Chapter 76
Chapter 8 [Zodiac Serial Killings] had officially begun.
This meant...
Now I had to find and kill this crazy killer who had been randomly chosen from among the townspeople a few months ago.
Zodiac could be among the original residents or among the recent immigrants to Justice Town.
But if I had to weigh the possibilities...
Since Zodiac originally operated in other parts of Utah, not Justice Town, he's more likely to be among the immigrants.
...Zodiac was more likely to be among the immigrants.
"Haa... Fuck, why did that protagonist bitch have to come here at this time and mess up the town?"
Zodiac coming to Justice Town was surely because of the protagonist.
I clicked my tongue and mulled over the contents of Zodiac's letter once more.
[Next time I'll kill a young girl.]
"..."
Once the [Zodiac Serial Killings] episode started, multiple victims in the town couldn't be prevented.
As Zodiac predicted, next time a young girl would die.
It's not a sight I particularly want to see.
No matter how much I reminded myself they were NPCs, children dying were repulsive and mentally disturbing.
It would be good to catch Zodiac before that, but even I, who had played <Catch the Outlaws>, had no way to catch Zodiac right now.
Swish.
Still, I searched the corpse in case there might be other clues.
Seeing this, the deputy guarding the scene tried to stop me.
"Ah, Kid. Don't search too much. The sheriff will be here soon."
"Hmm... The sheriff isn't exactly a gentleman, either."
"What? What do you mean?"
Clop clop clop clop.
As the deputy tilted his head and asked, I pointed to the far end of the street.
The sound of horse hooves rushing madly towards us could be heard from there.
"The sheriff is coming from there right now."
As soon as I said that, Sheriff Jett, whom I had seen earlier, appeared.
Clop clop clop clop.
He was urging his horse faster than usual, so he must have been very surprised that Zodiac had appeared in Justice Town.
"Hey, Sheriff! Hurry..."
I was about to wave my hand and welcome him as usual when I saw the sheriff.
But...
...Hmm?
Freeze.
I couldn't help but freeze when I saw the face of the person riding a horse and coming this way together behind the sheriff.
...That bitch.
Bright blonde hair so well-maintained it was glossy.
In contrast, boots so worn the soles were completely worn out.
A sophisticated women's suit showing she was clearly a city person...
And a youthful face that didn't match it.
The protagonist character of <Catch the Outlaws> and...
The granddaughter of the founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency that ruled the West...
It was Sophia Pinkerton.
Oh dear.
...This is fucked, isn't it?
To say it again, Sophia and I weren't meeting for the first time.
Of course, I was wearing a mask on my face then, so she wouldn't recognize my face right away now, but...
Sophia, who had [Detective's Intuition] implemented, a basic trait provided when choosing the protagonist character in <Catch the Outlaws>, had very good intuition.
[Detective's Intuition]
In the game, it was just a trait that helped with quest progression, but in reality, it was almost like being a shaman.
She would surely recognize my identity as soon as she saw me.
Moreover, the problem didn't end with [Detective's Intuition].
Just like in San Francisco, people here call me Kid.
When she saw people calling me Kid, her suspicion would surely be directed at me...
Moreover, the person who called me Kid the most in town was right in front of Sophia.
"Hey!! K..."
Damn it.
As expected, the ungentlemanly Jett tried to shout “Kid” as soon as he saw me.
So I frowned at Jett and desperately shook my head.
Fuck... don't call me Kid...!
Of course, all I could do was send Jett a look saying not to call me Kid, but...
I believed.
In the bond between Jett and me.
We've lived seeing each other's faces for 3 years, bickering...
Isn’t it possible for us to have telepathy?
"...Huh? Ah..."
Whether he heard all my feelings or noticed something was off from my gaze.
Jett also nodded with a hardened face and...
"Kid!!!!!!"
...shouted loudly.
"Hey!! Kid!! Yeah! Kid! I'm coming, Kid!! Don't touch the corpse and wait! Kid!!! Kid!! Kid!!!"
"...So much for telepathy."
Anyone listening would think Kid was the name of Jett's dog.
Jett called me Kid several times in a voice so loud it could wake the whole neighborhood.
Sophia right behind Jett couldn't have missed it.
With Jett's voice so loud... even deaf Bob would have heard it if he were here.
Well... what do I do now.
Sophia was very obsessed with me.
Her eyes must have rolled as soon as she heard Kid.
She'll probably interrogate me like crazy as soon as she gets here...
Clop clop, whoosh.
...Or so I thought?
Arriving at the scene before anyone else, overtaking even Jett with her horse “Spiegel”...
She didn't even glance at me who was called Kid by Jett and went straight to the corpse.
Then she examined the wound area with eagle eyes and even touched it directly, and soon began deducing.
"...The blood hasn't completely congealed yet. Even considering it's winter, not a single fly has gathered. This person hasn't been dead long."
Jett, who arrived a little later than her, recognized the corpse's face and gritted his teeth.
"...Damn, Hector's gone."
As the sheriff, Jett knew most of the townspeople by face.
While Jett was saddened by fabric shop owner Hector's death, Sophia read Zodiac's letter.
"Terrible handwriting... no, rather than that, it seems to have been written with the opposite hand to prevent handwriting analysis… Quite meticulous."
Flash.
There it was, her characteristic triangular eyes.
Sophia began deducing the culprit with those obsessive and manic eyes looking only at the corpse.
Oh, this is unexpected.
I thought she'd go crazy like a madwoman and interrogate me as soon as she saw me, but she defied my expectations.
Was it the system's influence? Right now, she seemed like a person who couldn't see anything but the Zodiac serial killings in front of her.
Then I'll use this chance to...
Sneak.
So I moved to leave the scene while her attention was focused on the corpse.
And...
"Just a moment, sir over there."
"..."
Sophia stopped me.
Sophia stopped me and asked with her characteristic sharp pupils, "Are you the first discoverer of this scene?"
"No, I'm not."
"Then why were you guarding the scene with the deputy?"
Jett and the deputy answered her suspicious question instead, "Ah, that's because this guy is Kid, a famous bounty hunter in this neighborhood."
"That's right. So I was letting Kid keep looking at the corpse."
Even in this situation, these bastards kept stubbornly calling me Kid.
"...Kid."
Grind.
As soon as Sophia heard the word Kid, she ground her teeth.
The sound was so loud that even Jett and the deputy were startled.
...As expected, she won't just let it go?
Before, when dealing with Django in San Francisco, Django's bullets felt like baseballs rather than dodgeballs like others.
There were very few such people in the world.
Those with tremendous talent who could rival me with my overpowered trait [Best Gunslinger in the West]...
And Sophia in front of me was one of those gunslingers.
"...Then you. Have you perhaps met me before?"
"..."
At her question that seemed to be suppressing anger somewhere, I smiled harmlessly and answered, "No? Not at all?"
At that moment, my hand was unknowingly moving towards the holster containing my gun.
***
Am I perhaps a special being?
Am I perhaps a chosen human?
Am I perhaps a person from a completely different world than other ordinary people?
Everyone has such thoughts at least once during their turbulent growth period.
Usually, in most cases, it remained simply as a cute delusion and future embarrassing memory.
But if there were abilities and talents to back it up, it would become not so cute.
A family background that wasn’t just affluent but overflowing, a brilliant mind, ghostly intuition, shooting skills so excellent as to evoke the reincarnation of Robin Hood.
Young Sophia Pinkerton thought she was a special being.
She had the ability to accomplish anything she wanted to do, after all...
Her cute delusion of being special led to arrogance.
It was the same when she first joined Pinkerton, her grandfather's company.
She thought she could catch all the notorious outlaws and gangs despite being a trainee agent.
In fact, she caught many outlaws despite being a trainee... and when she showed results, her family and colleagues acknowledged her as a special being.
Only one person.
— Sophia, you have great power. But the world is wide and you're still young.
Only Ben Parker, a 1st grade Pinkerton agent and her maternal uncle, worried about her.
Ben kept following Sophia around and volunteered to be her dedicated supervisor, restricting her actions.
Sophia found such an uncle annoying... and felt the desire to be acknowledged even by her uncle who restricted her.
So she made a very bold plan despite being a trainee agent.
A daring plan to capture the main executives of TKK, which divided San Francisco with the South Brotherhood.
Bang.
— ...Ugh.
Needless to say, her plan failed before it even started.
Just the fact that she was digging up information on TKK brought the reapers of San Francisco.
The white reapers of TKK... who hid their identities with white masks and white uniforms.
— Huu... uuuu…
Although Sophia was confident in her shooting skills... she couldn't see the hands of the person shooting.
Sophia, a young lady from a noble family and an excellent gunslinger, was shot for the first time that day.
— Huuuu... uwaaang...!
— ...She's crying?
Experiencing that pain for the first time, Sophia burst into tears like a child.
The man who shot her approached with a hollow laugh as if finding such a Sophia ridiculous.
— Why is the protagonist like this? Huh, I can't kill her because the game might forcibly end if I kill the protagonist. She wasn't like this when I played.
Protagonist? Game? Ending? Play?
The man's words were full of incomprehensible terms.
Sophia was just too scared of the situation at the time, with the bullet lodged in her body hurting too much.
So she threw away all her pride, bowed her head and begged.
— ...P-please spare me. Please...
— ...This is really disappointing. Was the character I played for about 10,000 hours this trash?
The man clicked his tongue with a cold atmosphere.
It wasn't just the man who looked at Sophia's unsightly appearance as if it were pathetic.
— Kid, so you're not killing her?
When the woman who came with the man asked while pointing a revolver at Sophia, the man called Kid shook his head.
— ...No, I won't kill her. No matter how trash she is, she's still the protagonist of this game.
— Alright then.
At Kid's order, the woman immediately put away her gun.
Seeing this, Sophia felt joy that she could somehow keep her life rather than the humiliation of barely saving her life from outlaws.
But then.
— Sophiaaaaaa!!
A familiar voice was heard from the alley beyond where Sophia was captured.
It was her maternal uncle Ben Parker, who always worried about Sophia's arrogance.
— Sophiaaaaaa!!
As he approached calling Sophia anxiously, the woman asked Kid once more.
— Kid, can I kill that one?
— Kill him.
At that cold answer, Sophia burst out crying and shouted loudly enough for her uncle to hear.
— No!! Uncle Ben!!!!! D-don't come here...!!
But...
Bang.
Sophia's cry wasn't faster than the woman's bullet.
Uncle Ben Parker was shot and killed as soon as he turned the corner and faced Sophia.
— ...Ah.
Sophia couldn't feel the reality of the terrible scene before her eyes.
What woke such a Sophia was Kid.
He grabbed the back of Sophia's neck and personally brought her in front of her uncle, then said.
— Now, look, Sophia. With great power comes great responsibility.
— Huu... huuk...
— If you received the role of protagonist, you should catch the final boss. Why are you stirring up trouble trying to catch innocent us? This person died because of you.
Sophia never forgot his cold tone that day.
— Next time it might be your mom, your dad. So let's go according to the scenario. Don't probe us, but probe the South Brotherhood like in the game. Let me go home.
— Uuu... huwaaaaang...
— Since I've awakened you like this, work hard and make sure to catch the South Brotherhood. Got it?
Whammm!
After this, Sophia, who had lost consciousness, was found in the morning with her uncle's corpse...
Sophia couldn't forget the shock and secluded herself in the mansion for a year.
Only after hearing that TKK had disbanded and the leader had disappeared did she come out.
She was different from before after ending her seclusion.
With great power comes great responsibility.
As he said... she intended to fulfill her responsibility for causing her uncle's death.
So she tracked Kid like crazy and...
Is it a coincidence?
She encountered a man called Kid here in Justice Town.
"...Then you. Have you perhaps met me before?"
"No? Not at all?"
This bastard.
Though his tone and atmosphere were different from before...
Sophia could be certain that the man before her eyes was that Kid.