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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Xrecker
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Leaving the bloodied Indigo behind, I approached Ruche, who had been watching the duel. Ruche, who had been watching with a cold gaze, smiled when she saw me approaching.
“Good work.”
Ruche had not been involved in the incidents with Team Guerrilla, but she had a negative impression of them due to their attitude and what she had heard from Seira, the leader of Team 4.
She showed no signs of surprise at seeing a side of me that I rarely showed to others, and she patted me on the shoulder.
“Go on ahead to the car. I’ll be there once things are wrapped up.”
I nodded at Ruche’s words and walked past her, leaving the duel site. I could hear Ruche’s voice and the sounds of them starting to clean up, but I didn’t pay them any mind and headed for the parking lot.
In a car parked not far from the duel site, Daniel was killing time, waiting for today’s duel to end. For him, who only drove and did not participate in the duels, it was a time like any other.
Having always experienced defeat, Daniel, who could predict how long it would take for the duels to finish, thought it was about time for them to be back and checked out the window. He spotted a person in a suit walking from a distance.
He couldn’t see the face because of the helmet, but he knew from the suit’s radio signal that it was A.
“Why is that guy coming alone?”
But the atmosphere was quite different from usual. First of all, the reason A was returning was obviously because the duel was over, but he couldn’t see anyone else behind him. And unlike the usual half-retreating manner, A was walking slowly, one step at a time, towards the car.
When A got closer to the car, Daniel poked his head out the window and called him.
“Why are you alone?”
But A did not answer. He thought he was being quiet because he was wearing a suit, but even after he got in the car and sat in the back seat, A was silent.
“Is something wrong? Why are you so quiet?”
Daniel asked, looking at A in the back seat, and the moment he saw A, his expression hardened. A, who had taken off his helmet, was sitting quietly, his bloodshot eyes staring into the air.
At the sight of his eyes, which were like those of a ferocious beast that had felt extreme anger, Daniel stopped asking and waited for his colleagues to return.
I thought I had calmed down a little, but as I sat in the back of the car and recalled the situation from a moment ago, I felt the anger towards Indigo and Team Guerrilla rise again. But I didn’t lose my reason like when I was beating Indigo to a pulp a moment ago.
I was able to maintain my reason because I was just sitting there doing nothing, and I realized that I had lost my reason because of the adrenaline rush along with the anger from a moment ago.
If I had delivered the final blow to Indigo in that state, I would have killed him. Fortunately, thanks to my colleagues, I was able to avoid killing him with my own hands.
It was a welcome situation to be able to get legal revenge on him, who was the source of my anger, and I was grateful for this opportunity, but killing him would have caused other problems.
As I was thinking that it was a relief I hadn’t killed him, I saw my colleagues walking from a distance.
My colleagues, who had arrived at the car, got in one by one, but there was no usual boisterousness. It was probably because of me.
“Is everyone here?”
Ruche checked the number of people at the end, and Kruger, who had checked each colleague as they boarded, answered, “Yes,” and then got in the passenger seat.
It was our first victory in a whopping 10 years, but the atmosphere was heavy. Everyone in the car seemed to be at a loss for what to say first, and I broke the silence.
“I’m sorry. It’s because of me.”
My colleagues, who were crammed in their seats, sent their gazes to me when they heard my words, and then they burst out laughing.
“Haha! Hey, what are you sorry for? We won thanks to you.”
“That’s right. I wanted to crush those bastards anyway. It was so satisfying.”
“Those guys deserved it.”
My colleagues chimed in one by one, gradually brightening the heavy atmosphere. My colleagues were being considerate of me, who had lost my reason and attacked with the intent to kill.
“Really? Thanks.”
“Next time we run into the Guerrilla team, calm down a bit.”
“I’ve never seen A get so pissed off before.”
After Kruger’s nagging, Jack said, as if he found my angry state strange. Since I rarely got angry, this was the first time I had shown this side of me to my colleagues.
“But thanks to A moving around so much, we were able to collect good combat data.”
The car became noisy as they talked about their impressions of the battle from a moment ago, and I silently listened to their conversation.
After arriving at the headquarters, I immediately changed out of my suit and ran into Ruche, who was standing in front of the locker room.
“Ruche, you worked hard today.”
It was our first victory, but I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. Even though I had crushed Indigo, who had caused trouble for many people with his arrogant attitude, I felt a sense of unease.
“Can we talk for a moment?”
“Ah, yes.”
I followed Ruche, who was smiling and leading me to her office, and I entered her office and sat on the sofa. Ruche sat on the sofa opposite me and just watched me.
“Is there something you want to say?”
“Did something happen with the Guerrilla team?”
We were still keeping the incident from the team dinner a secret from Ruche. We thought it was something that happened in private and didn’t need to be brought into the workplace. Above all, since it wasn’t a good thing, we didn’t want to make Ruche worry.
But from today’s atmosphere, Ruche must have noticed. The fact that I, who rarely got so angry, had beaten Indigo with the intent to kill meant that something had definitely happened, and there was no way the perceptive Ruche would have missed it.
The time to tell her had finally come.
The incident where we got beaten up by Team Guerrilla outside was something that happened between us, and it was a situation where we could keep it a secret without talking about it at work. But now that the situation had come to this, not telling Ruche would be like ostracizing her with a secret we all knew.
“Actually…”
It took a moment to start the difficult story, and I carefully explained to Ruche what had happened to our team at the team dinner. Ruche listened to me silently, her expression unchanging.
When she heard that we had gotten into a fight but hadn’t fought back and had just been beaten up one-sidedly, Ruche didn’t move a muscle. It seemed she was accurately grasping and understanding the situation as she heard what we had gone through.
“So, it was after that incident that I called you?”
That day, we had a video call with Ruche after the incident with Team Guerrilla. We had lied and said we had fallen while drunk, and Ruche remembered our call from that day perfectly.
Since there was nothing more to hide, I answered yes, and Ruche let out a deep sigh.
“So, do you feel like you’ve gotten your revenge?”
“…I think it’s still a little lacking.”
I couldn’t tell Ruche, but the reason I felt a grudge against Team Guerrilla wasn’t just because of the fight with our team. Even though I had beaten him to a pulp, I still didn’t feel completely satisfied.
Ruche smiled at my words and stood up. I looked up at her as she stood. She came to my side and soon pulled me into her chest. I stood still, not moving in the sudden situation.
“So that’s what happened.”
Ruche whispered in a hoarse voice and stroked my hair. It seemed she had many emotions she wanted to express, but she was suppressing them and trying to praise me for bringing home a victory today.
“…I’m sorry. For not saying anything.”
If it had been a story that we could have kept secret until the end, I wouldn’t have felt sorry to Ruche. But now that a situation had arisen where I had to tell her, and after I had told her, I felt sorry for keeping it a secret from only her.
“No, you guys did it for my sake.”
Ruche must have felt a little disappointed in a corner of her heart. Nevertheless, she understood that we hadn’t told her for her sake.
“Go home and get some rest today. This is our first victory since the reorganization of Team 3, so I’ll report it well.”
“I understand.”
Ruche released the hug, and I stood up, saluted her, and left the office.
After A left, Ruche sat down on the sofa again and sighed. While she had expected something had happened when she saw the wounds on the call that day, which were clearly not from falling while drunk, she felt pathetic as a team leader for not having imagined such a thing.
“…….”
Ruche, who had been sitting quietly and looking at the ceiling, took a notebook out of her pocket. It was an old notebook that she always carried with her, except when she was dueling, and inside was a single photograph.
It was a photo of a man in a mechanic’s uniform with black hair and a girl with short silver hair, whose identity was unknown, taken together.
“Sunbae…”
Ruche mumbled as she looked at the photo and closed her eyes.
“Ruche!”
Just then, the silence was broken by a voice, and the office door opened.
Seira, who had rushed over, was looking at Ruche with a considerably surprised expression.
“You ran into the Guerrilla team?”
“Yeah. I was going to go to the director’s office with you after Team 4 got back anyway.”
“What happened?”
“A fought and won. He just left, didn’t you see him?”
At the words that A had just left, Seira glanced outside the office and then shook her head. It seemed they had missed each other by a hair’s breadth.
“He’s not hurt, is he? You never know what kind of strange tricks those guys might have used.”
“No, he won completely.”
It wasn’t that she doubted the skills of Team 3, but Seira, who had been dueling with Team Guerrilla continuously, knew that they sometimes used weapons that could kill the opponent, so she checked on the safety of Team 3. To be precise, she was worried about the safety of A, who was said to have fought.
“That’s a relief. Let’s go to the director’s office first.”
“Okay.”
Ruche closed the notebook she was holding, put it in her inner pocket, and got up to go to the director’s office with Seira.
Meanwhile, Team Hunter Killer, who had won the duel and returned, went straight to the director’s office without going to the locker room first.
They opened the door to the director’s office without knocking and made eye contact with the director, who was on the phone.
Red, who was furious, strode forward and slammed her hand on the director’s desk.
“What is the meaning of this?!”
“Then escort him to the research lab…. I’m on the phone right now, so come back later.”
The director, who was concentrating on the phone even after hearing Red’s words, expressed his desire not to talk to Team Hunter Killer right now and spoke firmly.
He seemed to want to give off an air of authority, as if to say he was busy right now, so they should come back later, but the members of Team Hunter Killer were not women who would be intimidated by his attitude.
“I must have told you countless times that team changes in duels are absolutely forbidden! Why did you arbitrarily adjust the duel schedule today?!”
The director, his brow furrowed, glared at Red, who was raising her voice. But he was rather intimidated by the gazes of all the members of Team Hunter Killer pouring down on him.
Not wanting to show that he was intimidated, the director raised his voice even more.
“I’m busy with that right now, so I told you to come back later!”
Just as Red was about to shout in anger at his attempt to avoid a conversation with them, who were more closely related to the current situation than anyone, something flew from behind, passed Red, grazed the director’s face, and hit the wall behind his chair, shattering.
Startled by the suddenly flying object, Red turned around and saw Yellow, her neck veins bulging, glaring at the director.
What she had thrown was the flower vase with water in it, which was next to the entrance of the director’s office.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, you son of a bitch, shouting when you’ve done nothing right?”
Yellow, who was furious at the duel situation, which had not even been notified, let alone communicated, was suppressing her anger as much as possible, and the director’s hands trembled at the thought that the world’s top-tier superhumans were looking at him with extreme anger.
“W-what is this?! Who do you think you’re being so insolent to?! It’s because you guys, you guys didn’t report properly that Indigo from the Guerrilla team has been taken to the research institute!”
Red, who had been consistently reporting after every duel, was dumbfounded. She couldn’t understand what part of the report about Team 3 was missing.
It was an attitude of trying to blame the Hunter Killer members for his own mistake, for anyone to see. Just as Red was about to grab him by the collar, a voice as cold as ice spread softly in the director’s office.
“Girls, let’s go down for now.”
Blue quietly suggested that they return to the 3rd floor, which was the Hunter Killer team’s office. There were many things they wanted to argue about and many things they wanted to say, but she was suggesting they retreat for a moment. But no one could object to her words.
Blue, who always had a friendly smile and spoke in a gentle voice, had sharp eyes, and her voice felt as cold as if it had no emotion.
She was expressing a suppressed anger that was incomparable to the anger that Red and Yellow had momentarily expressed. Above all, the fact that the expressed anger was not in a violent form was incomparably scarier than anything else.
“Okay.”
The choice was Red’s. Red, who had regained her reason at Blue’s cold demeanor, was sure that even if she confronted the director now, he would just find an excuse to avoid the conversation.
In the end, they had won the duel, and with this, they could be more certain when a situation arose where he couldn’t avoid the conversation. Rather than getting heated up by repeating the same thing over and over, they decided to take a step back for now.
The members sent a furious gaze at the director and left the director’s office one by one. Pink, who was the last to leave, was looking at the director with a smiling face.
“W-what?”
The director opened his mouth at Pink’s gaze, who was staring at him without leaving, and Pink, without erasing the smile from her face, threw a word at him just before leaving.
“You foolish bastard.”
With those words, Pink left the director’s office, slamming the door shut with a loud noise.
The director, left alone, gritted his teeth, but he knew very well that he could do nothing against Hunter Killer in this situation.
“Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.”
He clutched his head, his mind filled only with thoughts of how to resolve the situation of the completely destroyed Team Guerrilla.
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