The hand that touched the debt collector's shoulder began to glow...!
Soft. Eerie. Unnatural!
"—?!"
[Draining in progress...]
Suddenly, the debt collector's body stiffened by the mere touched—his eyes widened and mouth agape in shock!
To the former tormentor, it felt like something deep inside was being ripped away…! Like his very soul was leaking out through his skin...!
A cold, crawling sensation gnawed at his chest… and he didn't know why—only that something was terribly, terribly wrong...!
And the source of his torment was right in front of him…
He saw it—!
Jack's grinning visage...!
[Draining in progress...]
That grin… widened with each second the drain continued...
Jack's expression livened as if he was feasting on something quite delightful...!
Because for Jack, it was the complete opposite.
He felt… alive.
Like something finally began to fill the missing, hollow part of his soul...!
He felt as if the loss and suffering he'd endured for so long had gone the more wealth he siphoned from his former tormentor...!
And eventually... Jack let go of the squirming debt collector from his draining grasp—
[Draining complete!]
[DING!]
[+1000 C-Points Acquired!]
"Whoah~! Nice!"
The 'voice' inside Jack's head announced with pride—almost energetic even to his ears—as if it was excited by his latest haul, and sounded quite eager for him to spend them all on 'it.'
Jack looked back to the stunned debt collector; face filled with (almost) genuine gratitude.
"Thanks for keeping my money safe, pal~, and hey... ten times the interest? Now that's good business~!"
"...W-what...?"
But of course… the same couldn't be said for the victim of his newfound power.
The debt collector's eyes widened in shock; his knees weakened by the horrendous experience he'd just gone through...
"...Wh-what the h-hell was that...?" he muttered, his voice dry, trembling.
The former tormentor couldn't understand—couldn't process what had just happened in the span of mere minutes.
He thought he was just here to deal with a runaway debtor, just like any of his previous dealings before.
Many of those debt-ridden fools were the easiest to deal with, so he'd thought Jack would just the same as the rest—
But his was proven wrong. Very Wrong.
And now... his right hand was gone, his left only-hand was still pinned to the wall, pathetically trapping him...
And whatever sanity remained was slipping through away.
The only one who held the answer to his confusion... was his now-former victim.
He looked up... and saw the same grinning visage of Jack.
The debt collector flinched, startled and taken aback by the very 'being' that stood arrogantly before him.
The golden, ghastly glow in those eyes gleamed with twisted amusement,
and that same grin that mocked his blunders.
Normally, he would've been pissed.
But now…?
He was... terrified.
The man looking down on him no longer resembled the pathetic deadbeat he came to collect from—
No... right now, Jack Conrad... looked like he had the devil inside him...!
"Just as I promised—"
Jack flicked his wrist, and the black M-Card popped into view once more, its ethereal glow flickering like a warning.
"—I'm gonna demonstrate to you how to invest~."
Jack opened his M-System's Status Window, scrolling through the many information that was listed before him...
The debt collector himself could only stare in quiet shock upon seeing the actual 'status window' that only M-Card holders should be able to access...
If he thought Jack was lying... here it was—the definitive proof of his M-System's access.
"Let's see here..."
Jack then clicked the glowing 'PURCHASE STATS' button beneath his 'main stats'—
------------------
STR: 5 [+]
DEX: 5 [+]
VIT: 5 [+]
INT: 5 [+]
PER: 5 [+]
------------------
—it'd transformed, now allowing him to access stats increase.
"For starter... let's invest it all in Strength~!"
"...Huh?"
Jack ignored the debt collector's confusion, seemingly not even pretending to care in the irony behind his supposed deliberate decision.
But... his decision was already made—Jack clicked the 'plus' sign beside the STR stat multiple times—!
Till it didn't allow him to put any more point anymore.
"Oh, it stops?"
He wondered himself as well, then beneath the main stats, new information was listed:
------------------
STR : [-] 43 [+]
DEX : 5
VIT : 5
INT : 5
PER : 5
Allocated Stat Points: 38
Tier Upgrade: 1 --> 4
Total Cost: 1000 C-Points
Confirm Upgrade?
[YES] / [NO]
------------------
"Whistle~! Right on the mark!"
Jack nonchalantly then clicked the 'YES' option—
"Whoah!"
—something within him suddenly felt like it surged to life! He could feel the muscle within his body tense and expand, his limbs thrumming with raw power.
Even though there wasn't much change in his appearance alone... Jack could already tell—
He became strong!
"Now let's see these guns in action~!"
Jack nonchalantly approached the debt collector, left arm winding up—seemingly ready to unleash a brutal strike...!
This alarmed the crippled man of what could be his impending doom—!
But Jack wasn't aiming for him.
Instead—
"Let me help you get out, pal~."
—Jack punched the crumbling wall beside the debt collector's stuck hand, destroying the wall in its entirety!
This, of course, allowed the former tormentor of his to be easily freed from his concrete prison.
However, Jack wasn't finished—
"Here we go~!"
He pulled the debt collector by the collar—! Yanking the man out of his stuck predicament and easily throwing the man far away like a ragdoll!
"Aagh...!"
The debt collector roughly landed and tumbled on the dirty ground, rolling away before his body made a dull stop. He groaned in pain, the impact and the dirt further adding insult to his suffering.
"Whistle~, having this much strength sure does come in 'handy.' Wouldn't you agree?"
Jack further mocked the downed debt collector, but the latter could only groan in frustration from the humiliation.
The debt collector's eyes then darted around, desperate to find a way to fight back against the insane man before him—
Then he found it.
His severed hand... still gripping the sword of his.
With a grunt, he pushed himself up, staggered over, and tore the weapon off from his own limp fingers.
Now gripping it with his only hand, he faced Jack once more.
"D-damn you crazy bastard...!"
Jack only stared back at the raised blade pointed at him with a raised eyebrow.
"I helped you out and this is what I get? Rude much, aren't you?"