Chapter 107
The story continues off the page
Floaties for Everyone
Swim lesson at the water park, and she's demonstrating on you
Vroooom.
The sound of the Air Rider's engine.
The damp air inside the container.
The gaze of the fixer sitting across from her.
Vichakos had wondered how they would transport her.
Apparently, he wasn't a tycoon for nothing; they were using a crude yet daring method.
They were flying the Air Rider while carrying the container that had been set up on the rooftop of a skyscraper.
In other words, an Air Rider was currently flying through the skies above Cyber City with a container in its grasp.
“Phew……”
A short sigh.
The weight of the two pistols hanging from her holster felt different from usual.
“Are you nervous?”
“……”
At the question from the fixer sitting across from her, Vichakos slowly opened her eyes.
The man was arrogant, without a single change in his expression. That was why she found him unpleasant.
“I think you understand that we're in a business relationship where we're both paid.”
“……”
“If you fail to assassinate Elik Dwalbe here as well, I have to kill you.”
“You? Me?”
“I do. You.”
The fixers' gazes collided.
One look asked whether she could do it, while the other calmly acted as though it would be easy.
As their battle of nerves continued, the thought that these emotions, too, were probably being transmitted to the tycoons washed a wave of fatigue over Vichakos.
Knowing that whatever she did would become their amusement made her feel trapped in a cage of emotions.
“I'm telling you in advance so you don't feel wronged. That's how this industry works.”
“I know.”
It was ironic.
She had betrayed humanity for money, yet here she was harboring hatred for them.
“I want to ask you one thing.”
“What?”
“Why did you accept Axis's commission?”
“……”
“It came to me, too. But I refused. That's how dangerous it is.”
A quiet sigh.
What should she say?
The prosthetic she'd had installed was defective, and the child's body was rotting away, so it needed to be replaced in a hurry?
They didn't have the money to repair the cathedral, so the children had to live in the rain?
No matter how much money she earned, the children's medical expenses were still woefully insufficient, as if she were pouring it into a jar with a hole in it?
It was all bullshit.
Whatever she said would only be an excuse and a justification.
She didn't regret it, so she wouldn't make excuses.
“We've arrived at the drop site! Opening the hatch!”
As the Air Rider's pilot reported this, the container door opened automatically.
A fierce wind blew inside as if pushing her back, and below lay Elik Dwalbe's campaign rally.
Click, click.
Mosco Vichakos walked toward the entrance and quietly answered the fixer who had followed her all the way.
“Because that's what a mother does.”
She leaned forward and fell toward the ground.
All she could see was the view of Cyber City.
This is probably the end.
It's fine.
She didn't regret it.
It was something she had to do, even if it meant turning her back on her world.
Because she had protected the children's world.
‘I'm sorry, Mother.’
I guess I can't be like you after all.
* * *
Kraaaash!
The impact of her slam into the ground shook the makeshift stage, sending banners and balloons flying in every direction.
Spreading clouds of dust and the screams of the crowd.
Vichakos's green eyes flashed within it.
Oversync.
A will was imbued into the bullet.
A twisted conviction.
The final resistance of a woman who had carried the name of mother despite never being righteous.
“It's a smokescreen! A smoke grenade!”
“Protect the candidate!”
The smoke grenades that had fallen with her did their job. Even within the haze, however, Vichakos's footsteps clearly advanced toward her target.
Thoom-!
A short leap.
She reached the stage in an instant, cutting through the smoke and haze.
Elik Dwalbe stared at her with startled eyes.
The bodyguards standing in front of him all moved to block her, but it didn't matter.
She was certain that an Oversynced bullet could even pierce the bodyguards.
The muzzle quietly rose toward his brow.
Click.
Her finger rested on the trigger.
For an instant, sensations swept through Vichakos's mind.
Misery.
Resentment.
Resignation.
And liberation.
The emotions being transmitted as-is to the tycoons through S.E.L.
Somewhere in a distant skyscraper.
It seemed she could hear the excited voices of the tycoons watching this scene from a luxurious room.
‘Shoot! I said shoot!’
‘Shoot already—!’
‘Kill her!’
Just like a woman who had lived as a weed.
To die trampled beneath a giant.
It was a fitting ending.
“I'm sorry, Mother.”
Bang-!
The bullet's tail end entered her field of vision.
She could no longer stop, and the responsibility had to be borne in full.
Yes, that was—.
“……”
It came to a stop, its furious rotation halted.
The bullet hung alone in midair.
It fell to the floor with a resonant clang.
Telekinesis.
There was a Third-Floor awakened one here.
And a powerful one, strong enough to stop even Vichakos's bullet in midair.
‘I need to get out of sight first.’
Getting caught by the telekinesis would be dangerous.
As she made that judgment, an urgent cry rang out.
“Ms. Vichakos! Wait a moment!”
Her gaze turned as if possessed toward the voice. There stood the president of the matchmaking agency, holding a sword.
“Kim… Juseon?”
“Ms. Vichakos, put that gun down!”
“You—. If you're here—!”
At least you were here.
Because you hadn't let go of the connection between us, however tenuous.
I was relieved.
“If you're here, then the children—!”
“The children are safe—that's why you came!”
“What?”
The shock felt like she had been struck in the head with a rock.
The words she wanted to believe reassured her, yet at the same time left her no choice but to doubt them.
“Are you sure?”
“Phew, I'm sure. I've stationed people far more trustworthy than me around them.”
“……”
“Trust me this time.”
When Kim Juseon smiled faintly, Vichakos lowered her muzzle a little. She felt she might finally relax. There was something about him that made people want to trust him, to an almost uncanny degree.
Was it because of that affected smile?
Or perhaps because of his blatantly money-grubbing nature.
“This time…… can I trust you?”
“Yes, definitely.”
They were only words, but they put her at ease.
They were probably feeling this, too.
She thought it served them right.
“But why did you come? We're not exactly the kind of people who protect each other.”
As the tension slowly eased, she lowered her gun.
In fact, they were closer to enemies than allies.
“The children asked me to.”
“……”
“They said they wanted to see their mother.”
Vichakos's eyes wavered ever so slightly at those words.
An emotion surged up, choking off her words before she knew it, but—
“I've done everything I can for them.”
“……”
“I've taken out insurance so their prosthetics can be replaced for the rest of their lives. They'll be able to live on their own from now on.”
For no particular reason, Vichakos avoided Kim Juseon's gaze.
“You know that you're lying to yourself.”
“That's—.”
“Is it because you're a wanted criminal? It's true, you should be punished. Ordinarily, there's no room for compromise.”
There was no death penalty on the Third Floor, but this was a violation of the Tower Terrorism Act.
On the Rajesta Continent and in the old Murim, executions were carried out often enough that Mosco Vichakos would unquestionably receive the death penalty.
But.
“You may not realize it, but right now you've become a far more important link than you think.”
“A link?”
“How do you think I found this place?”
“That's—.”
Come to think of it, he was right.
How had a mere matchmaking agency president gotten here?
A discrepancy surfaced in Mosco Vichakos's mind.
The reason he could be here.
“I strongly argued that I was the only person who could communicate with an unpredictable woman like you, someone who had even betrayed humanity.”
“……What?”
“I'm proposing a plea bargain, Vichakos.”
A plea bargain?
A question mark appeared in Vichakos's mind. It was such an out-of-the-blue proposal that even her normally composed expression slackened.
“To me? I'm sorry, but I don't have any information I can give you.”
“That's not true. You do.”
“I do?”
The commotion around them began to settle. The guards who came rushing in aimed their guns at Vichakos, while Elik Dwalbe had evacuated long ago.
But Vichakos had long since stopped paying attention.
If the children were safe, there was no reason to kill some politician.
What mattered more was hearing what Kim Juseon had to say.
A way to save her life through a plea bargain.
The one and only possibility in which she could survive.
“A few days ago, you got on an elevator, tried to descend to the Third Floor, and failed, right?”
“……That's right.”
“This is highly classified, but on each floor there is one entity capable of restricting access.”
An entity capable of restricting access.
Villangsi had said the same thing.
That he was the only one.
“And right now, the one the Tower Management Bureau is searching for so desperately is that bastard.”
“You mean—.”
“Let's cooperate.”
Even after hearing that the Tower Management Bureau was pursuing Villangsi, Vichakos couldn't answer with confidence.
“I'm sorry, but I don't know his location. I was transported in a container with no visibility.”
“I heard you're connected to him.”
Connected?
“……”
Vichakos abruptly raised her hand.
Her forehead, wrists, ankles, and so on.
S.E.L. patches were attached all over her body.
“We've got a professional on this side who can reverse-trace his location, you know? So let's work together.”
“A professional?”
“There is one—you know the face—no, a program you know.”
At the word program, Vichakos immediately knew who it was.
“I heard it was scrapped.”
“Classified information, classified information.”
Watching Kim Juseon grin, Vichakos found herself letting out a smile as well.
“Heh, don't smile. I might get attached.”
“Then you're coming?”
“I have to.”
“Okay! Yena! You saw that, right? I—!”
Just as Kim Juseon shouted something toward the sky—
Kraaaang!
A huge crater formed in the ground with a thunderous boom.
The one who raised his head amid the surging storm was a huge fixer.
“I already told you, Mosco Vichakos.”
His entire body was covered in black armor.
A power suit reminiscent of a rhinoceros.
It was monstrous equipment worth an astronomical sum.
“If you failed the mission, I had to kill you.”
His voice was a mechanical jumble distorted by the power suit.
Intense heat spread like murderous intent, and power beyond what any ordinary person should possess surged through it, but—
“Heh—!”
Vichakos couldn't hold it in.
“Hwahahaha—!”
The laughter kept coming.
She laughed so brightly that she wondered how many years it had been since she had laughed so openly.
“What, are you crazy?”
Though Kim Juseon asked in bewilderment, she had no strength to answer.
She merely asked.
‘How is it? You can feel it, can't you?’
Above the skyscraper.
To the people sitting on a sofa and drinking expensive champagne.
‘You can feel what I'm feeling now, can't you?’
Like a young girl making a clumsy confession.
Mosco Vichakos asked with a radiant smile.
‘I'm coming to kill you.’
This feeling.
‘I hope you can relate, too.’