Chapter 353.


    <strong>Chapter 353. Forming a Strategic Alliance. (5/10)</strong>


    <span style="font-weight:400">“And why should I hear you out?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“If you want revenge on Swastika for what they’ve done, this is the best opportunity you’ll ever get. If you pass up this chance, your future will definitely be bleak. Your entire gang will be wiped out so thoroughly you won’t even be remembered in the future.” That was the conclusion I’de to. I didn’t remember their gang in the future at all. I had, however, heard of Swastika though. If Faceless was in any wayparable to Swastika, then it was only right to assume they’d been wiped out.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Wiped out? You think we’d go down so easily?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“If it was a fair fight, maybe you’d be able to put up a fight. But do you think Swastika would entertain a fair fight? From what I heard, their leader sounds like a schemer to me. As we speak, you may very well be dancing in the palm of his hand, stuck within a spider web he’s weaved and not even realize it. An invisible noose may already be around your neck and you just can’t see it.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Slowly, but surely, he’s tightening that noose. And before you know it.” I kicked the chair beside me and it slid a short distance before it fell on its side.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just like that, he kicks the chair you’re standing on from right under your feet. Do you want to let him kick that chair so easily? To hang there helplessly suspended in the air as the power drains from your body, the color fades from your eyes, and the world inevitably turns to ck?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Of course I don’t want that! But there’s nothing I can do to stop them! They outnumber us two to one. Six hundred vs three hundred. We may be the secondrgest gang in the city, but the disparity in numbers isrge enough that we’ll suffer heavy damage. Even if we somehow came out on top, it’d be a pyrrhic victory.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A pyrrhic victory is still better than being wiped out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“It may as well be the same thing.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Then… what if I said there was a way to crush them in one fell swoop while retaining zero losses on your side?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’d say you’re full of shit.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“The reason you want a normal guy for a boyfriend is because you want a strategist, is it not? Your side has the brawn, but it doesn’t have the brains. I can only presume the previous leader was that central brain, but now that they’re gone, your gang is missing that critical piece.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Shut up! What would yuh know actin all important when you don’t know nothin about anythin? Lea’s a great gang leader! She’s a lot smarter than us idiots. She’s doin just fine as the Leader!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Shia, stop. It’s fine. What he said isn’t wrong. I’m not smart, clever, or cunning like Uncle was. He’s… correct. The reason I’m trying to find a normal guy… is exactly as he says. I want someone normal, as in, having a good head on their shoulders unlike me. I’m too stupid… it took three years just to pass a knowledge test for motorcycles.” She sounded extremely bitter.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaaah. But normal guys aren’t interested in me at all. They all just run the other way. Then stupid couples go gvanting around rubbing their love in my face.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Just don’t wear that face mask everywhere and keep your motorcycle at home. Isn’t it pretty obvious why guys are running away? You’re intimidating them. But then again, I doubt normal guys want to get caught up in gangs. Your approach is pretty stupid.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re always calling me stupid, it’s annoying! I know I’m stupid, you don’t need to remind me all the time!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You just called yourself stupid though, so what does it matter if I call you stupid?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I can call myself stupid, but I don’t give you permission to.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Why not?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Because.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Because what?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Because I said so.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You two… get along surprisinly well?” Shia tilted her head to the side with a hard-to-understand expression on her face.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, they certainly do,” Yuna concurred then immediately followed up, “it must be because they’re both idiots. As they say, birds of a feather flock together.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Please don’t lump me together with her. I may be an idiot, but I’m not as big of an idiot.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, don’t lump me together with him. I may be an idiot, but at least I’m an idiot who can ride a motorcycle at top speed without copsing to my knees on the ground and kissing it when getting to my destination.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“That happened?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re his girlfriend, right? So get this, I gave him a ride to a restaurant so we could get something to eat during our lunch break when we were doing the motorcycle training course together and when we got to the restaurant he couldn’t even stand up straight. He was some.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“She’s exaggerating. I was able to stand just fine. I just had the sudden urge to show my appreciation to Mother Earth for being so kind to me all these years at that moment in time.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Pfft. Appreciation to Mother Earth? What ame excuse.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Not asme as you. I heard from my girlfriend here that you were seen hugging our store’s mascot. How embarrassing. So you got rejected that day and you were trying to mend your broken heart by hugging a cute mascot character.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Huh? What? She saw that? Wait, now that I get a good look at you. Aren’t you the cashier, the one that mascot character was modeled after?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes, that was me back then. It took you long enough to notice.” Yuna nodded as she confirmed it was her.


    <span style="font-weight:400">Lea’s face stiffened up. Despite the facemask, it was still easy to tell. She covered her face with her hands and squatted down on the ground.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I was seen? This is too embarrassing!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah, so embarrassing. I’d want to die too if I were you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Don’t… you dare… tell anyone in my gang about this. Shia, you are not to tell anyone what you heard here. You got that?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Heheh. I heard somethin pretty good~”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Shia! Promise me!”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I dunno, maybe I will, maybe I won’t.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll get you something good if you keep your mouth shut.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Something good? Like what?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“A new engine upgrade for your bike.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Oh~ I never heard anything up until now, I was actually spacin out this whole time.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Lea let out a sigh of relief and said, “Good, then please return to the garage with everyone else for the time being.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alright, will do. I’ll be looking forward to that engine upgrade you promised.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Shia exited through the door connected to the garage and left the three of us alone.


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Shia may have promised, but I haven’t promised yet.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I’ll shoot you right here right now.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Okay, I get it, I get it. I’ll promise, however, you’ve got to promise you’ll have a little chat with me alone and hear me out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Alone? Not even with your girlfriend around?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“The less people who hear this, the better. I’m not saying this will happen, but let’s say she gets caught by Swastika and is tortured to spill what she knows about what I say to you here, the possibility of destroying Swastika would go down the drain, that’s all I’m saying. Even if she told them anything she knew, they still wouldn’t let her go. Her only chance to be saved from the worst-case scenario if caught by them is their destruction. It’s better for her if she doesn’t know the contents of what I’m about to discuss here with you.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re being serious about destroying Swastika?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yes. One hundred percent serious. And I’m confident.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Get real. You’re just sixteen and you think you can single-handedly destroy thergest gang in the city by yourself?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“I, by myself, ampletely powerless to do a thing as you say. That is, if I were operating alone, the odds of me taking down Swastika would be zero percent. However, I do have a n. It requires the cooperation of your gang. That’s all I can say until you agree to hear me out.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">Lea turned her attention to Yuna and asked, “As his girlfriend, what do you think? Is your boyfriend full of hot air? Is he boasting when he’s still just a useless kid in high school?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“You’re really asking me for my input on this?”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Yeah.”


    <span style="font-weight:400">“Haaaaah. If you ask me, I can’t even imagine it. It sounds ridiculous. He’s totally delusional. He says he has a n to take down thergest gang in the city? It’s the first I’m hearing of it. He kept saying he was still trying to think of something when I asked him how he nned to help me get out of this whole ordeal not too long ago, and now he’s suddenly saying he’s concocted some sort of master n to destroy Swastika. Yeah right. I don’t buy it for a second. I’ll believe it when I see it. That’s my honest opinion. But… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with at least hearing his n out. Though he doesn’t seem to trust me enough to tell me what it is.”