Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter Title: Rescuing My Guinea Pig
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[I must become a hero and save people.]
Wavering without a clear goal.
A miserable life, just wandering aimlessly without conviction.
Even the will to overcome had already been drowned in the pouring hallucinations.
Hiding the rotting insides with exaggerated gestures.
I am normal.
I haven't broken yet.
Repeating that to myself several times.
Now, without even knowing what is normal and what is abnormal.
Just shaking,
A solitary tragic, frustrating, and ridiculous comedy.
Surely it wasn't like this from the beginning.
I thought that if I wiped away the dirty stains, I could become something brilliant too.
Still black. Dirty.
What made me like this.
Whether the curtain of hallucinations and auditory hallucinations is blocking the stains from being wiped away and shining, or if I've been black from the start. Not even sure of that.
I needed conviction.
A clear, convincing conviction.
Shurara- the pages turn.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Time is passing.
The surrounding scenery flies by quickly. The now-familiar long black straight hair shakes and brushes across my vision.
Streets full of trash piles.
Clustered dilapidated abandoned buildings.
Broken sidewalk blocks. Shattered signs. Polluted walls.
Countless things pass by, asserting their own existence.
Look at me.
Look at the worn-out, broken, shattered, polluted me.
But what forms on my unfocused retinas are only thin lines of fluttering black.
Thump thump. My heart is still beating fast. My legs move busily to the rhythm of the beats.
The abandoned building written on the note starts coming into view. Arriving soon.
I can see it.
Daniel is there.
My guinea pig is there.
A third-rate novel.
A ragtag trash novel, gathered and mixed with hackneyed clichés like a stew.
"What is that bitch!!"
Fitting for such a third-rate novel, third-rate villains, all bald-headed.
"C-Crazy bitch. She's charging in!"
"She must be here for that kid!"
And third-rate dialogue.
Voices tearing at their throats pound sharply against my eardrums, as if to punch holes in them.
"Block her!! No, kill her!!"
Splash-! Blood spurts out. Red paint is applied to the outer wall of the abandoned building, where the old paint has long since peeled off.
Thud. A baldy collapses.
"Cr-Crazy! Catch her!!"
"Kill her!!"
Splash-!
Blood scatters again.
"Gaaah!!"
Paint layered over paint.
Thud. Another baldy falls. Baldies falling, baldies falling.
"You bastard, you don't care what happens to the hostage!!"
"Damn! He's not listening!!"
Splash.
Thud.
Again.
Paint.
Baldies.
"Shit!! Run for now!!"
"To the boss…!"
"Why isn't that mercenary coming out!! This is different from what we agreed!"
Splash. Thud.
Domino.
Baldies slowly collapsing from the front row.
The moment the first one in the front starts to fall, the back rows collapse in an instant.
"Uwaak!!"
"Fuck, wait a sec!!"
They fall. Falling and collapsing. One by one, one by one. Faster and faster.
The line of baldies stretched long into the depths of the abandoned building.
They fall one by one. Once the collapsing speed reaches its peak, it becomes regular.
"Fuck!! What the hell is this!!"
"Boss!! Boss!!!"
The domino dyes the inner walls red, just like the outer walls, as it topples.
"Gaaaaah!!!"
"Uwaaaak!!!"
"Cough…!"
"Uwaaaak!!"
Finally, the finale.
The finale where the most blocks split in various directions and fall gorgeously.
The finale passes.
"Ah…."
"God."
At last, the noisy sounds of the collapsing domino gradually quiet down.
"………."
"………."
When silence arrives.
The baldy's voice rings out again.
Splash-
And red wine pooling on the floor.
"……"
I turn my gaze. I turn my head to look around the dark interior of the abandoned building.
Where is Daniel.
My lost pupils linger in the distance before stopping.
Splash. Splash.
The sound of walking on the wet floor echoes through the empty building interior.
From the farthest room in the abandoned building, light leaks out. A voice vaguely flows from the slightly open gap.
――Damn! You're a mercenary hired with money!! You have to listen to me!! Hurry up and kill that bitch outside!!!
――I told you, didn't I? I'm truly sorry for breaking the promise, but that's not possible.
――That's why I'm asking over and over why!!!
――Uh… sorry. It's a secret. By the way, will you pay the balance? I need to head out of the city quickly.
――You idiot bastard!!
Clang-!
The sound of glass shattering.
I walk toward the door. The splashing footsteps continue to echo.
――……!!
A sound of gulping comes from inside the door.
Click. I grab the doorknob and turn it. I slowly open the door and peek through the gap.
The baldy who looks like the boss meets my eyes, his face turning pale.
And the next thing to catch my eye is the long-haired man with red eyes standing face-to-face with the boss.
"…Long time no see. But you look terrible. Need a towel?"
"………"
The man who had been with Betty before, Han.
Abandoned by Betty and left alone in the center, Han thought.
'I need to get out and rendezvous first.'
If he kept walking in one direction, he'd reach the outskirts. Han, who had always been straightforward by nature, thought simply. Han began walking endlessly eastward.
A few heroes had tried to catch him, but he shook them off easily.
He had definitely promised Anis to keep his identity a secret, but for them to figure it out so quickly and start pursuing him. Han just thought the heroes were more capable than expected.
After shaking everyone off, news came out that he was presumed to have already escaped the city from the midway point. Seeing the news, Han sighed in relief, pulled down the hat he'd stolen from a shop, and continued eastward.
Thus arriving at District X. One more step and he'd reach the fortress; past the fortress, and he'd be out of the city as planned. But a problem arose.
'The guards are tight.'
For some reason, the number of heroes deployed at the fortress was far more than he remembered. It didn't seem possible to break through.
'If I can't break through, I guess I'll have to pay a toll.'
There was a way to sneak out far around the fortress outskirts in the dead of night, but to put it nicely, he was honest; to put it badly, he was an idiot. A bit severely so.
Of course, the method he came up with wasn't wrong. Bribing an insider could work too.
Han began looking for work in District X that could make money. Since all he was confident in was swordplay, he naturally ended up finding gigs as a mercenary using force in the back alleys.
"Here's the advance. We'll pay the balance at the end of the contract period."
That's how he joined the criminal organization. Han cut down the organization's enemies to earn money. They were all just villains who could barely handle a bit of mana, so no tough opponents.
"The contract period is over. The balance, please."
"…No thoughts on extending the contract?"
"None. I'm in a hurry myself."
"I'll add a bit more to the balance, so help us this once. These new heroes from the center keep sniffing around us lately. Might as well kill them all now. It shouldn't be hard for someone like you. Please."
"……Understood."
Han nodded to the boss's plea.
Killing heroes who had just arrived from the center wasn't particularly hard, and more money was always better.
The organization members brought in a fainted boy. Bait to lure the heroes, they said.
I could just charge in and kill them myself, so why bother with this. Thinking that, Han waited for the heroes in the abandoned building.
And when time passed and the hero arrived, it was someone he hadn't expected at all.
"What is that bitch!!"
A familiar girl appeared, and Han's eyes widened.
The hero from the center was her.
Anis Harper.
Betty's friend, and the girl Kahtel wanted.
He couldn't kill her.
Han immediately went to the boss's room and said.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do this job. Circumstances."
"What!? What the hell is that!!"
Naturally, the boss flew into a rage and yelled.
She started charging in without any talk. Her speed was so fast there was no time to bring out the hostage and threaten her.
The screams of the organization members outside began drawing closer.
――Gaaak!
――Uwaaaah!
The gap between scream and scream was very close. And fast, regular. So short yet drawn out, it might even be one person's scream.
And that sound grows even closer.
Rushing toward this place.
"H-Hey! Go fight quick! Can't you hear your men dying!! We only picked a fight with heroes because we trusted you, what is this!!"
Even without using his ability, the palpable fear was clear. Han remained calm.
――…….
――…….
The outside went quiet. In the noisy building corridor where screams had dragged on, only splashing footsteps began to echo.
The terrified boss yelled even louder, then smashed the glass he was holding on the floor. Unaware that the sound was leading her here.
Click, creak….
The sound of grabbing and turning the doorknob, and the rusty iron door opens slightly with an unpleasant noise.
A tiny gap big enough for a fist.
Through that gap,
Blue eyes like the deep sea begin scanning the room.
"…Long time no see. But you look terrible. Need a towel?"
"………"
She enters the room without answering, opening the door. Clothes dyed red as if she'd showered in tomatoes.
But the fishy, pungent smell of blood assaulting her nose made it clear that it wasn't something fresh like tomatoes.
"W-Wait! I surrender!"
The moment she entered, the boss knelt and begged pathetically for his life. Truly a third-rate villain attitude, Han thought absentmindedly.
"I won't resist! I'll discard all my weapons! So… just spare me."
"………"
"You're a hero too, so you can't just kill someone surrendering and turning themselves in, right? Please… spare me. No, please spare my life."
"………People?"
She, who had been maintaining silence, reacted to the word "people." The boss, sensing a breakthrough, took an even more servile posture.
"Y-Yes. Killing a defenseless person like this would give you nightmares too, wouldn't it? I surrender. Please spare me."
"That's a bit funny."
A snicker is heard. The sound is there, but neither her eyes nor mouth are smiling.
"I've never killed a person."
"What does that…"
"Just what it means. I've never committed murder."
"That means… we're beasts less than people, living at the bottom, so it's okay to kill us. Is that it?"
"No. No. It's different. A completely different meaning."
Splash-!
The blue sword suddenly gripped in her hand slashes in a straight line, and fresh tomato-like blood splatters.
The upward spurting red paint soars as if to reach the ceiling, but eventually fades without touching it.
Plop.
Something heavy falls and rolls on the floor.
"You weren't alive to begin with."
She murmurs lowly. The red paint seeping between the cracked floor draws a line between her and him. Thus, she and he are divided beyond and outside the red line.
"………"
For once, Han felt cold sweat trickling down his back. Her state was somehow off.
Far more rotten than when they last met. Her already chaotic and precarious state had festered and burst even more. What state was she in now.
Han’s red eyes faintly glow, forming a gaze. Activating his ability to read her emotions.
He couldn't read thoughts perfectly, but he could infer to some extent from her current emotional state.
Thus, the red gaze turns toward her,
"Hey."
Their eyes meet.
"Don't read."
Her deep sea-like blue eyes stare straight at him.
"Don't read other people's emotions without permission."
"…Sorry."
Han apologized obediently, sweat beading.
"Daniel?"
"Pardon?"
"The 14-year-old boy you kidnapped."
"…He's safe in the back room. We gave him sleeping pills, so he probably doesn't even know he was kidnapped."
"…That's a relief."
She sighs in relief and switches to polite speech. Han felt a sense of incongruity even in that exhaled breath.
It didn't feel like genuine worry or care for the child. If she truly cared about the kid's safety, she wouldn't have charged in so recklessly. What was it…
Right. It felt more like retrieving stolen property than rescuing a hostage.
"But mister, why are you here?"
After confirming the kidnapped boy, her atmosphere changes. She asks him a question in a casually cheeky, bright manner.
As if covering a burst, festering wound with the back of her hand.
"…No money, so doing part-time work."
Han explained how he ended up here. Anis listened to Han's story, then quietly muttered.
"Man, what an idiot."
Then she giggled.
So naturally.