Dexter was walking toward Carl, so he naturally saw what Carl was up to. He grinned, sped up a bit, and came right up to Carl. "You're Carl Gallagher, right?"
Carl gave a slight, cocky tilt of his head. "You know me?"
Dexter smiled. "Sure do. Got some time to cause some trouble together?"
Carl's eyes lit up instantly. "Heck yeah!"
"Then it's a deal. This has to be our secret, cool?" Dexter asked, smiling.
Carl quickly nodded and held out his fist. "Cool!"
Dexter bumped fists with Carl. "I'll catch you later. I gotta find a place to crash first."
Carl felt like Dexter was his kind of guy, and hearing that, he didn't hesitate to suggest, "You don't have a place to stay? Wanna come stay at my house?"
Stay in the Gallagher house, that constantly chaotic pigsty?
No thanks.
Dexter shook his head flatly. "Nah, I'll go find something myself."
"Alright, well, good luck then," Carl said without dragging it out.
Dexter didn't say anything more and kept walking to find a hotel.
Honestly, he had initially planned to rent an apartment here.
But then he realized that after renting a place, he'd have to furnish it, and he only had ten grand to his name right now...
Too much hassle. It would be better to just find a decent hotel and negotiate a long-term monthly rate with the owner.
He figured it might not even cost more than renting an apartment.
After all, almost all hotels offer a pretty big discount for extended stays.
It turned out he was right.
It took him over an hour.
Dexter found a hotel on the same commercial street as the Alibi Room—it looked pretty new and big. He checked out the room, felt good about it, and talked price with the owner.
The normal rate for a room was seventy bucks a night.
For a month-long stay, Dexter easily talked the price down to twelve hundred bucks.
He thought he could probably shave another hundred or two off if he kept haggling, but it wasn't worth the trouble.
Soon after, he paid, checked in, and headed to his room. After a quick shower, he lay down on the bed and started thinking through his next steps.
He spent a long time brainstorming.
He came up with a rough plan.
First, he absolutely had to cause as much trouble as possible to earn "merit points" and roll those treasure boxes... The key, of course, was to make trouble without getting busted by the cops. If that happened, things would get tough.
Causing trouble in the Shameless world wouldn't be hard. That area is crawling with low-lifes of all kinds, so there were plenty of targets.
The difficult part was not getting caught by the police. He had to be careful.
Second, he needed to complete the main mission.
The main mission reward was a Silver Treasure Box, which was equivalent to a thousand merit points. He had to get that much good karma.
But...
Completing the main mission seemed like it was going to be really tricky.
That woman, Fiona Gallagher... she was a handful.
Right now, she was clearly sinking deep into the mud, but she either didn't realize it or thought it was fine, and she had a ridiculous amount of pride. The worst part was that even though she hurled every insult imaginable at Frank Gallagher, that piece of trash, she still had a soft spot for him deep down and held out hope...
Thinking about that, Dexter couldn't help but shake his head.
Before he transmigrated, he had dealt with people like Fiona Gallagher.
People like that are broke as hell, but their pride is way stronger than the average person's. They instinctively feel like anyone trying to help them is looking down on them. They refuse to let go of that worthless pride and just don't get that pride needs to match your circumstances, and sometimes you have to temporarily put it aside to pick up later...
So, to complete the main mission...
Just giving Fiona money wouldn't work.
On one hand, he had to create job opportunities for her so she could earn it herself and satisfy her pride.
On the other hand, he had to get rid of Frank, that menace who constantly drags Fiona and the whole Gallagher family into the dirt... and deal with a whole bunch of other problems, too.
"Looks like I can kill two birds with one stone: take out the problems, indirectly help Fiona, and earn some merit points while I'm at it," Dexter chuckled. "So... I'll look for a chance to break one of Frank's legs and see what happens next."
With a decision made, Dexter didn't waste any time. He got up and headed out to do some shopping.
---
A cell phone was essential for a newcomer.
Dexter went to a random phone store, spent a few hundred bucks on an iPhone, and got a SIM card.
After that, he wandered around and bought some clothes to change into, followed by a burlap sack and a baseball bat. Finally, he grabbed some lunch.
After all that running around, he was down to only about eight thousand bucks.
But it was no biggie.
Money was easy to come by...
Forget the treasure boxes for a second—just look at that huge stash of pot Kevin was growing in the Alibi Room basement...
That stuff was worth a ton of dough!
In the original show, Kevin was eventually forced to burn all that weed... but now that he was here, burning it was not an option. It had to be turned into cash.
As for how to make that happen...
Dexter thought of one person: Mickey Milkovich. He was perfect for being the middleman to move that stash.
Thinking that, Dexter glanced at his phone.
The time read a little after 2:00 PM.
Breaking Frank's leg could only happen at night.
So, he decided to go find Mickey first.
Dexter took all his purchases back to his hotel room and then headed out toward the Milkovich house.
When he got to the Milkovich's place, he saw Terry Milkovich, the old pervert, sitting on the front steps, smoking and drinking.
Terry saw Dexter and immediately snapped a nasty threat. "What the hell are you looking at? You got a death wish?"
'The old pervert who messes with his own daughter!' Dexter thought to himself, quietly adding a new item to his plan: 'I gotta off this guy!'
This wasn't really about a sense of justice. It was mostly because Dexter figured killing Terry would definitely score him a boatload of merit points.
It was kind of funny, actually.
Dexter realized that after his near-death experience in the real world, coming to this world meant he had absolutely no moral hang-ups about things like breaking Frank's leg or killing Terry.
Pretty interesting, right?
Dexter didn't answer, just gave a faint smile, and walked straight past him to keep wandering around.
Finally, across the street, Dexter spotted Mickey.
Mickey, the neighborhood delinquent, was striding out of the corner store with an arrogant swagger, holding a few bags of snacks he had shoplifted.
Inside the store, Ian Gallagher and the owner, Kash, watched Mickey's retreating back with a mix of frustration and anger.
Mickey didn't look back, munching as he crossed the street.
When he got to this side of the road, Mickey noticed Dexter staring. He glared, a fierce look on his face. "The hell are you looking at?"