The instant the word Pluto came out, the faces of the members who had dragged the prisoners in crumpled.
"N-no! Rather than go there, I'd sooner......!"
The reaction of the bastards who had been dragged in was fiercer still. Whether a bastard lucky enough to have only scratches or one nearly at death's door, they all but went into convulsions the moment they heard the word 'Pluto.'
"Uh, the Pluto I know of? The, um, drug corps?"
But he understood the feeling behind their reacting this way. Pluto was a large-scale expedition team that dominated this area, and also thug sons of bitches with their hands in crimes like narcotics, smuggling, and human trafficking.
So severe was the degree of it that people often called them not expedition members, Odyss, but drug corps members, ODYSS. Naturally, the ODYSS here was not simply the same word set in capitals but an abbreviation of Overdosed-youngsters. A nickname mocking their drug peddling.
"Yes."
"Is it all right to go?"
"Now that matters have come to this, going or not going is not a domain open to choice. Better to confess first, before the bastards come to interrogate us."
Well, these days it seemed any bastards suspected of selling drugs got mocked as drug corps or drug corps members... but that they were the origin of the term could not be denied. In other words, Expedition Team: Pluto were tremendously rotten sons of bitches.
"Can I come along?"
"No."
"I want to come."
But according to this world's common knowledge, Pluto was another name for the god of the underworld:Hades.
Odysseus was curious about the face of the bastard who dared use the name of a god of the afterworld. That the other party were drug-peddling trash sons of bitches hardly mattered.
Naturally, it was only that he had not sold drugs; smuggling and human trafficking were things he had done as well. He had even engineered the complete burning of a city during the Trojan War and plundered several cities defeated by him... running down a modern list of violent crimes, the only ones he had not committed were rape and sexual assault. And even there, it was only that he himself had not done it; where his subordinates were concerned, he had stood by whether they did or not.
Of course, in the era Odysseus had lived in, none of those were treated as proper crimes. At most one faced some judgment for touching a person of one's own city.
But did its not having been illegal then make him righteous now? Odysseus thought not. He and they were alike in being the trash of humankind. Which meant he had no standing to point a finger at them.
"I said no."
"Explain the reason it's no."
"You tell me the reason you should come along, rather."
"First. Unless I leave this trade forever, and as long as I operate as part of an expedition team, points of contact with other powers will keep arising. The highest probability among them is of course Pluto, whose territory is close to ours and whose power is tremendous. In that case, wouldn't it be good to stamp my face in their memory while I have the chance?"
In any case, he seized the opening the captain had given him at once. The captain's stunned face at the answer springing out without hesitation came as a bonus.
"As it happens, the odds of this meeting spreading into a dispute are low. We're going to meet over a rather unsavory affair, but the culprit is so very clear."
Besides, Expedition Team: Freedom was merely small in scale and reputed to be composed of elites. Which meant Pluto, whose name was also registered as a formal expedition team, had no reason to touch them for nothing.
"Second. I'm a magician, I'm talented, and I'm young on top of that. Which means I'm talent that would contend for first or second on any recruitment list."
And talent was better the more of it one had. However great Pluto's power, their position would not differ.
"Saying that would make me less willing to take you, would it not, kid?"
"That's a matter for when there's a possibility of my defecting. Above all, if I set my mind on leaving, what could you do? Nothing at all."
"...This damned little shit?"
"No, I'm not saying I'll leave, it's objectively, ah! That hurts! I said it hurts!"
"In any case, so?"
"...I think there are broadly three means of making a person your ally."
Moral influence, drawing out loyalty or bonds through something, whether rhetoric or action.
Buying off, drawing someone in by meeting the conditions they demand, money or goods and so on.
Coercion, forcibly extracting cooperation by using circumstances or particular means.
"But as long as I'm inside Freedom's fence, the third is hard to attempt. So the methods Pluto can use are the first or the second... and both of those have winning the other's goodwill as their basis."
Sometimes a situation like 'it was too much money to refuse' arose, but that did not apply here. He had no intention of leaving Freedom yet.
'Joining a giant organization like Pluto would bring much to gain, but much to lose as well.'
In any case, on that account Odysseus would not go to Pluto. But what about from Pluto's standpoint? Would they not imagine, at least once, currying as much favor as possible to draw him over to their side?
"Frightening someone while a guardian is present easily backfires, so they'd choose to be kind, wouldn't they? And since I'm young, they'd judge that talking up better conveniences and rewards would coax me easily. Well, since I have no mind to leave here, it's all meaningless."
What mattered was that Pluto would not know that. They could use that point to enjoy nothing but conveniences and come back.
"Third—"
"Enough. I can see you are not being unreasonable the way a little shit throws a tantrum."
"Then?"
"Haah... if you cause trouble, there will not be a drop of broth left for you."
"Wow!"
He had persuaded her. He could persuade Captain Songha!
Odysseus threw up a hand to express joy at the right he had won. The assessment that this was behavior only a little shit would show was in fact welcome.
Unless he was going to take off the child's mask right away, he had to leave 'childlike' corners in place even in this fashion. All the more so because the level at which he had run his mouth this time had been unlike an ordinary child's.
'Dressing up a lie with a manner of speech does not change the essence.......'
It would be good if they took his flippant manner of speech for that of a heedless but pointlessly cold-headed little shit. Whether everyone would fall for his lie was in question.
Odysseus' eyes, expressing false delight, folded thin.
"Aran, you return to the quarters and prepare for contingencies. I do not think the bastards would go so far, but the possibility of them storming our base is not entirely absent."
—...Understood.
"Karna, you take the ones under you and return as well."
"Yes."
"The rest. Load the worms. We move."
Seeing that, Songha merely shrugged. And the instructions that came out briskly meanwhile had not a single waver in them, compelling her members to move.
The prisoners were loaded briskly onto the Air Bikes brought along separately from the ones for sale, in preparation for the return.
"Wait, Captain. You're really taking him?"
"And why not? Simple stubbornness would be one thing, but I have no intention of ignoring grounds reasoned out with clear rationality. Or will you try persuading me this time?"
"We-ell... it's not so much that... um."
Unable to find anything to say, Flag scratched the back of his head hard and finally let out a breath of surrender.
"Our kid... I just worry he'll cause trouble after all that. Kids are all like that, aren't they."
"...Now that you say it, I grow uneasy again."
"Wait. Captain. You aren't falling for that, are you?!"
Odysseus, who had been listening, naturally leapt up. He could not have the qualification he had barely won taken away, and not even by logically coherent words but by mere gut feeling.
"...I will trust you. Do not cause trouble."
"I don't commit insubordination."
So long as a superior did not issue an order utterly unworthy of being followed, or so long as something he could never concede was not at stake. He never committed insubordination. That was his iron rule.
"Good."
Well... even in following an order, there would be times when a great deal of 'his interpretation' got attached, but there was no need to go out of his way to say so either. What mattered was that he did not, ordinarily, disobey an 'instruction.' As for the parts that were not 'instructions,' well, nothing to be done.
"More to the point, how is it that unexpected baggage keeps appearing today?"
"It cannot be helped."
"It would be good if we didn't end up eating lunch at dinnertime."
In any case, Odysseus' seat was behind Songha this time as well. The boy's body hopped up and planted his backside on the Air Bike's saddle.
Before long, those who had finished preparing set off all together.
"Oh right, Captain. Won't you teach me the sword?"
"What sort of out-of-the-blue nonsense is that."
"I don't think it's such strange nonsense......."
He knew firearms guaranteed tremendous power. That they were easy to use and covered medium to long range was also a clear strength of theirs.
"But firing a gun even in close combat is a bit much."
Yet what about close combat? What if the rounds to fire ran out, or gunfire must not be heard?
"And to rely on dagger arts alone... a dagger's reach is too short. Meanwhile the advantage that reach provides in close combat is greater than you'd think. So wouldn't learning to handle a sabre be no bad thing for me?"
"...Yes, yes. You are not wrong. But you are a magician, and a magician almost never steps into the vanguard. All the more so unless you dream of being a biomancer."
"That's true too. But I want to secure as many options for myself as possible. So that I can respond appropriately at any moment."
In truth it was not that he could not handle a sword. Sword, spear, and bow had been the basic accomplishments of warriors, so naturally.
"Or do you not want to teach me?"
"That is not it. What I worry about is only......."
And yet he craved instruction because he wanted to know this era's sword. Swordsmanship that would have changed and developed further.
'What with the nickname Sword Master, and seeing her handle it usefully enough that blood beads on the blade in the course of a fight, there will be at least a thing or two worth salvaging.'
Moreover, Captain Songha was a person proficient enough in swordsmanship to be praised as Sword Master. Learning of it only now was a little regrettable, but he did not want to miss the chance for that.
"Only?"
"...Never mind. You volunteered, so there is no reason I cannot grant you one course of instruction. But do you think you can manage it? Your schedule must already be tight beyond measure."
"You don't need to concern yourself with that. I'll manage somehow."
"Fine. If you go that far in saying so. But mark this. If you run even once, I will not give you a second chance."
"Don't worry. There will never be such a thing."
Time was limited, while the goal Odysseus had set stood in a truly distant place. Therefore, if it let him finish his preparations for the journey even a little sooner, he could accept any harshness at all.
"I'll swear it on the name of the god Zeus."
He newly added swordsmanship training to his day.
***
Expedition Team Pluto had branches in a number of places spanning the upper districts and the slums. It was possible because all of them were large in scale and had their feet in many businesses like an octopus.
"Well now, if it isn't Expedition Team: Freedom. Honored guests have come."
But the branch they had business with today was the one located in the slums. It was also only twenty minutes from where the uproar had occurred.
"I came to see your branch head."
"If you have business, you may tell me. The former branch head's breach of trust and embezzlement came to light, and the matter has currently gone to the personnel committee."
"Was there such a thing. I offer my deep regrets. And congratulations on your promotion as well."
"Haha, I have not even properly received a title yet. Someone other than me may come, too."
"Who knows. If I were a senior official in Pluto, I would not plant some other bastard when there is sound talent already in place."
The curious thing was that someone who appeared to be of executive rank had come out to meet them before they even arrived.
Odysseus looked at the Pluto executive with his impression of a snake or a scorpion. Judging by skin the color of almond shell he seemed to be of the brown race... and yet he had managed to take on acting branch head.
Naturally, this goddamn city was a city of racial discrimination where white dogs—the white race—were counted highest. Laughable that even this was the milder end compared to the cities up above.
"More to the point, what brings you all the way here......?"
"There are bastards to hand over."
At the captain's gesture the members set the prisoners down briskly. In the middle of it Flag came over briefly, and what he said with his waist bent slightly, close to Odysseus' ear, was a spectacle.
"That executive, doesn't he really look the type? The sort of face that tries to use others under the delusion that he's clever and gets struck on the back of the head instead? The sort of face that rates himself tremendously capable but, when something actually happens, can do nothing and just stammers?"
"...That's the sort of thing that would make him feel awful if he heard it."
"That's why I'm speaking Gauri."
"Well done."
Flag's choice of words was a bit much, but Odysseus agreed with part of the opinion.
Perhaps because he was an executive of a branch in charge of crime. The sense of him swaggering as though he were something carried all the way over here. And the insidiousness peculiar to those who had climbed by trampling others could be felt, whether one noticed it or not.
"And these filthy rat bastards?"
"Bastards who came at us to the point of breaking the unwritten rule."
"I see. But why show such persons to us?"
"Let us stop the feigning. Or has your grip on the district fallen so far that you have not even received a report yet?"
Meanwhile the conversation between the captain and the Pluto executive continued. The subtle war of nerves passing between them was indeed befitting heads who each led their own power.
"Haha, hardly. I am simply grateful for the Sword Master's consideration and puzzled by it at once. Are they not bastards it would be no surprise for Expedition Team: Freedom to deal with?"
"Redwing came close to taking damage as well, so I simply judged it right to give that side a small share."
"I see."
But in the end it was their side that prevailed. Why someone of Pluto's executive rank came in lowering himself so was unclear, but even setting that aside, Songha's justification was too sound.
"Oh dear, I have kept honored guests standing outside too long. I will show you inside at once."
The Pluto executive clapped a couple of times and gave instructions to his underlings. The lumps of lard behind him cleared a path, their heavy belly fat sloshing.
"More to the point... how preposterous."
"What is?"
"Just... should I say it's even worse than I expected."
The bastard serving as executive had a fairly neat and tidy bearing, as though he had swallowed some ink, but the underlings beside him were nothing of the sort.
Bodies tilted crooked because they could not even stand still properly, and the way they spat on the floor in front of guests. One bastard sneaked a snack into his mouth and smacked his lips openly, and at this point one could not tell whether he did it to needle them or simply because he was stupid.
The rudeness and ignorance peculiar to uneducated humans showed too plainly, and it was an eyesore. Even his own shepherds and swineherds had not behaved like that.
"Good-for-nothings swaggering on nothing but faith in the group they belong to is no small display of nonsense."
"...I agree, but your words are the harsher ones."
"If being strict and yet disorderly is a talent, then I suppose it is a talent......."
Odysseus realized anew that Expedition Team: Freedom was of good quality. Captain Songha truly did keep her organization sound.
"Yul. Come in. The rest wait outside."
"Yes."
"Hand your baggage to the person beside you and come."
"Yeees."
Just then Songha, about to go inside, called him. It was a summons with no reason to refuse.
Odysseus' body trotted after Songha. Each time, the one piece of baggage he had kept—the puppy robot—wagged its tail. Since he had received the gift anyway, he was putting it to use to draw out the Pluto bastards' complacency as much as possible.
"And that boy......?"
"Yul. Our precious Magician. I had not meant to bring him originally... but this kid pestered me so about being curious about Pluto. Is it an inconvenience?"
"Hardly. A magician despite looking so young; I am simply astonished. Perhaps someday I shall meet him as a magician of great renown."
The place the Pluto executive showed them to was a room of quite an upscale air. If there was a single drawback, it would be that, apparently having no separate staff, one lump of lard brought out snacks and tea.
"One moment......."
But in the middle of it, whatever displeased him, the executive kicked the lump of lard in the shin.
"If a young guest is included, shouldn't you bring sweets of every kind, you son of a bitch? Grow some sense."
That was roughly what his subtly enhanced hearing snatched up. As expected, the Pluto executive seemed to have walked straight into the trap Odysseus had aimed for.
"My apologies. The branch's atmosphere is a bit much, is it not?"
"I do not mind, so do not worry."
The sweets newly brought out separately were to his liking. Because every time sugar, the finest invention the future had produced, rolled over his tongue, a thrilling sweetness came.
Something he thought every time he ate such things: he wanted to bring an armful to Penelope. She, who had liked sweet fruit, would surely take to sweets like these as well.
"The young Magician seems to like sweets. Shall I give you more?"
"May I eat more?"
"Of course. You may have as much as you like."
"Yul, do not eat too much. It is impolite."
"Haha, it is quite all right, Sword Master. Is it not the way of things that a young child should eat well?"
Odysseus could not help laughing as he listened to the Pluto executive. It was because he knew that before the young child he spoke of, 'talented or valuable' had been omitted.
"Thank you."
If you were going to lie, you should do it properly. Just before entering the Pluto building, how many children had there been in that very alley, begging and being kicked and driven off?
Odysseus swallowed down the sarcasm that the sight he had seen tried to send springing out. Displaying his extraordinariness openly was enough within Expedition Team: Freedom alone.
"More to the point, how should the share regarding punishment be divided......."
"It hardly matters to us. Close to forty of them died at our hands in this one day alone, so the bastards will not be able to defy us further. Though that only holds if their head honcho can turn his brain."
"So that is Freedom's position. How generous. Were it me, I would go and put lead in those bastards' foreheads this instant."
"I have no wish to waste more time on whelps who do not even know how this trade works. And we tore out as much as we lost."
"...Then will you take your hands off this entirely?"
"Yes."
"Hmmmm. That is troublesome."
It seemed the reason Captain Songha had gone to the trouble of visiting Pluto was not only to screw Ironstick over.
'She means to shove the handling of it off entirely.'
As long as Pluto was the group playing king of this district and Redwing's backer, they could never pull their feet out of this affair. Because whether Ironstick had aimed at it or not, the moment they touched Redwing it became the same as throwing down a challenge to Pluto.
So from Pluto's standpoint they absolutely had to punish them. Otherwise the prestige and authority they had built up would come undone.
'...That is troublesome, though.'
But from Odysseus' standpoint, the chastisement of Ironstick was something he could never hand over. Because he had proclaimed his revenge in Nemesis' name, for that one reason alone.
Even if he could not lead the annihilation of Ironstick himself, he did not want to fall to the position of bystander.
"Um, I have a question."
"Ah, please ask, Magician."
"Will Pluto leave Ironstick alone as well?"
The boy gauged how what he was about to say would sound to Songha, and how much she would scold him once they returned.
"...Hardly. We never leave alone the sons of bitches who rampage in our district. Because we may, and we have the power to."
"Then I'll lend a hand too."
But Songha would not be able to stop him. Nor should she.
"Wait— Yul, you......!"
"Ho."
The third reason he had had to come here.
Odysseus would finish Ironstick before the name of a god.
"The price is just one thing. I kill the Ironstick boss."
Whose hand he held in the course of it did not matter. Because in the end the one standing above would be him.