Chapter 43
Dark heroes can be said to be figures who always receive attention, regardless of the era.
This can be seen from the popularity of Hong Gil-dong in the past and Batman in modern times.
In reality, Hong Gil-dong was closer to a cruel political thug than a righteous outlaw─or a Dark Knight, but I’ll overlook that minor historical inaccuracy.
What I mean isn’t the real Hong Gil-dong, but the fictional hero who stole wealth from corrupt officials and distributed it among the poor.
Therefore.
A certain little brat planning to steal illicit goods bound for another megacorp and distribute them among starving children could also be called a hero of troubled times.
[Under Article 329 of Risk City’s Municipal Code, anyone who steals corporate property may be sentenced to up to 50 years in prison or an unlimited fine, depending on the amount stolen. Corporate personnel who witness such an act on-site will temporarily acquire the right to immediately judge the offender, and such conduct will be recognized as self-defense against an unjust infringement under Article 8 of the Municipal Code.]
At Nova’s mood-killing voice, I quietly looked at the terminal.
“So where is this?”
[…Black Square.]
“More precisely, District 49.”
A deserted district where the police didn’t even exist.
A place treated as part of the city in name only, but actually no different from the outside.
The terminal emoticon’s expression naturally changed when it heard me.
[😦]
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·
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[🤐]
Good.
Now that Nova and I had reached an amicable agreement, all I had to do was follow the little brat’s plan.
…But a mere theft charge carried a sentence of “up to 50 years in prison or an unlimited fine”?
I was beginning to understand why the city had ended up in such a state.
The world really had gone to hell.
Ssshhh….
Thick raindrops were still pouring down without a break from the murky sky.
How many minutes had we spent waiting beneath the eaves of the densely expanded buildings, sheltering from the acid rain?
Along with hurried footsteps splashing through puddles, a small brat burst out from the dark alley.
“…Hyung, you’ve been waiting long?”
Looking at the little brat whose crown barely reached my solar plexus, I began to wonder whether this was really the right thing to do.
When I let out a small sigh, Gio hurriedly pulled a pitch-black plastic bag from inside his clothing.
“Here. A sturdy raincoat that blocks acid rain, and a mask to cover your face.”
“…Was this really the only design?”
“What’s wrong with it?”
I looked down again at the mask with a huge smile drawn across it.
Its outer surface was painted a deep black, as though it had been sprayed with paint, but on closer inspection, traces of yellow could be found here and there.
It was like looking straight at the front of a Pac-Man whose skin had been tanned pitch-black.
It was quite grotesque.
“Tsk, whatever.”
As long as it covered my face, it would be fine.
While I fussed with the raincoat and mask, Gio scurried over beside me, glanced around, and whispered.
“…You remember what I said earlier, right?”
“It hasn’t been that long. Of course I remember.”
No matter how much of an old soul he seemed, Gio’s real age couldn’t be hidden, and he was visibly nervous.
I was the only one who would actually be moving according to the plan, but seeing him like that made it seem as though he were participating in the theft himself.
“…Still, just in case, I’ll explain it once more. You don’t have a smart chip in your head, so you can’t store the data separately.”
Without giving a special reply, I made an O with my fingers.
The raincoat was supposed to block acid rain, but its construction was fairly complicated, so I couldn’t just throw it on and wear it.
It was thick, too, and fairly heavy.
“Our plan is super simple. Making it needlessly complicated would only increase the chance of failure.”
Apparently having seen something like it somewhere, Gio continued speaking like a child side character in a spy movie.
“It’s around nine o’clock right now, so…. Within the next two hours, a truck will enter the outer edge from outside Black Square.”
The kid’s target was the corporate goods loaded onto that truck.
“From what I’ve heard, some megacorp employee is secretly smuggling the goods out. The type changes every time, but apparently they’re all expensive.”
“I did say there was only a fifty-fifty chance it would actually be carrying an android body.”
Gio slightly lowered his head at my reproach.
“…Yeah, I heard that too.”
“Where did you hear it?”
Gio didn’t answer that question.
Apparently, there were circumstances he couldn’t easily talk about.
“…Anyway, from the moment it enters Black Square, surveillance cameras are everywhere. So we have to steal the goods on the truck before it even reaches the ‘streets.’”
I briefly summarized what I had heard.
“There’s one person in the passenger seat. The vehicle is autonomous, so it’ll stop if it takes a hit. And you said the megacorp employee stops once to smoke and show off before entering Black Square. You also said it’s a passage unrelated to the central streets, so there won’t be many people around.”
“…That’s right.”
I told you I remembered everything.
Once I finished explaining, Gio took a deep breath in and out as if trying to dispel his nerves.
In the meantime, I put on the raincoat and mask.
It was a coat with a hood, but it was less cumbersome to move in than I had expected.
Would this really protect my precious hair from that vicious acid rain?
I wouldn’t know until I tried it myself.
Still, this was a world with advanced science and technology. They could probably replant whatever hair fell out….
The field of vision through the eyeholes in the mask was fairly wide, too.
Was that why he had chosen a Pac-Man shape?
The strong smell of lacquer spray wafted from inside the mask, but it wasn’t unbearable.
When he saw me fully prepared, Gio took a startled step backward.
“Whoa….”
“Why?”
“Because you look like you’re about to appear in a comic.”
“??”
…This wasn’t some kind of comic-book cosplay, was it?
Gio couldn’t see my frown because I was wearing a mask, but perhaps he sensed my displeasure.
He quickly tried to explain himself.
“No, that’s not what I meant. …I mean, you look really intimidating.”
It would have been nice to have a mirror.
Unfortunately, beneath the eaves of the building where we were sheltering from the rain, there was nothing but broken glass and garbage bags rolling around.
Well, I could more or less imagine it.
A man built like he was nearly two meters tall, wearing a black coat (raincoat) and hiding his face behind a mask with a smiling expression.
If I walked into the grocery store looking exactly like this, Nova probably wouldn’t recognize me and would unleash the 20mm turret in a furious barrage.
I answered with a snort of laughter.
“You were the one who said I needed a mask.”
“…You don’t have a smart chip or a cybernetic prosthesis installed in your body. There are still some purists around here, so wearing only a mask should be enough to hide your identity.”
If that hadn’t been the reason, I wouldn’t have worn such a childish mask, either.
After moving my body around to make sure once again that nothing was uncomfortable, I gave Gio’s tense shoulder a light tap─.
“Anyway, let’s go and get there ahead of time. You said you didn’t know exactly when the truck would arrive. It’s definitely coming within two hours, right?”
“Yeah, probably.”
In all my life, I never expected to have the experience of stealing a corporation’s goods.
Of course, the megacorp employee in the truck was also a thief who had stolen corporate property.
More precisely, I would be stealing something someone else had stolen.
It suddenly occurred to me that District 49 was starting to rub off on me.
* * *
Two hours later.
We managed to reach the enormous waterway beneath the shacks.
Maybe because of the torrential rain, the water in the channel was plunging down with the force of a waterfall.
Kwoooosh…!
The sound boomed loudly, cutting through the noise of falling raindrops.
Outside the waterway, a road was connected that looked just wide enough for one vehicle to squeeze through. The truck would probably come along that road.
“It should be about time.”
“…Hyung, wait a little longer. Whenever I heard that the truck was coming, I watched from here every day, and I never missed a day.”
Since there was nowhere suitable to hide nearby, we crouched near the roof of the waterway and waited for the truck.
It was also a spot where we could avoid the rain, at least somewhat.
Gio added that the truck would stop halfway, and we could go down then and stealthily snatch the goods—zip-zip.
“What do you mean, ‘zip-zip’?”
“It means we have to move that fast.”
“Be honest. Are you even over fifteen?”
“…Why does that matter right now?”
“From the way you’re talking, it doesn’t seem like you’re even thirteen, let alone fifteen─.”
“Th-there it is!”
I followed Gio’s gaze and leaned my head out slightly, looking downward.
A truck was approaching at high speed in the distance.
The truck was in far worse condition than I had expected.
It certainly didn’t look like it was carrying corporate goods in the cargo bed.
“That’s the truck that’s supposed to stop there, right?”
“Yeah. Rain or snow, every time I saw it, the driver got out and smoked. It should today too…… Huh?”
Gio’s words stretched out.
I glanced at his profile, and his bewilderment practically burst from his mouth.
I thought I knew why: the truck that was supposed to stop before reaching the waterway was continuing straight ahead without touching the brakes.
“You said it would stop.”
“No, it definitely stopped every day….”
“And that’s the right truck?”
“Uh…. BT-1088. The license plate is the same, too.”
At this rate, it was truly only a matter of time before the truck entered Black Square.
I had to make a quick decision here.
Following the truck all the way inside Black Square was obviously impossible.
Besides, judging by what Gio had said, the truck only came this way once every few months.
For both the kid and me, this was practically our only chance.
If only I’d known, I would have at least roughly set up some barbed wire at the entrance.
Regret always came too late.
‘Nova’s body or my safety. Nova’s body or my safety. Nova’s body or my safety….’
At that moment.
The old shopkeeper’s words flashed through my mind.
- A brand-new female android? It starts at $150,000. And it’s even more expensive in an outer layer like this. I could give you a used one for less….
I stood up without hesitation.
Gio looked up at me from the side, bewildered.
“This won’t work this time, hyung. It’s too bad, but we should just wait for the next chance─.”
“A used one is absolutely out of the question…!”
“……Huh?”
The height from the roof of the waterway where we had been waiting to the road was roughly…. Anyway, it was high.
But I trusted my hardened body.
In the past, my memory of attempting to rock-climb the Hall of Paradise building also helped me push off.
As though the falling raindrops had stopped in midair.
They filled the world.
……Shaaah.
In this slowed-down world, I was the only one who could move properly.
Thanks to jumping at exactly the right moment, I safely landed on top of the truck’s cab.
A breakfall?
I don’t know how to do that.
In the truest sense, it was a superhero landing.
It was a posture that would be perfect for sending anyone else to the hospital with broken bones.
But I could do it.
Even before jumping, I had instinctively known I would be able to.
BANG!!
The cab crumpled, and the truck’s body swayed slightly from side to side.
But I regained my balance and came to a stop on the moving truck.
Once the ambush succeeded, everything became a race against time.
Before the other party could understand what was happening, before they could call for reinforcements, before they could drive properly into Black Square.
I broke the window with my foot and slid into the truck’s interior.
CRASH!!
An acrobatic feat spectacular enough to earn a standing ovation even from a Cirque du Soleil performer.
Naturally, the other party shouldn’t have had any chance of anticipating my arrival.
That was what I thought, too, until the other party caught my foot.
“Huh?”
I had been holding onto the top of the truck and trying to enter through the windshield, but I could do nothing except freeze in place.
“…Why does it have to be today of all days? What a pain. You never come when I smoke because I’m bored.”
The voice of a man full of annoyance pierced my ears.
And.
【You successfully landed a preemptive strike against an enemy with a vastly different ability level!】
【‘The Grave You Dug Yourself’ achievement unlocked!】
【The player’s luck has increased!】