Boom!!
"...Ugh!"
My dreams were vicious from the moment I woke.
Why the hell was I dreaming that Sinclair joined N Corp's Inquisitors and fought alongside Faust in Kromer's Identity?
Thanks to that, I rolled right off the bed.
"...This is all because of N Corp."
I grumbled lightly as I straightened the bedding.
Still, what kind of job were we going to be dragged into today?
For some reason, today we gathered in the bus without even running the Mirror Dungeon.
It was Faust's order, but... was this finally a mission?
The urge to immediately peer into the possibilities and confirm it rose in me, but a week ago, after learning the side effects of my ability, I'd been holding back on using it.
After the eye test, I never wanted to experience that splitting headache again, the one that felt like my brain was being forcibly torn open.
"Everyone, disembark. We're meeting the client for our next mission here."
Oh, we've arrived?
"I can't stand this. Now we're taking jobs like errand runners?"
Heathcliff complained as usual.
It wasn't exactly a valuable comment, so no one responded.
Still... a commercial district? Since there'd been no dramatic change in scenery after Kalf Village, this couldn't be another Nest.
A commercial district in K Corp... was our fourth mission going to be here too?
"Hm? What's that place over there? There are a lot of people lined up."
Huh, this smell...
"Ah~ You don't know this electrifying aroma? It's chicken, Greg!! Fried crisp in expensive oil, too!"
A savory, greasy, delicious smell—this was definitely the scent of a franchise fried chicken shop!
Then a severe-looking man suddenly cut into our conversation.
"You don't know about Boddhisattva Chicken, which is all the rage in K Corp these days? Looks like you've been wandering around K Corp with your eyes shut."
...I'd never heard of it either.
I didn't have much connection to K Corp's Nest, but I could feel a strange generational gap.
Was the difference of two years really that huge...?
"Oh? Boddhisattva Chicken? What is that?"
"Answer... provided. Boddhisattva Chicken is a chicken shop famous for having six legs and eight wings, with taste and quantity both said to be as generous as a bodhisattva."
Six legs, eight wings... wait. Good grief, don't tell me they shoved those expensive K Corp ampoules into chickens?
No, no. Judging by the situation, it was more likely they'd modified them for food use and were using them cheaply.
Otherwise each chicken would cost hundreds of thousands of Ahn, an absurd luxury item.
"We even cater to whatever taste you prefer. Meaty [Six-Sense Chicken], plump [Plump Chicken], chewy [Chewy Chicken]. Now then, what will it be?"
The severe-looking man unleashed a dazzling stream of words, as if he were the ambassador for Boddhisattva Chicken himself.
Hm, but I wasn't really tempted.
"...I feel like I may have heard of it before."
"Well, would you look at that~ Our Yi Sang, who seems slower than anyone else when it comes to current affairs?"
"...So who are you?"
Just as the prisoners started chattering about their own topics again, Heathcliff asked the identity of the man who'd barged in.
...Suspiciously, no one seemed interested in him at all. What was this?
"The fact that you're butting into other people's business so carelessly means you don't know who we are, do you?"
"...So who are you, then?"
"Maybe Heathcliff thinks we're just some gangsters or something."
"...What did you say, punk?"
As soon as I said that after Ishmael, Heathcliff bristled just as expected and was about to swing his bat, when the severe-looking man smoothly changed the subject at the perfect moment.
"Ah, dear me, what is that wandering around in front of the shop? It doesn't look very normal."
Hm? What's there in front of a normal franchise chicken shop... wait, what?
"K, isn't that a K Corp employee...? Why are they like that?"
"I see figures wearing masks of unknown origin on their faces."
"M-maybe they're mascots or something? If you look closely, they might actually be kind of cute..."
"The customers are screaming and running away when they see those mascots."
Ishmael said with a sigh.
...Sinclair's sense of reality was twisted in a strangely odd way. Should I report that upstairs or something?
"It's a little suspicious, but let's just stay put. They don't seem to be coming at us, and I'd rather not get caught up in some pointless commotion..."
"Indeed. They don't seem to be approaching us in particular."
The severe-looking man cut off Gregor's words and suddenly picked up a stone from the ground.
"Why is this unknown fellow picking up a pebble by the roadside?"
Whoosh—
"!"
Wow, he threw it. And hit dead on, too.
"What did you just do?!"
Uh, well. Right. I was momentarily at a loss for words. To continue the explanation: the thing struck by the stone looked around...
Then it began shuffling toward us with a grotesque, swaying gait.
"Kiiiii... kiiiii..."
And it made a hideous, skin-crawling noise while doing so.
"Oops, my mistake. What should I do?"
"How shameless... you hit it right in the head..."
"Wow~ Your posture was pretty stable, too."
"Thank you. I used to dream of becoming a city baseball player."
Did he have a sheet of iron for a face or something? How could he be so calm?
"Then I'll just knock your head clean off with a home run. Wait there."
"Hold on, hold on. Ryoshu. I know you're angry, but just bear with it a little."
"Its approach speed is increasing. Before my head gets homerunned, I think we should deal with that first."
While I was calming the enraged Ryoshu, it had already reached right in front of us...
"It's a chicken head."
"Yeah, it's a chicken."
"And a raw chicken at that."
Faust, then Rodion, and then Ishmael calmly offered their observations about it.
...Why the hell would someone wear a raw chicken head in the middle of a Nest?
"It looks like a chicken soaked in resentment crawled out of hell..."
Hm... no productive commentary, just impressions? They really were all the same as usual.
"What was it again... maybe it's because Sinclair left the chicken wings uneaten last time, saying the bones were hard to strip? That's the only thing I can think of..."
"I'm not surprised by that anymore... and in the end Rodion took those too and ate every last bit..."
...Just how far does Rodion's gluttony go?
I'm sure there was a time when her appetite increased once before, but she ate even more after that?
"Hmm, in that case, I suppose we have no choice but to fight."
"And why is this person hiding behind me so naturally?"
How could a person be that shameless?
I wanted to say something, but before I could, the chicken-headed things swarmed us.
Thwack!
Ugh, they're wearing chicken heads but still using K Corp ampoules?
There wasn't the dramatic recovery I'd seen from the level-three extraction workers in the Mirror Railway or in the battle at K Corp's gate, but the chicken-headed humans were showing the kind of regeneration you'd expect from K Corp's level-two extraction workers.
"Did they really just take the heads and leave the rest...?"
"Kik, kiiik..."
Still, it looked like things were being cleaned up well enough.
We'd already fought K Corp employees to death and back on the railway, so this wasn't something we couldn't handle.
By the time things had been somewhat settled, Gregor spoke up first.
"All right, the urgent business is done, so let's get to the point. You're the glasses-wearing fellow whose identity we still haven't figured out, right?"
"I object. That address is a little hurtful, as a fellow glasses wearer."
"Th-then... sorry about that."
"Basic personal information such as identity can be easily confirmed even when filing a death report."
"Mr. Meursault, are you trying to kill him?"
"I was merely stating an efficient method for confirming identity."
...There really wasn't a single normal one among them.
"...Ah, I neglected to introduce myself. Please take my card. I'm Samjo."
"......"
Look at him, bolting the moment he looked like he might die. That wasn't the work of someone doing this for the first time.
"K Corp's... food resource improvement department... research institute..."
...Does he not know the words?
Ishmael stared at the business card for a moment, then said in a confident tone, "Ha! You thought you could get away with just stuffing it full of fancy words?"
Uh... well, I'll hold my tongue.
"Of course. Persuasion and explanation are my specialty. So calm down and listen carefully."
I wondered how much reason there could possibly be to persuade us here, but... I supposed I might as well hear him out.
"I was very impressed by your performance in the battle just now."
Ah, no way.
"Especially the way you kept beating down the enemies without a care, even as your comrades were dying right in front of you. Some of you even pointed and laughed, too."
"Hmph... if they're the kind who drag us down, then I don't care whether they're allies or not."
"Ms. Otis, that wasn't a compliment."
...Now she wasn't even listening.
"As you can see, the chickens occupying the front of this shop are causing quite a bit of damage."
"...And?"
"The owner has also been bedridden, and only just got up."
Tap, tap...
As soon as Samjo finished speaking, a gaunt-looking person who seemed to have been bedridden until just now was shuffling toward us from the other side.
"You may speak."
"Uh... so, um... our chicken shop opened a few months ago across from a chicken place called 'Eunbong's Pub.'"
Ah, I think I get the gist.
"Our franchise's excellent-bloodline chickens, with their delicious flavor and generous portions, naturally drew even the customers of 'Eunbong's Pub' over to our shop."
So basically, the owner of Eunbong's Pub got jealous of those results and started causing trouble?
"But whether the owner of 'Eunbong's Pub' was shocked by that fact, or just decided to go down together with us... they suddenly started acting bizarrely, didn't they?"
Exactly.
"Well, I mean, a rival business can do a little counterplay, can't it..."
"Aaaahhh!!! What is that thing?!"
Uh... could the source of that commotion be the living, ordinary chicken head that was the owner of Eunbong's Pub?
"Agh... gah!!"
As the owner of Eunbong's Pub muttered and waved his arm, the raw chickens were attacking people as if obeying his command.
...I've never seen anything like this before.
"...What is this? Is he commanding the chickens?"
"That was no ordinary bizarre behavior. Just how much resentment does a person have to carry to end up like that...?"
As if sensing our confusion, the person presumed to be Boddhisattva Chicken's owner began explaining the damage.
"These raw chickens, as if they'd been bio-modified, keep trespassing into the shop and vandalizing the property... and as you can see, now there are even people wearing chickens over their heads... At this rate, the shop will suffer massive economic losses..."
"Yi Sang."
Samjo neatly wrapped up the explanation.
"Mm..."
...Did Yi Sang just react?
"Did you just flinch, Yi Sang?"
"Mm..."
......
"It was a tearful story. Could you all step in and resolve this incident for us?"
Ah... I'd expected as much, but...
So this shameless man who'd been carrying on with all this bizarre behavior was the client Faust had mentioned?
Ha. It was a reason that could explain the bizarre behavior, at least...
And so, in the middle of K Corp's commercial district, we ended up facing a client we were not at all happy to meet.
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