Chapter 56
Gin, Vodka, and Morofushi Hiromitsu had researched for a long time before finally reaching a conclusion that "designing a sniping trajectory targeting the sofa chair by the window from the very beginning" felt relatively reliable.
Then Usuha Izuki came and gave them a live demonstration of mysticism.
...Gin began thinking whether he'd been played by Usuha Izuki, since from the stage of asking for his photo to divine which target could be killed, it had already been full of unreliable feelings.
Vodka's mouth twitched even more: "Botanist, you—"
His words were cut off by a "bang."
Vodka almost thought Gin couldn't help wanting to silence witnesses, but quickly realized this was the sound of a sniper rifle, so he looked in horror at the guy who had suddenly fired.
Morofushi Hiromitsu, who had been obediently maintaining sniper position, stood up and closed the curtains, began disassembling the sniper rifle, while rapidly explaining: "Successfully eliminated target. Time to withdraw."
Vodka: "...???"
Wait?! In the time it took to say one sentence, what did he miss?
Vodka looked at Gin in confusion, hoping Big Brother could give him direction.
Gin had somehow picked up binoculars again. His expression was currently full of inscrutability. After putting down the binoculars, he checked his phone that had suddenly chimed once and summarized concisely: "...Mission complete."
When the atmosphere around Morofushi Hiromitsu, who was responsible for sniping, suddenly changed, Gin sensed something and quickly picked up binoculars again, but his movement was still a bit late—he only saw the ending.
At the huge floor-to-ceiling window of the opposite hotel, someone's movement suddenly stiffened, then immediately collapsed with blood streaming from their head.
Gin believed Midorikawa wouldn't fire randomly to expose himself, plus the person originally responsible for guiding the target's positioning on-site quickly sent an email confirming the target's death.
—In other words, everything was exactly as Usuha Izuki had just predicted.
The target moved to Usuha Izuki's predetermined position like a puppet on strings and was shot in the head by the prepared sniper.
If he wasn't mistaken, the sniper didn't even make any adjustments—completely following Usuha Izuki's previous arrangements, waiting for the rabbit by the tree.
...How was this achieved?
While retreating, Gin repeatedly ran through possibilities in his mind.
After retreating to a nearby safe house, Usuha Izuki was first to complain: "The mission's complete, so why do I still have to come with you guys?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu appeased him: "We still need to write reports. We have to clarify some details."
Usuha Izuki unhappily confronted him: "Walking together with you people of questionable taste, I really can't stand it."
Everyone: "............"
Who exactly has questionable taste?! Even if you rely on being good-looking to dress wildly, you can't call this fashionable against your conscience!
Vodka wasn't surprised why Usuha Izuki was even confronting Midorikawa this time.
Because when preparing to retreat, Midorikawa had half-forcibly put his brown trench coat on Usuha Izuki, covering his overly conspicuous outfit.
Though Midorikawa seemed to considerately help fold up the somewhat long sleeves, it couldn't hide the fact that he was going against Usuha Izuki's will, possibly even trampling on Usuha Izuki's aesthetics.
Moreover, when Usuha Izuki didn't want to walk with them midway and seemed to want to sneak away, it was also Midorikawa who half-dragged, half-carried him forcibly to the car's back seat. If his movements had been any bigger, they would have been reported as kidnappers by passersby. Usuha Izuki's indiscriminate attacks in his anger were very normal.
Vodka was grateful for Midorikawa's sacrifice—when Usuha Izuki walked alone, being conspicuous didn't matter, but when retreating with their group, better not! If people saw this, the memorable impression would be too vivid!
Gin never bothered with these meaningless details. After checking the safe house to confirm they could speak safely, he directly asked: "What did you do?"
"What 'what'?" Usuha Izuki took off Morofushi Hiromitsu's trench coat and threw it on the sofa, directly using it as a cushion to lie on. "I did the work you assigned me. The target's dead, mission complete. What other questions do you have? If you keep pestering, I'll charge extra!"
"Explain." Gin patiently supplemented. "Why did you know he would appear at that position?"
Usuha Izuki: "That's a different price."
"Fine." Gin responded decisively. "You get all the mission money this time."
Vodka wouldn't object to Gin's decision, and Morofushi Hiromitsu, a member who wasn't even an executive, had no opinion either. After all, as people quite professional in sniping, there was no one who didn't want to know exactly how Usuha Izuki did it. To get an answer, sacrificing some mission money felt very worthwhile.
Just considering his body full of superstitious accessories, plus thinking about divination and other chaotic elements... they were a bit worried the answer would be mystical, and they weren't prepared for their worldview to shatter.
Currently, the most reliable answer was probably that Usuha Izuki knew hypnosis, but even hypnosis should follow basic principles, right?
Usuha Izuki extended his hand, palm up: "Money first."
Without hesitation, Gin directly took out one of his own bank cards and gave it to him.
Though not knowing how much was inside, knowing Gin wouldn't be stingy at times like this, Usuha Izuki satisfiedly pocketed the card, then explained.
"Because he's very arrogant and has OCD."
Everyone: "...?"
"The hotel location is good. The night view from that position is great—it gives a feeling of having everything under control. The target would like that. He's always liked night views and couldn't possibly not come look. That banquet hall's floor tiles are designed with large areas of white marble surrounding black marble. There are five black tiles near the floor-to-ceiling window. He'd choose to stand on the middle one."
Usuha Izuki lazily sprawled on the sofa: "Once you know where he'll stand, you just need to adjust the angle and wait. It's as simple as one plus one equals two, isn't it? The only thing I wasn't sure about was when he'd walk over there."
Vodka: "...???"
Easy to say! Rather than such troublesome and uncertainty-filled predictions, he'd rather sacrifice a guide to design positioning—that would be more reliable!!
Even knowing the target's personality issues, they wouldn't be so confident the target would definitely act according to their imagination. Usuha Izuki's trust in his own judgment was too... or rather, this trust was like their trust in themselves in professional fields?
Usuha Izuki complained: "The hotel was good, but your chosen sniping point wasn't great—the angle was a bit off. But since the hotel location was chosen for having no obstructed view from the opposite side, only side sniping was possible. I don't blame you. The mission succeeded, that's what matters. But having to explain such simple things... No wonder your collected materials were full of useless stuff, making me investigate personally. The time given was so rushed too. Fortunately, I'm good at reading people."
Morofushi Hiromitsu was shocked—so Usuha Izuki really had gone to investigate! He thought Usuha Izuki was just making excuses to sneak away...
This explanation was reasonable and well-founded, making Vodka reflect on why he couldn't think of doing it this way. But Gin was still calmly asking.
"You said you don't understand sniping." Gin said. "How would you determine the impact of factors like wind speed and air humidity on the shooting trajectory?"
"I haven't tried hands-on because I hate things that require long waits. But I came back from the Middle East—seeing it often, even without hands-on experience, I'd know how it works, right? Calculating landing points—isn't that obvious at a glance?"
Leaning sideways on the sofa, the silver-haired youth with a careless smile lazily pointed at his pale green eyes.
The green that would usually make people think of vigorous life now carried a few traces of poison-like eeriness.
"My brain is a computer, my eyes are rulers."
❀⋆｡°✿☆❀✿°｡⋆❀
After explaining, Usuha Izuki left with the bank card, highlighting a "take money, do work" attitude. Taking Gin's bank card in just a few sentences—even Boss would have to say "6" if he knew about this earning efficiency.
Knowledge is money—truly no deception.
The remaining Vodka, Gin, and Morofushi Hiromitsu didn't idle either, directly holding a small meeting.
"Uh..." Vodka spoke first. "Anyway, we finally understand how he did it... Right, he grew up in the Middle East. How could he not understand sniping at all?"
It was all because Usuha Izuki usually seemed too unreliable. From a certain perspective, this guy was quite convincing at playing ordinary—he even fooled Vodka, who was in the know!
Morofushi Hiromitsu smiled bitterly: "Though I thought he couldn't possibly understand nothing, I didn't expect he didn't need auxiliary aiming or anything—just one look... This is already completely talent-level. Indeed can't be learned."
Vodka sighed: "I understand last time's situation too. He should have deduced the target's behavior pattern, then based on that, designed a specialized sniping trajectory according to that day's weather. So having curtains blocking didn't matter..."
What family's assassination requires this much effort? Working hard to figure out what the target thinks—that's intelligence division work. Action division just needs to follow orders and wait. The rest naturally has people to arrange.
"Tsk, this kid. He said before he's good at reading people, but I didn't think it could even be used for assassination." Vodka sighed. "With such strong abilities, why hide and conceal all the time?"
Clearly such a capable, genius-level guy, yet through personal effort, he made Vodka subconsciously think he was just a slacking waste. That was also impressive.
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "...Because he wants to be an ordinary person? Can I ask why he'd have such thoughts?"
Vodka: "Because he's sick."
"...Okay."
The two finished chatting and simultaneously looked at Gin, who hadn't been speaking.
Gin was silently smoking on the side.
As someone extremely career-focused who treated the organization like home, Gin very much looked down on waste and traitors muddling through.
But now he discovered he seemed to have even less tolerance for capable people who just didn't work... or maybe mainly because this person was Usuha Izuki.
With Usuha Izuki's personality, cooperating this once was already good. In the future, he'd probably agree to one out of ten times. Such a useful person disappeared every day and had made no contributions since joining the organization for so long.
Thinking about this human resource being wasted like this, Gin felt so uncomfortable he wanted to smoke to calm down.
"...Midorikawa." Gin finally placed his hopes on the reliable partner who was completely opposite to Usuha Izuki. "Can you strengthen your influence on Botanist?"
Morofushi Hiromitsu: "...?"
When did he have influence on Usuha Izuki?
Though somewhat confused, he could roughly guess how this misunderstanding arose. At times like this, he absolutely couldn't say no.
So he steeled himself and slowly nodded, showing a smile that said "exactly what I wanted": "...I understand. I'll do my best."
Meanwhile, unaware that a group of people were holding a small meeting wanting to play the partner card on him, Usuha Izuki was rushing back to the Police Academy at full speed.
The system hadn't dared speak before but could finally ask: [When did you go investigate? How do you know he has OCD? Did the [Universal Navigation] tell you this too?]
[I made it up.] Usuha Izuki was very calm. [Who told him to step right on the middle black tile.]
[...What if he had stepped on white tiles?]
[Then I'd make up something different. Is there a problem?] Usuha Izuki was puzzled. [They have no way to prove what a dead person was thinking anyway. Can't I obviously spread rumors as I please?]
System: [...Fine, consider yourself clever. I hope when you return to the dorm, it's not an instructor waiting for you.]
[You reminded me.]
Usuha Izuki opened navigation to look: [Mm, Kenji is in my dorm... How did he get in?]