episode_0070

“Muffled cries.”

“Are you watching? Unidentified person.”

He struggled with a gag in his mouth, but the restraints didn’t budge, whether they were extremely tight or he was just weak.

Tears and snot streamed down his face as his muffled words were unintelligible, yet somehow I felt like I knew what he was trying to say.

Of course, it would be something like, “Please save me! Send me back! I was wrong! I want to enlist immediately!”

-“‘Rune’s Bar,’ was it? We have your idiot.”

“…”

The video showed a typical biker gang member with a menacing appearance holding a knife to Hawkins’ cheek, controlling the force so only his peach fuzz was cut, causing Hawkins to gasp and his body to stiffen.

But why is this bastard Hawkins *our* idiot?

-“Unidentified person! If you want to save this imbecile, come alone, following this address code! And you’ll need to prepare a means to repay us for the damage this guy caused!”

“What the…”

I was flabbergasted.

What in the world is this moron talking about?

I was so utterly dumbfounded that I found myself inhaling sharply, scraping my front teeth against my lips, and staring blankly at the face of the idiot bastard who had finished saying his piece and ended the video without another word.

It seemed the others felt the same way, as silence hung over the table where everyone was gathered in a circle.

“Shit! Why are these motherfuckers kidnapping this unrelated cherry boy and causing such a fuss?”

Blake, who today was wearing a classical maid outfit often seen in anime instead of his usual traditional Victorian attire, articulated the common question we all had.

“Who in the world is this guy…?”

Luna, who had been helping the fox sisters in Japan Town when I contacted her, scratched her head and mumbled.

“You know that guy. The one we always cursed as ‘that damn Hawkins’ whenever we went drinking. It’s him.”

“…It was *that* Hawkins. Is he a mercenary?”

“He’s just an ordinary salaryman. No, wait… seeing how he was always energetically awake every morning, maybe he’s not an ordinary salaryman, but a crazy salaryman.”

To be able to maintain that level of energy every day despite having his life force sucked dry by the company…

He must be at least a full-body cyborg, right?

“Putting that aside, why is this imbecile caught by a gang, and why am I suddenly getting news of him like a mysterious DVD delivery…?”

“DVD?”

“It exists. It’s a relic of an old era.”

Digital Versatile Discs were already starting to become obsolete when I was alive, so I wonder if they’re only found in textbooks now.

Maybe not even that.

“Ahaha! So this is how it goes, huh?”

Johann, who had been uncontactable about what he was doing until now but appeared as soon as the video arrived, laughed as if amused.

“It seems the Shape Shifter intends to isolate you by targeting your acquaintances first, rather than you directly.”

“…Acquaintances?”

I looked at Hawkins, who was trembling like a captive of a Mexican cartel, with an unconvinced expression.

Can he even be called an acquaintance?

We just exchanged a few words while waiting for the plummeting elevator during my commute, that’s all.

“Even if you don’t think so, the Shape Shifter might think differently. Even for a Shape Shifter, they don’t enter and exit people’s minds; they act by thoroughly investigating and inferring. From now on, the Shape Shifter will begin to move in earnest. They’ll involve individuals, organizations, and corporations, and people connected to you, or they’ll directly transform into your likeness, accumulating misunderstandings, increasing your enemies, and slowly driving you to ruin.”

Utterly horrible.

Infinite sabotage, where even if we do nothing, hostile relationships will infinitely refill in real-time — it’s sickening.

Even for a dopamine-addicted thrill-seeker, this setup wouldn’t be enjoyable at all.

Luna, JQ, and Blake, as well as Yuki and Kana, made disgusted faces and looked at Johann as if asking if there was no way to deal with it.

Johann, receiving multiple pairs of gazes, nonchalantly flicked the video output device with his finger, making it spin like a top, and then recited more information about the Shape Shifter.

“This is closer to the Shape Shifter’s original method. The case of the Closing Age trying to directly assassinate must have been a bold move for widespread impact. And it’s thanks to that you discovered the Shape Shifter right before the assassination.”

“So we’re supposed to suffer this bullshit until we die?”

“Of course not… but don’t you have to save your friend? Or will you just let him die like that?”

“…Tsk.”

Of course, I don’t consider this bastard Hawkins a friend, but someone I know dying leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

He didn’t do anything wrong, so shouldn’t I stop him from being buried in cement and plopped into the ocean like that?

“I’m going.”

“Wait, John, are you really going alone?”

Luna looked at me with worried eyes.

Even though they know I’m no longer the idiot who trembled while shooting a gun a few months ago, it feels good when the woman I like worries about me.

“They told me to come alone. Besides, you know that most gangsters are no match for me alone now. And while I’m saving him, you all will have to clean up the places the Shape Shifter is stirring up, so this is something I should do.”

This will definitely not be the end of it.

Instead, someone with a stronger connection than me and Hawkins might be suffering, or truly dangerous individuals might be rampaging, trying to find us.

As if reading my thoughts, Luna sighed slightly and nodded.

“Instead, JQ, attach a drone and contact everyone immediately if a problem arises.”

“Okay—situation control is my specialty.”

JQ, who could operate over twenty road drones and air drones simultaneously, confidently stretched his hands.

*Ding—* *Ding—* *Ding—*

Messages started flooding in.

Reading them, they were all aggressive declarations of hostility and demands for compensation targeting Rune’s Bar.

Indiscriminate and widespread targets, encompassing gangs, unions, cartels, mercenary groups, corporations, and individuals, were sending hostile gazes our way.

“Haha! This is a big problem, isn’t it?”

The Shape Shifter’s full-scale attack had begun.

“Blake! Request support from Mason to open negotiation tables with the Centrum Street organizations and deal with those who won’t talk! Raleigh, stop the gangs that have declared war! Yuki and Kana, contact the Neo Shinsengumi to block off Japan Town, then come with me to Nexus Block!”

Luna frantically but skillfully deployed her personnel.

I also contacted Ricardo “Bello” Sanchez, who was favorable to me, and Bearhand, with whom I’d become acquainted through the Closing Age incident, asking them to clear up the misunderstandings with the organizations in Ross Board and Zent Hau.

A war of too immense a scale for a mere mercenary group to experience.

The boredom until now was truly irrelevant as the situation escalated like a snowball rolling down a slope, and I glared irritably at Johann, who was sitting leisurely with a beaming face.

“Hey, Johann! You said you’d catch the Shape Shifter, so are you just going to sit there?”

“Ahaha! It’s a misunderstanding, a misunderstanding. We’re trying our best to help you too.”

Johann protested his innocence, noisily chewing on gum that allowed high-concentration caffeine intake.

“My teammates are scattered across various places, diverting attention away from you. And I need to go where the Shape Shifter is. I should be with Jay~”

“Jay Q. Call me Kwong or JQ.”

“That’s too cold~”

JQ made a disgusted face as Johann, acting familiar, put his arm around him, but Johann wouldn’t budge even when pushed, perhaps because he couldn’t be overcome by strength.

“Anyway, you don’t have to worry too much.”

“…I’ll trust you for now. Let’s go, Martina.”

“Understood.”

I grabbed the expensive katana, an heirloom of the now-dead Kyojinkai Chairman Kyokujin Goro, and my newly acquired shotgun, then started the car.

With a heavy vibration rumbling through my backside, I boldly pressed the accelerator, speeding along the car-filled Centrum Street roads, heading quickly towards the place indicated by the address code.

The outskirts of the Centrum Street administrative district, roughly 20 minutes from my home.

To the northwest, near Zent Hau, directly above Ross Board, buildings resembling a residential area could be seen, unlike Ross Board, which was a factory and dock area.

The coastline was isolated by a dome with many purification devices installed, so it was said that if you paid a somewhat expensive fee, you could enjoy swimming as a resort.

Of course, only the wealthy living in Nexus Block, Japan Town, or the Upper City could afford it, so ordinary salarymen could not.

‘Should we come together later?’

Imagining people in skimpy bikinis against the backdrop of a clean beach, made possible by purification devices despite the anachronistic setting, made it seem like it would be a very happy time.

‘But this bastard Blake, he wouldn’t be wearing a bikini too, right?’

Cross-dressing is barely tolerable in the chaotic fashion of this era, but if I saw a bikini bulging at the bottom, I might not be able to resist pulling the trigger.

Please, don’t let me create the tragedy of shooting a comrade in the head…!

“Individual Hawkins Fisherman should turn right instead of going straight into Zent Hau.”

“…I know.”

How well she noticed I was thinking about something else again. Martina looked at me with a sharp gaze, and I smacked my lips, then turned right into a deserted commercial district.

‘Now that I think about it, should I buy Martina a swimsuit too?’

“…Do you need one?”

“Don’t read my thoughts without permission.”

“Impossible.”

“Damn it, there’s a wiretap in my head.”

Around twenty gangsters, I see.

As I stopped the car, I counted the number of guys approaching arrogantly, each carrying a gun, and then opened the door.

Simple.