Standoff at Neverland (2)
"Th-there are thirty or more members left, including the boss and the executives! The boss is 'Field Commander Jo Jin-hyun,' and the only executives on my level are 'Scissorhands Kang Kal-jin' and 'Demolition Sapper Bang Hwa-cheol'! Bang Hwa-cheol has this hobby of admiring his own handiwork, so he's probably near the Ferris wheel by now... uh, uhh?!"
"Jo Jin-hyun, Kang Kal-jin, Bang Hwa-cheol — what do they look like? What are they wearing?"
"Jo Jin-hyun has a black two-block haircut with a goatee and wears sunglasses! Kang Kal-jin is tall with stiff, spiky yellow hair and dark tan skin! Bang Hwa-cheol has a short buzz cut, he's fat, and there's a scar under his right eye! They're all wearing black hoods like mine, the symbol of Black Moon... wait, hold on...! E-everything I just said was a lie—"
"...Right. Thanks for the intel."
"Eeek...!"
"......Wow."
"......."
Each of the women reacted differently to the sight of me lopping off his head the instant the information was out of his mouth, without a moment's hesitation.
It might have looked a little brutal, but it hardly counted as a strike against my favorability. The moment he'd set off that bomb on the Ferris wheel, he and his kind had forfeited any right to complain about being executed on the spot.
If anything, it would have looked like a point in my favor to Han Sora with her strong sense of justice, or to Kim Isabel, who despised villains. As for Cha Eunju — well, she was always Cha Eunju, so showing her a bit of this side of me didn't matter one way or the other.
"A black two-block haircut with a goatee and sunglasses. Stiff yellow hair with tan skin. And a buzz cut, fat, with a scar under his eye...."
I pulled out my notebook and jotted down each of their appearances one by one. Their abilities and fighting styles were information I already had, but the original novel had never bothered to describe their faces in much detail.
With Seo Woojin absent, I reminded myself once more that we had to enter this fight fully prepared, then called over the three people standing behind me.
"Eunju, Sora, and Isabel."
"...Mm."
"Yeah."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry to say this after dragging you all the way here when I was the one who told you to run, but could I ask you to hear me out for just a moment?"
"Mm...?"
"Yes...."
"...Go ahead."
"This bomb attack that just happened. We might be able to help resolve it."
With the three of them listening attentively — one watching me with cautious, worried eyes, another simply tilting her head silently in my direction — I pressed on with an argument that leaned heavily toward the forced.
"We're the only ones who know whether there are other terrorists still inside the park, and we're the only ones who can tell them apart. I don't know what the terrorists' goal is, but if we just wait for support from outside, there will probably be far more casualties.
That guy mentioned a demolition sapper earlier — if he sets off a bomb somewhere like a shelter, it'll be an even bigger disaster than the explosion we just saw. There's also their leader, and at least one more executive besides."
"Th-that's true, actually...."
"...He's right. It doesn't have to be a shelter — anywhere crowds gather could be in danger."
"Lee Seonho, don't tell me what you're suggesting is—"
"I know we're not official licensed Hunters yet. I know we'll barely be getting the title of reserve Hunters a few weeks from now.
But we can do more than any ordinary civilian. At the very least, we can move far more proactively than those people over there running for their lives without even knowing what's happening."
"I-I understand what you're saying. We go looking for the remaining terrorists ourselves, just the four of us?"
"...I know it's reckless, something that shouldn't even be attempted by students. But I think this is the time for us to step up."
Yeah, that was a little cringe-worthy. I was quoting Seo Woojin's lines from the original novel word for word, but there was no helping the heat rising to my face.
None of this fit my personality to begin with. I was only following the original story to earn Han Sora's and Kim Isabel's favorability and manufacture an excuse to get tangled up with Park Hana.
If enduring a single moment of toe-curling embarrassment could win over three women's hearts, it was a trade profitable enough to leave me pocketing the change.
"Yeah. Somehow, I figured you'd be the type to say that, Lee Seonho."
"I agree with Lee Seonho. Even just to keep anyone else from getting hurt, I think we really do need to step up."
"If any scary people show up, turn back first. The park entrance is already cleared, so no one should be blocking your way out."
"I-I'm definitely going with you, Seonho...! Wherever you go, no matter what...!"
"...Same for me. If ever there was a time a Recovery-type ability user was needed, it's now."
"And you, Han Sora?"
"Can't you tell just by looking? That's why I made a point of bringing my weapon. Even if you all ran, I was planning on coming back in."
Han Sora held up a tiny toy bow that fit entirely in one hand, along with a handful of arrows.
Seeing her hold such a thing with such a serious expression, I honestly couldn't help letting a laugh slip out.
"Pfft. That's one adorable weapon you've got there."
"I-it couldn't be helped! Who in their right mind brings their own bow to an amusement park?! Be glad I at least have this...!"
"Just kidding, just kidding. Still, I saw what it can do earlier, so it should be more than enough."
That was the terrifying thing about Piercing Arrow — even a weapon like that could punch clean through a human skull. No other archery-type awakened ability could probably even imitate it.
And so, trading remarks like these, the four of us turned back from the park entrance and headed deeper inside.
"Han Sora, over there! I see one!"
"I see him too!"
A single Black Moon operative, chasing a fleeing woman in a black hood with his gun drawn.
The moment she spotted him, Han Sora raised her toy bow, took aim, and fired in one swift motion.
"AAAAAAGH!!"
The operative collapsed where he stood, his throat skewered by a plastic arrow.
We had no idea how many more were left, but counting everyone we'd taken down this way from the entrance onward, we were at about ten so far.
"Nice shooting, Han Sora!"
"...That's your buff doing the work. I could never hit someone sprinting like that on my own. With a buff at this level, I can see why Eunju clings to you so much."
I had already cast Artemis's Soul on Han Sora on the way here. In a situation where lives were genuinely on the line, there was no way she'd refuse a mental-type buff just because it felt a little suspicious.
And of course, I behaved myself and did nothing but quietly apply the buff. Right now, what mattered more was creating a situation where Han Sora experienced the power of my Suggestion firsthand and came to rely on me.
Besides, I'd already burned through so much mana with all the Suggestion use today that I was running on fumes — I had no spare capacity for anything reckless anyway.
"Y-you insolent little punks!"
"Isabel, front!"
"O Light, bind him!"
"Ghh, d-damn it...!"
"GUAAAAAH!!"
"Eunju, two black hoods on the right!"
"Dark... Sphere!"
"Guhk...!!"
Han Sora covered the left, Cha Eunju the right. Whenever an enemy slipped in for a surprise attack, Kim Isabel bound them and I finished them off with my blade.
The single rifle I'd brought as a spare, along with its remaining ammunition, had to be conserved as much as possible.
I didn't have the stamina to lug around several guns, nor the time to search through terrorists' corpses for spare magazines one by one. Reality doesn't grant you the leisure to loot bodies the way a game does.
One bullet to use against Jo Jin-hyun. If it became necessary, I wouldn't hesitate to fire at the others too, but that last round absolutely had to be saved for the end.
Dispatching the enemy's boss was the protagonist's role — and in the end, tying off that thread was a duty I owed, having stolen the protagonist's part for myself.
The moment he stepped off the Ferris wheel, Park Cheonho spotted a man in a suspicious hood.
Ablaze with a sense of justice far exceeding his actual abilities, he marched toward the suspicious-looking man without a moment's hesitation.
"Halt right there! Bomb terrorist!!"
"Hahh, hahh, hahh...."
Objectively speaking, Park Cheonho's behavior was utter foolishness.
Chasing a man down merely for wearing a black hood and acting suspiciously violated the presumption of innocence, and if he went so far as to subdue the man with force only for him to turn out not to be a terrorist, it would be Park Cheonho who wound up in cuffs.
Even if the man really were a terrorist, confronting head-on an opponent who might be hiding any number of tricks was dangerous in its own right — but as mentioned before, Park Cheonho's sense of justice was far too outstanding for the abilities he possessed.
...And it was a stroke of luck beyond luck for Park Cheonho that the hooded man really was the bomb terrorist who'd blown up the Ferris wheel, just as he'd assumed, and that the man did not particularly care for fighting people face to face.
"Ha! What an id-idiot, chasing me down! H-here, eat this!"
"GYAAAAAH!!"
...And yet, for all that he didn't enjoy fighting people, Bang Hwa-cheol was still an executive of a villain organization called Black Moon.
His ability was to create explosives whose power was proportional to the mana he expended — and so the bomb Bang Hwa-cheol improvised on the spot went off right at Park Cheonho's feet, and an agonized scream rang out across the plaza.
"H-hey, Park Cheonho!! Are you okay?!"
"Haha, hahahahaha...!! You stupid brat...!!"
Not enjoying one-on-one combat did not mean being incapable of it. He simply preferred watching people who couldn't put up any response at all die pointless, pathetic deaths to his secretly planted explosives.
The bomb he'd dropped while clutching his thick belly and pretending to flee had wrapped itself around Park Cheonho, and a blast hot enough to incinerate a car in a single strike engulfed him head-on.
"Hehh, that's kids these days for you, all green behind the ears.... Al-always drowning in talk of justice, calling themselves Hunters or whatever...! If you're going to defend such petty little justice, you ought to at least defend your own hides prop—"
"Hoo... HALT RIGHT THERE, bomb terrorist!! You're a criminal in the act for real this time!!"
"Wha—?!"
No. How?!
He'd timed the detonation perfectly to the moment the boy's body passed by — it should have hit dead-on!
But before Bang Hwa-cheol's bewilderment could even settle, Park Cheonho came barreling through the thick smoke — his clothes a little scorched and singed, but his body otherwise completely unharmed.
"Hey, Park Cheonho!! You alive?!"
"Yep! Good as new! An explosion like this is nothing!"
"H-how are you fine...?! How in the world...!!"
"Cooperate quietly and take my fists like a man, bomb terrorist!!"
Who did this kid think he was, an elephant?! Tanking an explosion bare-skinned?! There were limits to being durable!
Shaken by Park Cheonho's absurd physical prowess, Bang Hwa-cheol pulled out another bomb, dropped it, and scrambled to flee.
The last one had been a touch weak, so this time he'd make certain of it. Something calibrated to the razor's edge — enough power to be decisive while keeping his own body clear of the blast.
"GYAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
"PARK CHEONHO!!!"
An even bigger explosion. Even greater force. A roaring blast wave and a cloud of dust swallowing everything around it.
In the chaos, his position had been exposed, but at least he'd dealt with that pointlessly hot-blooded brat for good. Or so he thought.
"Hoo, h-hoo...."
"......."
"...Did I get him?"
"U-using such dangerous bombs!! I will never forgive you, you terrorist!!"
"Wh-what kind of lunatic IS this kid?!"
Having taken a blast powerful enough to gouge a small crater into the ground, Park Cheonho came charging in again with nothing but a few scorch marks to show for it.
At that moment, Bang Hwa-cheol's instincts screamed the truth at him: unless he ran for real, this monster would genuinely tear him limb from limb.