That's Cheating in Our Industry
In our line of work, that’s outright cheating.
The Old Horn Trade Association was by no means a name legally registered with the imperial tax office, yet they loved calling themselves that and putting on ridiculous airs.
“The bribe quota we have to slip the third-quarter harbor guards is up a whopping amount compared to last quarter…”
“Exactly. I’m saying there’s no need to hand that idiot harbor patrol captain ten sovereigns every single month…”
“Last time he even made us pay for his daughter’s piano lessons…”
Nevertheless, the board members gathered here burned with passionate loyalty to the company. Fully conscious of the titles and responsibilities they had invented for themselves, they gravely debated the association’s future direction and vision.
“Why don’t we just carve up that damn brat?”
“Hm. Not a bad idea.”
“Go with the Old Horn Classic? I’m in favor.”
“Excellent. You, sir, are hereby named this month’s outstanding employee.”
“Yay~”
Of course, since this wasn’t a real company at all, and true to their roots as brainless gangster bastards who had crawled out of some gutter, they had claimed the head seats of the board purely by seniority with zero actual competence testing. The result was predictably catastrophic.
“…Ha.”
Fedora, who had been watching this absurd board meeting, rose from his seat. He straightened his clothes, pulled a cameo-carved pink pocket comb from the inner pocket of his coat, and roughly dragged it through his stiff hair before carefully settling his fedora on his head. A small sigh escaped him.
He toyed with the idea of removing his wristwatch, then transformed into the very image of a saint suppressing his rage. Thick fingers drummed irritably against the desk.
“Hey… so that little brat still hasn’t given any answer?”
“Sir? About what?”
“…………”
A strange sensation seized his entire body as the vein rising from his neck spread all the way to his temple.
Still, he could hardly beat the living daylights out of the old subordinates who had shared life and death with him for years. Fedora said nothing. He simply ground his teeth in silence until he realized that if he stayed here even a moment longer he would genuinely kill someone. He strode outside.
“Why’s the boss acting like that?”
“Hey, you idiot! It’s not boss, it’s Chairman!”
“Oh, right. Why’s the Chairman like that?”
“Beats me.”
“…………….”
The chatter drifting in from outside twisted his face into an expression so grotesque it might have been considered deformed. Then, all at once, a wave of utter futility washed over him. In that strange state, Fedora trudged down the corridor with a dazed mind.
“Ah… my head…”
Even as he wondered whether any of this was right, he did what he always did: he reminded himself of the heavy responsibility he bore and pulled himself together.
One might ask what sort of responsibility a heartless criminal smuggler could possibly feel, yet surprisingly he was a man who always hoped to lead the organization he had founded—the Old Horn Trade Association—out of the shadows and into the respectable sun.
The reason was simple: smuggling was becoming more and more of a headache with each passing year.
To borrow the expression of someone from the MZ generation like himself, he was worrying about so-called future revenue streams. It was the kind of concern any proper businessman ought to have. So let us steal a brief glance at his grand blueprint.
The single core reason he endured these moronic subordinates with such bone-carving patience, the key to his plan to drag this shady outfit into the light, was one thing and one thing only.
It was Helen’s waterproofing agent, currently stashed away in that basement warehouse.
The moment he snatched that irresistibly attractive business item—at a reasonable price, provided she didn’t resist—and began exclusive production, this dreary and dangerous smuggling operation would reach its service termination.
And then would come the birth of Old Horn Heavy Industries, sole ruler of the empire’s expanding trade market!
“Mhehehe… heavy industries… heavy industries…”
Heavy industries… heavy industries… Fedora imagined a dazzling future in which he left these dark docks that knew nothing but savage, nauseating violence, traded his fedora for a silk hat, and shared cigars with refined capitalists. His past stained by violence and tax evasion would be laundered clean. Only a brilliant spotlight reserved for a great captain of industry would shine upon him!
Ah! What a tear-jerking capitalist salvation! The bourgeois blueprint was coloring itself in Fedora’s mind like a meticulously detailed oil painting.
“…What’s that smell?”
Fedora tilted his head. As if brutally shattering his sun-drenched, grass-scented fantasy, an extremely rude odor came rolling in from somewhere.
It was the smell of burning.
To be honest, in a place where so many things were regularly set on fire, the scent of burning wasn’t all that strange. Yet this particular smoke carried the distinct impression that something which should never be burned was currently burning, and that worried him greatly.
On top of that, the outside was unusually, almost unbearably noisy. Fedora, now thoroughly anxious, flicked the half-smoked cigarette away with his index finger and hurried toward the exit.
The first thing that greeted Fedora when he stepped outside was a stinging heat that struck his skin like ultraviolet rays. At first he mistook the weather and began to shrug off his coat, only to feel a severe sense of wrongness and quickly button it up again.
Next came the intense light. At first it fractured into seven colors as it passed through his narrowed pupils, but once his eyes adjusted to all but one of those hues, the others gradually faded until everything unified into a single blaze.
That unified light was orange.
Fedora fidgeted restlessly as the flames grew larger and larger, devouring everything in sight. He stared at the horribly vivid orange glow in a trance, then fell to his knees and screamed in utter despair.
“No, fuck! My company!!!!!”
After running around the labyrinthine smuggler base that had become tangled like a nightmare, a single crow pecking at rotten fish guts became the hand of coincidence that guided the way.
The ownerless crow led Helen behind a crate just large enough to conceal her small frame, then flapped its wings and erased the shadow.
Helen, who had sprinted quickly and then darted into an alley the flames had not yet reached, stuck out her short, thin, impudent tongue and caught her breath.
“Hek… hek…”
She had skillfully reproduced the winding curves drawn on the road signs, repeating stop-and-sprint until she was exhausted beyond measure, deliberately taking detours and getting lost for a length of time that could not even be guessed.
She could no longer tell whether she was out of breath or simply suffering from the vile stench that had settled heavily around her. It felt exactly like having a terrible dream in an extremely filthy place.
“Fire! Fire!”
“Uwaaa!!! Find her! Find that fucking brat right now!”
The screams and shouts made Helen curl up even tighter, squeezing the knees she already held. No matter which way or how far she ran, they followed her without fail—precisely, like a mirage, like a magic carpet. At times she even felt as though she were being quietly dragged along by a rope she herself had let slip.
“Hurry up and find her! What the hell are you doing if you can’t even catch one little brat!”
The voice sounded so loud it might as well have been shouting directly into her ear, making it impossible to tell which direction it came from. Helen clamped one hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t make a sound and used the other to check the backpack that had once held the Molotov cocktails.
“Son of a bitch… how many did I use?”
Yet her fingertips found only a single glass bottle. The only means of resistance she had left was that one final Molotov; the rest were gone.
Besides that, all she had was a body riddled with fractures and bruises, and a survival instinct that screamed so loudly it was almost unbearable.
I’m going to die.
Helen carefully poked her head out to check the escape route. Fortunately, the flames that had spread everywhere had swallowed half the docks, leaving holes in the smugglers’ encirclement.
The far end of the dock on the sea side, where cargo crates lay scattered in chaos. That was the only place the fire had not reached, and therefore the only exit. Whether or not she could swim was a problem for later.
So run. Run silently within the monologue of act three, scene one. O, run silently, my Ophelia. Run silently, my nimble and tiny Ophelia!
“Damn it…!”
Helen spat a curse, pulled the last remaining Molotov from her precariously hanging bag, and lit it with a spark that happened to fly nearby at just the right moment.
She took a deep breath, then sprang out of her crouch like a released spring and sprinted with all her strength toward the distant sea.
“Hup! Hup! Hup!”
She pounded across the slippery gravel like a penguin, weaving acrobatically between the burning crates. The furious shouts of the smugglers rang out viciously behind her, but Helen, who had poured every ounce of her attention into the sea, heard none of it.
“Almost there! Just a little more…!”
With the sea now right before her, Helen dug her toes sharply into the crunching pebbles and leaped powerfully into the air.
At least, that had been the plan.
-Thud!
A rough, powerful hand snatched Helen by the scruff of her neck and hurled her backward with tremendous force.
“Aack!!!”
Spun two full revolutions in the air by some incomprehensible power, Helen flew back along the exact path she had run and slammed into the ground.
She picked up several more injuries while rolling across the uneven gravel. If she had thrown away the Molotov still clutched in her hand, she might have been fine, but Helen knew all too well that her own strength was far too pathetic to even consider such an idea.
“…Isn’t it a bit cold to go swimming, kid?”
Helen barely steadied her creaking joints and lifted her head toward the source of the voice.
The man who had grabbed and thrown her was wearing a fedora. Every blood vessel in his eyes had burst, turning them a vivid red. The buildings blazing fiercely behind him seemed to visualize his rage, approaching her in a merciless way she had never felt before.
Helen feared that man in the fedora, yet at the same time she suddenly transformed into something recklessly heroic. She raised the Molotov—its wick still burning—high above her head.
“Come on! If you wanna go to hell with me, then come and get it, you bastard!!!!”
Eyes bulging as though she would hurl the bottle at her own feet any second, Helen screamed at the top of her lungs. She already looked prepared for death. The foam at the corners of her mouth even seemed like an omen of madness.
“…”
The man in the fedora stared quietly at the insane girl, then slipped a hand into his inner pocket and pulled something out.
Helen, still holding the Molotov aloft like a sacred flame, watched the man’s trembling hand with sharp eyes.
And then, after a very slight delay, the instant she recognized the object he had drawn, Helen threw the Molotov without the slightest hesitation or ethical reservation—
-Bang!
Too late. The man in the fedora’s trigger finger was faster than the arm she pulled back to swing.
The round lead bullet pierced Helen’s thigh. Without even time to scream, she collapsed helplessly.