The attackers' nerve came from the sheer bulk that had swarmed in.
Even a rough scan showed them teeming, so it seemed they had bitten down on solid intel somewhere and charged in genuinely believing they could seize the cargo.
Unless they thought a top-grade, clean monster corpse was being transported undefended?
It was bait worth chasing with the drool dripping, sure, but to target it this openly, really.
Haha.
A dry laugh escaped me, and when I looked at Ichi he wore the expression of a man glad for this while he had been bored, and picked at a fault that didn't suit the moment.
"What could it be that makes someone glad enough to kill....... You must have suffered something rough at the research institute. Oh dear, still, murder calls for caution, Do Hae."
"Hey, doesn't saying that with an expression like that prick your conscience?"
"Hmm, oh dear. Did it show? I expected them, but the pack of dogs swarming in this quickly seems to have gotten me excited."
"Excited......."
That's a bit of a Madman thing to say.
Whether to kill or spare them had been decided.
Meanwhile the bastards who had swiftly chased down the train began latching onto the freight cars here and there, one by one.
CLANG CLANG!
The sound of hunks of iron colliding rattles my eardrums in a jumbled mess.
No one could catch up to a train barehanded, and this was the result of wearing processed equipment supplied by the government.
The government, which poured its own effort into developing ability equipment in order to fight Ability Users, had gear like that lying around everywhere.
They aren't hiding it even this much?
They had come to steal something plainly advertised as Styx property, and they were being far too reckless about it.
—And the moment I thought that, someone leaped into the opened freight car.
The bastard, covered head to toe in black with a mask and even a stab-proof vest, checked Ichi's face thrust right in front of his nose and faltered.
That was the last sight of him alive.
Blood scattered along the arc of the enormous scythe Ichi swung without hesitation.
I held my breath.
Because the sight of him swinging a scythe as tall as himself without a single drop of blood on his white clothes, as always, resembled too closely what I had seen through the page.
The scene I had looked at again and again because the author staged it so well was right here.
A visual that made you want to solemnly keep your distance.
After cutting down two more who leaped in one after another, Ichi jerked his chin at me with a refreshed expression.
"By the way, Do Hae, are you not going to use that? Is it, perhaps, decoration?"
Ichi's eyes curved into half-moons as he stared at the pretty one sitting obediently at my waist.
I had expected to be seen through at once by Ichi, who kept Enchanted weapons of every kind sorted by type.
I'm not skilled with it yet.
You could sweep them all up by yourself, so why.
"Oh dear......, it seems they intend to detach the cars."
In other words, stop dawdling and provide long-range support.
The monster corpse was so large that it filled one whole container.
Being next to a smelly, cramped corpse, I had planted myself here where I could at least breathe, and that turned out to be poison.
Or else Ichi had aimed for it from the start.
'Yeees, I'll do it. I'm doing it. I said I'm doing it. Enough already. Ease off the pressure.'
The bastards charging in like a pack of dogs had a fine division of labor.
Half charged the freight car we were in, and half clung to the side where the corpse was and attempted to hijack the train.
With a whirring mechanical noise and sparks flying, they were fairly serious about it.
I drew the pretty one I had barely used a few times, gripped it, and turned my body slightly.
There was no need to aim.
I had my senses spread out the whole time, so I figured I would hit even shooting with my eyes closed.
Just enough that no ability side effects would occur.
I felt a crisp, cool sensation gathering in the spot where an Ability Round was supposed to go.
'Ah......, this isn't right?'
Shouldn't I be feeling destruction or pressure or something of that sort rather than crispness?
Why am I feeling the salt of a blue sea?
In the instant that question came, I pulled the trigger at a masked man who had jumped in of his own accord.
"......?"
The bastard, who had flinched in surprise, looked even more puzzled than I did.
"F—uuck."
The lament leaked out through my clenched teeth.
Burying my humiliation for the moment, I swung the gun as it was and cracked the bastard's skull open.
Blood splashed onto the gun, which hadn't taken a single scratch, having been built that sturdily.
"That kind of physical isn't this kind of physical......."
That cool tingle should have warned me. Instead of the destructive force I had expected, a stream of water like a children's toy came squirting out, and I was truly flustered.
It wasn't that I controlled water so much as that water granted my requests, precisely speaking, so it often produced results different from what I intended, but still.......
No, even if my ability sits at an ambiguous standard among the attribute types, I have to ask whether this is right.
I wiped my damp palm and let out a sigh.
I would have liked for no one to have seen my humiliation, but I could see it etched all too clearly into the eyes of Ichi, who had been swinging his scythe so cleanly.
I should have put in more control practice while I had the chance.
There was nothing to do but swallow the belated regret.
'Right. This is a blunt weapon. Let's call it a power blunt weapon.'
Once I had settled myself and cracked the masked men's skulls one by one, there were no more bastards charging in.
I think I heard Ichi's hearty laughter partway through, but let's forget that.
With corpses and blood strewn about and even the bastards who had tried to steal a whole car cleanly dealt with, the scene was grim.
If only Ichi hadn't been there. No, if my ability had at least allowed precise targeting, would it have been a bit cleaner?
Since a good number of the attackers had been sliced apart by Ichi's scythe, the pile of bodies looked larger than the actual number of attackers, and even I found it revolting.
"Do Hae, I ask just in case, but were you swindled?"
Ichi, shaking off the blood as if thoroughly refreshed, tilted his head and asked.
"......I don't think so."
"Ah, a toy?"
He was treating an Ability Gun I bought for five whole Gold Bars as a water pistol.
No matter how pathetically it squirted water, that's......!
Having nothing to say, I just pulled up the corners of my mouth and stowed the gun away again.
"Pretend you didn't see that."
"Tastes vary, after all."
"No, I'm telling you it isn't like that."
Ichi seemed to have thoroughly misunderstood, so I gave up.
Fine. Even I thought it was strange.
Someone next to me was pulling off a one-man massacre, and, ugh. Let's not talk about it.
"That one over there still has breath in him."
"Ah, shall I kill him?"
"Since he's alive anyway, let us try interrogating him."
Among the bastards dealt with by blunt force, there was one still alive and wheezing.
In other words, the one who had jumped at me first and taken the splash of water.
With my eyes narrowed, I watched Ichi approach him.
"I know you are conscious. If you do not open your eyes by the count of three, I will simply cut you down. Agreed?"
Ichi's long scythe tilted, laying its blade against the nape of the bastard's neck like a guillotine.
The blade, showing no trace of having drunk blood and reflecting his face like a mirror, was so clean that it was unpleasant instead.
"One, two—."
"—O-open. They're open."
Dizzy from the blow to his head, the bastard couldn't hold himself up properly and shouted urgently with only his eyes open.
The scythe was not withdrawn.
"I will ask my question. Where did you obtain today's transport schedule?"
"......."
"How disappointing. If you do not intend to answer, then I will simply—."
"—The commission form! It was all in there."
"An unofficial government commission?"
"Th—......."
Before he could even finish answering, Ichi's scythe moved.
And so the only bastard who had been alive came to lie side by side with his comrades.
"Why not ask more?"
Ichi, who had shrunk the scythe at some point and was wearing it like a bracelet, sank briefly into thought at my question.
Gripping the tip of his chin and nodding absorbedly as though he were truly considering it in earnest, Ichi jerked his head.
"The top of that container over there seems better than here, so let us move."
He pointed at the top of the container, comparatively clean since everything had fallen off outside it, rather than this freight car where attackers had piled up neatly inside.
That, I agreed with.
And keeping my balance on a running train was nothing difficult.
"It is a point that someone like you, who served on the government's side, would not think of, Do Hae."
He was cutting in like this?
I had been settling roughly against the container, and I couldn't react quickly to Ichi's words.
I really would have to dig further into the research institute business.
If what I had heard from Ichi wasn't all of it, then Ichi never dropping his suspicion wasn't unreasonable either.
"You fled from the government's side, Do Hae, so yes. It should be seen as a fixed notion."
"So, about what?"
"The government is not our enemy. That is the same as the Resistance Army not being our ally."
It felt as though someone had smacked me on the back of the head.
In this case Ichi was the one who hit it, so the back of my head stung double.
It was a point The Original Work brought up again whenever you were about to forget it.
Styx Company, which ruled the Black Zone, and the Ability Office in particular, were a faction that kept thorough neutrality.
The very structure by which Ichi, out of the Resistance Army, had been planted in the Ability Office as a spy belonging to Styx Company existed because of that factional stance.
It amounted to walking a precarious tightrope, with predators waiting to tear you to tatters if you fell.
So if the pack of dogs that took a commission from the government and charged in became official rather than unofficial.......
"The rope would shake."
Sitting still after seeing an enemy charge in openly would make you a sucker.
Whatever the outcome, there would be no choice but to respond, and that was the same as hanging one more weight on the balancing pole.
"Correct. A triangle is best for the balance of power. Long history proves it."
"It would become a pretext. If we handle this business while placing the government in the enemy's position."
"They will have commissioned this attack with that in mind. I know someone over there, and this is exactly that human being's style of jab."
Ichi laughed out loud, seemingly recalling someone.
Probably the same bastard I had thought of.
I dragged a hand down my face in frustration.
Even so, we were hit, and we're supposed to pretend not to notice?
Granted, the bastards who attacked all died and the damage on our side amounted to nothing but an update to my dark history.
Doing nothing didn't suit my temperament, and it felt like being a sucker.
I understood, but it pissed me off.
This problem wasn't a simple matter of balance.
The problem was handing the government a pretext to move.
If the government changed its stride, would the other two sit still?
They would happily bare their teeth.
There was nothing in that to benefit the Ability Office.
In The Original Work too, thanks to the Protagonist's blundering, the balance tipped toward the Resistance Army and in the end every member of the Ability Office family was killed off.
Ichi, grinning right in front of me, was the same, and his end in The Original Work was vivid enough that I had seen it over and over.
'I don't want to see that sight here too.'
Seeing my troubled gaze, Ichi tilted his head, thinking who knows what.
It was also a question of whether I had understood properly.
"I get it. I understood, so stop looking at me like that."
"What is wrong with my gaze? Thinking of Seo Mok, whom I had to explain things to two and three times over, I was merely pleased that you grasp things quickly, Do Hae."
It's because that pleased look is like a professor who has found himself a slave.
The regular sound of the rails, the thick stench of blood, and in between them that face sprawled out carelessly, smiling at ease.
'So he suspects me but still takes me in as family?'
Haa, affection grinding really isn't my taste.
Well, understanding is understanding, and the government was bound to become my enemy anyway.
Given where I came from, blowing them away was a job I would have to do sooner or later if I wanted a long, long life.
With the wish that, in the process, the people who don't have to die wouldn't die.
"By the way, is that really not a water pistol?"
"Excuse me!"
"Haha."
No. I hope Ichi gets put through the wringer right up to the brink of death.