The Earth Online

21 Manny, The Debt Collector

At the store’s entrance, there stood a small middle-age man directly glaring at Thaleos.

His bulging belly threatened to destroy his denim pants, but his black leather belt managed to save it. He angrily strode towards the bearded man’s direction using his little feet and proceeded to stare down the beast tamer. Following behind him were two humungous men that were practically mountains of muscles.

“Thaleos Fincher, it’s been months!” The flabby man angrily barked out as his beady eyes and slicked-back hair made him look like a gangster.

“Ah, Manny.” The bearded man drawled out in a somewhat unsure tone.

“Ah, Manny. Is that all you’re going to say? How about, ‘Hey, Manny, here’s your 50 million dollars.’” The middle-aged man bellowed out in a mocking tone. He started clutching his fists in rage, readying himself to punch the calm man.

Although, he never really punched anyone on his own. He only uses his clutched fists to signal his security squad to prepare for the offense.

As a response, Haya and Kedrick subtly reached out for their weapons to ready themselves for a brawl. The old orc, Ganuru, just stared at the group with little to no interest and continued drinking his green tea in a relaxed manner.

“Sorry, Manny, no can do. That debt disappeared along with all earthly rules after the Godly Gambles started.” Thaleos reasoned out as he was playing with the Akkadian cube in his hand.

Manny knew little about the interdimensional cube since the storage technology was a rare item across all galaxies. The beast tamer knew this because James stated in his journal that only the old orc had this many Akkadian cubes.

Even minor gods had trouble in acquiring these useful tools.

“Thaleos, buddy, shut the f**k up. Old debt is still debt, just convert the dollars into shekels, problem solved.” Manny asserted in broken sentences. He was impatiently tapping his left foot as his hands were itching for the cash.

The beast tamer just directly stared at him with a wry look on his face—he hadn’t considered Manny hounding him to pay his debt. He thought that since the man lived in the middle of Ellis Town, he would’ve probably died on the first appearance of the Puhluhtu gods.

“I’m sorry, Manny. I don’t have the money to pay you the $50 million dollars.” Thaleos knew that it was not strategic to give up the shekels since they need it to upgrade their base and store as much food and water before the drought comes.

Thaleos kept on imagining different scenarios on how he could pay Manny, but it was hard to focus on things like debts or taxes while they were playing the Godly Gambles. He knew that he couldn’t risk giving away all those shekels considering that they were up against the Akkadian gods.

Manny just stared at the bearded man in dead silence and slowly crossed his arms. The tension in the room was so thick that someone could cut a knife through it.

After a couple of seconds of the unnerving silence, Manny just waved his hand in a dismissive manner and walked out of the store, leaving his two lackeys inside the shop.

The two mountains of muscles swiftly took out heavy-armed machine guns and aimed it at the trio. The old orc appeared to be triggered but held himself back, he knew that he couldn’t mess with the fates—a tragic lesson he had to learn the hard way.

The three men immediately took out their weapons as a form of defense.

Before Thaleos could even unsheathe his black katana, one of Manny’s minions immediately shot at him using the machine gun. Expecting multiple bullets to shoot through his bulletproof stealth suit, he was stunned to know that the gun was an extremely power tranquilizer.

He only had a couple of seconds to form this thought as he was already shaking in the ground, so were the berserker and priest a couple of feet away from him.

After attempting to fight off the tranquilizing effect, everything suddenly went dark.

~ ~ ~

The first thing Thaleos felt after gaining consciousness was a small hand slapping him across the cheek.

“Wake up, Fincher!” Manny barked out. The bearded man just groggily stared at him as he felt his muscles protesting in pain. The uncomfortable wooden chair under him basically attempted to break his back.

“You need to wake up, unless, you want to get tranquilized again.” The debt collector threatened as he waved his left hand to signal his lackeys to prepare their machine guns.

Haya and Kedrick also woke up from the small middle-age man yipping. Kedrick groaned out in pain and stared around the abandoned room they were in.

It looked like one of those abandoned shacks sprawled around Mount Uruk.

“Where the f**k are we?” The umber man asked as he did his best to wake himself up. Haya followed suit and had the same confused look on his face,

“Who the f**k’s making all that noise?” He grumbled in an irritated tone. One thing about the tan man is that he’s definitely a morning person but waking him up before his alarm is basically a death sentence.

Kedrick learned this the hard way.

Manny just gave the pair an incredulous look and signaled one of his minions to punish the two men.

Instead of just committing downright violence, the muscular lackey just dropped a bucket of ice-cold water on them.

“What the actual f**k?” Kedrick angrily screamed at them, which made the small man chuckled in delight.

“Now, where were we? Ah right, me threatening you to pay up. Here’s the thing, the only time I can exempt someone from a debt, especially one with as big as yours, is by getting them to do some undesirable tasks for me.” Manny slyly explained as his dark beady eyes bore into Thaleos’ hazelnut irises.

“Sorry, I’m not into men. And even if I were, I’m not into small, ugly, and exploitative men like you.” Thaleos mockingly said—since he knew that he was already screwed regardless of what he does, he decided to immaturely react just for now.

Manny just stared at him with a dark look, he knew that Thaleos was mocking him. The beast tamer knew that the debt collector couldn’t kill him, not when he was the player with the highest level in the whole game.

This fact deeply frustrated the debt collector, so he merely responded within a threatening whisper, “I won’t kill you, but do know that I can make your life a living hell.”

He was met with silence, which prompted him to continue his proposal,

“If you can’t pay me the debt, then you can make up for it by making sure that other people would pay theirs instead.” Thaleos gave the man a dubious look and continued asking,

“What if they can’t pay?”

“Simple, just kill them off. Once you’ve properly disposed of them, store their souls in these soul gems.” Manny mercilessly answered as he played around with a blue soul gem in his tiny hands.

Understanding the ins and outs of the underground world, Kedrick knew how Manny was as terrifying as a chihuahua when it comes to fighting, but was an actual genius when it comes to organized crime.

The trio knew that even if they did pay the debt, Manny would still find a way to get them to do his bidding. They were left with no choice but to follow his conditions.

Thaleos swore at himself, and for the first time, sincerely prayed for someone’s death. The beast tamer was a hardcore pacifist and only resorted to killing for survival, but this was a completely different matter.

This was because he ignored the fact that there was a large chance that Manny would’ve survived the advent of the game—the small man was crafty and ingenious when it comes to enduring and thriving in the underground world.

The bearded man felt like his hands were tied, as they saw the debt collector’s minions slowly approaching Haya and Kedrick. They already had this mean-looking daggers on hand, and he knew that he only had one option.

The berserker and priest just accepted the threat calmly and trusted any decision that Thaleos would make. They could always adapt to each other, regardless of differences in opinions and choices.

Once the daggers were inches away from the pair’s throats, Thaleos slowly spoke out in a defeated manner,

“I’ll do it.”

This made the grubby man smile in eagerness, as he twiddled around his fingers in enthusiasm. He signaled the lackeys to let go of the trio—which resulted in them using the daggers to cut the tight ropes tied around Thaleos’ little group.

“I’m happy to hear our agreement on the matter. To make things easy for you, I’ll choose one of the most demonic persons I know, cause I know how you three value your conscious and all that jazz.” Manny offhandedly said as he took a sit in one of the rickety chairs found in the abandoned room. His two lackeys immediately relaxed as he saw their master sitting comfortably on the uncomfortable chair.

Then, the debt collector slowly mouthed the words,

“I need you to kill...”