Ch.157Request Log #014 – How to Face Hatred (5)

Fortunately, I learned something from my call with The Idealists. Their plan was to ignore it. To wait until that old avenger crossed the line.

Could they tell that old man that I was the contractor who deceived his son? Unlikely. That old man hated The Idealists more than me. He wouldn’t have spoken with them.

Then The Idealists’ plan would succeed. All I had to do was wait until the old avenger came looking for Professor Lanshore, kill him, and then punish The Idealists.

The Idealists had an ideal. Bullets couldn’t harm an ideal, but they worked just fine on the terminals they used. And for their precious ideal, they needed those terminals.

What I needed to do was simple. If I destroyed enough terminals, they would approach me first to talk. After that, I could dictate the terms. That was all.

I packed my duffel bag for the first time in a while. Having seen that old avenger quit working with the factory owner, today might be the day he’d visit Professor Lanshore. I left home immediately with the duffel bag over my shoulder.

The job would be handled. The old detective hired by the journalist probably had a longer, more elaborate commitment, but my only commitment was that single sentence. I got in my car and headed to the hospital.

The city at night was unpleasantly bright. The light leaking through the cracks in walls in thin lines was quite nauseating. I usually felt that way when looking at things that glowed.

Since I was acquainted with the doctor, it wasn’t difficult to enter the hospital carrying a duffel bag with unknown contents. I took the elevator straight up to the floor with private rooms.

I didn’t knock. Opening the door, I found Professor Lanshore seemingly asleep on painkillers, and my client asleep in a chair. It would be better to send him away, so I gently shook him awake.

The client sat up after just a couple of shakes. Seeing someone in front of him, he reflexively raised his hands, but I grabbed his wrist to stop him before letting go. He recognized me now.

“Ah, whew, I didn’t know who it was. I didn’t realize it was you, Detective. Um, what brings you here at this hour? Is something wrong…?”

I needed to reassure him. That way he wouldn’t come back until tomorrow morning. I showed him the duffel bag I’d brought and forced a smile.

“I was planning to come tomorrow morning, but I realized I wasn’t prepared enough for security, so I brought more equipment. Since I’m here to prepare things, you can go home for today. It wouldn’t make sense to burden my client too much when I’ve already been paid, would it?”

Only then did the client breathe a sigh of relief. He seemed to believe that my sudden nighttime visit wasn’t a harbinger of misfortune.

“Ah, well… As you said, Detective, I should bring someone else starting tomorrow. I tried to stay awake all night to keep watch, but I fell asleep anyway. If I can leave it to a professional, I’d be happy to!”

He glanced at me a few more times, checking if I would scold him, then left the hospital room. Professor Lanshore was still pretending to be asleep.

He appeared to be sleeping, but his body reacted to every sound. The reactions were subtle, but not unnoticeable.

After the client left the room, I waited a moment before approaching Professor Lanshore. Worried that his fake sleep had been discovered, he was holding his breath as I looked down at him. I spoke in a different voice than the one I’d used with the client.

“I know you’re not sleeping. Let’s talk, Professor Lanshore.”

Only then did he breathe properly and open his eyes. As he tried to force an awkward smile, I continued speaking.

“You’ve got a good friend. The doctor was worried and told me all sorts of things. Do you want revenge again? Do you want to burn the factory owner from head to toe?”

I would help him regardless of his answer. It would be easier if he said no, but even if he said yes, it wouldn’t interfere with my work. It was a question without consequences.

But it didn’t seem that way to Professor Lanshore. His voice trembled as if he wanted to deny that I had read his intentions.

“Why on earth would you think that? To be honest, connecting my youthful recklessness with who I am now is…”

“Do you think I don’t know how that God-President scripture verse you recited to my client ends? ‘O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us. Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.’ And you haven’t changed that much, have you? You were smiling when I made the factory owner eat shit.”

He didn’t deny the verse. I had recited it at the brothel across from Pandemonium. The owner of that brothel heard those words last before being smashed beyond recognition.

Professor Lanshore hesitated before speaking. It wasn’t a lie. The answer was easy to guess.

“I… I don’t know. It’s unfair. What did I do to deserve this? Every time I try to forgive, the pain comes rushing back. It’s terrible pain. Truly terrible pain. My joints ache, and my flesh feels like it’s already been torn away. Pain drives people mad. I thought revenge might ease that pain, even a little.”

Killing everyone wouldn’t make the pain go away. Tearing apart every warlock I saw wouldn’t remove the feeling of being cursed. Pain only disappeared when you acknowledged it.

“Since when did you become someone who finds joy in causing others pain? Is that what you plan to tell your followers? That you were in so much pain you wanted to inflict it on others?”

He shook his head. Yet he had no alternative. To him, the factory owner’s actions were nothing short of a disaster. A bolt of lightning striking without warning.

I had reasons. I knew why he ended up like this and how many people now saw him as both an opportunity and a tool. Knowledge truly was power.

“Let me tell you why the factory owner put you in that state. He was helping a friend get revenge. He was trying to lure out The Idealists for an old man who lost his son to them. At first, he fired all The Idealists from his factory, but there was no response. So he chose to attack you. He thought The Idealists would come to help you.”

It was an absurd story. He had no connection to The Idealists. Comparing someone who helps others of their own will to the Hive Mind that sucks away will was disrespectful in itself.

He tried to get angry. The smell of ozone spread around him, and electrical currents began flowing from the finger joints of his bedridden body. His body was automatically trying to use magic in the way it knew best.

Before he could act more foolishly, I grabbed his broken arm. Magically generated current flowed into me, but I only received half the magical effect. I took only half of all harm, my body resisted magic twice as much as others, and electricity only affected me half as much. The current became almost nonexistent, not even causing a tingling sensation.

But Professor Lanshore felt pain as if his still-unhealed arm might break again. The ozone smell around us dissipated, and his attempt to unleash magic subsided.

“Don’t be stupid. Spewing electricity here isn’t revenge. Revenge is ruining those bastards’ plans. I can help you.”

Professor Lanshore didn’t reproach me for grabbing his broken arm to stop him. He just looked up at me with eyes brimming with tears of pain.

“Ruining their plans… Does that mean you’ll kill whoever comes looking for me for revenge? Surely there must be another way.”

“Fortunately, I have connections with The Idealists too. When I asked them, they already knew about your condition. But they weren’t bothering to deal with the vengeful old man with police help. If left alone, that old man would kill you, and The Idealists would report him to the police. Just stay lying here. It’ll be taken care of.”

With those words, I pulled a shotgun from my duffel bag that I’d used since the trenches. With a heat sink attached, there was nothing better for close-quarters firefights.

I had a rifle too, but in close combat, rapid fire was the priority. It was something I’d done tediously in the trenches.

“What exactly is going to happen…?”

Professor Lanshore looked completely overwhelmed. He was giving me a reverent look, amazed that I had so effortlessly withstood the magic he had devoted most of his life to.

He no longer said that violence wasn’t the solution. That was all just his pretense. It was merely something he told himself to hold back his desire to electrocute the factory owner to death.

“First, I’ll wait. When that old man comes here to continue his revenge, I’ll shoot him dead. Then you’ll be safe. My job will be done too. But we can’t end it there, can we? I need to feed some lead to those who used you as bait and tried to ruin my job. Don’t you agree?”

“But, just now you were saying revenge doesn’t change anything…”

“Taking revenge to overcome hardship is stupid. The pain will still remain. But betrayers need to be punished. That’s how you prevent future betrayal.”

That was a rule that applied everywhere in the back alleys. Even the goblins who had tried to challenge Italian mafia or Irish gangs by gathering organizations had been punished that way.

And Professor Lanshore was from the slums. Though he seemed somewhat uncomfortable, he also considered this logic natural. His hatred suddenly forgotten, he urged:

“Still, if they ask to talk, please do talk to them. If it’s about punishing betrayal rather than killing for the sake of killing, that’s how it should be, right?”

I nodded briefly. I only needed to do enough that The Idealists would still give me work in the future. If I tried to kill that Hive Mind completely, we’d have to fight an all-out war that would only harm both sides.

It was a battle with uncertain victory. The Idealists had numerous terminals, and I had taught it how to hunt people.

I had no intention of gambling. The strategy needed to be clear. To earn even one more penny and live one more day, I had to act that way.

Now it was time to move on to the important issue. Compared to this, things like hatred and revenge weren’t important at all.

“I’m going to demand additional payment from the client. If you can cover it, the people who raised money for you won’t have to cough up more. For protecting your life from the old avenger and punishing The Idealists who tried to use you as bait… I’ll need at least two hundred dollars more. Can you raise that?”

Professor Lanshore nodded. It wasn’t that much compared to the value of a human life. It was actually quite cheap for handling all these concerns.

With the payment issue settled, I could now say a word or two about his pain. I stepped away from Professor Lanshore, who was still groaning in pain.

“Your body will heal eventually, and your uneasy feelings will improve if you survive to tell your followers those things. Saying things like ‘violence isn’t the answer’ will help you feel better. Don’t feel guilty about surviving thanks to someone who uses dirty methods. That’s how all ideals are anyway.”

Once again, I denied ideals. It was similar to what I’d told The Idealists, but with the opposite meaning.

“Besides, you have no choice. You can’t directly deal with a revenge-crazed ghost or emotionless Idealists yourself—you have to delegate it.”

“Having no choice” is a phrase that can only be used in situations like this. Not after kidnapping and selling children. It made me reflect on all kinds of hatred.

Professor Lanshore finally compromised. After trying to handle something he couldn’t do alone and nearly losing both his life and his ideals, he chose to survive at the cost of slightly tarnishing those ideals.

“Alright. No, it’s not alright. But since it’s the only way… I have no choice. Yes, that seems right. Is there anything I can do to help?”

At least he wasn’t trying to escape from this situation. Instead of saying he’d given permission but wouldn’t help, trying to back out, he offered to assist me.

There could be many reasons. Maybe he wanted to feel responsible, or perhaps he was trying to increase his chances of survival. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t the type to refuse help.

“Elves have sensitive senses. If you hear someone approaching, signal me. I heard that factory owner Wilfred or whatever talking with that old avenger, and he’s broken free from the factory owner’s control and escaped. He might come as early as dawn today.”

Fortunately, thanks to my doubled vitality, I didn’t need to sleep. For a body that could march on just two hours of sleep a day, staying up for a few nights wasn’t even a burden.

This resolved what could have been a complicated situation. What I needed to do was simple. Kill the father of the writer whose soul was devoured by The Idealists, and kill enough Idealist terminals.

That night, no one in the hospital room slept. Only snoring from the next room could be heard, but even that stopped after one o’clock in the morning. The clock kept ticking.

At two in the morning, Professor Lanshore stirred and sat up as if he’d heard a strange sound. He pointed beyond the hospital room door. I couldn’t hear anything yet.

“I hear the elevator moving. At this hour, the on-duty nurses wouldn’t be coming up, so it might be an intruder. We should prepare…”

I put my finger to my lips to signal silence, then grabbed the shotgun and hid in the direction the door would open. Even if that old man came here, he wouldn’t shoot Professor Lanshore right away.

Though merciless to those involved with his son becoming an Idealist terminal, he could still have a conversation despite his anger. He knew how to accept help from the factory owner, after all.

If it really was him, he would try to explain why he was doing this to Professor Lanshore even after entering the room. It would be cleaner to handle it then.