Accidental Villainy 75

As much as I wanted to have a celebration after I sent Daria away after revealing my knowledge about her identity in the safest way possible, that was not exactly an option. Not when I revealed that impulsively, with little preparation for the future.

Not that I was having second thoughts. While unplanned, the opportunity was excellent, not only allowing me to extract one of the most dangerous time bombs I had been dealing with in her identity as Blue Princess but also giving me a number I could call if the Syndicate decided to break the pattern and bring even more force on me.

I didn’t expect them to as long as they continued to underestimate me and fear my imaginary backing at the same time. Such a move would be very uncharacteristic for them, but I wanted to be prepared nonetheless.

One could never have too many trump cards, especially a superpowered variety.

Of course, getting in contact with a famous heroine had been risky. Frankly, I didn’t know just how well my identity as a mercenary would hold, but it should be possible to arrange something with Emily’s assistance, particularly if she was using the new gear we set up in the basement.

After all, the stronger the computer, the stronger her abilities were.

“First step, the bar,” I muttered even as I walked downstairs after a shower. There were no customers yet, but one or two would inevitably appear, to check just how well I had been holding up after their attack.

Speaking of the attack, I remembered one detail I had missed while dealing with Daria. I needed to hit back to the Syndicate. I didn’t want to confront them, but it didn’t make sense for my mysterious backer to let that attack slide.

“This is why people stay away from crime,” I muttered even as stood back in the bar, mixing myself a drink. It wasn’t as strong as I needed, but I needed to work all night. Soon, a few customers arrived, looking tense. It didn’t surprise me. No criminal in their right mind would visit a place that had been just attacked. And, since their attitude showed that they were aware of the risks, they were not here of their own will.

I stayed behind the bar, acting like I played with my phone lazily. In reality, I was doing a sweep of the Syndicate members, hoping to identify them even better. It was hard work, as the higher in the ranks, the less digital presence they had.

Their friends and families weren’t as careful. As I browsed through a truly humongous pile of photos, school reports, news clippings, and many other documents. It was all public knowledge, as I was still not confident in Emily’s skills to let her hack things without touching, afraid she would leave some kind of digital fingerprint.

For the effort, I used my power nonstop, but avoided overcharging it. What I had been doing was more like sifting sand for gold nuggets rather than searching for a gold mine. A consistent boost was far more useful.

Especially since, Emily’s reports got much more accurate. A part of it was learning how to use her improved equipment better, but actually allowing her to

I wished that I could bring her back to the bar so that she could live here full-time and use the even better computer I had set up for her, but that was not yet possible, for one reason. Her continued access to the guild hall was still a valuable asset, and even if the guild didn’t pay much attention to the actions of their employees too much, I didn’t think they would miss her moving to the den of the villain they had attacked before.

No, for the moment, she would stay in her own apartment. Maybe after we developed reliable access to the guild, things would change. Her distance was making things harder. What we were doing, for example, would take much shorter if we were working with the multiple-screen setup we had downstairs, and talking directly.

Luckily, tonight was just about identifying targets, so we didn’t suffer from real problems.

Whenever she was looking for other things, I was paying attention to my other problem.

The lack of funds.

While I still had a lot from the two million I had received from the Syndicate as a ‘gift’, which sounded a lot, it was nothing in the big leagues, whether for villains or heroes — if it was, the New Giants guild wouldn’t have coordinated with the Syndicate to sell illegal weapons across the globe.

It was not a straightforward problem. The scale was the first problem. The truly functional equipment, rated for the usage of the supers, or designed to resist them, cost a lot. Even the cheapest stuff started from the six figures, and climbed up rapidly. It was also a reason why Daria didn’t call bullshit when I mentioned the job having a twenty million dollar payout, with a potential for further bonus.

It was just the scale the game was played.

However, if it was just the scale, it would have been easy. Collecting the money was easy. Just rob a few banks, kidnap a few rich people and drain their accounts, and viola. Unfortunately, that brought the next problem. How to purchase the said equipment.

In general, there were two channels to acquire equipment. The high-tech companies, sanctioned and overseen by the governments and the guilds together — mostly the guilds, with the government more of a pawn — and the black market.

Unfortunately, purchasing the equipment legally was a true hurdle. Not only did the money have to be squeaky clean — which either meant legal sources or excellent money laundering — but also the purchaser had to have an impeccable background to even have a chance of receiving it. Then, they had to prove their track record of responsibility, prove their ability to not damage the public, and many other hurdles that I didn’t even know.

The government wanted to keep the destruction of the country to a minimum, while the last thing guilds wanted was for their monopoly to be challenged. It wasn’t a huge surprise that I didn’t even begin to qualify. As an unknown villain that popped out of nowhere, I couldn’t get even get near the restricted equipment.

That left the other change. The black market.

Unfortunately, while it was free from the control of the government, I doubted that it was actually free from the control of the guilds. Even if I had any doubts, the fact that the New Giants cooperating with the Syndicate to supply the black market was proof enough.

That meant, while they might be laxer about the source of the funds and the reputation of the buyer, their concerns about maintaining their control over power were still valid. So, while there was a lot of equipment that could be purchased there, finding something that powerful enough to go toe to toe with top-tier talents was practically impossible for me. Maybe it might not be for a bigger, more established organization, but that was a different issue.

Then, there were the other problems. The first one was the price. Due to their illegal nature, the black market products were far more expensive. Horses, it was not a flat multiplier, like everything costing double.

For example, a laser rifle that could bypass some of the weaker damage resistances could be found relatively easily, and purchased not too far away from public price — still easily costing somewhere around a hundred thousand officially, and two hundred on the black market — but a power armor like the one that attacked my bar would probably cost ten times the official price, maybe even more.

I couldn’t even imagine just how much money the Syndicate was making through their illegal sales.

Then, even with all the price differences and the difficulty to contact, there was no guarantee of quality, or even delivery. It wasn’t rare for the seller to disappear once receiving the product … almost as common as the buyer tracking down and attacking the seller to recover their funds after the purchase.

Safety was not exactly one of the core features of the black market, and my enmity with the Syndicate made it even more of a challenge to use. I needed to be very careful if I used them.

I started to wonder if there was no other option. Like, using Emily’s access to the guild to put some fake orders in their name, or at least find a way to copy their credentials. It couldn’t work for bigger issues, but I should be able to get away with some smaller purchases like truly effective cameras. As long as I used my own funds to pay for the purchases, it should be doable.

That, of course, left the next problem.

Making money.