Chapter 80
In effect, Luciana, the boss of the Sicilian Mafia─the Sparo Rapido Family, which controlled Zone 49, had recently acquired a new hobby.
If she wished, she could cooperate with the web-spider groups Redneck or Black Hornet to learn every little thing her target did, but.
The law of omertà.
The laws carved in blood throughout the family’s long history were not the sort that even the current head of the Sparo Rapido Family could easily violate.
The old rules created to silence whistleblowers and traitors had been revised in some respects over the years and had become highly subdivided by the present day.
Meals are shared only among family members who do not betray one another.
Family members do not directly monitor one another.
Once family, forever family.
And so on….
Therefore, Luciana’s indirect “observation” of a certain person at a certain grocery store was nothing more than her hobby.
“Ahem….”
Luciana hummed softly as she checked the reports on the work she had delegated to her staff.
Moreover, the homeless people connected to that grocery store had recently begun operating as vigilantes on their own, greatly reducing the amount of attention she needed to pay to maintaining public order.
Luciana knew better than anyone that every mafia had begun as a vigilante group, so she could only watch their activities with satisfaction.
Interest, curiosity, and a touch of responsibility.
Because that was the short sentence that described Luciana as a person.
From the perspective of Luciana’s subordinates, things were far better now than during the days when they relieved stress by blowing up the buildings of hostile organizations.
Except for a small faction of malcontents.
The Sparo Rapido Family currently maintained a fairly peaceful state.
Crack.
That was, unless some pathetic merchant organization suddenly got on her bad side.
The antique-designed pen she had been holding between her slender fingers had long since been snapped in half.
Luciana’s red eyes moved in turn across a screen connected to the organization’s spy satellite, the city government’s surveillance cameras, and the Black Star Society’s internal database, which she had accessed by hacking it.
The invitation itself had been fine.
Yes, the invitation itself.
[Hot Dog Man…. This is the perfect opportunity for us. He may be surrounded by strange rumors, but in the end, he’s just an ordinary heterosexual man with ordinary tastes. A perfectly ordinary straight man who can’t overcome the weight of the fat in a woman’s chest.]
[If only the power that brought down Hakugakumi would side with us…. We could definitely claim the territory around the New City streets that the mafia bitch doesn’t care about. Hahahaha!!]
[Right, because we’re going to connect him to the android I’ve been saving. Get it ready. It might malfunction for no reason, so wipe the data clean.
(
Bzzzt
-)
Ahem, hehehe…. I think something like this should do.]
Luciana canceled all of her scheduled appointments.
She personally boarded a tactical helicopter.
If she had had more time, she would have traveled in a hovercraft tank from the armored line, but unfortunately, that would have risked making her arrival even later.
The boss’s sudden outing.
The faces of her subordinate members were colored with dismay.
No matter how great the difference in scale between the two sides, this was an urgent matter serious enough to escalate into a war between organizations.
Honestly, the war itself was no concern.
At least they wouldn’t lose.
It might even help stabilize security in Zone 49.
But….
“B-Boss!!”
“Hm.”
The voice of a subordinate who had gathered his courage brought Luciana’s steps to a halt for a few seconds.
Of all things, the reason was.
“…Do you really like Hot Dog Man that much?”
Because of some bastard who was notorious throughout the organization for being a lunatic….
Luciana narrowed her eyes at the subordinate’s brave remark.
Soon, the tactical helicopter’s engine started, and the strong gusts scattered her curly, light-blond hair in every direction.
After a brief silence.
The subordinate waited for the end that awaited him after making such a rude remark, but.
What he heard instead was a light laugh.
“Yeah, isn’t he cute?”
“……??”
The way he rolled his eyes around and watched for her reaction despite being built like a mountain.
The fact that he possessed the physical ability to overpower beastmen with his bare hands, yet ran a grocery store and looked after the homeless people in the streets.
The straightforward spirit he showed—tense even when standing before her, but never afraid….
They were reasons that made no sense whatsoever to the subordinate.
The subordinate continued watching the back of his walking boss and recalled Hot Dog Man’s face.
‘…Cute?’
That menacing face?
The appearance that Abel Anderson himself had judged by saying, ‘At best, he’d pass for an intellectual yakuza….’
How could she possibly find that cute?
The subordinate never managed to understand it to the very end….
* * *
A massive explosion suddenly erupted.
Naturally, the people in the corridor rushed into the room in an instant.
“…Chief!!”
“Mountain Lord!!”
This wasn’t some martial-arts novel.
I told you not to call me Chief.
They were all on guard against their surroundings.
And their gazes naturally turned toward Luciana, who was holding a pistol.
“…L-Luciana?”
Bang!!
The gunshot rang out once more.
Fortunately, this time the bullet did not pierce through anyone’s forehead.
It merely blew away a small piece of a Black Star Society member’s earlobe.
“…Urgh!!”
“How insolent. Call me Don Rapido.”
At that moment, I thought of the first boss of the Corleone Family, who sentenced his opponent to death while stroking a wheezing cat.
Don was the title used to address the boss of a mafia family.
The Black Star Society subordinate bowed in confusion without even having time to wipe the sweat from his forehead or the blood running down his earlobe.
“…I pay my respects to Don Rapido, boss of the Sparo Rapido Family.”
“Hm.”
Cat and Gio, standing beside me, looked utterly bewildered, as though they had no idea what was happening.
I first calmly met Cat’s gaze through his full-face helmet.
- Get me out of here quickly.
- What in the world is going on?
- Did I call Luciana? Of course not.
- That terrifying mafia boss has shown up. Black Square could turn into a sea of flames….
- Could you set off a smoke screen on the floor like last time? I’m serious, not joking.
- Don’t tell me we’ve gotten caught up in a war between organizations….
Unfortunately, no one among us possessed telepathic powers.
They merely echoed like voices in the distance.
Come to think of it, there seemed to be a telepathy-type trait among the psychic traits I had yet to select….
“Abel.”
“Yes!!”
I answered loudly when I heard my name being called.
At least I hadn’t shouted it twice in a formal, military-style response.
While I exchanged invisible glances with Cat, Luciana also seemed to have finished sorting things out with the Black Star Society member.
“You said you were thinking of buying an implant….”
“Y-Yes, that’s right.”
I almost pointed at Cat with my finger, but stopped myself.
I had no idea why I became so nervous whenever she was standing in front of me.
But my instincts were still telling me to be careful around Luciana.
I had no desire to speak casually and provoke her displeasure for no reason.
Luciana’s bleak gaze moved to the others as well.
A ninja straight out of Ghost Runner and an utterly ordinary neighborhood kid.
After looking them over too, Luciana secretly let out a small sigh.
“I guess this can’t be called a date anymore.”
“?”
Ignoring the question mark floating above my head, Luciana spoke to the Black Star Society member.
“You heard me, right? The purpose of our coming here.”
“…Yes!”
I didn’t know when “we” had become a thing, but this atmosphere made it difficult to point that out.
The subordinate’s waist bent ninety degrees, blood streaming from his severed earlobe.
“I’ll escort you immediately!”
* * *
Someone poked me repeatedly in the side.
Since there was no chance that Rivera from the grocery store had suddenly appeared, I didn’t need to look to know who it was.
Gio looked up at me with anxious eyes.
“U-Um, hyung.”
“Yeah.”
“What exactly is going on right now?”
My gaze moved from Luciana, walking right beside me, to the Black Star Society member walking ahead of us, and then back to Gio.
One of life’s lessons came to mind.
“…I don’t know either.”
Being involved in something doesn’t mean you know everything about it.
At my quiet confession, Gio furrowed his brow and frowned.
“No, if you don’t know that….”
His voice grew smaller and smaller.
Apparently, having Luciana right beside me made him nervous.
You too? Me too.
In the end, Gio stared intently at the Black Star Society member leading the way with dead eyes.
“…If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have come along.”
A sherpa’s role was to guide people through Black Square.
And although this was Black Square, it was the innermost area, which Gio did not know.
I roughly tousled Gio’s hair.
Because frustration is what makes a man grow.
Anyway.
The place the Black Star Society member guided us to was a strange building shaped like a gigantic dome.
Even in Black Square, not every street was “inside a building.”
The buildings with complex structures expanded in every direction like an anthill belonged to the peripheral areas, after all.
“Why are there so many people in Zone 49….”
“…They’re all wealthy tourists here.”
Even so, Gio still had not forgotten his duty as a sherpa, so he clutched my clothes and muttered.
Though he might simply have been sticking close because he was scared.
Tourists, huh….
I remembered hearing a similar explanation from Gio when I first came to Black Square.
The people lined up at the building’s entrance chatted while looking at one another.
“But I heard there isn’t an auction today?”
“I don’t know either. Apparently, one’s opening all of a sudden?”
At their conversation, I looked toward Luciana’s relaxed profile.
“What is it?”
“…Nothing.”
I never expected us to end up doing such serious shopping.
However, given the structure of this world, where a small number of powerful people moved enormous vested interests, it was not at all strange for the appearance of a mafia boss to create a new event where none had originally been scheduled.
“This way.”
The Black Star Society member also seemed to have relaxed considerably as he guided us farther inside the building.
After taking the elevator and passing through a corridor.
A room that looked luxurious at a glance appeared.
[ VVIP Room ]
No wonder I had thought we were riding the elevator so high; all the walls of the room were basically made of a translucent material.
The auction stage was clearly visible below.
“Is there anything else you require?”
Luciana’s gaze turned toward me.
“I’m fine. Abel, how about you?”
“…Do you happen to have a heated hot dog?”
At my shocking request, the Black Star Society member’s poker face trembled slightly.
“…A hot dog. I’ll have one prepared right away.”
While the chef hired for the VIPs was forced to take on the unexpected challenge of making a hot dog.
Not that she intended to drink it, but Luciana calmly sipped the wine that might have been poisoned and gestured toward the others.
“Don’t just stand there; you can sit down.”
““……””
I desperately gestured toward the two of them with my eyes.
But apparently unable to understand what I meant, they sat down in a distant corner.
Whew.
Luciana seemed pleased with their conduct, giving a small chuckle as she looked down at the stage.
Unlike the unpleasant floral scent I had sensed from the Black Star Society’s Mountain Lord moments earlier, a subtle, pleasant fragrance brushed past the tip of my nose.
Soft as sunlight….
“Ah, it’s starting.”
At those words, I immediately shook my head.
I almost spaced out just now.
[…Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the special auction hosted by Black Square!]
The host seemed flustered by the auction that had begun so suddenly, but he was nevertheless displaying a staunch professional spirit.
[Today’s theme is…. ‘Cybernetic Prosthetics’! From the latest implants made by megacorps to combat prosthetics secretly developed by the city government! A wide variety of items awaits, so don’t miss this precious opportunity—seize it!]
I shifted my gaze, intending merely to look over the auction items.
I didn’t know whether there would be anything Cat could afford with the salary he had saved, but the quality itself was obviously going to be far better than anything sold in the peripheral layer.
[Now, the first item, starting at $50,000, is─.]
Ziiing.
A strange sound like a buzzer ringing.
At the same time, a huge cluster of numbers appeared above the host’s head.
[Huh? No, I haven’t even introduced the item yet. Ha-ha, it looks like someone pressed the button by mistake! $200,000 right from the start? For your information, refunds are impossible─, huh?]
The host’s eyes grew round after hearing what someone below the stage told him.
[…It seems that wasn’t a mistaken press! Ha-ha! Understood. I’ll begin the countdown. Ten! Nine! Eight! Oh my, $205,000! Then let’s restart the countdown. …$300,000 already!]
My gaze fell away from the stage.
I stared as though spellbound at Luciana, who wrote down a number and firmly pressed the button.
“High-performance prosthetics are useful to us as well. There’s no harm in buying one.
“Ah….”
She wasn’t wrong.
Oh, I almost got the wrong idea again….
* * *
And the next day.
As one might expect.
The entrance to the grocery store was blocked by a gigantic mountain of packages.
It was winter, and the first snow had fallen.