Chapter 43
Chapter 43
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: The Hero's Mark
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“A mark?”
At Shin-ju’s question, Sharin gripped the bullet tightly in her hand and turned back to him.
“Yes. This is one way Furen makes her presence known.”
Sharin muttered, looking down at the pile of bodies.
Then, with a look of conviction, she faced Katrin.
“I was definitely being shortsighted. I never imagined Furen might have come and gone from this place.”
“Then was Lady Furen hoping that ‘someone’ would see this mark?”
Shin-ju asked, a slightly puzzled expression on his face.
“Lady Furen wouldn’t have known we were here… Was she expecting someone to come for her?”
Sharin pondered for a moment before answering Shin-ju’s question.
“It could be a signal to the scattered refugees, or it could be bait to deliberately lure in enemies.”
Shin-ju understood.
The bullet was a sign of hope for her allies and a territorial marking of sorts for her enemies, intentionally revealing her presence.
It meant Lady Furen was just that famous.
She had made a name for herself as the greatest fighter and hunter in the entire universe.
Shin-ju was once again reminded of Furen’s renown.
“Then let’s get this straight.”
Shin-ju brought a hand to his chin and looked at Sharin.
“So, you’re saying Lady Furen was here. Did she also stumble in here by chance?”
“The Furen I know would have done whatever it took to save her captured comrades…”
Katrin had come to stand beside them at some point.
“She must have discovered the bodies of her comrades being moved here.”
Sharin and Shin-ju turned to look at her.
“Ah, you mentioned you saw Lady Furen here, didn’t you, Lady Katrin?”
“Not in this exact spot, but I remember seeing Lady Furen’s face in the room across the way. And…”
Katrin paused, recalling the situation.
“My impression at the time was that she was definitely luring someone.”
Shin-ju lifted his head and gazed into the room beyond the wall that had been demolished by the Actrazer.
“Hmm, luring them, you say…”
Shin-ju stroked his chin, lost in thought.
Was Furen hiding somewhere in that room, watching the bodies being moved?
And if she then entered this space, saw the pile of bodies, and hid the bullet among them as a mark…
There were more than a few questions.
What was the reason for such an action?
Was it to prevent the alien beasts from desecrating her comrades’ bodies?
He tapped his chin with his finger, as if anxious.
When racking his brain yielded no clear answer, he turned back to Sharin.
“Lady Sharin, what are we supposed to do with that mark, then?”
Sharin mumbled to herself, turning the bullet over and over.
“The direction the bullet was placed? No…”
A moment later, as if she’d realized something, she held up the bullet.
With one arm, she pressed her thumb firmly against the bullet and separated the casing.
From inside the casing, a tiny, tightly balled-up piece of paper popped out.
“Whew, just as I thought.”
Sharin let out a sigh of relief and handed the note to Shin-ju.
Shin-ju took the note and carefully unfolded it.
His brow furrowed.
[25168]
The note had a string of incomprehensible numbers written on it.
Shin-ju took a sharp breath, then sighed as if troubled.
25168?
What in the world did this number mean?
“Shin-ju.”
Suddenly, Jekovic quietly called out to him.
Detecting something unusual in his low, hushed tone, so different from before, Shin-ju turned his head.
“What? What’s wrong?”
Jekovic was looking down at the bodies laid out on the floor.
Without looking at Shin-ju, he beckoned with a flick of his hand.
His action made Shin-ju uneasy as he walked over.
Jekovic silently pointed a hand at one of the corpses.
Shin-ju turned his head.
It was just an ordinary alien corpse.
“It’s just a normal… huh… wait a minute!!”
He saw a number artificially carved into a part of the body.
“23897?”
“Yeah, I think it says 23897.”
Jekovic replied as Shin-ju barely managed to make out the number.
A hypothesis suddenly flashed through Shin-ju’s mind.
What if, like prison inmates, the aliens who had been subjected to biological experiments had ‘registration numbers’ carved into their bodies?
Shin-ju looked at the note Furen had left and checked the number written on it.
“25168… 25168…”
On the off chance, Shin-ju muttered the number as he looked over the bodies lying on the floor.
His eyes fell on another corpse, this one with the number ‘24765’ carved into it.
“Lady Sharin!! Lady Katrin!!”
The two of them looked at Shin-ju.
“Lady Furen left the registration number of one of the bodies on the note.”
Sharin and Katrin quickly walked over to Shin-ju’s side.
“The number is ‘25168’. We need to find the body marked 25168!”
“There are still some bodies over there that haven’t been sorted…”
“Then, Lady Katrin and Lady Sharin, please check the unsorted pile of bodies, and Jekovic and I will check the ones we’ve already laid out here.”
“25168, you say?”
Disregarding the impropriety, Shin-ju’s group moved quickly and began to sift through the bodies.
“I found it!!”
Katrin suddenly shot her hand up, signaling her discovery.
Shin-ju, Jekovic, and Sharin gathered around her.
“Wh-what is this?”
Katrin’s face twisted strangely as she looked down at something.
The rest of the group also stared down at what Katrin had found, their expressions equally baffled.
“…No one touch that.”
Shin-ju warned in a low voice as he opened the Old Book.
Before their eyes lay a dark, purplish cube.
And on one face of the cube, the number ‘25168’ was crudely scrawled.
In the heart of downtown LA.
Big Five, Gogo Arc, Area87, and Silverfire stood at attention in a line in front of a collapsed building.
“You bastards…!!”
A woman in a U.C.I.D. uniform strode toward them.
“You’ve turned the city into a complete wasteland!! Are you trying to start a war?!”
The woman who shouted at the four giant robots was the chief of the U.C.I.D.’s LA headquarters and the very symbol of a hot-blooded cop.
She was a Dragonkin named ‘Gawagos.’
She boasted a considerable build and a voluptuous figure.
Pointed horns protruded from both sides of her head, which was framed by impressive wavy, black, long hair.
Gawagos looked up at the ramrod-straight robots and took a deep breath.
As they watched her chest swell, the robots squeezed their eyes shut.
“Good job!!”
Contrary to their expectations, a spirited compliment boomed from her lips.
She beamed, revealing a set of sharp, healthy teeth.
“I’m a Dragonkin, so I know!! Guys like that might not listen even if you beat the crap out of them!!”
Big Five, Gogo Arc, and Area87 exchanged sidelong glances and nodded.
Silverfire remained expressionless as ever.
“And it seems the situation left you with no choice but to fight!!”
Big Five bowed his head and replied quietly.
“That is correct. Thank you for your understanding, Chief…”
“However!!”
Gawagos cut Big Five off, shouting.
“The media won’t stay quiet!!”
The robots, who had been about to relax their at-attention stances, snapped back to position at Gawagos’s roar.
“They’ll hold us responsible for the city’s destruction!! And they will undoubtedly question our capabilities once again!!”
Gawagos looked up at the sky and continued to shout.
“In the end, everything becomes the ‘police’s’ responsibility!!”
Everyone stood with their heads bowed, listening to her words in silence.
Finally, Big Five spoke up.
As the one in charge, he took a step forward.
“I am fully aware of my responsibility. Chief, I will gladly accept any penalty.”
Gawagos snorted.
“Yes, Chief!”
Big Five straightened his back at the chief’s call and answered resoundingly.
“It’s business as usual!! You, Gogo Arc, and Area87 will continue your duties as normal!!”
The eyes of everyone, including Big Five, widened.
“W-will that be alright?”
“It will!! Of course, there will be a brief outcry from the public, but it will die down soon enough. The citizens aren’t unaware of your hard work! There are definitely voices of support as well!”
Gawagos grinned and looked around at the devastated city.
“So, we just need to focus on the recovery efforts!!”
She looked up at the four robots again.
“But that’s not exactly our jurisdiction either!! I will contact the ‘Power Control’ company and have them take action!!”
“Thank you!”
The robots shouted in unison, their voices heavy as they stood at attention.
“Alright, good work!! And…”
Gawagos turned to Silverfire.
“Thank you for coming!! Silverfire!!”
“Not at all. I was merely doing what had to be done.”
Silverfire gave a slight bow.
“So, are you returning to Korea now?”
“Ah, no, sir. My work is not yet finished. I plan to help my Korean colleagues who are still here.”
Gawagos nodded, looking satisfied.
“Good, you’re diligent. Dismissed!!”
“Yes, sir!”
Fwoooosh-
The four robots soared into the air and flew back toward the U.C.I.D. LA headquarters.
Meanwhile, Gawagos watched them return, her eyes on the sky, before turning her head to look elsewhere.
In the distance, the Bio Vanguard building stood tall.
She remembered the terrorist incident, the one where Restprime had gone on a rampage.
Beneath the fighter jet, people lay bleeding, their bodies pierced with shards of glass.
[Ugh…!!]
A mother shielded her son, squeezing her eyes shut.
A moment later, her son stirred in her arms.
[M-Mom… look…]
Confirming her son was safe, the mother’s eyes shot open.
Even her own body was unharmed.
The boy, his eyes wide, pointed at someone from within his mother’s embrace. She slowly turned around.
Creeeak-
A massive shadow fell over the mother and son’s faces.
Before their eyes, Gawagos stood tall like a hero, backlit by the sun, effortlessly holding up the wrecked fighter jet.
[W-we’re saved…!!]
Someone let out a cry of joy.
The one who had saved the citizens during the Dragonkin terrorist attack was another Dragonkin.
Since then, public opinion on the Dragon Race had become complicated.
Recalling the past, she growled as she stared at the Bio Vanguard building.
Gawagos could never forget the strange expressions on the faces of the people who had suffered at the hands of a Dragonkin, only to be saved by one.
“I’ll have to make my move soon, too!!”