episode_0071

While wondering how many people had come out just to ‘greet’ one person and thinking it was bothersome, I instinctively checked their armaments.

A 70s model submachine gun from Hammerton Weapons, known for its cheap products.

A machete, ostentatiously hanging from their waist as if to show off, so caked with red rust that a cut would surely guarantee tetanus.

Seeing that all those huddled together were short-haired Mexicans, I clicked my tongue, annoyed they couldn’t defy the stereotype.

“Are you the unidentified person?”

“I have an identity, you punk. How dare you accuse John Doe-nim, a diligent taxpayer of Eclipse Point, of tax evasion?”

Just as the US IRS was scarier than the FBI, Eclipse Point was renowned for brutally punishing tax evaders with novel and effective methods.

The methods were so gruesome that I didn’t even want to think about them, which meant these bastards were practically itching to do me in.

“What the hell are you talking about…”

The man, who had just spouted some nonsense first, rolled his eyes as if utterly bewildered.

Bang! The man’s thigh was instantly riddled and shattered by the pellets from the first round.

“Aaaaaaaargh!!!”

“Fuck! Shoot! Shoot them all!”

A painful scream and a panicked shout.

Yes. This is what I missed.

My lips curled up, my cheeks naturally rising, as I activated Cerberus.

Whirrr!!! With a burning sensation as if my nerves were searing, my body shot forward, instantly reaching the man who was cursing and urging them to shoot. I simply grabbed his wrist.

“What…!”

As time returned, Crunch! “Aargh…!” With the sickening sound of wrist joints and muscles being crushed, I felt the muscle stimulation extend from the wrist to the forearm, shoulder, lat, and spine, and the body of the man whose wrist I had broken was lightly sent flying through the air.

The men in that direction reflexively tried to catch the 87.3kg mass of organic matter that flew at them, but Crash! Bang! Thud! Naturally, it wasn’t a force that these pathetic punks, who used cheap, old-model guns, could withstand.

I twisted my waist, punched one in the side, then, pivoting on my heel, rotated half a turn and elbowed another, knocking out all his teeth.

“T-This crazy bastard…!”

Seven.

As the men with some guts charged, swinging machetes, I lightly twisted my neck to avoid them, grabbed a wrist, spun, and slammed them to the ground, then rammed another man’s abdomen with my back, grabbed his collar, and threw him, crushing him against the one I had just slammed.

Nine.

Even though it was already the tenth turn, the ones who couldn’t react properly, I decided to personally attend to them.

Jab, one-two.

Eleven.

All this, by my internal stopwatch, took approximately 7 seconds.

‘I was counting.’

‘Yes. Yes. Our Martina is the best!’

Aside from the tingling sensation throughout my body from Cerberus’s monstrous recoil, I hadn’t even warmed up, let alone become breathless. All that remained were spineless, gutless idiots.

“I want to practice this a bit, so humor me.”

Swish! A sharply gleaming blue blade slid smoothly from its scabbard.

-“Ughh…”

-“Ahhh…”

Mournful wailing echoed from here and there.

Of course, it wasn’t because this was some gloomy place like a mass funeral home, but simply because the men lying on the ground had all had some part of their bodies uncomfortably altered.

The ones whose hit areas were shattered, at least they were hit by fists, so they’d probably recover with a cast and a few weeks of rest. But the guy whose thigh was shattered for showing off at the start, and the ones who were dazed till the end and sliced by the blade, they’d have to spend some money.

The sight of wrists and feet scattered about wasn’t pleasant, but for me, it was a considerable act of restraint.

In truth, no one would care if a few gangsters died, so even if I had killed all these guys here, there would have been nothing to say.

“Martina, I’m done.”

“Confirmed.”

With an awkward smile at my mercy, Martina leaped out of the car, and I covered her eyes.

“I am informing you that covering the organic terminal’s eyeballs is meaningless, as I share the main unit’s vision anyway.”

“Oh, this was rated R, wasn’t it?”

“Furthermore, everything was visible through the car’s interior glass.”

Should I get the car windows tinted?

“Modifying a vehicle to obstruct the internal driver’s view is a violation of traffic laws.”

“Even if the driving AI is operating it anyway?”

“Yes.”

“They call it free regulation, but it’s quite strict.”

“Because it is freedom from regulation, not freedom from the law.”

Shrugging at Martina, who rebutted every point that I might have just let slide, I proceeded to the resolved scene to find where this idiot, Hawkins, was being held.

The commotion outside must have been heard, so would they be holding a gun to Hawkins’s temple, threatening to kill him?

If I had enough time, I would have resolved it more gently, but unfortunately, I didn’t have much time, so I had no choice but to use more drastic methods.

Still, I brought our versatile Martina for such situations, so it should be fine.

I confirmed the blinking yellow lamp indicating JQ’s drone, flying above the old apartment building, was recording in real-time, then nodded slightly and entered the dark, eerie-feeling building with Martina.

Perhaps because I had just smelled blood, the dark hallway felt even more desolate.

“Martina. Aren’t you scared of places like this?”

“This AI does not possess the aversion humans feel towards unfamiliar environments, weathering, and light intensity, as the emotion termed ‘fear’ by humanity has not been learned.”

“Luna, on the other hand, absolutely detests fear.”

It was quite refreshing coming from someone whose personality seemed like they’d just smash everything, even if ghosts appeared.

Martina was looking at me with a somewhat sulky expression, so I asked, and she replied for me to figure it out myself.

Is she already going through puberty…?

I heard kids nowadays mature fast, but I didn’t expect it to be this fast.

Having been cursed at with a look once again, I walked along the severely dilapidated cement hallway, long past 50 years old, and discovered a floor with a peculiar atmosphere.

Unlike other floors filled with trash and spray-painted graffiti, this hallway was relatively clean.

Of course, it wasn’t professionally managed and gleaming, but it felt like the floor had been roughly swept and cleaned a few days ago.

I didn’t pass this strange floor; instead, I stopped briefly and stepped off the staircase.

Passing the box-shaped elevator room, a corridor stretched out like wings to the left and right, lined with aluminum doors of bland, extended box-houses, overlooking a broken streetscape.

“That son of a bitch who came before, and this son of a bitch who just arrived, both completely ruined my subordinates…”

A pungent smell stung my nose.

Gray smoke gently drifted upwards before dissipating.

“That must be a misunderstanding.”

“Ha! I’ve already finished the interrogation. He was quite a tight-lipped guy.”

“He couldn’t possibly be tight-lipped…”

He had a mouth that, if left alone, wouldn’t just float on water but would fly all the way to the stratosphere [meaning he was extremely talkative].

Besides, there’s no way a mere salaryman, no matter how much of a lowlife, could withstand an ‘interrogation’ inflicted by a gangster who could easily kill a person.

“It was fifty, no less. Fifty men were taken out by that bastard, and we barely caught him on the spot.”

“That’s a lot.”

“He was indiscriminately firing his gun and then suddenly changed as if he was someone else, but we caught him right there and brought him here immediately, so he can’t be a fake.”

After he said that much, I started to wonder if it was true.

Who would have known that the annoying bastard living next door was actually some skilled gangster-beating enforcer?

And I’m kind of similar to that right now.

The typically menacing-looking salaryman abductor, irritably biting a cigarette, slowly turned his head toward me.

His half-lifeless eyes gazed at me.

“You’re not just going to let me go, are you?”

“I’ve lived long enough to hear all sorts of ridiculous nonsense. Just go reunite in heaven, both of you.”

Unfortunately, negotiations had broken down.

Two gun barrels were aimed at each other.

***

“Huuuuuhh…! Huuh…!!”

Hawkins Fisherman, born in Texas.

One of the moths drawn to Eclipse Point to achieve success, to pursue his dreams, he was a passionate young man who lived each day busily, calculating that if he worked just 18 more years, he could properly enter the Upper City.

Although the quota assigned by the megacorp he worked for was substantial, it was manageable if he thought of the future.

It was an experience that taught him exactly what it felt like for his lifespan to be shortened, but he had driven himself forward with the sole thought that the sweet taste of success could be enjoyed by someone else, not necessarily him.

An utterly wholesome life, unsuited to his surroundings, never even glancing at crime or illegality.

But when he opened his eyes, he found himself bound in a dark, musty-smelling room, having become the enemy of some gang, waiting to be thrown into the polluted sea and disappear forever.

Crash!!!

“Huuuugh!!!”

Moreover, at the enormous roar coming from outside, the ordinary citizen Hawkins Fisherman could only writhe his tightly bound body and tremble.

And from a certain point, the loud noises stopped.

Only the Clank of someone opening the door and entering the room, which was just dark since his vision was taken away, and the Thump of sneakers hitting the hard floor, approached.

At that moment, Hawkins, at over twenty years old, felt shamefully like he was about to wet himself.

In fact, it was quite remarkable that he hadn’t soiled himself even after being blindfolded and having his peach fuzz ‘trimmed’ with a sharp knife until now.

“Ughhh!! Ughh!!!”

Hawkins Fisherman began to go frantic from extreme fear.

The stress and fear he had endured—being kicked for being bothersome, or having his fingers slightly cut for no reason—all exploded at once!

Splat!

“Ugh…!”

His head snapped around from the immense force.

His cheek was so numb that he wondered if it had been torn off, and his reason, along with his emotions, seemed to drain away as if flushed down a toilet.

And only then did he feel hands trying to loosen his restraints.

Rustle! The blindfold (which was really just a dirty piece of cloth) covering his eyes was removed, and his vision opened to a face that was somehow familiar yet awkward.

“…Could it be John?”

“Yes. It’s me, you bastard… I wasn’t even planning on showing up, you know.”

John Doe, looking much younger than the image Hawkins had of him.

At the sudden appearance of his disappeared neighbor, Hawkins felt relieved but couldn’t help but tremble at what he saw behind him.

“Hey, this is bothersome, so I’ll just take you home and that’ll be the end of it. Got it?”

Because behind John Doe, a person wearing a sleek black mask that revealed no facial features had raised a finger to where their lips would be, as if telling him to be quiet.

“Ah… ah…”

Hawkins could only nod.

Thud! The sharp tip of something lightly pricked Hawkins Fisherman’s chest.

He looked down to see a long, chillingly gleaming sword piercing through John Doe’s chest, the same John Doe who had been loosening his restraints.

A stream of red blood flowed from John Doe’s mouth.

“…Goddammit.”