Ch.220The Twilight of the Fourth Idol – Cannibalism (2)

Until now, things could have been somewhat clean, but not anymore. I needed to show even better concentration than when capturing Marcus Cavendish.

Now I had to go into homes, not company buildings, and I couldn’t just shoot everyone in sight—I had to select specific targets. With the kill list refreshed in my mind, I descended back down the elevator shaft.

I could hear murmuring from below. Truck drivers, the remaining security team, and… sadly, the deputy sheriffs. I watched them from the darkness as they looked up at the open elevator doors.

Molly, a female deputy I hadn’t even had time to talk to, was poking her head into the elevator shaft to assess the situation. I jumped down on top of her, stepping on her head and driving her into the floor.

A truck driver raised his submachine gun with more skill than the security team, but I blocked it by grabbing the barrel and pierced his neck with my stiffened fingers. I then used him as a shield while drawing Small Evil.

The bulletproof vest-wearing truck driver made an excellent shield. While they hesitated to shoot their colleague, Small Evil poured out heavy anti-armor rounds.

Including the one I used as a shield, seven truck drivers—all on the kill list—and two deputy sheriffs lay sprawled on the floor. I stomped on Molly’s head once more as she still reached out, trembling and barely alive.

I heard voices from outside. It was Ben. Unaware that Ned Pershing already had the kill list, he was spewing angry words at Ned. Every action brings its due consequences.

“No, I’m telling you there’s a shootout happening here—what are you doing, Sheriff? Aren’t Old Road people citizens of Madeleine’s Lot too? You’ve always been good at your job until now…”

Ben turned around quickly, his hand moving to the holster at his waist as he spotted my reflection in the window. I struck the back of his neck with the edge between my thumb and index finger, making him drop his phone. I caught it.

As he made choking sounds and lost his balance, I kicked his knee to make him fall completely. I calmly reloaded while Ben fumbled with the holster of a gun he rarely used.

The moment he finally opened the holster on his third try, I put three bullets precisely through his forehead and between his eyes. At least Harry knew how to shoot properly.

I picked up the phone, which was still connected. I turned on the speakerphone, something I was familiar with, and spoke:

“Old Road people are citizens of Madeleine’s Lot too, Ned. It’s just that these criminals are no longer citizens of Madeleine’s Lot. Have many people evacuated to the sheriff’s office?”

“Damn! Already, uh, many. There are some criminals on the kill list you gave me…”

“They’re all people who were involved in crimes while working for Old Road one way or another. Hire them as temporary deputies or somehow separate them from other citizens. For Madeleine’s Lot’s sake.”

I would deal with them last. I located the homes of the targets on the kill list by combining the address tags they had uploaded themselves. I headed to the house of an accountant who had been laundering drug money. A short man with brown hair.

He… was clearly holding his daughter in his arms, who had appeared so happy in photos. He was pointing a gun at his daughter’s head while looking at me. He spoke with an incredulous voice.

They still believed I was some righteous crusader with humanity. Unfortunately, I was not. I didn’t bring humanity to work.

“Do you think I’ll let an Old Road criminal go to protect a child? Shoot.”

“What? No, I—”

“I said shoot.”

While he was confused, I raised Small Evil and pulled the trigger. The gunshot rang out, and the accountant with his frontal lobe shattered couldn’t bring himself to shoot his own daughter. The child ran toward the space under the bed.

Sadly, the child’s mother was also a target. After gently stopping the child, I pulled the trigger of Small Evil toward the space under the bed where the child had been running. Blood seeped out from beneath the bed.

I carried the child in my arms so she wouldn’t see, and left the house. I pointed in the direction of the sheriff’s office. I didn’t offer any hollow comfort. I couldn’t. I was the enemy who had killed her parents.

“Go to the sheriff’s office. Ask Uncle Ned for help. Tell him some madman showed up and killed your parents. Hurry. Uncle Ned is a good person.”

When I watched the terrified child running away, I felt guilt. One could distinguish between citizens worthy of living normal, happy lives and those unqualified who weren’t.

While they could be separated in terms of classification, they couldn’t be separated in terms of relationships and connections. Even villains often have ordinary families. That doesn’t make them any less guilty. Both truths existed simultaneously.

The child, who couldn’t even sob near me, let out a piercing scream of terror only after getting some distance away. Her screams layered over the quiet air of Madeleine’s Lot’s residential area.

I searched for the next house. It was built in the old nationalist style, using only synthetic wood. As I slowly circled the house, I heard a trembling voice from inside the walls. A woman’s voice.

“Get out! Go out and check if he’s coming! Fuck, fuck… I told you I know why that bastard is coming! He won’t touch you and Kevin!”

Was she hiding in a closet? What a terrible mother. She knew I wouldn’t kill her husband and child and was trying to use that.

The people on the kill list seemed to figure out who I was targeting too easily once the first target was Old Road’s hydroponic tower. Unfortunately for her, synthetic wood walls were soft to me.

I raised my fist. With a light application of weight, I drove my hand through the wall. The thin layer shattered, and my arm penetrated through to the back wall of the built-in closet. My hand brushed against something. A neck. I grabbed it.

Slowly moving my hand to properly grip the neck, I pulled my hand out of the hole, tearing it apart completely. Bogeymen come out of closets, so bad children shouldn’t hide in them.

I continued moving. Eyes peeking through a window gap moved. It was a child. I didn’t shoot. But as I raised my carbine, I saw someone’s face inside the window of the house.

It was a town thug who worked for Old Road’s customer support team, who had been making threats that Harry didn’t even need to handle. In his hands was a semi-automatic rifle modified to fire in full auto.

The child had been keeping watch. Chance naturally moved the drone to create cover in front of me. I advanced, using the armored transport drone to block the rifle bullets raining down.

It was open ground, but there wasn’t much of a height difference, so it wasn’t a major problem. I pulled out a smoke grenade and threw it into the house. Gunfire continued to ring out even as acrid smoke burst forth.

But even in the grayish color of the smoke, I could see exactly where the muzzle flashes were coming from. I pulled out a decorative stake from the garden. I grabbed the long metal skewer used to secure the decoration and threw it toward the muzzle flash.

The muzzle flash stopped pointing forward and aimed at the sky before ceasing altogether. When the smoke cleared, I saw the child crying from the acrid smoke and the customer support team member impaled and killed by the metal skewer.

I took a canteen from the transport drone, washed the child’s eyes with running water, and headed to the next streets. All the dead Old Road members had families. Families they loved, families who loved them.

That fact couldn’t grant them absolution. I crossed names off the kill list and started running toward the houses on the outskirts. The sheriff’s office would be last. It was near my house.

I approached Amaya’s house first and knocked on the door. I decided to put on Matt Collins’ skin one last time. Just this once.

“Ms. Amaya! Ms. Amaya! Are you home? It’s me, Matt! Deputy Matt Collins! You’re not alone in there, are you? Right?”

“I-I’m alone! Some s-seniors said they’d come here, but they haven’t arrived yet… Matt, are you… are you okay?”

I turned around at those words. In the distance, I could see two silhouettes running toward Amaya’s house under cover of night. I checked their faces. Names on the kill list.

I detached the voice module from my neck, attached it to Amaya’s front door, and approached the silhouettes. Through the voice module, I continued speaking:

“Don’t open the door! First, I need to check if this area is safe. Of course I’m fine! I don’t think the terrorist has come this way.”

Once I was far enough from Amaya’s house, I properly accelerated. I approached those “seniors” who were looking around nervously, trembling, barely able to put strength in their legs as they ran.

They were trying to hide at Amaya’s house, knowing she was innocent. Human ugliness is as easy to find as human beauty. Just as ugliness doesn’t obscure beauty, the reverse is also true.

“Thank goodness… Even in this situation, yes, you’re an excellent deputy… What happened to the others?”

Despite the silencer, the gunshots would be audible from Amaya’s house. Hidden in the non-reflective black uniform and darkness without streetlights, I approached from the side and drew my high-frequency tactical dagger.

The matte black blade vibrated smoothly as it licked one man’s neck. At the end, I twisted the blade to prevent blood clotting. With the handle of the dagger, I struck the side of the head of the other unqualified person who was with him.

I pierced under the chin of the criminal who was holding his head, twisted the blade once more before pulling it out, and returned to Amaya’s house. I needed to retrieve the voice module.

“Damn it. I can contact the sheriff, but the other deputies aren’t responding. Only Ned was at the sheriff’s office! It’s too far from here to the sheriff’s office. And cars are too noisy.”

I returned to the front of Amaya’s house, removed the voice module, and reattached it to myself. I decided to leave Matt Collins’ skin hanging on her door. She would eventually learn the truth.

“Yes, I’ll stay home. Matt, don’t waste too much time on me. As a deputy, in this situation… you wouldn’t just protect me alone. Because you’re a good deputy…”

With this, I completely finished clearing the residential area. I went back, dealing with those hiding in shops and bars, entering wherever targets might be.

In a bar with an antique pool table made of real wood, there were no customers, but the bartender was still manning the bar. He began to look at me.

He was a kindly old man. Pushing back his graying hair, he showed no signs of fear. Sobbing sounds came from behind the bar. The bartender’s son was also on the kill list.

I knew this because the son had posted a photo on social media of the new sign he made for the bar out of love for his father. Everything was so ambiguous and cruel. The bartender asked me:

“Do you know the saying that fear changes people? I don’t know your name, so… since you’re killing bad people, they call you the Boogeyman.”

I walked steadily into the bar. He poured me a glass of genuine, non-synthetic whiskey and pushed it across the bar. As I took the glass, he continued speaking.

“My son is indeed a bad person. At home, he tries hard to appear like a good son, so I turned a blind eye… but I knew. I just pretended not to know. But now… with this fear, he could change, Boogeyman.”

He seemed to know that his words didn’t really make sense. He probably knew it was a selfish thing to say… but what else could he say?

What more could I say in response to those inevitable words? I pushed the glass back across the bar. I slowly shook my head. Feeling somewhat conflicted, I said:

“He could have changed when he realized his father was turning a blind eye. Or before suggesting the idea of hiding drugs in produce containers. Or when he learned Old Road was selling drugs.”

The father’s expression began to crumble. I lowered my gun. Only the son needed to die. Only the son. The bartender stood there, neither able to reveal his son’s location nor stop me.

But eventually, he made his decision. He pulled out a pump-action shotgun from under the bar and aimed it at me. I slowly walked toward the small sliding door behind the bar and entered. A gunshot rang out.

The shotgun pellets failed to penetrate my bulletproof vest and slid off. Another shot rang out, and another… it continued until the gun was empty. There was gunpowder smell and smoke emanating from my body, but no wounds.

When he tried to physically stop me, I gently pushed him back. As I continued toward the back of the bar, he grabbed my bulletproof vest and started pulling. He was desperate. For something precious to him.

Then, from behind the bar, a man with a face covered in tears and snot walked out. He was a target on the kill list. After stopping his father, he knelt before me. Though he said nothing, I heard many words.

I grabbed his neck and broke it just enough to be almost imperceptible. Repentance and remorse don’t reduce punishment. Still, they shouldn’t create no change at all. That’s all.

I caught the Old Road transport strategist as his posture collapsed and gently laid him down. With the bartender’s wails, I left the bar through the back door.

Now for the final part. I headed toward the sheriff’s office, where cars were so numerous they were even parked on the road. They must have thought it was their last hope, and in most cases, the sheriff’s office would have been a hope for survival.

It was hope only for those worthy of living. I peered through the darkness. Ned had gathered people in the sheriff’s office. Twenty-three in total. All targets on the kill list. All except Ned.

I loaded a fresh magazine from among the empty carbine magazines in the transport drone. After finding an angle for penetrating fire that wouldn’t harm innocent civilians hiding in the sheriff’s office, I took out my phone and called Ned.

Ned answered the phone with trembling hands. He seemed to feel guilty about helping me kill people who deserved to die. This would be the last of it.

“Duck down, Ned. Not halfway, but all at once—crouch down completely. Whenever you’re ready. I’ll match your timing.”

After considering with the phone next to his face, he suddenly sat down in place to avoid being seen through the sheriff’s office window. I emerged from between the cars with my carbine and ran forward. I squeezed the trigger.

Ned had given them weapons like pistols and shotguns, but in the cramped sheriff’s office, there was virtually no possibility of retaliation. I emptied the carbine’s magazine and drew Small Evil.

I pulled the trigger three times, targeting those in the back row who might have escaped death and tried to flee. Finally, I crushed the phone I had used. I connected to Jeff.

“Skinwalker here. Sending server banner. Server banner. All Old Road associates with criminal records and involvement have been processed. Task completed.”

I heard Jeff’s voice mixed with a sigh. Though far removed from the massacre in Madeleine’s Lot, it was a serious and important concern for him.

“Right, now… as you said, all that’s left is to bring Marcus Cavendish’s head to Charleston. I’ll send someone, but actually, you could just leave it at an unmanned post and we’d retrieve it.”

Jeff seemed to be telling me to run away. It’s a strange feeling when the person I trusted least turns out to be on my side. I answered in a refreshing voice.

“I don’t have a hobby of running away to live in anxiety, Jeff. I’ll see you in Charleston. I’ll face things head-on, so don’t worry too much. You’ve seen how I handle business in Madeleine’s Lot, haven’t you?”

Leaving Jeff quite anxious with those words, I returned to the unmanned post. Now Jeff would move to find me directly. At least, I hoped he would.

I checked the “Delivery complete” message that Enzo had sent long ago on my computational assist device, and quickly assembled the items I had set aside before starting the job. It didn’t take long.

Now, having shed both the black uniform and bulletproof vest, I returned completely to being Arthur Murphy even in appearance. I got on a wasteland-riding motorcycle I had found among the wreckage of a traffic accident and began riding toward Charleston.