Making a Plan
"Phew... I feel like I'm alive again."
The moment I reached my room, I tossed aside the suffocating mask and collapsed onto the bed.
Anonymity might be essential for a villain, but wearing something that uncomfortable from dawn to dusk was pure torture.
"...."
I let my eyes wander slowly around the room.
Operation equipment crates sat haphazardly stacked in one corner, and the desk was a mess of jumbled report files.
I was pretty sure I'd planned to clean up at some point... though it clearly hadn't been yesterday.
On one wall hung a single photograph.
A slightly faded Polaroid.
In it stood a younger-looking version of me.
And beside me, the Commander.
She'd casually swept her pink hair up and stood there with a smile far too bright for the place.
That was right after I'd joined...
I remembered how she'd suddenly demanded a photo the moment I signed up, then flashed that grin of hers afterward — "Gotta leave behind memories, right~" — and even now the image was vivid in my mind.
She was the kind of person who vanished one day without a word and never appeared again in the original story, so unless something turned up, I had no way of knowing where she was or what she was doing.
....Anyway.
I looked away and slowly pulled myself upright.
First, the plan.
This operation was about securing our supply lines.
To be precise, it was about very politely bringing back that supply route — the one that had betrayed us and gone crawling to the Association.
The easiest approach was obvious.
Just barge in, shove a gun barrel against the guy's forehead, and ask ever so courteously.
Something like that.
It was, admittedly, an extremely effective method.
Fear has always been the cheapest negotiating tool available.
The problem was that it never translated into a sustainable relationship.
A guy you intimidated into submission once would betray you the next time more cleverly, more meticulously, and usually far more irritatingly.
And there's nothing more infuriating than a villain getting outplayed by someone even more villainous.
So I had to take a different route.
Not just raiding them and walking away — reeling them back in.
Making them understand that we were a better deal than the Association, while simultaneously planting the knowledge that we were also more dangerous than the Association.
The carrot and the whip. Both had to be on the table at once.
On top of that, there was the possibility of a run-in with heroes.
This was going to be trickier than it looked.
The days of simply moving on orders from above were long gone.
Now, I *was* the one up above.
Sighing, I moved to the desk and pored over the files Lee Sejin had sent.
The locations of the logistics company scattered across each branch, the people in charge, prior transaction records, exchanged messages and the like.
"How did he even put all this together..."
The material was surprisingly solid.
Executive-grade preparation, you might call it.
Sifting through it slowly, I figured I could dig out at least one piece of blackmail material.
Say, a suspicious pattern of corporate card withdrawals from the branch manager's personal account, or the fact that the manager's profile mentioned family camping trips while his location history had been pinging near love hotels for the past month.
You know, those cute little human weaknesses.
Those always worked beautifully.
Toss out just that much, and most people's eyes change.
And if they still don't come over?
...Then we do it the old-fashioned way.
Gun barrels, self-destruct drones, EMPs, bombs — the whole arsenal.
We had a wonderfully diverse range of force options ready.
Negotiation first, pressure second.
As long as the order never got reversed, we'd be fine.
"...Hm."
That said... it might be more than I could handle alone.
Reconnaissance, negotiation, pressure, recovery — and on top of all that, combat readiness in case of a hero encounter...
Handling all of it simultaneously was beyond even me.
I needed at least one more executive-level person.
Charging in blindly with just rank-and-file members was a nonstarter, since the target was closer to an arms depot wearing a logistics company costume.
I'd review the files later and start thinking about who to bring along.
Nightfall.
In the main story of the game I used to play, it was the organization that had fought the Association well into the late game.
In a sense, you could call them the masterminds of the original.
Going by the timeline, our existence hadn't yet been exposed to any significant degree, but it wasn't hard to predict that the organization would balloon in scale before long.
That was part of why I'd joined in the first place.
I quietly took a coat from the drawer and put it on.
Picking the mask back up from my wrist, I walked slowly out into the corridor.
One face was already floating to the front of my mind.
An executive who constantly went around in a full-body suit.
From the outside, not a single trace of humanity.
But when it came to raw combat power, she was rock solid.
Besides, that massive frame made for quite an effective threat during negotiations.
Just having someone like that standing beside you at the table changed the entire atmosphere.
After passing through several sections, I stopped in front of a familiar door.
I drew a light breath and raised my hand.
Knock, knock.
The sound of knuckles broke the silence.
Beyond the door, all was still.
...No response, but she was definitely in there.
This one's reaction speed had always been a beat slow. Habit, apparently.
[Who is it?]
A modulated machine hum drifted out from deep inside the room.
Her mic was still set to that deep register, I see.
"Closer."
[What is it...?]
"I need to discuss an operation."
[Wait a moment.]
A short silence. Then, at last, the door slid open with a hiss.
What appeared before me was an enormous bulk.
A white suit encasing the entire body, paired with a silent, crushing presence.
The word "mech" suited her perfectly.
I'd seen her plenty of times since joining, but watching her still made me flinch, just a little.
Shifty.
An all-around monster who could handle defense, firepower, even infiltration without breaking stride.
There was just one problem...
This one... was a woman.
Nobody who played the game could forget the shock of seeing her real face the first time the suit came off.
Without a word, Shifty stepped aside in front of me.
[Enter.]
I nodded and slipped quietly inside.
The room contained a storage rack for her suit, a maintenance table for equipment, and a bed for sleeping — and that was all.
Was this actually a room a human being lived in?
I carefully settled into a spot near the bed and spoke up.
"...By the way, Shifty."
[What is it?]
"Don't you think you could take the suit off while we talk? Being in that thing the whole time, I mean."
[State your reason.]
"Because it feels like I'm reporting to a machine. It's a bit much, honestly."
A brief silence.
Shifty gave a slow nod.
A low mechanical drone answered me.
[I see... Understood.]
Hiss—
The sound of depressurizing air, and the suit's locks released.
The panels across the upper torso split apart and folded open quietly, and from within emerged the silhouette of a person.
Silver hair spilled down to her shoulders, and crimson eyes regarded me cautiously.
And then... it felt crude to say, but there was also that enormous something at her chest.
How had a person like this even fit inside that thing?
"Um... is this alright?"
Shifty asked with extreme caution.
Perhaps out of embarrassment, a faint flush crept across her expression.
She really hadn't needed to go full mid-battle strip-tease — just popping the helmet off would have done fine.
"......"
"Closer?"
"Uh... can I ask you one thing?"
"What now?"
I let my gaze drop for a moment, then looked back up at her.
"Why on earth are you wearing that suit indoors?"
"For immediate response if a threat enters. Besides, who would want to look at a woman like me anyway?"
"Excuse me?"
What fresh nonsense was this?
At least in terms of her physique, she ranked near the top of every character in the game.
I couldn't exactly say it to her face, but there was no word for her other than "glamour" — she defied any other description.
So was it her face that was lacking? Absolutely not. With that flowing silver hair and those crimson eyes, anyone who looked at her would call her a beauty.
"Nobody... would look at you? Seriously?"
I asked again, dumbfounded.
If nobody looked at that, what else was there to look at?
"Is that not the case?"
Shifty tilted her head slightly. Her expression was dead serious.
"Do you actually think you're ordinary?"
"I do not consider my appearance to be particularly attention-grabbing. I once walked around without the suit, as the Commander instructed. Back then, everyone avoided making eye contact with me."
That was probably because nobody knew where to put their eyes.
Let's call it a situation where anyone caught staring directly might as well have buried themselves alive within the organization.
"You're saying that sincerely?"
"Of course."
"Never say that in front of Lady Ilwolgeom."
"Why not?"
"You... don't need to know."
Because if word got around, her sword might just end up pointed my way.
"My skeletal proportions give me a broader ribcage and pelvis than the average female. This results in an outward appearance that—"
"Whoa, whoa, stop!"
I raised a hand to cut her off.
Shifty paused mid-sentence and studied me.
"Then how do you see me, Closer?"
"Huh?"
For a moment, my throat went dry.
Why was the conversation suddenly steering in that direction?
Wondering if there was some hidden agenda, my brain automatically started playing out several scenarios.
No way... knowing Shifty, this was most likely just a dead-serious field survey.
"Just... an ordinary colleague?"
At my answer, Shifty blinked a few times, then nodded slowly.
"Understood. I will record it."
"Record it?"
"I have been storing evaluations and perceptions of my colleagues for reference. Relationships with other executives are important."
"Huh..."
I was momentarily lost for words.
"Do you actually ask people that on a regular basis?"
"No. Everyone else finds it uncomfortable."
"And I don't?"
"You appear accustomed to it, Closer. You have known me a long while, going back to my rank-and-file days. I simply judged you to be trustworthy on that basis."
Well, how touching.
To be precise, I was only "accustomed" to her because I'd seen her true form in the game.
If I'd laid eyes on her real appearance without a shred of prior information, I probably would have reacted exactly like everyone else did.
"So, what business brings you here?"
Oh, right. The alliance. I was supposed to ask for her cooperation... supposed to...
I looked up, and Shifty's figure filled my vision.
Aside from the chest she was barely managing to cover, she was essentially nude.
"Before that... could you maybe throw on some clothes first? I'm all for you being human and everything, but I don't think I can look you straight in the eye."
Shifty glanced down over her own upper body, then nodded as if it were nothing at all.
"Understood. My apologies if it inconvenienced you."
With that, she rose slowly from her seat and fetched a coat.
"Then let's get down to business."
Let's talk work. It would be a whole lot less complicated that way.