Bounty Hunter (2)

In the original story, Dimer dies at Capella's hands.

The Corvo Family is a mafia organization rooted in the northern continent. Dimer, ignorant of even that much, made the mistake of wiping one of their territories off the map. The place had been a drug plantation and a vault for the family's hidden funds; erasing it without a trace was as good as signing his own death warrant. A fatal blunder he never would have committed under ordinary circumstances. In terms of raw power, he had provoked a mafia every bit as vast as Hero City itself. That was the cause of death listed beside his name.

In the end, Dimer was butchered on the boss's orders by Capella, and before he died in her hands he staged a great many bombing attacks. He had retired once, fat with the fortune he'd earned terrorizing Hero City, but drink and women burned through the money, and he started taking contracts again.

Of course, that was the version of events in which I never caught him.

Dimer would not be stepping off this ship of his own accord. He was scheduled to be hunted by me.

...He's killed plenty of people. I don't feel particularly guilty about this.

But would it actually go smoothly? This wouldn't be my first time hunting an A-rank villain, yet Dimer was a specialist in slaughter. And the hunting ground was a passenger liner. One wrong move and his power would send the whole ship to the bottom. If he got cornered and tried to blow himself up, we'd have a real problem. I was already on edge because of his name; if he set off even a slightly larger blast, there would be no taking it back. I could swim to shore easily enough. The other passengers could not.

Hunting him is one thing. I still need to stay out of other people's sight as much as possible.

This liner, in particular, was carrying dignitaries from any number of factions. Hero City people among them, of course, with awakeners of no small rank riding as their escorts. Kick up a fuss and the aftermath would be a headache. So the plan was simple: put Dimer down as quietly and as quickly as I could, then slip away on the boat I'd prepared in advance.

About time.

The exchange office's special service had already taken care of the rest of the preparations. All I had to do was deal with him.

I infiltrated the liner disguised as crew. When departure hour came, the ship left the harbor. It was winter, so nobody spilled out onto the deck the way they would in summer, but the winter sea had a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠charm of its own, and most of the passengers went out to look at it. Few people remained inside the cabins.

"Mm. Nice aroma."

Dimer was drinking a cocktail at the bar. I kept my distance and watched him. A blond white man with a solid build. Maybe it was the long years of battlefield living, but even in a suit you could see how thoroughly his body had been trained. Factor in that he was an awakener, and even against someone a full rank above him he could probably close most of the gap with sheer experience. If I went at him head-on, I wouldn't put him down as easily as I had Outsider.

Outsider had been built for intelligence and reconnaissance. Dimer had spent a long time rolling through actual war. One mistake and I might be the one getting pinned.

It wasn't that I'd wasted the time I'd had. When Capella eventually killed Dimer in the original, he had already gone to seed on liquor and women, weaker than in his active years, and Capella herself had been swallowing every drug she could find, wrecking body and mind in the name of getting stronger. I was still in my original, unaltered state. And Dimer, for now, was still intact. The basic premises were wildly different. That much was obvious.

"You've got good hands. Tell Me Your Wish, was it? Suits Christmas."

Fine. Then pickle yourself in alcohol all the way through. The bombs had gone off according to plan; he was free to enjoy Christmas to his heart's content. He'd already killed enough people that guilt wouldn't so much as graze him. Stretch those legs out and go to sleep. Once he opened his eyes again, he wouldn't get another chance.

"Did you hear?"

"Hear what, exactly?"

"There was a bombing in Hero City."

"Hero City? On Christmas?"

That was when the passengers at the bar started talking about Hero City. It was three in the afternoon. Whether by internet or by news, word of the Hero City attack would have gotten out by now.

"What do we do? A lot of people must have been hurt..."

"Apparently there were no casualties, though. They said the blasts were in building restrooms and along exterior walls, and they weren't that big."

"...?!"

Dimer's face changed as he listened. Of course it did. The bombs he'd planted had enough yield to take down a large hotel at the very least. In practice, they'd been weaker than a grenade. Civilians would evacuate, heroes and bomb disposal would deploy—but the scenario he'd pictured would look nothing like what actually happened.

"Some brat playing a prank, maybe?"

"You don't think a villain did it...?"

"Come on. If villains were involved, it wouldn't have ended like that. Looked to me like kids messing around with a gas can."

"Ahem."

Dimer finally stood. The passengers' chatter had gotten under his skin, and if any of it was true, he had problems on several fronts. It had probably scraped his pride, too. A man who took real satisfaction in his own power, reduced to a kids' prank. Who wouldn't bristle?

Not that the passengers treating a gas-can explosion as a children's joke were entirely normal themselves...

"Tch. What the hell happened?"

He went back to his cabin, then returned not long after and started drinking again. He must have contacted the villains he'd been working with. His face looked like he'd bitten into a bug; there had probably been a nasty argument over the contract. Even from here I could see both fists trembling.

"Haa..."

Which meant Dimer started putting the drinks away even harder. Part of me wanted to finish him now, while I had the chance, but I still had to get off this liner afterward. Night was better. Let the smell of blood hang too long and I'd start tickling the noses of awakeners with a sharp sense of smell.

"Goddamn it! What the hell is this?"

After the sun went down, Dimer was drinking wine in his cabin when the rage finally overflowed and he smashed the glass. The alcohol was climbing; his grip on his temper was slipping. Even so, the hand of an awakener who had survived battlefield after battlefield didn't take so much as a scratch. These hands did not bleed over something that small.

But this—this was something else. Bombs he had spent real time preparing, treated like a children's toy. In all his years as a mercenary, he had never seen it.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"At that grade, you could plant them anywhere and take a building down. So what the hell went wrong?!"

The job had been to build powerful explosives that would slip past Hero City's bomb-inspection net. He'd taken a fat advance and put real care into it, disguising the charges as Christmas posters, ornaments, dolls—anything that would fool the eye. The contractors had even contacted him afterward to report where each one had been placed.

"At least a few thousand people should have died. And it ends with a couple of janitors getting hurt?"

Light burns, at that. He'd spoken with the contractors. Fortunately, they weren't demanding the fee back—but they had told him they were disappointed.

"You son of a bitch!"

Mercenaries had pride. Especially among awakeners who had made their names on their own power—and all the more so in a case like Dimer's, a man who could manufacture devastating bombs as easily as breathing. This job had put a dent in his reputation and a deeper one in his pride. He'd been planning to hang up the mercenary life anyway, but he'd wanted his last piece of work to be a spectacular retirement. Instead, it had come to this.

Thousands of people should have died on the spot. He had no idea what had gone wrong, but the anger sat so thick in his throat he couldn't even taste the wine.

"...Haa. It's over and done, I know. Still not easy to let go."

He got a handle on it quickly enough. Lose your cool and you lose your life—he'd watched that lesson play out on the battlefield more times than he could count. Rage could spike. It was never allowed to hurry him into the grave. And it was already finished. The objective itself had been met. Small blast or not, the contractors had succeeded in drawing Hero City's eyes, and a fat contract fee had landed in his pocket. Nothing left to complain about.

Knock, knock.

"Ah. She's here."

So he would enjoy a happy retirement. And here, right on cue, was the woman who would spend Christmas night with him. The results hadn't been satisfying, but the contract had included, as the price of his silence, first-class treatment aboard this luxury liner.

The door creaked open, and the blood that had been boiling in Dimer's head dropped straight down.

"Oh. Definitely worth the wait."

The woman who stepped into the room was very much to his taste. Young, almost too young, with clean skin, and a body that wasn't merely slim. Curves on a slender frame. A figure so well-balanced that even an awakener like him thought he could wrap her up and be perfectly content. And if he pictured that cold face coming undone beneath him...

"I'm sorry. It's my first time on a ship like this. I ended up running a little later than planned."

"Don't worry about it. Late isn't much, compared to the time we've got ahead of us."

The rest of it, he could forget easily enough.

"First, a drink for the lady as well—"

A wet thunk.

"Wh...?"

Because a dagger had just punched through the left hand he'd reached out to take her with. Under circumstances like these, who had room to remember the past? Even a mercenary who had seen every kind of hell would have his thoughts freeze for a beat.

"I wouldn't call this a proper thank-you, but..."

"Ghk—w-what the hell is—don't tell me you're an awakener!"

The alcohol had delayed him. He'd been too slow to clock that she was an awakener at all. If his head had been clear, he would have at least put his guard up the moment he realized what she was. Tonight he'd poured too much down his throat, and the machinery of his thinking wouldn't turn properly.

Belatedly, Dimer reached with his right hand. The left was finished, but if the right so much as touched her, he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could still put her down for certain.

The blade went in with a thick, wet sound.

"Gaaaaah...!"

Instead, she caught the wrist, dumped him onto the bed, and climbed on top of him, pinning him in place—then drove a dagger through the remaining hand as well. He tried to shove her off with raw strength. She didn't budge. He couldn't believe it. He was twice her size, and he was the one losing the contest of force.

"Let's have ourselves a merry Christmas."

"Ghk... Who—who the hell are you?"

"Me?"

Red eyes looked down into Dimer's. The moment he met them, his whole body seemed to lock in ice.

There was no light in the woman's eyes at all.

"H-hhk—?!"

Nothing but that red color looking into him, and Dimer found he could not look away. It was like facing a monster that only happened to wear a human shape.