Chapter 20

Five more days passed.

During that time, Jin...

ate, slept, and took dumps.

But he had his reasons.

To begin with, it was difficult for him to do anything productive because he was still a patient.

On the outside, he might have looked perfectly fine—handsome, even, just as his face suggested—but in reality, his entire body had been reduced to tatters and had only barely healed. The slightest strain made one part of him go, Ugh! and another go, Argh! until tears sprang to his eyes.

Even Jin could count on one hand the number of times his condition had ever hit rock bottom this badly.

So the first reason was that he saw no need to ignore his body's desperate demand for rest.

The second reason was the location.

Since the entire building served as a Resistance base, everywhere he went it was security, security, and more security.

He wasn't allowed to wander around alone.

Jin was only being permitted to stay because he was a mercenary who had completed a Resistance job—someone who had, so to speak, shared the same boat with them.

Ordinarily, outsiders weren't allowed to remain here at all.

So what could he do about the restrictions?

As the one relying on their hospitality, it was simply an inconvenience he had to endure.

That meant there was only one place where Jin could relax, both before and now.

A corner of the treatment room.

More specifically, the hard hospital bed that made his back ache.

And so he had no choice but to change careers into a good-for-nothing who spent the entire day lying there, eagerly counting down the hours until breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

And that concluded his excuses.

Oh, breakfast is here.

Jin's face lit up at the sight of the food on his plate.

Bacon, an omelet, hash browns, sausages, and toast.

Every last item was greasy.

It was an extremely satisfying menu.

If only there had been some spicy kimchi and refreshing dongchimi on the side, the balance between offense and defense would've been perfect...

Leaving that impossible longing behind, Jin began inhaling his meal.

The food disappeared so quickly that inhaling was the only proper word for it.

It was a wondrous spectacle no matter how many times one saw it.

A genuine feat of human marvel.

Albus, who was sitting beside him, spoke.

“How do you manage to eat every meal like you've been starving for four days? If that's a talent, then you've certainly got it.”

“This place... makes good hospital food.”

“Finish chewing before you talk. You're spraying food everywhere.”

Albus had learned through experience that it took Jin only a few minutes to annihilate an entire plate, so he wisely held his tongue.

Exactly one minute later...

A loud burp rang out like an alarm clock.

Albus naturally began speaking again.

“I heard you're leaving today. Is that right?”

“What? Who told you?”

“Who do you think? Your attending physician.”

“Oh.”

Only then did Jin remember that there were just two people in this entire building with whom he held anything resembling a real conversation.

There was Ben, whom he'd at least exchanged a few words with, but Jin had no reason to go all the way down to the garage.

What the hell?

Even in a place packed with people, I'm still living with cobwebs over my mouth.

As Jin let out a hollow laugh, Albus held out a terminal toward him.

“Here.”

“...You fixed it?”

“Of course not. They said the circuits were completely melted. Even if it died and came back to life, it couldn't be saved. I found you the closest replacement instead.”

Jin had been heartbroken for days over the terminal that had crossed the River Styx after being struck by lightning magic.

He happily accepted the replacement.

“Feels like I'm doing nothing but taking from you people.”

“It's not free. The treatment you received here, and the five servings you cleaned out at every meal—you'll have to repay all of it later.”

Jin knew perfectly well that Albus's words sat on the delicate boundary between a joke and the truth.

Pay it back later.

That meant there might come a day when he worked with the Resistance again.

“Take it out of my next job's payment.”

After saying that, Jin stretched his arms high above his head.

Shaking off the last lingering traces of stiffness, he climbed out of bed.

“Then shall I get going?”

Naturally, there was no grand departure ceremony.

It was merely the day a Solo who had briefly joined forces with them went his own way again.

The only people who came out to see him off were Albus and Grace.

And Ben, who had come to watch Manticore's maiden ride.

Before leaving, Jin exchanged contact information with all three of them.

They had crossed paths, after all.

Then he climbed onto the motorcycle.

He inserted the key.

Turned it.

Started the engine.

After lightly stroking the powerful frame as it thrummed beneath him, he took off amid a fierce roar from the exhaust.

Up to that point, everything had been perfect.

Who could have known...

that less than an hour later, he'd get into an accident?

“Ugh...”

Jin groaned as he lay sprawled across the road.

He had no idea how many times he'd rolled before finally coming to a stop.

His left arm was definitely broken.

He couldn't put any strength into it.

But at that moment, the emotion surging through him even more fiercely than the pain was rage.

Jin hurled a hoarse curse into the empty air.

“You... fucking bastard...”

Naturally, the status window didn't even blink.

「 ???

NEO 77 77? 777?

??? ?? ???? ?????

Jin gritted his teeth.

Still lying flat on the ground, he replayed what had just happened.

The roads connecting one sector to another.

Commonly known as highways, they naturally had no traffic lights.

Since they were designed to minimize traffic bottlenecks and allow high-speed travel, they were essentially ordinary expressways of the sort found in almost any country.

The problem was that the road itself was defective.

Naturally, this too was a consequence of the war between the corporations and the Families.

The contractor responsible for building the road had simply vanished halfway through the project.

That was why Jin hadn't thought much of the fact that the highway continued for more than ten kilometers without a central divider.

He had been startled when a truck coming from the opposite direction suddenly crossed the center line and barreled straight at him, but his insane reflexes had allowed him to dodge it.

The problem was that he hadn't managed to avoid it completely.

What was he supposed to do when the status window chose that exact moment to block his vision?

It was misfortune piled upon misfortune.

One disaster after another.

In simpler terms, the universe had screwed him over.

And so, here he was.

After being launched more than ten meters and rolling another dozen, Jin vented his rage at the sky—or rather, at the status window.

“You fucking bastard! How is it that not even once...!”

He was so furious that he couldn't even curse properly. His jaw muscles bulged as he ground his teeth.

Blood rushed to his head, and a fresh line of blood trickled from the cut on his forehead.

No.

Calm down.

Only negative—no, positive thoughts.

Right. I'm an Irregular.

A warrior race that grows stronger by overcoming death.

Are you watching, Kakarot?

I am invincible.

Reconstruction is god.

Perhaps his desperate attempt at self-hypnosis worked.

The heat filling his enraged mind slowly began to clear.

Naturally, pain rushed in to fill the empty space.

“Hauugh...”

Jin groaned as he looked at his left arm, bent at a grotesque angle.

Then he heard a hiccup, followed by the heavy shuffle of someone approaching.

“You all right?”

Asking someone who was obviously not all right whether he was all right was already proof that the man wasn't in his right mind.

And that smell...

Was that alcohol?

Only then did the status window finally fade away, revealing a disheveled, middle-aged man standing with the sun at his back.

The man held his thumb and index finger a short distance apart.

“You should've moved just a liiiittle farther to the side. You were turning perfectly, so why'd you flinch?”

At the same moment, another trickle of blood ran down Jin's forehead.

“You own the truck?”

“Yeah. That's right.”

So it was drunk driving.

The status window had certainly contributed, but the fundamental cause of the accident had been the truck crossing the center line.

Jin decided that the man needed to be held accountable with his fists.

He forcefully snapped his broken left arm back into place and started to rise.

“Here, take this for now. Hic—I'm sorry.”

The older man approached, reeking of alcohol, and firmly pressed something into Jin's hand.

Several crumpled banknotes of different colors.

The strength instantly drained from Jin's fist.

Ah, damn it.

I'm weak to this kind of thing.

Maybe it was because he had spent his whole life without much money.

He understood better than most how important even a paltry sum could be.

The old man either hadn't washed properly or simply never bothered, and his body odor rolled off him in waves.

Jin couldn't judge the money he had given him by face value alone.

Besides, the man seemed a little slow in the head.

In the end, Jin could neither stay angry nor forgive him.

He simply let out a long sigh.

Then he clicked his tongue and said,

“Listen, old man. I survived because it was me. Because it was me, understand? Anyone else would've had their arms and legs snapped like straws and been ground alive across the asphalt. So from tonight onward, before you close your eyes, say, ‘I'm a murderer,’ three times. Maybe then your conscience will hurt enough to stop you from driving drunk.”

After saying it, Jin took another look at the tipsy, drunken old man standing before him.

Why did I even bother saying all that?

He immediately regretted it.

The man didn't look as though his own life was guaranteed to last much longer.

“I'm leaving.”

Jin walked past him and hauled Manticore upright from where it had fallen.

Unlike its owner, who had gone flying acrobatically through the air, the motorcycle's frame hadn't suffered any serious damage.

Of course, the windscreen was shattered, and scratches and dents covered it here and there.

Overall, it was still a complete mess.

“Damn it...”

It hurt dozens of times more than cracking the screen of a phone he'd owned for less than a day.

But what could he do?

Unless he planned to beat the nameless old man flat, he had no choice but to continue on his way.

After calming himself, Jin was about to climb back onto Manticore when the old man suddenly stepped beside him and casually placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What's your name?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions. Jin. Why? Planning to buy me a meal someday?”

Jin snapped at him with a crooked expression.

The old man grinned.

“Your whole body's already in tatters. At this rate, you won't live to die of old age.”

“Are you mocking me? And whose fault do you think this is...? Forget it. Let's never see each other again, all right?”

Jin started the engine.

Then, without looking back, he accelerated away.

The old man stood still and watched Jin's back rapidly shrink into the distance.

Sniffling, he returned to the truck.

As he began turning the vehicle that had crossed the center line, a sharp electronic tone sounded from the radio inside.

[Colonel? Did something happen?]

“Yeah. There was a little misunderstanding.”

[A misunderstanding?]

“Nothing important. I did something I feel bad about, so I made sure he wasn't too upset before sending him off... No, I fixed him up. He'll definitely thank me later. Hic. Anyway, what's the situation?”

[We're practically certain that Styx has made a move. And this ominous mana signature... It's Crow. However, sir, there are several things that bother me.]

“What?”

[According to the mana examiner, there appear to have been two unidentified individuals who confronted Crow. He says neither of them can be matched to anyone on record.]

“...No match? That's difficult to believe. If they fought that lunatic Crow, they must have been at least Level 6 Solos or direct descendants of a Family.”

[We thought the same. We were considering focusing the investigation on mana-pattern modulation. What do you think, Colonel?]

The old man fell silent for a moment and stared sharply into the rearview mirror.

But only briefly.

Then he slowly shook his head.

“...No. Forget it. It'd be a waste of manpower. Let's finish the assignment we've already been given.”

[Assuming they were Solos, if we dig a little deeper into the Resistance's account records—]

“They aren't idiots. They'll have covered their tracks through three or four layers. Besides, the higher-ups have no intention of becoming directly involved in this matter. So unless you want to write an incident report, don't do anything that'll give someone a trail to follow. See you later.”

[...Understood. I'll see you later.]

With that, the radio fell silent again.

The old man felt around the passenger seat until he found a bottle of liquor.

He flicked the cap off with his thumb.

Then, drinking straight from the bottle, he pressed down hard on the accelerator.

The truck driven by Colonel John Harrison of the city government's special forces picked up speed toward Mutetown.