WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 80: Happy Halloween! (4)
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I went after the first person I saw.
The pale-faced man kept running through the alley without stopping. Crash! He slammed into a recycling bin left in the alley. The bin caved in as if a car had hit it, but he did not stop.
He would not stop just because I told him to.
I pushed off and picked up speed.
“Taxi!”
The man ran out of the winding alley onto the main road, reaching out a hand.
“Taxi!”
“Argh!”
A passerby whose shoulder he shoved screamed, clutching it.
At the same time, I grabbed the man by the nape. He whipped around to look at me as he tried to run onto the road.
His eyes were filled with incomprehensible terror.
“Let me go!”
Caught in my grip, he began flailing his arms and legs.
“Let me go! I don’t want to go to the arena!”
What was he talking about?
I did not think questioning him would get me a coherent answer, so I grabbed one of his flailing arms. Then he started kicking wildly at my lower body.
If I had been an ordinary person, my bones would have shattered the moment those kicks landed.
I tightened my hold on him.
“I’m not sending you to the arena, so stay still!”
“I’ll pay back the surgery fees!”
The people walking nearby hurried away from us.
Only the passerby with the broken shoulder was kneeling on the ground and groaning. Still holding the man tightly as he begged me not to send him to the arena, promising he would repay the surgery fees no matter what, I pulled out my phone.
I did not know which organization handled illegal enhanced bodies, but we needed to call an ambulance regardless.
Even while I called for one, the man struggled like mad.
How was I supposed to restrain him? Even if I knocked him out and tied him up, it would be pointless once he woke up.
My concern was resolved when a paramedic arrived in no time and handed me a gun.
It was a little different from an ordinary gun.
“It’s Green Dream.”
“Pardon?”
I did not understand the paramedic suddenly holding out the strangely shaped gun to me.
As I accepted it with a stupid expression, another paramedic standing beside them approached.
“I think this person is new.”
“Ah.”
Understanding dawned on the face of the paramedic holding the gun.
“Are you new?”
“Yes.”
“Weren’t you featured in that article once?”
The paramedic who had given the advice looked my face over.
“You’re the Badger who rescued the Chairman of Cureus Corporation, right?”
“Yes....”
Someone remembered that article.
But the paramedic holding the strange gun called Green Dream did not seem interested in whether I had appeared in that article or some third-rate magazine.
The paramedic pressed a button on the barrel, showing me green light seeping through the gaps in the black gun.
“Then I’ll explain how to use it.”
Their voice was like that of a driving-school instructor going through the motions.
“It’s simple. Press this button and shoot the person with the illegal enhanced body.”
Pshht!
Instead of a bullet, a dart shot from the muzzle.
It flew straight into the neck of the man struggling in my grip.
I felt the strength gradually drain from his terrified body.
What was that?
My eyes widened.
Was it some kind of anesthetic for enhanced bodies?
“It is a drug that weakens an enhanced body’s abilities to the level of an ordinary body.”
The paramedic explained flatly as I stared in surprise.
“It’s like Superman’s kryptonite. Use it when restraining illegal enhancement recipients.”
I took the gun, which was about as long as my forearm.
Questions, explanations, and studying could all wait until after I caught the illegal enhancement recipients scattered everywhere.
I put my finger on the trigger, turned to the paramedics, and bowed.
“Thank you. I’ll return it later.”
“Return it to the police.”
The paramedic answered in the same flat tone and turned back toward the ambulance.
“You’ll be handing the illegal enhancement recipients over to the police anyway.”
Ah, so this was police business too.
I raised my phone and called the police.
I did not wait for them to arrive. I tore my outer clothing into long strips and bound the terrified man’s arms and legs. Then I left him beneath a building along the main road.
I had told the police the location, so they would come arrest him.
I quickly left.
Heavy footsteps ran wildly about in confusion.
I ran toward the nearby footsteps.
* * *
Got one!
The fifth illegal enhancement recipient.
I grabbed her clothes and shoved her against the wall.
With nowhere left to run, she began struggling frantically in the wrecked alley.
“No!”
She clawed sharply down my arm with her nails as she fought.
“I said no! I won’t go there!”
“I said I’m not sending you!”
How many times had I had this conversation already?
I leaned my head back to avoid her nails and raised the gun.
The dart only had to hit somewhere. I swung Green Dream up with my free hand, the one not holding her down.
Pshht!
The dart struck her neck.
But she kept struggling. I was already sick of this pattern. Every time, I had to calm down recipients who cried, begged, and raged that they did not want to be dragged to some arena whose location I had no clue about.
This was driving me insane.
I was in a hurry. Restraining illegal enhancement recipients in a panic was harder than I had expected. Around ten civilians had already been injured in this mess. Some were seriously hurt.
The problem was that we had not even caught half of the illegal enhancement recipients yet. The police said the Badger headquarters had dispatched more Badgers after receiving the report, but I did not even have time to find out who they were.
It would have been nice if Green Dream contained a sleeping agent too.
She had lost her strength but was still not mentally calm, flailing her arms and legs.
“Get the money from that bastard!”
“I don’t need money.”
With a sigh, I bound her arms and legs.
“I’ll take you to where the others are, so please stay calm.”
I easily lifted the restrained recipient.
I slung her over my shoulder and began running.
“You don’t need money?”
A dazed voice came from over my shoulder.
When I confirmed it with silence, her furious struggling slowly faded.
Without smoothing my furrowed brow, I ran toward where the police were waiting.
Her voice mixed with the wind rushing past my ears.
“Then you’re the one who got us out?”
What did she mean, got them out?
I rolled my eyes as I ran through an alley with barely any streetlights.
“Were you locked up?”
“Like animals.”
Her answer was grim.
“They said they would send us to a private arena because we couldn’t pay for our enhanced body procedures.”
Anger filled her eyes.
“They said they would put us in a fucking illegal Colosseum!”
Bam!
A tremendous collision was followed by the sound of concrete collapsing.
Another illegal enhancement recipient had crashed into a building. I cursed under my breath and sped up.
Soon, my view opened up and light poured over the street. Police officers were waiting for me along the main road.
Seeing me burst out of the alley, they quickly prepared to transport the illegal enhancement recipient.
Amazingly, the recipient hanging over my shoulder beamed when she saw the police.
“So you really are the one who got us out!”
Even as handcuffs were fastened around her wrists, the woman smiled brightly at me.
“You freed us with that red-haired man, right?”
I had no idea where they had been imprisoned, who had freed them and how, or what this illegal Colosseum was.
But there was no time to ask questions or get answers.
I called out, “Keep up the good work!” and turned around.
Leaving the police, who bowed to me, behind, I ran back into the darkness.
* * *
I was too late.
The eleventh one.
I looked at the dead man at my feet.
He was not an ordinary person. He was an illegal enhancement recipient. That was fortunate, but it did not mean I had not arrived too late.
Someone had clearly killed him.
For a moment, I stood motionless in the dark, looking down at the body.
It was an empty alley deep in the slums. No one lived in the buildings surrounding it on three sides. They looked as though they would collapse in a heap if a compact car merely rolled into them.
The spaces that should have held windows were filled with darkness.
The only light came from a festival several blocks away in the busy district.
After quietly looking down at the body, I moved.
I entered the building beside me.
There was someone in the suffocating darkness.
“We met once before, right?”
I spoke to the person visible only as a silhouette.
“I think you said your name was Shashinsky.”
The silhouette turned toward me.
He did not move for a moment.
The person who had stood still like a statue soon began walking slowly toward me.
The steady sound of dress shoes.
It gradually grew louder. Only after its owner stopped right in front of me could I see his distinctive hair color.
Blood-red hair tied back in a half ponytail.
His skin was nearly as pale as Ye-hyeon’s.
Eric’s vampiric-looking lackey stared at me without expression, half his body buried in darkness.
“Your hearing is excellent.”
Shashinsky spoke first.
“That little Badger with pink-tipped hair could not hear me.”
I gave a faint smile.
I did not bother answering. Shashinsky probably already knew why my hearing had improved.
Instead, I asked a question.
“Were you the one who freed the illegal enhancement recipients that had been locked up somewhere?”
Shashinsky remained silent.
That silence became his answer.
So this mess was Eric Earhart’s work?
Probably only in part. Eric was unlikely to be behind the illegal procedures, nor would he have been the one planning to send people to an illegal Colosseum. Eric was not in a position to bother with something so petty.
That kind of crude work was probably the doing of a criminal organization.
Eric’s work was not locking up the illegal enhancement recipients, but freeing them.
As someone who loved unhappy people and found pleasure in saving them, Eric had probably shown a tiny ray of light to those trapped in the mud. Quietly freeing illegal enhancement recipients who had been imprisoned because they could not pay their surgery fees.
Probably just because Eric wanted to.
And we were the ones suffering like dogs because of that impulse.
“Why did you kill that person after going to the trouble of freeing him?”
“When indulging in a hobby, one must know where to draw the line.”
Shashinsky answered readily.
“If left alone, that person would have slaughtered dozens of civilians.”
“Ah.”
That was a reason worthy of them.
They would not stand by and watch excessive civilian casualties make the situation spiral out of control, either. They had eliminated the illegal enhancement recipients likely to cross the line.
But it was not a humanitarian measure. Eric would not have batted an eye if a few civilians died at the hands of illegal enhancement recipients.
The way the conscience of someone ranked third in the world’s power hierarchy worked was far too different from that of ordinary people.
I remembered the Elder I had met before.
“If too many people are harmed by illegal enhancement recipients, enhanced bodies will become a social issue. Then the organization called Black Badger will be shaken.”
Shashinsky did not refute my quiet words.
I felt a small satisfaction that the theory I had been considering for some time was correct.
“It seems the Elders cannot freely undermine Ye-hyeon’s position either. I did not think the Elders and Ye-hyeon had a one-sided superior-subordinate relationship.”
“Did someone say something that foolish?”
Shashinsky asked in a calm, cold voice.
“They seem to understand nothing about how power works.”
Choi Hyun-seok had seemed lacking in insight.
I smiled faintly and agreed with Shashinsky.
“He was not someone who could become a businessman.”
Lee Ye-hyeon held the final authority over territorial reclamation campaigns.
Territorial reclamation campaigns would likely be the most profitable business at present. The authority to make the final decision about where that campaign would take place gave the organization Black Badger immense power. It meant Ye-hyeon could decide which Elder would make the most money this time.
He could not be the one-sided subordinate party.
“The Commander-in-Chief is a genius at diplomacy.”
Perhaps my thoughts of Lee Ye-hyeon showed on my face, because Shashinsky quietly broke the silence.
I looked into his gray eyes and smiled faintly.
“Yes. That is why he has remained in that position for so long. It is also impressive how he keeps the organization running safely while facing the resentment and anger of civilians who can do nothing but grow old.”
“Dangerous privileges are meant to be granted only to some.”
Shashinsky spoke gloomily.
“Was that not the lesson your people taught us?”
...What was that supposed to mean?
A chill ran through me.
An ominous feeling came over me. I felt cold inside. I was afraid that if I dug too deeply into this topic, something I had tried to forget would surface.
I felt the urge to turn away from the past and settle for only half of reality.
Caught in complicated feelings, I stared at Shashinsky for a long time.
Walker’s call woke me from it.
“Ah, Senior Walker....”
“You should get going. It’s getting late.”
Without missing the timing, Shashinsky flowed into the darkness like a shadow.
“The Old Spider will not wait long.”
It really was a violation of human rights.
They were still watching my every move.
Sighing at the Elders’ unsurprising atrocities, I answered Walker’s call.
Suppressing the ominous feeling that had suddenly washed over me.
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