Chapter 18: Second Exam (Part 2)

Hey there, everyone. Please help me.

I feel like screaming my lungs out right now.

—How did it come to this?

"Don’t let them get away! After them!"

"It’s the Cleaner! Stay sharp!"

A storm of bullets—each one potentially lethal—rips past me from behind to the front. One of them must have grazed the creaking frame; the side camera feed glitches with static. From inside the ballistic coat, I hear an adult man suck in a sharp breath.

"Komori! They’re coming again!"

"Yeah. I know."

All we wanted was to take the exam.

That was all.

So how did it end up like this?

…Ah. Right. The beginning was actually very simple.

Due to Kirifuji Nagisa’s scheming, the members of the Make-Up Work Club were assigned to take their exam in the Gehenna Autonomous District. To reach the designated test site, they brought Sensei and me along, passed through Trinity territory, and stepped into an area under Gehenna’s control.

What greeted us there was a group of delinquents whose bravado far outweighed their competence. Gehenna and Trinity are sworn enemies, and on top of that, we were students from a prestigious girls’ school. They figured they could grab us, demand a ransom, and make some easy money. With that brilliant plan in mind, they launched an attack.

Setting aside the question of how they thought they could beat me without even basic coordination, there are plenty of things I’d love to ask them. Like whether they really believed they could take a ransom without drawing Trinity’s attention afterward. Or whether they were seriously underestimating the strength of Trinity’s armed forces—the Justice Task Force. But to skip to the conclusion, we subdued them without much trouble. With Sensei’s command and my combat ability combined, there’s really no enemy we can’t handle.

After that, we continued knocking aside anyone who got in our way, and at long last reached the entrance to what could be called the heart of the Gehenna Autonomous District.

Now then, surely we could relax. Even in Gehenna, no idiot would start a major incident out in the open, in a central urban area.

Unfortunately, that hollow hope was crushed by an unexpected encounter.

"Stop right there!"

The Gehenna Prefect Team—a law enforcement organization led by someone who sits firmly at the top of my personal list of people I never want to fight again if I can help it.

Students who appeared to be rank-and-file members of that group stepped forward and blocked our path.

To be fair, their actions were justified. Although the Eden Treaty—a peace agreement between Gehenna and Trinity—exists in name, it has not yet been enacted. Until it is, Gehenna and Trinity remain bitter enemies. The rift between the two academies runs so deep that it’s easy to imagine fools trying to sabotage the treaty altogether. At such a critical juncture before its signing, eliminating suspicious elements is their duty, just as it is Nagisa’s.

But we weren’t suspicious at all. That fact could be proven with a single call to Trinity’s upper administration. Even Nagisa wouldn’t pretend ignorance here. I was calmly reassuring myself of that—right up until the moment things went wrong.

"H—Hey! You there! Isn’t that the Justice Task Force!?"

"What?!"

"I-It’s true! An attack! The Justice Task Force is attacking us!"

"Report to headquarters! The Justice Task Force is finally here!"

What they were pointing at was Koharu’s uniform. As everyone knows, the Justice Task Force’s hatred of Gehenna is infamous. From what I’ve heard, there have already been several skirmishes in the past. So if someone wearing that uniform shows up in the middle of the night… well, you can guess the rest.

"W-Wait, that’s—!"

"That black coat… no doubt about it! The Cleaner’s here too!"

"They hired a Cleaner!"

"Contact the vice commander!"

"Huh?"

And somehow, my identity got exposed too.

I mean, sure, the black coat is kind of the Cleaner’s trademark—but the unit inside it is completely different. And it’s not like black coats are that rare. So why am I being watched so closely by the Prefect Team, you ask? Well… there was this one job, a long time ago. Some ridiculous request to secretly photograph the Prefect Team leader in her everyday life. The pay was good, so I took it, and—yeah. Naturally, I got caught. Hence all this.

I don’t remember doing anything else that would warrant this level of caution, though…

Oh, right. The flashback doesn’t end there. If anything, this is where it really gets worse.

"Ngh—what the hell?!"

"S-So they really are…"

"Azusa-chaaaaan?!"

"...No. I haven’t fired yet. This was someone else."

Before the misunderstanding could be cleared up, at the very moment Azusa raised her gun in that hopeless situation, the Prefect Team members blocking the road ahead were caught in an explosion and sent flying.

The culprit wasn’t Azusa, but members of Gehenna’s resident troublemakers—the Gourmet Research Society—who appeared out of nowhere… along with some poor, unidentified someone who was tied up. Apparently, while I was holed up elsewhere, they and Sensei had secretly slipped out of school and gone on a little adventure of their own, during which something happened. Calling it payback for that incident or something along those lines, they decided to escort us all the way to the exam venue.

The Gourmet Research Society of Gehenna. In terms of raw strength, they don’t quite measure up to Gehenna’s strongest fixers, Problem Solver 68—but when it comes to notoriety alone, they’re absolutely top-tier. Apparently, the reason the Prefect Team members now sprawled on the ground had gone out of their way to guard this area was connected to hot springs. That makes the Gourmet Research Society just as dangerous as the Hot Spring Development Department, a group that commits acts of terror all over the place in pursuit of hot springs.

Having people that dangerous escort us is, admittedly, pretty reassuring. But of course, it comes with its own set of problems. Hm? Don’t criticize others while ignoring your own issues? It’s fine for me. I’m retired. I shut down shop.

Anyway, the bottom line is that by traveling with such dangerous individuals, we ended up being seen as part of the same terrorist group. As a result, we were chased not only by the Prefect Team, but—for some reason—even by the Hot Spring Development Department.

"U-woooooah?!"

A torrential storm of bullets rained down on us, the road erupting in explosions like something straight out of a Hollywood movie. We ran in every direction, desperately trying to escape—but luck wasn’t on our side. The heat signatures I detected were right under our feet, and by the time I realized it, the sensors were already screaming danger warnings. It was too late.

"Sensei! Hold on tight!"

"Wha—?!"

Sensei and I were blown away together with the bike we were riding.

Boom.

In a split second, I caught Sensei as he was hurled into the air, then used a wire to somehow pull off a landing. By the time I could grasp the situation, we’d been knocked completely off the road. Everyone else was already far ahead, disappearing into the distance. Behind us were no longer our previous pursuers, but instead a group of Prefect Team students who—for whatever reason—had decided that I was their top priority.

And that’s how we ended up in our current predicament. Got it?

"Whoa! That was amazing! I’ve never flown through the air before!"

"Sensei, it’s dangerous! Please—calm down a bit!"

"Run!"

"Let Sensei go!"

Clack!

I slammed my hand down hard on the control keyboard, then chugged down an energy drink with my free hand.

To be blunt, this situation is really bad. You can tell just by looking, right? Yeah. No kidding.

Protecting Sensei—my escort target—while engaging a large number of students head-on.

This battlefield is completely different from my usual style of fighting: surprise attacks, assassinations, fast and decisive engagements.

There’s the performance gap between my cheap, easily replaceable firearms and the higher-grade weapons they’re using.

And above all, I’m not in my usual “Cleaner” unit. This is a different machine altogether—minimal armor, a frame that’s only partially maintained, and overall tuning that doesn’t match my personal combat style at all. Honestly, it feels like every worst-case scenario I could imagine decided to show up all at once.

"Sensei. Cover your face."

"Got it!"

I smashed through the window of what was probably some company’s office building and rolled inside. Quickly hiding myself, I moved while holding my breath.

Footsteps followed from behind, along with voices. It seemed the Prefect Team had chased us straight in.

…Yeah. This isn’t good. I’ve already taken down several of them on the way here, but there are still too many. I jumped into this building thinking I’d have an advantage indoors compared to outside, but it’s not like I know the layout. I can’t really make good use of it. If anything, the Prefect Team students probably know this place better than I do.

"...Komori, maybe I should try talking to them directly after all—"

"No. That could take too long. The exam starts soon. Forcing our way through is the best option."

"Don’t let them escape! Today’s the day we finally catch them!"

"It’s Iori… Hey, Komori, what did you do? They seem seriously hostile toward you."

"Did… or rather, they were the ones who showed hostility first."

This happened long before I ever met Problem Solver 68—or Sensei, for that matter—but once upon a time, I took a job from a certain Gehenna Prefect Team member named Amau Ako. You know, the one with the… impressive side cleavage.

The job itself was simple, but it was painfully obvious she was trying to rope me into becoming one of the Prefect Team’s pets through the fine print.

Hm? Did I turn her down? No, I took it. The pay was good. I tweaked part of the contract, but I accepted it properly—and completed it properly.

…And well, as you can see, things ended up like this.

"What happened in between!?"

I get what Sensei’s trying to say. The Prefect Team wanted to bring me under their control, while I just did the job I was paid for. So how did things deteriorate this badly…?

The answer to all of it lies in side cleavage.

"Ako-chan, huh."

"Look at that outfit. How could anyone not react?"

"I mean, I get it, but still…"

Amau—side clea—no, Amau Ako, famous for her scheming nature, kept throwing various forms of interference at me while I was carrying out the job. She was probably planning to use any failure as leverage to bind me to them. Back then, I was obsessed with maintaining a perfect 100% success rate. That made it an effective tactic. In fact, it was a method others had used on me too—Kaiser PMC, and various groups who wanted to turn me into their private soldier.

But she made one mistake. Yes—one very serious mistake.

"She mixed personal desire into the job."

"Huh?"

First, there were two requests I accepted.

The first was an attack—or rather, harassment—against Pandemonium. That one was fine. Launching an attack on an organization equivalent to Gehenna’s student council should carry a fitting punishment… or so you’d think. Even for Gehenna, attacking the student council is a serious crime, right? In any case, I completed the job flawlessly without being discovered—by firing specialized tear-gas rounds into Pandemonium—and neatly disposed of any contracts that could be used as leverage.

So that was fine. And then there was the second request—the real problem.

That was—

"【Go take some super-cute covert photos of the Prefect Team Leader, Sorasaki Hina.】"

"...Come again?"

Let me repeat that.

"Take super-cute covert photos of Sorasaki Hina."

That was the other request Amau Ako gave me.

Was she joking? Yeah, I thought so too. But when someone asks you with that serious an expression, it’s hard to refuse.

"So yeah, I managed to snap some super-cute photos of the Prefect Team Leader. I didn’t really know what the standard was, so I just captured moments I personally thought were good. Unfortunately, I gave myself away because of the shutter sound. That’s probably why I’m being hunted now—on suspicion of espionage or something along those lines."

"Wow…"

"And on top of that, I mailed those photos to the Prefect Team, sealed in a big envelope labeled in bold letters ‘From the Cleaner to Lady Amau Ako.’ Plus, I beat up that silver-haired twin-tail girl over and over every time she tried to chase me down. There’s probably some personal grudge mixed in there too."

"Yikes…"

Sensei, please don’t look at me like that. In this case, it’s less my fault and more Amau Ako’s fault for trying to trap me with something that stupid.

"...Ah."

"Ah! F-Found them!!! Kya?!"

While chatting and running like that, we ran straight into a Prefect Team student—let’s call her Student A. I immediately knocked her out with the butt of my gun, but her report must have already gone through, because multiple sets of footsteps started closing in.

Ugh. What a pain.

But yeah. I’ve got a pretty good grasp of things now.

"Sensei… I’m going to need you to let me do something a little reckless."

"Huh?"

Alright. Let’s settle this fast and decisively.

"—Hey! Cleaner! Stop running already and surrender!"

"Oh, come on. How many times do I have to say it? I ain’t no Cleaner… I’m a ‘Scatterer,’ see—huh?"

A door in the dark, unlit hallway was thrown open with force, and the Prefect Team members aimed their guns beyond it. Facing them was a massive figure nearly two meters tall, standing beside a human-sized something bound tightly in the black coat that had covered his body until moments ago. A single red light glowed in the darkness.

The Scatterer.

"Don’t mess with us. We already know what’s inside you is the Cleaner."

"...Oh. You should’ve said so earlier. Keeping up that speech pattern was getting annoying. How’d you figure it out?"

"The Valkyrie attack and the Scatterer hijacking incident one week ago. The method—and the suspect’s build and appearance—matched you almost perfectly."

"Ah… that one. So you saw me, huh. Well, whatever. It’s not that big a problem."

"D-Don’t move!!"

As he spoke, the Scatterer—no, the “Cleaner”—reached down toward the black mass at his feet. Iori shouted for him to stop, but he picked it up anyway.

"Don’t move… that’s our line. You know what this is, right?"

A lump wrapped in a black Cleaner’s coat. About the size of a full-grown adult, it dangled limply in his arms, completely motionless.

"Sensei! You bastard! Let Sensei go!"

"Fine by me."

"Huh?"

The Cleaner’s arm moved in a blur, and the black mass was flung into the air.

"If you want him that badly, I’ll give him to you."

"Wah—whoa?!"

One of the Prefect Team members caught it—and then—

A small, steady electronic beeping rang out. From the gap where the coat had slipped aside, a blinking red light peeked through.

"Sens—! Th-this is bad! Get away!"

In the next instant, light and scorching heat engulfed the area.

Ku, kuhahahaha!!!!

That’s right—a timed bomb. A simple setup: explosives strapped onto a fake bundle of cloth made to look like Sensei. But it worked beautifully! Thank goodness they fell for it! Thank goodness they were that stupid!

Sensei is, frankly, a people-charmer. My past-life memories—wait, was that really a thing I established? …Well, whatever. They’re not very useful anyway. In this world, Sensei is the protagonist. Of course he’s popular. And love makes you blind. Even in the most suspicious situations, it creates a momentary opening.

Yes. Which means everything was going exactly according to plan—

"—?!"

A single bullet pierced straight through the smoke screen and gouged into the armor on my head.

"Don’t underestimate the snipers of the Gehenna Prefect Team!"

"You’ve gotta be kidding me…!"

What kind of monster is she?! Why didn’t it work?!

The silver-haired, twin-tailed girl—Shirogane Iori—came charging through the smoke as if the explosion hadn’t affected her at all.

You’ve got to be kidding me! Are you even human?! Share some of that mystery with me! Look around you! Every single one of your subordinates is down from that blast! I tuned the output to the absolute maximum—right up to the limit of “won’t kill them”!

A-and yet! Why?! Why didn’t you pass out?!

"Damn it!"

"Running won’t save you!"

I sprinted forward and smashed through a window, hurling myself into open air. Of course, there was no way someone with monstrous levels of mystic power like hers would fear a fall from this height. She followed without hesitation, determined to catch me.

We were airborne. Below us, a river cut through the city.

Yes—this too was all part of the plan.

"Even you can’t dodge in midair!"

"That’s—"

The fired bullet flew straight toward my head. It pierced cleanly through my outstretched left arm, deflecting its trajectory before ripping past me and vanishing behind. In other words—she had just missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"The one who can’t dodge in midair is—"

She must have seen it then. The marksman rifle in my right hand. And she must have realized it.

"You too, right?"

That this was checkmate.

"Phew—are you okay?!"

"...Positive—nope, can’t. No good. I can’t stand. My knees are shaking."

After that, soaking wet, I regrouped with Sensei. Shirogane Iori—struck cleanly in the forehead by my shot—was left disoriented and couldn’t recover her posture before hitting the water. No matter how much of a Kivotos monster she is, her structure is still that of a “human,” as far as I know. An unstable body suddenly plunging into water—humans lose consciousness.

My unit, on the other hand, is just a machine. It doesn’t suffer from such drawbacks. That’s how I was able to safely tie up the unconscious Iori, wrapping her nice and tight with rope.

That said, I didn’t come out unscathed. If anything, I was at my limit. The frame was badly warped, and my left arm had been blown clean off and sent flying somewhere. Ugh… what do I do… taking on a job without proper pay and ending up with this much damage… expenses? No—wait. I don’t even have an expense account. Looks like part of my diet is going to be bean sprouts for a while.

After that, I could barely walk. Leaning on Sensei’s shoulder, we somehow made our way to the exam venue. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any further obstacles along the way.

"Ah! Sensei and Komori—what happened to you two?!"

It looked like the others were safe as well. Some were wearing gas masks, others were in swimsuits, but I suppose that still counts as “safe.” Probably.

After that, we listened to a message from Nagisa that Azusa had found, and then headed inside to take the exam.

"O-Okay! Everyone, let’s go in! It’s finally time for the Second Special Academic Examination!"

Alright. Whatever happens, happens. My part is done. All I can do now is trust them.

"Fuu… well then. Now all that’s left is to trust them, and I’ll… tally up the total damage from this incident… ugh… my head—"

"DEVELOOOOPMENT!!!"

"Eek?!"

A sudden shout blared from the speakers, followed by a thunderous roar—and blinding light.

The Second Special Academic Examination was rendered a failure when the answer sheets were lost due to an explosion caused by the Hot Spring Development Department, who appeared out of nowhere.

And thus, the Scatterer too was reduced to scrap metal.