episode_0035

“It’s a chaotic time, so rumors spread even faster. A gang that was here yesterday might be gone today.”

The saying that a word without feet travels a thousand li is now outdated, as it’s an era where things travel not just a thousand li, but a hundred thousand li with ease. [a proverb about how rumors spread quickly]

Rumors of this extent could certainly spread quickly.

“Eheheh~”

“You drank that much and you’re still drinking?”

Even though Shirokitsune had drunk enough to make even a detox-enhanced liver scream, she didn’t seem tired of it. She exuded a sweet scent of alcohol again as she leaped onto my lap and rolled around.

I felt like my clothes were soaking up the smell of alcohol.

Then, as if telling me to drink too, she lightly pressed a half-empty, chilled, cool can against my cheek, just like when we first met.

“At least give me a new one. Don’t give me what you’ve been drinking.”

“Bweeeeh~ I’m here~”

Shirokitsune, perhaps a little tipsy, flailed her arms and wagged her tail as I pulled her tongue, which was sticking out from her slightly parted lips.

She looked exactly like a seductive femme fatale, but she acted like an idiot.

Alcohol is truly dangerous.

Still, I wasn’t the type to waste what was offered, so I drank the alcohol.

[Risk of pathogen infection…]

‘I won’t die.’

Since the fox sisters’ request wasn’t finished, I went along with the audacious task of walking directly into the heart of a gang’s hideout to make a deal, rather than just designating their rendezvous point.

And here, the rumor that I brought a mercenary from Rune’s Bar proved effective.

This was because the newly formed gangs in Japantown didn’t want to pick a fight with a major mercenary group whose name was frequently mentioned among many mercenaries and gangs.

The task was easily resolved thanks to the performance of walking into the mouth of an enemy gang—something not possible without considerable guts—and my presence protecting her.

It was truly the tyranny of a fox borrowing the tiger’s might! [a proverb about a weak entity wielding power by associating with a stronger one]

Of course, while it was close to blackmail, her resourcefulness in gathering enough information to make a deal and her negotiation skills showed she wasn’t just a greenhorn relying solely on the name of Rune’s Bar.

Anyway, after just three escorts, the street gangs groveled before K.I.T.S.U.N.E, who had been a minor group, and my title became Hyung-nim.

“To think we’d take over a whole street in just a week.”

“It’s a good thing those guys heard the name Rune’s Bar and groveled on their own. Without Jyun, this never would have happened.”

“Call me Jun, or at least John, not Jyun.”

Now there’s even someone calling me by a Japanese-style name, not even an American one.

Today, as usual, I drove the two, who had feasted on the gangs’ bones and flesh, in my sports car, giving them a ride as I drove through the streets of Japantown.

“By the way, it seems there are a lot of people trying to imitate us, so escort requests are increasing. I doubt any major mercenaries would fall for it, though.”

“But you guys succeeded.”

“Contacting a fixer who has connections with a strong mercenary group is also a skill. There are many clients, and even skilled mercenaries only have one body, after all.”

That’s certainly true.

Furthermore, even if you could contact them, hypothetically speaking, if a mercenary group is powerful enough for a former director of EPSB to directly submit a request, it would be more profitable for them to take on requests from such big spenders rather than doing these trivial jobs.

Even I wouldn’t have been introduced to this job if I wasn’t desperate for money, so luck must also be a factor.

“Does Jyun want fox ears too?”

“What good would it do to put those on a dark-skinned man?”

“It’d be good for us~”

Yuki suddenly leaned forward from the back seat and hugged my shoulder.

A sweet scent wafted into my nose, and the tips of her ears tickled my cheek.

If I had been driving manually, it surely would have caused an accident, but with the auto-driving system and Ayakashi’s driving assistance, the car didn’t waver an inch.

“Asking me to wear fox ears means joining K.I.T.S.U.N.E. Sorry, but I owe my friend a lot, so if I changed affiliations, I’d get beaten up, you know?”

“It’s fine if you don’t join~”

“It’s dangerous, so just sit properly.”

Since she showed no signs of letting go, I covered the space between her perky ears on top of her head with my palm and scratched. Yuki slowly stiffened, showing the whites of her eyes, as if feeling something strange.

As her white, luscious tail thrashed roughly, Kana, who was in the back and getting hit, couldn’t stand it anymore and pulled her away.

After that brief commotion, the fuel indicator light on the dashboard glowed red.

“Time to charge up soon.”

There was enough fuel left to get to the hideout, but it would be annoying to go to a charging station separately to buy fuel cells.

I turned the car around and headed for the charging station.

Charging stations were legally designated to be located off the main roads to eliminate subtle time delays caused by entering and exiting, so I drove along a wide six-lane road.

‘Hm?’

As I was thinking that the fuel efficiency seemed unnecessarily poor and preparing to enter the charging station, a car appeared on the rear camera, approaching at a considerable speed.

The road was spacious, so I didn’t pay it any mind, assuming it would just go around. However, the car, tailgating me closely in the same lane, seemed to have no intention of slowing down and was pressing the accelerator even harder.

“Oh, wait…”

The autonomous driving system detected the high-speed approach from the rear and sharply swerved to change lanes, but the speed exceeded expectations!

*CRASH!* With a huge impact from behind, my body was thrown forward, then pulled back by the seatbelt, slamming my back against the seat.

It didn’t stop there. As the incredibly fast vehicle grazed and struck, rotational force was added, causing my car, which had been sharply turning, to spin several times before slamming head-first into a wall.

Behind me, I heard the fox sisters’ screams.

“Kuaaaak!!! You motherf…!”

[Body damage rate 27%. Suspension damage, bearing damage, steering damage.]

The dashboard flashed red, and through the wildly spinning window, the culprits who had totaled my car were opening their doors and getting out.

Each of them held a submachine gun.

-[“Lock-on”]

-[“Lock-on”]

-[“Lock-on”]

-[“Lock-on”]

With gun muzzles aimed at the smoking, barely stopped car, I immediately tore off the seatbelt, which had served its purpose, then broke through the seat and threw my body towards the two who lay sprawled in the back.

“Hghhh… Jyun.”

“An, an attack?”

Kana and Yuki, their eyes hazy, barely found me, perhaps still disoriented from the impact.

I pulled them into a crushing embrace, wrapping them in my coat and completely burying them within my arms.

“Don’t raise your heads! Duck!”

The two followed my words, crouching down to minimize their exposed area.

Finally, I covered my head with the smash grenade, preparing for the incoming gunfire.

*RAT-TAT-TAT!*

Gyrojet bullets easily pierced the unarmored car body.

Tens of bullets per second continuously slammed into my coat and body.

“Kghhh…!”

The subcutaneous armor plating implanted in me could block pistol bullets, and even assault rifle bullets, if not sniper rifle rounds.

Even so, it hurt to be hit.

Feeling a full-body pain as if being beaten with a club, I took every single bullet that would have rained down on the two.

“Jyun!”

“This much won’t kill me…!”

I reassured the two, who were looking up at me with startled eyes, and waited for the wave of bullets to end.

*Ting-* A bullet that struck the smash grenade peeled off the artificial skin and ricocheted away, and my bulletproof coat violently fluttered.

Had it been about a minute like that?

Looking at the door, which was utterly shredded and virtually indistinguishable from being fully penetrated, I lifted my head.

“Damn it! He’s still alive! Reload!”

The attackers who had ambushed us were terrified when I stood up completely unharmed and frantically reloaded, but unfortunately, I was in a very bad mood.

“To think 35,000 credits, earned while bleeding profusely, just vanished like that.”

With such a large sum of money gone in an instant, I teared up slightly and pulled out the two I had been holding.

“The car might explode, so go far back.”

“But…”

“They’re just guys using submachine guns anyway, so it’s not even dangerous.”

Yuki looked at me with her ears flattened, but I had to catch those damn guys first.

Understanding my intention, Kana took Yuki and evacuated.

“Hoo… What are you guys?”

*CRUNCH!* As I folded the car door, which had become utterly shredded, and walked out, the guys hesitated and pointed their loaded guns, still smoking, at me.

There were four attackers in total.

They wore masks, making it hard to tell where they were from, but I could just catch them and ask.

-[“Lock-on”]

“Disengage.”

-[“Lock-off”]

“Wh-what… Why is it suddenly doing this?!”

The advantage of gyrojet weapons is their extremely high accuracy due to their auto-targeting system, even without aiming. However, their drawback is that since this is computer-assisted, they are highly vulnerable to hacking.

And I was currently receiving support from a powerful AI, more lethal than a professional decker in electronic warfare.

-[“Lock-on/Lock-off/Lock-on/Lock-off/Lock-on/Lock-off”]

“Ugh, ughhh! Damn it! Why’s it malfunctioning now of all times?!”

“Lock-on weapons have a 1-second delay due to their soft-safe. So if you repeat on and off every second, they won’t fire, right?”

“What nonsense are you talking about?!”

As I strode closer, the guys tried to get into their car and escape.

*GRIND!* But the engine died, and their escape plan was thwarted.

Vehicles also rely heavily on autonomous driving systems or control rigs rather than manual steering, so there’s a lot that can be interfered with.

*VROOM!* The dead engine roared back to life, suddenly accelerating and slamming into the wall at an incredible speed, as if intending to completely smash the front that was already crumpled from hitting my car’s rear.

The car, which had burst a water pipe and slammed into the building wall with enough force to lift its rear wheels, then settled back down with a *THUD*, getting washed by the burst pipe.

“Kghhh…”

The guy in the driver’s seat, bleeding and tumbling out through the torn-off door after being struck by the airbag.

The other guys didn’t even have time to fasten their seatbelts, so their heads were smashed from roughly hitting the wall.

“Damn it… I should’ve just driven around in something cheap.”

It was an experience that made me profoundly understand why Jay Q screamed every time Florine got roughed up.

Since what was broken couldn’t be helped, I grabbed the neck of the last remaining attacker, who was crawling on the floor, lifted him up, and tore off his mask.

And the face revealed beneath it was that bald guy I’d seen before.

“Aren’t you that idiot from the porn BD shop? Did you trash my car to get revenge for a broken TV?”

“Kghhh…! H-Even if you’re that guy from Rune’s Bar, if you handle things without any decency like this, do you think you can protect those damn! whores?!”

“That’s because you guys got scared and gave up everything, even tomorrow’s meal.”

It was clearly Bald, the boss of a gang named Brutalism.

“Ah~ I want to cry.”

I aimed my shotgun at his head, pulled a crumpled cigarette from my pocket, and lit it.

Kana and Yuki seemed to realize the situation was over and carefully approached, standing next to me.

“I clearly told you not to set foot in our territory. To ambush us so cowardly.”

“Ah~ That was dangerous. It really could’ve been a huge problem without Jyun~”

“Heheheh… You whores. How long can you last hiding behind a mercenary? Because of you, who hired a mercenary and muddied the waters, outside mercenaries are gathering.”

“That’s a concern you don’t need to have.”

“That mercenary won’t protect you forever, so what are you relying on? Are you going to wiggle your ass and give…”

*BANG!* Bald’s head exploded into fragments.

Brains and blood splattered onto the floor, dirtying it, but the water pouring down like rain from the burst pipe instantly washed away the remnants.

“Since things turned out this way, I’ll have to go collect my compensation directly.”

Kana and Yuki flinched at Bald’s head suddenly blowing off, but I stroked their heads.

The soft touch of their fur soothed my palm, which was tingling from the shotgun’s recoil.

Brutalism ceased to exist as a gang from that day forward.

Their hidden safe was pried open and used as a meager consolation payment, and the various documents and businesses they possessed were handed over for K.I.T.S.U.N.E to absorb.

Thanks to this, it wasn’t a huge gain for me, who had buried several people, but seeing the two happily beside me made me think it was enough.

And it seemed Brutalism had been quite malicious, as more people wanted to join K.I.T.S.U.N.E, which had eliminated Brutalism, or become associate members (civilians who liked foxes).

‘It feels a bit like a nurturing game.’

Watching the porn I’d taken from Brutalism’s BD shop, and seeing K.I.T.S.U.N.E gradually becoming a proper organization, I felt a strange sense of satisfaction.

“It’s truly like fiction that a megacorp would leave an infiltrated spy alive.”

Watching an Ayakashi kunoichi, captured by Xenotech, being tied up and thrust into from front and back, I decided to spend some alone time for the first time in a while to deal with the backlog that had accumulated from not having time to relieve myself due to parties every day upon returning.

While not historically accurate, it was certainly made to be arousing.

Perhaps my libido had returned with my youth, as my cock, which stood up at all times, finally showcased itself freely without being confined by the wall of my pants.

I had brought a whopping thirteen porn BDs.

I planned to entertain myself so much that I wouldn’t even think of relieving myself for a while.

“Jyun~ Let’s drink together~?”

“I bought snacks to eat with it too.”

*SLAM!* Through the flung-open door, Yuki, the alcoholic fox, burst in with a pile of drinks, followed by Kana, who seemed to be in a good mood and slightly tipsy as well.

They were welcome faces.

If only I hadn’t been watching porn and had my cock standing up.