Ch.138

It’s still too early to return. If I had cleared out each building where the traitors were hiding, it would have been more than enough. But it wasn’t such a regrettable matter.

Gardner needed to appear professional, someone who sent chills down the spine more than the criminals forcibly gathered by Heroism & Hope Co.

I’ve always been good at mimicry. Since Heroism & Hope Co. didn’t rigidly define the character or throw me a script, but only gave me a rough sense of the role, I could fully utilize that ability.

After scanning the streets littered with headless corpses, I called the cleanup team. Just as killing was the right thing to do, cleaning the streets and offices was equally appropriate.

As soon as the cleanup team call ended, a communication from someone named Lobringer arrived. It was Chris. In this city, hero names were always treated like call signs.

After confirming that the Gardner preset was active, I accepted the communication. I had no intention of giving an NG take.

“Gardner! This is Lobringer. Um, since Serena probably won’t request backup… that criminal who attacked Serena last time has appeared again! I’m sending you the location information!”

Is the sniper a different problem from the traitors? I nodded slightly. In this situation, what Gardner could say was… yes, there was something appropriate.

“Name?”

“Yes, no, um, you mean me? I’m…”

“Not you. Him.”

“Ah, right. We call him Paparazzi. He’s the only journalist outside the company’s control.”

Paparazzi, huh. I didn’t know why he carried a sniper rifle instead of a camera if he wanted to see some aspect of Serena. Actually, I didn’t really want to know, but I also didn’t want to repeat my mistakes.

The last time I met Jeffrey Long, I maintained the attitude that I’d kill him anyway so there was no need to care about his story, and ended up letting him escape without even trying to talk him down. Not this time.

To extinguish a fire, one must at least know what fire is, how to put it out, and how to create that extinguishing action in reality. That’s the level of interest I needed now.

Being outside the company’s control meant he was covering something the company wouldn’t approve of. Something that required a sniper rifle to capture. Serena’s death, perhaps?

No, that couldn’t be it. If that were the case, he would have aimed for the head. He aimed for the back, and if the object that could cut a body in half had hit her head, she would have died instantly.

What was Paparazzi originally aiming for? What he was originally targeting… wasn’t even Serena to begin with. It was the officer next to her. Was the officer the target? Or was there a bigger picture?

There must have been a bigger picture. The officer couldn’t have been the only target. Killing one police officer and taking pictures of it would be insane if it meant throwing yourself at Heroism & Hope Co.’s meat grinder.

The officer’s death had left Chris shaken to the core. If I hadn’t patched things up well then… the aftermath might have been visible even on the broadcast.

I formed one hypothesis. What Paparazzi wanted was also the truth. He was trying to lift the veil of heroic tales created by Heroism & Hope Co. and show people what was inside. In the worst possible way.

Kill someone close to Serena who’s also Chris’s lover, and the hero’s veil would be lifted. Commit terrorism, and the hero’s veil would be lifted. If this hypothesis is correct… Gardner becomes someone you could live next door to without worry.

“Confirmed. Just like a garden without its gardener, it’s full of weeds that have blown in from who knows where.”

The Smogpiercer controlled by Chance pulled up beside me on the road again. Instead of stopping completely, I just slowed down and lightly jumped on. Thanks to the wheels arranged in parallel pairs, the center of gravity was stable.

After properly adjusting my posture, I headed toward the location. It wasn’t that far. These traitors were also there because they had predicted my route to Serena. There was one thing to keep in mind.

It’s almost impossible for an individual criminal to evade the tracking of a mega-corporation, especially within a city they operate. Or maybe not. This was the entertainment industry.

When discussing headquarters security, the person in charge had mentioned that some parts of security were deliberately made vulnerable. That wouldn’t just be inside the headquarters. The same would apply outside.

Perhaps he had discovered such places first. Spaces created by the company with deliberately compromised security, places where criminals could escape to and not be found.

Of course, he couldn’t have published an article about it. No one would have believed him. And only insiders like me or Serena could verify it. This sequence made much more sense.

Driving while organizing thoughts about Paparazzi in my head wasn’t a problem. The roads were controlled before I passed through, and there were no cars on the roads near the incident site to begin with.

And the things to be careful about were always among the familiar. The state of a van standing in front of the intersection I was about to pass through was quite strange. It was rumbling as if ready to accelerate at any moment.

N-Enter had commissioned mercenaries, hadn’t they? In such a situation, I didn’t want to pass in front of a van that seemed about to accelerate rapidly. Without opening my mouth, I said:

‘Chance, keep an eye on that van to the right.’

“Understood, … … agent. There’s a possibility they’re mercenaries sent by Nature & Nature Co., though it’s low. Still, please be cautious.”

Even if it wasn’t N-Enter, there was no reason to be reckless in a city full of criminals who believed they could leave if they took my head.

Since the road was controlled anyway, I crossed the center line. I kept enough distance to avoid the van if it suddenly moved.

Was it just someone with urgent business who had their road controlled because Gardner was passing by? That might be the correct answer.

Thinking about the various danger factors scattered around made me feel on edge. As I tried to let my mind rest a bit, I heard the sound of rapid acceleration from somewhere.

It wasn’t from the van. It was from a definitely armored van that had gotten closer to me as I moved to the left of the center line to distance myself from the other van. I made eye contact with the driver through the window, beyond the veil and bulletproof mask.

The mercenary driver wore a helmet clearly not meant for driving and thick body armor. The world has certainly become harsh. This was the second deception I’d encountered today.

The first one I encountered was amateurish, but the second one was… sophisticated, since I had fallen for it. I lightly stepped on the Smogpiercer’s footrest and jumped up.

The van hit only the Smogpiercer, not me, and pushed it forward. My body hitting the armored van’s hood and rolling up the windshield wasn’t a pleasant feeling, but it didn’t hurt much.

The armored vans used by mercenaries had a convenient groove at the top of the windshield. It was a groove for the retractable armor plate. I grabbed that part to stop myself from rolling further, forcibly braking with sheer strength.

After somehow stopping myself, I immediately drew my high-frequency blade. A notification appeared that nearby civilian drivers had started recording with their computational assist devices, making unmanned cameras unnecessary. A mercenary’s voice rang out:

“Gardner or whatever, you’re just an actor hired by H-Enter to play a concept! Acting like you’re something special! Nature & Nature Co. sends their regards!”

How much effort had Heroism & Hope Co. put into creating Gardner’s concept? The terrible solution, call sign Gardner, it was all concept. But there was one overlooked fact:

The content wasn’t an actor. I am a bioweapon from Mount Belvedere. They tried to shake me off with a sudden stop, but I could easily withstand it with my strength. If anything, I was particularly grateful they stopped in place.

No, I wasn’t grateful at all. The gray debris of the Smogpiercer that had been hit by the car was rolling on the road. I was hoping it was only minor damage, but there was no time to check. Irritation welled up.

As soon as the armored van stopped, an armor plate came down over the windshield, and the passenger compartment door opened. The armor plate covering the windshield is usually hidden on top of the van. Lowering it meant the top of the van was now empty.

I plunged the high-frequency blade I had drawn into the van’s ceiling where the armor plate had been removed. No screams rang out. Only a short, guttural sound like someone suppressing pain. Their training level was high.

They prepare thoroughly because there’s no second chance if they fail. I pulled out the high-frequency blade and shook off the blood and oil. I approached the passenger compartment door before it closed again.

I had something I couldn’t use among civilians. What I had collected from the two preset corpses wasn’t just three flash grenades. I pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade.

Just throwing it would be insane, but throwing it into the passenger compartment of an armored van that could be completely isolated from the outside wasn’t such a problem.

I threw it into the closing passenger compartment door of the armored van. The door, powered by the automatic closing mechanism plus my added force, closed with a creaking sound. They were trying to open it again immediately, but there was no time.

An explosion that seemed to shake the entire road rang out, and the ground trembled. The pressure was concentrated on the less reinforced bottom of the armored van, making the heavy vehicle bounce up and down significantly.

The suspension was definitely ruined. Only the clear sound of the van’s underside scraping against the road as it bounced and fell could be heard. One of the passenger compartment doors had been completely torn off.

Someone trying to escape the van by grabbing the tattered door fell over with the torn door. The inside of the compartment door was densely packed with shrapnel. The same was true for the man who was trying to escape.

I grabbed him by the hair and lifted him up. Looking into his eyes as life gradually drained from them, I once again spoke in Gardner’s voice. This time I was about half sincere:

“Do you still see an actor? Do you see the concept and setting created by Heroism & Hope Co.?”

His head was relatively undamaged thanks to the helmet. I could send it to the information processing team. I called one of the Heroism & Hope Co. information processing team’s drones that had been following me.

The mercenary desperately shook his head. I swung the high-frequency blade in a clean straight line. He could no longer shake his head. For somewhat physical reasons. I threw the head into the drone.

The civilians around who had been screaming and panicking when the grenade exploded now cheered at this sight. I still couldn’t get used to the feeling of receiving cheers for something like this.

When I thought of them as ordinary people living day to day, they acted like people whose dopamine receptors had been burned out by H-Enter’s broadcasts, and when I tried to think of them that way, they seemed normal again.

Do they see me as just a hero defeating villains? Setting aside whether it’s right to view everything in black and white, it would at least make for an easier, happier life.

I walked toward the driver’s seat. As I was about to use force to tear off the driver’s door, a gunshot rang out from inside. It didn’t hit the door, nor was it aimed at the window. I tore off the door and threw it away.

I saw the driver already slumped over. The body that had been leaning against the door rolled out. The driver had taken his last chance. At least he wouldn’t be processed into a mind map. The handler’s voice came through:

“Excellent handling. If you don’t mind, could you send a warning to Nature & Nature Co. as well?”

After confirming there were no survivors, I approached the Smogpiercer. Fortunately, it started when I stood it up again. It seemed only a few miscellaneous parts had fallen off.

I swallowed my relief. It was still work hours. Getting caught up in my feelings could wait until after the job was done. With hatred for those who tried to destroy the Smogpiercer, I said:

“So Nature & Nature Co. sends their regards this way. Fine. I’ll pay them a visit, maybe for New Year’s greetings too. Ah. If they come to me directly… I’ll prepare some chamomile tea picked from my garden.”

I hope they won’t make some advertisement for chamomile tea “guaranteed by Gardner” because I said this? It was just a mocking remark, but I belatedly thought I might have said something unnecessary. I reconnected with Chris.

“Lobringer, this is Gardner. What about Paparazzi?”

“Ah, well. This time he escaped without firing a single shot! The situation here is already over!”

Damn it. I missed the chance to confront Paparazzi because of the mercenaries sent by N-Enter. If he escaped, what was the reason? Did I catch his interest? Maybe.

He seemed to have already convinced himself that Serena and Chris were fake. That’s why he shot to unmask them. In my case, he wasn’t certain.

The sight of me handling the mercenaries with ease after being hit by a rapidly accelerating armored van would be ambiguous as to whether it was real or fake. Did I make two stupid mistakes, or did I take on two extra jobs? Let’s think it’s the latter.

“I only missed the chance to clear out the weeds because of those N-Enter bastards. I’m returning.”

A message saying “The situation has ended” appears in my vision. The citizens didn’t move. The door of one stopped car opened, and a girl who looked about fifteen got out of the passenger seat.

After rummaging under the car she had arrived in, she approached me with a small component of the Smogpiercer that had been thrown off in the collision. She hesitated a bit. It was because I was holding the high-frequency blade.

I sheathed what I was holding at my waist. Despite the smell of blood, gunpowder, and oil emanating from me, she held out the Smogpiercer part. Instead of speaking, she shared a photo with me.

It was a photo of Officer Ryland Winters walking along the road with a little girl seated on the Smogpiercer. She didn’t want the Smogpiercer, which held childhood memories, to be left scattered on the ground.

The doors of other vehicles opened, and pieces of the Smogpiercer that had scattered in all directions returned to my hands one by one, even though I hadn’t collected them. They were small, trivial parts that could have been discarded, but they didn’t mind.

Someone said something like “Can’t let those resellers get their hands on it!” with a good-natured smile, while someone else had an expression like they were remembering their first love. If it had been completely destroyed, they probably would have helped reassemble it right there.

The past is just thick smog, and the future is an illusion. The Smogpiercer, true to its name, has pierced through the smog to reach the present. Officer Ryland’s ghost drove the Smogpiercer to bring me here.

Good people die too early. Or they become twisted until they’re no longer called “good people.” In the end, all we have left are things we can’t display in a shop window, no matter how well we polish them.

The world consists of one mercenary who learned all about the word and its components from mega-corporations, one woman dying under the weight of responsibility, and these crowds for whom good and evil, black and white are hard to distinguish. But that’s all we have.

I could guess tonight’s headline. Something like “Did Gardner Smile?” The content would predictably be some pointless article about the story of Heroism & Hope Co.’s Call Sign Gardner series.