Chapter 36 Part 1: Commission – Head Removal

“…Come to think of it, Ms. Ella, do you not smoke?”

“Huh? I don’t, why?”

Why is she asking that out of the blue?

I stopped looking at the screen of the laptop, leaned back comfortably in my chair, and looked at Haran.

I’ve never shown her that I smoke or anything like that, so why is she suddenly bringing up cigarettes?

“Well, I thought most people would smoke in the neighborhood where Ms. Ella lived…?”

“You know that’s a prejudice, right?”

“Those kinds of stories don’t matter, right? It’s probably true anyway.”

…It’s even more absurd that it’s not exactly wrong.

I actually saw somewhere a research result that a significant portion of Neo City’s pollution is due to cigarette smoke.

It was a statement full of prejudice, but I opened my mouth to her as if to make excuses because I heard a story that I couldn’t exactly refute because it was true.

“I can’t help it. Everyone wants to relieve stress. It’s hard to endure without alcohol and cigarettes.”

“If it’s hard to live, shouldn’t you save the money you would spend on those things and add it to your livelihood?”

“Well, that’s true, but…. There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to use the money you’ve saved, right?”

“…Ah.”

Everyone knows.

That if they save the money they would spend on alcohol and cigarettes, they can live a slightly better life.

…But, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to use the money you’ve saved, right?

In order to survive safely in Neo City, you need a lot of money, but paradoxically, if you have a lot of money, danger comes.

The rumor that you have a lot of money spreads, and your next-door neighbor putting lead bullets in a gun and aiming at your head is a common occurrence.

If you die without being able to use the money you worked so hard to save, you do what you want with the money you have now.

Most people thought that way, and that’s why people couldn’t escape the cycle of poverty.

“I used to be like that too. I used to smoke cigarettes, do what I wanted…. I lived like that.”

“Are you saying you’re not now?”

“That’s right. I changed to a machine body, so what good are cigarettes or drugs?”

“…Drugs?”

“Ah. …There’s something like that.”

I realized that I had made a slip of the tongue for a moment and my face hardened in an instant, but fortunately Haran didn’t seem to notice my slip of the tongue.

She nodded nonchalantly and started asking other questions.

Maybe, even though she noticed, she didn’t bother to bring it up as a topic.

“I see. Leaving that story aside, what exactly can that body do? I was so curious about this.”

“It has this and that. It can respond to most situations. It’s made like that. To the extent that you can fight to some extent even without a gun.”

“Really? It doesn’t really seem like it. No matter how much it’s a machine body, the volume is….”

“There are also weapons that have nothing to do with volume.”

“…?”

For Haran, who didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about, I decided to give her an example so that she could easily understand.

It would be faster to show her directly than to explain it with words.

I pointed my finger at the empty can on the desk, and Haran looked at it with a questioning expression.

“Why is that? There’s nothing… Kyaaak?!”

“How about it?”

“The, there was clearly nothing…?!”

Haran, who didn’t notice what happened to the can that was suddenly cut off.

She looked closely at the can, and soon seemed to realize what had happened.

“…String?”

“It’s a wire. You can touch it, but be careful. If you’re not careful, your hand might get cut off.”

“Hiiiik.”

Haran, who was reaching out her hand to the string out of curiosity, pulled her hand away in an instant as if terrified at my warning.

It seems that she doesn’t think I’m making a joke. It was a wise decision.

The outer part is coated with a special treatment, so the cutting power is reduced unless you decide to use it as a weapon…

But if you accidentally touch the part where the coating is peeled off, that part will be cleanly cut off.

It’s better not to touch it.

“W-What do you use something like this for?”

“There are many places to use it? Typically… infiltration or something like that.”

It’s a thing that I mainly used when I received a request to steal a company’s secrets.

You can’t use a gun if something happens that you have to handle without being caught by other people.

In movies and cartoons, silencers are depicted as if they are barely audible, but in fact, silencers don’t reduce noise much.

If silencers reduced noise as much as they are depicted in those media, there would be no need to use earmuffs at the shooting range. Because you can just wear a silencer.

You can’t carry a knife to infiltrate.

Of course, there’s also a knife for close combat stored in my body… But the knife is basically a cumbersome tool.

If you hide and go into a small place where only one person can barely enter, you’re likely to be caught if you carry such a thing.

Therefore, this monomolecular cutter technology applied wire, which can be hidden inside the fingernails and can easily cut down a few people, was more useful than I thought.

“Besides that, you can also use it when you’re too lazy to peel fruit. It’s very convenient. Shall I show you?”

“You only use such technology for that….”

“What about it. It’s good if it’s convenient, if it’s convenient.”

When I showed her off by peeling an apple with a wire that was barely visible to the eye, Haran looked at me as if she was dumbfounded.

I wonder if she even thought about what would happen if it accidentally touched my body. Her complexion was quite pale.

…Well, Haran’s worries aren’t exactly wrong, are they?

In fact, I’ve lost my arms or legs myself because I was messing around.

If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s easy to repair because it’s a mechanical body, I would have died by now.

But even though I’ve experienced such things many times, I couldn’t give up this prank.

It’s fun.

“Well, shall we slowly stop this trivial story? Haran, get ready. Because we have to work soon.”

“Work? …No one has requested it yet, though?”

“That’s true, but…. There are times when you have to take action in advance.”

I move for someone’s revenge. This is the rule when I work.

But, even though it’s a mechanical body like this, I’m also human.

I try to keep the rules, but sometimes I break away from the rules myself.

As a result, there were a few people who resented me.

And, that didn’t change even after coming to this world.

“Remember? That guy who was flirting with me.”

“…The person whose head flew off?”

“Yeah, that guy. It seems like he’s slowly starting to get his tail caught. Flies are flying around him.”

As if the words that he was the son of a high-ranking person weren’t a lie, it seemed that he had slowly noticed that I was living in this neighborhood, even though it hadn’t been long since I settled down here.

When I slightly lifted the curtain that was blocking the sunlight, I could see a few people walking around the street as if nothing was wrong.

On the surface, it’s just a peaceful afternoon…

That man has already gone around that place for the fourth time, and the woman who is looking around the store has been standing there for two days already.

In addition, there are four people hiding in the corner and monitoring here.

Either they’re half sure, or their power is so great that they can deploy that personnel to suspicious areas. It must be one of the two.

It’s just a feeling, but I thought it was the former.

“The range of activity was narrow, though. Still, they’re coming to find me faster than I thought.”

“Wh, what should we do then?”

“What should we do? I told you. We have to take some action in advance.”

Because my job is to kill people, I can’t openly come out into the light, but I can’t keep running away into the darkness to avoid those guys.

I didn’t want to leave this place where the office has already been established to operate stably to some extent.

I can’t do it if I have to, but it’s too inefficient to keep doing that.

Then there’s only one way.

“It’s just as well. I was thinking that it was getting a little difficult with just word of mouth.”

“…Surely, it’s not what I’m thinking, right?”

“Well. I think it’s probably right.”

“Oh my god….”

The current office is far from being famous, and is now only in the stage of gaining word of mouth.

…But it’s also true that there aren’t that many people who want revenge, even if it’s word of mouth.

Even if you spread the revenge that you do only once in your life by word of mouth, it’s not that efficient.

I’m famous, but only as a criminal. Potential customers don’t even know that I’m running an office.

There was a need to make the office a place that everyone knew by borrowing my infamy.

Then, naturally, retaliation from other people will come in…

No matter how high-ranking they are, I have to create a precedent so that they can’t easily attack.

“It’s a big organization, so it’s perfect. It’ll be lonely if only the son goes to the afterlife, so I have to send his father too.”

“…Isn’t that too cruel?”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to kill the employees. Taking only the head’s head is enough to give a warning.”

“That’s not what I mean….”

Is she talking about the guilt of sending parents along with their son?

What’s the point of caring about that now.

The blood on my hands is enough to make a river.