Chapter 6

“Status Close.”

Piko-n!

In response to the words I guessed on a whim, the status board vanished from right in front of my eyes.

“That was close. Good thing it disappeared.”

If a status screen stayed right in front of my eyes the whole time, it would be endlessly annoying, after all.

I was in the park after the rain.

This was where I had just been taught about killers by a girl named Akira.

-Killers go up by 1 level every time they kill a person.
-The targets killed by a killer disappear completely along with everything they were wearing.

“The real sticking point is definitely the last thing I heard, huh.”

-Killers will die if they don’t kill the next person within a week.

“Me killing someone… this is going to be rough.”

While saying that with my mouth, I had already made up my mind in my heart.

Just like Akira told me, I just needed to target and kill bad people.

If failing to do so meant my own life was threatened, then self-defense and necessity should legally apply.

Of course, I had no intention of blabbing about that out in the open, and it wouldn’t be accepted even if I did, but convincing myself of it would at least keep my mental state sound for the sake of mental hygiene.

“I have no choice but to do it.”

Reciting that to myself, I picked up Iijima Yuko’s smartphone, wiped all the videos stored inside, and threw it away into the park pond.

“Yo, Yamato.”

“Oh, morning, Saeki.”

When I went to work the next day, Saeki—my sole peer and childhood friend—put an arm around my shoulder first thing in the morning.

“It’s way too hot today for winter, man.”

“If it is, then stop sticking close to me.”

“Hehe. More importantly, are you okay about that thing from last week? Making you do something as awful as dogeza in front of everybody… the managing director is something else.”

“Ah, I’m not worried about it anymore.”

Yoshida Screw Co., Ltd., where I worked, was a tiny local subcontracting company with a total of twenty employees that looked like it would blow away if a typhoon hit.

Since it was an old-fashioned family-run company where the president was the father, the managing director was the mother, and the senior managing director was the son, all the employees paid careful attention not to hurt this family’s moods.

Normally, the president should be the highest authority, but in this company, the mother serving as the managing director was effectively number one.

Last week, I had been unreasonably forced to do a dogeza in front of all the employees by that very managing director, but every working adult experiences something like that to varying degrees, I suppose.

This company had neither a system nor a department to appeal workplace harassment, and doing something like that would only get you fired under some trumped-up excuse.

Switching gears, I sat down at my desk as if nothing had happened.

“Wazzup, Onitsuka senpai!”

Okajima from the neighboring desk greeted me and tried to force a fist bump.

He was a flashy guy, but he was still a legitimate employee of this company and my kouhai.

“Ah, morning, Okajima.”

I didn’t really care for Okajima’s vibe, so I ignored the fist bump and just replied.

“Morning, Onitsuka-kun.”

Then, Hosotani-san, who sat across from me, spoke up.

“Good morning, Hosotani-san.”

“You’re out making rounds today, too, right? It looks like it’s going to get hot today, so please take care of your health.”

“Yes, thank you very much.”

This woman who worried over me was Kazumi Hosotani-san.

She was a senpai one year ahead of me, but since she was born in March, her age was the same as mine at twenty-four.

She was a pleasant woman who was beautiful yet didn’t let it go to her head.

I had accidentally let it slip to Saeki when alcohol was involved, but I secretly held a fondness for this person.

“You’ll be fine, Onitsuka senpai has got me watching his back!”

“Ah, yup. Okajima-kun, you take care too.”

“Thanks a bunch.”

Nodding his head up and down in a small rhythm as if dancing to a beat, Okajima used honorifics toward Hosotani-san that didn’t sound like he respected her at all.

What do you mean, you’ve got my back?

The reason why I was made to do a dogeza by the managing director last week in the first place was because you behaved rudely toward the client.

Okajima was a guy who couldn’t do his job at all and was always like this, so even though he had only been with the company for three months, he had already caused trouble with many clients.

And my role as his training supervisor was to clean up after him.

Normally, such a useless employee would be fired on the spot, but Okajima was drop-dead gorgeous, so the managing director was extremely fond of him anyway.

Thanks to that, I always ended up getting caught in the crossfire.

Right at that moment,

“Good morning!”

Saeki stood up from his seat and shouted at the top of his lungs, enough to rival a cheer squad.

The start-up time had arrived, and the president’s family had shown themselves.

In response, all the employees stood up in unison.

Greeting loudly in the morning was a company rule, so of course I followed suit.

“ “ “Good morning!” “ “

“Yeah, yeah, morning.”

Bathed in the greetings from the employees, the president entered his glass-walled office in a good mood and unfolded the newspaper placed on the table.

The managing director and senior managing director took seats at desks on the same floor as us and started applying makeup and playing smartphone games, respectively.

This was the usual morning scene at this company.