The Rabbit's False Report
A short while later in Ocean City. Aile and Galrm, who had gone after the fleeing beastman, returned.
“—We lost her.”
“She was faster than we thought… I’m sorry.”
“Lost her? The two of you?”
I was quite surprised that Galrm, who ruled the land, and Aile, who ruled the skies, had let a single person escape them. Still, remembering what Levitan had said earlier, I nodded as if it were perfectly understandable.
‘—It seems I’ve shaken them off.’
At the boundary of O City. Haneui, who had been fleeing from Galrm and Aile, realized the sounds of her pursuers had vanished and slowly came to a stop.
To think they would immediately call their comrades right there on the spot? Haneui shuddered as she recalled the two people who had been chasing her. One was the terror of H City—the evil magical girl who had not faded even after the World’s Enemies disappeared. The other was an S-class villain based in E City. Both were notoriously famous villains affiliated with the evil organization.
For Levitan to know people like that? She was surely suffering something terrible.
‘That man… he called himself a scientist, didn’t he? Which means the evil organization has Levitan…’
Haneui imagined Levitan captured by the evil organization and subjected to some horrific experiment, just like what had happened in Z City. Unlike the other executives whose ties to the evil organization were publicly known, Levitan was a police officer whose status as an Evils executive had never been announced. Hearing that someone who had once been a test subject was connected to the organization, the worst possibilities came to mind first.
Haneui was exactly that sort of person.
‘What are the heroes and police even doing…! An S-class villain entered their city and…!’
After venting her anger at the negligent Hero Association and police for a moment, Haneui considered what she needed to do to rescue Levitan. She would need firepower. Doing it alone was impossible. She had some confidence in her own combat ability, but not enough to rescue one person while fighting an S-class villain and multiple executives of similar caliber at the same time.
‘No choice. I’ll have to use my head.’
As that thought crossed her mind, a vehicle approached. The moment she saw it, Haneui stepped directly into its path.
Screeeech—!
A long squeal of brakes rang out as the vehicle stopped right in front of her. The window rolled down and the driver leaned out, shouting.
“You crazy bitch, are you trying to get yourself killed—.”
“—Excuse me. Would you mind lending me your vehicle for a short while?”
“Uh… uhh…?”
Haneui spoke while pressing her sword against the driver’s neck. The driver, feeling cold steel against his throat, broke into a heavy sweat and nodded frantically.
A moment later, the driver who had slowly exited the vehicle began inching away from Haneui. Leaving the fleeing man behind, she climbed straight into the car.
‘It’s so convenient this way.’
Point a sword at someone’s neck and ask politely, and anyone will grant the request. It was a secret technique that had not failed once since her escape from the laboratory, and the very reason she bothered to carry a sword.
As she started the engine, Haneui recalled a memory from long ago—the moment that had decided her name.
—Since I’m a rabbit, Rabbit… But plain Rabbit isn’t cute, so let’s go with Levitang. What about you?
—I’m… Haneui.
—Haneui? What a cute name! Not as cute as mine, though!
The hopeful laughter of children trapped in the same iron cages, dreaming only of the outside world, echoed in her ears like a hallucination.
Shoving that hallucination into a corner of her mind, Haneui slowly drove out of the city.
Crash—!
“Ah…”
Not far along, Haneui, who had slammed the vehicle into a guardrail, scratched the back of her head. Driving was pure poison for someone whose eyes barely worked. In the end, she abandoned the wrecked car and crossed the city boundary on foot.
The next day, after Regalia and Vira had woken from sleep, we gathered in one place to hold a strategy meeting.
“—So you’re saying that Haneui person threatened the scientist?”
“More precisely, it seemed she was aiming for Levitan rather than me.”
“Hmm— Levitan. Can you guess what her objective might be?”
At Regalia’s question, Levitan slowly shook her head.
“I didn’t even know she was still alive… I was certain everyone had died back then.”
“I see.”
Levitan answered in a tone that had completely forgotten her usual cutesy manner of speech. Regalia remained silent for a moment, then nodded as though she had roughly made up her mind.
“Then what we must do remains unchanged. Enjoy your vacation.”
“Boss, is that really all right?”
“Is there a problem? She ran away after seeing only Galrm and Aile. There is no need to fear such a weakling.”
The boss’s words were perfectly reasonable. After separately looking into the name Haneui and confirming she was neither a wanted villain nor a famous esper, it made even more sense. For an evil organization that could be called an S-class villain group to cower before a nameless rookie would have been far stranger.
In the end, we resumed our vacation as if nothing had happened. Of course, we still traveled in pairs of two as a precaution against surprise attacks.
“Haneui…”
“Do you miss her that much?”
“It’s not exactly that I miss her. It feels more like looking at an old homework assignment I shoved into a drawer long ago… So old it barely remains in my memory.”
“Shall I look into it? Find out where she is and what she’s doing.”
“…Thank you-yong.”
Everyone enjoyed their vacation once more, except for Levitan, who sat alone looking utterly dejected. But that vacation lasted less than a full day before it was utterly shattered.
“—Excuse me. This is the police.”
The police arrived without warning. I opened the door and tilted my head at the officer, wondering what this was about. The policeman, however, silently scanned the room before bowing his head.
“My apologies. I’ll be leaving then…”
“Wait, what is this about?”
“It’s a confidential operation. You need not concern yourself.”
“I’ll be filing an official complaint.”
“Do as you wish.”
As the officer moved on to the neighboring room, I frowned, immediately filed a complaint against him with the police department, and hacked their database to learn exactly why he had come.
Discovering the reason was not particularly difficult. The moment I pulled something from the database, the officer himself blurted it out over his radio.
“Huh? What is this?”
“Hands up! You villain scum—! You are currently suspected of planning an act of terrorism in O City and—.”
Someone had filed a false report claiming that the evil organization was plotting terrorism in O City. It was obviously fake, yet the police had no choice but to follow procedure. In doing so, they had actually discovered Galrm, who was wanted as an S-class villain.
After quickly assessing the situation, I sighed and relayed the facts to the boss. Upon hearing the news, she let out a hollow laugh as if the whole thing were absurd.
“Well, we are villains, after all. True or false, they have no choice but to arrest us first…”
“How utterly ridiculous.”
While Regalia was still reeling from the absurdity of it all, the forces sent to arrest Galrm finally arrived. Heroes and police special forces surrounded the hotel. We slipped out quietly while Galrm remained behind to brawl with the heroes.
From outside the hotel, the boss watched the chaos with gritted teeth, radiating pure hatred toward whoever had ruined her vacation.
“Scientist.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“You can find out who did this, can’t you?”
“—Of course.”
It was a situation that demanded I claim even the impossible was possible. I nodded firmly, saying I could, and Regalia stared at me with eyes full of rage.
“Find them. And punish them.”
“Understood.”
Whoever it was, they had disturbed the boss’s mood. What an unlucky fool.
Thinking that, I fiddled with my pad and began searching for the informant. The report had been made from a public phone in an isolated location, and naturally there were no cameras nearby. But that didn’t matter. What did the absence of CCTV matter? This was a world where space development had already reached a fairly advanced stage.
‘The satellite that passed over that location at that time…’
I hacked the satellite and obtained footage of the area taken during the exact window when the report was filed. After enhancing the image quality and zooming in, I captured the moment the informant revealed themselves.
When I saw the informant’s appearance, I let out a small chuckle. Then I looked at Levitan. She stared back at me with a puzzled expression.
“What-yong?”
“No, it’s nothing—”
I silently handed her the pad. On the screen was a rabbit beastman woman who looked exactly like Levitan. Upon confirming the figure of a rabbit beastwoman with even larger breasts than her own, Levitan’s face gradually stiffened. The image showed Haneui—the very person she had been searching for so desperately.