The End of the Commission

Slash—!

“Ugh—suddenly, the blood…!”

One of the mercenaries, his face already flushed as if something were wrong with his body, had his head explode. He crumpled where he stood. The men around him recoiled in terror, taking an involuntary step back.

Damn it… what the hell is going on?

Alexander hurled his now-useless firearm to the floor.

“The Gambler… this has to be his doing…”

Firearms, with their intricate mechanisms, were notoriously vulnerable to manipulation-type unique abilities—far more so than simple cold steel. A single operator of that class could slash the combat effectiveness of dozens, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even thousands, of troops. The mercenary companies trained their own people in unique abilities and knife-fighting for exactly that reason, but the quality never quite matched ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠true heroes or villains. Most who ended up as mercenaries were either former heroes who had hit a wall, or fighters with excellent combat sense whose unique abilities simply weren’t suited for the battlefield.

Doesn’t matter. We’ve got ten hired villains. The mercs were only ever here to pad the numbers.

Alexander ordered the villains to raise defensive barriers around the perimeter, then began hunting for Yekaterina’s position. Capture her and the fight was over. Leviathan’s tightly centralized power structure meant that seizing its supreme administrator would let him skip every tedious formality.

So he forced a scenario into shape and methodically cleared the building. It was a pity he couldn’t use the explosives he had brought, but the villains he had paid hundreds of millions for filled the gap, and he converted the mercenaries entirely to defensive roles to compensate for the loss of firearms. In a normal siege that would have been a sound decision. Unfortunately, it was also a strategy that burned far too much time.

And as the minutes dragged on, the situation Leviathan had been waiting for finally detonated.

BOOM—!

“Wh-what is that…?”

A massive crack spider-webbed across the surface of the barrier, woven from unique abilities and mana. For a split second he thought Leviathan had fired some kind of cannon—but the Gambler’s power did not distinguish between friend and foe. This was no ordinary weapon. As far as Alexander knew, that level of pure destructive force belonged to only one unique ability, and it belonged to a hero whose raw power was considered unmatched even among his peers.

“N-no way. The Hero Association intervening? Our cover was perfect…!”

KRA-KA-KRAAANG—!

An unstable little mushroom cloud blossomed above the great barrier. In the same instant the blue-scattering shield shattered completely, and a colossal shockwave slammed into everyone below.

“Well, well. You’ve been having quite the party down here. Meanwhile some of us have been stuck at headquarters killing time. Looks like the merger period really got you excited—scraping together every last scrap of gear and even rolling out armored cars.”

“Gustav…!”

Alexander took a large step backward. He himself was ranked as an A-class villain, and the average strength of the villains he had brought was nothing to sneeze at—but going head-to-head with the Association was still suicide. Especially when their entire lineup had been assembled solely to capture Yekaterina. Right now, withdrawal was the only sane option.

“Hey, let’s talk. You’re not going to be able to use that monstrous unique ability again anytime soon, are you? And this is the middle of a city!”

“You’re the ones who dragged armored cars into the middle of a city. Thanks to you, this merger period I thought would be pure boredom just got interesting.”

“W-wait—Leviathan struck first over there…!”

“Leviathan? Oh, right, they were here too. Well, the others can round them up. I need to stretch my legs first.”

Crunch—

The moment Gustav took a single step forward, Alexander’s spine bent like a drawn bow—physically.

WHAM—!

One punch sent Alexander’s body flying backward.

“Start by arresting the mercenaries. Those bastards were hired illegally anyway—toss them in a cell, wave some settlement money around, let them take whatever they can get, then shut their mouths. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Whoever our hacker tipster is, I owe them a thank-you. Almost missed a show this good.”

The heroes who had followed Gustav in began rounding up the villains who were still putting up a token resistance. Under ordinary circumstances the Association would never have gone this far, but once direct force and armored vehicles entered the picture, there was no slipping the net. Deploying not just firearms but actual armored units was enough to threaten national security. The fact that Glare was an American company—with all the Cold War baggage that carried—only made the Association’s response sharper.

“Leviathan, though…”

For a moment Gustav’s eyes saw the blood demon who had once ruled the world’s battlefields. Back when he himself had still been a greenhorn who couldn’t even control his own power, Yekaterina had looked like a god of hell descended onto the earth.

“Not sure if she’s still around…”

Not ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that he intended to hunt her down in earnest. Among the organizations that operated in the shadows, Leviathan was one of the few that knew how to stay inside the lines. Keeping an eye on them and reading the underworld’s currents was far more comfortable than shattering the throne of the dark and inviting chaos. Association interference in underworld turf wars was rare in the first place. This time they had simply crossed the line by a mile. As long as no one else rolled armored cars into a city center and started a riot, the Association would stay out of the next feeding frenzy.

By that point the mercenary unit under Yekaterina’s command was already leaving the area. Five transport vehicles packed with fighters made a conspicuous convoy, but the civilians had long since evacuated or barricaded themselves indoors.

“Turn right there.”

-“Confirmed.”

With Laplace’s help I hijacked the traffic-control system, spinning CCTV cameras and flipping traffic lights every time the transports passed. Thanks to that, we slipped out of the district with almost no interference.

“No major threats left. Unless the Association suddenly loses its mind and comes after us.”

-“Aah~ good work~ All that extra trouble because of one little traitor~”

Yekaterina muttered the words while brushing dried blood from her cheek. Even in the middle of a clear crisis her expression had barely changed. Maybe she was simply confident she could extract herself no matter how bad things got. I still didn’t know the full extent of her power.

-“We’ll settle accounts… back at headquarters. No, wait—I’ll just send a private mail. We can talk there~ You can look forward to some good news.”

It was nearly four o’clock; I was about to leave the conference room when a private message from Yekaterina arrived on my screen.

Honestly, no single human should have been able to do it. Most of the work had been handled with the help of my artificial-intelligence program, Laplace. But to anyone who didn’t know about that program, I looked like a rising star with demonic computational power—a star that might just overturn the entire underworld.

It couldn’t be helped. My official status was still that of a Wittelsbach family slave; private employment under anyone else was nearly impossible. Freelance work—only when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I felt like it—was the absolute limit of what I could manage.

With that I left the conference room. Afterward the merger period ended without further incident. In its wake, Gunggi and several smaller sites were fully absorbed into Leviathan. Glare, which had suffered catastrophic losses after an unexpected clash with the Association during the fighting, was forced to pull in its claws for the time being.

Other shifts rippled through the underworld, but one fact stood clear: Leviathan had been the greatest beneficiary of the entire merger period. Naturally, talk of Lucifer—the hacker who had steered Leviathan to victory—spread across the net. Every community that had a foothold in the shadows filled with stories about the mysterious figure: claims that he had completely toyed with dozens of hackers, that he had torn through hundreds of sites, a mixture of pure speculation and hard fact. Some refused to believe it. Others exhausted every resource trying to make contact. Not a single person obtained any solid information.

All eyes turned toward the one person who held even a scrap of a lead—the supreme administrator of Leviathan—and the debate grew steadily more feverish.

Meanwhile the subject of all that talk, Lucifer himself, did not log onto the darknet for a full two weeks.