Watch Maker

Silver sits at his desk and smiles down at the report on his desk. "Damn, I knew that curse was good, but I never realized that it was good enough to make her mow down an entire battlefield." He laughs, talking endlessly to the small maid that took care of Tori.

"Even the bomb crises were easily taken care of by Nox. Our heroes truly are heroes don't you think?" He laughs, smacking his knee with just how funny he finds it. "Corrupting Tori was surprisingly easy. Nox on the other hand... I wonder just what he experienced on that floor..."

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It took Nox only a day to get the required pass to leave the confines of the castle. Silver surprisingly gave him a pass without asking why he would need one, not that Nox minded. Normally when Nox would read manga he would always lose interest in the idea that after killing somebody the hero would look after the kid, and at this moment he felt no different.

He was more disgusted that the man's final words were about his daughter, if you were to risk your life for something don't cry because you failed, But to say that it didn't work on Nox would be a lie. Why else would he be searching the streets for the girl?

After a few hours of searching Nox finally stopped and walked into a store. He had searched as much of the upper part of the town as he could and was not surprised to see that he couldn't find her. It took Nox only a few more moments of looking around before he gave up on the idea of looking for her and instead walked into one of the stores on the side of the street.

The store Nox had decided to stop in was a simple watch shop. The inside of the shop was small, tables were lined with watch parts. Gears, hands, screws, Just about everything you could imagine belonging to a watch shop.

"Hello, sir." An old man said stepping out from behind his desk. He was a short man with grey hair, large round glasses, and a nice white shirt with a red tint and a pair of old blue jeans. "May I ask why a man such as yourself would be walking into a store like mine?"

"There are probably a lot of reasons, but the simple answer is I need to make a few bucks." The man just shakes his head. "I'm sorry boy, but I don't have much money to give you as payment. Just a few hundred contracts I guess."

'Contracts must be what they call their money.' Nox notes as he walks over to a watch and starts to put it together. "I'm not looking for a day shift, just enough to buy a few things for the workshop I'm building."

The man looks down in amazement as Nox quickly assembles one of his pocket watches easily. "Boy, how did you do that? It should take more than 8 hours to reassemble one." Nox hands the man his finished watch and smiles. "I remember my grandpa taught me how to assemble them. He loved collecting them."

The man fiddles with the watch and looks at Nox. "How many of these do you think you would be able to fix?" He asks gesturing to the mess of watches around him. "3 Hours at max." He says, taking a seat on one of the watchmaker's desks. "How much are you willing to pay?"

"I have 300 notes and an old broken pocket watch I can throw in." The man says nervously. "I know it's not much but for a day's work it's a good amount."

Nox nodded his head and starts work on the watches on the table. "I'll also be taking this self-turning screwdriver." The old man shakes his head and sits down at his desk. "You know kid. You probably just saved me from years of debt right now."

"Ohh? It's not that hard to reassemble these things." Nos remarks.

"No, not that. The king, he's been taking large cuts of money from our business. For most businesses that barely affects them, but for shops like mine, it's a basic death sentence. I haven't been able to pay any of my workers for years. On top of that, this job requires that I take a long time to fix the watches."

"Hey old man," Nox asks, finishing a watch and placing it into a bin. "This country boasts about its amazing technical advancements, but I've yet to see any of these miracle machines."

The man laughs and tosses Nox a watch cover. "Sir your in the wrong part of town if you want to see tools like that. Though the debt collector does have one of those tools."

Nox pauses and looks at the man. "Spill the beans old man. What does he have?" The man chuckles and holds his hand out like he was holding a pistol. "A ray gun. It uses some crystal to fire plasma at the opponent, but when he pulls the ammo pack of the gun back it turns into some type of plasma sword."

"Plazma... I'm guessing this plasma gun is one of a kind?" Nox asks, finishing another watch. "No, they are few and are probably not as good as some other weapons. But against an old man like me, it's like a death sentence."

"Well, here you go old man. All the watches on this table have been completed." The old man smiles and looks them over. "Nice, they work well as new. Here let me get you your payment."

But before he could go into the back the door busts in and a man dressed in a black uniform kicked the door in. "My ears burn old man. I hope you're talking about me." The man smiled and looked around the shop, his eyes stopping at Nox. "Ohh hello, there kid." He says scratching the brush under his chin. "Old man you didn't tell me that you were training somebody new."

"Drop it, Cain. You are supposed to arrive here next week. Until then I thought I made it clear you are not to be welcomed in my store." Cain smiled and kicked a table with watch parts onto the floor. "And I thought I said that I didn't care old man. The king wants the payment now."

"I don't have any more than 300, And I was planning to give it to this young." Cain only grunts and kicks the man in his stomach causing him to double over. Nox, who was trying to slink away from the conversation, grabs the screwdriver of the desk and thrusts it into Cain's arm, causing him to let out a scream of pain.

Cain takes a step backward and grabs a sci-fi-looking gun out of his holster. The gun was a rectangle and shaped with the butt of its gun on a rotating axis allowing it to go from a simple pistol to a sword. The body of the gun was white with the words mark 2 hastily scratched into the side.

Cain pints the gun at Nox and fires a shot into his left shoulder causing him to collapse in pain. "You little shit. I'll admit I didn't think you had it in you... I would kill you but I think we both know that would be too easy. Who would run the store after dear old gramps died."

Nox was about to crock out a no, but by the time he was able to open his mouth, Cain had already loaded 3 shots into the old man's back. "There... I think that's enough" He grunts as he grabs his stabbed shoulder. "I expect you to have the money next week, or you'll be next." He says pulling out the screwdriver and tossing it on the floor before stumbling out of the shop.

Nox spends a few moments laying on the ground before turning his head to look at the old man. His body lay motionless on the ground his back was completely burnt from the shots. Nox took a few seconds to look at his ar. It was completely burnt, he was surprised that it even managed to deal that much damage. "Whatever is in that fucking crystal made that plasma a lot fucking hotter than what it's supposed to be." He says picking himself off the ground.

The shot had completely burnt through his black sweatshirt which made taking it off to clean a horrible experience. Once he was able to wash his wound up he quickly before taking a knife from the man's kitchen to cut off the dead and burnt skin. Once he had a basic clean he tied some bandages around his wound and put back on his shirt and black jacket.

When he walked out of the back of the shop he stopped to grab the screwdriver off the floor. He took a quick pause and looked over at the man. "I'm sorry I didn't learn your name... but let me do this one thing for you." He says walking outside of the shop. He grabbed a random man walking past and pointed at the shop. "Hey, get the guards. somebody was shot by something inside."

"W-who?" The man squeaks out before Nox dropped him. "Who did it?" He says pulling his hood over his head. "A dead man is who."