The Dryad's Branch (3)
“Ack! It’s nothing! I’m not selling it anyway, so I’ll be going now!”
The woman had slipped up and scared herself, then bolted like a startled rabbit. But I’d heard that insolent word “temptation,” and since the Dryad’s Branch was the genuine article, I couldn’t just let her slip away.
Without saying a word, I took off after her.
As I ran, I checked her combat power.
Combat Power: 25
Pretty high for an ordinary civilian woman. Her running speed was impressive too. Maybe she really was a former track athlete? Even in a world full of superhumans, athletes still existed. The fact that I’d learned kickboxing was proof enough of that.
Gangsters who could use martial arts or psychic powers were banned from official sports under the rules. That meant competitions were held by and for the powerless, and they remained popular simply because watching them was fun. Given the overwhelming ratio of normal people to ability users in this world, it made sense.
Of course there were gangsters pulling strings behind the scenes and match-fixing scandals, but that wasn’t my problem right now.
The woman was fast, but with my combat power of 420 it was only natural that I was faster. The distance between us shrank steadily until I was running right beside her.
“Hey, mind explaining what that ‘temptation’ crap was about?”
“Eek! How is someone so fast?!”
“You’re pretty quick yourself. I’m just quicker.”
The woman seemed to realize she couldn’t shake me no matter how hard she ran. After glancing around nervously, she spoke in a tiny voice only I could hear.
“I’ll tell you the truth, so please follow me naturally.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“If you don’t want to believe me, then don’t.”
“You do realize that if I felt like it I could knock you out right now and take the branch, right?”
“I know that very well.”
Hmm. What to do? If I followed her and Carpediem was waiting with laser scopes trained on me, there’d be no way to win. Still, I didn’t see a Carpediem badge on her chest, so maybe that wouldn’t happen. Those Carpediem bastards always made sure to pin their badges front and center so everyone knew who they were.
Excluding Carpediem, it was extremely unlikely the Murim Alliance or Esper Hunters would pull something like this. If some weirdo showed up, I’d just beat the crap out of him.
“I’ll trust you this once.”
I followed the woman into yet another dark alley. She must have pushed herself hard; she leaned against the wall, breathing heavily.
I stood in front of her and waited in silence. It would be difficult for her to talk while gasping for air.
“Hah… You really do seem like the type who could beat a man with a gun.”
“So it didn’t actually matter whether I could beat him or not?”
Her tone made it obvious she’d been trying to use me, so there was no longer any need for politeness. Establishing dominance was always important.
“Yes…”
The woman frowned painfully and lowered her head. Why make a face like that when you’re the one trying to use someone? What a strange woman.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I didn’t do any of this because I wanted to.”
“You didn’t want to?”
“No.”
She looked genuinely wronged. In that case, I’d hear her out.
“Then why did you do it?”
“To survive.”
The woman glanced down at her legs before continuing.
“My name is Leni. Leni Siss.”
“Racist? What kind of name is that?”
“No, it’s Leni Siss. I am not a racist.”
“All right, Ms. Racist. Continue while thinking of me as a monkey.”
“Sigh… Anyway, ten years ago I was a promising track athlete. My name still comes up if you search it online.”
Ah, no wonder she was so fast. She really had been a track star. I searched just to check, and the results popped up immediately. Same face, too.
“At least the part about being a track athlete checks out, Ms. Racist.”
“You searched for Leni Siss but keep calling me Racist. You really have no sense of humor.”
“What do you want from me? I’ll call you whatever I feel like. Continue while thinking of me as a black guy.”
“Why do you keep saying monkey or black guy when I’m not even white to begin with?”
She had a point. Leni Siss was Asian too. Still, why did an Asian woman have a name that sounded like “racist”? That wasn’t my fault.
“Just continue the story already. You don’t have the right to order me around.”
“……”
Finding it hard to argue, Racist nodded.
“The event I competed in was the fifteen-hundred-meter run. I held the record at the time, so everyone expected me to win. But Carpediem reached out.”
Carpediem again? At this point it was a miracle they hadn’t been collectively lynched yet. Though it couldn’t be helped since they controlled all the technology in the human city.
“At the Human City Athletics Championship where athletes from all four districts gather in the center, Carpediem suggested I take second place.”
“Match-fixing?”
“Yes. One of Carpediem’s organizations was making serious money through sports match-fixing, so naturally their reach extended to me as well.”
“So what did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I run because I love running. It’s the only way I can prove my existence. Did you really think I’d agree to throw a race? No matter how much money they offered, I refused.”
I pulled up the news articles on my phone. It was all true. Ten years ago, Leni Siss had won gold in the fifteen-hundred-meter at the Human City Central Athletics Championship.
“After that, Carpediem threatened to force me into retirement. They said they’d kill me if I didn’t retire.”
“Well, even Carpediem probably wouldn’t just kill a celebrity outright. You were famous, after all, Ms. Racist.”
There were cases of idols disappearing to facilitate body swaps, but this was different. If a gold medalist suddenly went missing or died, match-fixing suspicions would be unavoidable. The connection was too obvious.
“But they really would have killed me if I hadn’t retired. It was their final attempt to end things peacefully. With no other choice, I retired and began struggling with living expenses.”
“Why? Didn’t winning gold earn you some money?”
“Where do you think the prize money for gold medalists comes from?”
“No way…”
Obviously the government paid gold medalists. Sports existed to dumb down the citizens and make them easier to control, so rewarding the athletes who glorified that culture was only natural. Of course, the gangsters were the ones who created that policy.
“‘No way’ gets people killed. Carpediem pressured the government so they wouldn’t give me a single cent. A lifetime spent running had become my grave.”
Just how many sins had these Carpediem bastards piled up? Probably more than the amount of soup Eris had eaten in her entire life.
“In the end I couldn’t endure the hardship and borrowed money. I tried everything to pay it back, but nothing worked. Eventually the loan sharks caught me and I nearly suffered a terrible fate.”
The fate of someone who borrowed money and couldn’t repay it depended on the loan shark’s personality, but it usually ended in being sold off or death. Yoo Jin-ri had nearly gone down that road too.
“But you don’t look like you suffered anything terrible.”
“That’s correct. The loan shark said there was work I could do because I was Leni Siss.”
“Work you could do because you’re Leni Siss?”
“Yes. I was once famous as a beautiful young track athlete. Then I retired under suspicious circumstances… Surely something better than selling me to a brothel would come to mind?”
“Ah. They wanted to use you as a honey trap.”
The internet news articles really did have headlines like Beautiful Track Star Leni Retires After This Competition… Why? Even after ten years she barely looked any older. Of course, she still looked older than Yoo Jin-ri.
“Exactly. The Dryad’s Branch is something rich perverts often seek out. It can let you experience the ultimate pleasure, after all.”
“No wonder the guy selling the real thing seemed like a pervert.”
“But even though they advertise it for sale, they keep moving the location and angering the buyers. It makes people complain about why the meeting spot keeps changing.”
“So when the angry customer shows up, the provocatively sexy Leni Siss is there holding the Dryad’s Branch, claiming with a pitiful expression that she had to keep moving because a man with a gun was chasing her?”
“That’s right. Then she tells a prepared story to earn even more sympathy. The content is designed to stimulate a man’s protective instincts on a completely different level from what I told you.”
Not a bad buildup. A pervert already enchanted by the Dryad’s Branch suddenly gets asked for help by a tragic beautiful girl track athlete. He might feel like the protagonist of his own story, even forgetting how terrifying a gun truly is.
“The problem is that once it reaches this stage, they can’t just make the target hand over money like a normal honey trap.”
“…Then?”
“The man with the gun actually starts chasing me, and the two of us run away together. In that fearful situation the bridge effect occurs—love blossoms in the face of danger—and we end up in a physical relationship.”
“Huh?”
“The loan shark films the entire scene. Once it’s over, he bursts in, puts a gun to my head, and says this.”
“Then the man, who has genuinely fallen in love with me, sacrifices his money for my sake and disappears. He can’t tell anyone about it either.”
“No matter how perverted men are, toying with people’s hearts like this…”
“I-I don’t do it because I want to!”
“I know.”
“Huh?”
“I said I know. You’re a victim too.”
Leni Siss played with men’s hearts. But the process required her to use her own body as well. The additional threat of leaking the video made the blackmail more effective. Or maybe the loan shark bastard was actually doing something with those videos. Either way, Leni Siss was a victim forced to form unwanted relationships and toy with men’s emotions.
“And the reason you told me all this is because I don’t seem like an ordinary person, right?”
“Y-yes… You really do understand two things from hearing one.”
“I’d have to be an idiot not to figure it out. And choosing me was actually pretty smart.”
Footsteps echoed. They definitely weren’t friendly. They weren’t just someone passing by, either.
That meant the man with the gun—the loan shark—was coming.
I slipped my hand into my inner pocket, pulled out my cleaver, and unwound the bandages wrapped around the blade so I wouldn’t tear my clothes. Lowering my stance like Mohanya, I raised my guard with the hand holding the knife so he wouldn’t think I was going to throw it.
And finally, a man appeared at the entrance of the alley.
“I was going to set you free if this one succeeded… What a shame, Leni.”