Black Badger

Rose didn’t appear.

It would’ve been strange for Heath to bring Rose to a place like this anyway. They weren’t on good terms, either.

But Rose was here....

On the ceiling.

Ignoring the vivid sense of Rose’s presence, I walked toward Heath.

The pharmaceutical company chairman was once again dressed in an impeccable suit. The title “Chairman” suited him perfectly. He gave off the air of someone born with a silver spoon in hand.

I approached with a faint smile and held out my hand.

“Nice to meet you, Chairman.”

While the seniors were inspecting the headquarters, the plan was to win the chairman’s favor and stop the leakage of Green Dream.

“Are you giving me a personal factory tour?”

“When did I ever say I’d give you a factory tour?”

Heath had been consistently ill-mannered since yesterday.

I calmed my twitching eyebrow and pulled up the corner of my mouth.

“If you’re not giving me a tour, then why did you call me? You must be busy, Chairman. You didn’t call me just to have dinner together, did you?”

“I called you to have dinner.”

“...Pardon?”

When I arched my brow and asked again, Heath let out a short laugh.

“Didn’t you say I was your target? Hildebert?”

“I believe I told you I’d given up on that.”

“If it wasn’t about dinner, you wouldn’t have come inside.”

We were standing in the vast hall of the mansion.

Heath jerked his chin toward the inner hall.

“I don’t plan on leaving this mansion today.”

I’d never really liked gatherings like this.

Sometimes I blamed myself for ruining things this way. I never got used to sitting around with politicians eating caviar-topped biscuits. Even after watching operas and ballets from the front row, even after wandering through every gallery in New York and Paris, I’d never managed to cultivate the refinement expected of the upper class.

That aside—wasn’t five-thirty a bit early for dinner? Generally speaking.

The question was answered quickly. Heath led me into a study tucked deep inside the mansion.

Rose. You really do follow well, even into a place like this.

Swallowing a hollow laugh as I felt Rose’s presence clinging like a magnet, I stepped into the study, heavy with the scent of old books.

“Close the door.”

I complied without protest.

A two-story study, opened vertically. A Persian rug covered the floor. A decorative fireplace lined the wall. In front of it sat a dark-covered sofa, an antique-style table, and a lamp. All three walls were fitted with bookshelves, each equipped with ladders for reaching books stored at the second-story height.

“A fine space.”

“Sit.”

Did he really call me here just to idle?

I sat down on the sofa beside Heath.

Stretching my legs out and crossing my ankles, I waited for him to speak. But Heath remained still, staring down at the stack of documents on his lap.

I wondered what he was doing, but I wasn’t flustered. I’d dealt with all kinds of figures from politics and finance.

I leaned back into the sofa and leisurely took in the study.

After killing some time, curiosity struck, and I straightened up.

“Do you climb that ladder yourself?”

I pointed at the ladder attached to the bookshelf. Heath lifted his head.

He stared at me for a moment, then replied,

“I do. So?”

I burst out laughing.

He looked like the type who’d never even searched around for wireless earbuds. Imagining Heath climbing a ladder and reaching for a book was oddly amusing.

Only after I reined in my laughter did I realize the chairman was staring straight at me.

He’d turned his upper body toward me.

“You didn’t come here to seduce me.”

“...What?”

I pressed down the smile lingering on my lips and asked back.

“Are you still suspecting that I came here aiming for Lacy, Chairman? That really isn’t the case.”

“Right. It doesn’t seem like it.”

I stayed still, leaving a subtle smile in place.

“But it’s clear money or fame isn’t your goal. You sent me that email with a different purpose.”

“And what purpose do you think that was?”

“Green Dream.”

Heath’s gaze sharpened.

Out of the corner of my eye, I swept over the documents resting on his knee.

CRISPR gene scissors.

It had been Eve’s primary field of research.

I uncrossed my ankles and straightened my posture.

“What would I even use Green Dream for?”

“That’s the question you should be answering.”

“If I say I have nothing to answer, you won’t believe me anyway.”

“So you’re going to keep insisting you came here for romantic reasons? That I was your target?”

“And if I did?”

Heath reached out.

The hand that shot forward with unexpected speed grabbed the front of my shirt. He was strong for a civilian—but still a civilian. I let myself be pulled along as the chairman grabbed my collar to argue.

People really take advantage of the fact that Badgers can’t hit civilians.

What are they planning to do when they run into someone with an enhanced body who has no such restraints...?

Chu.

Fuck!

Aagalenngrrlnearymyeonriengrmi—

I hate this shit!!!

Ptoo!

Ptoo!!

You crazy bastard!

He put his lips on mine!

I yanked my upper body back at the speed of light and scrubbed my lips furiously with my forearm.

Heath smirked and crossed his arms.

“You react like that, yet you shamelessly claim I was your target.”

“This is sexual assault!”

Igor’s blessing hadn’t done a damn thing.

Keeping my upper body as far away from Heath as possible, I snapped,

“This is a crime!”

“You’re overreacting. There’s mutual goodwill—can’t even handle this much? Kids do pecks like this all the time.”

“Even so....”

Crack—

An ominous sound came from the ceiling.

It was the sound of wood or concrete fracturing. A loud, unmistakably bad noise that anyone would recognize as dangerous.

It came from exactly where Rose’s presence was concentrated.

I looked up at the ceiling in horror.

Heath frowned and lifted his head as well.

Rose was directly above him, on the ceiling.

Crk! Crack!

“A crack?”

Heath furrowed his brow as he watched fissures spread.

“How did it crack up there?”

No, Rose.

“This building was definitely constructed with anti–Great Creature materials—”

“Hey, move!”

The ceiling’s coming down!

Kwaaaang!

The ceiling collapsed with a tremendous roar.

We sprang up and threw ourselves toward the fireplace, narrowly avoiding disaster. If we’d been even a moment later, he would’ve been crushed between the ceiling and Rose, flattened into human jerky.

Thank god the decorative fireplace was absurdly large.

Dust billowed thickly.

I pressed down on Heath’s shoulder as he tried to lift his upper body beneath me.

Then I turned my head to look at the smoke-filled study.

Within the hazy dust, a human-shaped figure slowly rose....

“Is there anywhere to run?”

I asked Heath urgently.

“Is the door we came in through the only exit?”

That would be bad. The door was far closer {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} to Rose.

And Rose was as fast as Ami. Even if I grabbed Heath and bolted, Rose would reach it first, block the doorway with her body, and grin.

But I really wanted to keep this from being traced back to Rose—

“There is.”

Heath spoke.

There is?

“Hold on tight.”

Huh?

Without warning, the floor dropped away.

“We’re going down.”

“...What?”

What the hell.

The fireplace was a secret door?

The floor of the fireplace dropped away. My body, wedged inside it, descended together with Heath. Reflexively, I bent my limbs so I wouldn’t fall like I would in an elevator. Dazed, I looked up at the study rising away above us.

The dust-choked study disappearing from view.

And within that dust, Rose—her eyes glowing red.

Stay calm and wait there for a bit, Rose.

The moment I conveyed that intent with my gaze, the study and Rose vanished from sight.

Just like that, we descended into a hidden room beneath the study.

* * *

“An assassination attempt?”

The secret room.

“If it were a Creature, you wouldn’t have tried to run.”

“...That seems likely.”

“Then it must be a hired professional.”

Your wife, actually.

“An illegal enhanced-body holder?”

Thunk.

The elevator stopped.

The darkness receded, and orange light washed over my eyes. I straightened my curled body and looked at the place that appeared before me.

A small space enclosed by red brick.

After lifting myself upright, I took a step forward and exited the elevator.

An underground room lit by orange lamps. At the far end stood a single desk. The wall visible when sitting at the desk was plastered with photos and clippings, and the desk itself was piled high with documents bound by clips and staples.

Bookshelves lined the red brick walls on both sides. Black files were neatly arranged on shelves that stretched all the way to the ceiling.

A single dangling lightbulb overhead.

Heath stepped off the elevator calmly and brushed down his suit.

“I’ll need to change security companies.”

Ah.

I turned my head to look at the young chairman.

“Are you injured?”

“No.”

“That’s a relief.”

Heath lifted his head, narrowed his eyes, and swept his gaze over me.

But I didn’t try to interpret the meaning in his eyes.

I didn’t have the leeway for that.

Staring blankly ahead, I raised a finger and pointed at the wall.

“What is this place?”

“The study.”

“But the study was upstairs.”

“This is a study too.”

“That photo.”

My finger pointing at the photos trembled slightly.

“Why are they posted there?”

I didn’t ask who it was.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask that question. Even knowing it would’ve been far more natural.

Cold eyes followed the direction of my hand.

Heath shoved a hand into his pocket.

Keeping his left hand there, he walked over to the desk, then reached out with his right hand and peeled one photo off the wall.

“This was used as my grandfather’s study.”

Heath held the photo out to me.

A photo about fifteen centimeters tall and ten wide.

I took it and stared at the subject in a daze. The edges were faded from being stuck on the wall for so long. Inside it, a familiar person was smiling brightly.

Brilliant golden eyes.

Rei.

Rei Renyr....

“There’s no record of you undergoing an iris color alteration procedure.”

Heath spoke, but I didn’t answer.

Facing a face I would never see again made my breath catch.

It was Rei in the good days. Before Eve had finished her research. After Kyle, Rei, and I had all learned English. Back when we’d escaped the suffocating lab and traveled all across America.

A photo from that time.

To anyone else, he’d look like an ordinary New York tourist.

“So. Is that man your grandfather?”

Heath stopped in front of me.

“Or are you one of these people as well?”

“...How did you get this photo?”

“My grandfather took it himself.”

I slowly raised my head.

A man who was young, with much to learn, and who still knew nothing about the Chronos Cult.

His gaze was fixed on me, unmoving. Rose had misjudged him. Heath knew exactly where his grandfather had stood.

“My grandfather formed a genuine friendship with this man.”

“Your grandfather did?”

“Care to look through the album?”

Heath let out something like a sneer and jerked his chin toward the black files on the bookshelf.

“Pick one with a pre-war date on the label, and you’ll get sick of seeing two-shots of my grandfather and this man together.”

Not only Kyle—Rei also refused to accept my proposal to live in hiding.

Rei thought it was absurdly naive.

‘You saw what our family went through too.’

It was something he repeated to me countless times.

‘Our family served the Emperor loyally our entire lives. And overnight, we were branded traitors. If not for you and Kyle, I wouldn’t be here. I’d have been dragged to the gallows and executed—cut off from my instincts, severed from my kin. Framed, stripped of honor and peace. Live in hiding? Hilde. That’s the same as living with a blade hanging over our necks.’

‘But we’d still be alive!’

‘They’ll never choose mutual destruction.’

Rei countered me every time.

‘People obsessed with immortality—how could they choose mutual destruction?’

I thought Rei was more persuadable than Kyle.

He listened to reason better than Kyle did. And I’d known Rei longer—we’d been close friends for longer. Besides, Rei wasn’t the leader. What he carried didn’t seem as heavy as Kyle’s burden.

So on the eve of the war, I went to his room and knelt before him, begging.

‘Please, Rei.’

The dark blue-black shadows that filled the room.

‘Please, just think about it one more time....’

‘Hilde.’

The expression on my friend’s face as he looked down at me.

I will never forget that smile. That apologetic smile. The smile of someone who couldn’t grant his friend’s desperate plea, yet was saying that someday, with time, you would understand him.

‘We’ve already made our decision. We will win, no matter what—so just this once, bend and follow us.’

It was an answer that failed to grasp that there would be no second chance.

An answer that didn’t even recognize that I could turn my back on even them, if necessary.

Kyle knew the version of me who had felt exhilaration after absorbing an entire village.

But Rei didn’t know that side of me.

Because he never doubted our solid friendship for even a moment....

“But I’m sorry. I don’t agree with my grandfather’s methods.”

Click.

Heath aimed a gun loaded with a Green Dream injector at me.

“I won’t tolerate the leakage of Green Dream any longer. I have no intention of acting as a lackey for specters who may or may not even exist outside the Core, three generations running. Hildebert. If you don’t want to experience what it feels like to be a civilian, raise your hands quietly. And before you do anything even more foolish, go to the Supreme Commander and turn yourself in.”

...That doesn’t work on me, Heath.

And that’s not it.

That’s not it....