"What the hell happened here?"
Even Calvin who had seen a lot in the course of his life couldn't help but frown upon seeing the scene inside the room.
"T-This..."
Christine hurriedly covered her eyes. She had caught a glimpse of that 'sausage' and the sight of it alone thoroughly embarrassed her.
"You can go out, for now, Christine. It's not convenient for you to be here." Calvin commented.
"Right..."
Christine awkwardly took a step backward before she turned around and left the room.
When the doors were closed, Calvin flicked his wrist and the rope that suspended Fatty Zachary was split into two.
He immediately fell onto the floor with a dull thud.
"Several hematomas and some fractures and a sprain on his ankle. He must've tried to run but failed." Calvin deduced.
He lifted Fatty Zachary's eyelids and noticed that his pupils were still responsive to light.
This was a good sign.
Pinching on an acupoint, Fatty Zachary's eyebrows furrowed and he soon came to his senses.
The first scene that he saw greatly startled him.
"C-C-Calvin?!"
"Why are you here?"
"Am I dead?"
"Am I already dead?"
"Is that why you're here? Because I am in hell?"
Smack!
Calvin immediately sent a smack on the back of his head as he said, "We saw you crying on the staircase of the dormitory area earlier. We followed you, and we found you here. What the hell is going on? What are you doing in this exclusive room of the House of a Thousand Thrusts?"
Calvin's explanation was succinct and contained everything that Fatty Zachary needed to understand the situation.
"Wait!"
A chill enveloped Fatty Zachary's body as his pupils constricted.
"We're in the House of a Thousand Thrusts?"
"W-Where are those bastards?!" He stood up, startled.
"Calm down, my guy. Take a seat. Your injuries are too severe for you to move wildly like that. Also, wear some clothes. We're not the only one here." Calvin was displeased seeing Fatty Zachary dangling his "sausage" so blatantly in front of him.
"Oh..." Fatty Zachary immediately realized what was going on.
An embarrassed look appeared on his face as he sat down and wrapped his body with a towel.
"You sure are quite tolerant when it comes to pain." Calvin couldn't help but comment.
The injuries that Fatty Zachary sustained were severe enough that any ordinary person with such injuries would definitely be in a world of pain. But Fatty Zachary was able to move so abruptly and with such vigor as if he wasn't in pain.
Fatty Zachary bitterly smiled. "I've always been tolerant to pain. I have to."
Calvin saw the turmoil within Fatty Zachary's eyes and he couldn't help but let out a sigh. "I guess even someone like you also has his own secret stories to tell."
"Heh." Fatty Zachary snorted in a half self-deprecating and half-proud manner.
"What happened here, Fatty?" Calvin asked.
Fatty Zachary's figure trembled for a moment before he returned Calvin's question with a question of his own. "You said, 'We' earlier. Is there someone else out there? You didn't come here alone?"
Calvin nodded. "Christine's out there. She's outside the room. I don't think that I still have to explain why I had her stay outside, right?"
"T-T-Thanks..." Fatty Zachary awkwardly scratched his head.
Even someone as shameless as him still knew how to feel embarrassed. He had never been proud of his pecker and if a girl saw it while he was in such a compromised and vulnerable state. He didn't know if he would still have the strength to live and see tomorrow's sunset.
Calvin instantly saw through what Fatty Zachary was thinking and he couldn't help but think to himself.
'I should probably tell Christine to forget everything that she saw in this room. If Fatty knew that she saw everything, this poor guy would definitely be devastated to the point of depression.'
"Take a bathrobe out of that closet and come to the living room. We have a lot to talk about."
Calvin eyed the wristband that signified the Patron of Luck and Fortune around Fatty Zachary's wrist. A grim look appeared on his face as he walked out of the door and headed for Christine.
"What's going on? Is he alright?" Christine asked.
"Yeah, he is. But he won't be once he knows that you've seen everything that he has to offer."
Calvin teased.
Christine's cheeks abruptly blushed. "You rascal..."
Thinking of the scene earlier, she couldn't help but softly whisper. "I didn't expect that men could be that small..."
"Hey, don't be like that. He has a legitimate medical condition." Calvin criticized.
"Eh? That's a disease?" Christine was shocked.
"You can't really call it a disease. It's not something that can be treated. In my hometown, we call this genetic predisposition as having a 'micro-pener'."
Calvin explained.
"I-I see..." Christine's complicated emotions about the scene that she had seen had finally turned cohesive and into pity. She was now pitying Fatty Zachary because even though she was mostly ignorant in the matters between men and women.
She was still knowledgeable enough to know that 'bigger' was supposedly better.
Calvin stared speechless at Christine.
How could he not understand what she was thinking?
But since her feeling of pity towards Fatty Zachary's plight was advantageous due to the fact that she would now be less likely to tell anyone else about what she had seen...
Calvin decided to close his mouth and didn't say anything.
"Hey, Calvin... do you have any idea in regards to Zachary's situation? What happened to him? Why did someone string him up like that?"
Christine asked.
"I am as clueless as you, Christine. We have to wait until that Fatty comes out—speaking of the devil, here he comes." Calvin smiled. He saw the doorknob being turned and as the door opened, Fatty Zachary came walking out with an indifferent look on his face.
He quickly found a couch to take his seat before he turned to look at Christine and said.
"Thank you."
"What is this all of a sudden?" Christine beamed with a smile.
A teasing look was in her eyes. To be honest, she felt as if she couldn't suppress her urge to tease Zachary of what she had seen in the room earlier.
Fortunately, Calvin shot her a glare.
His glare made her realized that there were some matters that shouldn't be taken lightly at all.
Especially when it concerned that "thing".
After all, "that" was a man's joy and pride.
"Calvin told me that both of you saw me crying and decided to follow me here to take a look."
"Thank you." Fatty Zachary expressed his gratitude.
"Gratitude accepted..." Christine casually commented, "But if you really appreciate what we have done, why don't you tell us why you even came here in the first place?"
"It's my father..." Fatty Zachary replied.
A bitter look was on his face as he explained, "As you all know, I came from a family of civil servants..."
"But to be honest, the government has been really muddy lately and my father decided to invest some of his money into creating his own company. Unfortunately, since he dedicated most of his life to clerical works within the government."
"He has completely no idea as to how the real estate market works..."
"He bought a commercial property at an exorbitant price only for the land's value to decrease overnight due to the creation of a landfill close to that commercial property."
"What's worse was that the agent who sold my father that property unscrupulously manipulated some terms of the contract that my father, for some reason, didn't bother to read properly..."
"He must've thought that as long as it was land property, it would always be valuable and expensive. But now that the government decided to create a landfill near that property, who would be willing to buy that property?"
"In addition, he can't possibly establish his own company in a place like that! How can he endure the stink then?"
"In the end, my father was forced to sell that property at a loss."
"But the next day, it turned out that the news he received about the establishment of a landfill near his property was actually fake!"
"The newspaper that he received from his monthly subscription that day had been tampered unbeknownst to him!"
"Enraged, my father looked for that agent, raring to beat him up. But he was led underground and had his ass handed over to him."
"But despite being beaten up, my father even had to pay those bastards since my father allegedly caused them 'emotional damages'!"
"My mother paid them, but she used the money that we were supposed to remit to the government for tax purposes."
"The deadline for the tax payment had long passed. My mother used the services of a loan shark to pay our taxes incurred from the selling of that land property at the market value..."
"At the market value?" Calvin asked, "I thought your father was forced to sell that at a—"
"That's right!" Fatty Zachary suddenly exclaimed. "It doesn't make sense!"
"Apparently, there's some obscure Joselian law that states that the taxes we have to pay for the selling of properties will always be based on the market value of that property at the time of selling..."
"This wouldn't normally be a problem, but we didn't manage to sell that property at market value!"
"We had to pay more than the amount we had gotten from selling that property." Fatty Zachary's eyes went bloodshot. "As expected, my mother wasn't able to pay those loan sharks..."
"The death threats she received on a daily basis since then caused her health to fail. In the end, she was admitted to the hospital and I only knew about all of these today!"
"I was supposed to meet my father here in Azucar, but I should've known that there was something strange."
"My father had always been a proud person, yet why did he write in that letter that he wants to apologize to me?"
"How could that man possibly apologize?!"
"I was too emotional! Knowing that my mother was hospitalized, I had no doubts and obediently came here to Azucar."
"I didn't see my father at all. When I turned towards that alleyway, something hard struck my head. When I woke up, I found myself here with that bastard pointing a strange steel weapon at me that can even pulverize stones..."
"They demanded that I give them the properties that are under my name, and in exchange, they will forget about the debts that my mother incurred."
"And you gave their demands?" Christine asked.
"Of course not!" Fatty Zachary retorted, "Those properties will be the basis of my dreams in the future! How else can I possibly retire early and have as much fun as I can with the ladies if I do not have those properties to serve as my passive income?" Fatty Zachary snorted.
A dignified look appeared on his face.
But Calvin looked awkward.
As well as Christine.
'Have fun with the ladies? Can he even have se—no, d-do it with them with that small thing...?'
Christine thought to herself.
Calvin saw what the young lass was thinking and he couldn't help but chuckle.
"What are you laughing about?"
Fatty Zachary frowned, "Are you trying to imply that my dream is bad?"
"How can it be bad? A man must be ambitious, but happiness can only be discovered after satisfaction! If I will never be satisfied and chase after lofty dreams, with my capability, do you really think that I'll be able to succeed?"
"Uhm... No?" Calvin responded.
"See!"
"That's why I don't bother about being overly-ambitious."
Fatty Zachary crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking proud.
"What are you going to do now?"
Christine asked, "Are you not going to get back at them for what they had done to you?"
Fatty Zachary bitterly smiled. "As much as I would love to do that, I am not stupid, Christine."
"I know my limits..."
"Fatty..." Calvin suddenly spoke up.
Shaking his head, he said, "You told us that they wanted something from you..."
"Do you really think that they will let you go so casually after you've interacted so close with their members? What's more, since you hold something that they desire, they will definitely do everything to take everything that they wanted from you."
"In short, they will never let you go!" Calvin sternly warned.
Christine nodded her head in agreement.
Unscrupulous gangsters would always go to any lengths to satisfy their desires.
Fatty Zachary's expression quickly paled. "How..."
"How did I not think of that?"
"Shit!"
"What should I do now, Calvin?"
Calvin smiled. "What you should do right now is to go back to the training camp and make some excuses for me and Christine. The two of us will stay here and take your revenge for you."
"..." Fatty Zachary didn't know what to say.
"Calvin is right. You are too injured to do anything. I doubt that those people will be able to do something bad in the training camp. You'll be safe there." Christine persuaded.
"But..." Fatty Zachary was reluctant.
"No buts. Just go." Calvin handed over a dozen Joselian Pesos to Fatty Zachary and smiled while holding his wrist. "Hire a special carriage to take you to the training camp. This should be enough..."
"You better be obedient and actually return to the camp! We need you to cover our asses!"
"A-All right!"
Fatty Zachary fiercely nodded his head.
He had no idea that the wristband wrapped around his wrist seemed to have been purified with the divinity of the Goddess of Compassion and Light.
Walking towards the door, Fatty Zachary took one final glance at Calvin.
"Immediately return once you're done. Don't go too far." He said.
"Of course, we won't. We're just going to make them feel the sting, that's all." Calvin smiled.
Fatty Zachary was finally convinced. He left the room and closed the door behind him.
With Fatty Zachary's disappearance, Calvin started to walk over to Christine and teased.
"All right. Now that the third wheeler is gone, why don't we have some fun?"
"Take another step and you're dead."
"..."