Chapter 42
I casually brushed the dust from my grimy palm.
Far off, I could see three gang members fleeing with their arms around one another’s shoulders.
“C’mon, try walking properly!”
“Fuck, I think my leg’s broken….”
Except for the one person who met the conditions I wanted, none of them were in any state to walk properly.
Well, they all seemed to have replaced most of their bodies with cybernetic prostheses.
They should be able to walk around normally again after a quick trip to a repair shop instead of a hospital.
When I turned around, the kid—Gio—was looking up at me with shining eyes.
“Whoa, what are you, mister?”
“Tsk.”
“No, hyung!”
Yeah, yeah.
Though it had been created through collusion with foreign powers, the changed form of address sounded fairly satisfying.
Gio came scurrying over and examined my arms and legs from every angle.
“I can’t detect a single signal from a cybernetic prosthesis…. Are you some kind of secret agent for a megacorp?!”
“As if.”
“Or maybe a magic-user, the kind I’ve only heard rumors about? You can’t be a psyker, though. I heard the city government hunts down psychics with fire in their eyes. No, wait, maybe you’re a member of a special forces unit from the city government in the first place….”
“It’s none of those things.”
To be precise, I didn’t know either.
I didn’t even know whether I had magic circuits in my body.
I gave an awkward smile at the boy’s excited speculation, as if he had a motor in his mouth.
Gio’s reaction was noisier than I had expected.
Loud enough to hurt my ears a little.
Of course, there was nothing strange about children being curious.
I casually waved my hand and put Gio back in the lead.
“Kid, what on earth do you get up to, that you nearly got into a fight with weirdos like those?”
“Wow, you really do talk like an old man….”
“…….”
I suddenly felt like thumping him on the head.
When I looked down at him with narrowed eyes, Gio shrugged and added,
“And don’t call me kid, either. Call me Gio properly. That’s my name.”
“Kamen Rider’s fun, right?”
“…?”
People are a little divided on it, though.
Anyway.
I had given him an inch and gotten a mile in return.
Perhaps because he was a kid living in District 49, where public safety was poor, and even in Black Square, he had an unmistakably old-soul side to him.
As he continued along with his short steps, Gio stared at the garbage bag where the leader of the gang had been stuck upside down.
“There’s no particular reason. I guess I just rubbed him the wrong way. Weak animals always get eaten first, after all.”
This wasn’t some savanna, yet I was hearing about the law of the jungle.
Then again, looking at the way the city operated, there were many ways it seemed more dangerous than the wilderness.
Gio suddenly turned toward me and awkwardly scratched his head.
“Anyway, thanks for helping. …Uh, hyung.”
It wasn’t exactly formal speech, but it sounded much better than before.
I snickered and replied,
“It’s fine. Be careful next time.”
“I will.”
Adults helping children was normally only natural, but unfortunately, this world didn’t seem to have any ordinary common sense.
I didn’t know whether Gio had little experience receiving help from others or simply had a strong sense of pride.
Even while thanking me, he hadn’t stopped grumbling.
“I’d like to help you with anything I can, but that shop we just went to was the one I was closest to. It’d be hard to introduce you to another one—.”
At that moment.
A powerful sound rang out from my stomach.
Grrrrr….
At the same time, Gio’s mouth, which had been moving as he looked at me, snapped shut.
A brief silence passed.
The kid said something entirely different.
“…How about we go to some good place to eat instead?”
I didn’t turn down Gio’s suggestion.
When you visit a tourist attraction, eating delicious food is an essential part of the itinerary.
“Let’s go right now.”
* * *
Indeed, the black market was a market too.
It was filled with all kinds of food.
Delicious smells wafted strongly from every direction.
But unfortunately, we couldn’t make it to the black market’s famous eateries.
“Ah.”
We had been following Gio for a few minutes when—
Rumble….
Thunder and lightning suddenly began raging through the sky.
The sound was several times louder than the one from my stomach, making it feel as though even the heartless sky itself was trying to stop my culinary journey right there.
“O heavens…!!”
Just as I was about to raise both hands into the air like I was filming The Shawshank Redemption,
“Hyung! Don’t just stand there getting rained on! Get over here already!”
Gio called out to me in an urgent voice.
I moved under the eaves where the kid was waiting, wearing an embarrassed expression.
Come on, people could get rained on a little.
These were the first raindrops I had seen since falling into the game world, too.
But.
After hearing Gio’s explanation, I had no choice but to quickly shake the water off my body.
“Don’t you know that if you get rained on here, all your hair falls out?!”
“For fuck’s sake.”
Even acid rain had its limits.
At that point, it would be perfectly reasonable to call it corrosive rain.
‘What kind of pH level does it have…?’
When I looked at him with a questioning expression, Gio wiped the dampness away with his palm.
“You know how there are a lot of homeless people on the streets whose skin has been completely stripped away, leaving their chrome exposed?”
“There are.”
“That’s all because of the rain.”
Good heavens.
I had thought those were just everyday scrapes.
“Especially here in District 49, since the landfill is right next door.”
“District 50.”
I remembered hearing that from Rivera.
Gio sighed at my correction.
“Yeah, that. That’s why the rain is especially harsh here. The weather forecasts say the mortality rate is high, too.”
I stared blankly at the transparent streams of rain falling between the alleyways.
No matter how much faster my movements had become, getting home without being rained on at all was close to impossible.
‘There probably aren’t any taxis, either.’
I had heard there was something resembling public transportation if you left Black Square and reached the streets of the new city.
Whether I could get home safely using it was another matter; the problem was getting there in the first place.
When I cautiously looked outside the alley, most of the people who had been swarming around had already fled inside the buildings.
Even then, I could see a get-rich-quick schemer shouting while holding up a stack of umbrellas.
“Umbrellas for sale! Umbrellas!! Cheap!”
A tourist frowned and asked the street vendor,
“How much?”
“Only fifty dollars!”
“You’ve got to be kidding….”
For the record, the umbrella seller’s head was already gleaming with a metallic surface.
It was a scene that was almost painful to look at.
Fifty dollars for one umbrella? With that money, I could buy roughly this many hotdogs… (omitted).
I let out a deep sigh and looked up at the cloud-covered sky.
The sky was incredibly dark.
So it looked like the rain would continue for a while.
[…Sorry. I should have checked the weather forecast myself.]
The terminal I had put in my pocket flashed with a bright light.
The face of the emoticon displayed on the terminal screen wore a sad, tearful expression (😢).
Still, it was fortunate that the signal hadn’t been cut off by the rain.
“You’re apologizing over the littlest things. Cut it out.”
[……?]
“Don’t frown. Relax your expression.”
At those words, the emoticon changed (😑).
I couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
At that moment, Gio stealthily came up beside me and looked up at the dark sky as he spoke.
“At this rate, it’ll be hard to eat anything today. The inner areas of Black Square do have ceilings, but since the rain came down so suddenly, there’ll probably be a lot of people. I’m not sure there’ll be any seats left.”
“…It’ll keep raining for quite a while, right?”
“Hmm….”
Gio thought about my question for a moment, then nodded.
“There wasn’t any rain in the forecast, at least. I don’t think it’ll rain for very long, but….”
Gio casually added,
“Maybe a few hours?”
“…….”
“Well, it can’t be helped.”
My expression naturally grew gloomy.
My stomach was crying out for nutrients.
Gio looked up at my dejected face, scratched his head again, and spoke in a light tone.
“…For now, do you want to come to my place?”
“Your house?”
“Yeah.”
Gio pointed toward an alley in another direction.
“Our house.”
* * *
It was practically a shantytown.
Since it was in a low-lying area where rainwater gathered, I could see a waterway cascading down below the road like a waterfall.
Gio, who had made his way here by moving between rooftops with practiced ease, pulled aside the tarp of the largest shack among them.
“There’s nothing to steal anyway, so come on in.”
There really was nothing inside the shack.
Only water droplets fell from the ceiling.
The shack was between buildings, almost as if it had been attached to a wall.
Only after going farther inside did I understand why they had settled here.
Why was there an exhaust vent inside the house…?
“Oh, that exhaust vent? Don’t worry about it. Without even that, I’d really freeze to death in winter.”
I quietly shut my mouth.
What kind of life was it, clinging to exhaust vents and outdoor units used by other buildings?
There was no telling what kind of poisonous air might be coming out of them.
But that wasn’t the only reason I kept my mouth shut.
“What, Gio’s here. He never comes inside even when it rains every day, but I guess he didn’t want to lose his hair today.”
“…But who’s that beside you?”
Inside the shack, a large number of children around Gio’s age or younger were living together.
For a moment, I remembered visiting Rivera’s house, but this place was in much worse condition.
Since I couldn’t straighten my back, I naturally stood beside Gio in a hunched posture.
“Ah, this hyung is….”
Gio seemed to have trouble explaining it briefly, and wore a pensive expression.
“A-a hyung I know who came to eat at our place.”
“…Gio, where do you have a hyung you know? You’ve gone around saying that everyone older than you is empty-headed, with nothing in their skulls.”
“A-anyway!”
Gio made that excuse while poking me in the side.
Apparently, he wanted me to play along.
Clearly, he was still quite young.
I confidently plopped myself down among the children and opened my mouth.
“This is the black market’s famous eatery, right?”
“…We don’t even have food for ourselves.”
I had a conscience.
Even after seeing this, I obviously had no intention of eating a free meal.
When I casually pulled several bills from my pocket,
A spark of life appeared in the children’s eyes.
“A-aren’t those hundred-dollar bills?!”
Even a few bills were enough to dazzle the children.
I calmly scattered the bills into the air.
“Food.”
“I-I’ll get it right away!!”
I was very hungry, so I felt like I would be fine eating just about anything.
* * *
No.
There was always a bottom beneath the bottom.
I should have headed to a street vendor in the alley, even if it meant grabbing Gio by the collar.
I pointed at the food(?) on the floor.
“What is this?”
“Protein blocks! We only eat them on really special occasions, so of course we have to serve them to our guest!”
The thing that looked like black yokan had unidentified chunks sticking out of its surface.
I pointed at the next food.
“And this?”
“Oh, that’s a sparrow flattened down into jerky! It’s really delicious too. You have to try it.”
“…….”
“The one beside it is canned food made from silkworm moth pupae…. This one’s a bit much, right? We can just take it back—.”
“No, just leave that one.”
The pupae were the least bad option.
They weren’t exactly my favorite food, but still.
I thought I understood why the homeless people in my neighborhood were so devoted to the grocery store’s food that they would risk their lives for it.
Gulp….
I swallowed because of the tension, not because I was hungry.
Even so, I couldn’t refuse to eat.
Not when they were looking at me with such shining eyes….
In the end, I ate everything with the feeling of having my bones scraped clean.
“Would you like some more?”
“No, no, no, no, I’m fine.”
So please, stop.
I was still hungry, in truth, but my senses had become sensitive enough to count the number of legs in the yokan, and they were screaming at me to stop.
Anyway, I decided that meant I was full.
The children left while chatting and laughing with their hundred-dollar bills in hand, and once the room fell quiet, only Gio and I remained.
[I’ll add canned pupae to the grocery store’s inventory.]
Ah, Nova was included, of course.
I rubbed my stomach and asked suddenly,
“It looks like you’re taking care of the kids.”
“Aw, it’s nothing. They all take care of themselves.”
That didn’t seem to be the case, considering how he had been moving around like their leader.
I realized why the gang had called Gio by the nickname ‘the alley boss.’
Gio muttered as he cleaned up the food left over from the meal.
“Still, the kids laughed and chatted for the first time in a while because you came here, hyung. …Honestly, you didn’t have to give us money.”
For a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of Rivera.
Though their personalities, faces, and even genders were all different.
I almost patted his head because he was so admirable, but then I noticed that his hair looked as though it hadn’t been washed in months and carefully withdrew my hand.
And.
As he watched the children leave, Gio deliberately bit down hard on his lip.
“Hey, hyung.”
“What?”
His eyes turned toward me, filled with strong resolve.
“Do you want to do one job with me? If everything goes well, I think we might even be able to get the body of the new android you’ve been looking for.”
The offer was something I had never expected at all.