Every freelance Hero had a “garage” protected by security they could trust.
You could also call it an armory. Even with a Hero license, there were plenty of weapons you were legally forbidden to possess or carry. Heavy firearms, explosives, poisons—that kind of thing. The weapons Heroes were allowed to use amounted to blades and small handguns, and those were not always enough for killing Demon Kings.
A skilled Hero usually kept several “garages” like that within their operating area, places to hide illegal tools. In my case, one of them was the storeroom at Ed Silas’s bar. Incidentally, Ed skimmed pocket change from us as a storage fee for that room.
“So?”
Ed Silas unlocked the “garage” door with a mean-looking key. The smell of mold and iron drifted out from inside.
“What’s the plan this time? You do have some way of murdering <Briar>, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t.”
From Ed’s tone, I could tell roughly how things had played out.
“Ed, you bet on me, didn’t you?”
“I aimed for the long shot. Sure, you’ll claim you’re one hell of a pro, but even so, killing him in a single night is a harsh condition.”
“You rude bastard.”
I laughed and stepped into the “garage.”
“I really am one hell of a pro. I don’t take jobs I can’t win.”
The lockers and steel shelves were packed with weapons and bombs. Not just mine. Joe the <Salt>’s gear and Ishinoo’s were lined up there too.
First, a few eye-catching, dangerous heavy firearms. Next, a lot of bombs. Even more poisons. The <E3> was inside a locker with an electronic lock. And the most numerous weapons by far were blades—swords and knives.
“Especially with <Briar>, we already know the trick behind his ether perception. He’s no match for me.”
Or rather, there were almost no ether perception users who could shut me down completely. I was not about to call myself the strongest, but against almost any opponent, I could handle them from an advantageous position about eighty percent of the time. That was me.
“Hey, Shirogamine? That was your name, right?”
“Yes!”
Her answer was crisp, but only the answer. At the entrance, Aki Shirogamine stood at attention and saluted.
“Did you make contact with <Briar> himself? Did you fight him?”
“Yes! After establishing his movement route, we set an ambush and attacked.”
“Right. Well, the idea of an ambush itself wasn’t bad. The target was just shit. What happened?”
“Lord <Amber Briar> moved his hands somehow, like this.”
Shirogamine fluttered both hands like swimming fish. It was a strange gesture. Maybe something about it felt wrong to her, because she immediately frowned and subtly changed the motion.
“Hm? Was it like this—or perhaps this—”
“Those tiny details don’t matter.”
“No, I’m certain there was a vertical motion like this. Truly.”
“You’re the type who’s too serious to improvise.”
I gave up on expecting useful explanations from Shirogamine.
“And then? What happened to you?”
“When the Demon King moved his hands, intense pain ran through my entire body, and I became unable to move.”
“Right. And what did you think that was?”
“Some form of paralysis, I assumed.”
Shirogamine seemed to be waiting for an explanation, but I did not give her one. I was not a teacher. Instead, I picked up a short cylindrical object from the steel shelf and looked back at Ed Silas.
“That settles it. Just like the rumors. I can kill him.”
Ed Silas let out a thoughtful breath.
“But the problem is getting there, isn’t it? <Briar> will be holed up in his castle, and his subordinates should have the security tightened. Especially tonight.”
“Because some amateur piece-of-shit Heroes screwed up and failed to kill him. But we’re lucky on that point this time. We can make it work.”
Next, I opened the locker in the corner of the room. Several swords were displayed inside, like an antique fair.
For Heroes, this was the most reliable and practical weapon there was.
In other words, a sword.
There were two reasons Heroes could not trust guns and bombs.
The first was that civilians might be present at the assassination site. If a stray shot or blast killed or injured a civilian by accident, the Hero could be sued by the victim or their family and squeezed for damages. Even if both were killers, unlike Demon Kings, Heroes were a legal profession.
The second was that bullets were not especially effective weapons against Demon Kings. Demon Kings kept their ether constantly enhanced, so they could dodge bullets easily enough. You could probably hit them at point-blank range, but even if you did, it was hard to make the wound fatal.
Through surgery, Demon Kings had an organ implanted inside their bodies near the heart, one that artificially strengthened and amplified ether. It gave them sickening durability and monstrous recovery. Something like a gunshot wound healed in seconds.
What worked on Demon Kings like that was physically severing the ether-enhancement organ transplanted by surgery, or else cutting off the head and limbs. Once something was completely separated, regeneration could not reach it. Therefore, if you had to choose, you chose a sword. Since we could move faster than bullets for an instant, there were not many weapons better suited to the job.
“Good.”
I reached into the locker and grabbed the sword I was most used to.
It was a completely practical sword with no decoration whatsoever. The blade length and grip sat somewhere between a one-handed and a two-handed weapon. It was called a bastard sword, a “mongrel sword.” They said it was a style born in medieval Europe, then quickly abandoned because of how difficult it was to handle.
My teacher taught me how to wield the thing any way I wanted.
“With this, I’m invincible.”
“You never use it, and you don’t pay your tab, so I was thinking of selling it off next month.”
Lines like that from Ed Silas were completely serious. They were not jokes or threats. I had probably been in actual danger.
“It’s fine. Wait a little. I’ll make some money with it.”
I hooked the sword onto the belt at my waist and turned around. Shirogamine was standing ramrod straight at attention.
“So? What’s your weapon?”
“Yes! During the earlier engagement—”
“You lost it because you’re an idiot.”
“Yes!”
“As long as you know.”
At that point, all I could do was shrug.
“Take whatever you like. If you die, I’ll have trouble collecting my money. Rental fee is fifty thousand for one night.”
“Yes. However, as market rates go—”
Shirogamine had the nerve to look thoughtful.
“Is that a reasonable figure? Judging from your behavior, Master, I sense you are always trying to wring as much money as possible from naive students like us.”
“Then don’t take anything.”
“Yes! Understood!”
Shirogamine’s eyes suddenly brightened. Or rather, widened.
“This is what people commonly call being taken advantage of because one has no bargaining position.”
Once again, I had no idea how to answer. She was too honest.
“Your words are educational, Master.”
“Stop that.”
She was planning to force her way through with this, I realized. Did she intend to establish a master-disciple relationship entirely on her own? That was a chilling thought. Was there no decisive way to reject it? I tried to squeeze my dependable wisdom for an answer.
At that moment, a bald head suddenly poked in through the storeroom entrance. For some reason, the bald head was covered in blood.
Joe the <Salt>. He looked tremendously displeased.
“Hey, Yashiro.”
At that low, growling voice, Shirogamine turned around and froze. I was used to it, so I was fine. How many times had Joe the <Salt> shown up at a meeting spot drenched in blood? Among our circle, this man killed in the flashiest way.
“Some dumb-looking gangsters just barged in. I killed ’em, but they ruined the game. Fucking pieces of shit.”
“I see. That’s—poor things.”
Obviously, I was not talking about Joe. In my heart, I prayed for the souls of the dead gangsters—almost certainly Lord <Amber Briar>’s subordinates. They had interrupted Joe the <Salt> and Ishinoo’s game. They must have died in agony.
“Thing is, looks like they were searching for that brat there.”
Joe the <Salt> pointed at Shirogamine, who was still frozen.
“Hurry up and clean this up. It’s annoying. I bet on you getting sent to the hospital.”
“What did Ishinoo bet on?”
“That Yashiro dies. I get it, honestly. It’s probably impossible. This all came out of nowhere.”
“Figures! Good. I’ll make him regret it.”
That was all it meant, in the end, that I had accepted Aki Shirogamine’s request.
I was disgusted by the simplicity of my own personality.
In other words, that was probably where my life, or my hobbies, or the principles behind my actions all came from. I knew it myself. A primitive desire to do something big in front of my friends and make them look at me with respect. But wasn’t a simple person more human and therefore more likable?
So I kicked Aki Shirogamine in the shin.
“Don’t fall asleep. We’re going now.”
Shirogamine groaned in protest.
We had to settle things quickly. Kill the Demon King tonight, then come back here. Joe the <Salt> and Ishinoo would no doubt be shocked by the new legend I had created. I would drink beer in triumph and show off the twenty-million-yen promissory note for my reward.
There was nothing more fun than counting your chickens before they hatched. I could even make plans to take the twenty million yen I had yet to see and go play around in Hawaii. If Joe the <Salt> and Ishinoo got down on their knees, I might even arrange their flights while I was at it.
This would revive my fun Monday night into something even better.
I thought it was a perfect plan.
The castle of the Demon King, Lord <Amber Briar>, had already been identified.
It was in a corner of the office district south of Shibuya Station toward Ebisu, past Shibuya Bridge.
“Castle” was a technical term. It meant a Demon King’s hideout. In reality, it could be a single floor of some mixed-use building, a fortress disguised as a private home, an underground facility, or plenty of other things. In Lord <Amber Briar>’s case, it was a small, utterly ordinary office building. He had rented out the entire structure and used it for “business” too.
Incidentally, once a Demon King’s castle location was exposed, unless that Demon King was exceptionally powerful, they did not have long left. They would be raided and killed. In <Amber Briar>’s case as well, Heroes had been waiting for a chance to assassinate him for the bounty, and you could even say tonight had come at the perfect time.
In short, we had our opening.
When killing a Demon King who had tightened their guard, the best move was to introduce something unexpected and throw them into disorder.
“We—or rather, Sera—have circumstances.”
As we walked quickly through the back alleys of Shibuya, Aki Shirogamine said that.
“Those circumstances are difficult to counter.”
Shirogamine, walking beside me, had pulled the balaclava over her head as I instructed. At her belt, she carried a one-handed sword and a small round shield. Given her build, it was not a bad choice. Combined with a shield, the range of techniques available with a one-handed sword expanded dramatically.
Maybe Shirogamine was extremely tense, because even as we walked, she kept gripping the sword’s handle as if to make sure it was still there. While doing so, she frowned and spoke.
“No, strictly speaking, this belongs to the personal side of an individual’s life, so perhaps it should be called improvement rather than a countermeasure. No, not improvement, but mitigation—limited coping—something along those lines. That is why we cannot rely on the Academy.”
“You’re bad at explaining. Or rather, you care too much about accuracy. I don’t understand a damn thing, so first do something about that nightmare of a digression.”
I gave my honest impression. Shirogamine frowned slightly, as if dissatisfied.
“Is that so? Yukine often points that out as well.”
“No question. Your presentation skills have a fatal defect.”
“I do not see it that way myself.”
Shirogamine looked unhappy, but of course she did. Since it could not be helped, I had no choice but to dig into the issue myself.
“What are these circumstances? Is Sera the kidnapped friend? Is that her real name?”
“Yes. Sera Kashiwagi Pendragon.”
Aki Shirogamine looked as if that should explain everything. Then she repeated herself.
“That is why we cannot rely on the Academy.”
“Huh?”
You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought.
I knew the strange name Pendragon. Rather, anyone in this industry had heard it.
It was the surname used by King Arthur, the chairman of the Round Table Foundation.
Also known as the most famous Hero in the world.
The slayer of demon gods.
The founding of that international Hero-support organization was said to trace back to the famous British legend of King Arthur—Arthur Pendragon. To be honest, the theory itself sounded dubious, but whoever inherited the position of chairman of the Round Table Foundation was given the name “Arthur Pendragon.”
The current King Arthur was the 507th.
He was a graduate of Wales Academy, a prestigious Hero-training school in Britain, and was known for having married a Japanese woman. If Shirogamine’s story was true, then apparently he had a daughter.
“Sera Kashiwagi Pendragon.”
I repeated the name. Before I knew it, I had stopped in the middle of the alley.
“The 507th has a daughter. That’s what you’re saying?”
“His only daughter.”
“That’s a scandal.”
And for Japan’s Academy, a fairly fatal one. If the Academy found out King Arthur’s daughter had been kidnapped, the first thing they would fear was King Arthur, who oversaw the Round Table Foundation, cutting off their support. Which meant—
“Yes.”
Shirogamine nodded. Her face was disgustingly serious.
“If what you say is correct, Master, then there is a high probability ransom will be paid.”
“A hundred million yen would be nothing. Before news of his only daughter’s kidnapping reaches the media or the Round Table Foundation, they pay and bury it.”
“Most likely. However, at minimum, Yukine and I—and perhaps Sera as well—will receive a punishment equivalent to expulsion.”
“They’d expel his only daughter? Well, it is a dangerous line of work.”
“Yes. It seems her father—King Arthur—was strongly opposed to her enrollment to begin with. And the three of us have grades at the Academy low enough to justify expulsion. The E Class we belong to is the lowest level among the Academy’s five-rank class system.”
“Well, that’s good. No, really. I’m glad idiots like you aren’t at the Academy’s highest level.”
“Master, is that not somewhat rude? We are training so that one day we may become great Heroes second to none.”
“Right. It’s good to have dreams. Daydreams are especially fun.”
In other words, they had been shoved into the class for so-called failures. I had been in a similar position back in high school. I would be lying if I said I felt no kinship. As a matter of basic courtesy, I snorted at her.
“So you want to cover it up somehow before you get expelled.”
“Yes. No matter what.”
Shirogamine nodded with no intention of hiding it and no sign of shame. I was bad with that kind of suffocating seriousness. I hated it.
“I will endure any hardship to save my comrade and protect the citizens. Because we are going to become great Heroes. We will, without fail.”
“Good for you. By the way.”
I cut off the conversation there and stopped walking.
In front of us stood the office building Lord <Amber Briar> used as his base. There were things you could tell just by getting close. Tonight, it seemed a little noisy. Every window was lit, and a man in a black suit was standing in front of the building with a cellphone in one hand.
From inside the building came faint, sporadic gunfire. A window suddenly shattered, and a screamlike voice rang out.
“Looks like your friend has already started. And she’s still not dead. Just as I figured.”
“Yes!”
Shirogamine nodded crisply and tried to step forward.
“We must hurry as well. We will support Yukine and save Sera! Master, I request your guidance!”
She started to draw her one-handed sword.
I hurriedly grabbed her arm. Somehow, I had felt she would do that.
“Are you stupid? What do you think you’re doing?”
“Yes. We will carry out an assault and hurry to regroup with the isolated Yukine!”
“How is that an assault? What the hell does the Academy teach?”
I pulled Shirogamine with one hand, throwing her off balance, then moved forward quickly. The target was the man in the black suit standing in front of the building, shouting into his cellphone. He was probably the only one watching the entrance.
Because right now, an emergency was happening inside, and their forces were being drawn there.
“First of all, do not draw your weapon.”
“Yes! Then I will use <E3>!”
“Don’t, idiot. That’s a waste. Just take your hand off your sword.”
I slapped Shirogamine’s wrist and made her let go. I was starting to feel very uneasy about this Academy education of theirs. Or maybe, as Shirogamine said, they really were at the bottom level.
“Listen. That Indo girl went in first and stirred up chaos, right? Normally, you use that. Shirogamine, follow from behind me on the right. Got it? Behind me on the right. You know right from left, don’t you?”
“I also understand that you are insulting me quite severely, Master.”
“I’m glad you understand. Good. Let’s begin.”
As we approached, the man in the black suit noticed us. He ended the call and aimed the muzzle of his gun at us.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Good evening.”
Perfect timing. Once I was close enough to the man in the black suit, I raised one hand in greeting.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. Reinforcements. Is His Majesty <Briar> safe?”
“Reinforcements?”
The suited man gave me an openly suspicious look.
“That was fast. Fujiwara’s group sent you? Just you? What’s with the brat? Actually, what the hell are those faces?”
Those faces—meaning our masks. We must have looked like an extremely suspicious pair.
Still, for now, he was wary, but I had stopped him from firing immediately. Good enough. Only people who lived in truly horrific environments could fire at someone the moment they saw them. Normally, they needed a beat.
While I was at it, I also learned that this guy was not used to fighting Heroes. Anyone familiar with the trade would have become more cautious the moment they noticed the weapons hanging at our waists. The balaclavas were useful here too. To someone unused to killing Heroes, even the swords probably looked like some kind of weird costume.
So I smiled pleasantly.
“We’re on our way back from robbing a bank. The police chased us around. Worst damn night. His Majesty <Briar> sure thinks up some strange jobs.”
“Huh? What the hell does that mean? His Majesty did what? A bank robbery?”
“Things happened. It’s gotten bad, right? Actually, King Rob is in the neighborhood right now, and that’s the problem.”
“King Rob? Who? What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know? Hey, explain it to him, Shirogamine.”
I pointed to Shirogamine, who was waiting behind me on the right just as ordered.
“Yes?”
Shirogamine blinked. A natural reaction. At that moment, the suited man consciously focused on Shirogamine for the first time. His face shifted slightly, and his gaze moved toward her.
That was the point.
For the briefest moment, the left side of my body where my sword hung at my waist slipped into the suited man’s blind spot.
The attack took an instant.
With my left hand, I grabbed the bastard sword’s grip in a reverse hold and yanked it free with force.
My target was around the suited man’s solar plexus. I drove the end of the grip—the pommel—into that soft vital point. The movement came from his blind spot, so he could not see the attack until just before it landed.
As a result, the pommel struck him swiftly in the lower abdomen.
“Uh?”
The man groaned and lost his balance. But he did not fall. Instead, he curled his body and clutched the struck area with his left hand. At the same time, he tried to aim the handgun in his right hand at me. As a reflexive response from a human being hit by sudden pain and damage, it was more or less what I had expected. Not bad. Which meant it was already over.
Before the suited man could fire, I had finished drawing the sword. I added my right hand, stepped straight forward while pulling the bastard sword free, and closed into point-blank range. Then, in the process of drawing it completely, I let the blade touch the side of his neck. It tore through his carotid artery.
Even without <E3>, any decent Hero could do that much. Killing at close range with weapons was the foundation of the trade.
The bastard sword I used looked, at first glance, like a weapon too long for that kind of distance. Its blade measured roughly one meter and twenty centimeters. A weapon meant to be swung with proper space—that was how some people would mistake it on first sight, and a smart user exploited that.
“See you.”
I kicked the suited man away. Blood poured from his neck and spread across the asphalt. His eyes widened, and he tried to convey some kind of message to me. The effort bore no fruit.
“Master.”
Shirogamine was looking at me as if accusing me of something.
“He was not a Demon King. I do not believe you needed to kill him.”
“I see.”
I tightened my grip on the sword and checked the feel of it. From here on, we would need to move faster. I had no time to deal with Shirogamine, so I pulled the <E3> from my pocket and prepared the injection. I shook it lightly to stir the <E3>, then pressed the tip of the injector to my neck.
“I’m not going to make excuses. It’s true that a more skilled Hero might have managed it without killing him. But this is what counts as a reasonable method for me. If you don’t like it, try stopping me next time.”
“I do not think that is the important point.”
Her tone was polite, but I could clearly tell Shirogamine was glaring at me.
“What we should do is preserve public safety. But in that process, is it permissible to treat human life lightly? No matter how difficult it may be, I do not want to compromise on such matters.”
“Wonderful speech. You really should quit being a Hero and become an ordinary citizen. Die.”
I drove the <E3> injector into my neck.
“Shirogamine, wait here. This is the kind of work I do.”
“No.”
Shirogamine shook her head with a face far too serious.
“I am going too. My comrade is waiting to be rescued. Also, I will make an effort to stop your killings next time, Master.”
I almost told her that was impossible, then stopped. Explaining why it was impossible seemed like it would be difficult, and somehow, I had the feeling Shirogamine could no longer return to the life of an ordinary citizen.
In that case, she could do whatever she wanted.
I suppressed the exhilaration brought on by <E3>, along with the dizziness of excessive sensation, and started running.