Ch.76Chapter 13. Counterattack (8)

The decision was made.

Whether it was truly the right decision or not, even I couldn’t be sure, but there was no other option.

Hayun pressed the pager.

We didn’t have to wait long for a response.

[Hayun!?]

A voice came through the pager.

It was completely a human voice, but it probably wasn’t the Squeakean’s actual voice.

They must have a translation device attached to their neck like James. Otherwise, they wouldn’t even be able to mimic a human voice.

“Cherry. I have a favor to ask.”

The situation was so urgent that Hayun skipped any greeting and went straight to the point.

[Yes. A favor?]

Surprisingly, the other person… Cherry, didn’t seem particularly flustered by Hayun’s words.

Perhaps they had been expecting our call.

No, come to think of it, the fact that we hadn’t contacted anyone until now might have been the unexpected thing. Our situation required someone’s help even without this bomb. It was actually miraculous that we had managed to hold out this long without asking anyone for help.

“…”

Hayun’s expression became thoughtful for a brief moment.

Even if the pager had been modified to remove tracking capabilities, “communication” still meant being connected to someone.

It didn’t matter that the police already knew our location, but there was a good chance that others could be eavesdropping on our conversation.

No, they definitely would be. They would need information about us.

They would be looking for any hints in every word we said.

“…Wait, could you come here? You know where we are, right?”

In the end, she didn’t mention what was happening here.

Saying “there’s a bomb” might seem like something that would be okay to mention.

This is a civilian area, and if we just added that we didn’t install it, or even just the fact that we were calling someone to help “disarm” the bomb, that information alone wouldn’t be enough to label us as terrorists.

But the other side was already using any means necessary. So it was best not to even mention the word “bomb.” We didn’t know how they might use it.

With AI and other technologies, being cautious might be meaningless anyway.

[…]

Only breathing sounds came through the pager for a moment. It seemed a bit tense and shaky.

[Okay. I’m coming now.]

But the other person soon answered like that.

All three of us exhaled deeply.

James was still inside the drone, so I couldn’t see his expression.

But I was certain it wasn’t a pleasant one.

*

“Cherry” arrived after I had broken through the floor and extracted the bomb.

Just to be safe, I scanned the area again, and using a marker I found in a half-broken desk, I drew a large circle around where I thought the bomb was located based on the scan, then carefully broke through the floor bit by bit.

At first glance, the floor appeared to be made entirely of thick marble, but that particular section was unusually thin. Still, it was stone, so it wasn’t easy to break, but at least I could completely crack the surface and clear it away.

And then.

“This is…”

Hayun muttered, swallowing hard.

What was buried underneath was a massive circuit. A circuit so large it was embarrassing to compare it to the ones that I, Hayun, and Iris wore on our wrists.

When they said bomb, I had imagined something like an anti-tank mine, but seeing it now, it appeared to be at least a meter in diameter. Plus, the circuit was suspiciously glowing and vibrating.

The vibration seemed to intensify after I removed the stone slab covering it.

“…What do you think?”

When I asked James, he remained silent for a moment.

“It’s extremely unstable. Made incredibly crudely.”

Honestly, I couldn’t tell much by looking at it. I suppose the Squeakean had his own criteria for judgment. After all, circuits were the work of his people.

“Can it be disarmed?”

“I’m not sure.”

James’s drone descended.

After getting out of the drone, James stood at the edge of the hole, placing his hand on his chin in thought.

“As I mentioned earlier, if we make even one wrong move while disarming it, it will explode.”

“…But there is a possibility?”

“There’s always a possibility if we’re just talking about chances. But I won’t know until we try.”

I, Hayun, and Iris looked at each other.

While we were momentarily silent—

There was a commotion outside.

We could hear police officers shouting and moving around busily, trying to resolve something—

Then there was a squeaking sound, followed by a noise similar to James’s drone, and something flew in through the broken window.

I caught it almost instinctively.

In retrospect, it wasn’t the wisest choice. The drone had four spinning propellers attached, and I could have easily cut my hand on them.

Fortunately, I managed to grab the “middle” part.

“Uh, uh… Aah!?”

Unlike James’s drone, this one had no top cover, and sitting on it was a pink-furred hamster that looked very similar to James.

It had quite large ears for a hamster, and a fluffy tail. This Squeakean must be “Cherry” that Hayun mentioned.

I felt like I might have seen it once before.

“Uh, uh, uh…?”

Perhaps because our eyes met, “Cherry” seemed very flustered. After looking around and making eye contact with Hayun, it looked back up at me.

“…”

Feeling it would be a bit cruel to torment it further, I carefully placed it down.

“Uah, uh, thank you.”

Cherry said that and quickly scurried over to Hayun’s feet.

“Cherry!”

“Hayun!”

When Hayun picked up Cherry with her hands, Cherry shouted toward Hayun as if extremely happy to see her.

“Are you okay!? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“Yes. I’m fine. What about you? Are you hurt?”

“Ah, yes. Thanks to that person catching me…”

“As delightful as this reunion is.”

But their conversation didn’t continue for long.

There was another ill-tempered Squeakean here who found people happily chatting after a long time apart quite distasteful.

“If we don’t focus on this soon, it might explode. I assume none of us want to die together?”

“…”

At James’s words, Hayun carefully set Cherry down at her feet.

Cherry seemed to finally notice the circuit we had exposed by breaking through the floor.

“…This!?”

It seemed that even to Cherry’s eyes, this circuit was operating in an extremely unstable manner.

“It seems to be a circuit designed to explode in response to my mana. Too much mana will make it explode, and now it would be problematic if the supply is cut off. If the stable state is disrupted, it will become even more uncontrollable.”

Cherry seemed to understand the situation just from my explanation.

“What is this…?”

Though it seemed they didn’t properly know the identity of this bomb.

At least I could tell they weren’t involved with this bomb.

“Well, I suppose so.”

Noticing my look and seemingly understanding what I was thinking, James spoke.

“We could weaponize circuits, but if it were us, we would have used a much more sophisticated method.”

“What are you saying?”

Cherry took offense at James’s words.

“Sophisticated or not, we wouldn’t plant a bomb in the middle of a place full of civilians!”

James immediately looked up at me with an expression of extreme displeasure.

“What can we do? We need to deal with this before we can leave. You said you couldn’t handle it alone, right?”

At my words, James gritted his teeth but climbed onto the bomb.

“Well then, let’s resolve this and leave. Will you help?”

But despite James’s words, Cherry hesitated.

“Why are you hesitating?”

“…I don’t know anything about your circuits. I don’t know how emotions affect them, so what if something goes wrong if I touch them carelessly?”

“You can follow my instructions.”

“If following your instructions was enough, you could do it alone. Isn’t that right?”

James didn’t respond to Cherry’s answer.

“…”

I quietly observed the two of them.

“Do we need to watch?”

“…”

At my question, James once again kept his mouth shut.

After a moment, he removed the translation device from his neck.

Seeing James’s reaction, Cherry also removed their translation device.

The conversation between the two now became squeaking mouse sounds. Since we couldn’t understand their language at all, it looked like nothing more than two hamsters scurrying around on top of complex equipment.

And Hayun was quietly watching the two of them.

Her gaze seemed quite serious.

It could be because of the circuit, or because her friend “Cherry” was up there.

But somehow, I felt like Hayun might be thinking about something else.

A bit belatedly, I could recall the conversation I had with James.

I had confronted James and asked if I “should think positively.”

I glanced up slightly to look at Hayun again.

Her gaze as she looked at the circuit was downcast.

Surely… she’s not thinking about that conversation?

I had been too reckless.

But fortunately, Hayun just watched the two of them manipulating the circuit without saying anything else to me.

*

“…Well, we’ve solved one problem at least.”

James, who had put the translation device back on his neck, said.

“What do you mean solved? The bomb is still there.”

Cherry objected to James’s statement.

“At least we’ve bought time for us to escape, haven’t we?”

“Hey.”

Cherry opened their mouth in disbelief at James’s words.

“Are you saying we should just leave this bomb here and run away? It will explode just minutes after she creates a black hole!”

“What do you mean?”

Hayun asked.

“We’ve modified the bomb’s circuit a bit.”

Cherry immediately answered Hayun’s question.

“But in such a short time, it’s not easy to modify something that might explode if touched incorrectly. What we could do wasn’t to ‘prevent it from exploding’ but just to ‘delay the explosion time.'”

“…And?”

When I asked, this time James answered.

“It means we can’t prevent it from exploding at this point. It’s already too unstable for a complete solution. If we really want to resolve it, the only option is the traditional method of handling explosives.”

Move everyone back and let it explode.

Yes, that’s certainly the traditional approach—

“But if we do that, rumors will spread that Jieun planted the bomb here.”

“And what would you suggest we do?”

James said.

“Either we all die together in the explosion, or some of us survive and only the bomb explodes. If I had to choose between the two, the latter is obviously better.”

“…”

No one could respond to that.

“Then, should we move the police back? By shouting that there’s a bomb installed?”

I quietly asked.

Everyone’s attention turned to me.

The circuit was vibrating. Both the circuit on my wrist and the one buried under the floor.

James looked at the situation and put his hand to his forehead.

“…We might not have time for that. And I doubt the police would listen so easily. They might try to send experts inside.”

“Is there a way to control the circuit from outside?”

Iris, who had been lost in thought for a moment, brought up another idea.

“…”

All of our attention turned to Iris.

“I mean, if we tell them there’s a bomb, and for whatever reason, they don’t believe it and send someone inside. We could choose to detonate it right at that moment, couldn’t we?”

“That’s…”

James closed his mouth.

“We didn’t see any communication equipment. However, since we haven’t thoroughly examined the underside, I can’t be certain.”

With another possibility eliminated, I clutched my head.

The two circuits vibrated more intensely.

“J-just a moment, c-calm down…!”

Perhaps because he had heard about my emotions from James, Cherry spoke to me in alarm.

“…Let’s just take this one step at a time, starting with the simplest thing.”

Hayun summarized the situation.

“First, we need to talk to them.”

“…Should I go out?”

“…No, sorry.”

Hayun shook her head at my question.

“This is something Iris or I should do.”

Because my emotions are unstable right now.

If my blood pressure rises while talking to the police, it could explode without giving us time to react. When it was buried under the ground, the circuit’s condition wasn’t visible, so the sense of crisis wasn’t as severe as it is now, but seeing it, the circuit was responding sensitively to my emotions.

Even if I removed the circuit from my wrist, it would probably explode at that moment.

I tried not to think about the chairman’s face. I still don’t know exactly when I feel despair, but I do know that negative thoughts are dangerous.

I barely managed to nod to Hayun.

*

To put it simply, it worked.

Of course, it wasn’t particularly good for me.

No matter how much Hayun and Iris insisted that I wasn’t the one who installed it, the police wouldn’t believe it.

They’ve probably dealt with similar situations before.

The two were already known to be with me, and if that’s the case, the police wouldn’t believe what accomplices say.

The one fortunate thing was that civilians other than the police were also evacuating diligently.

They must be wealthy people. They’ll definitely save their own lives.

“…”

And as I listened to those conversations, I tried my best to control my emotions.

Even though it had been somewhat stabilized and wouldn’t explode immediately after creating a black hole, I still needed to be careful.

I was thinking maybe the others could escape first and I could escape later, but for some reason, Hayun and Iris didn’t want that.

If something went seriously wrong and “I” collapsed injured, then Hayun and Iris would need to move me.

We still don’t know exactly where the other three people who aren’t with us are. We only have a way to get there based on my imprecise senses.

So, to make everything go smoothly, I had to endure.

After seeing the police retreat from outside, Hayun came back in.

“…They’ve all pulled back for now. We said a 50-meter radius, so they’ll probably retreat even further than that. But…”

That didn’t take long.

There’s a bit of uneasiness. If they were following protocol, they wouldn’t just evacuate immediately, but would search each house to see if anyone was left behind.

Just because it’s a wealthy neighborhood doesn’t mean there aren’t people with mobility issues. There might be elderly people being cared for at home.

How long would it take to check all of that?

Plus, I’m not sure if those wealthy residents would allow other police to enter their homes. How much do people know about the situation here? How many were able to escape while we were causing a disturbance?

“…”

Hayun seemed to be thinking the same thing as me for a moment.

“Can we move this circuit?”

James and Cherry simultaneously looked at Hayun.

“Moving it might be possible. But…”

“Based on Iris’s earlier thoughts, that seems like a very dangerous option.”

Fortunately, the circuit doesn’t have a camera. It was buried under the floor and set to explode when we tried to escape, so it didn’t need one.

But there might still be a remote detonator.

If so, attempting to move the circuit itself would be dangerous.

Iris’s warp isn’t omnipotent either. It wasn’t a fully completed technology to begin with, so it can only move objects to random coordinates that aren’t too far away and don’t overlap with other objects, or transport people one by one.

Moving people to specific coordinates is even more difficult. In space, moving a spaceship doesn’t require complex calculations. It’s just fixed coordinates.

But Earth rotates while also revolving around the sun. Warp points from one surface location to another need to move stably along with that.

It’s possible to create a large warp point using enormous energy. If you invest budget and manpower, you can create that “specific coordinate,” calculate the movement, and design a large device that consumes massive energy.

Iris is a child who can do that alone. That’s why she’s a genius.

…If she’s “prepared.” If there’s other advanced mana equipment available.

Neither is possible here.

“…There’s no point in considering each of these possibilities one by one. You know? If they could make such a device, they could also make it explode the moment it’s moved.”

“Which means we shouldn’t move it.”

James said with a slightly agitated voice.

“If we assume such a thing exists, we definitely shouldn’t move it!”

“…”

What should we do?

Should we consider the possibility that people might still be in the area?

Or should we leave it here and watch it explode?

“…I’ll do it.”

“Huh?”

Hayun responded to my words with a bit of surprise.

“What, were you going to do it?”

I replied as if it was absurd.

“Explosives aren’t something to be handled in the middle of a city. If there was an open space somewhere, maybe, but if it explodes in this neighborhood… you all know, right?”

As I looked around while asking, everyone remained silent.

“I don’t even need a black hole. I can… fly too.”

Plus, I’m strong enough to swing that huge hammer without any effort.

So, this was something I had to resolve.

“But—”

“Regardless of justice or whatever, this needs to stay near me, right?”

Actually, this was a possibility I had been considering from the beginning.

It’s just… a choice I had been putting off until the very end.

But what can we do? If there’s no other way…

I walked over steadily and picked up the circuit.

“Wait, Jieun!”

Why?

You said you couldn’t let it explode here either.

“If the explosion radius is 50 meters, that means I need to fly higher than that into the air, right?”

“Wait a moment.”

Iris said.

But I didn’t bother listening.

…I’m a petty villain who joined a company that openly commits evil acts out of jealousy for the protagonist. Honestly, even now I can’t hide my jealousy of Hayun.

But that doesn’t mean I want to become a murderer. Being treated like one is already enough.

At least in the first explosion, there was nothing I could do. I didn’t even know there was a bomb there.

Now, it’s different. It’s completely different from then.

I know there’s a bomb, and I know that if I let it explode, people might die.

Then pretending not to know would be no different from murder.

I may be a petty villain, but I don’t intend to become a true villain. What I’ve always wanted was just the protagonist’s position.

Giving up because I couldn’t do it led to the current result.

“How long after I create a black hole will it explode?”

“…Well, about 3 seconds maybe? There will be some time before it overloads.”

The extra time they created was just 3 seconds.

“But if it receives too much mana before that, then even I can’t predict what will happen.”

“Hey, what are you talking about? We need to stop her!”

The circuit I was holding was vibrating. It was getting hot. Like it could explode at any moment.

Unlike the protagonists, I was feeling more fear than courage right now.

And also helplessness and despair.

But I don’t intend to die.

If I’m going to die, I’ll at least strike back properly first.

“What about putting it into a black hole?”

“It would explode the moment it enters. Your black hole is pure mana. It’s impossible to reduce the explosion. Just because it explodes in the middle of momentarily connected spaces doesn’t mean the explosion won’t burst outward.”

“Jieun!”

Hayun ran toward me, but I held the circuit in front of my chest.

“I’ll be back.”

“Wait, wait! There must be a way!”

Iris shouted.

“But there’s no time.”

I instinctively felt it as I looked at the vibrating circuit.

“…This circuit doesn’t have time to withstand my emotions.”

My eyes met Hayun’s.

About a second later, Hayun lunged toward me.

But I had already turned around and was running.

I threw myself out through the broken window.

Rolling on the ground and getting up, I flew powerfully toward the sky.

Without time to look down, I soared upward with all my might, and the circuit reacted to my mana, shaking violently and growing hotter.

How high have I gone? How much longer can the circuit hold?

When the temperature I felt on my skin became very cold, I threw the circuit upward with all my strength.

And I cut off my mana.

I felt the sensation of being on an amusement park ride that suddenly drops.

The circuit rising high, and me falling below.

The distance between us was quite far, but if you asked whether I could avoid being caught in the explosion, the answer was no.

The circuit shone brightly.

It was a bright light for a circuit returning to despair—

And then I felt someone pulling me from below.

My vision flipped, and there was Hayun.

“Hayun?”

“It’s okay.”

Hayun grinned, then,

“Here, just a moment!”

Before I could say anything, she hugged me and spun her body around.

So that her back was facing the circuit.

And then we were both caught in the explosion.