episode_0120

The sudden appearance of a saint.

There were quite a few issues to worry about because of this.

“Sylvia! We didn’t have any saints on our list?”

“Yes.”

She blurted it out as if it were a given.

“Then what should I do?”

“It would be normal to do it at the very back.”

Lund’s indifferent answer. Lund seemed more concerned about Oleg turning off the hologram and running away than about the current situation.

If it were normal, then yes. If it were normal!

A saint of the church, and now a saint ranked 5th in problem solving, came to us in person. I think it would be almost like treating us coldly.

“There may be a way to adjust the order to the middle.”

Sylvia’s plan, which was mentioned at the time.

“Then let’s do it right in the middle!”

Existing staff may complain, but…

‘The 5th place winner came in person, so no one would say anything.’

Sylvia immediately left the office and announced to those waiting outside.

The sudden visit of the 5th place caused a small change in the interview order.

“….”

Of course, there was no one who openly complained.

There were some who showed their displeasure, but it was not a big problem in front of the good smile of the person in 5th place.

There were quite a few events that happened during the week leading up to this interview.

The 3rd place went to the 7th place and a fight broke out.

And there are incidents such as the saintess in front of you taking care of the 5th rank and becoming the new 5th rank.

There was no reason for those who were trying to enter my ranks, which was ranked 10th, to attack the author who was ranked 5th.

“Chris, this might be your chance.”

“Opportunity?”

Didn’t I misspeak about the crisis?

“That woman may have come as a representative of the church.”

“Uh… Frank and Malcolm didn’t say anything about that.”

“It’s okay.”

Her opinion is that it’s okay as long as it looks that way to others.

It was definitely a move by a person who was as good as a saint.

It’s strange that her attendants aren’t visible, though…

It could have been to eliminate the cumbersome elements.

“So now there’s one more reason why coming under my wing is attractive?”

“That’s right. That’s because Jinjo is cooperating with the church.”

The truth that cooperates with the church. The important thing is that the church and its truth are also the targets of the truth.

Ranked 2nd in the Problem Solver rankings, Mikhail Langaves.

In terms of overthrowing the second place, the cooperation with the church, which is an expert in hunting vampires, gives a vague sense of relief.

Although the official conflict has ended, there is no one better equipped to deal with vampires than them.

“Lund.”

“Huh?”

“So what happens to Oleg?”

“….”

Oleg’s hologram turned off at the same time as the saint’s visit, but there was no sign of him returning.

First of all, I was supposed to act as one of the interviewers.

***

The interviewers at the Blue Heart Office are divided into two teams.

Me, Lund and Oleg mostly have a black and gray office.

Sylvia, Johnny, and Lina decided to deal primarily with the White Office and other organizations such as corporations and research institutes.

“Lund! What should I do!”

But then Oleg suddenly disappeared from there!

“Wait a minute.”

As I waited to hear what Lund had to say, Sheila, Eslock, and Lillian began guiding people from the second floor outside the office.

“Chris, let’s start with our side first.”

“Okay! Got it.”

Sylvia, Johnny, and Lina headed to one of the office’s reception rooms first.

Soon, some of those who had been waiting outside the office came into the office.

They followed Eslock’s instructions and headed to the reception room where Sylvia had gone first.

Now, a simple interview is conducted there.

“Um….”

As I watched that scene from the side, all sorts of thoughts came to mind.

Even more so now that one of the interviewers has suddenly disappeared.

Tiring!

The cheerful sound of the doorbell.

A group of people had just entered the waiting room, and it seemed too early for another interviewer to come in.

“Uh… Shouldn’t you be coming in already?”

Didn’t Eslock and Lillian stop them?

The middle-aged man with a slender appearance came out and approached Lund.

“Sorry I’m late. I thought it would be better if you came in person rather than via hologram.”

“Huh?”

That’s not the Oleg I knew!

“Oleg?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

“Your original appearance is fine, but you’re just going to keep it that way?”

“There’s no need to reveal my identity.”

Oleg said that his presence would rather cause the interviewers to feel at least a little nervous.

He’s just as famous as me and Lund, but… his current appearance is enough to hide his identity.

“Then let’s get started.”

“Oh, right.”

I headed to one of the reception rooms that had already been prepared.

As soon as we moved, the doorbell rang outside the door.

I guess Eslock and Lillian brought a bunch of interviewers into the office for us to handle.

“What, I’m in the middle?”

As the two people took the seats on the left and right, the center seat naturally became mine.

“That would be better than me and my uncle being in the middle.”

“Lund, I am not your uncle now.”

Oleg responded immediately to Lund’s words.

Well, I changed my appearance after all, so if I say that in front of the interviewers, my identity will inevitably be revealed.

***

The three of us will be dealing with interviewers who are mostly from the black office.

The first people we will be interviewing are…

“Nice to meet you.”

A group of troubleshooters who have replaced their entire bodies with prosthetic limbs. Their name is the Gear Hunters Office.

They were an office that specialized in hunting androids and users of artificial bodies, and ironically, they ended up in a similar state while dealing with them.

“Hello everyone!”

There was no need to introduce the interviewers.

Me and Lund would know that too… Oleg, in his middle age, was doing his job well.

“Uh, so first of all… Chief Hendrick?”

“I’m going.”

The user of the body that was at the very back came forward.

They quickly moved around and took their seats prepared for them.

We had already done a rough survey of those on the list over the past week.

Nevertheless, the reason for conducting the interview in person is as follows.

That’s because there are things you can’t know unless you face them directly and talk to them.

A few formal questions. Formal answers mixed with machine-sounding sounds.

Up to this point, there was nothing special to note.

“Looking at your past activities, it seems like you mainly specialize in hunting machines?”

“…Yes, that’s right.”

Major Hendrik hesitated at Oleg’s question.

“They were almost like machines, or androids that had lost their flavor.”

“Oh.”

I don’t know about the latter, but the former and the interviewees seemed to be almost the same.

It’s easy to see why this office specializes in hunting down these guys.

The victims.

Those who have lost something precious to a crazy body user or an android that has gone mad.

In the pursuit of revenge, one ends up becoming similar to one’s enemy.

The famous saying comes to mind: If you gaze into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you.

“10th place.”

“…Huh?”

“You might think that we and the things we hunt look similar.”

“Uh… a little bit like that?”

“We are sane. Violent though it may be”

It seems like the front and back of your words are contradicting each other?!

Hendrick then said he would tell me an interesting story.

It was novel that the interviewer didn’t ask the question and that the interviewer told the story.

“Have you ever heard of a murderer revisiting the scene of his crime?”

“Yeah, there was something like that.”

In response to Oleg, Hendrik said that the same goes for machines.

“Machines too?”

“It’s probably not for the same reason as the murderer. It’s just that the main circuit is broken.”

But Hendrick said that whether it’s an over-the-top body user or a spoiled android, they all revisit the crime scene and do the same thing.

“He did the same thing back then. If he had killed someone, he would have shot into the air.”

“….”

The story ends with the machine behaving strangely, which is a perfect opportunity to catch them.

The reason they know this is….

Perhaps from first-hand experience.

When the mad machines pretend to kill that precious being again in their delusions, even though their precious being has already disappeared.

I wondered what they must have felt.

However, the interview quickly returned to normal.

Oleg asked them about their tactics and responses when they assumed that the drones of the Lidocaine Association were their opponents.

Their interview ended with a not-so-bad answer.

***

As soon as the mechanical sound in the interview room disappeared, I checked with the interviewer.

“Next is… gray.”

An office that has one foot on both the legal and illegal side.

Our Blue Heart office was also a gray office.

As the Gear Hunters’ office’s turn ended, Eslock and Lillian outside guided the next interviewee.

Three people appeared in the interview room.

Two of them were sharks of an extremely terrifying appearance.

My gaze traveled from their broad shoulders to their scarred noses, to their eyes as blue as the ocean.

“Ah, so what should I say? Please take care of me?”

“First, sit down.”

The first to speak was another shark creature that, unlike the other two, had a more human-like appearance.

A moderately long ponytail. A steel jaw prosthesis in the shape of a shark’s tooth. A neat mechanic’s outfit.

She is the head of the Steel Shark office, Belova.

“So! Interviewers? What’s your first question?”

“….”

After looking back and forth between Lund and Oleg, I naturally decided to ask the first question.

“An office specializing in the subduing and securing of harmful agents… right?”

“There’s one thing missing. Supplying those acquired in this way to the slave market.”

Oh, I didn’t mean to mention that.

Steel Shark Office.

It seemed that not only were there harmful side effects, but there were also big hands supplying the same number of people to the slave market.

It was hard to imagine that Suin would take the lead in selling out Suin, but in the first place, Suin was nothing more than a group of numerous races that had been grouped together into one entity.

“Is Suin selling out Suin?”

Oleg and I remained still.

But Lund boldly touched on that part.

“Well….”

Then Belova wiped her forehead as if she was in trouble.

“First of all, since our people don’t sell, isn’t it okay?”

The gills exposed near the neck were fluttering, just like a real shark.

The face and body were human-like, but there were traces of a shark, such as teeth and gills on the neck.

“Then which number of slaves supply the most to the slave market?”

“Ah….”

Belova looked at the two figures on her left and right.

Then the two shark men quickly whispered in Belova’s ears.

“It’s a cat person! Next is a dog person.”

“….”

Well, I guess so.

It was a good thing Sheila wasn’t there.

Anyway, Belova mentioned that the sense of homogeneity and sense of kinship among the people is weak.

If they are the same species of shark, then it may be fine, but if they are from different animals… then they are practically a completely different species.

“So you also supply slaves to the Grove Avenue Supermarket?”

“Oh, I do that there too sometimes.”

She didn’t seem to know that I was watching over the slave market.

It was only after the sharks on the left and right whispered that he realized it.

***

Unlike the previous interviewees, they had animosity toward the second and third place candidates.

Of course, that’s not what they intended….

It was said that they and their forces were hindering the advancement of the Steel Shark Office.

“So you want to come under my control?”

“That’s right! To be honest, out of all the guys gathered today, we’re probably the most useful?”

It was nice to see that confident look.

However, since Lund and Oleg had no room to ask questions, I was mainly in charge of asking the questions.

“Okay, then I’ll end the interview here.”

“Just a minute.”

Belova acted as if there was nothing left.

At the same time, the shark men on her left and right handed us something.

Something luxuriously packaged and placed in a reasonably sized shopping bag.

“What is this?”

“Check back later.”

After saying that, she left the interview room with her subordinates.

“What is this?”

“Check it out if you’re curious.”

Follow Lund’s advice!

I quickly tore off the cumbersome packaging with my right hand.

“The next interviewees will be coming in right away.”

“Just a moment. Just a moment will do.”

At Oleg’s words, I quickly checked the contents.

“Oh… Is this caviar?!”

“That’s right. That’s a pretty expensive one too.”

Lund acted as if he had eaten it before.

Bribing a shark with caviar? What kind of sense is this.

But with this level of preparedness, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take him under my wing.

“….”

While I was putting the caviar back in the corner, a new interviewer showed up.

This time it was an individual, not an office.

It’s a master’s degree that doesn’t belong to any particular graduate school….

“Your name is… Robert, right?”

“Yes.”

The master appeared to be the oldest of the two.

But he answered politely, considering that the people in front of him were vampires.

“Looking at it, it seems like there was friction with the master’s degree program you were in before….”

“They were stupid guys.”

As soon as Oleg finished speaking, the master said a word.

Perhaps there seemed to be a lot of animosity towards them.

Afterwards, the master began to criticize the master’s academy and the existing master’s academy system for praising his own works and not taking these points into account.

Since this wasn’t some kind of denunciation rally, I cut him off appropriately.

“Well, then I can handle things like gargoyles and golems to some extent, right?”

“Can you tell me from what standard?”

“A number that can be handled simultaneously?”

“If I’m directly controlling them, then 10 at the same time. If not, and they’re just operating, then dozens are possible.”

Can you do the work of a bunch of masters on your own?

For the three Jinjo currently present, gargoyles and golems are not a big problem.

But the gargoyle could hear the sound of Magusfall’s battle power meter.

It is impossible to defeat a gargoyle unless you are strong.

Plus, it was nice that Midas had someone he could consult with when he had a problem.

I was starting to think that I had passed…

Suddenly I felt a vibration from my terminal.

Since there were no more questions to ask, I decided to end Robert’s interview here.

Robert left the interview room with the expectation of a positive outcome.

“Who is calling?”

“Just a minute.”

It was none other than Malcolm.

When I called you earlier, you didn’t even pick up.

“…Chris?!”

“Ah, Malcolm. I just wanted to ask···.”

“Chris! Did that woman go over there?”

That woman? Are you talking about the saint?

***

“Saint?”

“Yes! That girl!”

“I’m currently being interviewed. It’s not the saint’s turn yet.”

“Interview or whatever! Avoid it immediately!”

“Huh?”

What are you talking about?

“Gapja···.”

“Now that woman is not even a member of the church! She was kicked out of the church when she touched the 5th place without saying anything to the church!”

“…Huh?”

There was no such news anywhere!

Church kids… If something like that happened, you should have reported it right away!

“No, wait a minute. Then why did you come to me?”

“The priest was also taken advantage of by that woman. Next is your turn, Chris! For now, avoid it!”

“….”

First, I hung up the phone.

Just as I was about to tell Lund and Oleg this fact.

“…What are you trying to do?”

“It’s not your turn yet.”

Lund and Oleg’s reactions.

Through the open door, the former saintess, now the 5th rank, appeared with a kind smile.

“I think waiting is enough.”

“No, that’s for us to decide.”

Are people in the church originally this abnormal?

One saint, two ancestral lords, and one blood lord.

Although we were at a disadvantage in terms of compatibility, I thought we might have a chance with this level of power.

It seemed like not only me, but also Lund and Oleg were ready to fight at any time.

“I think everyone is misunderstanding something!”

“…What?”

“I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to talk to you.”

“….”

“Aren’t you guys trying to kill the second place anyway?”

Ah… It felt like the 2nd place raid party was becoming more and more like a hodgepodge, and there was no longer a hodgepodge like this.