Masks Off
National's Park.
“Hmm~ Hmm~”
Representative Robert Douglas was humming a tune as he clipped articles from the newspaper.
5th place. W. Nationals Guild.
6th place. Lions Guild……
“Fifth place, fifth place. Heh heh.”
While the eastern powerhouse was still reeling from its loss to the bottom-ranked Mets, W. Nationals had swiftly snatched their spot. They had finally climbed to fifth.
Just one spot away from first? Why the fuss?
——If you had to ask that, you weren’t American.
In the American league, the eastern champion and western champion faced off in the “Super War,” an event completely unrelated to the Bureau but one that Americans celebrated with the same fervor as the Champions League.
Last year, a single second of Super War advertising had gone for a billion dollars at auction.
Because of events like this, simply reaching the playoffs brought guilds unimaginable profits. Representatives joked that they received a stack of dollars as tall as the stadium itself.
However, that single Super War match had naturally raised the playoff cutoff line, and the very last spot on that line was fifth place!
No wonder the Washington D.C. media couldn’t stay quiet.
[W. Nationals, long dismissed as perpetual mid-tier, suddenly eyes the top!]
[Best record under the Robert Douglas regime!]
[If they maintain this form, the playoffs aren’t a dream. Go! W! Go! Nationals!!]
“Where should I hang this?”
Still humming, Douglas paced the walls with the laminated newspaper clipping in hand when a blonde woman entered. She was the kind of beauty people whispered had been hired for her looks alone.
“Representative, they’ve made contact…… What are you doing?”
“Ah, Rose. I was just deciding where to put this.”
“Um…… That’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen all day.”
With a heavy sigh, the director snatched the laminated article and moved with practiced efficiency. Moments later, the framed newspaper sat proudly on the representative’s desk.
“Looks great. Fantastic.”
“What era do you think this is? Still clipping newspapers? Please, catch up with civilization!”
“Poor Rose, ignorant of the virtues of old school.”
“Ha. Let’s talk business. ‘They’ contacted us just now.”
“Those guys? Asking for more money?”
“You know them well.”
“Heh. What else would those mayflies think? Want a hit of mana cigarette?”
Douglas crossed his legs, a mana cigarette between his lips.
That’s right.
“They,” the mayflies—every last one of them referred to the Russian gangs.
It had all begun the moment Destroyer Catherine Hamilton uttered the word “challenge.”
“She said something about being stuck in a rut and needing to try something new.”
Having worked with her for years, Representative Douglas immediately understood the true meaning behind those words.
When someone who loved challenges as fiercely as her own son spoke of “challenge,” it was no different from saying “goodbye.” After all, Douglas’s management style had never been about pushing boundaries.
Of course, at the time Douglas had smiled his usual affable smile, but inside, every alarm bell was screaming Holy F**!!
“Catherine never once complained even when we were stuck in the mid-tier. Now, at the moment we’ve set the guild’s best record and are poised to leap into playoff contention next year, she stabs us in the back?”
From Douglas’s perspective, it was a despicable betrayal.
He was by no means a good representative.
If you divided people into clean and dirty, he was overwhelmingly on the dirty side. Even so, he prided himself on having supported Destroyer Catherine with everything he had.
Generous bonuses every year were a given. Equipment upgrades were always prioritized for her. If her gaze lingered more than three seconds on anything in private, it would be neatly wrapped and delivered as a gift the next day.
It was practically love. He had shown her a romantic side he had never shown his own wife.
And she betrayed that devotion?
Losing Destroyer’s power at this timing was fatal. It meant falling out of playoff contention entirely.
The guild still needed her. Not the challenging Destroyer, but the obedient Catherine.
That was why Douglas had used the director to play the gang card.
It’s your fault, Catherine. You’re the one who made me do this.
All for the sake of W. Nationals.
As Representative Robert Douglas.
“How much more are they demanding?”
“Five times.”
“Holy…… Five times? Five times? These bastards are running quite the business, aren’t they? Puhaha!”
“This isn’t funny. This is the third time. First they asked for double, then triple, now five times. Are you just going to keep getting strung along?”
“You seem pretty annoyed, Rose?”
“Of course I am. Watching those back-alley thugs act like they’re negotiating from a position of strength makes me want to tear them apart.”
“Relax. Calm down. They don’t even know your real identity anyway.”
“Still! It’s humiliating just breathing the same air as them.”
“Puhuhu, your pride must be really wounded.”
Yet despite the director’s irritation, Douglas’s answer was simple.
“Just give it to them.”
“……Douglas!!”
“Listen, Rose. What’s our goal here? Keeping Destroyer with us, right? You didn’t actually think I was going to blackmail her with those weaknesses, did you?”
Blackmail had never been an option from the start.
Contrary to his friendly appearance, Douglas quite liked blackmail. There was no simpler way to gain the upper hand.
But blackmail only worked on the right people.
What could Douglas possibly gain by blackmailing the 8th-ranked eastern hunter, Destroyer?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
So why collect the weaknesses? The answer came from his own mouth.
“Think again. What’s our plan? When she’s in trouble, we step in and solve it, then pin the blackmail on someone else in the process. On whom?”
“On whichever guild Destroyer might join.”
“You bet! We have to remain the good guys until the very end.”
After eight years of watching her, Douglas knew that Catherine Hamilton’s love for her son was second only to her love of challenges. Especially that troublesome boy she had at a young age—he was her one and only Achilles’ heel.
If they cleanly resolved the golden child’s mistakes, Destroyer would repay the favor by returning as Mother Catherine and re-signing.
“Don’t lose sight of the goal. Compared to re-signing Destroyer, that money is pocket change.”
“I know. I just can’t stand the humiliation.”
“If your pride is that wounded, you can always collect it later yourself.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? No—let’s make the pot even bigger. If we’re going to pin this on another guild, we need the scale to be larger. You understand what I’m saying, Rose?”
“You mean we have to keep playing the sucker for a while longer.”
“Fighting, Rose.”
Just then, the door opened.
A woman hurried in and spoke.
“Representative, there’s a call on hold. It’s the interim representative of Mets Guild.”
“Mets, Mets…… Ah, that Asian guy?”
“Yes. What should I do?”
“Rose, did I have any business with Mets?”
“No.”
“You heard her.”
The secretary bowed and left. Douglas was about to resume his conversation with the director when……
Moments later, the same woman returned.
“Representative.”
“What?”
“Well…… The New York Tribune is asking if you’ve been hosting marijuana parties with some of the raid team members.”
“Huh? Me and Mary Jane? That’s ridiculous. Anyway, those yellow journalists never stay quiet for a day. It’s a rumor. Tell them it’s nonsense.”
He sent the staff member away.
Soon after, she returned again.
“Interim Representative Lee Shin is calling again. He says it’s urgent and wants to speak with you.”
“……How annoying. Tell him I’m busy.”
She left once more.
Shortly afterward, the woman entered again.
“Representative, the Washington Post is inquiring about possible tax evasion through dumping equipment prices……”
“Nonsense. Do I look like the kind of person who would do that?”
“I’ll tell them no.”
Douglas waved her off without concern, the very picture of a competent representative. Yet even he couldn’t stop his eyebrows from twitching.
How did they know?
Something felt off. It was strangely coincidental that every time he refused Lee Shin’s calls, information about his own dirty secrets would surface. Too coincidental to ignore.
But before he could finish the thought, someone entered again. This time Douglas spoke first.
“Did that interim representative ask to speak with me again?”
“Yes.”
“……Tell him I’m busy.”
Soon after.
His bad feeling proved correct.
“Representative!! The New York Times just called. They received a tip that you’ve been arranging prostitution with underage hunters and want confirmation……”
“Enough.”
He didn’t need to hear more.
At this point, only an idiot wouldn’t realize who was behind it.
“Get Mets Guild on the line.”
When the call connected, a voice brimming with mischief greeted him.
― “Did you like my gift?”
* * *
A few hours later.
An abandoned construction site on the outskirts of New York.
Luxury vehicles pulled up to the derelict site, ruined by a construction company’s bankruptcy. Shortly afterward, two men shook hands on the rooftop.
“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Lee Shin, interim representative of Mets Guild.”
“Robert Douglas. Representative of W. Nationals.”
“Kuh! The atmosphere’s nice, isn’t it? Feels very noir, very Gotham City. Right?”
“Gotham? What’s that?”
“Ah, no Batman series here. Never mind.”
“……You’re a strange one.”
“Let’s sit. What would you like to drink? Coffee? Coffee? Coffee?”
“Just coffee is fine.”
“Oh? You wanted to swear just now, didn’t you? Feel free to let it out. This place is completely shielded—no cameras, no bugs, no communication devices work here. You can take off that cumbersome ‘mask’ if you want.”
“You seem to know quite a lot about me.”
“There’s nothing in this world I don’t know.”
The two men hadn’t come here by chance.
The outskirts of New York, long untouched by human hands, made for a thoroughly isolated space. No one could come up until the representatives finished their meeting.
For two representatives whose every word could shake their guilds, there was no better place to talk.
Lee Shin placed a coffee cup in front of Douglas.
“Well then, let’s begin.”
“You’ve been saying we should start for a while now, but I think that’s my line. Weren’t you the one who started this?”
“As expected of Douglas. You didn’t childishly ask ‘How did you find out about that information?!’ Very good. I quite like smart people.”
“……”
No matter how secure the location, Douglas never removed his mask as a representative. Even so, Lee Shin simply smiled brightly.
Trust was a fragile thing for Douglas; even now he was scanning his surroundings, while Lee Shin looked thoroughly pleased, as if admiring a character from a game.
Thus, two representatives with completely different thoughts and appearances laid their cards on the table.
“I won’t drag this out. Mets Guild is interested in Destroyer, Catherine Hamilton.”
“Let me ask—have you already spoken with Catherine?”
“No comment.”
“My, my. So Destroyer’s challenge led her to a third-rate guild like this. Disappointing.”
“What’s your answer?”
“Obviously no. Destroyer is NFS—Not For Sale.”
“I heard she’s already lost interest in Nationals.”
“That’s something we’ll handle.”
“Ah~ With that thing you’re so good at, Douglas?”
“……”
“Interesting. Aren’t you scared? I know far more of your secrets than you think.”
One after another, Lee Shin listed Douglas’s secrets.
How he used weaknesses to control raid teams. How he used his vast connections to buy talent through all sorts of dirty methods.
And then—
“That your director, Rosalyn, is your illegitimate daughter.”
Even the great Douglas couldn’t help but waver at that.
It was a secret known to only a handful of people, including his deceased parents. And this man had found it out?
“Holy Moly…… You got me there.”
“Pretty useful, right? My information network?”
“Useful enough to covet. So with all that impressive information, your plan is just blackmail?”
“Blackmail? This is simply information sharing. Blackmail is what you do, Douglas.”
At that moment—
“Pfft.”
Douglas chuckled, then burst into uncontrollable laughter as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Puhahahahaha! You act so clever, but you’re just a naive kid who doesn’t understand how the world works.”
It was true that the American league was far more chaotic and, in a bad way, amazing compared to other leagues. Bizarre incidents happened almost daily.
But even so, the league kept running.
Because Americans were that tolerant of scandals.
“Everything you just mentioned? I guarantee you, most guilds in America do it. You might see it as a crime, but to us, it’s everyday life.”
“Therefore, what you just said is the typical ‘foreigner’ mindset.”
In a country where people who produced definite results through dirty means were overwhelmingly praised over those who handled things cleanly but produced mediocre results—
That country was America.
“Recalculate the price for that information. If it’s a decent hunter, I’ll send one over. If you’re done talking, get up.”
Having seized the initiative, Douglas made a show of ending the meeting. His judgment was that while the information was sensitive, since the other side’s goal was clear, there was no reason to be intimidated.
Seeing the stiff face of a naive kid who doesn’t know fear is quite entertaining too.
Douglas rode the construction-site elevator, resembling an iron cage, down to the ground floor.
There, a pale-faced Rose came running, drenched in cold sweat, and shouted.
“Douglas!! Why were you so late?!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“This! Look at this!!”
Douglas calmly raised his phone and checked the screen.
As time passed, the smile on his face lost its elasticity and was instantly replaced by shock.
The scene on the phone was a press conference. Destroyer Catherine Hamilton was taking aim—at him and the guild.
― “……We, along with the raid team, condemn these illegal activities and will not hesitate to file lawsuits……”
“Stop it. Stop it right now!”
“This is a rebroadcast! The press conference is already over! Every media outlet is hounding us.”
He had been played!
If he had known, he would have mobilized the media to shut it down in advance. But that golden window had vanished.
Because of this meeting……!
In that instant, Douglas turned his head. Lee Shin was already wearing the victor’s smile, the face of a loser long gone.
“What I suffered was to gain momentum.”
A contract was thrown onto Douglas’s face.
“Sign it quickly, if you want to salvage even pocket change.”