Chapter 115
After handing Alessia over to the emergency team, which arrived not long after my call, I made my way toward the green flares.
The recoil from the succession of Aura I used made my muscles shake and my bones scream with every step, but I couldn’t afford to waste time on that now.
‘Because we need to end this damned thing now.’
“Corleone dog, die!”
As I was running through the empty streets, one of the villains hiding in a building lunged at me.
“──Don’t interfere.”
I reached out and grabbed him by the throat and slammed him to the ground, causing him to spill a short amount of terminal fluid and lose consciousness.
There was no time to waste on such a quivering creature, so I abandoned it and continued my hasty pace.
The flare was not far from where Alessia had been.
[Jack’s botanical garden]
Jack’s botanical garden is a café in a three-story building converted into a botanical garden; it was one of Area C’s specialty spots.
Just as I was about to enter the entrance, which is decorated with large potted plants, I felt a strange air current.
‘It’s too quiet.’
The explosion of flares must have signaled the arrival of the gang, but the surroundings were too quiet.
[Activate Skill: Aura Sonar]
I looked inside the building just in case, but it was impossible to see inside.
It’s as if there’s a thick fog that makes it impossible to see inside but it wasn’t hard to guess why.
“Plague power.”
He uses mushrooms to scatter spores into the air.
I remembered him using it in the game to scatter the wizards’ tracks.
‘That means there’s something important in here.’
After checking the situation, I clenched my fists and strode confidently into the building.
The botanical garden smells of grass and humidity at the same time.
Judging by the state of my gas mask, which is emitting a faint heat, there must be something in the air.
As I move forward with caution, I see something wriggling on the ground.
Black suits and gold badges.
They were members of the Corleone organization.
From the marks and cuts on their bodies, it was clear that they had been slashed by someone.
“……This must be the one Bloody Clown was talking about.”
I remember him nodding when I asked him if there was a villain that was equal or more dangerous than him.
‘I guess he’s putting them in the most important places.’
With flares already fired, other gang members will be gathering here.
Leaving them to clean up the mess, I walk toward the center of the botanical garden, where the acrid powder is spreading.
Further in was a giant tree bathed in moonlight or rather, a giant mushroom.
-Cush, cush, cush, cush.
A greenish mushroom that was constantly wriggling and sending spores into the air.
One look and I knew it was the culprit.
Quietly, I took Tommy out of the cube and pointed it at the mushroom but then I felt a chill run down my spine and took a step back.
At the same time, the gas mask falls off with a loud thud.
“……A coincidence? No, it’s intuition. I can’t believe you can dodge my attacks with your intuition.”
The voice came from behind the mushroom.
A man in a white cowboy hat steps out from behind the mushroom with a clatter.
“You must be different from the ones that came before.”
Seeing his attire and the knife at his waist, I recognized him at once.
“……White Nachal.”
“Do you recognize me?”
A villain who eats and absorbs the souls of the mighty to grow his own power.
He was quite a nuisance, willing to do any dirty deed to kill to absorb those stronger than him.
Having him here means that…….
Whoa, I huffed lightly and stood in front of him.
The corner of his mouth twitches up in amusement.
“I suppose we’ll have to make this quick, then: kill or be killed. I’ll leave it at that.”
With a smirk, the man draws a knife from his waistband and points it at me.
He’s still crazy.
“……But before I do, I have to ask: why didn’t you touch those gang members lying on the ground outside?”
“Ah, you mean those brats? Eating them would only stain my palate.”
He didn’t kill them because they didn’t meet his standards.
It occurred to me that I had an unnecessary conviction about the villains.
“But I guess you’re good enough to be my nemesis.”
“Really? Hearing that from a celebrity like you, I must have gotten stronger.”
By the time he recognized me as an opponent, the player already had the strength of a named NPC.
It was as if the game’s official combat strength meter had recognized me.
“Oh, and don’t even think about running away. The moment you inhale a spore from this distance, you’ll be dead.”
He’s targeting my gas mask so I can’t run away. That means I have to fight to the death.
That’s so like him, I thought.
“For all that, you look fine.”
“You mean me? I’ve been vaccinated, so I’m fine. Now, how about we fight each other to the death, though I’m already getting my hands full.”
As he said that, Nachal smiled.
I couldn’t help but giggle at the sight.
“Ha, still the same. Really. But what am I supposed to do, this spore thing, it doesn’t seem to work on me either.”
A notification floated in the corner of my vision.
[Trait: Invulnerable] is activating.
Their attacks don’t work on me in the first place.
The gas mask was just to keep them off guard.
“……Why are you still alive? He said that even an Awakened wouldn’t last long…….”
“Guess it doesn’t work on me. Anyway, I’m running out of time, so a duel will be impossible.”
──Maybe hunting.
“Hunting?”
I say to the ‘they’ who must be watching us, looking at the guy who’s questioning the word ‘hunt’.
“We’ll subdue and transport him.”
“What do you mean, hunt me?”
Suddenly, as if sensing something, he grabs his sword.
At the same time, a loud bang resounds, and his body shakes.
Why does he think I would have come alone?
This was a war between the Villain Alliance and Corleone.
And as long as there was a war, Corleone was the organization that would win.
“Sniping……?!”
“You can stop a few incoming bullets, then we’d better up the ante.”
As I finished speaking, red dots covered his body.
“Block this one too.”
──!!! ──!!! ──!!! ──!!! ──!!! ──!!! ──!!! ──!! ──!! ──!! ────!! ──!!!
The darkened botanical garden is engulfed in a series of flashes of lightning and gunpowder smoke.
Bullets fly from all directions, and he swings his sword, trying to parry as much as he can, but who are we to bring ordinary bullets in a situation like this?
“Anti-Awakening bullets. It’s a specialty with a magic stone in the warhead, so it’ll hurt.”
Each bullet was quite expensive, beyond the reach of most guilds, but who cares.
Corleone’s ammunition arsenal was overflowing with them.
Lines of fire overlapped.
He may be strong, but he only has two human hands and even his abilities can’t stop the violence of numbers, with only a conditional physical enhancement. It only prolongs the execution.
“Ugh!”
One by one, bullets begin to embed themselves in its body, and I watch as his body starts to fall apart.
I slowly raise my hand to stop the shooting as the white-robed Nachal head hangs limply.
He falls to his knees and crumples to the ground in a heap.
A moment later, Parnello walks out with a sniper rifle the size of his body and checks on him.
“……He looks like he’s out of breath, do you want to handle it?”
Parnello, having subdued him in an instant, looks at me and asks.
“As per the family code, I’ll show him mercy, but he’ll have to tell me everything he knows…….Send for the technicians.”
“I will do as you ask, Master…….I will regret not dying here instead.”
I look around and see the rest of the gang, still cloaked in darkness, spreading out in a perimeter.
It looks like they’re at least half the number they started with.
“What’s the situation on the other side?”
“Yep. Thanks to Latte, most of the remaining villains hiding inside Area C have been eliminated. At this rate, the situation should be cleared up quickly.”
“……That’s good to hear.”
The mushrooms in front of me meant that the immediate problem was solved.
I squeezed the trigger on the Tommy in my hand, disintegrating the mushroom in front of me, and the spores that had filled the area began to dissipate.
“Good work Master.”
“……We’re not out of the woods yet, so let’s get the wounded out of here first, and then the rest of us can-”
The moment.
“Bravo──.”
A familiar voice came from behind me, as if I had heard it before.
“I didn’t expect this to be over so quickly.”
Turning around, I saw the white-robed Nachal clapping his hands with his limp body.
“…… Plague.”
“Oooh, you recognized me right away, that’s right. I am the executive of the Villain Alliance and the plague of all Plague.”
The white-robed Nachal bowed toward us in an extremely polite manner, like a gentleman greeting a lady but it’s not him my eyes are drawn to.
A little further back, at the nape of his neck was a brilliant red mushroom.
‘Clown parasitic mushroom’
It was the fungus he used to conceal himself and send messages.
Apparently, it was designed to secretly parasitize him from the start.
“Why did you do this? There was nothing for the Villain Alliance to gain by touching Corleone territory.”
I immediately asked him the question I’d been harboring all along.
Why would he do something like this when he hadn’t even touched Corleone in the game?
It didn’t make sense to me but the words that came out of his mouth were unexpected.
“Fear and warning, those are just two messages sent with respect and honor.”
“Ha, respect and honor. After what you’ve done?”
“Think about it. Not a single person died of the disease, did they? And the scale of the attack was very modest, even for something like this against Corleone. I didn’t even consider it an attack in the first place.”
──Yes. It was merely to send a message.
“A warning to Corleone for declaring war on the Villain Alliance.”
He’s doing this as a warning?
“You’re insane.”
Parnello beats me to the punch.
Plague bursts out laughing.
“You’re not wrong, because if anyone loves mankind like a madman, it’s me. Heeheehee!”
He comes to a halt, his body shaking with laughter, and lifts his head to look at us.
“Anyway. I’m glad the message seems to have been successfully delivered, and I hope you’ll take this opportunity to reconsider your thoughts in Corleone, so that we can remain as inviolable to each other as we were before──”
“──I refuse.”
“What?”
He looks at me, puzzled by my immediate answer.
“I’ve been wondering since earlier……when did you decide to reject the Villain Alliance’s message?”
He makes a gurgling sound and looks at me from an angle that I can’t even attempt with my human neck.
I slowly walked towards him and said.
“I’m the heir to Corleone, a Hitman, the one who got us into this mess, and──.”
Bringing my face close enough for only him to hear, I whispered with anger and hatred in my voice.
“The man who will hunt you down and kill you.”
“What? What does that mean──?”
Uh-oh──
I crushed the mushroom growing on Nachal’s neck with my hand, and its body lost its strength and collapsed.
“……Wait for me, Plague.”
The Vendetta of Corleone must be more than you can imagine.
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