Chapter 44
The grave you dug yourself─.
The instant I heard the notification announcing ‘The Grave You Dug Yourself,’ I was already being shoved out of the truck by the megacorp employee inside.
More precisely, I was thrown.
Unlike when I landed on top of the truck, I instinctively rolled over and over, performing a breakfall to minimize the impact.
Shaaah….
My body plowed straight through the raindrops filling the road.
But I had no time to worry about acid rain forcing its way through the gaps in my raincoat.
As I calmly pushed myself up with one hand on the rain-soaked asphalt, I saw a man dressed in shabby clothes like a vagrant leisurely getting out of the truck, which had temporarily stopped.
The man struck the flint of his lighter several times with a practiced motion.
“…Damn. Even on a rainy day.”
When the wet flint failed to work properly, he made a blue flame appear at his fingertip as his fingers opened with a click-.
I watched him casually put a cigarette between his lips to the very end.
Normally, I would have rushed him while watching for an opening, or muttered a curse through the throbbing pain.
This time, though, I had no choice but to remain silent.
A sense of danger rang a noisy alarm,
and what I felt wasn’t a creepy chill, but an ominous presence so intense it made my skin sting.
“So….”
The dull eyes of the megacorp employee─or perhaps a mercenary in its employ─turned toward me.
“What are you?”
Cheap words, like some neighborhood punk.
But the weight behind them was anything but light.
Black cigarette smoke drifted toward me on the wind and rain.
“Ugh, that stuff is strong….”
Unlike the herbs the boss smoked, it felt like this was made by mixing only the things that were genuinely bad for the body.
“And what’s with that ridiculous mask? Heh….”
Having apparently gotten into a fairly good mood after putting the paltry cigarette—which looked like some kind of drug cocktail—between his lips, he began walking slowly toward me with a snicker.
Every small movement he made overflowed with confidence.
That must have been why he always smoked at the entrance.
Then again, he was a shameless employee who dared to siphon off megacorp property.
On top of that, he had driven a truck here alone, all the way to District 49, where public safety was poor.
It was impossible unless he was extremely confident in his abilities.
“……”
I didn’t bother answering him.
I was too busy catching my breath, but I had also realized that his casual attitude concealed an attempt to pry information out of me.
Either way, he was a thief who had stolen corporate property, while I was a robber trying to take that property from him.
In truth, there wasn’t all that much for the two of us to talk about.
Perhaps dissatisfied by my attitude, he clicked his tongue and clenched and unclenched his fist.
“Kids these days have no romance. Say something, will you? It’s not as though I fiddled with your brain or welded your mouth shut to maintain security.”
I became certain that the man worked 100 percent ‘for a megacorp.’
A different kind of evil from a gang.
He was casually making small talk about unpleasant things.
Of course, smoking with the cigarette cocked between his lips and his posture slouched didn’t make him look like an ordinary megacorp employee.
He still hadn’t figured out who I was. Could I just run away like this?
‘…No, I don’t think so.’
I weighed the possibility, but an answer that it was impossible instinctively surfaced within me.
He hadn’t taken his eyes off me for even a moment.
“Come on, let’s have a conversation. I need to know why my movements were discovered, and you want to take the goods from the truck.”
He slowly raised his head, apparently about to blow cigarette smoke into the air again.
“Ha, but this is seriously funny. Heh heh. You attacked without even knowing what was inside? Ah, fuck.”
A raindrop falling from the sky struck him squarely in the eye.
Regardless, as long as he was human, he could only instinctively screw up his face in that situation.
‘Now.’
The instant I saw that, I kicked off the road.
The whole world stretched out long like taffy.
Thump.
Breaking through the raindrops suspended in the air, I charged at him as fast as I could.
And then.
In the slowed-down world, the eyes that had flashed open looked at me again.
“Ah.”
Come to think of it, my opponent was strong enough to casually block my ambush despite knowing nothing about it.
It was only natural that his consciousness operated as quickly as mine.
He moved as though a single second had been sliced into many pieces.
By the time I came to my senses, his hand was gripping my ankle.
A sensation of speed engulfed my entire body, as if I were sitting in the front seat of a roller coaster.
My body, sent flying through the air, only stopped after crumpling the truck’s hood.
The force was so great that the truck slid several centimeters along the rain-slick road.
He calmly dusted off his hand.
“Ah, I threw you away out of habit. These days, there are so many cybernetic prostheses with special functions. I try not to hold on to people for too long, whenever possible.”
His eyes curved into long arcs.
“I could have just kept holding you, since you’re a purist after all. What’s the point of making magic circuits? You’re still an idiot if you don’t get a mechanical prosthesis.”
He muttered to himself excitedly.
The drug-laced cigarette in his mouth was probably making him giddy.
I barely managed to exhale the air from my lungs, which had swollen as if they were about to burst.
“Phoo….”
This really was hopeless.
Honestly, if I had flown in a different direction, I might have fallen straight into the bottom of the waterway.
The battle was overwhelmingly one-sided.
I unconsciously looked down at myself.
‘…Wow.’
My ankle was in a terrible state.
At this point, should I call it a compound fracture rather than a simple one?
Just being grabbed had led to this.
The pain was less severe than I expected.
Maybe it was because it didn’t feel real.
Either way, with my mobility compromised, my defeat was practically assured.
The two ambushes I had attempted earlier had already failed, too.
‘I’m not giving up yet, though.’
I kept my regret brief.
I faced the man who had walked over with steady footsteps.
“For the record, I like purists. They can’t block their nerves to stop pain, and since they don’t usually take drugs, their brains stay nice and tender. There’s a real pleasure in messing with them.”
He stopped outside the range of my hands.
“Now, fingers and toes. Which should I start with?”
If only I could land even one punch on that snickering face, I’d have nothing left to wish for.
And at that moment.
Gio’s voice rang out from above the waterway.
“Hey, you corporate moron who goes around licking your company’s ass like a mutt! There’s one more person up here!!”
…That damn Gio. He should have just run away.
His gaze naturally turned upward.
“Oh-ho.”
His voice seethed with a sadism vile enough to make me nauseous.
So.
I instinctively thrust out my foot.
We were too far apart for me to throw a punch.
Perhaps because I hadn’t done it consciously, the kick was incredibly fast.
‘It would have been nice if it weren’t my broken foot.’
Even so, my muscles braced the bone firmly, so the impact wouldn’t be insignificant.
“……!!”
Apparently caught off guard by the unexpected impact, he clutched his abdomen and staggered back several steps.
That dry gaze now held surprise.
I was about to say something, but it seemed he had bitten his tongue when he went flying.
About half of his tongue hung loosely, raggedly.
Even as he kept swallowing the blood flowing from it, drops of blood mixed with rainwater dripped from beneath the smiley mask.
Well, it couldn’t be helped.
I merely raised my middle finger in silence.
I couldn’t let him lay a hand on Gio.
Maybe it was because I had a much younger sister, but I couldn’t easily ignore kids scurrying around and trying their best.
Just as I hadn’t been able to do anything but help Rivera.
“…So you’re going with the fingers. Hmm, good.”
He started snickering again, but by then his expression had gone rigid.
Anyway, I had made him angry, which meant I had practically taken control of his emotions─.
My vision was dyed black.
“You won’t be needing your eyes, either.”
The sensation of a finger poking through the mask’s eyehole reached me strangely.
My vision disappeared completely, but unlike last time, my body didn’t tremble with anxiety.
I had been through too much over the past few days to develop PTSD over a situation this minor.
Though I’d probably have nightmares for several more days.
‘…?’
And yet, beyond my darkened vision, I ‘saw’ something whitish writhing.
Roots stretching out like red blood vessels were clearly embedded in the darkness.
At the very bottom, the words ‘Trait Points’ appeared beside a flashing number: ‘1.’
‘What is this….’
As someone who had made gaming a hobby, I recognized it immediately.
‘…A skill tree?’
Various roots shaped like guns, fists, spiderwebs, and more seemed to be desperately waiting for something.
If I had had plenty of time, I could have kept examining the sight for hours, but unfortunately, my enemy wasn’t going to wait for me.
I quickly moved my invisible gaze.
And.
I was able to find a skill tree all by itself, set apart from the others.
[This trait has been activated because the player has fulfilled a special condition.]
It was a stem shaped like a throbbing heart.
However, the roots were closer to a dark gray than the red of blood vessels.
I naturally thought of the ‘serum’ Christine had given me.
The most fundamental trait was….
“Now, then, let’s start with the right hand.”
The world began to brighten again.
When my eye had been stabbed earlier, I had instinctively turned my head, so the wound in one eye was shallow.
That part must have been regenerating first.
It seemed my extraordinarily high regenerative power had finally shown itself, to the point that it could even spit bullets back out of my body.
I met the gaze of the man holding my finger.
“What the hell? You’re not an ordinary purist─you were actually a mutant….”
He stopped mid-sentence and backed away.
He backed away, not of his own volition, his face dominated by surprise.
A special ability that could affect something without directly touching it.
This was the most basic form of a superpower.
“…A psyker?”
It was called telekinesis.
Even as he looked flustered, he muttered as though calmly trying to assess the situation.
“…I didn’t expect there to be a psyker who hadn’t yet been captured by the city government. Then again, I suppose that’s possible because this is District 49.”
All of his fingers opened with a click-.
I had seen him light his cigarette with flames from his fingertips, so he probably intended to continue the fight using those prostheses.
“…It’s surprising enough that you have regenerative abilities surpassing even mutants, and physical abilities as strong as a magic-user’s. But you also have psychic powers? Looks like I’m getting a nice bonus for the first time in a while.”
Greed burned in his eyes.
“It’s my first time fighting a psyker, but your output doesn’t seem all that strong. If I just singe your skin from a distance….”
At that moment, his words suddenly stopped.
It must have been because an unpleasant sensation had reached his body.
“……Wait.”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t touch the inside of his body, but I could move what was on the outside quite well.
Honestly, I didn’t want to go this far, either….
But I had no choice if I wanted to win this situation.
“I’m, uh, sorry.”
I left an apology with the tongue that had quickly regenerated.
Before my opponent could block his nerves with cybernetic prostheses, I quickly used telekinesis.
Then.
The external organ that only men possessed rotated several times—no, dozens of times.
“……!!!!”
I’ll omit the detailed explanation of this part.
As a man myself, my heart ached, too.
The man backed away with his face gone deathly pale, then toppled over the guardrail and fell to the bottom of the waterway.
Kwoooosh…!
As I listened to the sound of the water plunging down the waterway,
I quietly closed my eyes.
Rest In Peace, no, Piss.
It was truly a grueling fight….