I went after the first person I saw.

The deathly pale man kept running down the alley.

BANG!

He crashed noisily into a recycling bin. It crumpled as though a car had hit it, but he never stopped.

Telling him to stop wouldn't do any good. I pushed off harder, picking up speed.

"Taxi!"

The man ran out of the winding alley onto the main street, thrusting out a hand.

"Taxi!"

"Aagh!"

A pedestrian he had shoved aside clutched their shoulder and screamed. At the same instant, I caught him by the scruff of the neck. He had been about to run into the road; now he whipped his head around to look at me. His eyes held a fear I couldn't understand.

"Let go!"

Held in my grip, he began thrashing his arms and legs.

"Let go! I don't want to go to the arena!"

What was he talking about?

I doubted any question would get a coherent answer, so I caught his flailing arm. He started kicking wildly at my lower body. Those kicks would have shattered an ordinary person's bones on impact. I tightened my grip on him.

"I'm not sending you to the arena, so hold still!"

"I'll pay back the surgery fees!"

The civilians nearby hurried away from us. Only the pedestrian with the broken shoulder remained, kneeling on the ground and groaning. Keeping a firm grip on the man as he begged me not to send him to the arena, promising to do anything to pay off the surgery, I took out my phone.

I didn't know which organization had jurisdiction over illegal enhanced bodies, but I needed to call an ambulance regardless. He struggled like a madman throughout the call.

How was I supposed to subdue him? Even if I knocked him out and tied him up, I'd be back to square one once he woke.

My problem was solved by the gun a paramedic held out to me after arriving in no time at all. It was a little different from an ordinary gun.

"It's a Green Dream."

"Sorry?"

I didn't understand the paramedic who had abruptly offered me the oddly shaped gun. As I accepted it with a blank look, the other paramedic beside him approached his colleague.

"I think he's a new recruit."

"Ah."

Understanding dawned on the face of the paramedic who had been holding the gun.

"Are you a new recruit?"

"Yes."

"You know, aren't you the one who was in that article?"

The paramedic who had offered that observation studied my face from different angles.

"You're the Badger who rescued the chairman of Cureus, right?"

"Yes..."

So someone remembered that article.

But the paramedic holding the strange gun called a Green Dream seemed utterly indifferent to whether I'd appeared in a news article or a third-rate magazine. He pressed a button on the barrel, showing me the green light glowing through the gaps in the pitch-black gun.

"Then let me explain how to use it."

He sounded like a driving instructor going through the motions.

"It's simple. Press this button here, then shoot the person who's had an illegal enhanced-body procedure."

PFFT!

A dart shot out of the muzzle instead of a bullet, lodging squarely in the neck of the man struggling in my grip. I felt the strength gradually draining from his terrified body.

What?

My eyes widened.

Was it some sort of anesthetic for enhanced bodies?

"The drug weakens an enhanced body's capabilities to those of an ordinary body."

The paramedic gave me a flat explanation as I stared in surprise.

"Like kryptonite for Superman. Use it to restrain illegal transplant recipients."

I accepted the forearm-length gun. Questions, explanations, and learning would all have to wait until we caught the illegal transplant recipients who had scattered everywhere. Hooking my finger over the trigger, I turned to the paramedics.

"Thank you. I'll return it later."

"Give it back to the police."

The paramedic replied in the same flat tone and turned toward the ambulance.

"You'll have to hand the illegal transplant recipients over to them anyway."

Oh, so this fell under police jurisdiction.

I picked up my phone and called them.

I didn't wait for them to arrive. I tore my outer layer into long strips and bound the terrified man's arms and legs, then carefully set him down beside a building on the main street. I'd told the police where he was, so they would come and arrest him.

I hurried away. Heavy footsteps ran chaotically about in confusion. I sprinted toward the ones closest to me.

* * *

Got her!

My fifth illegal transplant recipient.

I caught her clothes and shoved her against the wall. With nowhere left to run, she began struggling frantically in the wrecked alley.

"No!"

She fought desperately, raking her nails down my arm.

"I said no! I'm not going there!"

"I told you, I'm not sending you there!"

How many times did I have to say this?

I tilted my head back to dodge her nails and raised the muzzle. The dart only needed to hit somewhere. With the hand I wasn't using to restrain her, I whipped up the Green Dream.

PFFT!

The dart struck her neck. But she kept struggling. I was getting sick of this pattern. Every time, I had to calm down transplant recipients who cried, begged, and raged that they didn't want to be dragged off to the arena (wherever the hell that was).

This was driving me crazy.

I was in a hurry. Restraining panicked illegal transplant recipients was harder than I'd expected. Around ten civilians had already been injured in the chaos, some seriously.

The problem was, we hadn't even caught half the illegal transplant recipients yet. The police said Badger headquarters had received the report and dispatched a few more Badgers, but I didn't even have time to check who they were.

If only Green Dream contained a sedative too.

Though her strength was gone, the recipient still hadn't calmed down and kept flailing her limbs.

"Get the money from that bastard!"

"I told you, I don't want any money."

I sighed and bound her arms and legs.

"I'm taking you to where the others are, so please keep still."

I hoisted her bound body, slung her over my shoulder, and started running.

"You don't want money?"

The voice coming from my shoulder sounded bewildered. I let my silence serve as confirmation, and her furious struggles slowly subsided.

Still frowning, I ran toward the spot where the police were waiting. Her voice mingled with the wind rushing past my ears.

"Then are you the one who got us out?"

What did she mean, got them out?

I glanced around as I raced through an alley without adequate streetlights.

"Were you locked up?"

"Like animals."

The answer was grim.

"They said they'd send us to a private arena because we couldn't afford the enhanced-body surgery."

Anger filled her eyes.

"They were going to put us in a fucking illegal colosseum!"

CRASH!

A tremendous collision was followed by the sound of concrete collapsing. Another illegal transplant recipient had run into a building. I cursed under my breath and sped up.

Soon my view opened up and light flooded the street. The police were waiting for me on the main road. Seeing me burst out of the alley, they quickly prepared to transport the illegal enhanced-body recipient.

To my surprise, the woman over my shoulder beamed at the sight of the police.

"It really was you who got us out!"

Even as they cuffed her hands, she kept smiling brightly at me.

"You freed us with that red-haired man, didn't you?"

I had no idea where they'd been locked up, who had freed them or how, or what this illegal colosseum was. But there was no time for questions and answers.

"Thanks for your hard work!" I called, turning back around. Leaving the officers bowing behind me, I ran into the darkness again.

* * *

Too late.

Number eleven.

I looked at the man lying dead at my feet. He wasn't an ordinary civilian. He was an illegal transplant recipient. That was a small mercy, but it didn't mean I hadn't been too late. Someone had clearly killed him.

For a moment, I stood motionless in the dark, looking down at the corpse.

A deserted alley in the deepest part of the slums. The buildings enclosing it on three sides were uninhabited. They looked as though a nudge from a rolling compact car would bring them tumbling down. Darkness filled the spaces where windowpanes should have been. The only light reaching this place came from a festival in the busy streets several blocks away.

After standing there looking down at the corpse, I moved. I entered the building beside me. Someone was there in the suffocating darkness.

"We've met once before."

I spoke to the figure visible only in silhouette.

"Shashinsky, I believe you said."

The silhouette turned toward me. For a moment, he remained still as a statue, then began walking slowly toward me.

The steady sound of dress shoes grew louder. Only when he stopped close by could I see his distinctive hair color: blood-red hair, twisted into a half-up tie. His skin was almost as pallid as Yehyeon's.

Eric's agent, who reminded me of a vampire, looked at me expressionlessly, half his body submerged in darkness.

"You have good hearing," he said. "The little Badger with the pink hair tips couldn't hear me."

I gave a faint smile. I didn't bother replying. He would already know why my hearing had improved anyway. Instead, I asked a question.

"Those illegal transplant recipients who said they'd been locked up somewhere. Did you release them?"

Shashinsky remained silent. His silence was his answer.

So this whole situation was Eric Earhart's doing?

Probably only in part. Eric wouldn't be behind the illegal transplants, nor would he have been trying to drag them off to that illegal colosseum. Someone in his position wouldn't bother with anything so petty. That kind of crude business would be the work of a criminal organization.

Eric's part hadn't been locking up the illegal transplant recipients, but letting them out. As someone who loved the unfortunate and took pleasure in saving them, he must have shown those mired in misery a slender ray of light, quietly freeing the illegal transplant recipients imprisoned for failing to pay their surgery fees.

Probably just because he felt like it.

And we were the ones going through hell because of his whim.

"Why kill that man after going to the trouble of freeing him?"

"One must observe certain limits when indulging in a hobby."

Shashinsky answered readily.

"Left alone, he would have slaughtered dozens of civilians."

"Ah."

A reason entirely in keeping with them.

They weren't willing to let excessive civilian casualties turn this into a bigger problem. They had eliminated the illegal transplant recipients likely to cross the line.

But it wouldn't have been a humanitarian gesture. Eric wouldn't bat an eye at a few civilians dying at an illegal transplant recipient's hands.

The third most powerful person in the world. The consciences of people who rose that high operated very differently from those of ordinary people. I thought back to the elder I'd met before.

"Too many victims of illegal transplant recipients would raise questions about the social problems enhanced bodies pose. That would destabilize the Black Badger organization."

Shashinsky didn't dispute my quiet words. I felt a small measure of satisfaction that the theory I'd been mulling over for a while had proved correct.

"It seems even the elders can't undermine Yehyeon's standing as they please. I didn't think their relationship with him was simply one of superiors and subordinate, either."

"Has someone said something that foolish?"

Shashinsky asked in a calm, chilly voice.

"They seem to have no understanding of how power works."

Choi Hyeonseok had seemed short on insight. I smiled faintly and agreed.

"He wasn't cut out to be a businessman."

Lee Yehyeon had the final say on land reclamation. Land-reclamation campaigns were the most profitable venture available at present. The authority to make the final choice of where those campaigns took place would give the Black Badger organization immense power. It meant Yehyeon could decide which elder would make the most money this time.

There was no way he was merely the weaker party.

"The commander-in-chief is a diplomatic genius."

Perhaps my thoughts of Lee Yehyeon showed on my face, because Shashinsky quietly broke the silence. I looked into his ash-gray eyes and smiled faintly.

"Yes. That must be how he's held the position so long. Keeping the organization running smoothly in the face of resentment and anger from civilians who have no choice but to age is impressive too."

"Dangerous privileges must, by their nature, be granted only to a select few."

Shashinsky's voice was ominous.

"Wasn't that the lesson your kind taught us?"

... What did that mean?

A chill settled inside me. A sense of foreboding came over me, something chilling deep in my gut. The fear that if I pursued this subject, something I had tried to forget would come spilling out.

I felt the urge to turn away from the past and settle for a half-complete reality. Caught in a tangle of emotions, I stared at Shashinsky for a long time. Walker's call snapped me out of it.

"Ah, it's Senior Walker..."

"You should go. It's getting late."

Seizing the moment, Shashinsky slipped into the darkness like a shadow.

"The Old Spider won't wait long."

This really was a violation of my human rights.

They were still watching my every move.

Sighing at the elders' entirely unsurprising misconduct, I answered Walker's call, suppressing the foreboding that had suddenly swept over me.