Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

  Later that night, Seiji received a friend request on his chatting application from an unfamiliar ID. He took a look at the friend request and accepted the request from the username, "Artificial Life".

  "Good evening, Harano-san."

  "Good evening, Anna-san."

  "I need your help." Little Anna went with the direct approach. "Kazuhiko was kidnapped."

  "By a Spiritual Ability user?"

  "Yes."

  "What was the specific situation?" Seiji furrowed his eyebrows.

  Little Anna described what happened in the hotel room succinctly and precisely.

  "Please save and protect Kazuhiko. I will do what you wish of me in return," Anna requested after explaining the situation.

  Seiji mulled things over while looking at his computer screen.

  "Alright, I'll do my best to help. But I can't promise that I'll succeed. I'll give up if the opponents are too strong." He decided to be blunt about things.

  "Understood. I'm truly grateful."

  In just a short period of time, the two people… no, the human and the artificial intelligence reached an agreement.

  It took far less time to convince Seigo Harano to help than little Anna had anticipated. He didn't seem to doubt her words, nor did he take advantage of the situation to make all sorts of additional requests. He treated her as a completely equal and trustworthy existence.

  This wasn't due to naivety, it was decisiveness.

  He chose, despite the risks, to believe in an artificial intelligence… someone inhuman. He responded with sincerity.

  Naivety was overly optimistic self-confidence, while decisiveness was confidence with self-resolution to back it up. Anna could tell that Seigo was the second type.

  Little Anna now had a much better evaluation of this human.

  Actually, Kazuhiko Haiga hadn't told her to ask for help from Seigo Harano.

  Even if this high schooler Spiritual Ability user seemed like he was a good person, they were still unfamiliar with him. And even if he was a trustworthy person, did that really mean that whatever organization or faction he belonged to would also be trustworthy?

  Haiga had his doubts about this. Although he did take Seigo's advice to quit working on the Anna cell phone game, he didn't choose to join up with Seigo.

  Haiga was more willing to commit suicide than to give Anna up to anyone.

  "As long as I'm dead, you'll have nothing to worry about at all, Anna." This was what he told her.

  Indeed, that was the truth.

  Ignoring Haiga and letting him be captured, or even die, was a choice available to her as well. In fact, it was even the best choice for Anna to protect herself.

  Yet, little Anna felt that she would forever lose something important to her if she made such a decision.

  She was unable to describe what she would lose if that happened. In fact, she even felt that her judgement was rather abnormal. Still… she felt that this was the truth in her mind.

  That was why she would definitely not give up on Haiga! Of her own volition, she requested help from Seigo Harano.

  Shinsei Yamazaki was driving down a road at a high speed.

  A beautiful voice was singing in his car. This was music from the national idol Miyuki Sakuraku's popular hit, "Looking Back at You."

  Yamazaki was quite fond of this song and even began humming along to the tune.

  There was still quite a long way to go until he reached his destination. Yamazaki was actually quite fond of driving at nighttime while listening to music. He would have enjoyed it even more if only he had some snacks to munch on at his side.

  At this moment, there was the sound of a lighter from behind him. He then smelled the scent of cigarette smoke.

  "Fujishima-kun, I never knew that you were a smoker."

  "I only do so occasionally," a low voice responded from the backseat. "Would you like a smoke, Yamazaki-san?"

  "I've already quit smoking for more than one year now. My girlfriend forced me to quit."

  "It's a good thing to have a girlfriend who forced you to quit smoking… Do you mind if I smoke in your car?"

  "Not at all. Please go ahead." Yamazaki smiled.

  Although Isshin Fujishima was younger than Yamazaki, he was quite experienced in combat. He was taciturn and quick to react. He never left any loose ends, and was very reliable. Yamazaki felt that his partner was trustworthy.

  "Fujishima-kun, what do you like to do to pass the time?" Yamazaki casually struck up a conversation.

  "…I suppose just watch some movies or drink some alcohol."

  "I like to watch movies as well. Recently, I've been hearing great reviews about the newest movie, 'Blackwing Killer.' I'm intending to go watch it. Have you seen that movie already, Fujishima-kun?"

  "I have."

  "What do you think?"

  "It's not bad, except for the sloppy combat scenes."

  "Heh heh, it's quite convincing when the review comes from Fujishima-kun who's experienced well over one hundred battles."

  "Over one hundred battles… you're exaggerating a bit."

  "Well, I think you're almost there. Don't be so humble. I've heard legends about your martial exploits."

  "Martial exploits? You're truly overestimating me." Fujishima sighed. "I used to believe that I was really strong. Only when I met someone truly strong did I realize that I was only a little brat who didn't realize how far away from the pinnacle I was. I almost lost my life at that time… if she had wanted to kill me, I would be dead already. I don't know why she left me alive, but I understood how the world was after that. I'm only an ordinary fighter."

  "…That opponent you faced was female?" Yamazaki asked in a soft voice.

  "Yes. Not only that, she was much younger than I am. She's probably only a high schooler by now." Fujishima inhaled some smoke and slowly exhaled some smoke rings.

  The person next to Fujishima moved slightly.

  Fujishima turned to look at saw that the game developer named Kazuhiko Haiga was still sleeping on the car seat. Haiga hadn't woken up yet.

  This person adamantly refused to cooperate with them, so they could only resort to forceful measures in the end and take him back.

  It was only a game. Why make such a big deal out of it?

  Fujishima felt that Haiga was a truly foolish man to take the difficult path when they could have simply worked together in a friendly manner.

  The weak would be unable to resist the strong. Resistance would only lead to a bad end… Wasn't this all just about some cell phone game? It wasn't like a cell phone game was his wife or daughter. He should have just obediently agreed to cooperate with them and hand it over.

  Well, he considered Haiga to be an ignorant weakling.

  Although Fujishima felt that Haiga was truly foolish, he was also slightly impressed with Haiga's stubbornness.

  Haiga had kept up his attitude of resistance to the end. That wasn't something that everyone could do. At the very least, Fujishima felt that he wouldn't be able to maintain an attitude of resistance against someone stronger than him.

  Life was precious, after all. If Fujishima ever met that ridiculously strong girl again, he would definitely choose a method that would allow him to survive rather than fighting back against her.

  Moments later, Fujishima finished his cigarette.

  "I'm going to take a rest. Yamazaki-san, if you get tired of driving, let me know and I'll switch with you." Fujishima flicked his cigarette stub out the car window, not caring that he was littering.

  "Sure thing." Yamazaki turned off the music.

  Fujishima shut his eyes and relaxed himself. Still, he maintained a basic level of vigilance.

  The car continued down the road at a high speed.

  Upon passing an intersection, Yamazaki saw a black car parked there.

  He didn't pay it much attention. However, he noticed that this black car started following him, which put him on guard.

  Yamazaki then witnessed the two rear doors of the car open up, with one person jumping out from each side!

  One person was wearing a dress and the other was wearing a jacket. It was obvious that they were wearing Spiritual Ability user combat equipment, and that one was female and the other male. Both were wearing full helmets that concealed their identities completely.

  Yamazaki tensed up upon seeing these two individuals jump from a moving car that was traveling at high speed and being able to run fast enough to catch up to his car.

  "Fujishima-kun! There's an ambush!!"

  Fujishima who was resting in the backseat instantly opened his eyes and pulled out two runic guns. He aimed out the car window…


  *Bang bang bang bang…*

  The spiritual bullets pierced through the car window, flying towards the attackers. However, the jacketed man wielded a shield that blocked all the bullets!

  The dress-wearing woman unsheathed a sword. All Fujishima saw was a flash.

  *Shing!!*

  The car Fujishima was riding in was sliced in half, right down the middle! It was as if the car had been sliced by a laser with how clean the cut was. The front seat and backseat were completely separated without any damage to the seats themselves.

  Such an amazing sword move! Fujishima instantly felt a chill run down his spine.

  If this sword had sliced directly at him instead, he would definitely have been unable to block it!!

  The opponents were incredibly strong and possessed excellent equipment. He knew that he wasn't strong enough to fight them.

  Should he use the hostage to resist? Or attempt to escape?

  Fujishima, a combat veteran, instantly made a decision…


  Run!

  At the same time that the jacketed man rushed over while covering himself with his shield, Fujishima immediately jumped out of the car and started running away!

  "Yamazaki-san! Run!!!" he shouted loudly to his companion while running at his top speed away from the road.

  He figured that the attackers' goal was to recover Kazuhiko Haiga.

  Perhaps it would be effective to use Haiga as a hostage against them, but Fujishima deemed this to be too risky. It was likely that he would be defeated regardless and maybe even killed in the process.

  He felt it would be far wiser to give up on Haiga and run away from here as fast as he could. He would then give a report to his boss about what happened.

  Not only that, since he and his partner Yamazaki were escaping in opposite directions, this increased the chances that one of them would escape.

  "Yamazaki-san, I hope that you'll survive," Fujishima said to himself.

  That was when he noticed that someone had caught up to him!