Amid Mahiro and Kisara's lighthearted laughter, little Asaka's face gradually turned red—like the morning sun.
Wanting to stay close out of fear of being abandoned, hiding behind Mahiro because she was shy—these weren't unpleasant memories for Mibu Asaka. If anything, they were her most precious, most treasured recollections.
Yet, recalling them still made her feel embarrassed.
However, this pleasant and relaxed atmosphere was soon shattered by Rentaro's return.
"Do you have any last words before you die, Satomi?"
Faced with Kisara in her furious state, cold sweat trickled down Rentaro's cheek.
The girl who had uttered such terrifying words now stood with her arms crossed, impatiently tapping her boot against the floor.
Seeing this, Mahiro couldn't help but sigh helplessly.
Situations like this had happened countless times over the past year.
Time and time again, Rentaro would complete a job but forget to collect payment, and the client—often a police officer—would stubbornly refuse to pay up.
Many times, Mahiro had stepped in to retrieve the owed money.
But who would've thought it would happen again today...
Meanwhile, Aihara Enju was carelessly clinging to Mahiro, playfully teasing Asaka.
Well, this wasn't Enju's fault—it was entirely Rentaro's mistake.
And all because of discounted bean sprouts at the supermarket... Was he really that broke?
Honestly, Mahiro was genuinely curious how these two had managed to survive in the original story without starving to death.
Were they legendary hunger-endurance champions or something?
"It's already happened, there's nothing I can do about it..."
Rentaro muttered weakly in his defense.
"You idiot! Atone for your sins with death!!!"
A loud, angry shout echoed through the office, loud enough to be heard clearly even upstairs.
Unable to contain her fury, Kisara clenched her fist and swung at Rentaro, only for him to dodge effortlessly.
"What are you dodging for? You're really pissing me off!"
The girl looked like she wanted to devour someone whole, slamming her hands on the table with loud bangs.
"Sixty times! A full sixty times! If I don't teach you a lesson today, Satomi Rentaro, you useless idiot will never learn!"
"Don't exaggerate, it wasn't that many times!"
"Of course it was! I've recorded every single one! If this company depended on you, we'd both have starved on the streets by now, you know!!!"
Seeing Rentaro about to flee, Kisara raised her fist and chased after him while he ran circles around the table.
"The... the only thing... you're fast at... is running away... When it comes to... collecting payments... you're never... this quick!!!"
The physically exhausted girl soon lost steam, gasping for breath as she tried to recover.
"Hey, let's just do better on the next job we get, Miss Kisara."
"You useless, good-for-nothing idiot! Stop spouting nonsense! Do you think someone will always be there to clean up your mess?!"
"And."
She glared fiercely at Rentaro.
"Don't call me 'Miss Kisara' during work hours—address me as 'President'!"
Gathering her long hair, she briskly returned to her desk, muttering, "Absolutely worthless," before settling back into her armchair.
Rentaro could only sigh in resignation.
Following routine, he pulled out his phone to call the client and explain the situation.
"Need my help this time?"
Seeing their little drama had concluded, Mahiro stepped over and asked.
"No... I can't keep troubling you every time. Besides, this is my own mess—I should handle it myself."
Rentaro sighed, steeling himself as he dialed the number and began explaining. However, the response he got was:
"Huh? I thought you guys were definitely doing this pro bono. Anyway, it's already over—consider it a free first-time promotion. If anything else comes up, I'll make sure to give you priority, hahahahaha!"
"Hey, Inspector Tadashima, don't do this. I won't be able to explain it to the President."
"What's there to explain? Just think of it as networking for future jobs. Isn't your president still a high schooler? Young people shouldn't be so fixated on money—in this line of work, connections matter more. Anyway, I've got things to do. Talk later."
"Wait—"
Before Rentaro could finish, Mahiro snatched the phone from his hand.
"Hey, don't hang up yet."
"And who are you?"
Hearing a different voice, the inspector hesitated for a moment before ending the call.
"Inspector Tadashima, right? I'm Yotsuba Mahiro, a private security officer at Tendo Civil Security."
"My colleague Satomi Rentaro completed the job as per the contract. You owe us the agreed payment. As for networking... sorry, but we don't need your connections. Unless you're saying your network is more useful than Hitsuma Atsurou's?"
"I suggest you transfer the payment immediately, Inspector Tadashima. Otherwise, I'll personally come to collect the debt."
Mahiro delivered this without a shred of politeness, despite the other party's status.
On the other end, Inspector Tadashima seemed genuinely stunned into silence.
Faintly, the sound of a sharp inhale could be heard.
After a long pause, the inspector muttered something under his breath before hanging up.
Mahiro handed the phone back to Rentaro and turned to Kisara. "It's settled. The payment should come through soon—check your account, President."
"Thank goodness you were here, Mahiro... I really don't know what we'd do without you."
Kisara exhaled in relief, her tone tinged with apology, before rounding on Rentaro again. "And you! This is the last time. If it happens again, I'll sell you upstairs as collateral! Understood?!"
"Understood..."
Rentaro hung his head, responding weakly.
Only once Kisara's anger had mostly subsided did he look up, though his gaze toward Mahiro was complicated.
"You saved us again... you're amazing..."
It was unclear whether Rentaro's words were genuine praise or laced with bitterness.
However, Mahiro took it as a compliment and shrugged, saying, "It's nothing. People like that just need to be hit where it hurts—simple as that."
As the saying goes, strike a snake at seven inches—the same goes for people. Hit them where it hurts, and they'll cough up the money without fail.
That said, his tactics were pretty much the same every time.
Especially that last line about collecting debts in person.
It was every client's worst nightmare, the fundamental reason no one dared withhold payment—because he would actually show up to collect.
And every time, the other party would obediently hand over the payment, then end up lying on the ground like a dog, not recovering for three whole days.
So, no one dared to owe Mahiro his dues.
"No, that's not what I meant," Rentaro shook his head. "I mean, I didn't expect you to know Atsurou the police inspector... That guy used to be Kisara-san's fiancé."
Though after leaving the Tendo family, the engagement was automatically dissolved.
"?"
He seemed to have stumbled upon some shocking news.
Hitsuma Atsurou was Kisara's fiancé?
He really had no idea about that!
And...
"If you're talking about that Hitsuma Atsurou, I don't actually know him. I just threw his name out there."
"Huh?!"
This time, it was Rentaro's turn to be shocked. He couldn't believe this guy had the nerve to casually drop the name of a Tokyo police inspector as his trump card.
In reality, it was no trump card at all—he'd just seen the name in a news article he'd scrolled past.
If he'd come across Tendo Kikunojou or Seitenshi's name instead, Mahiro wouldn't have hesitated to use those either.
"What are you two talking about?"
After confirming the payment had gone through, Kisara left her desk and walked over to the sofa.
"Oh, nothing much. Just chatting with Rentaro about today's job," Mahiro replied casually, then turned back to Rentaro.
"By the way, Satomi, was it an infected or the infection source you and Enju dealt with today?"
"It was an infected!" Enju suddenly cut in. "It was a middle-aged man we met on the road. He seemed to have been attacked by a Gastrea and turned into a giant spider."
"Yeah, just like Enju said. This time, the infected was another spider-factor case."
Another spider-factor.
Why "another"? Because whether it was the infection source or the infected, they'd all been spider-factor cases lately.
It felt like they'd stumbled into a spider's nest.
And it was 100% certain someone was behind this—otherwise, how could a mere Lv1 Gastrea bypass the Monoliths and sneak into Tokyo?
But if this was just an infected...
"Satomi, did you run into anyone suspicious at the scene?"
"Suspicious people... Not where we found the Gastrea... But at the crime scene, there was one."
Rentaro recounted the details carefully.
At the crime scene—a room no bigger than six tatami mats—they'd encountered someone over 190 cm tall, with unnaturally slender limbs and body, dressed in a pinstriped burgundy tailcoat, wearing a top hat and a masquerade mask.
That person wasn't a civil officer but a murderer, someone who claimed to be the destroyer of the world.
"Not only that, but that person was terrifyingly strong..."
Rentaro recalled that memory with a heavy heart, still feeling a lingering fear even now.
Despite taking his full-force strike head-on, with the impact distorting his neck, the next second he had casually twisted it back into place as if nothing happened.
This clearly defied all human comprehension!
"Is that so..." Mahiro cradled his head and leaned back on the sofa.
So the plot has finally begun...
It wasn't that he cared about the story's progression, but rather calculating how much time he still had left.
Currently, the ring would need at least some more time to store enough energy.
As for other plans, he'd have to speed up the schedule too.
...
...
...
After leaving the office, Mahiro headed straight to Magata Public University Affiliated Hospital to meet an old acquaintance there.
"Doctor, are you here?"
Mahiro's voice echoed through the empty northern corridor of the hospital.
Behind him, two little girls clung tightly to the hem of his clothes, refusing to let go.
Little Enju's face was practically screaming fear, while little Asaka tried to maintain her usual calm demeanor, but her body couldn't help trembling with instinctive dread of such places.
"Nee... Mahiro, I... I think we should go home," Little Enju suggested.
"What about you, little Asaka? Want to go back too?"
"N-no! I am Mahiro-sama's sword! Even if we must descend into the yellow springs of the underworld, I shall accompany Mahiro-sama to the very end!"
Little Asaka was still putting up a brave front.
But her body betrayed her with subtle tremors.
"Come now, no need to be so nervous. This isn't your first time here, and you've met the doctor before—he's a decent fellow."
Hearing this, Little Enju stopped insisting on going home.
But mainly because Mahiro encouragingly took their small hands and led them straight into that pitch-black space ahead.
Their current location was the hospital morgue.
Chilly gusts of air continuously blew from the depths.
Yet upon entering, they found this morgue completely different from their expectations.
Instead of the unpleasant sting of antiseptic permeating the corridors, the air was filled with a strong minty fragrance from air fresheners.
Moreover, what greeted their eyes weren't rows of corpse trolleys and stainless steel freezer cabinets, but rather undergarments, lunch boxes, and blackboards scrawled with what might be German or some other language scattered everywhere.
It looked more like someone's living quarters.
"Doctor, where are you?"
"Over here."
Turning toward the voice, they were suddenly face-to-face with a corpse—sunken, darkened eye sockets, a freshly shaved scalp still bleeding from skin removal wounds—an utterly unfamiliar male corpse.
"Wah!"
Following this soft, creepy sound, a woman in white emerged from behind the corpse.
"Waaah! A man-eating obaa-san monster appeared!! Mahiro save me!!!"
Little Enju nearly burst into tears from the scare.
Even little Asaka paled in that moment, instinctively tightening her grip on his hand.
And that woman—though called an obaa-san by Little Enju—was in fact a stunning beauty.
She was under thirty, probably around twenty-six, with unnaturally pale skin and an almost ghostly lack of presence. Her long bangs covered half her eyes, yet couldn't hide her slender, delicate charm.
Her name was Muroto Sumire—the director of this forensic medicine department and a researcher of Gastrea.
She was also one of the world's most brilliant minds.
The only regrettable thing was that this woman was a shut-in. Left to her own devices, she might even starve to death in the basement.
This was how Mahiro first met her.
"Welcome to hell, my dear Mahiro-chan."
Sumire theatrically spread her arms wide, revealing the black bodycon skirt beneath her white lab coat and those perfectly proportioned legs clad in sheer black stockings.
"Dr. Sumire, could you please stop with these eccentric antics next time? I don't mind, but I'm afraid Enju or Asaka might reflexively beat you to death if they see this."
As he spoke, Mahiro handed over the takeout gift bag hanging from his wrist.
"Such a cold reaction, my darling number two."
Sumire nonchalantly took the bag.
Compared to that, she had been more excited about the takeout Mahiro would bring. But upon seeing it was just a convenience store bento, she muttered to herself something like, "Ugh, yet another one of humanity's most failed crystallized creations."
"Putting aside the embarrassing pet name 'darling,' why am I number two? Who's number one?" Mahiro sat down at a clean spot with the two lolis in tow.
"Of course, it's Charlie. He's my lover now."
Sumire pointed her chopsticks at the bald corpse from earlier.
"Wasn't it a woman named Susan before?"
"Sadly, she's no longer with us. Now it's him. Corpses are wonderful, you know? They don't talk back. They're the only ones who truly understand me."
Sumire shoveled a few bites of rice into her mouth and chewed.
"Of course, if Darling Number Two is willing to become a corpse for me to play with, I'd happily promote you to number one. I'd preserve your body properly with embalming—no decay, I promise."
""NO!!!""
The ones who protested weren't Mahiro, but Asaka and Enju. They rejected Sumire's proposal in unison, even stepping protectively in front of him and glaring at the doctor.
"You really shouldn't joke about things like that."
Mahiro soothingly patted their little heads before saying, "I came here for serious business. How's the research on that thing I asked you about before?"
"What a cold-hearted man, using me and tossing me aside..."
Sumire said this, but she still put down her bento and rummaged through the garbage pile behind her.
Even if Mahiro heard such suggestive remarks, he didn't react at all.
After all, this woman just loved making twisted jokes like this.
"Here, what you wanted."
After a while, Sumire stood up from the garbage pile and handed him two syringes.
Inside were unidentified yellow and green liquids, glowing faintly like fluorescent dye.
"The green one is the Gene Enhancement Agent you need. The yellow one is an upgraded Suppressant—it'll completely halt the progression of your infection rate, but the effect only lasts a month."
"Not a cure?" Mahiro frowned.
"Of course not. The Gastrea Virus isn't that easy to solve. Even with your eyes helping, it's impossible—otherwise, wouldn't there already be a solution by now?" Sumire said matter-of-factly.
"Though, if you let me properly study your eyes and brain, maybe there'd be a chance."
"Or maybe you just want to dissect them for fun?"
"Tch, caught me, huh?"
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