The World's Greatest Raid Team (3)
New York. Even in Manhattan, this was a high-end strip club not just anyone could walk into.
Lights over the stage kept changing color to music meant to get the blood up. The seat looked straight at that stage and still let a man drink in something close to privacy—the kind of table you waited months to reserve. For an S-Rank Hunter, none of that mattered.
"Damn it."
Bruce Bogard drained his glass.
"Damn it. Damn it. That Asian bastard."
The empty glass cracked against the table, and the woman beside him flinched.
"Bruce, knock it off."
"You've been on about this all day."
The friends who'd come with him laughed and topped him off. They weren't hunters, but they knew how to keep him sweet.
"Be straight with me, Bruce. What does that evaluation even mean?"
"Yeah. It's a simulation. Not even a real Gate."
"The Association set the whole thing up to hype the new guy they dragged in. You bring in one Asian, you've gotta make your money back."
"That's right. You're the best, Bruce. How many guys in this country hit harder than you?"
"......"
Bogard didn't answer. He lifted the glass again, and his mood seemed to loosen a little. It was always like this in a place like this. He spent money, people fawned over him, and up on the stage the women smiled his way.
And yet.
"......How dare he. Sofia."
"Huh? What'd you say?"
"Nothing."
Bogard shook his head.
The scene from the waiting room still wouldn't leave him. Sofia, pressed right up against that Asian, eyes bright while she talked. A woman who had never once shown him a face like that.
It had been more than half a year since they first met. He'd come on strong right away and been turned down with a smile.
"Sorry, but I'm not interested in that. Let's just stay colleagues."
He hadn't planned to quit after hearing it once, so he kept at it—meals, gifts, stretches of time in New York timed to the raids she was on. Tonight was supposed to have been dinner for the two of them. Yesterday's scene in the lobby had soured the air, and this was where it had ended up.
Half a year. He'd put in the work because he wanted a stunning Hispanic woman whose looks were wasted on a hunter's life, and he had nothing to show for it. Then that Asian had barely set foot in New York before Sofia's warm, fond gaze was in his hands.
The glass creaked in Bogard's grip.
"Bruce?"
"......"
What do I do.
Bogard turned it over, slow.
Words wouldn't beat that Asian. The lobby yesterday had already proved it. A raid wouldn't either. Today's evaluation had settled that, and tomorrow would probably look the same.
Which left one thing.
"......"
Bogard looked down at his fist. Even before he awakened, these hands were how he'd eaten.
Right.
He'd do it the way he was best at. In front of everyone. In front of that woman. Put that smug face in the floor and make him beg for his life.
"Bruce, why are you smiling like that?"
"......Feeling a little better."
Bogard filled his glass again.
"The second evaluation is complete."
The next day, I stepped out of a simulation Gate once more.
"Hm......"
They'd said the teams were drawn at random. And yet I'd been made raid leader again. Someone with pull might have been leaning on this part of it, at least.
"I'll give you the results."
A staff member raised a tablet.
"Team One. Same as yesterday—top of every category. Clear time was even shorter."
The waiting room stirred.
"So yesterday wasn't luck."
"Twice in a row at that level, there's nothing left to say."
Voices rose from all around. The air was a little different from yesterday. If yesterday had been closer to shock, today was closer to concession.
"Hunter Lee Dohyeon."
"Yes."
"The first and second evaluations are now finished. The results go to headquarters, and they will of course bear on the reorganization of the 1st Raid Team."
"Understood."
The staff member gave a short nod and stepped back.
That's as far as I can take it.
I'd done everything I could do right now. What would they hand me next?
"Dohyeon!"
Sofia Morales, who had run the raid with me yesterday and again today, came hurrying over.
"......"
"You were unreal again today. I don't think I can raid with any other leader now."
Somewhere along the way, she had dropped the formalities. She was even using my name, easy as anything.
"Ms. Morales."
"Sofia. Call me by my name."
"Sorry?"
"Forget I said we should talk like normal people?"
I had nothing to say to that. She wasn't merely frank. She simply pushed.
"And you know there's a wrap-up tonight, right?"
"I heard earlier."
"I'm keeping the seat next to me open, so that's where you're sitting."
"That's......"
"Promise?"
I had never agreed to a thing, and somehow it was a promise.
"Lee Dohyeon."
A low voice came from behind.
"......"
Bruce Bogard. Still in his combat gear. Team Two must have just finished as well.
The space around us went quietly tense. Word of the lobby had clearly already made the rounds.
"Been watching you for two days."
"Yes."
"Seeing it like this, you're something. A man ought to give credit where it's due."
Unexpected. I also knew perfectly well he wasn't the sort to mean it.
"Thank you."
I took it with a thin smile.
"One thing still bugs me, though."
"Bugs you?"
"I saw what you're like inside a Gate. I haven't seen what you're like outside one."
Bogard tipped his chin toward the far side of the training hall. Opposite the simulation Gate, on a platform a step above the floor, a square ring sat waiting.
"Hunters use it to loosen up and sharpen each other."
"......"
"How about it? Evals are done, so let's make it interesting. One round. MMA."
The room went dead silent.
"In this country, this is how we get friendly. No hard feelings. Just a spar."
The line was plausible enough. His eyes were not.
"Hey."
Magner Cogrigger stepped in.
"The evaluation just ended. What the hell is this?"
"Why? What's the problem?"
"You're asking because you don't know it's a problem?"
The air between them drew tight.
"Mr. Cogrigger."
"......Dohyeon."
"Leave it."
I set my gear down.
"I like MMA myself. Back in Korea, I never missed a fight."
The corner of Bogard's mouth lifted.
"Good. Then it's settled."
He started for the ring.
"Dohyeon."
Magner Cogrigger leaned in and dropped his voice.
"You know what that guy did before he awakened?"
"......"
"He was a WFC heavyweight contender."
WFC. The premier mixed martial arts promotion on Earth. They aired it in Korea, so I knew the name. A heavyweight contender there meant he stood among the best bare-handed fighters alive.
"A hunter's stronger than an ordinary person even outside a Gate. That's true. But that's raw physical ability and nothing else."
"......"
"Give a body like that to a man who actually trained the craft, and you're in a different league. He's exactly that case."
Magner Cogrigger's brow tightened. None of it was news to me.
"You're at way too much of a disadvantage. Call it off. Right now."
"Oh, is that right?"
I smiled.
"Sounds like fun."
"......What?"
Magner Cogrigger's face locked, but I was already walking toward the ring.
I couldn't have done this in Korea. An S-Rank Hunter throwing punches in private was a headline all by itself.
Not here.
"Gentlemen. The rules are simple."
A referee had turned up from somewhere and climbed into the ring.
"No strikes to the vitals. Tap out, or I stop it, and we're done."
People packed in beneath the ring—hunters from the evaluation, East Branch staff, officials. Among them stood James Jordan, head of the Hunter Management Division, arms folded, looking thoroughly entertained.
And.
"......"
Sofia Morales had come right up to the ring to watch. Rules like these, a crowd like that—this had already drifted a long way from a spar.
"Fight."
Bogard closed the distance at once. Fast. A frame that cleared six-foot-three had no business moving like that. His shoulder drove straight into my side, and my back hit the ring.
"......"
He locked my waist. I felt myself hauled clean off the mat, and then my back slammed into the floor. A roar broke from below the ring.
"Got you."
From on top of me, Bogard went for my arm. He meant to crank the elbow until I gave up. He meant to make me slap the mat with everyone watching.
But.
I slipped my arm free.
"......Huh?"
I let the hand that reached again slide past, hooked a leg, twisted, and came out. Then I stood.
"Hah......"
Bogard stared at me, breath heaving. His technique really was good—more precise than any hunter I knew. But I was a man who had spent years inside Gates practicing one thing only: not getting caught by things several times my size and far faster. I had never once leaned on my mana. Inside a Gate, I had always drilled whatever might help, even a little.
And since I'd come to America and learned how to push my mana to its limit, my body had grown a good deal lighter even outside a Gate.
Distance opened between us again. Bogard tried to grab me, and I got out. The same shape kept repeating, and the people watching began to murmur.
"Hey."
Bogard's voice went rough.
"You just gonna keep running?"
"......"
"Karate, taekwondo, whatever the hell it is—show me something!"
The usual provocation, dragging race into it. Things weren't going his way, so the feeling came out first.
I didn't answer. I just kept my hands low and waited for him to come in.
Here he comes.
His shoulder dropped. His weight pitched forward. A takedown.
My fist met his jaw at the exact same instant. The force he'd been charging in stacked on top of the punch, and even the sound came out different. That slab of muscle went down flat.
"......"
The training hall fell silent.
I mounted him.
"Ugh—ghh!"
Bogard covered his face with both arms. The man who, a moment ago, had been trying to plant me in the mat and take my surrender now had his eyes shut, arms locked over his head.
I raised my fist.
"Stop!"
The referee lunged in.
In that moment—
"......"
I only feigned bringing the fist down, and opened my hand instead. Then I stood.
"Huh? Huh?"
Bogard peered out between his arms. It seemed to take him a beat to realize nothing had happened.
"Good work."
I said it short and stepped out of the ring.
The first applause came from James Jordan. The man was laughing, wide and loud.
"Well! What are the rest of you waiting for!"
He called the room in after him, and clapping broke from every side.