Chapter 48
Chapter 48
That’s Not What’s Important
***
As if he had been here before, Handel showed no hesitation in his steps as he descended into the basement. After passing several doors, the heat of the party that had been so noisy just moments ago could no longer be felt.
It was a space isolated like another world. That sense of dissonance tightened around Sakuya’s heart. For some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had come to the wrong place.
“Is there really a clinic down here?”
“Why? Getting scared now?”
“I’m not.”
Beneath Rolling Star, there was an equipment warehouse settled in place.
In a location surrounded by wire mesh as if forbidding the intrusion of others, there was a single small door.
“It’s here.”
A shop without a single plausible signboard or nameplate.
“I told them in advance. I’ll wait here, so go in.”
Leaving Handel behind, Sakuya grabbed the doorknob.
***
The interior of the unlicensed clinic was nothing but chaotic. Wires slithered across the floor like snakes, and pipes ran in directions unknown. There were even Slots contained inside glowing glass cylinders.
There was no restraint in the structure that had lost all order.
“You want to receive my Slot as a transplant?”
At the voice coming from behind me, Sakuya’s shoulders trembled.
A sharp noise, like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard.
Having had unusually good hearing since childhood, Sakuya realized at once that the voice originated from artificial vocal cords.
It had been adjusted deliberately.
So that others would shrink back.
When I lifted my head, the man’s appearance became clearer.
Was he in his thirties or forties? Perhaps even older.
He looked as though he had endured every harsh storm the world had to offer. He resembled a wild beast, like a stray dog or a wolf. If I hadn’t been told in advance that he was a ripperdoc, I might have mistaken him for a gang member or Mafia.
Now that I looked closely, it seemed as if even his skin and skeleton were all Slots.
The reason Sakuya, a complete amateur, realized this at a glance was surprisingly simple. The man’s hands, cracked like parched rice fields, were covered in settled scars.
‘Burns.’
He must have encountered some kind of disaster in the past.
“Are you not hearing me?”
“No, no. I hear you well.”
“Then sit here.”
Sitting in the Unit chair the man pointed to, Sakuya shuddered briefly at the cold sensation.
“For first-time visitors, the procedure is free. However, since it isn’t an official Slot, any ‘unexpected problems’ that arise after the transplant must be borne by you.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means that even if you come whining to me, I won’t listen. I won’t meet you either. Understood?”
“Yes.”
The moment I answered, the intensity of the light shining down from above my head increased. Even with my eyes closed, it was painfully bright.
“First, we’ll start with the artificial vocal cords. The type most preferred by the public should be fine, right?”
“Huh? What about my voice?”
“I’m not interested.”
“What do you mean by…….”
“Wasn’t that the meaning of you coming all the way here? Fine-tuning is bothersome, so just make do with what’s available.”
A sentence devoid of any emotion.
Only then did Sakuya fully realize where she was. It took just an instant for her mind to snap clear. She felt a piece of paper inside her clothes.
It was a 50,000 Pia bill.
A message of encouragement from a man she had met while busking.
‘Work hard. If you don’t give up, your dream won’t leave you.’
Yes, the ideal I had pursued had collapsed before reality, and I had been disappointed and frustrated. But that didn’t mean it was something I could discard so easily.
I had been out of my mind for a moment.
I had made a choice I never should have made. This was a place I should never have come to in the first place. I had merely failed Mystic Hundred—it wasn’t as though my life was ruined.
“What are you doing?”
When Sakuya rose from her seat, the man frowned.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be receiving the procedure after all.”
“So you’re just going to leave like this?”
“I can still turn back now.”
“No. You don’t get to decide that.”
The man roughly grabbed Sakuya’s forearm and forced her back toward the Unit chair. Before I could even react, the restraint device snapped around my wrist.
“No, nooo!”
“Resistance is useless. You’ll only hurt yourself.”
If he subdued my other hand, it would be over. I would be made to sit still and undergo a Cybernetics surgery I didn’t even want. I had no idea why he was doing this, but his actions felt blindly driven.
A hair-trigger situation.
Pushed to the extreme, the stress made it feel as though every fine hair on my body stood on end. Perhaps even more than when I sang, more than when I desperately longed to pass Mystic Hundred.
“No, 「don’t!」”
My intense will turned into sound and burst from my mouth. For a moment, silence fell over the surroundings, as if the standoff from just before had been a dream.
But it wasn’t imagination.
The man was right in front of me, baring his fangs.
However—
‘He’s not moving?’
For some reason, he simply stood there blankly instead of approaching. The situation was so abrupt that nothing made sense, but I didn’t have time to stand there trying to understand it.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Hurriedly releasing the restraint device, Sakuya ran toward the exit.
It was then that the man reacted.
“Kuk, kukkuk. Ah, so it was that. To think I would encounter such a rare specimen by sheer chance.”
‘That?’
I had no idea what he was talking about, so there was no room to be swayed.
Clunk, clunk.
Sakuya barely managed to unlock the door and rushed outside, running without looking back.
“Handel! Handel!”
She screamed the name of the person who had come with her at the top of her lungs.
But no answer came. The meaning of that was crystal clear.
I had been abandoned.
Come to think of it, Handel had been at odds with me throughout the competition for no reason. I should have realized earlier that her offer hadn’t come from goodwill.
However, I couldn’t afford to stand there in a daze, blaming her.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
The sound of dress shoes chasing after me was drawing closer.
All I had done was refuse the procedure, yet he was pursuing me so relentlessly.
He was by no means normal.
The only small comfort was that, after spending so long as a trainee, I had confidence in my stamina.
The air that stabbed into my lungs was sharp as an awl, but Sakuya did not stop.
It was then that her ankle slipped between the gratings installed along the side of the road.
“Ugh.”
Barely catching herself before she fell, Sakuya bit her lip. Her ankle wasn’t broken, but there was no avoiding the throbbing pain.
Moreover, the noise had echoed so loudly that she had no choice but to change direction. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a fatal mistake.
She didn’t get far before reaching a dead end.
There was no way to turn back to another path.
Because she had delayed, she ended up facing the man.
“If you come any closer, I’ll call Public Enforcement Corps.”
“Call them. If you think you can escape before you’re rescued, that is.”
It was a scathing warning.
Having cast off his mask, the man was no longer a ripperdoc. He was nothing more than a barbarian who had forgotten the law.
“If you walk over on your own, I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt. Now, come.”
As the man approached, Sakuya backed away in equal measure. But her desperate struggle lasted only a moment. The towering wire fence rising high into the sky blocked her. If she wanted to escape, she would have to climb over it.
But Sakuya was an ordinary girl. She didn’t possess that kind of exceptional athletic ability.
Tap.
Before she knew it, the distance between her and the man was three meters.
Close enough that if one stumbled, their noses would nearly touch.
No.
Just as Sakuya, half resigned, lowered her head—
Bang!
A thunderous crash rang out.
What entered Sakuya’s startled eyes was the man being flung far into the distance.
The one who had suddenly appeared and separated the two was the young man I had met in District 24.
His features carried a decadent aura. Yet unlike that impression, the corners of his lips were lifted high.
He gave off a presence that perfectly embodied what one would call ‘the composure of an adult.’
Though we had met only once, there was no way I could forget him. He was the very person who had encouraged me before.
“Oppa.”
“Oppa?”
***
From Ga-on’s perspective, this was unexpected.
I had come all the way to Rolling Star to find Handel, yet she was nowhere to be seen, and instead an unexpected person was standing there.
We had never exchanged names, but it was a familiar face.
Long brown hair flowing down to her waist.
A figure without an ounce of excess, long, straight limbs, and round eyes like a deer’s.
Yukihana Sakuya.
She was a trainee who had narrowly failed Mystic Hundred.
“You’re…….”
It should have been our first meeting, yet a strange sense of déjà vu rose within me. It wasn’t a mistake. Each time I blinked, the memory became clearer.
She was the one who, regardless of trends, had sung only old songs day and night—
“Miss Retro.”
“My name is Sakuya.”
“That’s not what’s important.”
Sakuya retorted, but I dismissed it. I had just recalled that she belonged to the same agency as Handel. Putting together the clues so far, only one conclusion emerged.
“Did you come with Handel?”
“You could say that.”
“Then the one I kicked must be a ripperdoc.”
Unexpectedly, things seemed likely to unravel easily. What I wanted was the information the ripperdoc held, not Handel’s private affairs.
It was then that the man who had been sprawled on the ground rose, emitting a menacing aura.
“A pest has attached itself.”
“Mister—no, Wolf.”
I tilted my head, having summed up the man’s characteristics in a single word.
“Have you ever heard the name Abigail?”
“Is it a name I should know?”
“Hm, at least if you’re human.”
“I don’t know it.”
“Right. So you’re volunteering to call yourself a beast.”
From the start, I hadn’t expected him to repent and confess every wrongdoing.
“There must have been one unnecessary function attached to the Slot you transplanted into her.”
“…….”
“As soon as Abigail noticed it, you people worried the matter would grow out of hand. So you got rid of her before she could open her mouth. That’s my conclusion.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to claim, but it displeases me. Enough to want to kill you.”
There was no need for further conversation between us. Without having to spell it out, we both understood we had reached a point that words could not resolve.
To enforce one’s own justice, only violence remained.
The man lunged forward just as I drew out Clock.
Click, click, click.
A triple tap to the glabella, chest, and abdomen.
Having switched ammunition to increase firepower, sparks scattered more fiercely than before. Yet the man closed the distance without fear. It made sense. Though red bruises bloomed across him, nothing had pierced through.
‘Ublec elastic skin.’
It was a Unit I had once experienced aboard a space passenger ship.
An external device that grew harder the more impact it received.
And that wasn’t the man’s only advantage.
The gear he wore was a combat jacket made of metallic fibers. And what he wore on both hands were not firearms, but cold weapons. Moreover, they were of an utterly archaic form.
‘Blade claws?’
I had heard he belonged to the Mafia. It seemed he was no mere specialist.