The Blonde Punk
"Hey, Kakuto. Your girl is going to have a wild night with me, so just go home and get some sleep. Don't cry like a pathetic loser. Huh?"
"Ugh... N-no... She... anyone but her..."
"Hyaha! What are you gonna do about it, crying like that?"
A giant Black man approached Ibaraki Kou, the blonde punk who was cackling loudly.
The man's name was Radolf Jugler. He was Kou's partner and, likewise, the target of this contract.
"Is this the woman? She certainly looks lively."
"Right? I told you I picked a good one."
"The medicine is ready. Let's go before it gets cold."
"Oh! Sounds good!"
While the two men chatted, the woman, her wrist gripped tightly by the blonde punk, stumbled along without offering any resistance.
"Please...! Please come back, Celica...!"
The man sprawled on the ground could only weep, powerless to do anything else.
"But Swoo... what's so interesting that your eyes are sparkling like that...?"
"Something I've only seen in comics is happening in real life."
"Swoo... do you read those kinds of comics?"
"I was tricked into reading one once."
"...O-once?! And what?! Tricked?! By whom?! Was it a friend?!"
Could an internet friend be considered a friend? Probably not. Making friends on the Eden Gallery was a bannable offense, so it could never lead to a real friendship.
"Nah, just a stranger."
"Oh dear, oh dear... What am I going to do with you...!"
Regardless of Angela's shock, Swoo kept her eyes wide, intently observing the scene.
As soon as the two men disappeared, Swoo unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the car door.
"Let's go right now."
"...Sure, we should. But Swoo, let's have a little chat after this job, okay?"
"Yep."
Swoo and Angela headed straight for the blonde punk's office.
What about the man sobbing on the ground?
What would they even get from him? There was nothing more pointless than asking someone who was clearly not okay if they were okay.
Besides, bringing him into the office would be cruel. Who knew what was happening inside?
Furthermore, a mercenary contract required discretion. You couldn't go around advertising a job that might involve killing someone.
Thus, leaving the sobbing man behind, Swoo and Angela moved stealthily.
Angela shot Swoo a doubtful look. Swoo nodded triumphantly, as if telling her to trust her.
Instead of using the entrance, the two scaled the side of the building. Even with Swoo's magic assisting, Angela moved remarkably naturally.
She had already experienced walking up walls like this.
In fact, she had done it just yesterday.
When Swoo had "visited" the Zyrec research facility, they had climbed the walls in the exact same manner.
Recalling yesterday, Angela shuddered and quickened her pace. She felt as if the heat from then was still lingering in her body.
What is this emoticon? Is it supposed to be someone wiping away tears?
Swoo marveled at the quality of Angela's emoticon and copied it to her clipboard.
Serena loved receiving these kinds of emoticons, so she planned to send it to her later.
With that, their conversation ended.
Swoo stopped in front of a window draped with red curtains.
No sound came from within.
Though they looked like cheap, gaudy curtains, they seemed to possess excellent soundproofing qualities, comparable to the portable soundproof barriers used by interior decorators.
Furthermore, not even a trace of vibration could be felt.
Unless all three inside were sitting perfectly still, some minor vibration should have registered, yet it was as silent as an empty room.
Swoo turned to look at Angela. Angela's eyes glowed blue. Before even two seconds had passed, Angela exhaled a faint, misty breath and nodded.
There were no recording devices inside, and the surrounding cameras didn't cover this area. The two mercenaries seemed to have chosen this office specifically to exploit those blind spots.
They were meticulous, contrary to their appearances.
Was that why their criminal records were as common as recreational sports? Or was there another reason?
They would find out once they saw for themselves.
Bzzzt—
Static enveloped Swoo and Angela.
Amidst the noise, Swoo closed her eyes.
She felt the flow of mana escaping beneath her feet. The path the mana traveled became a corridor, and the point where it gathered and pooled led to a door.
It was a spell she had discovered in the junkyard.
If she had to name it, it would be Space Shift magic.
Snap—
She flicked her fingers.
Their vision flipped.
What is a "blonde punk"?
Literally, it refers to a tanned, blonde-haired delinquent.
Of course, that isn't all the term implies.
In certain contexts, it is synonymous with NTR—the act of stealing someone else's lover.
In other words, a blonde punk is a notorious villain, or perhaps the protagonist of a rather twisted story, who steals another person's partner.
And now, such a blonde punk had dragged a pathetic-looking man's lover into his office.
The woman was stumbling as if drugged. Unable to discern her surroundings, she had giggled foolishly even as she was being dragged away.
One didn't need to think deeply to guess what would happen next. That was why Angela had braced herself mentally before taking on this contract.
"...Oh my?"
"Oh."
Her preparation proved entirely pointless.
It wasn't because the scene before them was more scandalous than she had imagined. Rather, it was a scene she could never have anticipated, rendering all her mental preparation useless.
Even Swoo, usually so unflappable, widened her eyes as she took in the situation.
And for good reason.
No scandalous acts were taking place.
Granted, the blonde punk was pinning the woman down, but her condition was bizarre.
Her eyes were bloodshot, welling with tears of blood, and foamy saliva drooled from her mouth.
Her muscles contorted violently as if seized by cramps, and thick gray smoke billowed from the areas where her cybernetic implants were located.
Every single one of these was a classic symptom of cyberpsychosis.
Furthermore, the blonde punk's partner, the Black man, was unconscious, bleeding heavily from his head.
This raised a question: Had an accident occurred while they were trying to do something nefarious, or had they brought the woman here knowing this would happen, just to subdue her?
Which was it?
Swoo recalled the woman's state when she entered the office. She remembered her unsteady gait and her vacant, drugged-looking grin.
Just then, her eyes met the blonde punk's.
Though briefly startled, the blonde punk—no, Ibaraki Kou—immediately scowled and jerked his chin. Despite his appearance, he didn't spare a single glance at Angela's chest.
"Hey, who the hell are you?"
"I'm Swoo."
"Right, Swoo. I'm Ibaraki Kou. But do you really think I asked because I was curious about your name? Huh?!"
Seeing how he introduced himself despite his gruff words, he was clearly surprisingly polite.
Actually, perhaps the word "surprisingly" could be dropped entirely.
Setting up an office with an entrance in a camera blind spot and fully soundproofing and vibration-proofing it proved that Kou was a meticulous and diligent mercenary.
Swoo decided to view him that way.
"What are you doing?"
"None of your business, brat."
"We're mercenaries hired to take you out."
"Do you think a mercenary who risks his life for a living would be shaken by a threat like that?"
Though he tried to sound threatening, Kou was in no position to get up.
His only partner, Radolf, had been knocked out cold long ago. If Kou moved now, the cyberpsycho he had barely managed to pin down would undoubtedly go wild again.
That would be disastrous. Kou had something far more important to protect than his own life.
"Aren't you scared?"
"Ha!"
Snorting in derision, Kou plunged the syringe in his hand straight into the woman's neck.
"I'm more afraid of failing this job than dying right now. So no matter what you do, I'm going to finish this contract."
Kou's thumb pressed the plunger.
With a soft *hiss*, the blue liquid was injected into the woman's body.
Angela flinched, but Swoo remained unfazed.
Swoo was simply curious about what would happen next.
The woman pinned beneath Kou had already succumbed to cyberpsychosis. If she went outside, she would only be gunned down by the ECPD or Talos. Since waiting a bit longer wouldn't change her fate, Swoo decided to watch.
"Aren't you going to ask who hired us to take you out?"
"Probably some snob worried about the neighborhood's aesthetic. More importantly, aren't you going to ask what this drug is?"
"I'll find out if I keep watching."
"Hmph, pretty calm for a kid."
The foamy drool leaking from the woman's mouth turned into bloody froth. The tears of blood welled up and spilled over, and her muscles contorted hideously.
Yet, compared to the change occurring within her, those symptoms were minor.
The ocular implants that had been flashing red fell silent. The smoke billowing from various parts of her body stopped rising.
"...It stopped?"
Angela muttered, her mouth hanging open.
She understood the woman's condition better than anyone. She had hacked into the woman's implants and was reading the error messages flashing across her retinas.
It was a textbook case of cyberpsychosis.
Yet, those messages had vanished. Although no message indicating a return to normal appeared, the crucial point was that the error alerts had stopped.
"Noticing that it stopped... is the lady over there a Netwatcher?"
"...Yes, I am."
Angela replied, tilting her head.
Until now, almost everyone she met, regardless of age or gender, looked at her chest first. She could understand why. Even to her, her breasts were quite remarkable in many ways.
Yet Kou looked straight into her eyes, showing absolutely no interest in her chest.
Angela had now reached the same conclusion as Swoo. Despite looking like someone Enoch would shoot on sight, Ibaraki Kou was, contrary to expectations, a remarkably diligent and upstanding mercenary.
Hmm.
Checking the woman's condition, Kou stood up with a look of immense relief.
He wasn't in great shape either. His cybernetic right arm hung loose, half-torn from its socket, and a chunk of flesh was missing from his flank as if someone had bitten it off.
Even so, Kou looked thoroughly satisfied.
"I guess you didn't come here just to kill us outright?"
"Yep."
"You're a reasonable lady and kid."
"Do you two always do this kind of work?"
"You could say that."
"What kind of work?"
"Defending pure love in Eden."
Wiping the blood from his nose, Kou cackled as he looked down at the unconscious woman.
"Protected another couple's pure love today."
With an expression that made him look like he was about to ravish the collapsed woman at any moment, Kou spoke of pure love.