At dusk, the last rays of the sun spilled over the city, painting its edges in gold.
Inside a tavern.
Figures shifted as people filled every table. There were office workers who had just finished their shifts, students gathered for parties, and a few scattered fixers drinking away their sorrows.
"Recently, disappearances have continued near Alley 5. Eldritch creatures known as dismemberers have been appearing frequently. Citizens are urged to stay vigilant and reduce unnecessary outings at night..."
In the background of the news broadcast, three fixers clinked their glasses. "Cheers!"
The three glass cups collided under the lights, the liquid inside swaying and reflecting the beaming smiles on their faces.
"It hasn't been easy getting this far in this city," the fixer wearing glasses said. "This job was handled beautifully. Solving that troublesome fellow must have earned us a fortune, right?"
The young man in glasses looked quite young, still carrying a hint of naivety, like a youth who had just graduated from an academy and stepped into society.
Beside him, a quiet girl nestled softly against him like a timid bird, taking small sips of juice from her glass.
Clearly, the quiet girl was the young man's girlfriend.
"Glasses, this job’s reward is over three thousand credit points. As usual, you two take sixty percent, and I'll take forty. How does that sound?" A muscular fixer downed his beer in one go, his voice filled with satisfaction.
"Yeah. Xiao Wen and I are almost done saving for a down payment. We'll be able to buy a house in the suburbs soon, and our wedding day isn't far off."
At the mention of marriage, both the young man and the girl's faces flashed with expressions of happiness and hope, as if they were already envisioning a beautiful future. After stealing a glance at each other, they both looked away bashfully.
Taking in the scene, the man laughed heartily. "Look at you young people. There's nothing to be embarrassed about regarding such things."
"It's not easy to have someone to lean on in this city, to be able to trust each other with your backs... Tsk, tsk. I wish you both happiness."
"Brother Qiang, when the wedding comes, you must show up. You've looked after me the most; we wouldn't have made it to today without you," the man in glasses said shyly.
"Of course! What are we, strangers?" Brother Qiang laughed loudly. "We're all from the Sunset Agency. I'll be counting on you in the days to come!"
"To our bright and beautiful future, cheers!"
"Cheers!"
The three glasses clinked once more.
The atmosphere was perfectly set, the reflected light still shining on their smiling faces. The trio’s talk of future expectations intertwined with the pleasant chatter of the other patrons, painting a picture of warmth.
Later that night.
Three drunken figures emerged from the tavern, walking forward along the path illuminated by the streetlights.
"You know, when I was young, I was just like you guys! Big ambitions! I was awesome, feared nothing."
The drunken burly man leaned on the man in glasses. Even in his intoxicated state, his voice remained booming.
"A-Sheng, you know what? I love you... You don't know how happy I was when you confessed to me."
The girl pressed her face—red as a ripe apple—against the man in glasses, clinging to him. Her words were filled with bliss.
"I'm going to marry A-Sheng and become A-Sheng's bride."
A-Sheng nodded without saying anything, leading the two of them forward.
Under the moonlight, the three shadows stretched longer and longer.
They passed through a series of winding alleys and entered the old district. The surroundings gradually became dilapidated. Old, illegally built houses lined both sides of the road, with power lines crisscrossing overhead like spiderwebs. The streetlights, which hadn't been maintained for years, began to flicker, occasionally emitting a buzzing sizzle.
Dust swirled under the dim lights. Moths fluttered their wings, the patterns on them looking like ghostly faces, their scales reflecting an eerie light.
The alleys grew narrower, darker, and more somber.
Before reaching an alleyway covered in graffiti where almost all the plaster had peeled off the walls, the burly man stopped, a look of confusion on his face.
"Huh? What's going on? Where are we?"
"I remember... the way back to the agency isn't through here."
He looked up at the sky and was instantly broken into a cold sweat.
A crimson moon hung in the sky.
The moonlight was sinister and vivid, drenching the entire street in a deathly stillness.
It was as if everyone in the city had disappeared. The noisy metropolis had suddenly turned into a blood-red ghost town, so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
"Hiss, where is this? I've never seen this road before."
Only then did the burly man catch the scent of rust permeating the air.
It wasn't the smell of rusted metal pipes found in old alleys; it was the smell of blood, and it was incredibly thick.
He looked around in panic, finally realizing something was wrong as his vision began to blur.
The yellowed walls of the alley were now crawling with bloody handprints—countless bloody handprints covered the entire surface!
A-Sheng stood before a wall covered in those handprints, his head lowered, emitting a strange laugh from his throat.
"What the fuck did you do!?" the burly man roared, his eyes nearly bursting. "Where have you brought us?"
"A-Sheng, what's wrong?"
Xiao Wen rushed forward in a panic, wanting to grab the youth's arm, but he violently shoved her away.
Seeing the look in A-Sheng's eyes, which were filled with deep-seated hatred and killing intent, the girl on the ground was startled, her lips turning pale.
"Where is this? Where the hell is this!?"
The burly man completely ignored the youth's abnormality. Like a drowning man, he desperately searched for an exit in the alley. When he reached the mouth of the alley based on his memory of where they came from, he froze.
A wave of coldness rushed from the soles of his feet straight to his brain.
At some point, a blood-red wall had appeared at the mouth of the alley, blocking it completely. It was several stories high!
In the middle of the wall, a number was written in flowing, crimson script.
—5.
"Alley 5... Alley 5..."
The burly man took several steps back, repeating the name like he was possessed.
As if realizing the horrific end they were about to face, his eyes became bloodshot as he screamed at A-Sheng:
"You bastard! Why did you lead us to this place?"
"Why are you trying to kill me?"
"I looked after you so much! Has your conscience been eaten by dogs?"
"Yeah, A-Sheng! Brother Qiang never did anything to hurt you! And we're about to get married! What's wrong with you?"
"Enough!!" A-Sheng's gaze felt like it could tear them apart.
"Wang! I treated you as my most respected senior! Every time, I gave you a share of the rewards from our commissions! What did you do to me!?"
"You tricked me into signing an organ loan with Universal Heavy Industries! After a few years of compounding interest, I finally realized I'm carrying a debt I can't pay back in this lifetime! If I don't finish paying in a few days, those damn jackals will come to my door to dismantle my body parts!"
"How many times did you plot against me behind my back? How many times did you betray me?"
"A-Sheng..."
"And you! You slut, shut up! You think I don't know what you two were doing behind my back?"
"That day I came home, I saw that slutty expression on your face with my own eyes, telling that bastard to push faster! If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed you could say those things!"
"All my life... for the sake of our marriage, I crawled on the ground like a dog!" A-Sheng roared. "And this is how you treat me!"
As if having completely snapped, A-Sheng spread his arms, his face contorted. "I can't live. Since no one will let me live, then let's all die together!"
"It is now 8:15 PM."
"Alley 5's bloody supper time is about to begin..."
Countless streaks of thick, crimson liquid smelling of filth surged up from the sewers. Before long, it had covered the trio's feet.
"They're here..." The burly man also broke down, as if seeing a vision of his despair. He completely gave up even the thought of resisting. "They're here..."
One by one, twisted humanoid monsters with grotesque forms crawled out from that foul-smelling crimson liquid. They wore metal masks and were covered in crimson alchemical armor. One of their arms was replaced by a rust-covered scythe, but the most jarring feature was the giant metal tank on their backs. The tanks were filled with that same crimson liquid, and one could vaguely see various organs that hadn't been fully corroded swaying inside.
"tsu ta saka."
The monsters noticed the three people in the alley and communicated in an unknown tongue.
"saka."
A massive monster wiped the chainsaw on its arm, a red light flickering beneath its metal mask.
The chain began to rotate violently, roaring loudly.
"Ah!"
Seeing the monsters approaching them, Xiao Wen screamed and ran toward the mouth of the alley.
The violently rotating chain tore into her chest.
Buzz— Buzz— Buzz—
The girl was dyed red under the sinister moon, turning into piece after piece that flew everywhere.
She became the first living sacrifice of this crimson supper.
Buzz— Buzz— Buzz—
Buzz— Buzz— Buzz—
An unknown amount of time passed.
The red moon in the sky gradually turned pale, and the bloody handprints on the walls vanished bit by bit.
The thick crimson liquid receded back into the sewers like a retreating tide.
Vaguely, on the surface of the last glob of gel-like crimson liquid, one could see the facial contours of Brother Qiang, A-Sheng, and Xiao Wen.
Their faces were pressed tightly together, their flesh mixed and blended. Their eyes were closed, as if they had entered a peaceful slumber.
Rate on N.U.
