The glass doors swung open as I entered the small office. Dozens of shelves with papers and files all over them stood on the place while at a desk at the very back of the room was a man looking over papers with a frown.
"Who is it?" He asked, looking up from the books to see me. "A kid?"
"Hi!" I said, walking past the other desks. This office space was barely enough for four people, and considering there were only three other computers other than the one this 'boss' of the place was sitting on, there were likely no more employees than the ones I had just beaten up.
"Who are you?" Asked the man. "I think you have the wrong place."
"Oh, I applied for an internship," I said, offering a soft smile. Was there a need to do this? Not at all. I simply enjoyed lying to people before I smashed their faces in, it was a hobby to say the least.
The person stood up from the desk. "Internship? We never opened that, kid. I am actually quite busy, do you mind or will you have some tea first?"
"I think I'll take the tea."
"Tsk. I offered to be polite, I don't really mean that. Please leave."
This man was quite sensible, if I had to be honest. He moved out from his desk and walked over to me, a tall man who towered a few inches above me, but slim and very much unlike his other employees. He barely looked like a thug, I mean.
"Alright, I am actually here to talk about your arcades," I said. "You are trying to buy the place owned by a Mrs. Benson?"
"Ah. So you are one of those kids, the ones who took a video of my men?" The person slowly stepped back and leaned on the table. Being young was sure convenient, no one really sensed much of a threat from you. "Very well. I don't know how you found your way here, but I did want to talk. It would be a great help if you can delete those videos."
"Why should I do that?"
The man grabbed the desk behind him. His hands reaching for something. I glanced at him for a second before putting on a cheeky smirk.
"I was going to offer you money for it, initially. But on second thoughts…"
Suddenly, the man sprung forward. The papers on his desk fell to the side as he grabbed a knife and brought it straight to my neck—
In the same moment, I kicked his knee. I deflected the hand with the knife and swung a punch with the other hand.
He ducked.
"Tsk. Not bad!" The grip on the knife changed in an instant, now holding it backward he reduced reach, something he didn't need for this place, and swung ahead at me. I had no choice but to step back to avoid the attack.
A step, then another. The man kept driving forward. I glanced to the side, and grabbed a keyboard from the desks and intercepted the knife.
"Argh!"
Without missing a beat or pulling back completely, I changed my swing and smashed his jaw with the keyboard. Speed was paramount, and I had it. Before he could even reel from the hit, I raised my knee to his stomach—
He was already trying to punch with his other hand. His fist hit my knee. I didn't waste a second and smashed him with the keyboard again.
"Take the wrath of a keyboard warrior!"
"OW! THAT HUR—"
And again!
"Fuck!"
"Shit it snapped. Wait here!"
I grabbed the monitor next, and hit his head again. The man was bleeding from his head and his hands as he tried to save himself. He must have thought I would hit once more from the top, but I quickly pulled the monitor down and smashed his chin.
That was enough.
The man fell down.
The door of the office opened, and Miles, I think his name was, stepped inside and grabbed his head.
"Do you have to be so violent!?" Asked Miles. "Boss Adrian doesn't even like fighting!"
He sure was better than this street thug for someone who didn't like fighting. I guess the bar was just too low.
"Shut up," I said. "Fetch me some tea."
"What?" Asked Miles.
I showed him the monitor, it was cracked on one side, and blood soiled its corners. Miles straightened up like a rat and nodded.
I was offered it. The tea.
***
Adrian, or whatever his name was, woke up with a start. He saw me sitting on his desk sipping on tea while I looked over the files that he had laid out over his table. Sitting on the ground next to him was Miles.
"Y-you! Kid! What do you think you're doing!?"
"I'll leave, I'll leave," I said. "I don't want to intern here anyway."
"You're still saying that!?"
They sure were hyper.
I ignored the two and looked at the documents again. It was precisely as I had thought. Just as many property and acquisition papers were here, there were also insurance papers.
Claims, disbursements, a few appeals to the companies, but still almost everything paid out. As I had thought.
The suspicion dawned on me when I looked at Hit Parade, the arcade in Genge. The building plans were two separate documents, and when I searched into the time between them, something very obvious but sinister came to sight.
There had been a fire in Hit Parade, right after New Engine Gaming had acquired it. Obviously, the insurance and the claims were all done under the original, acquired company's name, but the money was with these thugs who transformed it later into something worse.
In the binder where they had put in the files with Mrs. Benson's details, I had found another thing. A copy of insurance documents. It was a policy that Mrs. Benson's husband had taken long ago, about 20 years old.
And the insurance payout… was easily over five times what these guys were paying to purchase her arcade.