Chapter 15
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【Risk City, Area 49, Temporary Bulletin Board】
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Title: Current Situation at the Bogus Gang Hideout
(Photo of a building engulfed in flames)
LMAOOOOOOOOOO, damn, that really clears my head!!
No idea who blew it up, but I was scared to leave my house because of those bastards. Good riddance! Damn!!!
─ ???: Now that the Bogus Gang is gone, this is our new hideout
└ (OP) It burned down so completely that even that's impossible, right? Nothing left now, right?
─ I heard something that sounded like fireworks earlier, but it wasn't a festival... What a shame
└ (OP) Did this bastard pick up and eat trash off the ground by mistake? Fireworks, my ass;;
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Title: I'm releasing CCTV footage from the building near my house
(Video of a truck slamming into a building at full speed)
Does ICE enter places like this these days??
Look at it just flooring the accelerator and parking inside.
That's fucking alpha.
─ Info) Area 49 is not an area where ICE officially carries out enforcement.
└ (OP) Who doesn't know that???? Just agree with me, you son of a bitch
─ LMAOOOOOOOOOO I tried calculating the speed, and that thing was easily going over 100 kilometers per hour.
└ That's fucking hilariousㅋㅋㅋ A hundred kilometers per hour in an ant colony? Obviously another gang modified it as an assault vehicle.
└ (OP) I suddenly heard a massive crash while I was sleeping, so I checked the CCTV and saw this. It probably wasn't long before the building blew up after that, either.
─ I've identified the address. Expect a surprise gift.
└ (OP) Get fucked, idiot. How many times do you think I routed around the server?
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Title: Well, it's going to be a turf war between gangs anyway
What's so special about it?
Unless they left a 5,700-character hate comment on a megacorp or the city government.
Don't you guys know about the Ninja-Tactical Unit?
─ Whoa, this bastard is posting like crazy on the Area 49 bulletin board. Keep that up and you'll really get arrested, you know?
└ (OP) Oh~ It's a special administrative district, so I won't get arrested~ That's why I deliberately came all the way down to Area 49~
─ I saw nothing.
└ Neither did I. I'm just a private citizen.
─ Well, it's true that the Bogus Gang had been acting way too boldly lately. Their boss had magic circuits implanted in some completely amateurish way, you know?
└ So he was going to die anyway. There wouldn't have been any reason to mess with him. I'm curious, too.
└ (OP) Why do you know so much;; That's creepy;;
└ (Emoticon of a mechanical frog-human grinning)
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“Boss, you should be leaving soon.”
“Understood.”
Inside a brightly lit corridor.
It was mealtime, with a full banquet laid out before them.
The boss of the Sparo Rapido Family, the Mafia of Area 49, was enjoying surfing the cybernet when she suddenly became curious.
‘So who made a move?’
Red eyes visible between her faded blond hair gleamed like machinery.
Hakugagumi? Probably not.
If those barbarians had done it, they would have dragged the corpses outside and hung them up like laundry.
Then the Black Star Society? That was unlikely, too.
They were the sort who never left the black-market district they controlled—the heart of New City. If it had been them, there would definitely have been some kind of commotion.
Then…
‘Yeah, I'm curious.’
If she was curious, she should find out for herself.
Before making the rounds of the organization's regular meetings, she crooked a finger at one of her direct subordinates.
“Yes, Boss.”
“Something came up that needs looking into.”
“Just say the word.”
“Well, it's nothing important.”
For now, she would call it curiosity.
Under ordinary circumstances, she would not have paid attention to a small organization like the Bogus Gang,
but a strange intuition had driven her to act.
Besides.
‘…It's a shame I missed the fireworks.’
She liked explosions enough to be nicknamed a terrorist.
She did, in fact, like fireworks.
* * *
【Increased chance of a special random encounter occurring!】
【Increased chance of a special random encounter occurring!】
【Increased chance of a special random encounter occurr—!】
Agh, so fucking noisy.
How many times is that going to go off?
When I irritably tapped my temple, the voice ringing in my head quickly disappeared.
That sigh of relief had barely left my lips when
I took another look at the horrific scene at the half-destroyed grocery store, and it felt as though a new vein had appeared on my forehead.
“…Phew.”
Calm down. Calm down.
It wasn't as though the other building was still standing, either.
The entrance to the grocery store was still noisy.
A large number of homeless people had gathered there, all murmuring among themselves.
“Ha, Hotdog Man!!”
“Damn it, if it weren't for that turret, we could have checked whether Hotdog Man was alive by now….”
“If you're alive, say something!!”
They were worried about me just because I had shared food with them for a few days.
Aside from the grime being a little much, they really were good people.
“…By the way, it's okay to pick up the food lying here, right? It's abandoned anyway?”
“This is Hotdog Man's corn dog…. It's still warm.”
……Scratch that.
Why were there nothing but bums gathered here?
I wished they would all just disappear.
At that moment, a homeless man who seemed to have shaved every last hair off his conscience lit up his eyes.
“…Hey, you fucking assholes. If you have even a shred of moral conscience, you should be worrying about Hotdog Man instead of picking up food—.”
I made eye contact with the homeless man who had been saying that.
I gave him a casual wave.
Yeah, this is why you trust people.
He stared at me as though he were seeing a ghost, as if he had really thought I was dead.
“H-Hotdog Man…?”
“Thanks for worrying about me.”
That damn Hotdog Man thing.
…The biggest problem was that I was gradually getting used to it.
My name wasn't Hotdog Man. It was Abel Anderson. No, wait. It was Cheon Su-ho.
But no one would listen even if I told them that.
I looked around at the homeless people with their startled expressions and narrowed my eyes.
“But where's Rivera?”
“Rivera? Is that the name of your sidekick?”
Most superheroes had a promising assistant with them.
Batman had Robin, the Joker had Harley Quinn, and Superman had Kryptonite….
…No, that one didn't count.
Anyway.
When I couldn't see Rivera anywhere, I frowned slightly.
I was worried enough about her wandering around alone in the dangerous Area 49, but if she had suddenly disappeared, I could think of nothing but bad possibilities.
“You know, the little girl who was here. About chest height, with shaggy hair that hid her cute face….”
There weren't many distinctive features to go on.
If she had at least shown her face, perhaps more people would have recognized her.
But then again, perhaps that was why the little girl went around hiding her face.
“I definitely told her to hide here with Nova….”
“Who is Nova?”
“The turret over there.”
“……??”
As the homeless man's pupils trembled as though he were looking at a madman,
a serious possibility occurred to me.
Even if all the homeless people who had been there when the incident began had run away, it was strange that Rivera was nowhere to be seen.
If the little girl had been here, she could have told the homeless people that I was fine.
If she had, they wouldn't have been desperately shouting my name like this.
I had only just thought that when
a small girl poked her face out from inside the half-destroyed grocery store.
Round, yellow eyes showed between her shaggy hair.
“…Rivera! There you are!”
“Uh, um….”
A promissory note? She couldn't mean a negotiable security.
Rivera drew out the end of her words and hunched in an even more awkward manner than usual.
“Y-yes….”
“That's right. Good job.”
From the little girl's perspective, the crowd of homeless people must have seemed frightening.
She had probably been trembling and crying in a corner.
I tightly hugged Rivera, who was (probably) trembling with anxiety.
Then I patted her shoulder.
“It's all over now, so you don't have to be scared.”
“Uhhh….”
“Hmm? Is there something you want to say?”
Rivera was moving as though she felt guilty, just like the homeless people who had been caught picking up food, but that was surely just my imagination.
It was a sin even to suspect such a small and fragile girl.
“…It's nothing.”
“It must have been scary hiding here alone. Wait. Did Nova look after you?”
When I looked at the turret on the ceiling, Rivera answered in a trembling voice.
“Y-yes….”
And the turret began moving with an unusual amount of vigor.
[…Dyu?! Dyu! Dyudyu!!]
It nodded and shook its head from side to side.
But it was nearly impossible to understand the turret's speech when it communicated in letters rather than sentences.
Well, I supposed it meant that Nova had looked after her.
[……Dyu.]
As the turret's lens gradually turned red,
I patted Rivera's shoulder to reassure her, then went back outside to the homeless people gathered there.
“Hotdog Man, I knew you'd be alive!”
“Heroes don't die. That's common sense, right?”
“Phew, we were really worried about you.”
Autographs. A hassle.
I wanted to say that to the homeless people crowding around me, but they had gathered because they were worried about me (or the food), at any rate.
“The grocery store will be temporarily closed.”
When my shocking announcement rang out,
“…It can't be helped. The entrance is completely wrecked.”
“Still, we ate well for a few days….”
The homeless people's faces were colored with gloom.
But this wasn't the end!
“However, there are products in the warehouse whose expiration dates are passing even as we speak.”
“D-does that mean….”
Their gloom turned into anticipation.
When I thought about it, business wasn't going to work whether the door was open or smashed to pieces.
“So from now on, gather in the vacant lot behind the store instead of at the entrance.”
I might as well distribute food that couldn't be sold anyway.
A brief silence.
And then.
“Hotdog Man! He's a god!!”
“Hotdog Punch! Hotdog Kick! Hotdog Bomber!”
““Hotdog Man! Hotdog Man! Hotdog Man!””
I fled from the homeless people who tried to hoist me onto their shoulders.
Take a bath once in a while.
* * *
Still, I couldn't leave the grocery store entrance in that state forever.
With fine dust blowing in through the gaping entrance,
at least I no longer had to worry about ventilation.
“Let's see.”
I checked the business card of the owner—Christine, which I had carefully stored inside.
The pitch-black paper card had no name on it, only a few numbers.
‘This is probably a terminal number.’
I felt terribly sorry about reporting that the grocery store entrance had been destroyed only a few days after opening, but
I couldn't think of any other solution.
The homeless? What could I expect from a bunch of freeloaders?
To contact Christine, I first needed to get a terminal myself.
Rather than borrow one from someone else, I might as well get one now.
I couldn't remain a phone-less loser forever.
“…You really don't have a smart chip?”
It felt like a young relative had asked me, ‘Uncle, you don't even have a smartphone?’
“Having one implanted in my head feels a little much.”
“…Then you'll have to get an old-fashioned terminal. But to find one, we'll need to leave Old Town and head all the way toward New City.”
“That's true.”
There weren't any properly open stores around here.
Even the sheer number of homeless people made that obvious. This street was probably an entirely abandoned area, even within Area 49.
“And, um… the area around New City might be even more dangerous for you than here.”
I could see the worry in Rivera's eyes as she looked up at me.
But who was I?
The man who had taken down the Bogus Gang barehanded.
“So, just don't stray from my side─.”
“Don't worry. I'll protect you.”
I think she was saying something, though.
Rivera froze as if she had malfunctioned.
“What did you say?”
“N-no, it's nothing. I said I wouldn't stray from you.”
“Okay. Oh, should I hold your hand, too?”
My little sister had surely been this cute once, too….
I remembered my little sister's appearance when she had been cute, up until 144 months old.
For the record, I erased everything after that from my memory.
The cute angel had transformed into a monster who called me oppa in exchange for allowance….
Anyway.
“Hmm? Here, your hand.”
I held out my hand to the little girl I was responsible for now.
It would be troublesome if she got separated from me and lost.
“Uhh, yesss….”
She did look a little embarrassed, though.