One of the Double-Hook Pirate Crew's underlings charges straight at us, bellowing a thunderous battle cry.
"Hryaaah!!!"
Clang─!
"······."
"Uraaaah!!"
Creak, grrrrk···
"Damn it!"
Kang! Kwaduk.
While mechanically parrying every one of those attacks, I think of a way out. What am I supposed to do here?
If I use the power in my eye properly right now, I'd be able to figure out why that insane wrecking machine came here. But it's too late to know now. Just looking at them, they're fully intent on killing us.
Getting Dante to flee immediately is meaningless, too. If anything, it might have been worth trying to lose them inside the branch, but at this rate they'd definitely catch us.
Vergilius is... nowhere to be seen. For some reason, even among the countless possibilities, the chance of him being here right now is vanishingly small.
There are other ways we might survive, but every one of them is so unlikely that they might as well not exist.
...Do I have to create the variable myself?
The moment I reach that conclusion, I immediately set the conditions to create one.
"Dante, I... request the K Corp identity."
"Huh? Got it."
It was a sudden request, but Dante dutifully complied. Does that mean they trust me that much?
Then I should live up to that trust.
I activate E.G.O at once. The same form Dongrang had transformed into... the form of a scythe.
I readjust my grip on the scythe and immediately charge at several of the Double-Hook Pirate Crew.
...Now, it's time to plant crops for the future.
*
One. Then another. I plant seeds in the bodies of the enemies.
Those planted seeds sprout into trees, and the trees bind the Double-Hook Pirate Crew's underlings.
Then I leave them alive enough and throw them somewhere inside, or wherever else works.
Repeating this mechanically and quickly causes countless trees to intertwine in a tangled mass. In a way, it looks like a giant cocoon has formed.
The trees that should have withered quickly instead cluster together in one place, greatly extending their lifespan.
...My head hurts. The eye and E.G.O are already gnawing away at my mind, and now that both are fully active, I feel like I'm about to collapse on the spot.
My body is healthier than ever, fed by the vitality drawn from the trees I've planted... but on the other hand, my mind is in a state where it could break down at any moment.
But I can't fall apart yet. Hoo...
"We're managing to drive the Double-Hook bastards back somehow, but..."
"I keep looking at that ship in the middle. The more flamboyant something is, the more reason there is for it, right?"
Hong Lu points at the ship in the center of the Double-Hook fleet, the one with a design that stands out from the rest.
At the same time, everyone's gaze turns toward it. So they noticed it now.
The first to react was Rodion. Of course. Given her past, there must have been something there she could never forget.
"···! Uh... la-la... th-there... that person in the middle..."
"The one who's been posing like crazy over there since earlier?"
"Posing? It's not that, Dante... Don't you recognize that tattoo? That man is..."
"Hmph. The Middle's petty little brother."
"What's a petty little brother...?"
"···Isn't it... little brother?"
Rodion's mouth produced the title of the reaper who had personally come to take our lives.
That was also why I'd been scrambling to prepare for the next battle.
"···!"
"······."
"······."
The Sinners' reactions varied.
Some reacted violently, some were impassive, and the only one with no common sense about the City had nothing to say and stayed silent.
"Sorry to ask this while everyone's being serious, but... what exactly is the Middle? And Pilot, too... It seems like meeting the Middle is... a huge shock for some of you..."
"I... heard that, apparently... the people in the organizations called the Fingers... including the Middle... are on a completely different level... I've never met one myself, though..."
"No, the fact that you'd meet one directly is the part that shouldn't be happening..."
"We should call it mo. end. I suppose. Time to smoke the last cigarette. Isn't this perfect weather for dying?"
"···Even Ryoshu is saying that...?"
The Middle. One of the Fingers, the five massive organizations that dominate the Backstreets.
To put it very simply, if an ordinary criminal gang is a small or medium-sized company, then a Finger is a Wing. The difference in total combat power between them is probably about that large in reality, too.
The war between Fingers is... on a scale comparable to a Wing war.
In other words, a fight between two mere criminal organizations is on the same scale as a war that brings down the City's greatest corporations.
If he's a petty little brother, then at the very least he must be an executive of the Middle...
One thing I know for certain: no matter what we do, we can't beat that man.
"···If there are things we must face, then all we can do is accept them calmly and firmly, Dante."
Right after Yi Sang finished speaking, the petty little brother descended along a red carpet... and stood before us.
Hoo... one mistake and we die. No, maybe we die even if we don't make a mistake.
Let's struggle as hard as we can. Dying here won't be the end of this absurd mess.
Helplessness, emptiness, tension, and more settled over us... and then, from within that, the petty little brother opened his mouth.
"Finished warming up?"
"Move fast while the boss is giving you time!"
...So there's still a little time left.
It seems we still have enough of a grace period to prepare ourselves.
Then let's scout the enemy.
The first thing that catches my eye is the purple tattoo covering his entire body, packed in tight all over.
One of the many forms of enhancement procedures. It's also the format used by the Middle.
Next, I notice the slightly golden chain binding his legs and arms. At the same height as the belt that holds up his pants, a purple ledger... the Middle's revenge ledger, was hanging from the chain.
Beyond the threatening parts, his appearance is otherwise ordinary. A purple leopard-print coat with bristles, hair tinted a bright violet.
And finally, the sunglasses that complete the look.
...If someone who didn't know the Middle saw him, they might just think he was a common thug.
"It's gloomy out, but he's wearing sunglasses..."
"Everyone, form up. Manager, this battle seems like it'll unfold differently from the ones so far... In this case, the priority is to keep the commander safe. Please retreat somewhere more secure and stay out of sight..."
Before Otis could even finish speaking, the petty little brother casually cut her off.
"I'm feeling stiff. I didn't expect this to take so long."
"Negotiation! If you want negotiation... we're willing to hear you out on our side."
"To try negotiating with evil... how could..."
"So the situation has completely reversed from that friend back then..."
"Well, I didn't expect the petty little brother to actually show up..."
Maybe he heard the last of Rodion's words, because the Middle's petty little brother spoke in a confident voice.
"Yes, I came. I... have spent most of my life so far devoted to the Middle... and there was one iron rule that could never be broken. But as of today, that iron rule has been shattered to pieces."
...What? There's no way someone like him would say that just because we interfered with some subordinate organization that's always getting into fights. The moment that same question rose in my mind, his next words cleared it up neatly.
At the same time, they spawned even more questions.
"Because you bastards robbed my personal safe!"
"Wow... That's enough to make your teeth itch. How could anyone even think of doing something like that...?"
When the petty little brother's subordinate, the little brother, chimed in, Heathcliff voiced his confusion.
"···Huh? Not because we robbed the Double-Hook gang?"
Right. The odds were vanishingly low, but in this situation that seemed the most likely explanation.
However, the petty little brother, who had heard that, did not answer.
Instead, he pulled out the old revenge ledger hanging from his waist and declared, "Then I shall inform you here and now. Of your unforgivable crimes...!"
"Um, we did have a little argument with that Smi person, but..."
"Your subordinate... we returned safely."
"Ah, no. Wait..."
Ah, hold on. Wouldn't this just add more crimes? That man doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Double-Hook Pirates.
I should have noticed that sooner, but I couldn't react because I was maintaining the E.G.O and the eye, and by the time Gregor tried to stop him after realizing it, it was already too late.
"···? Smi? Who's that?"
"Oh, so he didn't know..."
"···That was unnecessary speech."
"Eh... let's see... Then if I add that crime too..."
The petty little brother began turning the pages of the revenge ledger with great diligence, wetting the pages with saliva from the Middle.
"This is the 'revenge ledger.' The names written in here are all mo. end. It's so ridiculous I feel like I could go insane... haha."
"The world... is divided into soft and rough. Do you know the difference?"
At the petty little brother's sudden remark, silence spread among the Sinners.
What the hell is he talking about all of a sudden...?
"When you grab it with your hand... something that feels secure and soft in your grasp is soft, and the strands that poke rough through your fingers are rough. To become the finest kind of soft, one needs daily endurance, training, and delicate hands."
"······."
"Do you understand? To keep this head fixed in the proper shape and make it soft─ and fluffy, it takes countless efforts. A coupon for five full hours of hairstyling from the owner of a private salon located at the Great Manta Harbor Ship, the finest harbor in U Corp! And it says that with this coupon, anyone can become stylish, and that you can even walk in without a reservation."
"······."
At that moment, Heathcliff let out a small groan, as if something had hit a nerve.
Wait, seriously?
"···Ah."
"So... what we stole was... a hair-styling coupon?"
"What Ryoshu called a petty little brother earlier..."
"Means narrow-minded. Damn it... It would have been best not to get involved."
No matter what we said, the narrow-minded man kept preaching his philosophy.
"It was a great first step toward softness. But because you stole that coupon... I'll have to live rough forever, with no end in sight... Now look. This is proof of the heinous crime committed by one of you!"
The petty little brother threw a piece of paper at us.
That was... that was...
A photo of Heathcliff stealing something. And of all things, he got caught on CCTV.
...Should I kill him?
I seriously considered smashing that bastard's head in with the great scythe in my hands.