Chapter 25: Hunting a Reincarnator
Satoshi Suzuki stood up and placed a few bills on the counter.
"The money's here, boss."
He never used mobile payments. For a Reincarnator, information security was life security. Unfortunately for Kaito Shirogane, his identity had already been completely compromised.
Just as Satoshi was about to leave, a young girl with bright red hair approached him.
"Hey, handsome. Can I get your number?"
Satoshi offered a polite smile. That was the one good thing about a college town: it was full of young, shallow girls who seemed to have an endless supply of hormones to burn.
"No, thank you. I have a girlfriend."
The girl was a little embarrassed, but she puffed out her chest and pressed on. "So what if you have a girlfriend? It's not like you can't break up. Never mind that, let's take a picture first!"
Click!
She quickly leaned in, pressing her chest against Satoshi's arm. The contact made the polite smile on his face grow colder. He instinctively turned his head as she snapped the picture, managing to only be captured in profile. He then shook her off his arm and walked out.
"Hmph. What a snob. It's not like I was that into you anyway!" the girl huffed behind him, her words only deepening Satoshi's stereotypical impression of her type.
Honestly, when it came to women, Reincarnators had far better options. For a thousand or so Dimensional Points, you could buy a female slave from a story world. The kind of beauty from a "2D" world was simply not something these common girls could compare to. Not to mention, there were even cheaper pay-per-use services available in the Nexus.
Reincarnators were, by their nature, desperados who lived with their heads on the line every day. They indulged in every pleasure and gave free rein to their desires, which had driven their tolerance for worldly temptations incredibly high. It was hard to have any patience for this kind of girl.
Satoshi turned and walked into the underground street filled with snack bars and pubs. He still needed to do a little more digging on that so-called "Monster," Kaito Shirogane, and find out what made him so special.
Beep, beep. Beep, beep.
Kaito opened his phone. A clear selfie popped up. A girl with red hair was posing for the camera, and behind her was the profile of a man. The man had slightly long hair that fell past his ears, but his skin was clear, and he stood at about 170cm—not tall, but with a well-proportioned, leanly muscled build.
Kaito studied the photo, lost in thought. He began writing on a piece of paper, listing out possibilities and crossing them off one by one, until only a single answer remained.
Possesses an ability similar to prophecy or divination. Excellent physical skills, capable of exaggerated movements. And has a personal preference for the "Clown" persona.
Excluding purely magic-casting classes, Kaito knew of one possibility that was a near-perfect match.
Lord of the Mysteries—the Seer Pathway. The exact Sequence was unknown, but it was most likely Sequence 8 - Clown. However, it was also possible that he was dressing as a clown not as part of the Acting Method, but specifically to mislead his opponents.
Therefore, after a moment of consideration, Kaito decided to assess his opponent's abilities at the level of a Sequence 7 - Magician.
The reason he didn't aim higher was his belief that if his opponent had truly reached Sequence 6 - Faceless, it would have been theoretically impossible for Katsu and his crew to track him in the first place.
A Sequence 7 - Magician was already extremely dangerous. At this stage, the strange and versatile nature of the Seer Pathway truly began to show. Not only could they transfer damage with a sleight of hand, but they also possessed escape abilities like [Flame Jump], [Paper Figurine Substitute], and [Bone Softening], making them incredibly difficult to pin down and kill in a small-scale fight. Moreover, at this stage, a Magician gained direct damage abilities like [Air Bullet] and [Flame Controlling].
The destructive power of an Air Bullet, according to the source material, was close to that of a specially made revolver, and it could be fired with a simple snap of the fingers. It was a very dangerous stage.
Kaito glanced at Inspector Sato's business card, which was sitting on his desk, and quickly weighed the pros and cons. He had clearly sensed the killing intent from "Evans the Clown." The man had found him quickly and was preparing to hunt him. An enemy like this, with the specialized divination of the Seer pathway, was exceptionally dangerous.
He put the business card away. He had to kill this guy himself.
The red-haired girl, Akane, was laughing as she sat on Katsu's lap. She was one of the delinquents who hung around this street, but today she found that Katsu, who she had always seen as so cool and imposing, was like a different person. He wasn't laughing or joking around; he was grimly ordering everyone around, assigning tasks with a serious expression. His eyes were so fierce that she felt like if she made one mistake, he would eat her alive.
"Katsu, do we really have to help that student out…?" she whined. "At the end of the day, he's just a student, right? We're not afraid of…"
SMACK!
Katsu grabbed her by the hair, yanked her off his lap, and slapped her hard across the face, sending her tumbling to the floor.
She stared up in disbelief at the man who she had been sleeping with, the man who had clearly been into her. He was now breathing heavily, his face contorted with rage.
"Shut your mouth, you idiot!" he roared. "Do you have any idea who you're talking about?!"
They were in a well-decorated, dimly lit bar with colored light strips lining the walls. It was daytime, so the bar was closed, and they were the only ones there.
The beaten Akane looked at the others, but no one moved to speak up for her. Sachi, the girl with braces who was two years her senior, helped her up.
"Don't say things like that," Sachi whispered. "That Kaito Shirogane… he's terrifying!" She glanced at Katsu, and seeing that he didn't stop her, she continued in a low voice. "You know how this area used to be really chaotic, right? This bar street was always full of different gangs fighting…"
Akane remembered. She was still in middle school then and was terrified of coming near this place. It was only after Katsu had taken control of the area that she had started to see him as a cool, powerful figure.
Sachi had darker skin and wasn't as pretty as Akane, but they were from the same hometown and were close. "Actually…" she whispered, "all those other guys… they were taken out by… him…"
Beep, beep! Beep, beep!
A phone screen lit up. Katsu immediately stood and answered it.
"Hey, Big Bro Kaito. It's me."
"Okay! I get it."
"I'll get it done right away!"
Two years ago, Katsu had been running with a guy named Tora. Tora had about twenty guys under him and was one of the toughest gangs in the area. Tora was smart; he rarely got caught by the police, and the bar owners and security guards couldn't do much about him.
But one day, Kaito Shirogane showed up. He just followed Tora around, laughing at him, calling him a coward. Eventually, Tora snapped and told his boys to teach the kid a lesson.
The result was that of the twenty-odd guys, more than a dozen ended up in the hospital. Katsu was a low-ranking member at the time and had been too scared to join in, which was why he had escaped unharmed.
He had watched as Kaito, with a physical strength that seemed completely inhuman, had sent the powerfully built Tora flying two meters with a single punch. Tora had just lain on the ground, twitching like a dying fish.
But what truly terrified Katsu was that throughout the entire beatdown, Kaito had a relaxed, easy smile on his face. Some people smile because they feel powerful when bullying the weak. But the smile Katsu had seen on Kaito's face had only one explanation: he was taking genuine pleasure in being able to legally harm other people.
That guy is a real monster, Katsu thought.
He looked at the photo on Akane's phone and spat a glob of phlegm onto the clean floor.
"Damn it all. This son of a bitch picked the wrong place to start trouble."
"Let's take him down!"
"Sachi, go add a little something to his drink. Drug him!"