Garbage Dump (2)
Garbage Dump (2)
The garbage landfill.
Beneath it, a village with no name.
If I had to single out one particularly unusual person among the residents, it would be an 'Orc.'
He was the only Orc living in the village.
Like the other villagers, he was called by the nickname 'Four-eyes' more often than by his real name.
The nickname was partly because he stubbornly wore glasses with a cracked lens that could no longer serve its original purpose.
But another reason was that he was, in this place—
the most learned person in the underground village and its only doctor.
So, despite his nickname 'Four-eyes,'
he was one of the most respected figures in the village.
He treated people at low cost (barter was the norm), and he also looked after children who wandered around without parents.
There was also the fact that, born an Orc with a sturdy physique, he was always the first to step up whenever a task requiring strength arose in the village.
Since he also single-handedly handled the secret siphoning of water from the main pipeline heading to the city,
it goes without saying how highly the villagers regarded him.
But even for him—even for Four-eyes—maintaining his composure in this kind of situation proved impossible.
"......So, you're saying he really is Vice Chairman Koozaka? The guy sprawled out over there?"
"You could say that."
"Get the hell out, you bastards!"
It didn't take long for the enraged man to start throwing scalpels and rolls of bandages.
13. Garbage Landfill (2)
The old Orc, Four-eyes, slumped down into a chair.
"......Hoo, hoo."
A heavy breath escaped between his aged tusks.
As with other species, it was hard to gauge an Orc's age just by looking at his face, but right now, he looked at least several years older.
Well, it had been several years since we last saw him, so
it was only natural that Four-eyes looked older than I remembered.
As a brief silence lingered, I poked just my head up over the desk.
"Have you calmed down?"
I was absolutely not asking to mock him.
I asked the question to objectively assess the situation.
I heard the sound of grinding teeth—udeudeuk.
His tusks pressed together so tightly they seemed about to snap.
"......Ah, y-yeah."
Seeing him speak in clipped, halting words, it seemed his anger hadn't fully subsided yet.
Hearing that voice, I ducked my head back down.
I hid my body under the desk so I wouldn't get hit by any thrown objects.
Maybe it was because my trait made my body weak,
but getting hit by even one flying object sent a bone-chilling pain through me.
Even as I hid,
on the other hand, it felt good seeing that the old man, whom I hadn't seen in so long, still had plenty of energy.
Even if his anger was directed at us.
"......Heh."
Four-eyes, who had been watching me, let out a snicker through his tusks.
He let out one last harsh breath.
"Keuheuheu..., fine. Yeah, I've calmed down, so come here and let me see your face."
Four-eyes waved a large hand, characteristic of Orcs.
It was a gesture for us to come closer.
Confirming that, I naturally straightened up from under the desk.
Catherine, who had been hiding somewhere, also quietly revealed herself.
I spoke, letting my relief show in my voice.
"Whoa, you're still going strong."
"What do you mean, how old do you think I am, damn it! I'm still in my prime!"
He laughed with his thick voice as he said that.
Maybe all that unexpected exercise had left his throat parched.
Four-eyes picked up a dirty cup sitting on one side of the desk and gulped down some water.
Good, it looked like his anger had completely melted away.
While Four-eyes picked up the rolls of bandages he had thrown—now scattered across the floor—I continued speaking in a shameless tone.
"So, have you been well?"
"You should've been in touch and come by. Well, me, I'm always the same."
'In touch,' he said.
Staying in touch had been difficult.
Basically, the people living in this village had no legal identities, so they couldn't even make phone calls.
Still, seeing him throwing things just a moment ago, he certainly didn't seem to have any health problems.
Four-eyes.
Orc.
Doctor.
He, who went by all those titles in this village,
had been the guardian of both me—who had become younger after falling into the game—and Catherine, who had always been young.
In this world where hatred toward Orcs was rampant, he was a person you could call the only Orc worthy of respect.
......Well, No Answer's guard Smith was,
not quite someone I'd call respected.
And it seemed his ways hadn't changed to this day.
Here, in this place that served as the village's 'hospital,' 'soup kitchen,' and 'nursery,' toys marked with children's handprints were scattered across the floor.
Four-eyes, having calmed down somewhat after drinking a cup of water, asked us.
"So, what is all this about?"
As he spoke, he lit a half-burned cigarette butt.
The smoke he exhaled—'hoo'—rose into the air as if giving shape to a sigh.
I shifted only my eyes to look at Catherine.
Catherine said nothing, just silently signaled to me with her eyes.
Roughly interpreting that look,
it seemed to mean she wanted me to handle the situation on her behalf since she wasn't good at explaining this kind of thing.
"Well, from what you were saying earlier... you knew an airship had crashed topside."
"That's right. ......Don't tell me, did you two really bring it down?"
I waved my hands to deny that.
I was genuinely innocent on this point.
"No, really. The airship was going to crash anyway, regardless of us."
"......What do you mean, 'was going to crash anyway'?"
It was the truth, without a single lie.
Even if we hadn't infiltrated the airship, the assassins who had snuck aboard the Vice Chairman's airship would have crashed it to accomplish their original goal.
......Of course.
If you asked whether we were completely free of even 1% of the blame, I had no answer to give.
So how was I supposed to explain this?
I took a moment to sort out my thoughts.
Giving him too much information could actually be harmful in this situation.
Since we had brought the Vice Chairman all the way here, we would somehow make sure Four-eyes and the underground village didn't get entangled, but
in any case, spreading the story would do no good.
I decided to neatly summarize only the key points and explain.
"To sum it up in a nutshell,"
"Yeah."
"Something came up that made it necessary to briefly kidnap Vice Chairman Koozaka, and one thing led to another, so we ended up kidnapping him."
"......."
No further elaboration needed.
A truly perfect explanation.
[Are you insane?]
I ignored Eve's remark.
Four-eyes, having taken another refreshing drag of his cigarette, blew smoke into the air.
"......What the hell are you doing in the city that something comes up where you need to kidnap a Vice Chairman for a bit?"
"...Well, just living life earnestly. One thing led to another, and it just turned out that way."
I omitted the detailed explanation.
Honestly, I felt somewhat wronged too.
Because the chain of events had played out that way.
To sum it up simply:
During a job, I secretly took care of Eve.
Smile Zone caught me doing that.
Because of that, a terrorist started obsessing over me.
Since it had come to this, I decided to directly question the person suspected of being Smile Zone (the Vice Chairman) to find out his true identity.
If I were to explain it like that,
I think he might look at me like I was some kind of lunatic.
Of course, since Eve's identity was still a secret,
there were things I couldn't explain as well.
.......
A brief silence continued.
For someone reasonably perceptive like me,
this was definitely not a good atmosphere.
Seizing the opportunity, I put my hand inside my jacket.
My emergency 'bribery magic' that I always carried with me.
I took out a 'credit chip' and handed it to Four-eyes.
"...What's this?"
"Ah, well, it's nothing special. Since it's been so long, I should at least give you some pocket money. Use it to feed the kids you take care of."
Just because it was an underground village beneath a garbage landfill didn't mean they never had any use for credits.
They could trade goods with merchants, and they could go outside and use them too.
Four-eyes adjusted his glasses frame with his thick fingers.
A fierce glint entered his eyes.
"......Pocket money, I'll take it. But this matter is far too big to just be glossed over with credits—."
Four-eyes stopped speaking.
It was after he had checked the amount inside the credit chip.
"......Well."
"Yes."
"It could be like that, I suppose."
I nodded.
As expected, magic was invincible and divine.
It had been worth the effort of learning it.
"I'm sorry for showing up like this, but would it be okay if we used an empty room in the back for a bit?"
"Hahaha, of course. Use it as much as you like."
I bowed my head to express my thanks to Four-eyes, whose friendliness had suddenly and drastically increased.
......It wasn't that I had no feelings of guilt at all.
After all, anyone could see this was an action that caused trouble.
If, even by a one-in-a-million chance,
the Koozaka Corporation later caught wind of this and the existence of the underground village, it could turn into a huge disaster.
But in that situation,
we had very few options left.
I could only hope we wouldn't get caught.
Of course, I hadn't come in here with only that optimistic thought, either.
Fundamentally, this place, the garbage landfill, had been privatized and had no surveillance cameras.
Because of that, even if we moved here, unless someone already knew about the village's existence, there were very few people who could figure out our movements.
The fact that most people didn't know about the garbage landfill's existence also worked in our favor.
On that point, it would actually be stranger for someone to notice the fact that there were people living in a village built beneath the dump.
I rationalized it to myself like that.
Then I moved toward the inner room.
Though I called it a room,
it felt very different from a room in the actual city.
Since it was a place built using the sewers as a base,
the enclosed space and the musty smell were inescapable no matter where you went.
Catherine, who had Kozaka William—still unconscious—slung over one shoulder, asked me.
"So what now?"
"We do what I told Natasha earlier."
"Nata..., you call the Boss by name?"
"Ah."
Had I never called her that when I was with Catherine?
"Anyway, the plan's the same."
"......."
Something about Catherine's gaze was terrifying.
I made a point of ignoring it.
In any case, the plan hadn't changed.
Only the specific details and location had changed.
Luckily, our lie hadn't been discovered yet, either.
At the very back, there was a room that looked like an unused storage room.
There happened to be a chair visible,
so I brought it to the center and sat Kozaka William down on it.
The lighting wasn't bad.
And since it was inside the sewers, there was no need to worry about the presence of indoor surveillance cameras.
Ah, if there had been any, would Eve have told me?
I signaled to Catherine.
"I'm going to wake him up soon, so mask up again."
"Ah."
Catherine nodded and pressed the button on her mask.
A holographic form materialized over her face.
With her face now covered,
there was no need to drag things out. I decided to proceed with our original objective.
I quickly finished my mental preparation.
Then, with a confident movement, I tapped Kozaka William on the cheek.
If not now, when else would I get to slap a mega-corp Vice Chairman's cheek?
"Ugh......."
Still, he didn't seem like he was going to wake up.
I increased the force of my slaps a little more.
With a 'Ttak!' sound, he opened his eyes.
"Ugh! ......What's this smell, it's like being in the middle of a garbage dump."
Whether he woke up from the smell
or from being slapped in the cheek, I couldn't tell.
I composed my voice.
I had turned the voice modulation back on.
《Are you coming to your senses?》
"......Where is this?"
《This is a hidden safehouse of the Cyber Force strike team.》
It was a continuation of the lie I had told earlier.
Since our identities hadn't been discovered inside the airship,
pushing forward with this premise as-is was perfect for concealing who we were.
Kozaka William looked around.
Even described in the best possible light, it was a place that didn't look like a 'safehouse,'
but unless he was completely clueless, he probably wouldn't point that out.
It was a situation where, even if things seemed strange, he had to keep quiet.
After all, the ones here were
us and Kozaka William.
Only the three of us.
"......I see. Anyway, thank you for rescuing me."
Having briefly assessed the situation, Kozaka William smiled awkwardly.
"...Thank you for protecting me. But is there a reason you brought me here instead of Neon City?"
I silently shook my head without answering that question.
Maintaining the cover was important.
《Smile Zone.》
"......?"
Kozaka William looked up at me with a blank expression.
.......
《You, 'Kozaka William,' are currently suspected of being the terrorist 'Smile Zone.' Do you have anything to say in your defense regarding this matter?》
He tilted his head as if puzzled.
"Who? What kind of name is that? Who is that."
At that, I turned around.
I muttered quietly so that Catherine and Kozaka William couldn't hear.
《Eve, is this correct?》
[Running voice evaluation module. I assess the probability that he is not lying to be over 90%.]
《.......》
In the end, had that 21% chance been the right bet?
This meant that everything we had done amounted to a lot of trouble for nothing.
That's why I said we should investigate first and then kidnap him.
I told you so many times....
I let out a very deep sigh.
......I should just let him go or something.
But just then,
another voice rang out inside the room.
【Hahaha!! To think you'd fall for this! I'm simply astonished. It seems Eve's performance isn't all that great!】
The voice I had heard atop the overpass.
It was Smile Zone.
Looking around for where it was coming from,
the voice was flowing out of a luxury watch that Kozaka William was wearing.
What was this?
Were they connected, or weren't they?
I wanted to question Kozaka William about that, but before I could, he murmured something under his breath first.
"......Chairman-nim?"
Hm.
The only Chairman-nim I knew was the Monolith Chairman-nim, but he probably wasn't referring to that person.
In this situation, there was only one 'Chairman-nim' Kozaka William could be referring to.
......But wait.
Wasn't Chairman Koozaka just a mascot character?
Now even I didn't know what was what anymore.