Bounty Hunter (1)

The monster's corpse was hauled into Hero City in pieces.

Head, torso, arms, legs — not a scrap of bone or flesh was thrown away. A beast's remains were a vital resource, every last bit of them.

But even a resource that precious was too dangerous to bring inside the city unchecked. Before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anything crossed the threshold, the checkpoint ran a thorough inspection for anything that might cause trouble. Among the materials, there was always the chance of something explosive — or worse, that villains from outside had planted actual bombs, meant for terrorism.

"...Huh? Th-this is—! Team Leader! You need to see this!"

"What? What's going on?"

"H-here — there's a dagger in the monster's chest..."

"Aigoo, for crying out loud. Looks like those guys forgot a few pieces of gear again. Tell the management team separately and have them come pick it up."

"That's not it. This is a dagger with Regulus's emblem on it!"

Team Leader Kim of the checkpoint went rigid.

It was Christmas Eve, he was already on overtime, and he had been tired and thoroughly irritated — but the instant the word Regulus left his subordinate's mouth, a dozen thoughts tore through his head at once.

"Report this upstairs, now! And just in case, run every last scrap of material here through the X-ray! If there's a bomb hidden in any of this, we're all finished!"

Regulus.

An organization of awakened criminals operating beyond the walls.

Hero City had officially branded them a veteran syndicate of awakened villains — a terrorist group whose infamy stretched not only across the city, but through nations and factions far beyond it. And they were more than a mere organization. Their scale rivaled that of a nation's army, and among their ranks were threats whose grade reached as high as S-rank. No other group compared.

Several countries and cities had already fallen to them. By any measure, this was an emergency.

"Alright. You can go. Just keep your mouth shut about this. It's Christmas — people should be enjoying themselves with their families, not living on edge."

And so the matter climbed all the way to Hero City's Administration Bureau — to the Director of Security, who in practice held overall command of the city's safety.

It was possible that the villain organization Regulus had set its sights on Hero City.

Of course, if they came at the city head-on, there would be little to worry about — not with that Hero here. But Regulus would know that as well as anyone. They would never come through the front door. Their method was to send a handful of elite operatives, sow chaos, and snatch whatever they wanted in the confusion. Past incidents were proof enough: they had slipped inside Hero City despite its vaunted security and set off more than one disaster.

"Are you listening? I would ask that you take this matter into your own hands, Witch. If our side moves first, word of it may reach his ears."

To keep the past from repeating, the best course was to eliminate the danger before it ever took shape. The Director spoke to the blonde woman on the other side of the monitor.

The woman's voice was warm, and yet it was cold. A contradiction — though perhaps, considering her epithet, it was the only comparison that fit.

The Golden Witch.

Gold was brilliant and beautiful, but the moment it touched your hand, it was cold, and it was heavy.

Just as those blinded by wealth hasten their own deaths, she would be little different.

December 25th. Christmas.

December 25th, 1914. In the midst of the First World War, the Western Front fell into an unspoken ceasefire for Christmas — a day meaningful enough that men who had been trying to kill each other only hours before, hundreds of them, began to smile at one another and shake hands. A miracle.

This cursed world, however, knows no such thing.

Even without a world war, the two sides remain forever on guard, forever trying to carve a little more off the other. That is why, inside Hero City, you would be hard-pressed to find a day when security is tighter than Christmas — and the funnier part is that even with the heightened alert, incidents still break out.

I looked down over the streets from the first hours of Christmas morning. It was early enough that Lena would still be asleep, but the roads were already beginning to fill. There were no children in sight, yet the adults were already on the move. Some of them were smiling. Some wore nothing on their faces at all. Some looked full of discontent. And somewhere among them, a villain was mixed in.

Hero City lived up to its name in how seriously it took public order — but the criminals of this world came with superhuman ability as a baseline. Safety was never a guarantee.

December 25th, 2:00 p.m.

If my memory was right, this street would become a living hell of bombings. A great many people would die, or be maimed.

Even on Christmas, a handful of Heroes would be patrolling the streets, trying to stop a terrorist attack before it happened. It wouldn't matter. The villain involved this time had a thoroughly irritating ability: he could make a bomb from nothing but a mark.

His bombs, large and small, had already been planted throughout the city for days.

"I've already done something about the bombs, but..."

I hadn't defused them. I couldn't have, even if I'd wanted to — and if I had, the future might have changed in ways I couldn't afford. Worse, if Dimer noticed his bombs had been disarmed, he might detonate the rest. Besides, I was hardly some justice-drunk Hero. I had only tweaked them so the yield would be weaker. There would be a small commotion, nothing more. But it would be enough to draw the attention of city security and the Heroes.

"...I really do feel bad for Lena, though."

I had gone and left Elena to spend Christmas alone again. I had visited the day before and stayed with her into the night, but that didn't stop it from bothering me. I forced down the part of me that wanted to turn toward the hospital.

The payout on this job was considerable, and given what Dimer would go on to do, he had to be dealt with now. When a hunter stalks a predator, the relationship can reverse at any moment. You had to keep your head on straight.

"Location's Floor E, the harbor side, isn't it."

At 2:00 p.m., the villain Dimer would detonate the bombs he had planted inside the city, exactly as he had been hired to do, then escape Hero City by passenger ship. At the time, no one inside Hero City had even known who was behind the explosions, and there had been no attention to spare — not with citizens trapped under collapsed buildings who needed rescuing. The yield was adjusted now, though, so it wouldn't go that far. The bombs were hidden in out-of-the-way places. No one would die.

"The afternoon passenger ship is the Titanic...? What an ominous name."

Which brought the point back to the villain Dimer. My objective was to take him alive if I could. Dying ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wouldn't matter in itself — except that the bounty would be cut in half, so keeping him breathing was the better play.

His physical abilities were nothing special. The problem was the power he carried. The most irritating part was the Mark Detonation. The greater the explosive force he wanted, the larger the mark had to be, and of course a larger mark took longer to inscribe. But even a passing touch was enough to make a relatively weak bomb, and he could put a mark on a person as easily as anything else. It wouldn't blow ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the body itself apart — the mark was what exploded — but standing on a grenade wasn't much different. Even an awakener would be seriously wounded unless they were B-Rank or higher.

And Capella, while A-Rank as an awakener, had physical abilities that fell short of her grade. One mistake, and an arm or a leg might go flying.

"Still. A-Ranks this rare don't come along often. If I take him alive, I'll be able to spend some time with Lena for a while."

Figuring out where he would be wasn't difficult. Dimer had spent most of his life on battlefields as a long-time mercenary, so when he came to a city this well-made, he would try to steal a little peace of mind, if only for a short while.

...That was nonsense, honestly, and not remotely convincing — but given his original movements, finding him would be easy. More than that, he had been in this city for over a week by now. His means of escape had been the passenger ship from the start.

Where I needed to go had already been decided.

Morning. A hotel on Floor E.

"Mm. Not a bad little vacation. Shame I have to leave already."

The man packed his things and let the regret sit on his tongue. In summer the place filled with guests who came to see the sea, but winter always thinned the crowds — it couldn't be helped. That, as it happened, suited him just fine.

He had spent most of his life on battlefields, in places where an enemy might hit you at any hour, from any direction. Here, he had been able to rest for days without that worry — slowly, quietly, watching a winter sea that wasn't half bad.

"I'd love to come back in the summer, but..."

...It was only a pity that next time, he would no longer be able to set foot in this place.

He was a mercenary who worked for money. A city like Hero City, belonging to a hostile power, was not somewhere he would ever have come without a contract. He would ordinarily have turned this job down. The sum attached to it had been too large to ignore. For that kind of money, he could retire from the mercenary life and spend whatever years he had left in some quiet corner of the world. If he wanted, he could go somewhere far better than this.

"Can't be helped."

The man left the hotel with a quiet smile. A peculiar black tattoo was inscribed on his palm.