"D-don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me!"
"What the hell is goin..."
"D-don't kill meeeee!!!"
The tearful girl pressed against the cage bars, trying to get away from him. Clearly, the event had scared her.
Still, even now, Mr. Nobody noticed another oddity.
This girl wasn't just in a cage with a cat. In fact, she was sitting on an expensive crimson cushion covered in gold, and she herself was dressed in a luxurious dress.
It was only a fleeting first impression... but she looked like an expensive gift meant to be presented to someone important.
However, what was most striking was the girl's appearance. Mr. Nobody had never met such a creature before, and to some extent... it frightened him.
"What the hell..." he whispered, startled by his own feelings.
"Waaah...!" Meanwhile, the girl could no longer form words and just sobbed.
"Wait, wait, don't cry. I won't hurt you!" he exclaimed, quickly coming to his senses and raising his hands.
For a moment, the girl stopped crying and looked up at him.
"Y-you're covered in blood! And y-you killed everyone!" The girl started shrieking again and pointed at him. "Y-you look like a monster!!!"
His mask was soaked in blood and must have looked like a frightening image of a bloody face, vaguely resembling Dirty Baal.
Although at first glance, the girl didn't seem to have a Neodeck. Very unusual
Which meant she wasn't seeing face, but a regular mask with changing dark spots.
Perhaps it was the mask that frightened her even more.
"Look, it's just a mask." He pulled off his mask and smiled warmly. "See? I'm just a normal person."
The girl looked at him in surprise, but after a second...
"Y-you... You're scary!!!"
Even removing the mask did not help to calm the girl down.
He could blame the strange circumstances in which those around him saw not his true appearance from his past life, but the face of the person he had taken over.
"Although I don't think even my true appearance would have helped here..." he whispered dejectedly.
The girl's tears and fear made him feel guilty and filled him with self-contempt. At that moment, his gaze strangely shifted to the cat.
"..."
The black cat still didn't make a sound. But now its blue eyes looked at him differently.
Maybe at least animals could see the real him? A naive and foolish thought, but at that moment, combined with the cat's gaze, it brought him some comfort.
"Right." He slapped himself lightly on the cheek. "Don't forget who you are and why you're here, Mr. Nobody…" he said quietly to himself.
While the girl continued to sob and clutch the cat to her chest in fear, he decided to turn to his assistant.
"Paymax... You see the same thing I do, right?"
"Confirmed."
"Then where is the objective of my gig?"
"Right in front of you."
"But there's only a girl here... and a cat." Paymax's answer made him look thoughtfully at the cage again, causing the girl to cower even more and pull the cat closer to her.
"With your permission, I wouldn't recommend casually calling this creature a girl."
This remark made him frown.
"But she looks like a girl and seems to be no older than twelve."
"Your observation is correct, but..."
"Okay, we can discuss this later." The question about the girl and the strange feeling of dread in response to her cute appearance also bothered him, but for now, he decided not to dwell on it. "In any case, where is my target?"
"The signal is coming from right behind the girl."
"I see… So that thing is there after all."
Next, he asked Paymax how soon his motorcycle would arrive and how soon the Dirty Baals' reinforcements would catch up with him.
"Haa..." he sighed, looking around the car's interior.
All that remained of the first Dirty Baal was nothing but a few specks of dust and a bloody puddle, and the sight of the second was better left undescribed. It was very difficult to realize that the little girl and the cat had been forced to stay in this bloody scene.
"Sorry about all this…" he whispered, looking back at the cat.
"..." The cat remained silent and, of course, had no intention of answering him.
"Okay... Hey, girl. You're a girl, right?" he asked.
"Y-yes?!"
"Listen, I'm really not going to kill you. My gig has nothing to do with killing."
"J-just like you weren't going to kill them?" she remarked sarcastically, despite her fear.
It was difficult to establish even the slightest trust, knowing how much the corpses behind him discredited him.
"Yeah... Just like I wasn't going to kill them."
"..."
"Okay, listen. I don't understand why you're in a cage, where the cat came from, or what any of this means... But if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't even need to talk to you or open the cage. This thing would do the job much faster." He pointed to his revolver.
"M-maybe you want to... do something worse than killing me." She timidly hugged the cat, covering her body. "O-or do the same thing you did to that guy." The girl looked at the corpse with its smashed head.
"Haa..." He sighed heavily. "Okay, I understand you."
"..." No sudden trust appeared in the girl's eyes.
"Let's just say it's none of my business." He clapped his hands to get her attention. "There must be something behind you. Give it to me, and I promise I'll leave without touching you."
"R-really?"
"I promise you."
The girl pulled her arm back and took out some kind of object.
"Do you need... this?"
The object looked very strange... but Mr. Nobody immediately realized that it was exactly what he needed.
"Yes." He nodded and immediately ordered Paymax to check it.
"Confirmed, this is indeed the contract target," Paymax said mechanically.
This time, a hologram of the planet appeared from the bracelet, and with a magnifying glass in his hand, he examined the strange object.
Of course, this attracted the child's attention.
"Wow..." the girl whispered innocently.
"Don't get too impressed by this guy. He's pretty annoying and still has a lot of secrets. I wouldn't be surprised if the first directive is related to destroying the world..."
"W-what?" the girl blurted out in shock.
"Okay, forget it... Just give me that thing."
The girl obediently placed the key just outside the cage and then quickly crawled back.
"Is it… some kind of puzzle?"