Ch.74Ten Fathoms Deep! (2)

#074

‘Those guys?’

Dexter was hoping William would say more, but as soon as he saw William trembling, he opened the trailer door and stepped outside in his place.

When Dexter stepped outside the trailer, he could see two men in suits that were more colorful than OSA’s all-black attire.

One was an average-built man with a slight M-shaped receding hairline, while the other had muscles not quite as impressive as Dexter’s but seemed to serve as both bodyguard and backup shooter for the balding man.

The two men, who had expected to see a hippie, were startled when a thirty-something man with shoulders wider than the trailer door suddenly emerged.

“What’s the matter?”

“…Who are you?”

“I asked first. What do you want?”

Due to Dexter’s curt response and his prison guard uniform, the balding man addressed him first.

“We’re from the NSA. We understand that William Pilgrim is in this trailer…”

Dexter leaned against the trailer door and said with a smirk:

“I don’t care if you’re NSA or CIA, I asked what you want.”

Dexter had seen Himena’s message to “be careful” and knew the NSA was trying to meet William for less than favorable reasons.

The muscular man stared at Dexter with a grunt, clearly annoyed by his continued uncooperative attitude.

A face of obvious displeasure.

They had humbled themselves by revealing they were NSA agents, yet Dexter was the only one who dared to respond so defiantly.

“What?”

“…Keep being disrespectful like that and you might get beaten like a dog.”

“Like a dog?”

“Like a dog.”

Dexter silently laughed at the muscular man’s threat, then threw a punch straight at his face.

-Thwack.

The muscular man caught Dexter’s fist just before it hit his face.

“Wow, that’s NSA quality for sure.”

Dexter said with an impressed smile.

Since coming to Earth, this muscular man was the first person to openly catch his punch.

“Last chance.”

“For what?”

“Take your hand away.”

Dexter was still applying force to his fist, which was why the muscular man gave him one more chance.

Of course, Dexter also considered this an opportunity.

“Why don’t you just take the hit?”

“…Are you asking for a fight?”

The muscular man snorted loudly, then looked at the balding man and said:

“Permission to fight, sir?”

“Ha, go wild.”

‘Go wild?’

Even though the man before him looked rough, he wasn’t an animal, and Dexter was confused by the phrase “go wild” while the muscular man tossed aside Dexter’s fist.

Then he immediately hunched his upper body slightly and extended his arms forward in a guard position, taking a ready stance.

Dexter wasn’t deeply versed in Earth martial arts, so he didn’t recognize the stance, but he could tell it was legitimate.

The aura emanating from the muscular man was incomparable to any other men he had faced so far.

‘So this is what a real expert looks like.’

Dexter’s combat instinct, which he hadn’t needed to use recently, made his arms tingle.

To test the man’s skill level, Dexter made a light provocation:

“I’ll give you three chances to attack.”

“…What?”

“You look so amateur that I’ll let you hit me three times.”

Dexter’s taunt was effective, as the muscular man charged forward aggressively and shouted:

“You bastard!”

As the muscular man rushed toward Dexter’s lower body with tiger-like ferocity, Dexter tried to dodge.

But regardless of his size, the man approached faster than expected and grabbed Dexter’s leg.

Then he pulled on the leg, trying to topple Dexter by pushing against him.

“Nnngh!”

Despite the man’s efforts, Dexter was hopping backward on one leg, stubbornly maintaining his balance.

“Are you mocking me?!”

“I’m not mocking you. Is that jiu-jitsu or whatever?”

“That’s right!”

‘So debt collection robots learned jiu-jitsu.’

The technique seemed familiar because it was what Eliya’s debt collection robots used.

-Thud, thud!

Dexter immediately drove his elbows down onto the man’s shoulder joints, hoping he would release his leg, but the man wouldn’t let go so easily.

Of course, enduring and feeling pain were two different things.

The muscular man, who had assumed Dexter was just a prison guard who enjoyed working out, was barely enduring the numbing pain in his shoulders while trying to take Dexter down.

Seeing the muscular man still holding on despite Dexter’s own considerable strength, Dexter began vigorously slapping the man’s back with his open palm like a drum.

-Slap, slap, slap, SLAP!

The force behind Dexter’s palm strikes was beyond what the muscular man could endure.

“Just let go instead of trying to hold on!”

But the man couldn’t do that out of pride.

“Nnnngh!”

Finally, summoning all his strength, the man gripped Dexter’s leg tightly and tried to flip him over like overturning a table.

-Whoosh!

“Whoop.”

Dexter made a strange sound as he fell backward.

While Dexter was caught off guard by the unexpected force, the muscular man, his face flushed red, fell into Dexter’s arms and tried to lock Dexter’s legs with his own.

“Ah, this isn’t right…!”

“Shut up!”

When Dexter shook his head and spoke mockingly about the situation, the man replied in an angrier voice than before.

Of course, Dexter expected the muscular man to restrain his limbs and then mercilessly punch his face, but having the man in his arms felt awkward.

That awkward feeling also stemmed from knowing he could defeat the muscular man, so Dexter wrapped his legs around the man’s waist and said:

“When I was in middle school, I watched a nature documentary.”

“…What are you talking about in the middle of a fight?”

The man tried to twist his waist to prevent Dexter’s legs from reaching it, but Dexter’s legs had already wrapped around the man’s waist long ago.

Moreover, Dexter had crossed his feet to make it difficult to break free, and continued:

“Large anacondas wrap around their prey and then squeeze until they break the spine and kill them.”

“…So you’re going to fight dirty like this?”

When the man spoke as if Dexter should be ashamed, Dexter responded with a snicker:

“Come on. Dirty? You do whatever it takes to win. Does just trading punches guarantee victory?”

Then he began squeezing with his legs wrapped around the man’s waist.

“Nngh.”

“Just surrender gracefully.”

But when the man tried to resist, Dexter shook his head and placed both hands near the man’s thick neck, firmly gripping both sides of his Adam’s apple.

The man knew roughly what Dexter was trying to do and attempted to avoid it, but couldn’t escape due to Dexter’s legs strongly squeezing his waist.

“…Guh, do you have no martial honor?!”

“What honor? Winning is everything, my friend.”

What Dexter was gripping with both hands was the carotid artery.

When the carotid artery is compressed for a short time, the body mistakes it for increased blood pressure and reduces the heart rate.

Sometimes called the “Choking game,” Dexter had occasionally seen friends doing it when he was young.

‘Of course, good children shouldn’t imitate this.’

As Dexter applied pressure for a short time, the man’s gaze began to waver, and he spoke in a weakened voice:

“This… isn’t the kind of fight… I expected…”

-Thump.

The man passed out and fell into Dexter’s arms.

After easily taking down a man as large as himself, Dexter heard the balding man swallow hard and ask:

“…Who are you?”

“Sigh. Don’t make me say it three times.”

Dexter pushed away the fallen man, dusted off his clothes as he stood up, and said:

“What were you planning to do to Mr. Pilgrim?”

“…That man is engaging in activities that threaten national security.”

It was an obvious line.

“I doubt you’d tell me what those activities are even if I asked. You were planning to harass and threaten Mr. Pilgrim for following aliens around, weren’t you? And if you didn’t like what you saw…”

Dexter made a slitting motion across his throat with his finger.

Sensing the distrust toward the NSA in his words and actions, the balding man spoke:

“…We’re not those kinds of people.”

“Yeah, right. Anyone who knows NSA’s reputation would understand.”

Dexter could tell that the balding man’s accompaniment by a highly skilled agent meant he wasn’t here to make William an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Dexter kicked the balding man’s feet outward and made him spread his arms.

He was searching the balding man for any other weapons that might be used to harm William.

“What do you think you’re doing…?”

“I knocked out your subordinate, you think I can’t do the same to you? Just cooperate quietly.”

Faced with Dexter’s threat delivered with bared teeth, the balding man reluctantly kept quiet while Dexter found a rectangular object in the inner pocket of his suit.

Opening what looked like a small cigar box, Dexter found exactly what he had guessed: an unlabeled vial for injection and a disposable syringe inside.

“Unbelievable. I was just guessing, but you actually have it?”

Before the man could say anything, Dexter grabbed the vial and threw it hard on the ground.

-Crash.

Dexter imagined William helplessly receiving the drug if he hadn’t been here, and looked at the balding man who was staring at him in shock.

“Anything to say?”

“…You’re protecting a man who’s causing serious damage to national security.”

“National security?”

Dexter smirked and whispered so only the man could hear:

“OSA.”

When the word that shouldn’t have come from Dexter’s mouth was spoken, the balding man’s expression turned serious.

“How do you…”

“Honorary Agent Dexter Hughes.”

Dexter pulled out an OSA universal ID card.

The universal ID clearly showed OSA’s starlight emblem along with Dexter’s face and position.

The balding man was high-ranking enough to know about OSA, information not disclosed even within the NSA.

Upon learning that Dexter, whom he had assumed was just a regular prison guard, was actually an OSA honorary agent, the thin pretext of “protecting national security” vanished.

“If Mr. Pilgrim tells me the NSA came looking for him again, I’ll send an official letter, so keep that in mind.”

“…Why is OSA protecting a lunatic?”

“Because he’s not a lunatic. You idiot… He’s someone with OSA classified information, and he’s the reason I came all this way. How about NSA stops concerning itself with Mr. Pilgrim from now on?”

When Dexter spoke casually with profanity, the balding man’s face hardened again and he didn’t respond.

Of course, Dexter couldn’t care less.

“OSA must have requested that you not approach Mr. Pilgrim, so who was the bastard who ignored that?”

“…I can’t say.”

“Huh, I figured as much.”

Dexter pointed at the muscular man lying on the ground and said:

“Take this guy and get out.”

“…Is this OSA’s official position?”

“What difference does it make if it’s official or unofficial? Will you take responsibility if ‘Earth security’ is endangered because of your petty ‘national security’?”

Dexter didn’t know if Pilgrim was dangerous enough to warrant the NSA administering an unknown drug to him.

However, there was no reason someone should be labeled a lunatic just for making exceptional deductions.

“So I said get out now. If you have complaints, take them to the OSA Deputy Director.”

Dexter threw the Deputy Director under the bus to avoid taking responsibility himself, and the balding man gritted his teeth and said:

“I’ll remember this.”

“Just forget it and don’t come back.”

He wished the man would get dementia and completely forget about this.

After the balding man struggled to support the muscular man and quietly disappeared, Dexter wiped the sweat that had formed on his forehead and said:

“If I hadn’t come today, this could have gone to shit.”

With a sigh of relief, Dexter sent a thank-you message to Himena who had warned him, and went back into the container.