Ch.185This Place is Safe! (5)

# Chapter 185: This Place is Safe! (5)

“Minister, do you realize you almost died just now?”

“I suppose I did.”

I was hurriedly trying to stop the bleeding from my ear, which now had a large piercing hole torn through it.

Meanwhile, the fanatic who had successfully fired three consecutive shots at close range…

“How dare this son of a bitch attack the Minister!”

“Kill him!”

“No, just killing him isn’t enough, is it?”

“You’re right.”

“Let’s half-kill him, regenerate him, then kill him again!”

“Oh.”

‘He looks dead already.’

Surrounded by dozens of Purge Unit members, the attacker had been reduced to an unrecognizable mass of flesh.

-Twitch, twitch.

‘Wait, he’s still alive.’

But these people were so accustomed to killing that somehow…

The fanatic who had clearly been a Sebelian (humanoid)…

Had been molded into something resembling a Gorotian (amorphous) from the long-gone nation of ‘Goroti Intersolar.’

I was amazed they had managed to keep him alive in that state.

As I watched this scene, a new event message appeared before my eyes.

-Ding.

For some reason, it came with an extremely deflating notification sound.

However.

[Pause]

[Event: By a Hair’s Breadth.]

[You have narrowly avoided a meaningless death thanks to a stroke of divine luck.]

[The trait ‘Lucky One’ (slightly increases the probability of positive events occurring) has been granted to Minister Arto Virtorius Sebelli.]

‘Hmm, better than I expected.’

Despite the deflated notification sound, the reward was surprisingly sweet.

‘In a way, this might be exactly what I needed.’

Come to think of it, haven’t I been rather unlucky?

How is it that in a place where tens of thousands of corpses had accumulated—with the Purge Unit, Prosnack Marines (doubling as embassy guards), Ash, and Levia all mobilized—exactly one person survived to target me?

And that one person just happened to have a rifle suitable for sniping…

‘No, I suppose that makes sense.’

After a moment’s thought, I realized it was natural for attackers to have guns.

If I were to nitpick about such things…

I should instead question the insane SF-like astronomical numbers that somehow allowed tens of thousands of fanatics, gang members, and other idiots to flood into the Diplomatic Enforcement Planet’s grounds—an area smaller than Levia’s hull (which was truly surprising).

Anyway, while I was lost in these random thoughts…

‘…Hmm, maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I was shot, but I’ve been getting distracted.’

Realizing I still hadn’t released the pause, I was still deep in thought.

[Unpause]

I immediately released the pause and walked toward the Purge Unit members while holding my still-bleeding ear.

“That’s enough. It’s just an extra hole in my ear, nothing more.”

Of course, the Purge Unit members weren’t going to respond well to such a dismissive comment.

“We can’t let this go, Minister.”

“That’s right. If that shot had gone just 1-2cm deeper, you would have died instantly.”

“No, it would need to be about 1cm more than that.”

“Oh, is that so? But that’s not the important part.”

‘…’

Watching them perform this bizarre skit even in this situation gave me complicated feelings.

But since, as they said, ‘that’s not the important part’…

I gestured for them to stop their ongoing conversation and mentioned the most important point.

“So, how many ‘prisoners’ did you capture as I asked?”

“Well, about that… those knights were extremely strong, and they would immediately self-destruct if they started losing.”

“And?”

“Well… we’ve collected enough fragments to make one person per knight, but would it be possible to resurrect them from this?”

As he spoke, the bandit-like unit member held up a tin can filled with finely ground meat(???) and smiled, leaving me dumbfounded.

“…Don’t tell me everyone else is the same?”

Hoping against hope, I looked around at the others.

“Ahem.”

“Umm…”

“Ah, I managed to salvage one arm.”

“You only got below the elbow, while I secured all the way to the shoulder.”

“Tsk, tsk, you should have collected at least half of the lower body like I did.”

These insane superhumans had merely collected body parts from the former Papal Knights (+drug-enhanced and buffed).

None of them had captured any prisoners who could provide clues about who was behind the attack on us.

Seeing this, another Purge Unit member laughed incredulously.

“Hahaha, you fools… what good are such body parts anyway?”

“Ugh.”

“You should at least have cut off parts that could provide ‘information,’ what use are mere limbs?”

“That’s true.”

“But aren’t you the same? The knights’ heads explode first, making it impossible to capture them for information.”

“Who do you take me for? Of course I have my methods.”

His confident statement raised my hopes.

‘That’s right, it’s about time someone stepped up.’

But then…

“Information is in the genes, so I just needed to collect plenty of their genetic material.”

“AAAAARGH!!”

“Oh no…”

‘What the actual fuck.’

As the word ‘genes’ suggested, the Purge Unit member was waving around what appeared to be ‘those parts’ from the knight he had fought.

‘How the hell did he manage to tear that off from a knight who had converted to Allah’s terrorist?’

While I wasn’t concerned about the grotesqueness—these guys were far more desensitized than me—I couldn’t help but feel a chill down my spine imagining the knight who had such a precious part torn off mid-battle.

And Riel, who had been following me, saw this monstrosity and lost it…

“What the fuck are you bringing that for, do you want to die?”

“Wait, Aide, wait, my bones, my bones are—”

“Just die, seriously! The Minister was injured and you’re fucking—”

She immediately rushed forward and began mercilessly attacking the joints of the Purge Unit member…

Feeling drained, I gave up and slumped down in my seat.

“Sigh, so we don’t have a single proper prisoner?”

“We apologize, Minister.”

“By the way, Minister? Shouldn’t we properly stop the bleeding first?”

“Hmm? Ah… right.”

Since I had only applied temporary measures to stop the bleeding…

When I checked with a hand mirror someone offered me, I could see red slowly spreading from my ear, which I had roughly wrapped with a handkerchief.

So I stood up again and raised one hand to address the Purge Unit members, who were all over 180cm tall—even bigger than me.

“Does anyone have a bandage?”

“Minister, couldn’t you just ask Ash to heal it instantly with nanomachines?”

“Oh.”

‘Oh.’

I agreed with the Purge Unit member’s suggestion and gently spoke to Ash, who had enveloped the entire Diplomatic Enforcement Planet’s building and grounds in a soft silver glow.

“…So, sorry, but could you heal my wound?”

At my words, the floor beneath us began to undulate.

Soon, a silver pillar rose before me, and a thin tendril extended from it toward my ear covered by the handkerchief…

“I’ll heal it, so please remove the handkerchief.”

“Ah.”

The extremely polite tone of Ash, completely different from how she spoke before the Nano-Machine War, prompted me to quickly stuff the bloodied handkerchief into my pocket.

But at that moment—

“Minister! Captain Meteorn is bringing captured prisoners right now!”

“…Oh!”

Surprised by this sudden good news, I instinctively jumped up and raised one hand high.

‘As expected of Meteorn, I knew I could count on you!’

But then—

-Flash!

“Who’s there!”

“Minister!”

-WHAM WHAM WHAM!

“Ugh!”

As a flash of light came from somewhere…

I was tackled from all directions by Purge Unit members rushing to protect me, feeling my body crumple under their weight.

‘I’m going to die at this rate…’

————————————

Fortunately, the flash turned out to be from the camera of a journalist with supernatural survival abilities who had somehow managed to stay alive in this insane battlefield…

“Minister? Would you like to see this photo?”

“…”

“Isn’t it magnificent? It’s like an image symbolizing unwavering hope for tomorrow in the midst of a desperate situation.”

“…”

“That’s sick, looks just like a well-made propaganda poster.”

Seeing that the photo resembled one of a certain U.S. president from my previous life, I felt extremely complicated emotions.