Cleanup After the Rampage (2)
A muffled groan of complaint rose from inside the kidnapping sacks. Kilika ignored it and flipped one of the bags upside down. What tumbled out onto the road, landing butt-first, was the truck’s true owner—utterly terrified. The truck driver, who had been wearing an oxygen mask, sucked in a sharp breath the moment he saw the twins again. Kilika quickly snatched the mask away. It had been given to prevent suffocation inside the sack, but gulping down oxygen too fast could cause someone to pass out.
“Nameless friend, sorry for borrowing your truck without asking. I used it cleanly and returned it in good shape.”
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t do anything—”
“Now it’s time for you to forget everything.”
“Please spare me, please—”
As far as Kilika knew, there were plenty of ways to make someone forget without killing them. They weren’t the type to enjoy spilling blood outside of work, either. Besides, this was right in front of the Graveyard House. If they turned someone into a corpse around here and Benny found out, they might end up as corpses themselves.
At Kilika’s nod, Hodric helped the truck driver to his feet and shoved a thick wad of bills into his hand. Kilika patted the wide-eyed driver on the back with a friendly smile.
“That’s your fare. Now, what did I just say?”
“I don’t remember. And… who are you?”
The twins looked extremely satisfied as they sent the truck driver on his way. The driver, who had quickly regained his composure, gave them a solemn nod before climbing back into his truck. The problematic vehicle that had unknowingly carried two runaway Sapiens twice disappeared into the thinning fog.
“What a shitty day. First that monster—whether it’s the Child of the Stars or its mother, I don’t even know what the hell it was—then nearly getting caught up in divine punishment, and even running into the cops. And to top it all off…”
Kilika counted the remaining money in their hand and muttered bitterly.
“Damn it. The transfer fee I earned from the Great Arena is leaking out in every direction.”
Hodric patted Kilika on the back as if to comfort them. The illegal fishing truck that had been scooping fish out of the vast sewer wastewater finally turned the corner and vanished completely. Only then did the twins pull the rest of their companions from the remaining sacks.
“I know it looks like we caused a huge mess for nothing, but at least we should minimize the number of witnesses, right?”
As soon as the ropes were untied, the group scrambled out, kicking the sacks away in disgust. Nathan and Nilly wore expressions soured by the fishy smell of the nets. A strange reporter was on the verge of tears from the rapidly changing situation… and Hrozka looked completely out of it. He couldn’t even pull the sack off his own head.
Kilika slapped his cheek in alarm.
“…Why did you drop the oxygen mask at your feet? Hey! Breathe! Breathe!”
“Didn’t you knock him out and stuff him in the sack? Don’t you remember?”
“There were so many terrifying things happening that I didn’t even think about that. The moment he saw my face, he pointed a bow at me. I had to find some way to persuade him.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that. If I hadn’t been tied up tight inside that sack, I would’ve charged straight at you. I should actually be thanking you for the surprise attack.”
Kilika grinned. In that smile, a fragment of the hunter’s broken pride had returned.
“Exactly. It was a surprise attack, just like you said. But let’s be precise. It was one-on-one. Right?”
Nathan blinked.
“…You didn’t do it to save time. You ambushed me because of your pride?”
“I did want to save time, but I’ll admit it felt pretty satisfying. I told you, my pride is stronger than it needs to be. Still, thanks to me you got away comfortably. No complaints, right?”
Nathan lowered his head in gratitude as he pulled his face away from the oxygen mask. Hrozka, however, didn’t even have the strength for that.
“It smelled… like hell…”
“Poor guy.”
Nathan shook his head and glanced back at the entrance of the Graveyard House. Someone was sprinting down the hallway so urgently it sounded like they might shatter the floor tiles. The door to the Graveyard House burst open with a bang. The corner of Nathan’s mouth twitched upward.
“She’s going to break the door at this rate.”
“You’re the one who actually smashed it before. You really think you get to say that?”
Despite trying to sound indifferent, Benny’s face was overflowing with relief.
“Welcome back. Looks like I’ve got patients scattered all over the street.”
“Graveyard House? Figures it’d be in Graveyard Valley. What kind of hospital name is that…? You’re not going to harvest my organs if I go in, are you?”
The reporter’s face was filled with distrust. She clearly had no intention of hiding her suspicion. Benny, who had stepped aside from the doorway, seemed used to this kind of treatment.
“I’m not going to eat you, so just come inside. Unlike the hospitals up in the sunlit districts, I won’t charge you millions of credits. Don’t worry about the medical bill. You jumped off a building—you might have internal injuries. The least I can do is give you a check-up.”
Meanwhile, fury was visibly twitching across Nilly’s face. If she could, she looked ready to freeze the woman beside her solid.
“Why on earth did you bring her?”
Kilika whispered in a dry voice.
“If she had died back there, it would’ve been one thing, but since she saw everything, we had to bring her… Your Highness.”
“I don’t know who you are, but ‘Your Highness’? Are you mocking me?”
Having barely survived a life-threatening crisis, Nilly’s aura was razor-sharp. Kilika, who had initially tried to show proper respect out of fear of royalty, shrank back dejectedly into the corner. Nathan looked at them with pitying eyes.
“Did I commit some kind of rudeness? I’m from the back alleys, so I wouldn’t even know what I’m supposed to know…”
“She never minded when I spoke casually to her.”
“…Sorry for getting angry. My position isn’t anything grand. A half-baked northern royal is worth less than a dog rolling around in the eastern back alleys.”
After chewing over everything she had suffered, Nilly finally shoved the hesitant reporter aside and dashed into the Graveyard House, throwing her arms around Benny.
“Benny, it’s so good to see you. I’m glad we can meet again while we’re both still alive.”
“…So you were Nilly. Or should I call you Lady Nilly?”
Benny seemed unsure where to put her arms and felt awkward for a moment, but eventually hugged her back tightly. Nilly frowned at the unfamiliar attitude.
“What do you mean by that?”
Benny gently pushed Nilly away and glanced warily down both ends of the street outside the hospital.
“This is going to take quite a while to explain. Let’s go inside and talk. Everyone head to the dining room so the patients can’t overhear.”
The bodies chilled by the watery mist gradually thawed in the warmth of the dining room’s fireplace. Only then did the group truly realize they had reached a place where they could rest. But not everyone could enjoy the relaxation leisurely.
Nilly, who had just heard the full story, was especially horrified.
“A transforming demon?”
A Changeling’s dream pouch induced oblivion. It melted away memories starting from the most recent ones. Thanks to that, Nilly hadn’t even known how she had been kidnapped. It was fortunate they had rescued her within a few days.
“It’s fine now. We defeated it. I checked to see if there were multiple entities, but at least there aren’t any inside this hospital.”
Nathan cut Benny off.
“No, there’s still one left. The one that got caught by me is still alive.”
“You kept it alive? Where…?”
Nathan, who had been sinking into an armchair and sipping the medicinal decoction Benny had given him through a straw, lifted the straw and pointed toward the back of the hospital. Because Benny had wrapped him in layers of bandages while scolding him—‘The patient was reckless,’ ‘Don’t you value your own body?’—even such a simple gesture was extremely uncomfortable.
“I buried it in a coffin after pouring concrete over it. I only left a single straw so it could breathe.”
Nilly was shocked once again by Nathan’s words.
“Even for an Eleim from the Winter Kingdom, that’s an incredibly vicious revenge.”
“It wasn’t just for revenge. It was practical. Just like how Kilika over there stuffed us into sacks without any explanation wasn’t purely out of spite.”
The twins, who had suddenly been dragged into the conversation, jerked their heads up in surprise.
“Why are you suddenly dragging us into this?”
“Grudge.”
Having answered that way, Nathan awkwardly shoved the straw back into the cup because of the bandages and took a long, leisurely sip before continuing.
“They say high-ranking demons can resurrect from beyond the abyss and return. So I’m trying to keep it alive as long as possible. It seems to have consumed quite a few young elves with no connections in the back alleys, so it’s overflowing with nutrients. It’ll probably live like that for at least a few hundred years.”
Kilika, wearing an expression of pure spite, suddenly lifted their leg and pointed at the sole of their shoe. The treads were packed with salt.
“What does that so-called demon have to do with the seasoning you sprinkled in front of the door?”
“It’s consecrated salt meant to keep demons from entering. Of course, someone like you could just kick it aside and walk in. But I can at least distinguish the ones that can’t cross because they’re overly sensitive to mere salt.”
Nathan explained calmly, but when Benny saw Kilika’s face, she frowned.
“Are you sulking right now?”
“I have the right to. You all can’t even say thank you and just keep snapping at me.”
“Is this because of what I said when I came in earlier? In my own hospital?”
“Come on, I can just sprinkle more salt. Why were you yelling at me not to step on the gold line?”
“Because I saw a monster that eats people and steals their appearance with my own eyes. Do you know how much my spine tingled?”
When Benny exploded in frustration, Kilika shrank back again. It was said that Kilika had once been a patient here long ago and owed the hospital. Because of that, the hierarchy between the two friends seemed crystal clear.
But Kilika wasn’t the only one who was scared. The elves all wore slightly stiff expressions that didn’t match the gentle warmth of the dining room. It was only natural. They must have thought such horrors only existed far down on the surface world.
Nathan let out a silent sigh. In a few minutes, he would probably be wearing the same expression as them.
“Now that Nilly’s questions are answered, it’s my turn. Hrozka?”
Hrozka, whose eyes were still unfocused, widened them in surprise. A hospital oxygen mask even larger than the one the twins had given him was strapped to his face. Trembling, he pulled the mask down.
“Me?”
Nathan asked what exactly a “lowlife from the Deep Forum who sells footage on illegal broadcast channels” was. At the very least, hearing it from another human would probably be better than hearing it from an elf. After all, he would have experience adapting to an unfamiliar world.
It was only natural, but Nathan still found the long-eared ones uncomfortable. They had suddenly intruded into his life and kept popping up everywhere he looked for days. They shoved incomprehensible concepts of their world at him and forced him to face horrors he couldn’t understand. Even with Benny’s boundless kindness, the sense of rejection remained. In fact, it took tremendous courage just to drink the medicine in his hand. Surely it wasn’t poisoned.
“That’s quite an obscure term, yet you recalled it so accurately. Impressive memory.”
His face was still greenish from the fishy stench, but Hrozka seemed excited as he eagerly began to explain. Nathan quickly realized that just because he was hearing it from a person didn’t mean it would be any easier to understand.
“It’s a technology that displays scenes observed through the optical lens of one terminal onto the screen of another terminal.”
“I finally understand, my friend.”
He hadn’t understood a single thing. He had simply parroted what he heard like a parrot. He wasn’t sure, but it probably worked on a similar principle to the guide boards he had seen at the arena. Nathan decided to just leave it at that.
Damn it.
To Nathan, who had come from a world of carrier pigeons and campfires, electronic engineering was a realm of distant terror. Demons seemed like nothing in comparison.
He could roughly understand everything outside the technical details. Only then did Nathan vaguely realize why Benny had hung that “reporter” elf from the ceiling.
The reporter spoke in a voice thick with resentment. She was dangling from the ceiling like a fly caught in a spiderweb, shaking desperately.
“You said you wouldn’t eat me, you frauds! Let me down!”
Nathan scratched his head.
“You followed me the moment I descended from the Floating Arena? And you spread footage of me fighting across the entire Heavens?”
“That’s right. That fearless woman essentially announced your location to the whole sky. That’s why the security guards are swarming all over Graveyard Valley.”
This “reporter” woman had smelled money on Nathan. So she had followed him all the way to this dangerous slum and stuck to his tail. Then she had filmed every fight Nathan had been in and sold the footage—to a kind of underground gambling den that only existed in virtual space.
The reporter rolled her eyes and spoke as if it were obvious.
“…Because that place pays better than my company.”
Benny picked up one of the fried meat pieces Kilika had been chewing on and hurled it at the ceiling.
“Eek—! Don’t throw that! What kind of meat is that?!”
“It’s swamp crayfish, you idiot. I didn’t fry up a corpse, so stop making that pathetic face. And who wants to hear your excuses? If you had handed the footage over to a legitimate news outlet, things would’ve gotten much worse!”
The footage that remained started from the moment Nathan left the Floating Arena until he fell from the bridge. And then from when he headbutted the small fry in the sewer all the way to when he finished off the demonized Mornid.
What Nathan had done in the Floating Arena had already been spreading quietly through word of mouth. That was why spectators who had gladly paid a hefty viewing fee had flocked to the illegal forum. And there, they had witnessed it—the son of the Winter King transforming into a demon and clashing with Nathan.
As Benny said, it was fortunate the footage had been sold in the shadows. At least the rumor had spread relatively slowly.
Nathan tilted his head. He had already been prepared for the moment he learned his opponent was an overwhelmingly powerful figure.
“I was openly showing my intent to kill someone the entire time I crossed the sewer district anyway. What does it matter if the rumor spreads late or not?”
“The sewer rats are gangsters, but they at least follow their own rules. They’d sooner bite their own tongues than testify to the security guards. But anyone who knows how to access the virtual channels can drop by. There’s no way those users could possibly keep their mouths shut.”
At Kilika’s explanation, Nathan answered with his expression alone.
That’s strange. Those guys seemed pretty loose-lipped to me.
Kilika started to sigh but stopped.
“That’s because you… Never mind. I get what you mean, so stop making that face. Anyway, if only the sewer folks had known, it could’ve ended as a perfect crime. Rumors inside the sewers don’t leak to the surface easily. Even Mornid’s underlings were all killed by lightning. Whether you intended it or not, calling down divine punishment was, in the end, a pretty good idea.”
As if suddenly angry while speaking, Kilika also grabbed a piece of meat and threw it at the ceiling.
“But because of that bitch, everything’s ruined. My face and Benny’s were probably caught on the Deep Forum footage too. Damn it, this is exactly why you shouldn’t dip even a toe into things you can’t handle…”
Benny spoke gloomily.
“I’ve mostly taken care of that. The camera focus was centered on Nathan, and most of the relayed footage was just the fights, so it worked out.”
“…Taken care of how?”
“The gamblers and spectators who visited the server were only interested in the fights and the odds. I tracked down and erased every trace of the Eleim who didn’t directly fight Nathan. Now we can only hope no one examines it too closely.”
Kilika’s eyes widened.
“How?”
Nathan, who hadn’t realized just how impressive that was in detail, decided to simply listen quietly while observing the situation.
“Have you forgotten what my real job is? I can handle that much. Remember, Nathan? Before you left, I told you there was a friend who erased all traces of Princess Nilly from every forum. It was probably someone working under Mornid’s orders.”
Nathan, who nearly choked, nodded. Even though he thought there was no way he would remember something like that.
“I applied the same method that person used. Fortunately, there weren’t that many things I had to handle. My face isn’t well known, and neither of you twins had your faces or voices properly captured.”
“I hope that’s true. I have zero desire to get dragged into the northerners’ Protector Lord candidacy fight and die. I really do have one good friend.”
“But the scenes of Nathan himself fighting… were being copied endlessly. Because all the users’ attention was focused solely on that. There was nothing I could do unless I took the entire server down.”
The expressions on Nathan and Benny’s faces grew complicated. Kilika wondered if they should offer some words of comfort. But the chill in Benny’s tone made them close their mouth.
The corner of Benny’s mouth twisted.
“So I took the whole server down. Let the chips fall where they may.”
A long silence fell over the dining room. Hodric carefully took out a tablet and checked it. Every connection had indeed been severed.
“No wonder the server access cut off before the fight even ended. So that was why.”
The reporter nodded as if she finally understood. Then, a moment later, she turned pale and muttered.
“…Wait. What kind of Eleim are you?”
Ramkaf the skeleton, who had been listening with great interest, muttered darkly.
A stifled commotion spread through the dining room. Only Nathan, who still didn’t understand the situation, gave a serious nod of approval.
He didn’t know what it was, but—
“Well done.”
“Right?”
Benny smiled brightly like a child starved for praise, completely unconcerned that the entire Heavens outside was being turned upside down.