I'm A Great Villain So The Author Hates Me

Chapter 51 - Hero of Justice (1)

POV: Asani Martin

It took around 3 hours for the statuses of the three men to go from the scrambled mimic version to one that was indistinguishable from that of a normal person. Even the familiar section stated mimic was gone, although it seemed that the mimics could still use their original abilities. It made me almost jealous considering I couldn't hide Onyx from mine, but thinking about the fact that the original mind and consciousness of the people were most likely gone, I quickly moved on as that issue would be handled sooner rather than later.

As for the questioning session that I held, the results were simultaneously useful and useless.

James Clerr was, to put it simply, an originally talented person whose talent was never fully put to good use because he was lazy and preferred taking shortcuts rather than honing his skills. In this world, an awakened person with two gifts meant that the person would be coveted by many people. Even if his gifts leaned toward espionage and secrecy rather than the actual strength to battle monsters and clear dungeons, many people, both good and bad, would have wanted to snatch him up.

I'm sure that if he had diligently trained himself, he could have at least worked for an espionage-type group and made decent money. The Raven clan specifically worked with many people like that. Instead, James Clerr preferred to enjoy the finer things in life.

In other words, drinking, gambling, women, stealing, and more without a hint of self-control or a sense of moderation. He had enjoyed a brief moment of fame as an academy student before he found himself a petty criminal after owing millions in debt to the local crime lord of the area. The gang was unoriginally named the Dark Shadow gang and was run by a young man called Charles Luciano, an up-and-coming young boss who took over from his recently deceased father.

James began his service working for Sylvester Luciano and now his leash had been passed onto his son, Charles. He was simply tasked with collecting the 'protection' fee from people and businesses in the area, intimidate small fries encroaching on the territory, and running errands as he couldn't be trusted to do much more than that since he couldn't stop himself from indulging in his vices anytime he had excess cash.

Due to my permanently borrowing money from him the last time, he had been beaten within an inch of his life, had his debts doubled, and been thrown back on the streets to work again, but this time he had been given guards to subdue the 'upstart academy brat who had gotten too big for his breeches'.

When asked about his grievances, the mimic that was now James could go on and on, but when asked about the structure of the organization he was a part of, the leaders, security, and such, the answers were jumbled up. All he could do was complain.

The other gang members were weaker than him; they beat him up, the boss was weak and was trying to prevent a revolt from his underlings, etc. It all just came out in a garbled mess that I was trying to understand through the diagram I was drawing on a crafted white board.

Dumb and Dumber, positioned to the left and right weren't much help either, as they were just low-ranked grunts, so the whole thing gave me a headache. The only consistent thing was that they were on the lookout for me since their boss wanted to see me, a few names of leaders sprinkled here and there, and there was a meeting with the area gangs coming up due to outside disturbances.

What were those disturbances? James couldn't tell me. In other words, he was a useless low-ranked grunt who existed just to fill up the numbers.

The only good news from the questioning was that there were several businesses owned by the local boss, including several gambling dens, illegal fighting rings, a couple of drug distributors, and the occasional whore house, which brought in a sizable amount of income.