Ch.154Episode 8 – Say Hello To My Little Friend (End)

# “Haa…”

I leaned against the wall and sighed. The smell of blood, sweat, faint gunpowder, and chemical agents assaulted my nostrils. It was somewhat nauseating.

I wiped my face, damp with cold sweat. Instead of dark sweat mixed with grime, my clammy palm came away with a reddish liquid.

…Blood.

I steadied myself against the wall and peered into a half-shattered mirror.

I could see my skin slightly glittering, probably from glass fragments. And yes, there was blood streaming down my forehead. What if glass had gotten into the wound? I once had a glass shard in my finger that nearly severed a tendon. The worry was mounting.

After silently examining myself in the mirror, I limped around to survey my surroundings.

The department store, which had been showing off its splendor with bright lighting, was now dimly lit by emergency lights. The store area, which had been bustling with nearly a dozen terrorists, was eerily quiet.

Nothing was moving.

After scanning the area for a while, I muttered absentmindedly, clutching a jammed pistol.

“…Is it over?”

## Episode 8 – Say Hello To My Little Friend

Gunshots and shouts echoed through the narrow passage.

In the dim corridor, as the blue light of the emergency exit sign pushed away some darkness, ear-splitting gunshots and firefly-like flames momentarily illuminated the corridor before fading away.

“Hey, hey! Block it! Don’t let them in!”

“Fall back! Get out!”

Bang! Ratatata!

One of the terrorists fired a shotgun toward the corner. Though it was a decent rapid-fire weapon that seemed well-maintained, unfortunately, its accuracy was terrible.

Bang! Rata! Click.

Just as the terrorist realized he was out of bullets and reached into his pocket to reload…

Someone rushed out from the end of the corridor.

“…!”

The terrorist instinctively stopped reloading and raised his gun in a defensive stance. Though he wasn’t sure exactly what it was, he raised his gun to block whatever was being swung at him.

“Hnngh!”

-Clang!

A heavy impact traveled up his arm, and a sharp metallic sound rang clearly. The terrorist, who had momentarily squeezed his eyes shut, opened them to realize that what had been blocked by his gun barrel was a blade.

A cold, sharp blade.

But that realization was brief. The sharp sword that had been blocked by the shotgun bounced off and flew away, but with a smooth hand movement, the wielder changed the sword’s trajectory and it came flying back.

Aimed at his ankle.

“Arghh-!!”

The terrorist screamed as his leg—specifically his shin—was struck. He dropped his precious gun and groaned, clutching his wound, but a merciless kick to his abdomen sent him crashing down.

With a loud thud, his kicked body was pushed back with enough force to break a door. The terrorist who was shoved into the room rolled around on the floor, and the other terrorists who had been watching the situation outside quietly raised their hands high when confronted with the sword.

Francesca twirled her sword-wielding wrist lightly and spoke.

“I think we’ve found it. That situation room…”

“Really?”

“Come and see for yourself.”

While Francesca subdued the terrorists, Camilla and Lucia trudged into the situation room.

The two surveyed their surroundings and got to work. Camilla began gathering scattered communication equipment and paper scraps, while Lucia grabbed the leg of the fallen terrorist and channeled holy power into him. It was emergency treatment.

Francesca, who had cornered the terrorists, briefly looked at Lucia treating the terrorist with the slashed shin.

“Do you really need to treat him… right now?”

“There’s nothing good about delaying it.”

Lucia answered briefly and focused on the treatment. It wasn’t that she disliked talking to Francesca, a mage, because she was a clergy member. It was just that treatment was more important than conversation. Besides, it wasn’t exactly a situation for casual chat.

So neither Lucia nor Francesca put much meaning into their question and answer.

The situation was resolved in an instant.

Francesca disarmed the terrorists and subdued them completely, while Lucia healed the wound in the blink of an eye.

Camilla spoke up.

“I found the radio!”

The original plan was to find the situation room and inform the outside about the department store’s internal situation. More precisely, it was to inform them of the internal situation while finding a way out, or a way for the outside to get in. The military and police would be surrounding the area.

The problem was,

“Um… Does anyone know how to use a radio? I know how to use basic ones, but this professional equipment is new to me, so I’m not sure how it works.”

“I’m not familiar with radios…”

“I’ve never handled one either.”

No one knew how to use the communication equipment.

*

While Camilla, Lucia, and Francesca were finding the situation room, I was dealing with the terrorists. That was the plan.

The goal was simple: Escape.

Cut off the power and magic in the department store to turn off the lights, have Camilla gather most of the scattered terrorists in one place—a risky gamble—and have me confront those terrorists. All of that was an intermediate goal to get out of the department store.

It would be best if Camilla, Lucia, and Francesca could turn off the lights, secure the situation room, and request support from outside. Even if they couldn’t, it wouldn’t be a problem. At least they’d be far away and stay in a safe place without getting involved in the fight.

The question was whether I could handle the terrorists, whose exact number I didn’t even know.

And I did it.

Alone.

“Haah…”

I sat down in the middle of the terrorists’ bodies and exhaled roughly. As the tension eased, the pain I had forgotten came rushing back, and all sorts of thoughts invaded my mind.

I’d never done a solo operation in my life, but I’d succeeded. I’d managed to take down most, if not all, of the terrorists.

Roughly counting, there were about seven bodies. That matched exactly the number of terrorists I had killed earlier.

I examined my body with a dazed mind.

“…”

There wasn’t a spot that was unscathed.

Abrasions and bruises were all over, probably from collisions. Somehow my forehead was split open, and the wound that Lucia had treated seemed to have reopened.

And that wasn’t all. The upper side of my ribs ached as if a bone had cracked from rolling on the floor, and glass fragments, wood, and metal shards were embedded here and there from all the tumbling.

And while examining my body, blood seemed to have gotten into my eye, causing a sudden feeling of discomfort.

I wiped my eyes and face with my sleeve, cursing.

“Shit…”

This was beyond going solo. While even the terrorists moved in groups and ganged up on their targets, I was alone.

“…Fucking lonely.”

Anyway, the plan had succeeded. Most of the terrorists were dead, and Camilla, Lucia, and Francesca seemed to be alive and well. I was… well, not exactly well, but at least still breathing.

So what needed to be done was clear.

I got up, dusted myself off, and started to patch myself up. Wiping blood, binding wounds. After discarding the revolver that had become useless due to lack of ammunition, I picked up the empty pistol. I didn’t know where my knife had gone. I seemed to have dropped it somewhere, but it was too dark to find.

I had two magazines left. One had been used up capturing Marco or Irina or whatever their names were, so I only had one magazine left.

I needed to find new weapons. I searched the bodies of the dead terrorists. Fortunately, despite their poor maintenance, there were plenty of guns around that would fire when triggered.

I needed to gather a lot of guns. Or at least one big one.

-Crackle.

While searching the bodies, an alien sound reached my ears.

It was a radio.

I stopped looking for guns and searched through the terrorists’ bodies to find a working radio.

-‘…Ah, ah. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’

“Camilla?”

-‘Ah, it’s connected! Can you hear me clearly?’

It was Camilla.

I held the radio with trembling fingers.

“…Loud and clear. But where are you right now?”

-‘We found it! The place with the terrorists and equipment!’

“You found it…?”

-‘Yes!’

“Holy shit…”

She says they found the situation room. I honestly didn’t have high expectations about finding the situation room without staff guidance, but when I heard they’d found it, I was more dumbfounded than happy.

“Anyway, I’m glad you found it. You mentioned terrorists, but there’s no problem, right?”

-‘Yes, we’ve tied them all up. I think we’ve secured safety for now.’

Camilla’s answer flowed from the radio. It was a huge relief that they had found the situation room and secured safety.

-‘Um, but we have a problem. A rather important one.’

“A problem…?”

-‘We found what seems to be equipment brought by the terrorists, but none of us know how to use it. It’s quite specialized equipment…’

“What kind of radio is it? If you tell me, I can guide you on how to connect to the communication network.”

-‘How would I know what kind of radio they have here when I barely know how to use Earth radios…?’

“Ah.”

Right. Camilla hadn’t done military service.

I momentarily got confused because she’d studied national intelligence at university and even interned at SIS.

“Then I’ll come there. Please tell me your exact location.”

-‘Um… is that really okay? This seems to be a public channel…’

“It’s fine. The terrorists can’t hear us anyway. We have all the radios.”

-‘What?’

“There are a total of four radios. One is with me now, and Camilla has the other two, right?”

The radio I gave to Camilla when I sent her off, and the radio that the terrorists in the broadcasting room had. The radio I just captured. And the radio that the terrorist I killed in the staff corridor had, which is now broken.

That’s four in total.

“So don’t worry. They can’t hear our conversation right now. And it seems like I’ve caught most of the terrorists.”

-‘Alright. But just in case, I’ll come and get you.’

“You’re going to leave the situation room?”

-‘It seems safe for now. And you must be injured, so it might be hard for you to come here. So please tell me quickly. Where are you?’

“…Okay. I’ll tell you my location.”

Ugh. I got up from my seat with difficulty. As I straightened my bent legs and stretched my back, I involuntarily let out a groan.

It wasn’t because I was getting old, but because I was truly exhausted. More precisely, it felt like my entire body had been beaten. My body wasn’t in great shape to begin with due to overtime work and such, but it seemed like my legs weren’t moving well.

Wondering why, I looked down and saw a large hole in my thigh. Was I shot? I couldn’t tell. I don’t even know why I didn’t notice such an injury.

As I was walking painfully, step by step, I decided to hop on one leg.

-‘Is something wrong?’

“Just a moment… I need to figure out where I am. Ah, I know now.”

While hopping around on one leg to figure out where I was, I heard someone coughing behind me.

“…Cough!”

I stopped walking and turned around.

A moment of silence. And then the coughing sound again. It wasn’t like a cold, but more like a sound someone with phlegm or a very sick patient would make.

-‘Hello?’

“…”

-‘…Are you sure everything’s okay? Should I come there now?’

“Just a moment.”

With a radio in one hand and a pistol in the other, I slowly approached the direction of the sound.

Across the store. Behind a display stand in the corner.

I slowly extended my hand holding the pistol to check behind the store display.

There was a person there.

*

In the corner of the store display where I had fought with the terrorists, I found a person. A middle-aged man.

I didn’t introduce myself or shine a bright light to compare his face with a photo, but I could tell he was a terrorist.

One peculiar thing was that he was middle-aged.

Typically, terrorists range from their 20s to 40s, but most are in their 20s or 30s. Whether they’re conducting a mass shooting, hijacking, wearing a suicide vest, or driving a vehicle loaded with bombs.

Why? Because younger people are more likely to become terrorists.

They’re more likely to come across propaganda videos on Twitter or Facebook, they have relatively less social experience so they’re easier to deceive, and above all, they’re more susceptible to brainwashing. Plus, they’re more reckless.

Of course, this method has been overused, so these days terrorist groups tend to use women, the elderly, or children to carry out attacks. Even terrorist groups aren’t completely stupid, so they know that intelligence agencies and military police are suspicious of unmarried men in their 20s to 40s.

But that phenomenon doesn’t exist here. Because it’s a world where magic exists.

Whether male or female, anyone can easily carry out terrorism. Even minors can cause a disturbance if they know how to use magic. It’s a world where a single mage can easily slaughter several people on the street and confront the military police. Here.

However, even in this neighborhood, it’s rare for someone this middle-aged—no, someone old enough to be considering retirement—to directly engage in terrorism.

So, when I first properly faced the terrorist, my thought was, ‘This is strange.’

“…”

When I only heard his voice, I didn’t realize, but his build was smaller than I had expected. Whether due to nutritional issues or health problems, his eyes were sunken, and his cheekbones protruded.

He seemed to be injured, as the terrorist was clutching his shoulder. His right hand, soaked in blood, was gripping his shoulder, and his left hand, resting on his stomach, was trembling.

His wrinkled hands were very dry and cracked. It could be due to the changing seasons, but considering that doctors, due to their profession, wash their hands frequently and thus tend to have dry hands, perhaps he really was a doctor.

The uninhabited zone lacks everything.

I don’t know if he still has a license, but in the lawless uninhabited zone, a license doesn’t matter much.

I asked:

“Are you that doctor?”

“…”

There was no answer. I didn’t particularly expect one, so I didn’t mind.

Anyway, most of the bodies scattered around were men and women in their 20s to 30s, and the only middle-aged person who might have conversed with me was this guy.

Whether it was good luck or bad luck, of all the terrorists, the one who survived was the one I had been talking to.

I slightly lowered the gun barrel that had been pointing at the still-alive terrorist.

“I guess you are.”

“…”

I didn’t get an answer, but I could see blood seeping through the gaps between his fingers. I lowered my gun and looked at the terrorist, and the half-lying man looked at me, straining his eyelids.

After staring at me silently for a while, he suddenly spoke.

“…Who are you?”

“…”

“You don’t seem to be, ugh… police.”

The terrorist asked, letting out a pain-filled groan. The blood wasn’t flowing too much, but the wound seemed quite deep.

“A civil servant with bad luck who came shopping and got trapped.”

“…”

Huh. The terrorist made a sound that could have been either a groan or a hollow laugh.

“Do civil servants in Abas carry guns these days…?”

“Is there a law saying civil servants can’t carry guns?”

“If not police, are you military…? Or from the Magic Department…?”

The terrorist asked, breathing heavily.

Of course, I had no intention of answering. I didn’t feel like it either.

I placed the pistol on the display stand and let out a faint sigh.

“The cargo you brought from outside. It’s related to that strange curtain-like thing outside, isn’t it?”

“…”

“Answer me while I’m asking nicely. That way, the court might show leniency later.”

I don’t know anything about leniency or whatever. I’m not a judge, how would I know?

What I’m curious about is whether that thing isolating the department store from the outside is related to the cargo.

At this, the terrorist smirked.

“If I… were afraid of the law, would I be here doing this…?”

He seems to know he’s done something serious.

Even if he gets out alive, this guy will likely face execution. From what I can tell, he seems to be either the mastermind or a key member.

“So were you planning to negotiate with the government? After causing all this?”

“There are no… casualties… ugh… negotiation was possible.”

He says they didn’t kill anyone but took them as hostages, so they were thinking of negotiating with the government. Honestly, considering they tried to kill me, I thought one or two hostages might have been killed, but that’s unexpected.

Would the government really negotiate with them?

Probably not.

The Abas government would want to put this guy on the execution stand. That way, they’d appear to be dealing strongly with terrorism and receive less criticism from the church or magic tower.

So this guy is definitely heading to the execution stand. Maybe all the terrorists will be executed.

But.

Whether he gets hanged or not, that’s not my concern.

“Let’s not make this messy. The cargo. What is it?”

“…”

Again, no answer came. The terrorist just stared at me intently.

“…Did it have to come to bloodshed?”

“…”

“I’m asking if it really had to come to this bloodshed.”

To be honest, I don’t know.

Whether we could have quietly slipped away after dealing with the terrorists, whether the government would have negotiated to get us out, or whether we could have escaped on our own.

“To be honest…”

But one important thing,

“I don’t care.”

Those hypotheticals don’t really matter.

“If you didn’t want to see blood, you should have lived decently. Why crawl all the way here and cause trouble?”

“…”

“Last chance. The cargo. What were you planning to use it for?”

-Boom!

A loud noise came from the direction of the atrium hall in the distance. A metallic sound, like something falling or someone kicking an iron door, echoed.

I turned my head to look in that direction, wondering if it might be Camilla.

In that moment of distraction, the terrorist suddenly got up and lunged at me. The middle-aged terrorist, who had introduced himself as a doctor, bared his bloodshot eyes and reached for my face.

I swung my arm to deflect the approaching hand and grabbed the terrorist’s neck.

“Kuh, hack…!”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

When I grabbed his neck and pressed down, choking sounds began to be heard.

“One more time. The cargo you brought from outside. What is it?”

“Keuugh…!”

“Answer me, you bastard!”

I pressed down on his neck, ignoring the choking sounds. I wasn’t pressing so hard that he couldn’t breathe or answer, so he could have given a short sentence if he wanted to.

But the terrorist didn’t speak. Instead, he used his weight and strength to strike down my arm that was choking him with his elbow.

“Ugh…!”

“Kuhurk-“

Whether my arm was injured or not, a pain much greater than expected surged through me. I reflexively stepped back, and the terrorist exhaled a rough breath before laboriously inhaling.

No one had regained their senses, but I was a step faster.

I unbuckled my belt with one hand. After grabbing both ends and pulling it taut, I wrapped it around the neck of the terrorist who was crawling on the floor.

“Die, you son of a bitch!”

“…!”

In my palm, the texture of leather was distinctly felt. The buckle rattled as it moved back and forth with the terrorist’s struggles.

After tripping the terrorist who was struggling to survive, I stepped on the back of the fallen man and pulled the belt tight.

At that moment, everything seemed to shift into slow motion, and time felt like it was flowing slowly.

The belt, pulled taut and swaying left and right, the protruding tendons and blood vessels.

The terrorist struggling for breath, glass fragments making unpleasant sounds as they rubbed against the floor.

My mind becoming hazy from blood loss, my dizzy vision.

And.

Just before I could finish him off,

A beast-person who rushed out from a blind spot and pushed me away.

“Fuck!”

Bang! The beast-person who rushed at me with tremendous speed wrapped his arms around my waist, and I tumbled on the floor with him in an ungainly manner.

After rolling on the floor two or three times, I hit a hard edge. Whether it was a display stand, a planter, or a pillar, I didn’t know, but it hurt terribly.

The pain that struck my back naturally made my waist bend, and with a pain that felt like my lungs were being squeezed, I couldn’t breathe.

“Kuhak…!”

As my mind momentarily became distant, I noticed the pistol that had fallen right in front of me. The pistol issued to me by the Military Intelligence Agency. The pistol that had run out of ammunition had its slide pulled back, and next to it lay the last magazine, full of live rounds.

I crawled over and grabbed the pistol. I pressed the release to drop the empty magazine and, with hands trembling like aspen leaves, struggled to insert the new magazine.

-Click.

The magazine, which I had been tapping near the handle, finally slid into place. Lying prone, I pulled the slide with all my might while exhaling a rough breath.

With trembling hands, I aimed at the beast-person and fired.

-Bang!

But.

Unfortunately, the bullet missed. The fired bullet flew and shattered an innocent window, and the slide of the fired pistol retracted greatly and then moved forward. I tried to aim at the beast-person who was standing up just fine with my trembling hands, but sadly, I was a step too late.

“How dare you!”

“Shit…!”

The beast-person climbed on top of me.

The fox beast-person, with its fur standing on end, bared its sharp teeth with a beast-like howl. And with a strong swing of its fist, it sent the pistol in my hand flying far away.

What followed was a fist flying toward my face.

The small, white hand struck my face. As I squeezed my eyes shut in anticipation of the impact, the force was so strong that I felt dizzy.

My face burned. It was numb.

The force was so strong that for a moment, I felt as if I had been shot rather than punched. My head buzzed, perhaps from hitting the back of my head on the floor.

I struggled not to lose consciousness, but I could feel my brain gradually losing power and stopping, like a car running out of fuel. It was a kind of intuition. Yes, if this is instinct, then it’s instinct.

My vision becoming distant, gradually fading away.

The buzzing tinnitus also disappears, and through my muffled ears, I hear an enraged voice.

“Run, teacher! I’ll handle this!”

“…”

“I said run now!”

It was the beast-person.

The beast-person on top of me was shouting at the middle-aged terrorist to run away.

“What are you doing, teacher? Hurry up and go!”

The middle-aged terrorist was crawling on the floor, painfully pulling at the belt with one hand. He still seemed dazed.

The beast-person was shouting something at the terrorist, and I could see a large knife hanging from the beast-person’s waist. A knife that could better be described as a tool.

In that moment, my brain warned me.

If I stay still like this, I’ll die.

“…”

At that moment, my mind snapped to attention.

While the beast-person terrorist was distracted, I sprang up and reached for the terrorist’s face.

A face with downy hair still on it. The skin of the beast-person, who was younger than I expected, was soft. I gripped the beast-person’s lips with my thumb and the bridge of the nose with my index finger.

And I bent my middle finger, which was extended the longest, with all my might.

Toward the left eye.

“Kyaaaaargh-!!”

A sharp scream echoed through the store, which had been filled with busy noise.

The beast-person screamed in pain, clutching the eye that was streaming with blood, and I could feel the sticky blood and cartilage-like eyeball fragments at the tip of my finger.

I put all my strength into my middle finger and dug even harder.

“You, damn furball bastard…!”

The sensation of the eyeball being crushed was clearer than ever.

Despite the screams echoing, I continued to dig into the eye with my finger without hesitation. I planned to crush the eyeball, then pin down the beast-person terrorist and strangle him to death.

But as is often the case in life, not everything goes as planned.

As I was digging into the beast-person’s eye, I felt a hot pain in my thumb and had to let go.

“Aagh!”

My hand reflexively pulled away from the burning pain. It felt like being burned. As if instinctively trying to prevent the pain from spreading from my hand to my arm, I grabbed my wrist with my trembling left hand.

My finger was gone.

The place where my thumb should have been was empty, with only messy bits of flesh and blood pumping out in rhythm with my heartbeat.

My finger had been bitten off.

“Fuck!!”

“Ptui!”

While I was groaning and holding my wrist, the beast-person terrorist spat something out. It was my thumb, covered in saliva and blood.

There was no time to pick up the finger or stop the bleeding, let alone resist. The beast-person, who had regained his senses much faster than me, was strangling my neck.

“…!”

“Die, you bastard!”

The beast-person’s hands strongly gripped my neck. Due to my blocked airway, I couldn’t breathe. I reflexively grabbed the beast-person’s wrists, but I couldn’t apply force because my finger had been torn off.

I couldn’t scream, nor could I curse. The muscles throughout my body twisted and screamed, and it felt like my eyeballs would pop out.

Whether it was a survival mechanism or a flashback, the world began to flow slowly. Despite being on the brink of death, time was flowing leisurely.

The middle-aged man crawling on the floor, having almost completely unwrapped the belt.

The beast-person on top of me, strangling my neck with all his might.

My hand, struggling to shake off the beast-person.

The eyeball, crushed like a grape. Blood flowing down the cheek from the jaw. Blood mixing with the cornea and reddening vision. Tinnitus ringing in the eardrum and intermittent rough breathing sounds. The faintly glowing blue light. Sparkling glass fragments. Muscles about to burst and surging pain, drowsiness.

A feeling like my body was sinking into the ground.

And as everything was becoming distant,

A sharp gunshot,

Cut through the air.

And my airway cleared.

“…Kuhurk!”

Fresh air filled my lungs, and my eyes, which had been gradually closing, widened. The pressure that had been choking my neck was gone.

The beast-person who had been on top of me, strangling my neck, was now lying on the floor, bleeding.

And in the distance,

Camilla,

Who was somehow aiming the pistol I had dropped, panting.

“A-are you okay!?”

“…”

“My God, what happened! Wake up! Don’t close your eyes, open them!”

She rushed over in one stride and embraced me.

With a hazy mind, I looked up at her blue eyes, full of moisture, as I lay in her arms.

Through my muffled ears, I could hear Camilla’s tearful voice. My eyelids were slowly coming down like curtains.

In the department store filled with terrorists’ bodies.

As I received drops of tears on my cheek, I quietly murmured.

“…Camilla.”

“Y-yes…?!”

“I’m so fucking glad to see you…”

## Episode 8 – Say Hello To My Little Friend – END –