Against a Perfect Sniper (11 page)

The story that was hard to comment on continued. Anyway, crickets were in the order Orthoptera with grasshoppers, and cockroaches were part of the order Blattodea, so they were actually completely different organisms and not related.

“Gallantly appearing on the scene was the Kisara butterfly you heard about earlier. To make a long story short, the Kisara butterfly was a Space God, a messenger of god. By the way, she was supercute, cuter than the Miori bug, at least. The only one who could save the Satomi bug from the evil clutches of the Miori bug was the Kisara butterfly. And to the Kisara butterfly, it was a little sad to think that the Satomi bug who had been with her since they were little would be taken away. In other words, the Satomi bug would become happy by being with the Kisara butterfly. Satomi, what do you think after objectively listening to this story so far?”

Rentaro was starting to get a headache. She wasn’t telling this story about bugs and butterflies because she wanted to say that last line, was she? “Just stop being mad already.”

“It’s not like I’m trying to make up, or anything.”

Rentaro was starting to get annoyed. “Hey, Kisara, will you stop already? I’m not going to Miori’s place, and I’m going to keep working
at your place like I have until now.” He realized his slip of the tongue too late and gave a start.

“I don’t want you to work for me out of pity! Hmph!”

The angry sound of the phone being hung up made Rentaro think he messed up, and he slumped and hung his head. This wasn’t what he was trying to say. He seemed to have been in the student council room for a long time, and when he went outside, the setting sun was dyed a bright red.

Picking up Enju at the statue in front of the school where they had arranged to meet, he continued on foot to Magata University Hospital, where Sumire was.

“Enju, be careful.” As he walked past the reception desk and into the university hospital hallway, he looked next to him.

“Hmm? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know why Doc told even you to come. I have a bad feeling about it.”

“Really? It has been a long time since I have been able to see Sumire, so I am looking forward to it.”

Watching Enju swing her fists happily up and down, Rentaro sighed. He had a feeling that even if he looked all over the world, Enju would be the only human who looked forward to seeing Sumire.

Going down the clean, swept hall for a while, they went down the familiar staircase to the basement. As usual, it was dim and smelled strongly of room fragrance, but today, Rentaro could hear a piercing laugh on top of that. The voice that bounced off the walls and reached Rentaro’s earlobes sounded like the maniacal laughter of a witch, and even Rentaro, who was used to coming here, hesitated.

Fed up, he passed the demon-engraved people-warding objects and found Sumire spread out on top of the table laughing uncontrollably. As she moved about on the table, she pushed off test tubes and beakers, and they broke with a crash.

“Hey, Rentaro, look at this article! The yakuza were tricked by the April Fools’ joke about immigrating to the moon and started buying up land on the moon to sell. They’re such dreamers even though they’re yakuza! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Rentaro’s chest was already filled with the feeling of wanting to go home. The world-renown doctor, Sumire Muroto, had a side of severe
necrophilia to the point where she expanded a morgue without permission just so she could live with the corpses.

“Sumire, we came to play!”

Enju waved her hand happily, and Sumire sat up, pushing up her hair, which had been allowed to grow as much as it wanted. And then she sat cross-legged on top of the table, brushing aside the hem of her lab coat, spreading both arms dramatically. “Welcome, Rentaro, Enju. Welcome to my nightmare.”

Sumire looked back and forth between Enju’s and Rentaro’s faces with an ecstatic expression. “Rentaro, you would be better mummified than stuffed, after all. Kisara would definitely be better stuffed than mummified. If she were mummified, then her boobs would stick out, so it wouldn’t look good. Enju……would be fine as a mummy. Yup.”

“Hmph, what part of me were you looking at when you said that?”

“I don’t care who it is, but won’t one of you die soon? I’m about to die from lack of corpses here. Oops, I almost forgot. It’s been a while, Rentaro. You have an unfortunate face, as usual. It’s depressing just looking at it. Sorry, but could you get some plastic surgery on that face by tomorrow? I can’t stand looking at it anymore.”

“Am I really that depressing?!”

Sumire stood up and stuffed coffee beans into the coffeemaker, put a beaker under it to catch the coffee, and turned it on. When she did, the room echoed the sound of the mill grinding the beans.

“More importantly, Rentaro, I heard you’re doing an escort job or something interesting like that?”

“Word travels fast.”

“I don’t know much about stuff like that, but I heard you’re up against a sniper this time? I always thought you knew a great deal about sniping. I mean, you are a man with the concentration to gaze at a young girl going to school through binoculars on the second floor, combined with the marvelous patience to wait until a dad brings his daughter into the hot springs. You should be called Love Sniper, you Lolita-complex bastard! Die!”

“There’s no truth in any of what you just said!”

Enju looked at Rentaro with excited eyes. “Is that true, Rentaro?”

“No! Stop it! Don’t give me that look! Anyway, Doc, thanks to you making up stories and spreading them around, Enju thinks they’re
funny and broadcasts them to the people who live in our apartment building, which is problematic. You know, the other day when I went to take out the trash one of our neighbors suddenly spit on me! What are you going to do about that?!”

“Yeah, I calculated ahead of time that that would happen when I spread the stories to Enju.”

“You are scum!”

“Thanks, that makes me happy. Watching you get socially destroyed is the last piece of joy I have left.” Sumire laughed evilly.

Rentaro was speechless. Just how much was he supposed to let this person make him despair?

Just then, two beakers filled to the brim with coffee slid toward him on the table. “Well, come on, sit down,” said Sumire.

Watching Enju happily plunk herself down on a stool, Rentaro also grudgingly sat next to her.

Sumire, sitting across from them, put her chin on her hands and lowered the tone of her voice, making a solemn face. “Rentaro, it’s a little late, but congratulations. You defeated Kagetane Hiruko and moved up in rank. Now that you’ve moved up to 1,000th to join the ranks of the high-ranking pairs, I thought I should talk to you soon about things you should be careful about with the three geniuses other than me who exist in the world.”

“The three geniuses?” Rentaro shifted on the chair when he realized the conversation was heading from calm to cloudy.

“Rentaro, what kind of understanding do you have of me as a person?”

Rentaro knew this was a serious question, so he considered. “You were the person responsible for the New Humanity Creation Project.”

“I can only give you partial credit for that answer. I am the most brilliant mind in Japan, and I was responsible for the Japanese branch of a mechanized soldier project that spanned four countries: Japan, America, Australia, and Germany.”

Rentaro interrupted in his confusion. “What the heck is that…? Wait a minute, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Four countries? Then—”

Sumire explained solemnly. “The head of the Australia branch, Obelisk, was Professor Arthur Zanuck. The head of the U.S. branch, NEXT, was Professor Ain Rand, and the head of the Japan branch, the
New Humanity Creation Project, was Professor Sumire Muroto—in other words, me. And the one who unified all of this and was in charge of everything was a German scientist, Professor Albrecht Grünewald. The four of us are the four people with expertise on mechanized soldier creation. We were called things like the Four Kings, or the Four Sages… How nostalgic.”

“‘Four Sages’…?”

“That’s right. The four of us were the great minds of the world, gathered in order to save the world from the invasion of the Gastrea. Now, Rentaro, do you think we produced great results working together hand in hand? Unfortunately, the answer is no. I’ll tell you from the end of the story. The four of us were jealous of one another’s ability and hid the results of our research from one another. I’m embarrassed to say that I was the same as the rest, too.”

“Why would you do that…?”

Pressed for an answer, Sumire just shrugged her shoulders. “Can you understand? For all of your life, there was not a single person around who could be called your equal, so you became conceited, but then suddenly
three
geniuses who threatened your existence appeared. I was frightened and extremely jealous at the same time. Coupled with the fact that my lover had been killed by a Gastrea around that time, and I couldn’t really see what was going on around me. You should remember what I was like back then.”

Rentaro paused. “I do.” He nodded, remembering Sumire all skin and bones, with just her glittering eyes. The Sumire now wasn’t the person responsible for the New Humanity Creation Project or the Sumire whose lover had just been killed by a Gastrea. She was half-forgotten by the world, but she seemed much happier now than she was back then.

“To continue, in the end, the four of us each used our individual expertise to the best of our ability and created mechanized soldiers.” Sumire laughed masochistically, shaking her head slowly. “My heart never connected with any of them during the whole process. Not once. And then, all the projects disbanded a little after the war. Do you know why?”

Casting a sidelong glance at Enju, whose body had tensed with
nervousness, Rentaro opened his mouth to speak hesitatingly. “Because mankind realized the high-fighting abilities of the Cursed Children.”

“Exactly. Even though it took a huge amount of money to create a single mechanized soldier like you, these girls were born naturally equipped with power that was equal to that of the soldiers. It was only natural for the government to think it was ridiculous to waste money on building the mechanized soldiers, right?

“And so all the organizations were disbanded, and the soldiers were relieved of their duties. Where did they go? Did they decide to live as ordinary citizens to spend the rest of their lives in peace? The answer to this is also no. After the civsec officer system was born, most of the mechanized soldiers went out into the world as Promoters. For them, the disbanding of the organizations just meant that the place where they fought changed.

“The current government is trying to manage the civsec officer system as clients. Well, it’s just what those government types wanted. Since civil security agencies are civilian organizations, it’s cheaper than having them work for the country. Price wars and other market forces are also involved. Lucky for them, the mechanized soldiers are also part of these organizations, so governments can just have them form tag teams and make great use of them. And these days, strong mechanized soldiers paired with strong Initiators get great military results, and most of them sit in the seats of the highest ranks. Do you understand what this means?”

Rentaro nodded as he slowly licked his dry lips, and Sumire continued.

“Rentaro, if you have decided to go after your origins, I am not particularly opposed to it. However, if you are going to defeat the enemies in front of you and aim to be among the highest of the highest ranks to get the highest-level top-secret information access key, then you will soon run into mechanized soldiers made by the other three geniuses who have become Promoters. You should be careful. Their abilities may have evolved past what we can even imagine.”

Without noticing it, Rentaro found himself sitting up straight and holding his breath as he listened. Cold sweat dripped down his cheek. He had been holding his breath, and he shook his head as he felt released from an invisible pressure and slowly drew oxygen into
his lungs. He could easily imagine how this could become a fearsome path of thorns.

“But Rentaro, it’s not something to be pessimistic about. You already defeated one of Mr. Grünewald’s mechanized soldiers.”

Rentaro looked up with surprise. “Don’t tell me he was…”

“That’s right, Kagetane Hiruko.”

Just hearing that name gave him the chills and made him feel sick to his stomach. Manipulating a repulsion force field with superior defense along with two sinister handguns, Kagetane Hiruko was, without a doubt, the strongest opponent Rentaro had ever faced in his short life. It was more or less a miracle that he had won.

“Only Mr. Grünewald did not have a research lab in his own country, so he had facilities in Japan, Australia, and America. Section 22, which you were in, was under my jurisdiction, but Kagetane’s Section 16 was under Mr. Grünewald’s jurisdiction. Also, it might sound like the Four Sages were equal in their abilities, but Mr. Grünewald’s genius was obviously a rank above that of Arthur, Ain, and mine. Once, I thought I’d try to steal the knowledge he had of mechanized soldiers and looked at his blueprints, but there was a portion that even I didn’t understand.”

Rentaro shook his head. Honestly, what she was talking about had gotten too big for him to wrap his head around. Next to him, Enju had her mouth half-open. She probably did not understand half of what she was hearing, either.

“Wait, Doc, are you really that amazing?” There was still a trace of fatigue left in his lighthearted words, but Sumire was indifferent and recrossed her legs.

“What, it’s not a big deal. The way you and Enju would read a single book is how I would read a single library. That’s the only difference. It’s simple, isn’t it? You might just think of me as a coroner, but I actually have no particular specialty. Everything is my specialty.”

“Then why are you doing autopsies on Gastrea now?”

Sumire hunched her shoulders and twisted her lips in a smile. “It’s because I like it. Corpses are great. No idle chatter from them. Oh, but the most unfortunate part about this job is that your patients never say ‘Thank you.’”