Episode 6 — Whis-Kiss 1
The one who appeared was someone she actually knew from real life — a member of the mafia who'd helped run her orphanage.
"...That's enough out of you."
"Kuh—!"
"You know as well as I do what happens if you keep struggling."
Calmly, he pulled a cigar from his pocket and put it to his lips, just as he was lighting it—
A crisp gunshot rang out, and his body collapsed, disintegrating.
"Wha—? H-hey?!"
Startled, she looked up to find the Professor calmly aiming his sniper rifle.
"Whatever's between you two isn't my concern. The clock's ticking, Sister Grave."
"That man was—!"
"I said it isn't my concern. What matters to me is that I have about twenty-five minutes left to get you out of here."
"...!"
There was no turning back now. She bit down on her lower lip, steeling herself.
To protect the orphanage — the home she treasured more than anything — she was prepared to do whatever it took.
"Damn it... fine then, all or nothing! Everyone dies!"
"D-damn it! Someone do something about that woman!"
"Aaaaaaargh!"
The deafening roar of machine-gun fire shook the surroundings, and security NPCs and Father Masquerade users alike vanished, riddled with holes, in every direction.
As they scrambled to take cover behind walls and inside buildings to escape her merciless hail of fire, she — as if she'd been waiting for exactly this — reached down with the fingers of her gun hand and stroked the side of her nun's habit.
A soft click sounded, and something came tumbling out from inside, clattering onto the ground.
One user glanced up curiously from a window to check—
"G-grenades?!"
A cluster of five or six grenades, pins already pulled, was rolling across the floor!
Naturally, a device that dangerous, set to detonate in three to five seconds — and she'd casually dropped them out from under her habit like it was nothing.
"Here!"
"?!"
With reckless nerve, she kicked each one individually, sending them flying toward the buildings and walls the users had taken cover in!
"Y-yikes?!"
"Sh-shields! Activate shields, now—!"
A horrific explosion tore through the air, and one entire wall of the building shattered and peeled away, while a whole cluster of users caught in the blast were wiped out.
"D-damn... this damn woman—!"
A user who'd survived, pinned under debris, managed to draw his pistol and aim it at her — only to find the muzzle of a heavy machine gun already pointed back at him.
"Sleep tight."
"Y-you! You think our boss is just going to let this—"
"...I'm prepared for that."
Her gunfire cut him off too, and after leveling a few more buildings with grenades, she finally let out a long sigh and stood before the Professor, notably calmer now.
"...Let's go."
"Feeling better, I take it?"
"...Yeah."
While the prisoners continued their riot, the two made their way to a clearing on the outskirts of the city, where they found a heavily modified A3-brand Humvee-type combat vehicle — the "Hammered."
"Hey. It's a job."
He knocked on the driver's-side window to announce their arrival. The window slid down to reveal a girl, dozing off, who — by any reasonable judgment — was unmistakably a minor. She waved.
"...You're the driver?"
"...Yeeah... zzz..."
"...It's a job. Wake up."
"...Mmnh..."
"Hey."
A vague sense of foreboding crossed the Professor's mind and he hesitated to get in, but Sister Grave, with no such reservations, simply climbed into the back seat without a second thought.
"Wake up. It's a job, I said."
"Don't worry... the job's... covered... zzznh..."
"Ngh..."
Why did jobs like this always seem to attract strange women?
Grumbling internally, the Professor opened the passenger door and took a seat.
"I assume you know — you're supposed to get us to the city of Mary's Children."
"........."
Watching the driver, who'd fallen asleep hugging a steering wheel roughly the size of her own torso, the Professor was debating whether he'd have to physically shake her awake, when—
In the rearview mirror, Father Masquerade's users came into view, closing in.
"Over here! She must've fled this way!"
"Find her! Don't let her get away! We need to stall for time!"
They were apparently trying to hold Sister Grave down until at least some of the official-match forces could return, and were charging in with the grim determination of people ready to die for it.
"This is getting troublesome. Hey! Driver! Wake up, now!"
"Mmm... are we going?"
"Yes, right now! Get up, quickly!"
"Okay... okay, I heard you..."
Only then did she slowly sit upright — but instead of looking at the wheel, she reached into the gearbox between the front seats and pulled out a suspicious-looking metal canteen, popping the cap off.
Catching the scent wafting from it, the Professor tried to stop her—
"H-hey. That better not be alcohol—"
"Mmnnh."
She threw it back in one confident gulp. As the liquor hit her system, her eyes changed entirely, and her grip on the wheel tightened. In the same motion, she yanked the gearshift into reverse and slammed her foot down on the gas.
VROOOOM!
"There! That's got to be their vehicle—!"
"Aaaaagh?!"
"It's coming right at us?! M-move!"
She plowed straight through the charging Masquerade users without mercy!
"Ha-ha-ha-ha! You idiots! You think you can shoot up my baby and just walk away? Come back after ten more years of practice!"
The half-asleep girl from moments ago was nowhere to be found — in her place, a punked-out attitude straight out of a post-apocalyptic wasteland, flipping the finger out the window at everyone behind them.
"Hey..."
"Ahh, fine, I heard you! I'll get you two to Mary's Children safe and sound, all right?"
"...'Safe and sound' while driving drunk, huh..."
"...Better buckle up. Unless you want to bite your tongue off."
Reading the provocative grin on her face, the Professor understood with total certainty that this was no joke. He silently found his seatbelt and buckled it — a six-point harness that would've looked more at home in a racing car.
The moment he did, as if she'd been waiting for exactly that, she stomped the gas like she was trying to kick through the floor and launched them forward.
"Kuh—!"
He wanted to complain but didn't dare open his mouth for fear of biting his tongue off. Behind him, Sister was apparently enjoying every second of it, letting out a whoop.
"Yeehaw!"
"...!"
The girl's driving was genuinely astonishing.
Despite being roaring drunk, she tore through a road that was anything but easy — full of curves — with rough but unmistakably precise control. The one downside was that she was pushing 120 km/h and drifting through turns on top of it, which had the Professor feeling something he rarely experienced: motion sickness.
"Damn it... could you drive a little—!"
He barely got the complaint half-out before another burst of acceleration forced him to clamp his mouth shut again.
A trip that would normally take three hours, she cut down to about an hour and forty minutes. Before he knew it, they'd arrived — she barreled the vehicle into Mary's Children's city hall parking lot as if she intended to ram it, then parked with perfect precision.
"Thanks for riding with us, customer?"
Once they'd arrived, she shed a bit of that end-of-the-world attitude and even tried to act cutely charming, in her own scheming way. The Professor just shook his head. Unlike the delighted Sister Grave, the Professor found himself stumbling as he got out.
Once the driver had finished her conversation with a Mary's Children officer and sped off like the wind, the Professor escorted Sister Grave in to stand before the officer.
"You really pulled it off. And bringing back all her gear intact, no less..."
"A 100% success rate isn't a boast. It's 100% because I handle every job — no matter what it is — without a single flaw."
"...Father."
Even having finally arrived at the place she'd wished for so long, her expression wasn't bright. She immediately ran to the officer — who held the title of Father in real life — grabbed the hem of his robe, and collapsed into it.
Uninterested in the scene, the Professor simply left, with no idea what this particular contract would ultimately bring him down the line.
He was walking toward the bus stop when a loud, horn-blast-like honk sounded from a familiar-looking Hammered parked along the roadside.
"Hey! You there!"
"........."
He tried to just walk past, but she reached out the window and actually tried to grab him!
"Cut it out. The job's over."
"Aw, come on— just come talk to me for a second!"
Unable to shake her persistence, he ended up in the passenger seat again. She grinned brightly and immediately held something out to him.
"...?"
"A business card."
What she'd handed him was a card that doubled as a business card and payment device — a common item among mercenaries. When you swiped it during payment, the fee went straight into that mercenary's account. The Professor himself handed these out to regulars from time to time.
"...Why are you giving this to me?"
"Heh, I mean, Codename Professor's one of the most famous mercenaries on this whole server, right? Figured if you ever need a driver, feel free to use me."
Networking, in other words.
The Professor shook his head. He'd never taken on jobs big enough to need a driver.
The way he maintained a 100% success rate was by never accepting a job he wasn't 100% certain of from the start.
"I have no use for it."
"Then why'd you use me on this one?"
"Mary's Children hired you, not me. I simply made use of what was available."
He tried to hand the card back, but she shook her head and refused to take it.
"It's fate that we crossed paths like this, so keep it."
"........."
"And — want me to escort you the rest of the way?"
"........."
A bad feeling crept over him, and the Professor moved quickly to throw open the door and flee — but she grabbed the hem of his coat and yanked him back, puffing out her cheeks.
"Where do you think you're going?! A cute girl like me is offering you a ride, and this is what I get?!"
"You're drunk driving! I decline!"
"Grrr! Just sit down and behave!"
After a brief struggle, the Professor ended up back in the passenger seat, guiding her toward his territory. Given the nature of his work, drawing attention was something the Professor loathed above all else — and bickering with a pretty girl in the driver's seat was, for him, sheer agony.
"So this really is a neutral zone. Guess that's how you managed to avoid being wiped out this whole time?"
"Hmph. I haven't run this operation carelessly enough to let that happen."
Freelance mercenaries like the Professor were a rare breed. Operating as a mercenary in this particular server — a conflict zone — without the backing of a major faction was extraordinarily dangerous. The nature of the work meant you inevitably made enemies of some faction or another, and hostile factions would routinely go hunting for mercenaries as targets. It was standard practice, then, to align yourself with a suitable faction and take on most of your jobs from within their sphere.
But the Professor had made his nest in a neutral zone and had maintained his stable status as a freelancer for several years now.
"Stop here. We can't go any further by car."
"Huh? Why not?"
"...If you want to go up in a fireball along with the car courtesy of an anti-tank mine, be my guest."
"...?!"
They'd arrived at a small forest backed by a low, thickly wooded hill. Between the woods and the hill was a clearing, and standing there was a roughly three-story house built to look like log cabin construction. Electrified barbed-wire fencing ringed the surrounding forest, and the only path to the house was a winding trail about three meters wide.
Stepping out of the car, the driver known by the codename Whis-Kiss caught sight of a large stone tablet.
"What's this slab about?"
"...The rules."
"Rules?"
"Yeah. Rules for anyone requesting a job from the Professor."
[The following must be observed:]
— The client must come alone.
— The only permitted approach is the footpath.
— No weapons of any kind permitted.
— Violators will be shot on sight.
"Wow, you've been running your business like this the whole time?"
"Of course. You know my franchise."
"Whoa..."
Shaking her head, unable to comprehend him, she watched as the Professor began walking up the footpath. She tried to follow, taking a step forward—
"That's as far as you go."
The Professor suddenly turned and stopped her.
Whis-Kiss pouted.
"Wait, why? I gave you a ride and everything — not even one cup of tea?"
"...I assume you read the tablet just now."
"What about it?"
"If more than one person is moving along that path—"
Ignoring the Professor's warning, she took one more step forward — and immediately, from somewhere in the forest, a warning beep sounded, followed by a bullet screaming toward her!
—To be continued—
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