I work as a sorcerer in the US, and my side hustle is building Gundams.

"Ah? Witch doctor, you, you..."

At this point, Francisco and his black henchmen were already completely weakened by Lynn's upgraded level 2 [Curse of Weakness].

Now, however, he was walking towards him with a sinister smile, a black mist rising from his hand!

This instantly reminded him of the time when he executed that traitor at the boss's mansion, and how the traitor was in excruciating pain, enveloped by the same black mist!

He tried to pull out his gun from his waist, but his hands were too weak to lift, as if he had myasthenia gravis. He wanted to run, but his legs felt like they had just done 50 squats, completely powerless!

"No, you can't do this to me! It's the gang's rule, not that I'm targeting you, Mr. Witch Doctor!"

Seeing Lynn getting closer and closer, and even raising his right hand to point at him, Francisco's initial roguishness had vanished without a trace, replaced by an expression of despair and pleading!

"Here's the money, here's it back, please let me go!"

"No, don't come any closer! I... I'll pay you back the remaining $11200, okay? Please, let me go! I'm just a small fry working for Boss Caribou!"

"Heh, I bet there are many people who, like you, begged you for mercy and were cruelly persecuted by you..."

Hearing the other party's pleas, Lynn was not moved in the slightest. Instead, he shook his head and laughed self-deprecatingly.

"Mike had tried to persuade me twice before, saying that you guys were not trustworthy... At the time, I didn't think things were as serious as he made them out to be."

"But now, I've completely seen through your true colors... You know what? You remind me of a story from the University of Tokyo..."

"Besides, you said you'd help me pay off my debts, and I let you go, but then you'll bring your gang to gang up on me, right? What? Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

At this point, Lynn didn't want to waste any more words with him.

"Corrosion Technique!"

Lynn hurled the swirling black mist of evil energy in his hand, instantly enveloping Francisco within it.

This is the upgraded version of [Corruption] at level 2, with its total damage increasing from 66 to 88 points.

The red number "-11" kept popping up around him, causing him to scream in agony! The health bar above his head showed that he only had 12 health points left.

At the same time, Lynn cast another Corruption spell on the black henchman next to him, who had an even shorter health bar with only 96 points of health.

"..."

Mike, standing to the side, watched the scene unfold with his hands clenched into fists, his expression particularly conflicted.

Of course he wanted to kill these gangster bastards, who were insatiable and leeched off the lives and money of the poor like bloodsuckers.

But after all, Francisco was a formal member of Carlos's gang, and quite well-known at that. If he were killed, the matter would never be resolved peacefully.

"Are you really going to kill them?"

He had seen Naruto use this black mist several times before, and knew that this strange spell could not kill someone instantly, but it would cause unbearable pain, leaving the person with only their last breath.

"Of course we have to kill them. Otherwise, are we going to let them go back and report us, then retaliate and leave us to die a violent death in the streets?"

"But what do we do after we kill them? You know he's just a henchman; Thomas owes Carlos Bonn a debt, not both of them!"

A shadow arrow was held in Lynn's hand, but he ultimately did not fire it.

"Impossible. Even if we pay back the $11200, they'll definitely find another reason to make us keep paying back indefinitely..."

Lynn recalled the classic Hong Kong film "Band of Brothers: Harmony and the Beast," in which Louis Koo's character, Jimmy, borrowed money from loan sharks, paid off a portion, but then became increasingly entangled in debt due to the compounding interest, making it a classic story of "never being able to pay it off"...

With a helpless expression, he raised his hand and aimed it at Francisco, who looked utterly desperate.

But suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind, and he remembered something!

"Oh right, this scene looks so familiar... it reminds me of a scene I've witnessed before..."

"What could it be? Oh, right!"

Suddenly, the scene of subduing the two corrupt cop henchmen flashed into Lynn's mind!

I used the Weakening Curse and Corruption spell to capture those two guys, but I was hesitant to kill them, and I absolutely couldn't let them go, which put me in a very awkward position.

At that moment, he suddenly remembered a trick that the protagonist Gao Fei learned from the captain in a novel he read in his previous life called "Absolute Firepower": let the enemy figure out a way to break the enemy's plan and give him a reason not to kill him.

At this moment, just as at that moment, the captain's wisdom is indeed brilliant, even able to transcend the dimensional barrier!

He sheathed the Shadow Sword, then squatted down beside the nearly dying Francisco and pulled his ear, speaking to him.

"You're not a serial killer, but given the current situation, you really can't trust me."

"Why don't you think of a way for me to avoid your retaliation and to permanently and completely erase this debt?"

"what?"

Francisco, who thought he was going to die, was stunned when he heard this!

"Do I... do I even have a chance to survive?"

With his last bit of strength, he lifted his head and looked into Lynn's eyes, but he couldn't see the cat's final mockery before devouring the mouse.

"He genuinely wants to let me off the hook, but I need to come up with an idea!"

He immediately racked his brains to come up with a solution.

Francisco felt like his brain had never been working at such a high speed in his entire life!

After a long while, just when Lynn thought he had died, the guy suddenly raised his head and looked at him with bright eyes!

"I... I've got an idea!"

"Actually, Carib wasn't always the boss of our Carlos Bond in Seattle."

"The previous boss was named Perez. He was imprisoned for 10 years for various serious crimes and was released on probation after 5 years."

"So now, he should be the boss, but because his subordinates have already been either purged by Caribou or sent to other cities, Perez has no power to compete for the boss position."

The thought that he might actually survive made Francisco speak even louder.

"Perez, of course, was unwilling to remain subservient to his former underlings. We all know he's been quietly building up his strength to challenge Caribou, who, while wanting to eliminate him and end it all, had made a huge sacrifice for the gang by going to jail to take the blame. If Perez were killed indiscriminately, who would trust or respect him in the future?"

"So... if, if you, Mr. Witch Doctor, could help Perez find a way to weaken Caribou's advantage, or find out some of his misdeeds that could greatly diminish his reputation and power, allowing Perez to completely overpower Caribou and become the Carlos Gang's boss in Seattle again..."

"Then I think Mr. Perez will certainly be willing to offer you, a major contributor, some modest debt relief after the victory!"

"And I, as one of Caribou's most trusted men, happen to know evidence of some things Caribou has done that are detrimental to the gang..."