Night Crow's Monologue

The work was over before sunrise.

He reduced the report to three lines: 'Designated target eliminated. Time required: four minutes, eleven seconds. No losses.' It was a state-designated emergency assignment—the case number was not something he could disclose. The public would learn about this night ten years from now at the earliest, when the classification was lifted. Probably no one would read it, though.

As he swayed aboard the first local train of the morning, the man cycled through the three accounts on his terminal, one after another.

The first was for posting long analyses.

The second was for tossing in short jabs.

The third, the oldest, existed solely for silently giving thumbs-up.

Every time he logged in, he switched both his connection and his behavior. He never used the same persona twice. It was the same method he used at work.

Night Crow, twenty-four. The man who killed monsters more efficiently than anyone else in humanity was probably also humanity's most efficient operator of alt accounts.

◇

Night Crow had a reason he couldn't operate in public.

A state-controlled explorer. Aptitude classification: Stealth. His affiliation did not officially exist, and the photograph in the Night Crow entry of the S-Rank rankings had been blacked out with a solid black square. It hadn't been forgotten. His very existence was classified.

That was why he couldn't operate openly the way Rei did. He couldn't sit down the way Maru did. That cheap cushion in the six-tatami room was the place in the world farthest from Night Crow's profession.

Two years ago, when he became independent—an arrangement that was really a transfer into state service—Night Crow hadn't given it much thought. The terms were exceptional, and the work suited him. Teacher had assembled the transfer papers with his usual expression and said, in his usual voice, "Take care of yourself." Night Crow had thought that was the end of it.

He read Rei's mass message three days late. He'd been working deep underground, where there was no signal.

【Teacher is alone. How long are you all going to keep pretending you haven't noticed?】

He wrote a reply twelve times and deleted it twelve times.

It absolutely wasn't that he was pretending not to notice. As proof, the registration date of the third, silent account was—the night of the very first lesson.

◇

That night, too, the stream ran as usual.

"Good evening, I'm Shin. If there are any first-time viewers, here's the usual spiel. This is a course for beginners. I won't cover flashy techniques or talk about the strongest gear. It's dull. Probably shockingly dull. —Lesson Thirty-Six, 'How to Place Sound.' ...This is about walking. Footsteps aren't something you erase. They're something you place."

Three screens lit the dark room. Night Crow had opened the same stream in three separate windows.

【Footsteps you "place"?】

【Another dull one is starting】

【Are you teaching stealth basics to beginners...?】

"This isn't stealth. But even in the shallow levels, forty percent of monsters are drawn by sound. Cutting the noise of your footsteps in half visibly reduces encounters. It's safety that's cheaper than gear. There are three pointers. Don't lead with your heels. Don't hurry the next step. And—don't walk with your knees. Not your ankles, either. Walk from your hip joints."

The fingers on his analysis account moved on their own.

【Verification. Correct. The primary component of walking noise is the impact of the heel touching down; a pelvis-led gait lengthens the contact time and disperses the impact. The same principle applies in mud, rubble, and on frozen surfaces. Worth remembering】

The post went up. A few seconds later, the usual reactions began to flow in.

【There he is, Verification Bro】

【Why is he weirdly detailed again today】

【This guy is definitely some kind of active explorer. You can tell from the writing style】

He was fine with them knowing from his writing style. He kept it consistent so they would. Switching to his quips account, the man added another comment.

【Verification Bro is the kind of person you don't want to meet on a dark street】

No one told him not to say that about himself. It was flawless work.

"All right, final question. 'My teammates say my methods are cold. Should I prioritize efficiency or harmony?' —That's a good question."

Teacher fell silent for just a moment. It was the same pause he took when setting down his teacup.

"Efficiency is a slightly unfortunate word. I once had a student who was the most efficient person in humanity. Not a single motion was wasted. So the people around that student called them cold. But I never once thought that. Ending things in the shortest possible time means making the time someone spends in danger as short as possible. ...Though when I told that student it was 'kindness,' they made an incredibly unhappy face."

【If you're talking about "the most efficient person in humanity" among his students...】

【Night Crow? The one blacked out in the rankings?】

【Teacher is probably the only person in humanity who ever called the blacked-out figure in the rankings "kindness"...】

【T-Teacher's students are all off the charts, no matter how many of them there are...!】

In front of the three screens, Night Crow remained motionless for about ten seconds.

Then he gave a thumbs-up from his silent account. He nearly used the quips account instead. It was the first time since beginning this line of work that he had nearly posted from the wrong account.

◇

Seven years ago, at Genbu's training facility, seventeen-year-old Night Crow was the most hated person there.

In mock battles, he ended things faster than anyone else, never teamed up with anyone, and sarcasm slipped out whenever he opened his mouth. The instructors' evaluations were unanimous: "Dangerous." "Ruthless." "Unable to cooperate." What else could they have written about a child who had worked under illegal exterminators since before he was old enough to understand the world? He thought the same.

Only the nondescript middle-aged coach watched every recording before writing his evaluation.

"You have never once missed a vital spot."

"...Do you have a complaint?"

"The opposite," the man said, rewinding the recording. "Your hunts make the time your prey spends suffering the shortest in the world. They also make the time your comrades spend in danger the shortest. You look like someone who knows nothing but the art of killing, but—what you have is 'the kindness of ending things in the shortest possible time.'"

I thought I was going to throw up. Using words to tame people was a basic trick in the world Night Crow came from.

"I don't trust your words. I only trust my balance. Numbers don't lie."

The man didn't get angry. He smiled and wrote a title on a fresh page of his notebook: 'Night Crow—Balance.'

"Fine. Then I'll make a small deposit every day. I'll write one line about something good in you here. Withdrawing it—or closing the account altogether—is up to you."

I thought it was ridiculous.

On graduation day five years later, the notebook had grown to three notebooks. Eighteen hundred lines. The man hadn't missed a single day.

He could still recite the final line from memory.

'Night Crow's kindness always takes the shortest route. He alone mistakes it for coldness.'

◇

Around midnight, Night Crow entered the verification thread as part of his usual rounds.

'【Verification】Shin's Course and Shallow-Level Accident Rate Correlation Thread, Part 41'

There were new faces.

【The drop in mortality just coincides with the timing of the equipment-standards update, doesn't it? It's too soon to conclude that the course was responsible】

【The fact that the opponent in that Hina girl's promotion exam was changed right before the test was obviously suspicious, wasn't it?】

【To begin with, apparently it's legally gray for an unlicensed individual to provide safety instruction on that scale. That's what an explorer I know said】

At first glance, these looked like legitimate questions. Verification meant questioning. Questioning itself fit the customs of this classroom.

But—Night Crow's real profession was erasing traces. To eyes that knew every way to erase them, traces that had been left behind shone like footprints on a dark street.

The account creation dates were clustered within the same ten-day period. Their activity hours fit neatly between nine in the morning and six in the evening on weekdays. They all shared the same habit of disguising their sources with phrases like 'apparently' and 'someone I know.' When refuted, they didn't argue back; they abandoned the point and moved on to the next question—they had no intention of winning. Their only goal was to scatter sparks. It was a seed-sowing tactic.

After three hours, Night Crow grouped the sixteen core accounts by their writing quirks, hours of activity, and the degree of degradation in their recycled images. Their source narrowed down to a single public-relations agency. The largest in the industry. And its top annual-contract client was—Genbu.

Was it the chairman's operation, or the PR department acting on its own? He couldn't tell. Either way, he didn't care.

A campaign to damage credibility. It had been about two weeks since it began. They probably thought the real harvest was still ahead.

"..."

There was such a thing as quiet, professional anger. The kind where one's heart rate never rises, while only the steps assemble themselves automatically.

Taking them down would be easy. Easier than his regular work. After all, no one would die.

But Night Crow looked at the classroom on the screen once more. One hundred thousand people earnestly practicing how to place their footsteps. Thumbs-up at four in the morning. A sheet of paper the size of one tatami mat. A cheap cushion. —That was a place in the sun. Protect it through the ways of the shadows, and shadows would remain on the floor.

Then there was only one answer.

◇

Night Crow picked up his terminal and called the contact for his regular work. When the other end answered on the first ring, he stated only what he needed.

"It's me. —Proceed formally with the matter I broached before. The application to change the secrecy classification. And I'll use all my accrued leave. I should still have three favors to call in."

The contact began rattling off objections. The procedure would take several weeks, there was no precedent for the review, at least give them a reason—

"If you need a reason, I'll put it in the paperwork."

He ended the call and opened the five-person thread. It had started moving a little since Maru's report that he was back. Saint-sama had marked it read again tonight, silently as ever. Her last post remained the same as it had been two years ago: 'Everyone, I hope you're well.' ...That was severe in its own way, he thought. Though he couldn't talk.

He spread the application documents that had just arrived across his desk.

"...Trust is something that builds up on its own, like a balance, Teacher."

His words to himself fell into the darkness.

You don't realize it, but every night, you keep making deposits into one hundred thousand accounts. Not merely one line a day. The interest alone has already begun to change the world.

—And now there's a thief trying to lay hands on that balance. Then it's simple. Recovery and debt collection have always been my specialty.

The pen paused for a single beat over the occupation field. State-controlled explorer. Aptitude classification: Stealth. There were any number of titles a man who officially did not exist could write.

Night Crow smiled faintly and wrote the title that felt least like a lie.

—Student.

Humanity's most efficient assassin quietly began preparing to break the silence.