just want reward points?"
"Yep. Just that."
Out of a long list of flashy yet largely useless trinkets, he picked the one thing that was actually practical.
---
Ten minutes later
Everything went smoothly.
Both sides agreed to a fixed price without a single round of negotiation.
Orsaga checked his account balance and nodded in satisfaction.
Across from him, Elté and Luna smiled as they read through the documents they'd received.
They hadn't tested the method yet, but thanks to the Matrix Purgatory's notarization system, they had no doubts about its authenticity.
The instructions made it clear: venom Grenade manufacturing wasn't even difficult.
In fact, it was remarkably simple.
Even a complete novice could produce it—so long as they followed the correct steps.
The raw materials?
Easy to obtain.
Just perform a sacrificial ritual to a certain unnamed being, and after the first offering, you'd receive a seed material. That could then be cultivated to mass-produce grenades.
Zero barriers to entry.
You could literally hand the recipe to a group of normies and still mass-produce the product.
Overjoyed by the simplicity, Elté couldn't help but ask:
"Forgive my curiosity—but if it's so easy to produce, why did your team impose a purchase limit?"
Orsaga shrugged.
"I left the distribution rights to Li Hanhe. I don't bother managing how he sells them."
As far as Orsaga was concerned, Li Hanhe's artificial scarcity tactics were his own business. Not worth worrying about.
Hearing that, Elté didn't know how to respond.
Luna followed up with another question:
"Wouldn't it have been better to trade for something more valuable? Why ask for so many reward points?"
Orsaga responded honestly:
"They're for the red-light district. The people there are... very complimentary."
"...???"
Both women stared at him like he'd grown another head.
Without giving them a chance to respond, Orsaga stood up and left the dessert shop.
Elté: "Did I mishear that just now?"
Luna: "I'm afraid... you didn't."
Elté: "And before coming in, did he say your handwriting was ugly?"
Luna: "Please! Everyone on the team says my handwriting is excellent!"
_____
T/N:
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