Chapter 40
I don't remember much of what happened after that.
Perhaps due to the relief of escaping danger, as soon as Sasha Dragon appeared exuding an overwhelming presence, my tension completely unraveled and all the strength drained from my body.
Maybe I had already instinctively realized it then.
These were the true colors of the Dragon President.
He was by no means just an ordinary bar manager. There was a reason the Chairman had ordered me to report every single detail about him without omission.
Now that he had appeared, there was no longer any need to worry. At least, that was my judgment at the time.
My overloaded brain declared a strike as if it had no more strength to think, and my eyes couldn't focus, leaving my entire vision blurry like smudged paint.
With the sounds in my ears ringing as if I were submerged underwater, the Dragon President, burning red, moved within my crushed field of vision.
Perhaps because my physical condition was so dog-shit, the scenes shifted rapidly as if the film reel was snapping.
I was sure he had been right next to me just a moment ago, but the next second he was grabbing the Ronins by their collars, exactly as they had done to me.
The sight of him lifting two muscular Russian Bratva gang mercenaries, who were easily two meters tall, one in each hand like dumbbells.
Maybe I saw it wrong. Like I said, my memory isn't clear.
Even while looking right at it, I was confused whether this was reality or if I was dreaming.
After I blinked my half-closed eyes, the muffled sound of something breaking and collapsing struck my ears.
Like a scene from a B-movie, people from all directions
Shoooong—
went flying.
Before I knew it, the Man Hunter and his subordinate ronin were all sprawled out together in a miserable state, looking as if they had rolled down a flight of stairs several times.
Having lost one hand and then getting caught by the furious Dragon President to be sent on a one-way flight to Hong Kong, Alexgey flailed around as if he couldn't understand the situation, before seemingly realizing something belatedly.
He glared with his tiny, buttonhole-like eyes that had been hiding behind his broken sunglasses and shouted.
"You are... Krasny Drakon! Could that rumor have been true!"
And in response, the Dragon President said something, but by that point, the sounds I heard were beyond muffled,
*Beeeep—*
causing tinnitus to the point where I couldn't hear a thing.
It wasn't just my ears, but my eyes too. Everything turned into stark white and black silhouettes, until before I knew it, all I could see were pitch-black afterimages.
A long while later, I belatedly realized that I had closed my eyes. And I didn't have the strength to lift my incredibly heavy eyelids again.
Now, my only thought was that I just wanted to rest. The side effects of that damn switch...
Is this what it feels like to get a hand-kneaded massage that squishes and squeezes your brain? I was so dizzy, nauseous, and in pain that it was hard to maintain my sanity.
Having endured this state for so long, I felt as if my head would explode with a pop like a time bomb at any moment.
This was a warning sent by my body.
a notification, a message, an order from my body that I needed to fall dead asleep right this instant to recover my consumed physical strength and mental fortitude.
I needed sleep, a very deep and exhausting slumber at that.
I fell straight into the swamp of sleep. There was nothing that could stop me now.
My flickering consciousness completely extinguished. I fainted, slumping limply against one wall of the bar.
The last thing I remember was the tinnitus gradually subsiding, the intense electro-house music from the jukebox piercing my head, and someone's voice drawing closer.
[Nooooo! How can you lie down already! This was the peak moment of coolness! I was reciting a totally subarashii line.
Get up! Even if you collapse, you have to watch my awesome figure until the very end as I save you before you pass out! If you're my subordinate employee, show the perseverance that fits the role. Nakamura! Nakamura Aaron... Kuso (Damn it)!]
Even in my daze, I could immediately tell whose tingling voice that was.
...You're truly consistent.
That was the last thought that came to mind before I completely lost consciousness.
* * *
When I came to my senses, my surroundings were completely dark and quiet.
I was lying down somewhere soft.
"Ouuuch..."
I unconsciously let out a cracked groan at the pain that poured in like a tidal wave the moment I woke up.
My head throbbed and my stomach churned as if I were suffering from a terrible hangover.
My arms and legs, shoulders, chest, and stomach all ached with muscle pain, just like the day after starting at the gym for the first time.
You crazy microchip.
See if I ever trigger an activation again, though it's a modification I can't control at will anyway.
It had been quiet for a while, but turning back on after a long time, it completely shattered my body's condition.
If previously it was just to the extent of getting a headache and feeling tired from consuming the brain's bio-energy, this time it completely surpassed that level.
It wasn't just consuming my mental fortitude, but also sucking me dry right down to the bottom.
In reality, I couldn't endure it and fell dead asleep.
Even now, after having slept and woken up, trying to lift my head made me dizzy and gave me vertigo, showing that I hadn't fully recovered.
Well, it still showed its worth, so I don't regret it.
It was a new ability I had never used or even imagined before... or should I call it a technique or an application method.
The side effects were just too fierce, but the effect itself was certain.
Of course, that's that, and I probably won't have a reason to use it again.
I couldn't use it even if I wanted to out of fear.
That feeling of my skull heating up as if a fire had broken out inside my head can't be explained in words.
Just recalling it makes my head throb again; I never want to experience it a second time.
While thinking that in my head, I suddenly paused.
...What am I talking about right now?
A new application method for the switch? Why did I use something like that?
As my thoughts reached that point, my head hurt like it was going to split. The memories that felt distant like a dream returned piece by piece.
The Man Hunter, the Super-Vibrating Jet Engine Saw, the severed mechanical hand with its signal cut, the Ronins of the Bratva gang and something that whipped past, and the Dragon President...
"Gasp."
I froze with my eyes wide open and my mouth agape.
I couldn't see because there was no mirror, but my complexion had probably turned pale as well.
It was so shocking that even my headache completely vanished, as if I had washed my head with cold water.
Only one thought came to mind.
I'm fucked.
I was in the middle of working.
But this crazy person, just because he got pissed off, abruptly cut off a customer's hand (derogatory) at a workplace he'd only been attending for five days, got beaten up by a ronin gang, and then completely lost consciousness.
And then I slept like a log during working hours and only just woke up now.
Just what the hell did I do?
And where is this? No matter how I look at it, it doesn't seem like the bar floor where I collapsed.
Anyway, this wasn't the time to be lying around comfortably. I had to get up right now and do something...!
"Heup..."
I struggled to brace my arms against the floor and raise my body, but failed.
As if blocked by an invisible wall, no matter how much I strained, my upper body wouldn't rise past a certain point.
At first, I panicked, wondering if my body had deteriorated this much, to the point where it was hard to even get up...
But after regaining my composure and grasping the situation, I realized that physical pressure was being applied to my body.
Someone was pressing down on my body to prevent me from getting up.
That firm touch and silhouette were somewhat familiar.
A strange grape scent that I had smelled sometime before lingered in the air.
Whether it was because my eyes were dim or because the lights were off... I made a rough guess and called out to the person looking down at me from above, whose face I couldn't see properly.
"...Ms. Sey?"
"Yeah. Lie down a little longer."
I guess I was right.
I still couldn't see well in front of me, but just hearing that low, cold voice, I knew it was unmistakably the Dragon's Lair head bartender.
True to her usual personality, she laid me down, said what she wanted to say, and was about to coolly disappear somewhere, so I hurriedly stopped her.
Rather than stopping her, it was nothing more than my flailing my hands and calling out to her desperately.
"W-Wait a minute. What about the bar? The customers? Where did the President and Mr. Tony go?"
At my rambling questions, Sey spoke with her signature ice-cold gaze that I felt that I could sense even without seeing it.
"Check the time on your watch."
And then she disappeared.
I silently turned on the watch device on my wrist that I had completely forgotten about.
The current time was... 5:24 AM.
It was a time when not only would the bar's doors be closed, but its staff would have already finished all the cleanup and would have had more than enough time to get off work.
Since my clash with the Man Hunter was around midnight, it meant I had been out cold for at least five hours.
Because I was just sleeping like that, my working hours had already ended. Damn it.
Only then could I figure out where everyone had gone.
The customers must have all gone home, and the Dragon President and Tony must have gotten off work too.
But why is Sey still here? And where is this place?
Just as I was about to shine the watch's light to look around, the lights on the ceiling suddenly turned on. A blinding LED light spread out, making my eyes hurt.
When I squeezed my eyes shut, the light intensity suddenly decreased, as if adjusting to accommodate me.
When I lifted my eyelids again, only a soft illumination was coming out now.
Turning my head, I saw Sey turning the dial on the wall environment control system, reducing the intensity of the light.
At times like this, she shows an incredibly considerate side.
Looking around with eyes that had finished light adaptation, I saw the bar's staff lounge.
I was lying on a nylon sofa pad on one side of the rest area.
"Ah. It was the Rest Area."
It was obvious if I thought about it for just a moment.
They couldn't just leave me sleeping face down on the bar floor, so of course they would have moved me to the rest area.
Thinking about how I had made such a fuss going, “Where is this? What happened to the bar?” and how Sey must have been staring right at me while I did it, my face belatedly turned red.
Somehow, the longer I live, the more my dark history just keeps piling up.
As I was bowing my head in agony, Sey approached.
Instead of the bartender suit vest I always saw her in, she was wearing a black rider jacket over a knit sweater and dark denim pants, with her hair let down, and my gaze was stolen by her appearance.
In her hand was a plastic cup.
"Drink."
Looking inside the cup she handed me, I saw clear water.
Since my thirst was so severe that my throat felt like it was cracking, I said thanks and immediately gulped it down.
And then, as soon as I swallowed, I realized.
This isn't water.