Her shopping spree had to co to an end in a single day because she lacked funds. She went to exchange the rest of the old man’s gold and jewelry in different pawn shops, gaining another two million.
She was happy to see the new zeroes but also felt insecure because there was nothing to exchange anymore.
She had read all about the struggles of making money from the internet. Except for the ultra rich, people had to work for an entire day just to get eight to nine hundred danas or so, on average.
Many people worked two jobs, even, barely having the ti for a shut eye, and the earnings might just be enough for the basics.
Naia had struggled in the apocalypse all her life, so those problems felt minor, but as the money in her bank account dwindled, she couldn’t help but feel the sense of dread.
As such, carrying a bag with gold bars had felt comforting; she even had a habit of absent-mindedly caressing it when she was deep in thought.
Now that she had already exchanged it for intangible digital money, she couldn’t feel the comforting volu of a full bag anymore, so she felt so discomfort.
She also considered taking loans from banks, online, and so on, but pushed it aside for now. That’d need proof of identity, and the big loans from the bank needed credit or record of property and a job to get approved—none of which she had.
She couldn’t be revealed to be alive for now until the sperm donor was sentenced. Not only would that lessen his sentence, but if his litigation team was good, she could even be investigated as a suspect!
While the cri was unlikely to be pinned on her by the end of it, she did not want to go through the trouble of having to defend herself.
Anyway, ti ran quickly, and she felt her stomach rumbling. She went to a restaurant to eat her fill, ordering about three a la carte dishes on top of rice and dessert.
"Yum!" she said, particularly liking the braised pork dish. It was so soft, the at’s chewiness was just right, and it felt like lting it her mouth. The sauce was heavenly, coating her tongue with explosive savory flavor.
It partnered well with the stir-fried vegetables with special sauce. It had the right amount of flavor and crunch, making each bite rather satisfying.
"These are really good!" she told the waiter who passed by. "Can I order 10 takeout copies for each of these?" she asked. Not only that, Naia also pointed out several other things from the nu, ordering 10 duplicates for each one as well.
The waiter gaped, a bit startled, and took the order in a daze. Naia could tell the waiter was a bit worried about her bolting, so she took out her phone, paying then and there. She promised to leave a nice tip as long as they finished everything in an hour.
By this ti, the lunch hour rush had already passed, so her orders weren’t impossible to et.
While waiting, she decided to practice her power a bit. It wasn’t to place things in and out of her space—there was a CCTV near her—but another ability of the space she had discovered recently.
This was sothing that she learned a bit while she was practicing the upgrades and modifications.
It was a passive skill where her senses beco hyper-enhaced within the scope of the space.
The space itself was like an overlaid ’other dinsion’ over the real world, and it also seed to be active at all tis, even when she wasn’t ’opening’ it for storage.
Within the scope of the space—which was 3 ters by 3 ters in her case—she could pretty much hear and see everything, down to the floating dust.
It was like a domain.
Well, sort of.
She couldn’t do things like controlling what was inside. She couldn’t even pass through solids, like floors and walls.
To be more accurate, the skill was like a different sort of ’sight’. At least for now.
If she concentrated, she could even count the number of ants in this area. It was ntally tiring though, much like studying a difficult puzzle for an hour.
Interestingly, while she was experinting, she actually heard so interesting things in the neighboring room.
The restaurant she was in was inside a comrcial building, taking in a good portion of the first floor, and had a zzanine floor. It so happened that she was sitting in a corner of the zzanine area because she liked her privacy, and one of the units adjacent was a loan shark office.
A three-ter distance was just one room in a unit, but she got lucky because the place...was the boss’s office. She furtively scooted her chair closer to the wall until she was bumping into it.
They were discussing the status of their debt collection.
"Heh, that bastard is so useless. He can only cry and beg, please don’t! Please give a month! I need it for my daughter’s hospital bills!" one of the n said, mimicking voices in a mocking tone. "Ptooey! Did he think we’re charity!?"
"They’re so ungrateful! They get money from us but they make us work to get it back! Then they cry with snot after we get a bit handsy? Irritating!"
He said this as if their interest rate wasn’t compounding at 10% per month!
"Collection work is so annoying, especially with those self-righteous bastards!"
Another man fanned wads of cash, as if by habit. She could see so blood marks tainting the paper. Obviously, these bills had gone through a lot before reaching their hands. "Well, we’ll just cut a finger the next ti they are delayed."
They laughed and cackled, mocking the people they extorted while they relaxed in the rooms, drinking so expensive booze.
For the first thirty minutes or so, the topic revolved around those things as well as the won they bedded. The conversation ended when their long lunch break ended, and the n had to go back to work.
For example, several of them were sent out to resu their ’collection’ tasks. Considering how everyone had knives in their pockets, they were very much prepared for the task to get violent.
Interestingly, after most left the room to do various things, the boss and his assistant remained.
The boss habitually played with his gold watch before raising his head to look at his assistant. His lackadaisical expression turned a bit more solemn.
"How is ’that’ job?" he asked. "The execution must be perfect. The gains for finishing that one job is equal to a whole month of profit from interest."
"Yes, boss! We have confird the itinerary of the target. That poor chemist is very introverted and a well-known eccentric. He only has one or two places to go to every week. His accident will be clean."
"Good. Only those in the inner circle must know this," the boss said, nodding. "If we succeed, we can officially take on projects like these!"
Naia realized that the word ’execution’ wasn’t said in the context of a project. It was the literal ’execution’!
Holy crap! Was she just lucky to hear this much gossip during her first ti doing cross-room eavesdropping, or was the cri rate in this place higher than she thought?
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