Chapter 176
As we continued our conversation, it turned out there was a reason why Chainsaw Man had been fervently praising Hina as if he were her father.
Though I was also wondering how I ended up hearing such a backstory on our very first meeting.
Hina, the high school girl who seemed to treat everything in the world with a prickly and sullen attitude, had no father. Nor a mother.
When I carefully asked what had happened, Chainsaw Man explained in an uncharacteristically gloomy voice.
“Hina’s father was also a ronin. He was a comrade-in-arms I could trust with my back. However, this line of work is like that. An accident happened in the middle of it.”
I thought he might have been killed in action during a mission. But Hina snorted and cut in with a cynical voice.
“It might have been better if he had just died right then.”
“Hina!”
“What? It’s the truth. Do you know there are various conditions for a Vegetative State? The worst among them is a coma, and my dad was in a coma for three years. He couldn’t wake up, and he couldn’t move, but he still improved to a persistent Vegetative State, so we were able to converse using a brainwave scan device or whatever it’s called. Do you know what the first thing my dad said was?”
It was a somewhat sadistic voice, typical of people who torment themselves by unhesitatingly revealing their unfortunate pasts to others.
“Kill me. He said every minute and second of his life was so painful that he’d rather be killed. So he was euthanized. Not long after we cremated my dad, my mom committed suicide, as if she had no more reason to continue her life. And just like that, I was the only one left. The end.”
Hmm.
I repented for having thoughts like, “A kid who doesn’t even know Cinderella is a prodigy? Does that make sense?', and “Why is this kid so ill-mannered? Did she not receive any home education?”
Given all this, she had actually grown up to be incredibly upright, good, and exemplary. Chainsaw Man wasn’t wrong at all.
“I’m warning you in advance, don’t look at me with pitying eyes unless you want your eyeballs gouged out by my fingernails. Thanks to Mr. Miguel, I’m attending school, eating well, and living well. Do you know that once I graduate from the academy, foundation scholarship students get the qualification to interview and join as a new recruit? In just three years, I’ll be a Militia employee. I’ll become successful and eventually reach the level of an executive. When that time comes, you guys won’t even be able to make eye contact with me.”
Indeed. If she became a Megacorp executive - especially if that Megacorp was Militia - I really would have to hide and avoid making eye contact with her.
It wasn’t like this ruthless high school girl would remember drinking a glass of Cinderella right now and spare my life when that time came.
…Should I have adjusted the sourness a bit earlier?
“By the way, you’re attending school thanks to Mr. Miguel?”
I asked out of curiosity, but wow.
This guy, Chainsaw Man, was he some kind of saint?
Hina had been left in a difficult situation with no relatives, and the City Care Service wouldn’t take her in because she was an awkwardly older adolescent. But he had rolled up his sleeves, provided her with a place to stay and chipped in for her tuition, which was how she managed to get accepted into the Militia Gifted Academy.
Even now, he is paying for all of her high school tuition that cannot be covered by the scholarship alone.
Even if the dead kid’s father had been a past colleague, it wasn’t something just anyone could do. Especially in Dusk City, where mammonism and individualism had only deepened.
To think he was spending the money he earned as a mercenary risking his life to pay for the tuition of a kid who didn’t share a single drop of blood with him.
If there were someone like this in the 21st century, the reaction would have been 'That’s amazing.' or “I couldn’t do that.', but in the 22nd century, the reactions were “Is he crazy?”, 'He’s a psychopath.', or “What a waste of money.”
Perhaps because she knew this fact, even the bad-tempered Hina acted very docilely toward Chainsaw Man. Then again, he was her benefactor, so she rightfully should.
From what I heard, he hadn’t just helped with her tuition, but had also chipped in a certain amount for the hospital bills of her dead father when he was in a Vegetative State.
If I hadn’t heard Chainsaw Man’s explanation that he had once been saved from the brink of death thanks to Hina’s father, and that he was trying to repay him even in this way, I might have suspected, “Does this Yangban perhaps have ulterior motives for the girl and is playing Daddy-Long-Legs?” It was a level of good deeds that was so hard to understand.
Furthermore, this wasn’t the first time, nor was it the last.
I meant cases of people receiving help from Chainsaw Man. A representative example was the pretty-boy young man, Felix.
“Miguel Hyung-nim isn’t my biological older brother. But he’s more than a real brother to me: the time we’ve spent together, and - though it sounds a bit cringeworthy - the way we care for each other, too. Even these legs - I got them fitted at a place he introduced me to. He supported me a lot with the costs… It’s a favor that’s hard to repay.”
Felix was said to have been in an older brother-younger brother relationship with Chainsaw Man since they were young.
In their childhood, they had jokingly sworn to do ronin work together, but due to his frail body, Felix became an ordinary salaryman, while Chainsaw Man… as you can see, became a 22nd-century medieval tin knight crazy about chainsaws for some reason.
“If I knew things would turn out like this, it might have been better to just try doing ronin work together. I hear that these days, ronin don’t necessarily have to go out into the field and fight with guns.”
Felix said with a bitter smile.
“The company I used to work for was a bit vicious. I definitely joined as an office worker, but at some point, when I came to, I was working as a weapon factory worker. There was no proper safety mechanism, the pay was terrible, and they paid a pittance… A lot of people died. Maybe I’m lucky it ended with just my legs getting cut off.”
He said this while pointing at the cold metal cybernetic prosthetic legs that replaced both his legs and connected all the way from his hips.
The atmosphere turned solemn.
Since I was also in a position subordinated to a black corporation, it didn’t feel like someone else’s problem.
My current situation was better than Felix’s, who had lost both his legs, but… that was only because our chairman was a cold-blooded person whose nature was to treat even a worker like me as her own property, prioritizing efficiency and using me for a long, long time without breaking me, as if she intended to suck out my very marrow.
I couldn’t guarantee that my situation would be better than Felix’s in the future.
My life was mortgaged to Isiho, and unless I actually died, I couldn’t escape the Iron Blood Chairman’s grasp. At least Felix had succeeded in escaping the Black Company at the cost of his two legs, hadn’t he?
Even if my legs were cut off like that, I wouldn’t be able to resign.
“Well, but that’s all in the past now. I need to shake off the past and make a fresh start too. Let’s all have a toast!”
Felix deliberately shouted cheerfully and raised his glass to lift the gloomy atmosphere.
“To the chairman of the 《Chainsaw Lovers' Club》 and my eternal Hyung-nim, who crushed the pride of a trash corporation and spread the fame of an A-rank ronin far and wide - a toast to our Chainsaw Man!”
“Cheers!”
“Uh… cheers!”
Since everyone was standing up and toasting, I somehow ended up picking up a spare glass and joining in the toast.
I felt pretty good. Chainsaw Lovers' Club… I was starting to think it might not be a bad idea to try joining once. Had I been brainwashed or something?
“What do you mean Mr. Miguel crushed the pride of trash corporation?”
When I asked about the toast, Nigel answered in a gloomy voice.
“Dysis Waste. It’s a corporation that hit the jackpot with waste-to-energy conversion technique… so everyone calls it a trash corporation. The things it does are like trash, too.”
For reference, Nigel hadn’t ended up here by receiving a massive favor from Chainsaw Man like Felix or Hina; he and Chainsaw Man had been connected through a request, had somehow become close, and he ended up joining the Group/Gathering.
It was somewhat hard to imagine the reliable Chainsaw Man and the gloomy-looking man with dark circles chatting together and becoming friends, but there must have been some story behind it.
Anyway, this guy had been speaking informally to me for a while now. Was he on the older side? Was it okay for him to act like this just because he was older?
Still, I couldn’t help my curiosity, so I asked again.
“The things they do are like trash?”
“Burying people in the junkyard they own, using Ronin to smash other businesses, forcibly bulldozing a shantytown… their infamy is widespread.”
To think he had crushed the pride of such a corporation.
No wonder I hadn’t seen him at the bar for a while; had he been busy fighting some trash corporation?
When I showed my curiosity, Angela answered this time.
“Miguel took on a mission fighting on the opposite side of Dysis Waste, and he pulled it off splendidly. Anyway, having too strong a sense of justice is a problem… Do you know how dangerous it is to make an enemy of a corporation? Though that is Miguel’s charm.”
She said that while giving a captivating eye-smile.
Angela, who had revealed herself as “purely a fan of Chainsaw Man, having joined the Chainsaw Lovers” Club because she liked him so much,' directed a sticky, affection-filled gaze at Chainsaw Man.
Was that really okay? It looked somewhat dangerous. Wasn’t she a yandere or something?
Not that I was in any position to care about Chainsaw Man’s relationships with women, but…
“I agree. Wouldn’t it be really dangerous if the corporation held a grudge?”
For now, I brought up a different topic.
This was definitely a problem, too. There was a reason why everyone cursed corporations on the inside but didn’t say it out loud.
No matter what anyone said, Dusk City was a city of corporations. There was nothing good about making enemies of them.
Dysis Waste. Judging by the fact that I had never heard of them, it didn’t seem to be a large corporation wielding immense power, but…
Still, I would have to be careful.
Perhaps because I had heard so many stories today from the people of the Chainsaw Lovers' Club (abbreviation), each connected to Chainsaw Man in their own way, I found myself genuinely worrying about him without realizing it.