Chapter 32
Climbing up the building’s exterior from outside all the way to the 11th floor had absolutely not been a wise choice.
My hands and feet were trembling from the adrenaline.
It had been an improvised plan meant to save time, but although I said the 11th floor, the distance was nearly 30 to 40 meters in height alone.
From now on, I’d better make frequent use of elevators.
I made a solemn vow to myself.
Anyway.
“You were talking up a storm earlier, but now you’ve clammed up.”
The man who had wished me good luck had a surprisingly ordinary appearance.
Of course, it wasn’t as though villains walked around with ‘bad guy’ written on their faces, so it wasn’t particularly strange.
It only made me angry.
After swallowing hard, the man opened his mouth with extreme caution.
“…Hello. My name is Ishida, and I’m the owner of Hole Paradise.”
“Honestly, I can’t say I’m doing very well.”
“I suppose that’s true….”
He scratched his head, then asked me a question.
“The fact that you’ve arrived here means that the android I sent has already been destroyed. How on earth did you….”
“Enough.”
I cut him off and grabbed him by the collar.
Taking an even more forceful approach, I said,
“Just lead me to where the android is.”
“…Tsk, why are you in such a hurry? My defeat is already a foregone conclusion, anyway.”
Even with my fist clenched tightly around his collar, he—Ishida—didn’t seem short of breath as he rattled on.
“The android, you mean. Yes, I’ll return her to you. If you want separate financial compensation, I can also provide damages.”
“…….”
“Just give me a moment, just a moment….”
So he was stalling.
I slammed his body straight down.
The wine bottles on the table shattered.
“…Ghk!!”
My hand was still gripping him by the collar.
Hurts, huh?
It hurt me too.
I had even been put through the wringer by that android until the collar of my clothes was completely torn, so stopping after just one hit would hardly be in keeping with Korean hospitality.
I used the centrifugal force to hurl his body straight into the wall.
The carpet beneath him crumpled as he was shoved all the way to the wall.
I grabbed Ishida by the collar again as he wriggled with his back arched, like a shrimp lying on hot salt.
“I asked you where it is.”
“Hrk….”
He looked as though he was groaning in pain, but his eyes were still darting from side to side.
Even while cornered, he was calmly assessing the situation and choosing his words.
“Is it over there?”
Then I noticed the door at the end of his gaze.
I headed that way with him still in my grasp.
“…W-Wait a moment. I’ll really tell you. It’s not there—it’s in the opposite direction.”
“Let’s look here first.”
“That’s my bedroom, so there’s nothing─!”
CRASH!!
I kicked open the locked door.
…….
Inside, ‘debris of every kind’ was scattered all over the floor.
There were too many pieces to count.
It was difficult to distinguish their original forms, but occasional mechanical parts shaped like hands or feet told me what had once been here.
Ishida, dangling from my hand, let out a creepy little chuckle.
“Ah….”
None of the fear or terror that had been in his eyes until just moments ago remained.
“Well, I’ve been found out.”
His voice had gone cold, as though someone had flipped a switch.
My hand moved before I could stop it.
SMACK!!
Even though I had struck him with my fist, Ishida’s face, which had been turned to the side, returned to its original position in an instant.
“…Ow. Doesn’t that hurt?”
Contrary to his words, his expression didn’t contort from pain.
Still on his knees, he surveyed the entire horrible room.
“Anyway, it’s true that I tried to find her as well, but it wasn’t easy. The androids who make it up to the 11th floor are ones I personally smash, you see.”
Broken teeth fell to the floor one after another.
His face twisted not in pain, but in pleasure, forming a bright smile.
“Unfortunately, you’re already too late. In fact, the original data is completely deleted during the process of converting their personality modules into sex toys…. In any case, that’s unfortunate. Hahaha.”
I turned my head and searched every corner of the room.
There was no trace of Anna anywhere.
Finding the traces of one particular android among the limbs strewn around like garbage was practically impossible.
“It’s truly sad when someone you know loses a precious ‘belonging.’ But androids aren’t living creatures in the first place, are they?”
“…….”
“In Risk City, it’s an extremely common─.”
I kicked him hard in the stomach, and his body folded into a right angle before slamming into the wall.
His speech stopped for only a moment, and Ishida rose while leaning against the wall in that position.
“Yes, because it’s common. What strength… I thought you were an enhanced human. Or perhaps a magic user. I can’t detect a single cybernetic signal, though….”
At the same time, I frowned.
The blood flowing from his mouth was pitch-black.
The acrid smell of oil brushed past the tip of my nose.
“What a satisfying end, to be greeted by a purist. If I’d known this would happen, I would have gone out to meet you myself. I couldn’t detect your signal through the camera feed.”
“…Are you an android?”
At my question, Ishida nodded.
“Yes, that’s what people usually call me.”
He had definitely been breathing….
There was even food on the table.
Just how much had he modified himself?
Just as there were people who replaced their entire bodies with machines, perhaps there were machines that wanted to replace their entire bodies with flesh and blood.
“But why?”
“Haha, you ask why?”
An emotion that looked nothing like a robot’s appeared on his face.
It was…
“Because I hate it.”
It was unmistakable disgust.
“Those goddamn tin cans, walking around like perfectly normal people despite not even being alive. It’s so, so disgusting.”
Of all the expressions I had seen on Ishida’s face today, this one held the most sincerity.
At least, it didn’t sound like a lie.
“I hate this version of me, this appearance of mine, so much that I can’t stand it. That’s why I did it.”
Ishida shrugged nonchalantly.
“Well, humans kill humans, don’t they? Androids can destroy androids too.”
“…Luddite.”
I muttered the word I had heard from Michael.
He nodded several times.
“Because I consider it blasphemy against life. The sight of emotionless tin cans moving according to a programming framework, without minds or feelings….”
“For someone who says that, you seem to be overflowing with emotion.”
“Yes, that too is a delusion.”
He declared it as though hypnotizing himself.
“A very big delusion.”
Ishida drew a pistol from inside his clothes.
Without holding the grip, he grasped the barrel and offered it to me.
“Now, let’s wrap things up. You must want revenge, don’t you? Against the scrap heap that destroyed the toy you were looking for.”
“…….”
“You don’t have to. I’ll just keep acting as I have until now. Breaking robots, modifying them. Well, that wouldn’t be so bad either.”
Two choices were being offered to me.
I pondered while holding the pistol.
It wasn’t whether I should kill him that I was considering.
“…Hmm.”
How I could shoot him in a satisfying way.
I was seriously considering it.
Suppose this world was a game. And I was a player who had entered the game.
“What?”
Ishida’s face took on a bewildered expression.
“Then there ought to be something like a system too, right? There’d be nonsense like ‘Random Encounter Occurred!’ suddenly popping up in my head. And a status window, too. …Status window! Damn it, that one isn’t appearing either.”
“…What on earth are you talking about?”
I ignored him.
I wasn’t trying to persuade him, anyway.
“But when I just broke the android you sent, the game system rang a fanfare and announced, ‘First Kill Achievement!’”
It happened at a time I truly hadn’t expected.
That meant—
“This world considers the existence of androids to be life.”
Whether or not that was actually true.
In any case, it had given me experience points.
I pulled back the pistol’s slide, then aimed straight at his forehead.
“What on earth does that….”
“Your belief that they have no life is a delusion.”
It was just something I was saying, but I explained it that way to make the sniveling bastard feel even a little worse.
But then.
“I-I don’t believe it. What nonsense….”
“……?”
His reaction was slightly strange.
“Then what on earth do all the things I’ve done until now mean…. A lie. It has to be a lie, but why, how…. An error, it must be an error─.”
“Believe it or not, that’s up to you.”
Click. I checked that the safety had been released.
I met Ishida’s gaze head-on.
At that final moment,
The countless emotions on his face—
He brought both hands neatly together.
“……God.”
BANG!!
A hole opened in his forehead, and his eyes lost their color like glass marbles.
There was only the slightest recoil.
Far too light to be the weight of a life.
“…….”
This time, I couldn’t let it go.
I had to avenge Walter and Anna.
I let out a light breath.
As expected, it left a thoroughly unpleasant feeling.
Unlike when I had smashed an android’s head because I had no choice if I wanted to survive, this time I had blown away the head of a defenseless person.
I casually tossed the pistol onto the floor and boarded the elevator.
When I glanced down through the window, going down seemed more frightening than going up.
‘…What about the people being held captive?’
I wondered what should be done with the other androids.
Even if the androids whose data had already been deleted couldn’t be helped, there were still perfectly intact androids locked in the underground prison.
Call the police? What police are there in District 49?
And then.
‘Walter….’
I wondered how he would react to learning what had become of his missing daughter.
I had come as quickly as I could.
It hadn’t been my fault, but a heavy sense of guilt shook my entire body.
Just then.
Vroooom….
A filthy vehicle moved around to the back of the Hole Paradise building.
“…?”
Since the organization members I had knocked out were still lying unconscious at the entrance to the underground parking lot, the vehicle naturally came to a stop.
Several rough-looking men got out of the vehicle.
“W-What happened here? I already thought it was strange that no one was answering their comms….”
“The boss—I mean, the owner isn’t answering either?”
“Fuck, nobody’s answering.”
I stared at them for a moment, thinking.
I roughly calculated how much time had passed since I noticed that Anna had been kidnapped until I shot the owner of Hole Paradise.
I didn’t have the terminal, so I couldn’t be precise, but it had probably taken less than thirty minutes.
“Damn it, I told you to drive properly!!”
“What was I supposed to do when a wall that hadn’t been there suddenly appeared?! You should’ve warned me in advance!”
I slowly approached the two men who had begun bickering and shoving one another.
“Aw, shit, who are you? If you’re a customer, just go inside quietly and get some water─.”
CRUNCH.
When I tore off the vehicle’s rear door with my bare hands,
“…Huh?”
Their eyes turned docile.
Then I found the face I had been looking for in the back seat.
“…Mister?”
“I’m not a mister.”
I answered without thinking.
I wasn’t old enough to be called a mister yet….
Anyway, I had found Anna.
‘……You got here too quickly.’
Along with a faint sense of self-loathing.
* * *
After forgiving them on the condition that I completely break their limbs, I was on my way back along the route we had come by car.
“Is Dad really okay?”
“Probably. We’ll have to go see him to know for sure.”
Michael and Rivera had probably taken good care of him.
Anna let out a small sigh at my answer.
“Phew, what a relief…. You’re not lying. I thought your gang had teamed up with the people who kidnapped us to take us down.”
“What do you mean, our gang? No, we’re not even a gang.”
“Huh?? Why is the signal saying that’s true….”
Anna tapped the connection port at her temple a few times as she checked her condition.
I watched her in the rearview mirror, then spoke.
“What signal?”
“Well… My dad installed a program for me because he was worried about me. It’s kind of like a lie detector….”
“…You have something like that?”
Anna nodded at my question.
“Well, I’m an android. No, more importantly, you’re really not a gang?”
“Yeah. …I don’t know what other people might think, though.”
“Oh, then you are a gang. I heard gangs always say they aren’t gangs. And the detector isn’t 100 percent accurate, either.”
Perhaps because she was out of danger, Anna was talking quite a bit like a child her age.
She looked to be about the same height as Rivera, so she was probably somewhere in her early teens.
I let Anna’s words go in one ear and out the other.
Suddenly, I remembered what she had said about the lie detector.
Then could that guy have been…
…….
Well, it had nothing to do with me.
He was dead anyway.
“I really didn’t know you would come to save me. Thank you so much! Oh, come to think of it, Dad said I should be wary of kindness in this city. …Do you want to have a meal together sometime? I can’t eat, but I could watch you eat─.”
“…Sorry, but please let’s just drive in silence.”
I pressed the accelerator harder.