Chapter 119: Psychic Battle Royale

"You're right."

Shota Sato was even more eager to get out of this place than everyone else. In contrast with Hook and his friends, who were regularly placing themselves in harm's way, Shota avoided risk as much as possible at every turn. The majority of the lower-level members of the Psychic Church worked for the organization with the intention of doing the bare minimum while enjoying all of the benefits that came with a job at the Psychic Church. Hence, most of them shied away from dangerous situations, which was why Shota was particularly disgruntled by the predicament he was currently in.

He still had his reservations about Adam's assessment of the situation, but at the very least, a path forward had been presented, and he would just have to grit his teeth and walk down that path.

"The only question I have is how are we going to find the footage? There are millions of people here, all of whom are potentially mentally unstable, and weapons run rampant in this city. Not only is searching for a piece of footage here like searching for a needle in a haystack, it's an extremely dangerous task as well," Shota Sato said.

"That's true..." It was undoubtedly going to be very difficult to find a certain item in a city like this.

"If someone with power and influence were dealing with a situation like this, they would generally approach the top dogs in the area to work together. For a person, it's difficult to find something in the sewers, but it's far easier for a rat, and if you can find the king of the rats and get them to help you, then that's essentially already half the job done."

Thanks to Shae's privileged upbringing, she was able to view the issue through the lens of someone from a higher socioeconomic class to identify the crux of the matter.

"According to the observations that we've made over the past two days, I'm sure all of us have already gathered some general information. The top dog of this city is a man who goes by the title of director. This director is the organizer of the arena matches and the lord of this city. However, he prefers to be referred to as director rather than lord, but what he prefers the most is to be referred to as a philosopher."

"It's not going to be easy to get him to do your bidding." It was Baldie Lin who spoke on this occasion.

He was a true local of Shadow City, so he naturally knew more about the director than Adam and his group.

"The director is a madman, someone who clearly has something wrong in his head. You definitely won't be able to get him to work with you through conventional means."

"How should we approach the situation then?" Shota Sato asked. "According to the Psychic Church's standard protocol, we would first get into contact with this director, then grant him certain benefits in exchange for his cooperation."

"That would normally work, but the director refers to himself as a philosopher, and philosophers aren't easily swayed by practical benefits."

"Then what can we do?"

"You can participate in the super battle royale. Each year, the champion of the battle royale can make a wish to the director, and the director will do everything in his power to grant that wish. Someone has once secured an astronomical sum of a billion through their wish. That's the quickest and likeliest way I can think of for your to achieve your objective."

"What is this super battle royale about?"

"The super battle royale is also known as the Psychic Battle Royale. Have you visited the largest sports stadium in the city yet?"

"I have."

"Me too."

"I haven't..."

Out of everyone in the group, only Adam and Nie Yiyi had visited the stadium. The former was interested in anomalies, while the other had an insatiable thirst for battle. Otherwise, most people who had only recently arrived in the city wouldn't go to watch the matches held in the stadium.

"In that case, it'll be a lot easier for me to explain. For those who haven't visited the stadium, you'll just have to take my word for it. The gist of the matter is that the people here are huge fans of all types of combat competitions, and the gorier the fights are, the better. The most popular form of combat competitions here is psychic battles."

"Hold on, surely adapters wouldn't participate in competitions like this." Even though Shota's personality was far milder than Orster's, he was still a member of the Psychic Church, so he possessed the same pride that all members of the Psychic Church did, instilling within him the notion that adapters were fundamentally superior to normal people.

"Most of the participants aren't adapters. Instead, they're artificial adapters. I don't want to spend too much time explaining the logistics to you, you'll have to see it for yourself to know what it's all about. The battle royale is different from normal fights in that it brings together over 100 participants, and it's the most heavily anticipated annual event in the entire city.

“The combatants who have earned the most points for the year will be able to form teams of four, and they'll be placed into a massive psychic setting where they'll be hunted by emotional anomalies. The team that survives to the very end and earns the most points will be crowned as the winner."

Despite Baldie Lin's explanation, most of the people around him were still looking rather confused, and he was beginning to run out of patience. "You won't learn anything just by hearing me talk! Go to the stadium and see for yourselves. There are many finer details that you can only grasp through seeing. There are two months left until the tournament anyway, and that's plenty of time."

After that, Baldie Lin returned to his work, leaving everyone to their own devices.

During the past few days, Adam had come to understand that Baldie Lin was absolutely obsessed with mechanics. Most of his waking hours were spent studying mechanics, and he wasn't interested in anything else, nor was he very warm and welcoming to his guests.

Basically, he was opposed to anything that would get in the way of his studies.

The reason why he had chosen to settle in Shadow City was also different from everyone else. He was solely here because he could acquire all types of illegal parts in this city to refine his creations.

"Let's go pay the stadium a visit." Everyone knew that they weren't going to get any more information out of Baldie Lin, so they all stood up and were quickly on their way to the sports stadium.

After returning to the stadium, Adam used the remaining balance on his card to purchase tickets for the three people in their group who still hadn't seen the matches so that they could develop a better understanding of this place. After all, it was very difficult to properly explain what the matches consisted of and what concepts such as artificial anomalies and artificial adapters were all about.

While the trio was inside watching the matches, Adam and Nie Yiyi went straight to the ticket booth. Adam's intention was to directly enquire the workers at the ticket booth about how to participate in the matches and the rules of the fights, but he was stopped by Nie Yiyi.

"We're supposed to be locals right now. Wouldn't it be suspicious if we went around asking things that locals should already know?" Nie Yiyi asked.

They were wanted fugitives right now, so they had to keep their identities a secret. In particular, now that they knew that the Oni Organizaiton hadn't gotten their hands on the footage that Hook had captured, they were in an even more perilous situation as it was very likely that the southern congress or the Oni Organization could send people to Shadow City to investigate the whereabouts of the footage.

"You're right, I didn't consider that at all. We're not even familiar with a lot of jargon used in this place, so we could easily expose ourselves if we're not careful."

After a moment of contemplation, Adam pulled out his communicator.

Hailey's contact details were stored on the communicator, and there was an attached note that read "Make sure to call me!".

"I didn't think that I would have to contact her again so soon."

"Who?"

"Just a local that I met while watching the matches here last time. At the time, I had no plans to participate in these matches, so I didn't ask her any questions, but it looks like we've had a change of plans."

Adam dialed Hailey's number as he spoke, and not even a single full dial tone had been completed before the call was connected. "Hello? Is that you, Mr. Hitman?"

"Well, that was fast..."

"I constantly have my communicator on me. I hold it even while I'm sleeping! What do you need? Do you need my help? I'm happy to offer my services at any time. Where are you right now?"

"I'm at the stadium."

"Alright, I'll be there in 10 minutes. Make sure you don't go anywhere!"

The call was still connected as Hailey set off to meet Adam, and all of a sudden, a string of loud noises rang out from the other end of the line, as if a bunch of pots and pans had just fallen onto the ground.