EP.19.5 Aftermath
EP.19.5 Aftermath
The Arachne incident had ended futilely thanks to the crow, but the aftermath was far from trivial.
First, a bloodbath ensued within the government agency.
It was pointed out that the agents' response to the situation had been critically inadequate.
Thus, a thorough investigation was launched, and the results were truly disastrous.
A majority of the examiners who recruited agents were found to be involved in corruption and arrested en masse, and many of those who had bribed them to become agents were also rounded up.
As a result, a considerable reshuffling of agents occurred within the agency, and every agent who fell short of the government-designated standards was dismissed without exception.
Furthermore, the agency's main building was temporarily closed due to the remaining spiders, webs, and spider corpses, and a temporary building is currently in use.
That was the story of the aftermath the government agency faced. Next, I personally endured some staggering aftershocks of my own.
With the government taking a significant blow, the terrorists naturally began to run rampant.
The problem was that the agency had already gotten rid of a huge number of agents and was short-staffed.
Naturally, I had to suppress the terrorists who were starting to rampage everywhere.
"Director, the sweep is finished..."
[Good work. I'll send you the next coordinates immediately, so just head over there.]
"Um, Director? I think I've already wiped out about five squads of terrorists today alone..."
[Haha, aren't you officially my direct special agent? Then you must work!]
"Still, taking out multiple squads alone is a bit much, don't you think..."
[Didn't you take the baby dragon with you?]
"Well, yes, but... there's a thing called mental fatigue."
[Alright, then just one last request. I won't assign you any more missions for the rest of tomorrow.]
"Is that true?"
[Ahh, for our mysterious special agent, I can certainly do that much.]
"Aaargh!! Fuck!! Don't call me by that title!"
[Gahaha!]
This was my second aftermath.
I, who had been subjected to discrimination and contempt, was now rising as a hot topic of discussion.
The reason was the video footage that captured me chasing out the journalists.
Thinking it would be fine since I destroyed all the broadcasting equipment and sent the nearby agents far away, I had spouted all kinds of bluffs and lies.
But how could I have known someone was secretly filming with their phone...
In the end, my video was uploaded to every online community, and I unintentionally became the center of attention.
Thankfully, because I was wearing the Illusion Mask, my personal information wasn't doxxed.
But every time my story was on people's lips, I had to suffer unintentionally.
Just look at any random community at the moment...
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『The Mysterious Special Agent from Yesterday.jpg』
Posted by: YumiYourCat
The Mysterious Special Agent showed up near my place and beat down some terrorists lol
<Comments>
anon: Fuck, the face is different so it's a fake or a photoshop lol
┗ YumiYourCat: Not a fake or photoshop, saw him wreck terrorists in person
┗ anon: If you have more pics, post 'em and I'll believe you
┗ YumiYourCat: Unfortunately that was the only one, he trashed them and left too fast so I couldn't take more
┗ FuckingCatCut: No Yumi
MyDreamIsBeingAnAgent: Suuure~ that was confirmed to be a fake agent impersonator~
┗ anon:???: Son~! Are you studying hard for the public agent exam? Then why are you just tapping away at your keyboard?
┗ anon: Troll suuure stfu lol
┗ YumiYourCat: Mods, do your job
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It was full of photos of me that I didn't even know were taken, and stories about me.
Because of that, I couldn't take off my mask for a single moment and had to be constantly wary of whether a civilian was watching me.
"Haah!! Fuck...!!"
I should have been more careful...
Forcing the broadcasting stations to retreat was fine, but the root of this problem was me charging in while taking down the spiders that filled the lobby.
The moment I entered the lobby, I had casually wrecked the spider that pounced on me without a second thought.
Seeing me like that, the other agents must have truly believed I was a genuine government special agent.
In subsequent interviews, they were unstinting in their praise, even spreading the baseless rumor that I had single-handedly captured the Divine Beast.
The combination of the agents' interviews and the cell phone video filmed at the time spread, creating my current notoriety.
"Yuu! Yuu!"
"What's up, Tia?"
"Over there, click click!! A light flashed!!"
"Ah..."
Tia made a rectangle with the thumbs and index fingers of both hands, framing my face inside it.
She pretended to take my picture just like that, then immediately pointed somewhere with her finger and reported that she'd been spotted.
When I went to where Tia pointed, a woman who looked like a reporter and a little mouse were hiding behind a trash can.
I couldn't help but let out a deep sigh.
"Excuse me. You look like a reporter, didn't you watch today's news? I believe the government already announced that digging up my personal information is illegal?"
"Th-that's! I didn't think it had officially gone into effect yet..."
"Unfortunately, this bill was unusually enacted at the exact same time it was announced. Meaning, if I want to, I can throw every single one of you in jail."
"I'm sorry!! I'll delete the photos, so please have mercy...!!"
"If you don't want to end up in a nasty situation, how about you hand over that camera?"
"Y-yes, sir!!"
I took the camera from the reporter and intended to just delete my photos.
But as I thought about it more, I got pissed off and just dropped the camera on the ground and smashed it with my foot.
Startled, the reporter and her companion rat immediately turned tail and fled.
The sight of the fleeing reporter was like a rat, just like her companion animal.
"How many times is this today...?"
Director Edwiner had quickly proposed a protection law for me and announced it officially.
But there were still plenty of people trying to dig up information on me.
"Fifth time!!"
"Yeah, yeah. Thanks for letting me know, Tia."
"Ehehe!"
I gently stroked Tia's ever-adorable head and tried to go on my way...
But Tia tugged on my sleeve and pointed somewhere else again.
Figuring it was another paparazzo, I was getting weary—but the words that came out of Tia's mouth were unexpected.
"Yuu! Rabbit! There's a rabbit over there!!"
"A rabbit?"
A signboard stood in front of a store in the distance.
It was an unremarkable signboard, but a pricked-up rabbit ear was sticking out above it.
If she was going to hide her body, she should have hidden her ears too...
"Are we gonna catch the rabbit?"
"No, let's just leave her alone today."
The other day, during the Arachne-catching contest, Alice had confidently declared her aspirations.
But after being outdone by Yata's Future Sight, her enthusiasm hadn't just died; it had sunk deep into the abyss.
Anyway, probably because she was disappointed she couldn't become a bonded companion, she was just trailing behind me like now.
A stalker doing nothing, just watching and following me.
Whenever I approached her out of pity to talk, she vanished somewhere with a Time Leap.
Then after a little while, she would be lurking behind me again.
It seemed I was on her mind, but she had lost the confidence to actually have a conversation.
So, I decided to just ignore her for now, until the rabbit's confidence returned.
There was nothing I could do for her at this moment, anyway.
"Yuu, three bad guys in the alley on the right! And about five more further back!"
"Eight in total, then."
In my right hand, a pistol; in my left, my favorite sword.
Against Divine Beasts, I had no choice but to use the Fatal Light sword because normal weapons barely did damage.
But against humans, of course, guns were more efficient.
A single bullet could be a fatal wound to a human.
"Alright, Tia, I'll be back."
"Okay!"
Entering the alley on the right, I aimed at the head of the farthest one among the three terrorists I encountered and fired.
Next, I slit the throat of the closest one and finished him off, then ducked down to dodge the last one's bullet.
At the same time, I kicked an empty bottle rolling nearby into the back of the last guy's head and put a bullet in him right after.
I'd dealt with the three humans, but their companion animals still remained.
I cleanly cut down the charging wild boar, fed a bullet into the mouth of the wild dog trying to bite me, and kicked the flying mantis into the wall.
With the three terrorists completely finished, the remaining five were at the end of the alley.
They should have come running after hearing the gunshots, of course.
But for some reason, in the future three seconds ahead, nothing was happening.
'What's this?'
Mystified, I walked out of the alley and found that the five terrorists and their companion animals had already been turned into mincemeat.
I had a rough idea who had done this, so I looked around. Far away, peeking around the corner, was a rabbit ear with a small amount of blood on it.
'As I thought, it's Alice's doing.'
I didn't ask her to, but I had to give a wry smile at the rabbit's thoughtful gesture of taking care of them in advance.
When I softly murmured, "Thanks, Alice," under my breath, Alice's ear twitched once.
Then it started moving violently, like a helicopter propeller.
If my memory served me right, I'd only seen her act like that when she received a new game...
Was she that starved for praise?
If I ever got the chance to have a proper conversation with her later, I'd have to praise her a lot then.
"Hehe! Squeak squeak!"
"Tia...? What are you doing over there?"
"Yuu! Look at this! When I rub this mister's bald head with my finger, it makes a funny sound!"
Meanwhile, Tia had been tending to the bald head of one of the terrorists I had knocked down.
Even though he was dead, I made her stop, thinking of the respect owed to the deceased. And I offered a brief silent prayer for him.
It was the act of a pure child, so I hoped he wouldn't hold a grudge...
-Bzzz!! Bzzz!! Bzzz!!
Just as the situation ended and I was about to report to the director.
My phone started vibrating.
For a moment, I was creeped out, wondering if the director had called with ghost-like timing.
But anticlimactically, the caller was not the director but someone else.
However, it wasn't from an ordinary person, but from someone who wouldn't usually call without a special reason...
"Hello?"
"Son~! Do you happen to have a lot of free time today? If you do, stop by our house today! Your father and I both have a lot to tell you! Alright, we'll be waiting!!"
"W-wait a second!!"
With a beep!, not even ten seconds had passed before my phone displayed the call-ended screen.
"She really never changes..."
This person who always just said whatever she wanted and then hung up at will was...
my mother.