Justice After Mercy
Minel introduced himself and Hina.
"I'm Minel. That's Hina."
"……."
"But you're really not from the 2nd Floor?"
Sky gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, then let out a deep sigh.
"Like I already told you, I don't know anything. I've only been here for a week."
At a glance, there was nothing on him that even resembled a weapon. Dull eyes. A face wasted down to bone. The signs of someone who hadn't managed a proper meal or drink in a long time were written all over him.
Minel turned his head and looked back at the other man.
"How did you figure out he came from the 2nd Floor?"
The man's eyelids hung half-lowered. He answered in an irritated tone.
"That's why I locked him up — to find out. Beat the answer out of him and it's true. If not, then it isn't…"
Minel stepped toward him without warning. The man flinched in pure panic, stumbled backward, caught his foot on a chair, and went sprawling.
A crash of wood and limbs.
The moment he somehow managed to push himself upright, his breath locked in his throat. An emotionless face — cold as a machine — was right in front of his eyes.
"Don't speak casually to me."
The man bit down hard on his lip and swallowed dryly. When he finally answered, his voice was low.
"I—I'll watch my tongue from now on."
"Good."
Minel rose slowly to his full height. When he glanced back, Hina and Sky were both staring at him with the exact same expression.
"……."
"……."
Minel allowed a faint smile. Only then did Sky seem to unclench, letting out a light breath.
"I thought you were about to kill him on the spot."
"Did you?"
"Yeah. It really looked like you would."
"Hmm. I see."
"Wait—you weren't, right?"
Minel didn't bother answering the last question. Without a word he walked back over to Sky and stopped in front of him. Sky was still watching him with wary eyes — the look of a man certain Minel would strike the second he got the chance.
"Don't be afraid."
"……."
Believe that? After the sheer atmosphere of the man had already poured the terror of death straight into his bones?
Minel asked quietly,
"Do you know how to escape the Backrooms?"
Sky flicked a glance at the other man, then opened his mouth again.
"I've really only been here a week. Minel, right? That guy over there is just framing an innocent person. I didn't come from the 2nd Floor. I don't know anything."
"Is that true?"
"It's true. I've never hit a single person in my entire life. And I've only been here a week."
Sky's excuses tumbled out pitifully. Minel looked toward the only person he could trust in a moment like this. Hina studied Sky with sharp eyes for a few seconds, then said flatly,
"I can't tell whether the part about one week is true. But the part about never having hit anyone — that sounds real."
Sky forced a smile and rushed to pile more words on top.
"R-right? It's written all over me, isn't it? Yeah? My mom used to say the same thing. Said I was too soft for my own good. Even as a kid I never managed a proper bit of payback against anyone…"
At that, the man exploded.
"Shut up! Whether you came down from the 2nd Floor or not, that one-week nonsense is pure bullshit!"
"N-no, it's not! I really have only been here a week—"
"And a guy like that already learned a skill? Don't talk complete garbage, you idiot."
To Minel, it wasn't particularly strange. He had learned a skill in a single day, after all. But that had only been possible because his luck had been absurdly good. For a complete newcomer to pick up a skill inside a week was, in reality, nearly impossible. Even finding a vending machine was hard enough. How were you supposed to scrape together ten Blood Crystals? Someone could be lying in ambush near the machine. Getting information on the skill drinks themselves wasn't easy either. And if someone truly had punched through every one of those obstacles and obtained a skill in a single week? That alone would already mark them as no ordinary person.
Even so, Sky spat out a curse with the awkwardness of a man who had never once sworn in his life.
"Y-y-you… seriously. A guy one wrong move away from dying is calling me an idiot? An idiot? Then what about you? Huh? Are you sitting there because you're the idiot?"
"What did you just say, you stupid son of a—"
Minel shot each of them a single hard look. Both mouths snapped shut and both heads dropped. In a place with no public authority, power was the only law and the only rank that mattered.
"Which one of you is lying?"
At those words, a flicker of misery passed over Sky's face. The man's eyes began to dart anxiously left and right. In the end, the man spoke first.
"I know the place where he suddenly appeared. It should connect to the 2nd Floor. If we go up to the 2nd Floor, we should be able to find out how to escape as well."
Sky shot back at once.
"I'm telling you it isn't. Minel. Don't believe him."
Minel turned his head toward the man.
"Where?"
The man smiled as if he had already won.
"I remember it exactly. I can guide you there myself."
"Mark it on the map."
Minel opened his inventory, pulled out the map he had obtained earlier, and held it out. The man stared at it, sank into silence for a moment, then quietly pointed at a blank stretch of unmarked space.
"Here."
Minel took the map back and burned the location into his memory. Then he jerked his chin toward the door.
"Get inside."
"What?"
"I'll check it and come back."
"……."
It was exactly what the man himself had done to Sky. The man mumbled in a dazed, hollow voice.
"N-no. I can guide you myself—"
"Get in. I'll check it and come open the door for you."
The man shot a glance at Sky and Hina, then spoke in a rush.
"W-what if something happens on the way? What if you run into a monster and the two of you die? Then I'm trapped in there and I die for nothing, don't I?"
"You already knew that, so why lock Sky up alone?"
"……."
"Get in. This is the last time I'm asking nicely."
The man clenched his teeth and rose from his seat. He kept hesitating, but under Minel's unblinking stare he finally started walking, slowly, toward the conference room as if he had no other choice.
The moment the distance between him and Hina shrank to its closest — he lunged.
"You bastards!"
He charged Hina without warning, ripped the Digital Vein out of her hands, and without the slightest delay opened fire on Minel. Minel simply watched it happen and did not move.
Pzzzt—!
The man's body began to shudder like an aspen in a gale, then locked completely solid. From the stunned expression frozen on his face, he had clearly never seen this coming. Exactly as Minel had expected, the Digital Vein's biometric lock system had completely neutralized him.
Minel spoke quietly.
"You can't let your guard down, Hina."
Hina had scored far higher than that man. Her physical abilities should have been superior by a wide margin — and yet she had lost her gun in the most ridiculous way possible. The point gap from the Arcade was not absolute. Surprise, carelessness, and a dozen other environmental factors could overturn it.
Hina bit her lip lightly, then nodded. She reclaimed the Digital Vein from the frozen man and leveled the barrel between his eyes. His pupils blew wide; his lips began to tremble. The paralysis would wear off any second now.
Minel watched Hina's yellow irises with calm attention. She squeezed her eyes shut hard once — and the intense yellow light that had been pouring from them began to fade. She spoke in a low voice.
"This isn't revenge. You already had more than enough chances. This is punishment for every woman you raped and murdered."
Ziiing—!
A single shot from the Digital Vein punched straight through the man's brow. Even for a first kill, Hina's hands did not tremble in the slightest. Minel checked her eyes at once. Fortunately, the yellow light in them was vanishing fast.
Some people would call it murder. But his father had once said:
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. I'm fine."
Her voice shook a little. He would need to talk with her more later. When he turned to Sky, the man was a wreck. His eyes, fixed on the corpse with the hole between its brows, would not stop trembling. Slowly he turned his head toward Minel and spoke in a low voice.
"You want to get to the 2nd Floor, don't you?"
The atmosphere had changed.
"You know something?"
"Of course I do. That's where I came down from."
Sky confessed his earlier lie as if it were nothing. Before Minel could say a word, Hina reacted first.
"So you were lying about only being here a week!"
"It's true that it's only been a week since I came down to the 1st Floor. And it's also true that I've never hit anyone."
Sky had only ever said "here." He had never once specified the 1st Floor.
Minel said,
"And we're supposed to believe you now?"
Sky threw both hands up and bowed his head low. He pointed with a finger toward the corpse with the hole in its forehead and spoke quietly.
"After watching that, I don't have the guts to keep lying."
"……."
If he had come from the 2nd Floor, shouldn't he be that much stronger? Sky seemed to read the question in Minel's gaze. He shook his head firmly.
"I'm not acting. I'm genuinely weak. I'm a non-combatant. Even if I came down from the 2nd Floor, I don't stand a chance against combat personnel."
He had mentioned learning a skill earlier. So it must have been a non-combat skill.
Hina asked quickly,
"What kind of skill did you learn?"
"Something simple. I can turn water into food. As long as I have water, I can even fix hunger. As long as I have water!"
"……."
Minel had heard of cooking skills before, but he hadn't expected something like this. Sky misread the silence and scrambled to add more.
"I-I also have the ability to detect monsters. A-anything within a three-meter radius, I can sense them all."
Three meters. By the time you noticed a monster at that range, it would already be attacking. Remarkably useless in a peculiar way.
Minel kept his guard up and asked again,
"What about a way to escape?"
"Unfortunately, I don't really know. But I heard there is one further up. If you want, I could at least take you as far as the 2nd Floor?"
If the place the man had marked on the map was a trap, Sky was their only remaining lead. But Sky had already lied once. And then, in that moment—
Hina answered shortly.
"Fine. Guide us."
Sky suddenly put on a pitiful smile and spoke as if begging.
"In exchange… could we get some water? Honestly, I'm so thirsty I feel like I'm going to die."
"……."
"……."
"Please. Just get me some water and I'll take you there right away."
Sky dropped flat on the floor again and pressed his forehead to the ground. No matter how many times Minel saw it, he could not get used to the sight. They no longer had any of the immunity drinks that could suppress hunger or thirst. One more week and those would run out for good. That meant they would have to go to a restroom for water. Fortunately, the map marked the restroom locations. But heading there could easily mean unnecessary combat.
"You're worried there might be strong people hanging around, right? I'll draw their attention. I've got a very special talent for looking weak. Heh heh heh."
He checked the map, then took the lead at once and started walking fast. Minel watched his back for a moment, then asked Hina in a low voice,
"Why did you trust him?"
"I don't."
"Then why?"
"Because he isn't an immediate threat to us. I don't know about anything else, but the part about never having hit a person once seems true."
"……."
"And once we get to the restroom, we can have him use his food skill. That should confirm whether he's really a non-combatant. We need it ourselves, too."
"……."
"I'm sorry I didn't ask you first. I just didn't want to give Sky any more time to think. He looks like the type who schemes the second you give him room."
Coldly speaking, there was almost no solid reason to trust Sky. But Hina's instincts were another matter.
"He could lead us straight to his own party."
"I watched carefully when he picked the restroom on the map. He just chose the closest one. Nothing suspicious about it."
"Is that so?"
"If he tries to head anywhere else, I'll tell you immediately. I've memorized the entire route to the restroom."
Hina's eyes were sharper than they had been at any point so far. Losing the Digital Vein had clearly left a deep mark.
And so the three of them walked through the Backrooms for a long time. The moment Sky spotted a distant restroom sign, he broke into a run without the slightest regard for the distance between himself and Minel and Hina.
Just as expected.
Four people burst out from every side and surrounded Sky in an instant. Minel and Hina exchanged a look that said they had seen this coming, then each drew a gun and melted into cover.