Beth stared intently at the exposed man before her, her face filled with murderous intent. Gritting her teeth, she spoke one word at a time: "Fine! Add another million. I'm buying his life!"
"Splendid!"
Sephirot snapped his fingers, stepped forward to untie Beth's restraints, and handed her a mobile phone.
After confirming that the transfer of two million US dollars had successfully hit the designated account, Sephirot grabbed the middle-aged man and bound him tightly to the tiger chair.
The man wept and wailed, even offering blank checks in a desperate attempt to buy back his life for double the price.
Sephirot curled his lip in disdain.
The way the man was currently howling like a dying animal didn't make him look like a person with money.
"I'll leave the rest to you, Miss Beth." Sephirot gave an elegant, slight bow, gesturing toward the rows of hair-raising torture tools. "I'll be waiting outside."
Kicking the iron door shut, Sephirot listened to the shrieks coming from within. They sounded like a pig being slaughtered, the kind of howling one might only hear in a hospital's proctology department.
Regardless of the carnage inside, Sephirot, who had been busy for most of the night, finally had a moment to take stock of his gains.
He couldn't wait to summon the system panel and check the information.
[Ding! Legitimate and legal labor income detected: 2,000,000 US dollars]
[Side Quest: The Debt-Ridden Sparda, progress updated.]
[Current Progress: $2,000,000/$100,000,000]
[Two million has been automatically deducted from the debt; rewards obtained: One-time Trial Devil Arm Draw ×2]
Hearing the notification chime of a text message on his phone, Sephirot froze for a moment before the realization hit him.
"Wait, what about my twenty million? Why wasn't that counted?"
He carefully scanned the system panel, wondering if some kind of bug had occurred.
It wasn't until Sephirot's gaze landed on the explanatory text beneath the debt progress bar that he discovered the root of the problem.
[Please repay all debts through legitimate channels]
Sephirot slapped his forehead. He suddenly remembered that when the side quest was first triggered, the system had indeed provided this prompt.
He had simply been so stunned by the endless string of zeros following the hundred million dollars that he had subconsciously ignored it.
On second thought, it made sense. Without this restriction, he could simply throw on a mask and play a professional outlaw in Los Santos for a couple of days.
If he did that, forget one hundred million; he could fill a hole of several hundred million overnight. The system clearly wouldn't allow him to exploit such a loophole.
After a brief moment of shock, even with Sephirot's usual composure, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn upward.
Since the system didn't recognize that sum, it meant that the massive windfall had become his personal asset!
Through a legal transaction, he had secured two precious Devil Arm draws; meanwhile, the twenty million he had extorted from Ingrid remained untouched in his private account because it didn't meet the system's criteria!
If the system had actually siphoned off those twenty million, wouldn't he still be a penniless wretch after finishing this job and heading home? Things were different now; he truly had twenty million tucked away in his pocket.
Once that old bastard Dante returned, he was going to treat him to a massive strawberry sundae bath and show him exactly what the power of capital looked like.
Pushing aside his fantasies of the good life ahead, Sephirot issued a new command with high expectations:
"System, give me the draws!"
The expected lottery wheel didn't appear, and there wasn't even a flash of golden special effects.
After he sent the command, the system paused for only a brief moment before popping up new notifications.
[Congratulations, you have obtained: Faust Hat (Single-use trial card)]
[Congratulations, you have obtained: Yamato (Single-use trial card)]
Seeing the names of these two Devil Arms, Sephirot's expression froze.
For a moment, he didn't know whether to be happy about his good luck or lament his bad fortune.
[Faust Hat]: Can directly consume the user's money to unleash devastating strikes.
[Yamato]: Vergil's Devil Arm. A katana capable of easily cutting through space, tearing dimensions, and even separating a person's good from their evil. Sharpness incarnate.
The Faust Hat was one thing; it was a pay-to-win weapon that paired well enough with his current net worth.
But Yamato? This was a top-tier divine artifact capable of slicing through space itself!
Under any circumstances, this blade was an undisputed Tier 0 weapon. Logically, he should have been laughing in his sleep at such a gain.
But unfortunately, it only granted the right to a single use.
To be honest, back in his previous life when he played games, he had been a terminal hoarder.
If a trial card was too garbage, he disdained using it.
But if a trial card was too high-tier, he couldn't bring himself to use it.
He always felt that such a powerful trump card had to be saved for a life-or-death moment against some major boss to turn the tide of battle.
The result was usually that even after beating the game, these top-tier items would still be sitting in his inventory, gathering dust.
"Whatever, I'll keep them as trump cards for now."
Sephirot sighed helplessly, pushed these useless thoughts aside, and prepared to regroup with Patty.
...
—--
A long time later,
Reeking of a thick scent of blood, Beth staggered out of the factory building.
On her back lay the cold corpse of her friend, Whitney.
The Otherworld had receded; it seemed Alessa had finished enjoying her fun.
With every living creature slaughtered, the once heavily guarded abandoned factory had returned to its original, forgotten silence.
Perhaps a century from now, when this land was redeveloped and excavated, the bloody Hell buried deep underground would finally see the light of day once more.
Once Beth found an open clearing outside the factory and properly buried Whitney,
Sephirot stepped forward and asked, "Miss Beth, I'm planning to head back to the town. Do you want to come along?"
Hearing the word "town," Beth's body visibly trembled, a flash of lingering fear crossing her eyes.
If she hadn't met this man a few days ago, her fate likely wouldn't have been much better than Whitney's. "Why go back? That place is full of nothing but homicidal lunatics who'll pick your bones clean!"
Sephirot faced the night wind, his hair fluttering in the breeze.
"To see them off on their final journey, of course."
...
—--
The town, late at night.
Aside from a few obscene noises drifting from some dark corner, there wasn't another soul to be seen.
Sephirot and the others stood on a piece of high ground on the outskirts, looking down upon the town.
He nodded to Alessa, who was floating before him. "Do it."
"Let these demons in human skin suffer forever in the fires of Hell."
Bloody tears streamed from Alessa's eyes. The dress she had worn for so long lost its somber hue, returning to its original blue.
The little girl slowly ascended into the air. Pure dark power descended from the sky with her at its center, drowning the town.
*Bang!*
A series of sparks erupted from a transformer as the power grid failed, instantly plunging the entire town into darkness.
A thick mist began to rise. The barbed wire and hellfire of the Otherworld began to creep into every house.
Screams, wails, and the heavy sound of Pyramid Head dragging his blade formed a trio of terror within the fog.
As for the simple tourists, when they woke up tomorrow, they would discover to their horror that at least half of the town's permanent residents had vanished overnight.
Looking up at Alessa high in the air, Sephirot couldn't resist muttering under his breath, "Shall the world know pain?"
"Huh? What pain?"
Patty, standing beside him, hadn't quite caught his self-muttering and turned her head in confusion.
"Noth–"
Just as Sephirot was about to brush it off, the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
He spun around, arms snapping into a defensive guard.
*Bang!*
A large-caliber bullet slammed into the dirt by his feet, blasting a crater the size of a fist.
"Who's there?"
he barked.
"Wow, quite the perception you've got there, little Sephirot."
A voice laced with a hint of lethargy and playfulness drifted from not far away.
"Since when did you switch careers to become a demon?"
"This disgusting aura is exactly like that immature old man's. I knew I shouldn't have let him run around with you."
Hearing that familiar voice, Sephirot breathed a sigh of relief and let out a helpless, bitter laugh.
"Lady... don't you think it's about time you changed the way you say hello?"
(Translated by yourtl.app)