Chapter 61
Someone once said.
Revenge produces nothing.
But that’s merely a stock bourgeois propaganda slogan meant to oppress the proletariat.
After all, if everyone took revenge, the market economy wouldn’t function properly.
The premise itself was rotten from the start.
Since revenge is not a productive activity that creates something, naturally it cannot produce anything.
“In other words, revenge is settling accounts.”
If you don’t bring it to a proper end, you can’t move forward, and eventually you’ll return to the same spot again, like a repeat sign.
Therefore.
My own actions in trying to find the leader of Hakuga-gumi were not particularly strange either.
“…Are you planning to start a war?”
Michael, who had approached me, spoke in a slightly worried voice.
Though I had moved from the cat-food box to the weapons box, I was still sitting down, so I naturally had to look up at Michael.
“Huh? What war?”
I waved a hand dismissively.
A nonverbal way of saying not to worry.
“If that were the case, I would have brought the homeless here long ago and armed them to the teeth with the weapons we have.”
Well, I could understand Michael’s concern to some extent.
I was still holding the “electronic biometric smart whatever pistol” I had looted from the megacorp truck in my other hand.
“This is just a personal grudge of mine. A very personal reason. I have no intention of dragging unrelated people into my business.”
“…Unrelated? The grocery store is practically our face, and hasn’t that face been smashed up even worse than last time?”
“Hmm.”
It had indeed been damaged even more severely than when the truck had rammed the grocery store entrance.
“Never mind. Fortunately, the warehouse is safe. We can just distribute the food as usual.”
“…Understood, for now.”
I attached the holster to my tactical belt, then inserted the pistol and magazines one after another.
What was this metal cylinder?
I calmly read the words written on it.
[HE Grenade.]
…I’ll just take one for now.
If I had known the location of Hakuga-gumi’s headquarters in advance, I might have driven the truck straight there recklessly like last time, but whether fortunately or unfortunately, this time I had plenty of time to prepare calmly.
Leaving Michael behind as he watched me with worried eyes, I noticed the terminal I had left on the opposite side vibrating faintly.
“Hello?”
[…Hey.]
It was a call from Troy Mason, to whom I had left a message earlier.
[I did say to leave me just one message if you needed something, but I’m a pretty busy man too. …Normally, I’d charge at least tens of thousands of dollars for a job like this.]
“Ah, then it can’t be helped.”
Come to think of it, I still hadn’t even seen Troy’s face.
Whether it was the pseudo-religious facility last time or blocking the megacorp’s pursuit.
I had been asking him for far too many favors without offering anything in return.
[Yeah, as long as you understand, that’s fi—.]
“I guess I’ll have to ask the boss later.”
[─I’d like to say, but who am I? The Collector’s one-and-only partner. An eighth-level web spider who explores the electronic world. The guardian of the malware protecting the city government…. Who else but Troy Mason?]
An extremely rapid change of attitude.
The clatter of keyboard tapping rang loudly from beyond the terminal.
[Who do you want to find?]
“The leader of Hakuga-gumi. I think his nickname is something like Black Tiger.”
[Hmm, I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before. A force in District 49, huh. Hakuga-gumi, Black Tiger…. Found him.]
Troy’s answer followed immediately.
Honestly, I had been prepared to wait a few hours, but he was much faster than expected.
[Black Tiger, or BT for short. His real name is Bansho Takemaru. Records show he crossed over to Risk City from the former Japan eleven years ago. Afterward, he moved between various corporations and organizations before founding a gang called Hakuga-gumi here in District 49….]
Several files were transferred onto my terminal screen.
Starting with shops that looked like ordinary restaurants, all the way to bars with an upscale atmosphere.
They appeared to be photographs of businesses operated by Hakuga-gumi.
[Oof. Looks like he has a fairly skilled web spider working for him. I see several records of him daring to tamper with the city’s surveillance-camera data. Considering the bounty on his head, though, it’s only natural.]
“Bounty?”
[You didn’t know?]
He began explaining in an unconcerned voice.
[This guy is a wanted criminal whose name is sitting right there in the RCPD database. Before he moved to District 49, there was a record of him causing quite a stir in the districts in the thirties. They want him dead or alive, so he’d make a decent source of pocket money.]
To put it simply.
[The coordinates are approximately 439.009715, -12.883440….]
“…What?”
[Wait. So…. Around here. He should be inside this building right now.]
Troy was a genuinely skilled ability user.
Black Tiger was known for constantly concealing his location, making it difficult even for the mafia to track his movements, but Troy pinpointed the bastard’s location in just a few minutes.
[I sent the location.]
“…A club?”
[Oh, there are clubs in District 49 too. Should I go hang out there sometime?]
Judging by the address, it seemed to be on New City Street.
I had only been there a few times myself, so I didn’t know the area well.
Even when I went to the black market─Black Square─a little while ago, I hadn’t looked around that vicinity.
[Anyway, he should be there for now.]
“Good.”
I thanked him briefly, but sincerely.
Without Troy’s help, I would have had to struggle for quite a while to find that bastard’s location.
There were a few technicians at the grocery store’s vacant lot who claimed to have once been skilled web spiders, but without proper equipment, they would have had a hard time catching even the tail of a tiger that had gone into hiding.
[If you’re grateful, just tell my senior later that I took good care of you.]
“That should be easy enough.”
Hadn’t they said they both worked for the city government?
In any case, I had to call the boss to ask how they handled the psychics they captured.
[But what’s the deal this time? Why are you looking for the leader of a gang organization? Last time, you were being pursued by some megacorp, remember?]
Perhaps he had only just become curious, because Troy asked why I was looking for the yakuza boss.
“That?”
A picture would be faster than a complicated explanation.
I operated the terminal and sent Troy a photo saved in my album.
───────────────
Title: [Untitled]
(A photo of various sex toys striking sultry poses)
───────────────
[…The big sister third from the left is my type.]
“Ah, I sent the wrong one. Not that.”
What do you mean, your type?
I sent it again.
───────────────
Title: RE: [Untitled]
(A photo of the grocery store, horribly smashed, with enormous claw marks stamped into the exterior wall)
(A cone with a frog sobbing loudly)
───────────────
Troy was briefly rendered speechless after receiving the proper photo.
[…At a glance, it looks like the work of a magic user. I haven’t heard of any implant that operates in that manner yet.]
“He fired some kind of beam from his hand. I briefly forgot this was a world with no coherent setting.”
[Hmm, there’s no separate record of a magic user in the RCPD database…. Did he undergo magic-circuit surgery after that?]
Troy openly displayed his unease.
[Or he could be hiding something.]
“Hiding what?”
[At that level, even a family with a heavy bottom would recruit him immediately at the rank of knight.]
“…Knight?”
[Oh, right, you’re lacking basic common sense. So, the butt is one of the body parts below a person’s waist, and for reference, the waist is─.]
“Wow, so you know what a butt is.”
[…Let’s not go there.]
At my scathing response, Troy stopped teasing me and returned to the main point.
[So the gang boss smashed the store entrance like that and left?]
“Exactly.”
[And you plan to take revenge for that?]
“Since ancient times, the members of the Tang family of Sichuan have strictly observed the relationship between gratitude and grudges, repaying favors twofold and grudges tenfold.”
[…Where is Sichuan supposed to be?]
The Sichuan Tang Clan, obviously.
There was a famous place in wuxia novels.
I didn’t have the surname Tang, though.
In response to my reply, which teased him right back, Troy added in a dubious tone.
[At that level, he seems like he’d be at least a Level 5 magic user. Are you sure about this?]
“I can just level up.”
[…That’s not what we’re talking about. And you haven’t even applied for a rank assessment with the city government yet, so what do you mean, level up? I don’t know how strong you actually are, but even a Level 5 would leave most run-of-the-mill mercenaries unable to show their faces.]
Once again, an unfamiliar subject came flying at me in a rapid barrage, but I could roughly figure out what he meant by reading the situation.
“What? That’s what the levels were?”
[Then what did you think they were?]
“I just thought they were like me….”
I thought they rose automatically by consuming experience points.
Last time, Michael had described them as something like hierarchies or circles, so I had mistakenly thought it worked by cultivating both body and mind to reach a new realm.
Jeez….
Then it was basically just a system of certification levels.
“Anyway, that’s why I wanted to ask. Could I ask you for one more favor?”
[…What is it this time?]
“It’s not that difficult.”
Troy had definitely said earlier that he had looked through the database of Risk City’s police, the RCPD.
If so….
“Is there a way to filter it so that we only check the members belonging to Hakuga-gumi?”
* * *
“No.”
I spoke firmly.
Rivera and Nova stood before me, radiating a distinctly disgruntled air.
“…Why not?”
“May I ask the reason?”
Though phrased differently, the gist of the questions was the same.
The reason was simple.
“Then who’s going to guard the grocery store?”
Fortunately, they did not give the bad response, “How are we supposed to guard a grocery store that’s been smashed?”
The two answered at the same time again.
“Nova can….”
“The small individual can….”
Rivera and Nova looked at each other.
I let out a small sigh at their reaction.
“Someone has to stay and guard the grocery store. There are already a lot of people in the vacant lot behind it.”
That wasn’t the only reason, in fact.
For now, I only said that much on the surface.
“Ahem, that is true. The two of you are staying here to protect the people.”
Michael stealthily tried to take a gun from the weapons box, so I shot him a sharp glare.
“Ahem, you can’t come either this time. You already have plenty of work to do….”
“…I am doing it for Hot Dog Man, but if I cannot help you when you actually need it─.”
“It’s fine.”
Just as the golden-haired delinquent Gengoro─no, Black Tiger, Bansho Takemaru─of Hakuga-gumi had done.
I planned to go there alone.
“Our ninja says he’ll guide me. The rest of you can just wait here.”
No, actually, the two of us.
“…Since this opportunity came sooner than I expected, I shall devote my very body to serving you.”
“That sounds like it’ll give me weird PTSD, so don’t say anything about devoting your body either.”
“…??”
Unless it was a buxom big-sister character, that sort of thing was forbidden from now on.
I told the other three flatly.
“Got it?”
Then, as if by magic, all the complaints shifted toward the ninja.
“…You haven’t even been here that long.”
“…….”
“I should’ve raised a dog instead of a cat after all….”
In truth, I only wanted to keep Cat from being left at the grocery store separately, just in case, since Cat had once belonged to Hakuga-gumi….
But to everyone else, Cat seemed like an opportunist who had swiftly claimed the spot beside me.
The cat stood behind me with his arms folded in a solemn posture, as if he could not hear the voices of the others at all.
When he realized I was not going to change my mind, Michael sighed and straightened his tie.
“…It cannot be helped. If that is Hot Dog Man’s decision, we have no choice but to trust and follow it.”
“Don’t worry too much.”
“Then, as last time, shall I prepare the truck?”
Our grocery store had two vehicles parked there in total: the truck taken from the Bogus gang and the old car taken from Hole Paradise.
“…The truck?”
Cat tilted his head, seemingly finding the sudden mention of a truck somewhat strange.
I declined the suggestion without bothering to explain.
“No, we’re going a little differently this time.”
The club was actually open for business, so there might be unrelated customers inside.
Because of that, there would be considerable difficulty in breaking through the entrance with a truck.
And.
“First of all, it’s ‘Adults Only.’”
* * *
The entrance to Club 「Moebius」.
Unlike the perpetually dreary streets of the Old Town, New City Street was packed with visitors, giving it an especially bustling atmosphere.
‘This is a whole different world.’
I had felt the same way when I went to Black Square, but just because it was the same District 49, that did not mean only drug-addled homeless people passed through like they did near the grocery store.
The glittering LED neon signs felt quite intimidating.
Fortunately, it was not too late yet, so there was no need to line up at the entrance.
“Hmm.”
A large man about my height slowly looked me up and down.
Apparently, restricting entry to control the club’s clientele was universal across worlds; the club’s guard frowned and asked me,
“Did you pick those clothes out of a garbage can or something…. Your face isn’t bad, but what’s with that style?”
How did he know I got them from a garbage can?
Was this guy a psychic too…?
The guard shook his head and roughly ordered me to leave, as if shooing away a fly.
“Come back after following the dress code if you don’t want to get the shit beaten out of you. You think this is just any club?”
“It’s not an ordinary club.”
“You know that and still….”
Complex tattoos in city language, which did not look like proper Japanese, were intricately inscribed across the guard’s facial skin.
Perhaps he had inserted fiber-optic filters; whenever he frowned, the patterns glowed in vivid colors.
A club run by Hakuga-gumi, and a guard with a suspiciously threatening appearance.
I drew the pistol from my tactical belt,
and aimed it at the man without a word.
“W-what….”
A holographic dot sight settled over the startled man’s facial tattoos.
[Downloading information on the subject from the RCPD database…. Takayama Mackenzie. Confirmed 21 wanted offenses, including assaulting corporate personnel, murder, kidnapping, and vehicle theft.]
Through the program I had received from Troy, the smart pistol revealed the man’s background.
“Takayama Mackenzie?”
“H-how did you know my real name….”
I didn’t need to ask about anything else.
[LOCK-ON.]
The bullet fired without a sound bored a round hole through his forehead.
The pistol developed by the megacorp took a human life without making so much as a breeze.
Soon.
A bright voice that only I could hear followed.
【The player’s level has increased!】
At first, one person.
Then three…no, four?
It was still unknown how this world’s experience system had been created, but apparently, only that many lives were needed to raise my level.
Although I had decided not to kill people for the sake of experience, things were a little different if the other party was a villain who did not even need to be questioned.
Just as when I killed the leader of the pseudo-religious facility without even listening to his excuses.
‘Just you wait.’
This time, I’m coming.
I leaped over the corpse that had fallen silent,
and walked steadily down the stairs leading deeper into the club.