Ch.158Request Log #014 – How to Face Hatred (6)

As I approached the door, shooting immediately would be safer and more certain, but I still couldn’t tell who was coming.

I couldn’t kill without confirming first. This was inside a hospital, and the police would be notified immediately. If I were caught guilty now, I’d be tangled in more charges than I could count.

With my finger on the trigger, I held my breath and waited for the intruder to enter. I kept my heels off the ground, only my toes touching, to prevent the metal plates from clicking.

Only when they got close enough could I hear footsteps. The intruder was being careful too. They probably knew Professor Lanshore was an elf.

The hospital room door slowly opened before me. It was a moment when even the sound of swallowing seemed too loud. Heavy, deliberate footsteps entered. A whisper followed.

“Wake up. Professor Lanshore, was it? You wouldn’t know who I am. But I know you. And I need you. If you just stay still for a moment…”

I moved in sync with his footsteps as he walked in. I concealed my sounds behind his confident steps, which he placed without hesitation, thinking no one was there to stop him.

I needed to see his face first. That old avenger might have sent someone else as a final precaution. With one hand on the barrel and the other on the stock, I prepared to strike the back of his head.

But he reacted. Despite making no sound, he turned around immediately, extending his gun-holding hand toward me. In his hand was a rather large revolver.

A direct hit to the forehead might be fine, but anywhere else would be dangerous. I immediately released the shotgun stock and grabbed his wrist. The old man’s voice rang out confidently.

“You walk like a lizardman, boy. This old man…”

He threw his gun without concern for his captured hand. As he caught it with his free hand, he began to gloat as if he’d won.

“When we drove those lizard bastards into Pine Ridge, the male lizards pulled this stunt quite often, so I know how to handle it.”

He was familiar with concealing footsteps but not with members of the Argonne Invincibles. I was faster at grabbing the shotgun barrel and striking than his gun was at reaching his other hand.

Hitting an old man’s jawbone was never pleasant. No, that’s not right. Beating those who spoke about shooting others to death as if it were a happy memory was objectively enjoyable.

After striking him with the heavy shotgun, I kicked the fallen revolver out of the room. I properly gripped the gun and pulled the trigger toward his torso. The old man fell backward.

Professor Lanshore was the one who screamed. The gunshot disturbed the elf’s sensitive hearing, and he who had been pretending to sleep tried to move toward the inside of the bed.

“Pine Ridge… Yes, they say it rained for a week straight after that day. I heard the God-President was so furious he considered canceling his rainbow promise.”

He seemed to be wearing something under his clothes, so I fired again. Only then did blood seep through his shirt, and he began to cough. He recognized my voice.

“You… bastard… You’re the one who handed my son over to those Idealist bastards…”

He was reaching into his chest. Even while making phlegmy sounds, he was trying to pull out a weapon. With the trigger still pulled, I pumped and fired again. The hand fumbling in his chest flew backward.

For Professor Lanshore, the shotgun blast must have been close to torture with his sensitive hearing. Severely injured and unable to move, he couldn’t even cover his ears, just twitching pitifully.

The old avenger had no more ways to resist. Looking up at me, he spat out bloody saliva as if the pain from his damaged hand was nothing compared to losing his son.

His eyes were fierce, but I’d seen such looks before. At the moment of death, people either show this look or are terrified. His gaze softened not long after.

“I’m screwed. Still, just one thing, answer just one thing…”

Though he spoke as if wanting an answer, what he wanted wasn’t an answer. I could clearly see him gripping something in his chest with his good hand. Probably a knife handle.

I raised the gun barrel to his head and pumped again. Another shot rang out. The old man’s barely trembling head snapped backward. Only then did I answer.

“No.”

There was no reason to explain properly, nor any need to make Professor Lanshore or witnesses on this floor learn anything disadvantageous to me.

I hadn’t broken my promise to Professor Lanshore. If he hadn’t tried to pull something from his chest, I might have said a word or two.

Perhaps it’s fortunate I didn’t. My answer was already decided. I would have said his son’s deal with the Idealists was his choice, and taking responsibility was his burden.

I turned on the lights in the room. Professor Lanshore, trembling in his hospital bed, exclaimed frantically.

“But, no, that… You said you would talk to him!”

At those words, I approached the corpse and nudged his left hand out of his chest with my toe. After showing him the hand still gripping a long, old bayonet with a gleaming blade even after death, I said:

“That doesn’t mean I should insist on talking when the other side has no intention to talk. If this old man had raised his hands in surrender and asked, I would have answered.”

It was essentially a fraudulent contract from the beginning. Someone coming for revenge for his son wouldn’t agree to talk so easily.

Professor Lanshore would know this fact. And being sufficiently intelligent, he would know there was nothing to say in response to my words.

But I had no reason to antagonize Professor Lanshore. I told him what I hadn’t told the old man.

“This old man’s son made a deal with the Idealists on the condition he’d be absorbed by them, then ran away. I was just paid to find someone. Besides, he came to kill you. Is there a problem?”

I didn’t even know if the contract was fraudulent. Even if there was fraud in the contract, I wasn’t the one who recommended it to that writer. All I did was clean up afterward. I could justify it that way.

His face was in an unbearable state, so I brought a towel and covered it. Nevertheless, the elf’s sensitive senses were probably overwhelmed by the smell of gunpowder mixed with flesh.

Trying to breathe only through his mouth, Professor Lanshore’s voice was a bit slurred. Still, at least he didn’t condemn me further.

“I can’t say there isn’t a problem… but I can’t pinpoint what the problem is either. Well, anyway… if this man’s plan was really to kill me, then you saved me. For that, I thank you. Yes…”

This was more than an excellent answer. With the holstered pistol still at my waist and shotgun in hand, I looked out into the corridor in front of the hospital room.

I clicked my tongue a couple of times at the caregiver who was still peeking through the door crack at this room. The caregiver was so startled that the wooden door rattled.

I put down the gun where the caregiver could see it. Only then did I speak.

“Please call the police. I’m a detective working for Professor Lanshore here. I was standing guard in case the person who assaulted Professor Lanshore might come to his room, when an attacker with a gun arrived. I handled it, but it would look strange if I reported it myself. Just tell them what you saw.”

In a hospital filled with private rooms occupying an entire floor, the police arrive quickly. Within five minutes of the caregiver returning to their room, locking the door, and making the call, the angels flew in.

A massive angel, whose head nearly touched the ceiling of the corridor, turned sideways to barely pass through the door and entered Professor Lanshore’s room. With a halo attached to the back of his head, he was clearly a high-ranking angel.

“Grab that gun in the corridor as evidence too. I’m Inspector Semangelof from the New York Police Department. We received a report of a shooting in the hospital… Can you explain the situation?”

Whether I would be a murder suspect or cleared as self-defense depended on what Professor Lanshore said now. Even if it was the former, I knew how to handle it.

The angel approached Professor Lanshore, who could barely hold himself upright, knelt on one knee beside him, and tried his best to meet his gaze. The sight of a massive angel looking down at a tiny elf was quite peculiar.

“Well, I’ve been hospitalized for two weeks due to an assault case, and my neighbors were worried that the assailant might find me here, so they assigned someone to me. That’s this detective. The person who ordered the assault is quite influential, so they offered to provide security day and night, and on the very night they decided this, an intruder with a gun came, resulting in a shootout.”

He didn’t mention the Idealists. Since I also went along with just being “assigned by someone,” he was on my side for now.

The angel holding a submachine gun finally relaxed his vigilance toward me. The angels who followed him didn’t handcuff me.

“If the gun in the corridor is what the intruder brought in, that would be fortunate. It would simplify matters.”

He stood up and approached me. The angel was so tall I had to crane my neck painfully to see his face. He showed his right hand, crafted in gold, and spoke. It was an offer. At least until he struck with that fist.

“You’ll need to come with us. We need to hear about the situation to wrap things up. Do you know where the person who reported this is?”

When I pointed to a room across the corridor, he sent an angel to get the goblin caregiver who was trembling behind the locked door. She didn’t scream when she saw my face.

The hospital’s reputation would be shattered, but mine wouldn’t be. Being seen going in and out of police stations for cases while still doing my job properly would enhance my reputation, not damage it.

And now I needed to show more responsibility. As I was about to follow the angel without handcuffs, I stopped.

“From my client’s perspective, he was attacked on the very day he hired someone out of concern. Could you leave some angels here? I can’t guarantee there won’t be another intruder between us.”

The angels would stay regardless of my request. All people were equal, but those who could afford private rooms and caregivers in hospitals were more equal than others.

Still, it wasn’t a bad thing to make this angel see my role as a security guard rather than just a contractor. The angel twirled a lock of hair at the back of his head where the halo was attached and said:

“Angels will stay for scene processing anyway. Don’t doubt their skills. The angels dispatched to places like this wouldn’t be mediocre fallen angels.”

“Of course, I trust them. Let’s go then.”

It would be good if the Idealists came tonight. If they were puzzled by a hospital where a shooting occurred, it would be the perfect scenario for me to beat them up.

On the way to the police station, a person ceases to be a person. Names and titles disappear, replaced by standardized terms like “witness” or “person of interest.”

It was better than going to prison. When you only go to the police station, you’re standardized but still treated as a person, but the moment you enter prison, a person is no longer a person. You become nothing more than livestock to be managed.

Living like that was as good as being dead. And surprisingly, I preferred living to dying. Yet it seemed all I did was things perfect for getting killed.

The police investigation wasn’t that harsh. Only after entering the soundproofed interrogation room did the angel speak casually, saying, “You’re not new to this, are you, you contractor bastard?” which made it even less severe.

It will be concluded with no indictment. The only person who would know this old man’s identity would be the factory owner who assaulted Professor Lanshore, and from the police’s perspective, there would be no evidence connecting this attacker to him.

Then the body will soon be cremated at the public morgue and buried in a corner of the unclaimed graves cemetery, and the details of the case will be buried with those ashes.

After completing a simple investigation, I was given a cup of coffee as if in compensation for being detained, then left the police station. Before returning to the hospital, I headed to a nearby public phone and called the American Federation of Idealists.

No angels were listening. Only I, the Idealists, and the God-President would know about this conversation. The connection tone didn’t ring for long, and this time the Hive Mind answered immediately.

“He’s dead, but the police don’t care. They had no way to connect it anyway, so that’s natural. Now you have nothing to worry about. Is that what you think?”

The Idealists were intelligent enough to notice that the hostility hadn’t disappeared from my voice. They asked as if incredulous.

“Why does someone who can kill anyone they want within a day obey their clients?”

“Because that’s how I get paid. Let’s keep things pleasant, and money has never been bad.”

At least not for me. I was the kind of person who did such things rather than someone whose daily life was ruined by receiving money.

Now that the hostility we had shown while talking on the phone had faded, I continued the conversation as if it were casual.

“Oh, and if it’s okay, I’ll visit tomorrow. You said you’d interfere with me to let my client die. As someone doing security work, I can’t just let that slide. If you misspoke, you need to take responsibility.”

I might not have to fight the Idealists. Their plan was already ruined, and there was no benefit in starting a fight. People could usually put down their weapons briefly and talk.

Of course, the Idealists weren’t people. They were just an unpleasant, very unpleasant ideology and mass of consciousness. But they could at least act like people.

After a moment of consideration, the Idealists spoke. It was the voice of a crowd, a mixture of countless people’s voices.

“Our plan is already ruined, but since it ended in a way that’s not bad for us either… we apologize for saying we would ruin your assignment. Not just in words, but with ten terminals as an apology. Is that enough?”

“Make it eleven—ten regular terminals plus the detective terminal I caught last time. Just ten workers flying away doesn’t feel like such a sincere apology.”

With this, the impending issue was somewhat resolved. If all went well, from tomorrow or the day after, I might return to the job of just watching a not-unpleasant elf for half a day, earning $500 for two weeks.