Chapter 78
In Risk City, the category of fashion was extraordinarily broad and expansive, while remarkably permissive at the same time.
For starters, there was me, who had picked up a suitable rag from a clothing donation bin and gone around wearing it─.
Fluorescent bomber jackets that shimmered, people who had replaced the skin of their faces entirely with metal, and even people who preferred clothing associated with another gender.
With merely somewhat distinctive fashion, it was difficult to attract anyone’s attention on the streets.
Even now, just look over there.
“What the f─.”
“…Hyung, what’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
The combination of a bushy beard, pink hot pants, and red high heels was too much for me to accept.
Behind him was a man dressed as a bunny girl.
(I didn’t even want to know how the words ‘bunny girl’ and ‘man’ could coexist.)
He was probably a colleague.
‘I’m seriously getting the urge to flip him off.’
Those big, burly bastards should stop dressing so hideously….
I wasn’t someone who couldn’t respect other people’s tastes, but that only applied as long as they didn’t offend everyone else’s eyes.
Of course, I wasn’t saying that people in distinctive outfits were bad.
Still, as someone who had lived in a Confucian society bound together by sticky bonds of affection, where people said, “We’re all family,” and used the emotional hammer of conformity to beat down anything that stuck out, I couldn’t help but lament.
In individualistic Risk City, where that tendency was fully on display, this was perfectly normal.
It was an unavoidable aspect of the place.
But.
Even in Risk City, which valued individual personality to that extent, ‘a mask,’ ‘pitch-black shinobi garb,’ and ‘a red scarf’ seemed to be outfits people found difficult to accept.
“What kind of outfit is that….”
“Shh, don’t stare. He might be a chrome junkie.”
“…A ninja?”
More eyes were drawn to this than to the hot-pants-and-high-heels man.
For the record, the alleys of Black Square were always crowded because they were narrow and complicated.
Yet every time Cat took a step forward, I could see people parting to either side as though Moses had parted the sea.
I didn’t particularly like attracting people’s attention.
So I naturally found myself staring at the back of Cat’s head with dead eyes.
‘Even if the mask can’t be helped, is there really any reason to keep insisting on that shinobi garb…?’
Even the heroes in movies didn’t go around disguised 365 days a year.
I figured I needed to instill in him the concept of everyday clothes.
I tapped the shoulder of the little kid walking ahead─Gio.
“Huh?”
“We’re going to a store that sells combat prosthetic bodies, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Let’s buy something else first.”
“What?”
“What do you think?”
I quietly added, pointing my thumb at the cat beside me.
“Clothes, obviously.”
Even Naruto wouldn’t dress like that every day.
* * *
“Boss, no, lord, no, Hot Do─.”
Cat’s pupils trembled unsteadily.
His nervousness was clearly visible even through the black mask.
I let Cat’s words go in one ear and out the other as I spoke to the person who appeared to be the shop clerk.
“This guy wants to replace everything from the neck down, so please take good care of him.”
“Understood.”
I thought the answer was a little too dry.
As expected, I noticed a gleaming socket attached to the clerk’s temple.
“…An android?”
“That is correct. I am the emotion-module-removed PTA-117 multipurpose model. If you have experienced any inconvenience related to this, please call 017-1896101…….”
“No, no, it’s fine.”
I suddenly remembered a public-service advertisement saying that unnecessary emotions were a luxury when assigning simple repetitive tasks.
Perhaps because this was a fusion-punk world, there were quite a lot of remarkably strange advertisements.
I hadn’t thought much of it the first time I saw one, but actually meeting an android working without an emotion module left me feeling rather conflicted.
Terrifying. What a dystopian world….
As I was thinking that, Gio’s head suddenly popped up beside me.
“This place has the biggest selection, and the condition is pretty good too. They’re all used, but still. And since the clerk is like that, not needing to tip is a major advantage.”
An android with its emotion module removed was practically indistinguishable from an object that looked completely human.
No one felt uncomfortable even when I openly called it ‘that thing’ right in front of it.
As I awkwardly scratched my head, Gio looked up at me and continued.
“Since you’re here anyway, why don’t you change your clothes too, hyung? Honestly, when I first saw you, I thought you were some homeless guy.”
“Me?”
I wasn’t particularly tempted.
My build had grown larger after receiving the serum, making clothes hang much better on me, but I still felt, Why bother?
After pondering the reason on my own.
There was only one thing that came to mind.
“Forget it. These clothes are the most comfortable.”
Like a shut-in unemployed guy wandering around in a hole-riddled undershirt and boxer shorts.
And they were the easiest to wash blood out of.
As I said earlier, this was a world where it was difficult to attract people’s attention unless you wore an eye-catching outfit like a mask, shinobi garb, or a red scarf.
And everyone else at the grocery store, including Michael, went around wearing clothes that, if this were a game, had about 1/10 durability.
How much attention would I attract if I were the only one wearing neat, brand-new clothes?
I’d probably look like a great plantation owner in the American South during the nineteenth century.
(This is an expression referring to the owner of a cotton-growing plantation.)
For that reason, after casually turning down his suggestion, I looked around the store while waiting for Cat, who had gone into the changing room, to come out.
Just as Gio had said, the store was crammed with a remarkably wide variety of clothing.
Whoa, the amount of fabric on this one….
Wow, this one’s mesh….
This is…. Ugh, ptui, ptui. It’s for men.
Then, suddenly, a ‘helmet’ hanging on the wall caught my eye.
“Oh.”
I immediately thought, ‘This is it.’
* * *
Cat was awkwardly looking down at the clothes he was wearing.
After desperately pleading with the shop clerk, he had barely managed to preserve the color black.
“Whew….”
A sigh escaped him.
He had chosen a hooded windbreaker, a black shirt, and, instead of cotton pants that would reduce his mobility, sportswear made of highly elastic synthetic fiber.
And after putting on leather gloves and shoes as well.
‘…It feels like I’ve put on someone else’s hide.’
The uncomfortable feeling wouldn’t go away.
The part he was most dissatisfied with was that there was no longer any space to conceal his degraded katana.
He had roughly hung it from the belt at his waist, but this way, he might as well be telling his enemies outright that he was carrying a weapon.
‘At least it’s fortunate that I was able to keep the scarf made with nanocell technology.’
Once he wrapped the scabbard up and concealed it with the scarf, Cat finally felt at ease.
And finally, he put on his head the ‘helmet that Daft Punk might wear’ Hot Dog Man had handed him and pulled aside the changing-room curtain.
Cat knew little about the person called Daft Punk, but in any case, he couldn’t refuse when Hot Dog Man seemed satisfied.
At the same time, applause rang out.
Clap clap clap….
“Style: approved.”
For a moment, a scene from Ghost Runner flashed through Abel Anderson’s mind.
A faceless helmet was truly legendary.
Cat looked so well suited to it that Abel Anderson had been able to think that.
In particular, since a device resembling a sound processor was attached to the top of the helmet, it really did look like a cat-shaped full-face helmet.
“See? Doesn’t he look so much better dressed like that?”
It wasn’t something Abel Anderson, who always dressed like a homeless man, had any business saying, but not a single person there contradicted him.
One was an android with its emotion module removed, another was the little kid he had helped, and the last was his loyal subordinate (the person in question).
Just then, a cluster of dot-shaped lights spread across the full-face helmet.
An expressionless emoji.
Having once received an AI’s emotions in emoji form through an old terminal, Abel Anderson immediately realized that it was the expression Cat was making now.
“No, I’m serious, it really suits you. Wow, I’m so proud.”
At the awkward praise, the corners of the expressionless emoji’s mouth curled upward.
If that shape were expressed in text, it would look roughly like this.
[ ㅡ _ ㅡ ] → → → [ ㅡ v ㅡ ]
And.
“…Indeed, this humble one had also been thinking that he ought to change the bizarre outfit he wore back in Hakugakumi.”
Since Cat didn’t seem to have noticed yet, Abel Anderson decided to tell him about it later.
After tapping Gio’s shoulder to signal him, Abel Anderson finished paying with a snicker and headed out of the store.
There was still money left in the terminal’s e-wallet, so paying wasn’t a problem.
“Thank you. Please come again.”
“Yep.”
Since Abel Anderson had been the one to suggest buying clothes in the first place.
‘It’d be nice if I could just change that name now….’
Unaware of what Abel Anderson was plotting, Cat followed him out of the clothing store, feeling reasonably satisfied.
And then he realized that something was strange.
‘…Wait.’
Every alleyway was quiet.
Zone C of Black Square Complex 9, which had been overflowing with people, was shrouded in silence.
An image of sharp eyes appeared across the visor Cat was wearing.
About ten people dressed in suits were waiting for Abel Anderson in front of the store.
They calmly bowed their heads.
“We greet the Boss of the Homeless.”
“…??”
A large question mark appeared above Abel Anderson’s head at the bizarre greeting.
All the homele…. What?
Strangely, every member of the group was ‘female,’ and their attitude was extremely polite.
And Abel Anderson was fundamentally the sort of person who treated people the way they treated him—a strong-against-strong, weak-against-weak kind of man.
Informal speech got informal speech in return, and honorific speech got honorific speech.
Of course, there were always exceptions, like a certain mafia boss.
Anyway.
As the saying went, you can’t spit in a smiling face, so when the other party approached from a humble position from the outset, the conversation inevitably came first, no matter how suspicious they seemed.
“I-I think you have me confused with someone else….”
“The reputation of Hot Dog Man, who single-handedly destroyed Hakugakumi, is already widely known throughout Black Square.”
Fortunately, it didn’t seem as though the megacorp truck robbery had been discovered, but seeing Gio beside me blinking in shock,
Abel Anderson could feel that his name had become more famous than he had expected.
“Hyung, you’re Hot Dog Man? Th-the one rumored to be the crazy man of the streets…?”
At the immediate crazy-man remark, Abel Anderson’s head tilted slightly to the side.
Unless his actions in front of the megacorp security team last time had become known.
Of all the things done under the name Hot Dog Man, little should have become widely known besides the fact that he had dealt with Bansho Takemaru.
The woman standing at the very front politely bowed her head once more.
“The Mountain Lord of Black Square wishes to see you. If it would not be an imposition, please accept the invitation.”
* * *
I suddenly remembered something I had heard somewhere.
Apparently, the leaders of Chinese triads were called Mountain Lords (山主), or Dragon Heads (龍頭).
I had already found the naming sense peculiar when the black-market guides called themselves Sherpas.
Just as Hakugakumi was a gang modeled after the yakuza, I was beginning to figure out what kind of gang the Black Star Society had been modeled after.
‘A gang that rules Black Square….’
In any case, it would be awkward to reject a polite invitation received right in the other party’s own home.
In the end, the other two naturally ended up accompanying me as well.
Gio, who lived in Black Square, would know the reputation of the Black Star Society better than I did.
Judging by the way he was still intermittently trembling, it didn’t seem to be a resident-friendly gang like the Sparo Rapido Family.
When a child is trembling, it’s an adult’s job to comfort him.
As usual, I was about to pat Gio on the shoulder and tell him not to worry.
But when Gio spotted my hand, he reflexively stepped a pace away to the side.
Crack.
The sound of a crack forming in my fragile, glass-like mentality burst from somewhere inside me.
I remembered when puberty had come for my little sister.
- Ah, stop patting my head and get lost!! I said I don’t like it!
- I-I’ll give you your allowance….
- …Okay, noted.
My hand unconsciously reached toward the terminal e-wallet inside my clothes for a moment.
Gio looked up at me with a dubious expression.
“Are you really that…. Hot Dog Man guy?”
Just what kind of notoriety had spread around that name for Gio to react like this?
I found out when I heard the explanation that followed.
“When you fought the boss of that supposedly terrifying Hakugakumi, you tore his balls off with your bare hands….”
Gasp.
There was enough room for misunderstanding that I denied it.
“No, I didn’t use my bare hands.”
“R-right? It was all a misunderstanding, right?”
“…Uh, well.”
It was true that I had dropped them.
I just hadn’t done it with my bare hands.
When I belatedly fell silent, Gio continued speaking with his face gone pale.
“Then is it also true that you drove a truck into the gang building that had defied you and blew up the entire building?”
“…Th-that one’s half true.”
“And that you blew off the head of the owner because you didn’t like the sex-toy escort service….”
“…….”
“They say you smashed another gang member’s skull during a gang-organizations meeting and took his teeth…?”
Why was everything only half true?
A great deal of it had been strangely distorted.
Sometimes a well-intentioned lie was necessary.
“…I-I don’t know. I didn’t do that.”
In any case, half of it truly wasn’t something I had done.
“Whew, I thought…. I thought you really were as strange as the rumors said. Still, I know better than anyone that you’re not the kind of person who’d do that.”
“…….”
My conscience pricked slightly.
Normally, if a superhero defeated a frightening villain, it was only natural for him to be cheered.
But if a strange rumor simultaneously spread that the superhero had collected the villain’s testicles, people might point fingers at him instead.
To protect Gio’s innocence.
I quietly kept my mouth shut.
* * *
Therefore.
“First, get rid of all the ones who look like men. Rumor has it he has a bizarre obsession with that ‘part.’ Even if only half the rumors are true….”
“…Ah, u-understood.”
The Mountain Lord of the Black Star Society reached the same conclusion.