Twice Is No Mistake
Bang—!
Two pistols fired, yet only a single gunshot rang out.
For a moment Minel could not comprehend the scene before him. Gunfights were something he had only ever seen on screens—and even then, only in games. On a hunch he glanced down at his own body.
Around his chest, two bullets hung suspended in midair, stopped by a thin membrane of blue light. As if they had struck an invisible wall and were gradually losing momentum, the rapidly spinning tips grew slower and slower. Clear. Unmistakable.
“…….”
“…….”
The eight people, the leopard-print woman included, and even Minel himself were left speechless. They could only watch the bullets spinning idly through empty air. At last the rounds, stripped of every scrap of kinetic energy, dropped weakly to the floor. The metallic clink that cut through the strange silence dragged everyone back into reality.
A miraculous event. Eight pairs of eyes locked onto Minel as one.
A veteran would not be startled by something like this. Minel forced himself to quiet the surge rising in his chest. He deliberately slowed his breathing, drawing a deep breath and releasing it with deliberate slowness. It was a motion meant to settle his mind—yet the eight took it for the unmistakable prelude to rage.
“…….”
“…….”
The leopard-print woman looked back and forth between the two subordinates who had pulled the triggers. Their faces insisted, plain as day, that they had aimed true.
“Anyone can make a mistake,” she said.
The voice was bottomlessly cold; every one of them flinched.
Minel slowly raised a hand. Every gaze fixed on his fingertips. Holding a posture as though he meant to snap his middle finger, he spoke in a low, deep voice.
“Twice is no mistake. Don’t expect mercy then.”
The two men with guns cast anxious looks at the leopard-print woman, silently pleading with their eyes: Don’t fight him. But she was no pushover. A woman who could command seven others never would be.
“Impressive. What kind of skill is that? Automatic bullet defense?”
She spoke with casual ease, yet her own eyes were badly shaken. Even for someone who had been scraping by on the 1st Floor, bullet immunity was something she had never seen.
Minel intuited at once that this phenomenon was anything but common. He kept his tone ice-cold.
“You don’t even know something this basic?”
“…….”
“With that level of skill, who exactly were you planning to kill?”
He let out a scornful little laugh and slowly raked his gaze across the eight of them. The look was that of a cat surveying a swarm of mice that had dared to challenge it. In the end one of the subordinates lowered the hand that held his gun. The others, reading the room, carefully lowered theirs as well.
“What do you think you’re doing? Why are you putting the guns down!”
The leopard-print woman snapped in a sharp, raised voice. Only then did the subordinates, looking as though they had no choice, train their muzzles on Minel again. They were wound so tight they were more conscious of Minel than of their own leader. They aimed, yet their eyes seemed to ask whether they were even allowed to. Anyone could see they had no real will to fire—even the leopard-print woman herself.
“Shoot more! Whatever that is, how long can he keep the skill up? Huh? I said shoot more!”
One of the men holding a gun ignored her and asked the other,
“Aren’t we just wasting bullets for nothing?”
The second man answered at once.
“Exactly. It’s not like we have a surplus.”
The words had barely left his mouth when the leopard-print woman’s eyes flashed murderously.
“You stupid bastard. Why the hell would you say that out loud!”
“…….”
“Ha! Shit. Moron.”
Was he a moron? Or was he actually the clever one? Minel judged the latter. Feigning idiocy while casually dropping a hint, angling to avoid a fight. He knew perfectly well that if violence broke out he would be the first to die. Calling this group a party was a stretch; their cohesion was laughably weak. An obvious slapped-together rabble.
If only he had a weapon, the whole situation would have been simple. Until he secured a reliable means of force, he would have to resolve it with psychological warfare alone.
In the taut silence Minel abruptly snapped his fingers. Thinking he was about to draw a weapon, the two subordinates’ eyes flew wide. What appeared in his hand, however, was a Blood Crystal. Minel bared his teeth in something like a grin and murmured in a low voice,
“Watching a party fall apart is always entertaining.”
“…….”
“Whoever subdues that leopard woman first gets one Blood Crystal. First come, first served.”
He looked over the eight of them as though the situation delighted him beyond measure. On the knife-edge between life and death he delivered a performance polished enough to make a professional actor weep.
And then something even he had not expected occurred.
Bang—!
One of the subordinates boldly swung his muzzle around and put a hole through the leopard-print woman’s temple. Her neck twisted sideways; she collapsed bonelessly forward. The scene was so unreal it felt like watching a video.
“…….”
Minel said nothing, simply watched. The man calmly wiped the blood spattered on the muzzle with his sleeve. His irises had taken on a monstrous yellow cast. Minel had not been the only one acting all this time.
“Why the long faces? You all planned to use this bitch for a while and then kill her anyway, right? Am I wrong?”
At that, the other man with a gun merely shrugged.
“Well, it was sudden… but it was always going to happen. Careful, though. Kill that freely and you’ll turn into a monster before you know it.”
“I’m fine for now. Head’s still clear, still working.”
The two of them sat down as if nothing had happened and began rifling through the leopard-print woman’s corpse. The four others, the tall one among them, could only stare blankly; the sudden murder had left their minds lagging behind. But one person showed not the slightest surprise—only a cold, composed gaze.
A girl who looked about seventeen, still in school uniform. She was staring not at the two men, not at the corpse, but precisely at Minel alone. That piercing, icy look snapped Minel fully awake. He was always coldly rational, yet he could not entirely hide that fleeting flicker of disturbance. He was certain: the girl had realized he was a newbie.
Just then the two men digging through the body turned their heads toward him. Had they looked a moment earlier they might have caught the crack in his composure—but Minel already wore a flawless poker face. Ironically, the girl’s cold stare had helped him.
He needed to seize the initiative. Minel casually tossed the Blood Crystal.
“Catch.”
The man who had fired plucked it lightly from the air.
“So you’re the type who keeps his word. In a hell like this, sticking to principles isn’t easy for anyone…”
In a situation like this, above all else, he could not afford to lose control of the conversation. Minel completely ignored the man’s remark and fired off a question of his own.
“Know any other vending machines?”
A question so indifferent to the present circumstances, so utterly nonchalant, that it was the most veteran-like thing he could have said. The man snorted a laugh as he answered.
“Sorry, but we just killed the one who knew.”
The other man put in,
“Vending machines turn up if you wander around long enough. What really matters is Blood Crystals, right? Without them they’re useless anyway.”
Their implication was obvious: form a party and gather Blood Crystals together. Minel had not the slightest intention of doing so. Who would team up with men who put a hole in a comrade’s head for a single Blood Crystal?
“So you don’t know where the machines are. In other words, you’re useless.”
Both men’s faces hardened. They exchanged a brief glance, then looked back at Minel and spoke in turn.
“I guarantee taking on all seven of us won’t be easy.”
“If you don’t want a party, fine. We’ll back off for one Blood Crystal. Isn’t that better for everyone?”
The fear directed at Minel, at least, was no act. From Minel’s perspective, nothing would be better than for them to withdraw quietly. But simply letting them go would not match the image he had built. He had to demand something. Only then would they stop suspecting him.
Minel folded his arms and put on a look of brief deliberation. Then he slowly raised a finger and pointed at the schoolgirl.
“Fine. But leave that one behind.”
At those words the two men burst into silent laughter. One of them nudged the leopard-print woman’s corpse with his toe and muttered low,
“Shame. Because of her we never even got to play yet.”
“A piece this fine is rare even in the real world. Still, not worth more than our lives.”
The two men raked the girl with sticky gazes, then reluctantly stepped backward. The four others, the tall one included, carefully retreated after them. Once everyone had gone, only Minel and the schoolgirl remained.
Situation over, for the moment. Luck had saved him this time, but scraping by like this had its limits. Gun or blade, he needed a weapon first. There were vending machines that dispensed skills; there would be ways to obtain weapons as well.
The remaining girl simply stood watching him. She neither left nor spoke.
“Don’t worry.”
The tone was entirely different from the one he had used until now. At Minel’s warmer words, some of the wariness in the girl’s eyes eased—yet she did not fully lower her guard. Every man who had approached her so far had been the same: they offered kindness on their own terms, forced closeness, and the moment she refused even slightly they showed their true colors. She despised baseless goodwill. That was why she had developed the habit of always demanding a reason.
“Why did you suddenly pick me?”
“Because you didn’t tell them I was a newbie.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. She ran the calculation quickly and arrived at the answer.
“So you figured out I was being held against my will and rescued me for that?”
“Otherwise you would have told everyone what I really am.”
She stared at him with even deeper suspicion. Her feet were planted, ready to bolt at any second.
“I’m grateful you saved me. But don’t expect anything from me.”
“Just tell me one thing.”
“What?”
Even in a situation where a bullet had just put a hole through a human skull, the girl had not flinched. She had not been here a day or two. She might not be a full veteran, but she knew the basics. Before escaping the Backrooms, Minel asked the single most important question for survival.
“People turning into monsters. What’s the exact condition?”