Ch.42Request Log #006 – Hunting the Hunter (7)

I needed to make several choices. I could help this ogre, or I could trigger the ritual and unleash the monstrous creation it would produce.

If someone heard the monster rampaging, the businessman’s people who came to collect the trash would report what happened, and more people would come. People more important than those who might just be collecting trash.

I looked back and forth between the ogre and the ritual markings. No, that would be a stupid choice. Someone might hear the monster rampaging and only confirm an intrusion without coming inside.

It wasn’t worth abandoning my humanity over. I clicked my tongue and rubbed my face. Since I already felt a connection with him, helping would make me feel better.

“Find a first aid kit somewhere in the room. Or at least tell me where one might be.”

I decided to help him rather than take drugs to ease my mind. I could do anything except that. I pulled out my fleshing knife from my pocket, checked the blade, and gathered mana to light a flame at my fingertips.

I could manipulate mana to some extent, but not enough to use proper magic. I slowly heated the fleshing knife with my flame-tipped fingers.

For something carved into skin, there was only one solution. Ogres heal well if they eat properly, so he should recover easily.

He seemed to realize what I was planning to do as he watched the knife heating in my hand. He slowly shook his head with an expression of incomprehension.

“Y-you’re not… No way, right? You wouldn’t use that method. My back skin… r-right?”

I examined the first aid kit he brought. I desperately wanted morphine, but there wouldn’t be any here. I tossed him some cheap painkillers. Fortunately, there were enough bandages for stopping bleeding.

“That pattern drawn with your blood on the floor is imbued with ritual power, so it will never dry. If you open a window and wind disturbs the pattern, you’ll become a monster. Or you can endure the pain and solve this now. Make a rational choice. Running from momentary pain is instinct, not reason.”

I tossed him a long strip of bandage to bite down on. His pupils trembled before he clamped the bandage bundle tightly in his mouth.

Screaming and cursing might have made it feel less painful, but biting his tongue would have been troublesome for me. I raised the thoroughly heat-sterilized fleshing knife.

The ogre was quite good at enduring pain. The hope that removing just one ritual mark from his body would bring freedom made him endure. Nevertheless, a terrible scream rang out.

The sound was familiar, so my hands didn’t shake. Soon the part with the ritual mark came off, and I poured medical alcohol that someone had clearly been drinking onto it and burned it away.

The ogre barely managed to stand while I stopped the bleeding on his back, but once that was done, he immediately collapsed. The aftereffects of pain left his hands trembling.

“S-so is everything on my back s-solved now…?”

“I cut everything out and burned it, so there shouldn’t be any problems. The markings under the door have dried up too, so they won’t be erased now.”

I rubbed away the instantly dried bloodstains with my foot. The ritual marks were still burning and thrashing, but without flesh to incubate a monster, they couldn’t do anything and burned completely.

Although I helped for somewhat human reasons, I had no intention of being completely benevolent. It would be better to use him. I pulled out a gun from my pocket and waved it.

“I can’t send you straight home, but if you’ve survived here for 8 days, one or two more days shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

The ogre nodded for now. Indeed, unless someone drugged him and carved rituals into his back again, he probably wouldn’t consider anything else particularly severe.

“If you receive help, you should give help? Is that it? Well… I am a lawyer, you know?”

He raised his clenched fists then lowered them. No matter how tough someone claims to be, no one would want to face physical arguments from an ogre lawyer. Still, that wasn’t what I needed.

“No need for fighting. I’ll stay here until trash collection day, and when I identify the people who come to collect trash, you’ll scream. Those affected by that ritual all let out terrible screams.”

The ogre didn’t ask how I knew such things. He simply bowed his head slightly and raised it again, expressing some regret.

“Do you really think someone will come to collect trash? That’s just your speculation…”

“There are plenty of canned goods anyway, so you can watch for a few more days and leave if no one comes. Deal?”

“Since I received help… I’ll help you. But why would the boss lock up his own employee here and run away? If something serious happened… Oh, I’m not thinking straight. What do you do?”

Should I tell him? His trust had probably already been broken by being deceived and confined here.

The smell of burning flesh and smoke had already filled the office with a haze, so I lit a cigarette. The air quality wasn’t getting that much worse.

“I’m a detective looking for your boss. Do I need to explain what happened? When a detective comes looking for a boss, and he runs away in fear, there aren’t many possibilities.”

“Not many indeed…. Sigh, I’ll need to find a new job…. I was already looking, but if I’m unreachable for a week, they’ve surely hired someone else by now.”

“Anyway, in a few days, some entrepreneur lord will be looking for a lawyer again. It’s the golden age.”

Regardless of how I wandered through seedy back alleys like they were my home, the world was getting better.

Everything was getting cheaper, and more people could buy more things. When I started working about a year ago, a radio cost a thousand dollars, but now it only cost a hundred.

But I knew better than anyone that this couldn’t be called a golden age. The era, like people, spewed filth from every orifice, and I was the janitor cleaning up that filth, so I couldn’t help but know.

“Still, what kind of golden age keeps detectives busy? It’s a damn gilded age. But it’s true that finding work is easier. Oh, if you contact me after we get out, I’ll treat you to a meal.”

He carefully searched through the pile of canned goods and tossed me a can of clam chowder soup that somewhat resembled actual cooking. I caught it with one hand.

“This might fill your stomach, but it’s not cooking. Canned food is just animal feed. People should eat proper cooking!”

The ogre smoothed his cleanly shaved head, then patted his large belly with the same hand.

I’d rather have a friend who lives to eat than one who eats to live. At least the former is honest.

I opened the can with my fleshing knife and consumed some of the contents. The undiluted liquid was quite salty, but it contained actual large pieces of clam meat, so it was somewhat edible.

Time passed like that. The day I had come out to investigate grew late and began to darken, and the sound of cars passing around the factory gradually diminished.

After ten o’clock, there was briefly more traffic again, but then it quieted down once more. The ogre was apparently past his usual bedtime, visibly slapping his own cheeks to fight off drowsiness.

I quietly looked out at the factory’s iron gate where there was no human presence. A few cars passed by, but none stopped here. I had wondered if someone might take interest in seeing my car parked there, but apparently not.

If they cleaned every 3 days, people would come tomorrow; if every 5 days, the day after tomorrow. Should I wait until then? I hoped the Idealists’ Hive Mind wouldn’t look for me in the meantime.

It was past midnight. There were still a few cars passing by. The ogre had said he would sleep for a while and lay down, fortunately without snoring.

Double vitality allowed him to recover from fatigue twice as fast as others and need only half the rest. Nothing happened until two in the morning. Perhaps until sunrise.

However, around 2:30, a car stopped in front of the factory. I looked through binoculars. Someone was approaching the iron gate. Fortunately, there was a streetlight right in front of the factory gate.

I could distinguish whether the object in their hand was a cutter for the chain or a key. It was a key. They reached for the padlock, and instead of cutting the chain, the padlock opened.

Four days was correct. I pressed on the back of the sleeping ogre on the opposite side of the room. It would wake him more surely than shaking him, and he indeed rose as if electrocuted.

“Ah, aagh! P-please be a little more careful…”

“I don’t want to waste time shaking you awake. They seem to have arrived, and there appears to be more than one person. Wait a bit.”

I could do the same when making him scream. I approached the window again and looked outside through the binoculars. Someone was still standing in front of the padlock, but the gate was opening. There were at least two more people.

I could handle about three people. After the gate opened, three people entered, and two more followed and closed the gate. Five in total. There didn’t seem to be anyone else waiting outside.

They approached the factory building, and a small kobold who had opened the padlock was gesturing and giving orders to the other four who were wearing suits.

Two of them began collecting trash right below the manager’s office window. It seemed the people I was waiting for had indeed arrived. Now it was time to confirm if they were important to the entrepreneur I was pursuing.

“This will hurt, but don’t clench your teeth. They shouldn’t mistake it for a fake scream.”

The ogre was clearing his throat to scream, so I approached him. I grabbed his back wound and pressed down, which produced a more natural scream.

He tried to reach out and remove my hand, but he couldn’t remove it by force. His bestial scream echoed throughout the factory grounds and beyond.

Leaving the ogre who had instantly exhausted himself from pain, I headed back to the window overlooking the factory’s main gate. I looked down. The kobold was trying to open the factory door in response to the scream from inside.

He had keys for both the iron gate and the factory door. That meant he was at least trusted by the entrepreneur I was pursuing. Now there was no need to hesitate.

“Pull yourself together and leave on your own. I’ll leave the outer door unlocked.”

I opened the window and jumped from the second floor of the building, which was lower than the surrounding wall. A heavy thud sounded as I hit the ground, and the kobold who was hurriedly trying to open the factory door turned his head to look at me.

A moment of silence followed. I deliberately remained still, and the kobold began to speak while sniffing.

“What’s this, there was a rat? Hey, *sniff*! Is that your car parked up front? Poor ogre. You jumped from the second floor too…”

Normally, jumping from this height would damage an ankle or something else. In the kobold’s eyes, it would look like I had hurriedly jumped from the window to escape the awakening monster.

The kobold was dressed in a suit. He wore matching navy blue clothes that resembled fur from top to bottom, and he was holding a walking cane with an iron-reinforced bottom… he swung that heavy cane at my knee.

I caught the incoming cane and stood up. There was nothing wrong with my ankles or legs. I easily took the cane from him and flipped it to hold it like a club. Memories of trench warfare.

“What the hell, why is this bastard fine? Hey, catch him! I told you to catch the detective! You’ve seen what happens when you don’t listen, you bastards!”

The men in suits were probably not bodyguards. If they were, they would have drawn their guns the moment I fell, and I would have moved immediately.

With the iron end of the reversed cane, I struck the side of the head of one who approached first. An excited human might move even while being stabbed with a blade, but no one could show such toughness against a blunt weapon.

I approached the falling body, grabbed him by the collar to lift him up, and threw him in front of the other three people. This should have been sufficient warning.

Again, there were no questions or answers. They knew why I had come and what I wanted from them. Fear appeared in the expressions of all four.

However, the fear seemed too great to be directed at just one detective. They didn’t seem to be afraid of me. The kobold restrained the other three while sniffing.

“Hey, hey. You bastards, if you want to live, don’t talk. *sniff*! Even if you beat all four of us to death, we can’t take you to the boss, *sniff*! Remember that. Got it?”

I understood the source of their fear. They had rituals carved into them too. If a ritual caster scattered rituals so indiscriminately, they must have done the same to the boss, but my client wouldn’t like it if their sense of self was contaminated.

“It seems you have something similar to what was carved into the ogre upstairs… What are you? Does the ritual activate if you don’t obey the boss?”

They would have been ordered not to reveal anything, so the moment they spoke about the boss and the ritual, they would also turn into monsters. Ritual casters usually excelled in only one type of ritual.

No one nodded, but no one denied it either. This must be the truth. And if so, there was a simple way to handle this.

“Your job must be to collect trash. Isn’t that right? Then, do your job. But I’d like to hitch a ride. No matter how precisely your boss gave orders, he wouldn’t have anticipated this situation.”

As I spoke, I lifted and shook the man in the suit who still hadn’t regained consciousness with a dent in the side of his head.

Becoming a monster due to the ritual activating, or ending up like this trying to show loyalty to the boss. Both would be undesirable outcomes, but I had created an escape route for them: quietly do the job the boss ordered and take me with them.

Did they need more assurance? I cleared my throat and looked at them. Their expressions, walking a fine line, seemed quite desperate.

“Do you know who’s after your boss?”

“How would we know, *sniff*! You think someone who applies this kind of ritual would tell us? If you’re going to use your head, then…”

I stepped forward and kicked the kobold in the stomach with the toe of my shoe. Watching him vomit his stomach contents, I continued speaking.

“Think about who my client might be. The Idealists’ Hive Mind is after your boss. I heard your boss sought their help, and in return, they want to take his sense of self. And I’m someone who has personal business with the ritual caster. What do you think will happen if you just take me there?”

I paused briefly and gave each of them a nod, asking if they understood what I meant, giving them time to think. Only then did I continue.

“Simply put… if you keep quiet and give me a ride, your boss will have his mind sucked out by the Hive Mind and die, and I’ll take the ritual caster. That means freedom for you too. Now, get to work.”

Their eyes showed intense agitation before they headed toward the gate with the trash they had collected, moving toward the car. I made sure they didn’t lock the door because of my promise to the ogre inside, and they didn’t resist.

They put the man I had knocked unconscious with the cane—whose life or death I couldn’t confirm—in the trunk, and I took his seat. Again, no one objected.

Even the kobold in the driver’s seat chose to drive instead of spouting arrogant words. This is why relationships based on inflicting pain on others don’t last unless the pain is administered consistently.