Chapter 28
Inside the logistics warehouse at the grocery store.
Since there was only one chair, Walter and I naturally ended up sitting on boxes of products.
The boxes contained cat food, so there was no need to be particularly careful where we sat.
And.
Seated awkwardly between the two of us was a mysterious, self-proclaimed android girl─.
‘What on earth is going on here.’
I scratched my head, then handed Walter the bottle of milk I had brought along in advance.
Walter frowned when he saw the milk bottle.
“…Why milk all of a sudden?”
“When I saw you earlier, you looked like you were breathing fire. You must have run here in quite a hurry. Drink that and catch your breath.”
Saying that, I gulped down the snow-white milk.
Kree, was it because it was foreign milk?
It had a pure flavor, completely free of any added water.
Walter looked awkwardly down at the bottle of milk I had given him.
“I mean, why milk of all things….”
“Do you dislike milk?”
At my question, Walter tore the cap off the milk bottle.
“It’s not that, but isn’t this that milk? The kind produced by the dairy business managed by the Mafia Family. Tsk, it makes me feel a little uneasy. Still, I hear the quality is supposed to be quite good.”
“……Really?”
When someone mentioned the Mafia Family in District 49, only one place came to mind.
I really had no idea.
The Mafia and a milk business.
‘What is this, Al Capone?’
Walter downed the milk he had received in one clean gulp.
I looked at the android girl sitting tensely.
“You said your name was Anna, right?”
“…Yes.”
“And you won’t be drinking any milk.”
“It’s not that I won’t. I can’t….”
Same difference.
Anna was clutching the ragged piece of cloth she wore, and looked rather uneasy sitting there like that.
Walter was the same, for the record.
“First of all, Grandpa Walter.”
“Grandpa, what?”
“It would feel wrong to just call you Mr. Walter.”
As someone from the Confucian society known as the Land of Eastern Courtesy, I couldn’t casually call an old man by his name.
Besides, forms of address weren’t important.
“At the beginning, you clearly told me that you didn’t have a daughter and that you were single.”
When I first visited Walter’s shop.
We had that conversation.
- Yes, I came to buy something.
- Well, you’re welcome here.
- How is your daughter doing?
- ……I’m single.
I had nearly forgotten and let it slide because I’d asked it as a joke.
At my shocking statement, Anna’s gaze, which had been fixed on the floor, turned toward Walter.
Walter sighed and offered an excuse.
“…Yes. That’s what I said back then. But try to see things from my perspective.”
Clink.
The sound of an empty glass bottle being set on the floor rang out unusually loudly.
“As you know, security in District 49 isn’t exactly good. It’s not a situation where I can proudly tell everyone I have a daughter. If word got out that there was a female android around, more than a few people would come barging in to look for her.”
“Hmm.”
It sounded like a remarkably plausible answer to me.
But Walter’s daughter let out a derisive snort.
“Ha, every word of that is a blatant lie.”
When Anna quickly lifted her head, the piece of cloth she wore like a hood fell back.
She had a remarkably pretty face.
“This man simply doesn’t want to tell other people about my existence. I’m only a robot with his daughter’s memories, not a real, living daughter.”
“…That’s not it.”
“I’m just a replacement for his dead daughter─.”
“Enough!!”
The air grew heavy at Walter’s roar.
No, family conflicts were something they should resolve themselves.
Why drag me into this…?
But it was difficult to say that while breaking through the heavy atmosphere.
Walter looked at his daughter with unwavering eyes.
“You are my daughter. Truly. Don’t go around carelessly telling people otherwise.”
“…….”
Anna quietly shut her mouth at Walter’s words.
However, judging by her sulky expression, his words didn’t seem to have gotten through to her.
Screech.
Anna pushed back the metal chair and stood up.
Walter asked with a flustered expression.
“Wh-Where are you going now?”
“…The sink. What, am I not even allowed to wash my face?”
Do androids go through puberty too?
Anna looked around, then walked toward the restroom.
Feeling conflicted, I tried to comfort Walter.
“You, uh, must have it rough….”
“…It’s fine. She’s always had that personality. And this sudden running away, too. It’s nothing special.”
So he wasn’t a daughter fool; he was a daughter genius.
There were probably plenty of circumstances between them that they couldn’t tell me about.
Since I was an outsider,
I had nothing to say to him.
All I could do was quietly listen from the side.
After a short silence, Walter very cautiously opened his mouth.
“…Do you happen to have a daughter?”
“Huh??”
How old did this crazy old man think I was…?
…….
No, wait. I suppose it was possible.
If I’d gotten married extremely young, that is.
I calmed the Confucian dragon that had tried to leave my body again.
For the record, the average age for a first marriage in South Korea was thirty-three, so I was absolutely not the one who was slow.
“I don’t have a daughter, but I do have a younger sister. I guess she probably has about the same amount of tactlessness….”
Walter chuckled at my words.
“That child takes after me, so she has a rather fierce personality. Anyway, I think of Anna as my real daughter. I did back then, and I will continue to do so in the future.”
“Wouldn’t that be the end of it?”
“I thought so too, but….”
Walter’s sigh stretched out for a long while.
People’s hearts didn’t usually move according to plan.
“Well, regardless, thank you for looking after my daughter.”
“…She was the one who came looking for me.”
I hadn’t done anything yet.
I hesitated for a moment, then added one unnecessary comment.
“She seemed to have come after hearing a rumor that food was being handed out nearby, and wanted to try some.”
“…….”
“I may not be in a position to say this, but isn’t this a time when the two of you need an honest conversation?”
As I cleared away the glass bottle on the floor, I braced myself against the cat food box and stood up.
“I’ll waive the price of this milk, at least.”
“…Was this for sale?”
“Of course.”
Walter laughed heartily at my words.
Heh heh heh….
He probably thought I was joking.
Today had been the perfect opportunity to make the grocery store’s first sale….
Anyway.
The two of them left the grocery store like that.
“You did well staying quiet the whole time.”
[Not at all.]
The turret’s lens, which had quietly descended from the ceiling, looked at me.
[It’s not as though I’m the only one who did.]
“What’s that supposed to mean…? Ah.”
I sensed a presence behind the logistics warehouse and nodded.
Even without checking, it was obvious it was Michael and Rivera.
Were they worried about me?
A hollow laugh escaped me.
‘…An android.’
Honestly, I wasn’t sure.
There must be plenty of related issues in this world too.
But at the very least, it wasn’t easy to think of androids as nothing more than simple robots.
Nova, who was right in front of me, was proof of that.
“Right?”
[…You haven’t asked me anything yet. What exactly are you asking me to agree with?]
“Now, now. Just humor me.”
It felt as though a small sigh followed my unreasonable demand.
[…Yes. I think so too.]
Well, Nova thought so too, apparently.
* * *
It would have been nice if the story had ended peacefully there.
Unfortunately, this was Risk City.
A city of violence and corruption, despair and depravity.
A few dozen minutes after parting with Walter.
【Random Encounter Occurred!】
A truly fucking awful sound rang out in my mind.
I shot up from my chair like a live fish.
It was practically an instinctive movement.
[…Dyu?!]
The flustered turret’s lens turned toward me.
I quickly checked my surroundings.
It wasn’t a notification that the probability of a random encounter had increased; I had heard that one had simply occurred outright.
‘…What the hell is it this time?’
The unnecessarily cheerful woman’s voice forced me to move as though a PTSD trigger had gone off.
I had no choice but to tense up.
Right after hearing this sound, a truck had once crashed into the grocery store entrance.
But nothing seemed out of the ordinary around me.
Seeing me in such a panic, Nova’s voice trembled faintly.
[W-What is the matter?]
“Just a moment.”
I focused solely on looking around.
I definitely hadn’t misheard.
Like the warning sound of a siren, the woman’s voice in my head clearly conveyed the danger bearing down on me.
I burst through the grocery store’s back door.
Bang!!
The homeless people startled by the noise looked at me with bewildered expressions.
The first people I checked were Rivera and Michael.
“Hotdog Man?”
“…Why do you look so flustered?”
But both of them were fine.
My unnaturally expansive senses reminded me that nothing was wrong anywhere near the grocery store.
Then.
Without wasting time thinking, I asked Michael,
“Which way did Walter go?”
“If you mean the old man who was just here….”
“That way.”
Rivera cut off Michael’s cautious answer and pointed in a direction.
“All right. Wait inside the grocery store. If it looks dangerous, bring all the other homeless people inside too.”
I ran without waiting for a reply.
The blood pumped by my heart coursed throughout my body.
Very fast.
With every step I took, the alleyway scenery flew past by several meters at a time.
The force of my steps was so great that cracks occasionally formed in the concrete, but I left the aftermath to the road traffic authority.
My heightened sense of touch detected something ominous.
And at the end of the alley, I found an old man collapsed on the ground.
The ground was already soaked in red blood.
“…Walter!!”
His wounds were worse than I had expected.
As if he had been stabbed in the abdomen, blood welled up in gushing bursts every time he exhaled.
119—no, was it 911 here?
Wait, didn’t someone say medical services didn’t come to District 49 in the first place…?
My thoughts grew increasingly frantic.
“Is there somewhere nearby where we can treat him….”
At the same time, blood bubbles began frothing from Walter’s mouth.
It seemed his throat or lungs had been injured as well.
But his eyes were still intense.
“Stay still. Your wound will split open─.”
Ignoring my words, he handed me a business card.
It was a business card I remembered seeing recently.
“Take my daughter with you…. Cough!!”
“I mean, calm down first….”
“……!!”
Walter waved his hand wildly.
It seemed to mean that I should leave him behind and go find his missing daughter.
But I couldn’t simply abandon a critically injured man in the middle of an alley.
Then.
“…I’ll take responsibility for Mr. Walter. There’s somewhere nearby where he can be treated.”
Rivera’s voice came from directly behind me.
Normally, I would have wondered how she had followed me, but.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, trust me.”
“…I’m counting on you.”
Every second counted right now.
I had no choice but to trust our little one.
Rivera quickly tore strips from her clothes and began treating Walter’s wound.
She handled it with remarkable skill.
I checked Walter’s bloodstained business card, then pulled another crumpled business card from my pocket.
It had the exact same image on it.
Along with the name ‘Whole Paradise,’ it also had an address written on it.
Crack.
A sound like something being crushed rang out from within my tightly clenched fist.
There wasn’t even time to vent my anger to my heart’s content.
Checking the address, I kicked off the ground once more.
For real.
I’m not letting this slide.