CHAPTER 59: COMMON F (1)

While Ash waited for the night to come and Grey Leash men to pick him up to go to the underground arena, Ash quickly told Verdant Litany’s men to help him make a sign.

A huge sign that took up 100% of the building’s width.

’How can I forget about putting up a sign...’ Every time he remembered this, he couldn’t help but facepalmed and massaged his forehead.

’Maybe I do need some sleep after all...’

The Verdant Litany’s members had started to do their work.

Most of them, about half the members, were doing their usual work.

Which was to help Grey Leash manage this certain part of the slums to collect rent, finding places for people that wanted to move out, and also making sure the ’workers’ were doing fine for another day of work.

For the other half, they were happily doing the work that Ash had asked them to do.

A few went out to buy a sign, then the rest went around the streets, telling people about the new clinic Ash had opened.

But still, Ash told them to never bring someone by force or use any kind of intimidation to make people go to the clinic.

Which made it harder for any of the members to find people who trusted the gang members of this new, cheap ’clinic’ they were advertising.

As a result, even when the afternoon came, there wasn’t a single person who entered his clinic yet.

Well, not exactly zero people, though.

The Grey Leash members still came in batches to be blessed with more of Ash’s gifts.

The process was the same as before.

The members came, Ash gave them the other two diseases to complete the set of three, then his connections with them grew.

There weren’t any upsets or anything dangerous.

All of the Grey Leash members were able to conquer the diseases just fine despite their different awakened abilities.

The diseases were three basic diseases with only passive skills after all.

Even a null like Ash could survive the three diseases all at once for many minutes before, though barely.

How could tier 1 awakeners fail at surviving such simple diseases?

It was a happy occasion getting more and more family members, people that he could trust.

But it was still a downer for Ash that he didn’t get a single patient yet.

Trying out his ability to heal people was one thing.

Saving more people from the ascension force was another thing.

But the one thing Ash wanted more than the first two was to get more new diseases.

An actual disease.

Not a venom or a poison that was somehow counted as a disease by the plague codex.

A disease contracted by humans.

He wanted to see what kind of abilities they would give him.

It had been such a long time since Ash had seen a new entry in his codex.

It started to feel like he was stagnating, even though the people around him kept getting stronger.

Ash felt left behind by his own people.

Fortunately, like some wise words he read somewhere in a book, saying, ’Ask, then you shall receive.’ Ash received what he wanted.

No. There were still no patients coming into his clinic.

The sign hadn’t even finished yet. The Verdant boys were still waiting for the sign maker to finish it.

However, there was one ’accidental’ patient.

The fourth group of Grey Leash members coming into his clinic for his gifts actually brought out a new person.

Someone who didn’t come to the emergency meeting last night because he was bedridden.

Out of the 5 people coming, he was the only one that Ash didn’t have a prior connection with. There was none of his mana inside the man’s body.

He was the only person in here who had a body that was still vulnerable to ’common’ illnesses.

The 4 people chatted familiarly with Ash. Asking how his day was and even more questions about what his ability had done to them to make their bodies feel more energized and tireless.

That one member looked at all his acquaintances with raised eyebrows.

In their line of work, they knew almost every single influential person in the slums.

It was a necessary survival skill. If you mess with the wrong person, then it could be the end of your life.

All of his acquaintances had called the man called Dust as Boss.

Something that he had been explained prior by the 4 of them.

But it didn’t make sense.

Even if someone did convince Eben to relinquish his control of Grey Leash, the people under him wouldn’t just accept it this easily.

Going out of their way to be friendly and accepting of the usurper who had taken over the gang that they had been a part of for years.

He planned to just stay quiet, give the basic respect to this new ’boss’, and be done with whatever he needed to do in here.

’I just need to receive some gifts, then get out...’ He talked to himself as he side eyed the other members.

He didn’t know this Dust person at all. There’s no need to be all chummy with him, despite him being the new boss, whether that was even true or not.

However, he realized something.

Despite Dust speaking with all the other members, Dust often looked at him every other second.

He thought he had done something wrong, and began to sweat as Dust had turned his head completely towards him and started walking towards him.

No matter how he couldn’t accept Dust as the new boss just like that, he was only a tier 1 awakened.

Despite not knowing how powerful this Dust person really was, he would be a fool to think that someone weaker than him could ever convince Eben to give him Grey Leash, no matter what happened in the background.

"B...Boss? Is there something wrong?"

Dust’s eyes kept staring at the man. Not leaving him for even a blink.

The sweat on his back began to drench his clothes. His feet trembled, wanting to retreat, but he was held strongly by his years of experience.

’If I looked too afraid, then I might offend him...’

Finally, Dust opened up his mouth,

"By any chance, are you sick?"

The man froze for a split second, and the trembling from his feet spread to his whole body.

"I’m sorry, boss! I didn’t mean to do anything to offend you!"

His knees kissed the ground, his head hung down, and his hands clasped as if he were praying.