Chapter 22
When I was serving in the military in Cheorwon, a meteor once fell on our unit with absolutely no warning.
The human-shaped meteor made of two stars (a two-star general) struck the barracks where I was staying completely out of the blue.
After being tormented by guard duty all day, I had been making up for my lack of sleep by enjoying post-duty sleep the next day, so it was a crisis like a bolt from a clear sky.
- Why are you sleeping in instead of carrying out the day's duties?
- Sergeant Cheon Suho! I had finished my guard-duty assignment and was sleeping after my shift!
In fact, looking back now, it was a truly trivial question that I had no need to be so nervous about.
It wasn't as if I'd skipped my duties.
But.
Why had I been so nervous back then?
The pitiful look in the battalion commander's eyes as he stood beside the two-star general and stared at me with trembling pupils had put some pressure on me, too.
But the biggest reason must have been that ordinary people can't dodge falling meteors.
No matter what excuse I made here, a single wave of the two-star general's hand could have tied my peaceful military life into a Gordian knot.
Just like now.
“Boss, the three guests you invited have arrived.”
“Good work.”
The mafia member who had guided us here left the room while maintaining a solemn posture.
When I thought of a mafia boss, I expected even the bodyguards accompanying her to number in the dozens.
But in the elegantly decorated room, I couldn't see a single other person besides the woman reading documents at the desk.
That must be the boss of the notorious mafia Family.
A brief silence followed.
Someone behind me subtly tapped me on the back several times, sending me a signal.
When I turned around, Michael was urging me on with a stiff expression.
“…You need to greet her. You should greet her first.”
His voice was barely audible.
Indeed.
After hearing Michael's words, I spoke first.
“I hear you have some questions for us.”
“!!”
Without even noticing Michael gaping behind me, I gazed blankly at the mafia boss sitting at the desk.
The woman who had been reading documents at the office desk slowly raised her head.
Her bright blonde hair, light enough to be mistaken at a glance for white, fell naturally below her shoulders.
She was shorter than I had expected.
‘She’s about twenty, give or take. It’s hard to guess someone’s age from their appearance here.’
The mafia boss had a remarkably youthful appearance, but her presence was impossible to ignore.
More than anything, the size of her chest was quite...
I deliberately shifted my gaze.
Her red eyes, impossible to read, watched us without the slightest emotion.
Her gaze landed on Michael.
“Name: Michael Dillon. Former businessman affiliated with Astra Group. While working in the secretary’s office, he was pushed out of internal politics after the executive he was assigned to died and is now under threat of death. After beginning the resignation process, he fled to District 49 to preserve his life.”
Michael's eyes widened.
“In District 49, he wandered the streets before settling near a grocery store on a street in the old northern city. He is currently presumed to be laying the groundwork for an organization among the homeless.”
So he was a former businessman.
Come to think of it, I had found him unusual.
He knew an extraordinary amount, after all.
“And.”
This time, she looked at Rivera.
“Corporate experiments─.”
“Stop.”
Unlike Michael, Rivera cut her off in an extremely cold voice.
A chill ran up my spine.
It felt as though frozen ice had touched the back of my neck.
The mafia boss stared at Rivera with emotionless eyes, then turned her head to look at me.
“Up to this point, you’re merely an unusual combination.”
A smile spread across her soft, light-pink lips.
“But you’re not, Hotdog Man.”
“…Pardon?”
Why was I suddenly involved?
She began reading the documents again.
“Name: Abel Anderson. However, after hacking into the city government’s internal records, I confirmed that the identity was created less than a month ago. It is presumed to have been fabricated by at least a Level 5 web spider.”
Before I could make an excuse, she continued.
“Judging by the records alone, you could be someone who escaped from a human farm intended for organ trafficking, but camera footage confirms that you single-handedly defeated the majority of the Bogus gang, including its leader, Bogus. During that process, you blew up a building….”
Her speech grew faster and faster, then paused briefly at the phrase ‘the building’s explosion.’
“Bogus was a Level 2 magic user who had illegally received magic circuits, but the time presumed to have been spent fighting was approximately three minutes or less. The building exploded, making the details impossible to verify. However, circumstantially, you are presumed to be a genuine magic user of at least Level 3. It is highly likely that you are a noble or knight from a Family in the city center. The exact details are still under investigation.”
A question mark appeared above my head.
…A Level 3 magic user? A Family? A noble?
I wish people wouldn’t use such difficult words.
Because they’re hard to understand.
But it was clear that the other party was under some enormous misconception.
“…In other words, aside from the unusual nickname ‘Hotdog Man,’ everything else is just speculation.”
She tilted her head to the side and muttered to herself.
“Hotdog Man…. Hmm, how did you get that nickname? Was it because the way you tied someone up tightly and lynched them looked like a hot dog? I’m curious. I can’t imagine you got such a strange nickname just because you shared some food.”
That’s the correct answer.
There’s no one who lives as decently as I do.
But before I could answer, she pressed a button in the office.
A curious holographic video appeared above it.
There.
“…That’s me?”
I muttered without realizing it.
More precisely, it was footage of my actions playing from the moment we first entered the party hall.
[Grin─.]
For example, me walking around with nothing but the corners of my mouth stretched upward after hearing Michael’s advice to loosen up my expression.
[…Ta-da.]
Or me shrugging my shoulders with a nonchalant attitude after performing the magic trick that made the teeth disappear.
[…….]
Even the bizarre sight of me silently carving up a large pig with a knife and piling it on a plate like a mountain.
From a third party’s perspective, I really did look like nothing but a lunatic.
My clothes were also ridiculously colorful.
So that was how I looked to other people.
I felt a little embarrassed.
The mafia boss clasped her hands and leaned her body against the office desk.
Deep curiosity showed in her eyes.
“What on earth are you?”
“This really is bound to cause a misunderstanding from the boss’s perspective….”
“You have quite a talent for making ‘find out for yourself’ sound so complicated.”
The other party also had a talent for deliberately misconstruing sincere words.
Her red eyes flickered like flames.
She sank into the luxurious leather chair.
“My name is Luciana. I’m the current boss of the Sparo Rapido Family. But don’t call me Godfather or Godmother. That makes me sound too old.”
Mafia Family bosses are traditionally called “Godfathers.”
But she didn’t seem to like the title.
“We’re not even affiliated with the same organization, so there’s no need to call me boss. Just call me by my name.”
“Yes, well. Understood, Ms. Luciana.”
When I nodded and answered, Luciana smiled with a satisfied expression.
“Your attitude is quite natural. This makes it highly likely that you really are from a Family in the city center.”
“…I really am not.”
Even so, I couldn’t reveal the truth.
That I had merely fallen into a game, and for some unknown reason, my personality had become slightly bolder while I was being treated for my injuries.
Then she’d really think I was a lunatic….
“Anyway, there’s the fact that you went out of your way to eliminate the Bogus gang, which was bound to disappear anyway. And there’s also the fact that you got involved in an unnecessary altercation at the party without shedding blood.”
“I think there was blood.”
“You didn’t kill anyone.”
Ah.
No wonder she was a mafia boss.
She had a remarkably open-minded way of thinking.
Whatever she was thinking, she looked at us pleasantly, unlike before.
“Did you know? The history of the mafia. Our very beginning was as vigilantes protecting people.”
“…I think I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“Really? These days, that information isn’t even easy to find on the cyberweb. You’re surprisingly well-informed.”
I probably saw it while Googling around.
Or maybe it was on Namu Wiki.
“Unlike certain ‘fucking pieces of garbage,’ you seem like people who know how to keep a certain line. I called you here because there aren’t many organizations that know how to keep their boundaries these days, either.”
…?
I didn’t understand this sudden remark.
Why was she suddenly talking about vigilantes, and what line was she talking about?
Luciana separated her clasped hands and rested her chin on one of them.
“What I’m saying is that I like you quite a lot. Enough that I’d like to see your faces often, if possible.”
…Would the interest of a mafia boss really be of much help to us?
I discreetly glanced back at the other two.
As usual, Rivera was glaring at Luciana with an impassive expression, while Michael was desperately maintaining a poker face, though his palms were already drenched in sweat.
I nodded as calmly as possible.
“There might be an opportunity for that later. Actually, we haven’t formed an organization or anything─.”
Just then.
Bang!!
Someone burst through a door.
It wasn’t the door we had entered through, but a small door behind Luciana.
“P-Please, save me!!”
His entire body was covered in blood.
Black electrolyte fluid was also leaking from his broken joints and face.
Luciana lightly sighed and turned her head back.
“Oh dear, I told you to hold him properly.”
“I’m sorry, Boss.”
The organization member who entered the room bowed his head.
What on earth was this situation?
Luciana rose from her seat and walked toward the blood-soaked man.
“Don’t misunderstand. This makes it look like we were holding some innocent person captive and torturing him.”
“…….”
Wasn’t that what was happening?
Luciana casually accepted the handgun her subordinate held out.
And then.
Bang-!
With the shell casing flying through the air,
the man's groan soon cut off.
She handed the gun, still trailing gunpowder smoke, to her subordinate, then slowly walked back toward us.
She was utterly calm, as if she had merely cleared away some trash from the floor.
“I told you at the gathering just now, didn’t I? That an unexpected appointment had come up.”
“…Yes, ma’am.”
For the moment, I straightened my back a little more.
“This is it. Some ‘fucking piece-of-garbage organization’ sent people here to greet us. Right when we were holding our gathering, too.”
Luciana manipulated the holographic video.
It showed people in white outfits attempting to infiltrate the mansion.
Soon, a firefight began.
No wonder the mansion seemed to have such good soundproofing.
While we had been waiting inside for three hours, a war with bullets flying had been raging outside.
That was just a greeting?
Until then, I hadn’t realized how intense the struggle for power in District 49 was.
“Well, since they sent us a greeting, we should send one back.”
The holographic video ended.
A large screen was projected across an entire wall.
It didn’t seem to be a simple beam projector; the screen writhed in 3D.
…A large factory complex?
“Blow it up.”
A faint heat suffused Luciana’s face.
There was even a slight tremor in it.
And then.
[KABOOM!!!]
The entire screen was dyed red.
Falling sparks and billowing smoke.
The explosion had been so enormous that the screen soon glitched and shut down as well.
“…I do love flames.”
They’d attacked us once.
So she blew up the opposing organization’s factory.
It was a bizarre way of doing the math, but I couldn’t say anything in front of the person who had actually carried it out.
After a brief silence.
After giving herself a little shake, Luciana looked at us with the same listless expression as before.
But faint flames were still burning in her eyes.
“So, what were we talking about?”
I swallowed the words I had been about to say.
Because I didn’t know how this fickle mafia boss might react.
“…Um.”
“Um?”
I swallowed once.
Carefully, I gave a thumbs-up.
“Art really is explosions, isn’t it?”
Luciana smiled with a satisfied expression upon hearing my answer.