“Yes, uh, Barba Abigail, the owner of the ‘Veena’ bar in the city center. I owe her half a million gold coins.”
So Ivan said dejectedly.
what?
Hayden picked at his ear before he could fully understand what was going on.
Who is the female owner of the "Meiwa" bar?
Isn't she the little witch old lady who was eating cream puffs at his house just a few days ago?
But Ivan called her "Barba" Abigail. And the word "Barba" means "old lady" in Slavic languages.
In fact, you can tell from his name that Ivan's ancestors were Russian.
Calling a young girl, old woman, or witch "Grandma" isn't inherently wrong, but not everyone would dare to do it, or even know that it's acceptable. In other words...
“Barba Abigail helped me several times a long time ago, and she also helped me a lot three years ago. She is a good person.”
Ivan, drunk and sorrowful, said...
“I shouldn’t have renege on her debt, you know? I’m so sorry to the old lady. She’s our good friend.”
……ah??
044: The Gods' Comprador
A drunken Ivan Petrov rambled on and on with Hayden.
He told Hayden that hackers might have infiltrated part of the city's sanitation system in the past couple of days. He wasn't sure if it was the work of a cyberterrorism organization, which made him even more afraid. He also assured Hayden that as the sanitation company's technical manager, he would do anything to repay Hayden's kindness. He swore to money that his and his wife's next child would be named Hayden if it was a boy, and after Hayden's deceased mother if it was a girl. He also shared some office gossip, telling Hayden about a city councilor in the district who was having an affair and keeping a high school girl as a mistress.
Ivan Petrov certainly had a rough life. And he was indeed a bit foolish.
But then again, Hayden didn't think Ivan deserved some tragic end. Like everyone else, he was just an ordinary person. He shouldn't have to endure unnecessary fear because of the false atmosphere created by a big company.
Modern people seem to live in a fear created by capitalists. Shouldn't it be the other way around, in Hayden's opinion?
As for what Ivan mentioned about Abigail the Dark Witch, Hayden could only say he was very surprised.
Was Grandma Abigail a good person? She helped them a lot?
Is this for real? Isn't that person a witch who practices dark magic?
However, considering that [Bo Xun] had entrusted him with the task, it seemed that he could start with Abigail, so Hayden ultimately decided to help Ivan make this trip and negotiate with this creditor on his behalf.
Central, the heart and brain of New Seattle, is also the soul of its entertainment scene. By day, visitors battle the crowds to see the new Space Needle, the aquarium, and the oldest farmers market in the Americas. After dark, Central transforms into the heart of nightlife, attracting both corporate executives and street hippies.
In the southwest of the city center, there's a strip club called "Meiwa," a favorite among tourists and working-class people for decades. However, with the recent city-wide lockdown and widespread anxiety, while nightlife isn't prohibited, fear has significantly reduced the number of customers. The large dance hall, capable of holding hundreds, now appears deserted, and the neon lights on the ceiling seem listless. On the central stage, the strippers in denim outfits, who should be energetically performing pole dances, are now slacking off.
Just to be on the safe side, Hayden brought Angela home as a bodyguard. He wasn't interested in the current dance hall. Angela, on the other hand, kept looking around with curiosity.
Several burly men, all over six feet tall and clad in armored suits, quickly approached and led them past the side of the stage, deeper into the bar. In the innermost corner of that room, in a private booth separated by a thin sheet, the owner of the establishment waited on a recliner. She looked like a tall, red-haired, voluptuous witch with a slender waist and a full bust. Her eyes were as bright as flames, her skin smooth and flawless, enhanced by makeup. Her figure was curvaceous, and her low-cut black dress had a slit at the side, revealing a large expanse of her fair legs. She wore black gloves that extended past her elbows. She was so perfect it seemed unreal.
In fact, both Hayden and Angela knew that the illusion created by the transformation spell was not real.
Good evening, Mr. Hayden. What brings you here?
Even so, the Dark Witch's greeting to Hayden still sounded alluring, powerful, and confident. This strength of personality wasn't something empty pretense could provide. There were no intimidating bodyguards standing behind Hayden to lend her support, because Abigail the Witch didn't need such cheap tricks. The private room where she and Hayden chatted needed no one else.
Since they had some acquaintance, Hayden didn't bother with formalities and directly explained Ivan Petrov's debts and his inability to pay them back.
After he finished speaking, the Black Witch raised her eyebrows: "Mr. Hayden, you don't think I'm some kind of stupid loan shark, do you?"
Hayden shrugged: "At first, yes, but Petrov said you helped them a lot, that you were a good person, blah blah blah, and so on. So I decided to just come directly to you and ask about the situation."
Abigail sighed, then her voice turned sharp: "Mr. Hayden, while I've never considered myself a good person, I'm not stupid enough to lend money at exorbitant interest rates at a time like this. Do you really think there'll be any good outcome for doing something like that at a time like this?"
……ah?
"Loan sharking is a very bad thing, especially taking advantage of a crisis during this special period. The Mitra Group is busy diverting public attention from its escalating conflicts. If it finds out that someone is kicking it while it's down, causing widespread public resentment, what do you think it will do to me?"
The Dark Witch gave a cold laugh.
"Do you really think a big corporation like Mitra would protect a small-bourgeois like me for the sake of the 'free market'? They'll just slaughter us as soon as the masses start to hate us, using our corpses to project a good image to the public. Only those stupid gangster bosses would make money that they shouldn't have. I've lived for hundreds of years, don't I understand this?"
Hayden was speechless.
He had never truly considered this issue from the perspective of the petty bourgeoisie or underground loan sharks. What ordinary person would think like that?
“I lent 500,000 to poor Ivan. Although I did want to make money, I wasn’t expecting to collect much interest—we’re all in the same business, so I won’t hide it. Before lending the money to Ivan, I did a divination using the entrails of a pigeon. The result showed that lending him the money would bring me a windfall, so I lent it to him.”
As Abigail finished speaking, she stared at Hayden for a moment, then parted her lips slightly and let out a silent "Ah".
"Perhaps you are that windfall?"
This woman truly lived up to her reputation as an ancient witch; she even knew how to use bird entrails for divination. Hayden only knew that this ancient magic existed, but he didn't know how to use it. These days, perhaps only a few demons, witches, and blood mages from the Smoke Mirror Company who were still alive knew how to perform such ancient divination methods.
But that's getting off-topic. That's not the point right now.
The dark woman placed her hands on her knees and smiled at Hayden. However, Hayden didn't find her as harmless as she appeared. She said Hayden might be the windfall, but anyone could see that Abigail was clearly much richer than Hayden.
"I do have something I'd like to talk to you about."
Hayden shrugged and said
"This matter is also related to Ivan Petrov—what do you think of the Mitra Group's attempt to profit from the public panic? I'm referring to the fact that [Blessed Pure Land] is about to start offering discounted clone body downloads."
Upon hearing this, Abigail frowned immediately.
"Why do you ask?"
For some reason, her expression turned serious, and she also looked a little confused.
good question.
Hayden couldn't very well say directly that he was helping a group of anti-corporate terrorists; he wasn't that stupid. He had to probe indirectly, by asking around.
"Of course, it's to study the magic related to immortality and the human body."
So Hayden doesn't really blink when he lies.
"While consciousness uploading isn't a satisfactory method for achieving immortality for us, it's still worth exploring. Besides, I'd like to ask the ancient witch to share her wisdom."
Hey, Abigail loves hearing that.
"You have the nerve to call that the method of immortality?" The Black Witch said, though her tone softened. "You know, right? The true elites, those 'gods,' never use these things. They all have immortal physical bodies, and often perfect ones at that. What I need isn't that ethereal, elusive consciousness existing on a capitalist's server. How else do you think I can comment on recent events?"
Hayden nodded in understanding. This was pretty much what he had expected.
Interestingly, petty-bourgeois individuals like Abigail tend to have more sympathy for the lower classes who are deceived and exploited by big capital—especially someone as intelligent as Abigail. This is because deep down she understands that everyone is being exploited by large corporations, and that these corporations are fundamentally untrustworthy.
Some fools might be so naive as to believe that clinging to capitalists guarantees eternal wealth and luxury, but Abigail has lived for over four hundred years; she certainly wasn't that foolish. Someone that naive wouldn't have survived to this day.
“The market for immortality technology has been in complete chaos lately. Everyone’s worried about the servers being bombed by terrorists when it comes to consciousness uploading, everyone’s scrambling to buy clone bodies, and other companies are taking the opportunity to bring their own immortality products into the market.” So Hayden frowned. “You know, market chaos isn’t good for my research.”
Abigail sighed. "I understand. This lockdown isn't good for my business either."
The business she was referring to certainly wasn't this bar—how much money could that bar usually make? This black witch's main source of income was smuggling on the local black market in New Jersey. But now the Mitra Corporation had sealed off the city, cracking down on entry and exit. Even smugglers couldn't compete with a serious local corporation.
So, seeing that the conversation seemed to be going well, Hayden finally tentatively asked a more serious question: "So, do you have any good ideas to alleviate the current market chaos? At least to prevent everyone from panicking and hoarding goods like madmen, right? We can't trade normally like this!"
This question immediately struck Abigail as odd.
“What do you take me for?” She raised an eyebrow. “This lockdown and market adjustments were all instructed by Mr. Tidorata, the Deputy Marketing Director, who holds the authorization from the Mitra Board of Directors. He is one of the true ‘gods’ of this era. And me? I’m not even a part of the company, just some kind of comprador. Are you drunk and that’s why you’re spouting this nonsense?”
Comprador—that's not a good word. Abigail said it, of course, only to mock herself.
However, her self-deprecating humor reveals that this witch is well aware of her own nature—to put it bluntly, Abigail is an intermediary who facilitates communication between the god-like, high-ranking capitalists and the lower classes in the market.
So Hayden revealed a sly smile: "Didn't you just tell me a few days ago? 'The larger the company, the less it is a whole, not a single consciousness or individual, but a collection of many people and forces. And the interests of each person and internal faction may be different.'"
"This lockdown and the adjustments to the afterlife services market have certainly made some people in the Mitra Group very rich. But aren't there other upper-class people, or even other 'gods,' who have suffered losses because of the current lockdown and market chaos?"
Abigail fell silent as expected.
That's why Hayden came to her because of [Bojun's] request.
The task Alastor gave Hayden was actually quite simple, to put it bluntly.
[Bo Xun] didn't expect Hayden to solve the lockdown problem or help them escape at this critical juncture. It was clearly unlikely they could rely on Hayden. Rather, if Alastor needed to rely on Hayden for something like this, then [Bo Xun] and his ilk were truly useless, utterly incompetent. If they were truly that useless, Hayden wouldn't trust them either.
So what Alastor paid Hayden to do was actually to ask him to alleviate the panic and fear among the general public in the city as much as possible.
Alastor's original words were: "We, the 'Bojun,' originally intended to wage a war against large corporations, especially the Mithra Group, and did not plan to subject the people to the pain and fear they are experiencing now. But now we cannot stop, nor do we have the manpower to remove this panic. Therefore, we have no choice but to outsource this mission to you, Comrade Hayden."
Two days ago, when Hayden first heard Alastor say this, he stared at Alastor with his mouth agape, so shocked that he didn't even feel honored.
Then Hayden said something very similar to what Abigail is saying now: "What do you take me for? I'm just a city mercenary! What do you think I am? A superhero? Someone who can instantly alleviate the fear of all the civilians in an entire metropolis!?"
Alastor shook his head. Though he was smiling, he somehow seemed quite serious: "You underestimated yourself."
This was the first time anyone had ever said something like that to Hayden.
I'll pay you a commission of ten thousand every day. Just do your best. I don't demand results, I only ask that you have a clear conscience. And ultimately, Comrade Hayden, you yourself can't stand seeing the people being frightened and worried by big corporations using fake death threats, and you can't stand seeing big corporations using lies to squeeze more money out of the people.
That's certainly true.
Since Mara doesn't ask him to do anything too crazy, and is even willing to pay him 10,000 gold coins a day to do good deeds, what does Hayden have to complain about?
But after he actually started doing these things in the last couple of days, Hayden was surprised to find that he was actually quite good at this kind of thing.
For example, he has now found someone who is really good at doing this.
"...There are indeed some senior executives within the Mitra Group who have suffered losses and are very dissatisfied with the current market situation of New Yatu."
Abigail stared at Hayden for a long time before finally nodding reluctantly.
"But how could you possibly think that a middleman like me could have any influence with them?"
Hayden shrugged: "Just do your best. I'm not demanding results. Besides, we're all colleagues researching ancient magic, so there's no need to hide anything—from the perspective of ancient magical imagery, if the top executives of large corporations are gods and ordinary people like us are commoners, then what exactly is the person who can act as an intermediary between large corporations and ordinary people?"
The Dark Witch was finally speechless.
From the perspective of ancient magical imagery, the person who can act as an intermediary between gods and humans is naturally a priest or witch who connects the two realms.
In other words, it is an entity that can convey the will of the gods, speak on behalf of humanity before the gods, mediate between humanity and the gods, and even influence the will of the gods to a certain extent.
Abigail used the term "comprador" to mock herself, yet the two are strikingly similar: in that era, the so-called "comprador" not only had commercial relationships but also served as a translator. Just like ancient priests and sorceresses, they possessed a unique set of knowledge, knowing how to communicate with the gods, and they didn't pass it on to outsiders. Sometimes, priests and sorceresses in certain ancient religions might even have understood the secrets and relationships between gods better than some of the gods themselves.
Of course, in this era, there are many middlemen who work for the gods (big corporations) on the streets, and Abigail is not unique. But let's be clear, something is better than nothing, right?
"...Why should I help you with something like this?"
Finally, Abigail asked, somewhat annoyed.
"First of all, if market conditions improve, you, as a capital intermediary, will always be able to make more money."
Hayden held up three fingers.
"Secondly, I know neither of us likes to see the Mitra Group squeezing money out of ordinary people with half-baked fake immortality. You'd actually feel better if you saw that faction's plan in the company fail, wouldn't you?"
Abigail frowned, remaining noncommittal.
"In the end, regardless of the outcome, I owe you a favor."
Hayden bowed his head to the witch, the closest he came to a bow.
"The chaotic state of the city and the market will make it difficult for me to do my research. And I promise that after this is over, I will seriously help you research the magic of controlling physical age, and I will never get involved in any other messy farces until I have achieved results—provided, of course, that you continue to pay me research funds as usual and don't leave me without money to eat."
"how?"
045: They will surely gain life.
Abigail was eventually persuaded by Hayden. After all, Hayden's words were not without merit.
In reality, there are certainly some high-ranking officials within the Mitra Group who are dissatisfied with the current lockdown in New Yatu and the marketing department's exploitation of public fear for profit—not out of moral grievance, but because it harms their own interests. Some executives undoubtedly believe that a stable market will bring them greater benefits.
On the other hand, if Abigail were to capitalize on the discontent among the gods within the Mithra Group, it wouldn't be difficult for her to gain some benefit for herself. Moreover, what the gods considered "some" benefit would be a huge piece of meat for her.
In other words, Hayden actually brought Abigail a windfall.
...But Abigail was still very unhappy.
Hayden was a very intelligent and talented young wizard. Abigail had already realized this. That was why she dared to entrust him with the ancient magic that explored the mysteries of life.
Even so, and even acknowledging Hayden's genius, Abigail never believed that this young wizard could be more "powerful" than her. After all, she was the ancient witch, four hundred and forty-seven years old, the mysterious sorceress who had lived from before the Arcane Revolution to the present day. In all of New Yatu, disregarding the high and mighty gods, she should be the oldest and most powerful being.
(Powerful can be interpreted in many ways, including military strength, financial resources, and social influence, etc.)
So Abigail initially thought that getting to know Hayden and making him one of the options on her dinner menu would be a good idea.
However, now it is Hayden, her young wizard colleague, who is guiding her and has given her a condition that is rationally irresistible.
"Don't be too happy too soon."