Ch.165Work Record #024 – All Birds Must Learn to Fly (1)

I decided to keep the information about Chance and his joy only in my mind. Ms. Mila was Ms. Mila. I hoped I would never have to point the barrel of an assault rifle at her.

I didn’t want to feel that same sensation I felt when Adrian died again. In a world where countless people die, I wished that at least the people I knew wouldn’t die. A childish desire.

But was it a bad desire? Whether childish or not, anything that doesn’t harm others has value. I recalled the somewhat refreshing feeling that came with the phrase “comprehensive lack of ability.”

No matter how much of a freelancer I was, no matter how quickly I’d gained recognition from two companies, I was still experiencing a comprehensive lack of ability. I had far too long to go before falling into the boredom of a romance with life.

So I would enjoy even that phrase, solving each lack of ability one by one… I would fulfill the childish desires born from my fragile nature. Once I decided that, everything became enjoyable.

I chose not to wear a stiff expression. After lightly clapping my hands, I looked at Mila. I made it seem like I was trying to quickly wrap up the conversation to avoid Eve’s interrogation.

“Well, let’s consider the visit settled… Where will you spend the rest of your holiday? The Belvedere cleaning team will be coming here soon, and it’s going to get noisy.”

Eve, who had been quietly listening, easily set aside her jealousy and approached Mila. She bent down for the smaller woman and spoke with a gentle expression.

I remembered that the first thing I had discovered in her coldness wasn’t unexpected carelessness, but warmth. She knew well what it felt like to spend holidays in this ruined village.

In a sense, this place was her mental prison. Because there was so little one could do here, and only long hours remained to ruminate on the past. Eve’s voice was warm.

“I’m not sure if we’ll go to Nightwatch’s office or Arthur’s place… but we’re definitely leaving. Want to come with us, Mila?”

Mila looked at Eve with bright eyes and nodded vigorously. She spoke as if there was something magical about spending a holiday together.

“I’d love to! I’ve been to Arthur’s place before, during Thanksgiving. I met some rude people, but it was still fun. Actually… just being here right now is fun too!”

Looking at someone who shares the value of joy is always a pleasant thing. Eve raised the corners of her lips slightly, revealing that warmth within coldness that I had so enjoyed, and stroked Mila’s head a few times.

“You sound like Arthur. Yes, yes. I’ll let you ride on the back of my bike. Let’s get out of here before the cleaners arrive and make a racket, Arthur.”

“It seems I’ve made it onto your list of favorite juniors, but you still can’t bear to see me hugging your waist?”

Eve, who had been trying to wear the mask of an excellent senior, shook her head with visible blood rushing to her cheeks in embarrassment.

“W-what? No, I, I wasn’t thinking about that when I said it! It would be better for Mila to ride with someone of the same gender. Right, Mila?”

Unfortunately, Mila was the type of person who would respond to such statements with, “I’m fine with anyone!”

I decided not to tease her further. If I did, I’d probably have to deal with a sulky Eve until dawn.

As we walked out of the ruined villa, I saw several gang members extracting implants from the bodies of the dead Ashwood Gang members who had collapsed inside the house. It wasn’t something I needed to worry about.

Only gang members would receive bloody implants ripped from other people’s bodies or heads, and most of them would suffer and die from implants that didn’t properly match. Even if successful, they would have to endure phantom pain.

And even if I didn’t care, Belvedere didn’t want gangs getting stronger by implanting other people’s parts, even with a fifty percent success rate. I heard the muffled sound of a helicopter. The cleaning team was coming.

Some of the gangs who were extracting implants tried to escape, but the helicopter’s machine gunner shot them dead. After the area was cleared, the gunner raised three fingers toward us.

Now the Los Angeles branch was saluting in the headquarters style. Perhaps I had changed it, or perhaps it had changed on its own. I raised three fingers in the headquarters-style salute.

I didn’t bother watching as everything that had happened here today disappeared under the smell of bleach, and headed downtown. The Hive was a great place on days like this.

Everything was well-arranged, from the internal atmosphere that seemed to say to novice mercenaries, “This is what a mercenary’s holiday looks like,” to the staff who, befitting people who lived on fantasies, treated even ordinary mercenaries with courtesy.

Mila, who had too many things to look at, took the lead and ran around, and Eve and I followed her… until we encountered familiar faces that were bound to be at the Hive.

I spotted Wilderf, who was looking for something easy to use along with a bulletproof shield, and Evelyn, who followed him closely, whispering various things in a small voice.

I whistled once and waved my hand, and Evelyn turned around first to wave back at me, then lightly tugged on Wilderf’s collar a couple of times. He also looked in my direction now.

“Freelancer! Fancy seeing you here again. I’ll tell Riley and Noah to come too, so wait here. Oh, and these two are…?”

After introducing the two people, I waited a moment until the remaining three arrived. All five gathered, including the particularly inconspicuous IT person. Eve slowly examined these people.

As they fidgeted nervously under the scrutiny of someone with such a cold impression, Eve quietly leaned her head toward me and said:

“Fortunately, none of them have scary eyes. I thought there might be at least one person who resembled you.”

“What about Noah? I thought he had quite a similar impression.”

The Kanun Company seemed not to understand the very idea that my eyes were scary. To be honest, neither did I. I sometimes wanted to know what kind of eyes I had.

“Similar impression… yes, but somehow different. Somehow. I’m not sure what’s different… just, a bit different. Is it because in my view, my irresponsibly sturdy freelancer is the best?”

Since analysis inevitably becomes comparison, Eve brushed off the last part with a joke. Riley, who was smiling slightly at those words, rolled her combat-specialized triple concentric pupil prosthetic eye and said:

“Then, if I say Noah is the best on our side, there won’t be any hurt feelings, right? Freelancer may have better skills, but Noah has potential!”

Noah grumbled a bit about why she had to bring up skills, but he quickly softened his expression. Their attention moved to the next person.

Despite being introduced as a fellow novice mercenary, attention shifted to Mila, who had joined the same Nightwatch company as me. Perhaps her pure impression made her stand out even more.

Noah had ambitious eyes. Were they good eyes? If he dreamed of something worth dreaming of, they were good eyes. If his purpose was revenge… then they were eyes with a predictable destination. Fortunately, his purpose was good.

“Um, Free… no, no. Arthur, could Mila perhaps join us next time to help with training or work together on assignments? We’ll definitely split the job pay…”

Am I perhaps too advanced for Noah and his friends? Maybe they could learn more from a mercenary who, though also a novice, works at a better workplace than from a freelancer who wears Posthuman Type IV.

Since it wasn’t my decision to make, I remained quiet, but Mila started clasping her hands together with sparkling eyes. Ah, right. She was the type of person who had great fantasies about such things. As I quietly watched, she poured out her words.

“Of course! That sounds wonderful! It means I’ll make more friends besides everyone at Nightwatch, right? I’m totally up for it! Arthur, it’s okay if we do this together, right? Isn’t it?”

Her tone was somehow like a child asking her father for a gift, which made me laugh, but I nodded anyway.

“It would be fun to watch fellow novices encouraging each other, but won’t it interfere with your duties at Nightwatch? Working day and night isn’t exactly easy on the body.”

Before an answer came, Mila placed both hands on her waist. She spoke with innocent confidence.

“Of course not! I’m super sturdy, you know? It won’t affect my Nightwatch duties at all, and I’ll be able to become a better mercenary too! I want to do this together. Please?”

Now there was one more person to help the Kanun Company. And perhaps I wasn’t the only one who enjoyed watching this scene. I heard Eve’s quiet laughter.

“Arthur, you really are a workaholic, you know that? Helping Kanun during the day, working at Nightwatch at night, taking personal requests at dawn, and joining others’ requests in the morning… how many hours do you have in a day?”

“It feels like I’m using 50 hours a day… but you know I do it because I enjoy it, right? That’s everything to me.”

“Should I tell you to break up with enjoyment too? I don’t think you’d listen to that. Well, since I’m your greatest joy, I’ll have to allow it. Still, I like it.”

I enjoyed watching her confidently define her position. Eve extended her prosthetic hand and lightly placed it on my cheek. The prosthesis, following her body temperature, was cold. She gently stroked it down.

“I think a softer call sign than Boogeyman would suit you better. You’re not such a fierce person… Pff, I can’t even lie. You are fierce, but you take joy in showing kindness.”

Her words were the unvarnished truth. I am a person who draws motivation from hatred. I want to pay Walter back, and return the revenge I’ve bottled up for Hollow Creek.

But it’s also true that I find joy in kindness. Few things were as joyful as having enough ability to spare to share kindness with those around me.

“Just like how you, Ms. Eve, are an inexperienced person who takes joy in offering expertise. Should I give you the call sign ‘Professor’? You do assign enough tasks to deserve that name.”

After feeling her playfully hit my chest, I spent the holiday with the Kanun Company, agreeing to work with them tomorrow as well. Perhaps I could now call them friends.

We parted ways with the Kanun Company first, then Mila returned to the office… and once again, Eve and I were left alone in the Nightwatch office parking lot. It wasn’t particularly dark.

The streetlights were bright. The city doesn’t know night. Darkness is not night. It was a time when people tried to enjoy the only hours when smog wasn’t visible, and gunshots were exchanged.

Eve, who had pushed a small shopping bag containing a bottle of Hive’s synthetic whiskey into her bike’s trunk, leaned against the seat instead of mounting it and looked at me. She exhaled a breath drawn from deep within and said:

“It was an incredibly bustling day, wasn’t it?”

“It was. Wherever Mila went, her mouth would fall open and her eyes would sparkle… and the Kanun Company, maybe because they’re all childhood friends, would either be surprised along with Mila or bicker among themselves.”

Eve quietly reflected and then covered her mouth, letting out a small laugh. After giggling as if she had enjoyed herself, she swung her legs slightly like a girl on a swing and said:

“This might sound a bit stupid, but it’s the first time I’ve been with a group of people without finding it unpleasant. Everyone trying to talk about themselves, opinions clashing, voices so loud they get confused…”

I thought she was going to talk about Hollow Creek again. Eve thought so too. She knew very well what words were lingering inside her lips. She raised the corners of her mouth slightly and smiled.

“You know by now, right? In Hollow Creek, everyone had the same opinions and said the same things… Yes, you’re right. It’s been a very long time since I talked about the Creek.”

After briefly pondering the fact that it had been a very long time since she mentioned the Creek, she nodded her head once and asked:

“You said we’re going to visit where Mila lives next week, right?”

When I nodded in response, she spoke with a determined expression. Both she and I knew we would face stronger resistance than last time.

“Then, after that… let’s go to the Patriarch once more. This time, they’ll have deployed combat forces from the Creek, so it won’t be easy to break through. We might need to ask the Sows for help.”

“You don’t need to worry about that, do you? You have an irresponsibly sturdy freelancer with you. What do you want to say to the Patriarch? You decided not to apologize anymore, right?”

“I’m still not sure if I’m allowed to want all this, but I’m going to try to live well. I’ll never forget that I killed him, but I won’t throw away my entire life to atone for it.”

I heard the sound of a beast howling leisurely in her voice. Some might say she should suffer from guilt longer, others might say the opposite. It all meant nothing.

She had decided to stop here. She would worry and occasionally have nightmares from guilt, but she had decided to embrace that and live with it. It was Eve’s life, Eve’s decision. No one had the right to comment.

A smile leaked from Eve’s upturned lips. As if she was too embarrassed to meet my eyes right now, she slowly turned her head away and said:

“I’ll tell him that I’m now in love with someone, that I look forward to holidays on weekdays, that I’ve stopped giving up. That although I’ve severed ties with Hollow Creek, I won’t feel the pain of cutting off an arm.”

It might be our misconception, but the Patriarch… wanted Eve to hate herself. Both the one who laid the foundations of Hollow Creek and the self-proclaimed god of Hollow Creek wanted her to hate and give up.

To give up on atonement, to give up on feeling guilty, to completely forget and leave. It was a certain but painful method, like cutting off a rotting arm.

Even after that, Eve would not have accepted the name Eve, and would have suffered from guilt and had nightmares. Nevertheless, the possibility of Hollow Creek finding her would have disappeared.

The Patriarch was trying to complete what he had intended to do in his lifetime, even in that way. He was trying to help Eve escape from Hollow Creek both physically and mentally.

He would succeed. He would succeed even more than expected. The leash of guilt that the cult leader had tried to fill was broken. She had come to proudly use the name Eve.

Now it was okay not to talk about Hollow Creek anymore. She seemed to realize this from the fact that the mention just now was the first time Hollow Creek had been brought up all day, despite how busy it had been.

“Then… you’re going there to say goodbye, right?”

“Yes, I’ll tell him this is the last time I’m visiting. Since Hollow Creek’s No. 113764 Eve has successfully escaped, it’s okay now.”

Her expression, which had been full of firm will, good feelings, joy, and enjoyment until now, turned red. She made a light gesture to me from her seat on the bike. I approached.

She wrapped her arm around my neck and made me lower my head. It was a body that wouldn’t normally bow, but I lowered my head following her touch. Eve’s blue, cool hair touched my neck and flowed down.

A voice now devoid of any coldness reached my ear. Due to my enhanced hearing, I could hear her breathing and trembling too clearly, but even without enhanced hearing, all of this would have been audible.

“I’ll say that only half the credit for that successful escape belongs to you. If I said it was more your doing, I think you, Arthur, would dislike it. You’d say, ‘You made the choice yourself, so…’ right?”

“Of course. You’d try to reduce my contribution to less than half anyway, and then you’d dislike it. You’d keep telling me how amazing I am, wouldn’t you?”

Eve’s hand quietly covered my eyes. In the pleasantly cool darkness, I heard a warm voice saying, “Of course,” followed by the feeling of my lower lip being playfully bitten.

It didn’t even sting, but I flinched once for her benefit. I could imagine Eve’s expression. And then, much more skillfully than the first time, yet still with an unrefined finish, her lips met mine.

This seemed to be the reward for that half-share of credit. The weekend spent with everyone had ended a few hours ago, but the weekend for just Eve and me, briefly interrupted by an emergency rescue request, ended at that moment.