Chapter 30: Return on Investment
Kenta's fingers stopped several inches short of the combat knife.
They scraped weakly against the pavement, leaving thin streaks of blood behind, but his arm no longer had enough strength to close the distance.
I kept the pistol pointed at him and stayed where I was.
For all I knew, his Sigil allowed him to explode.
That would be inconvenient.
"I…"
Kenta's eyes remained fixed on the weapon.
"I thought…" He dragged in a shallow breath. "You didn't get anything from the gacha."
"Oh?"
I glanced at the pistol in my hand.
"Well, I lied. I actually got something."
The RPG beneath my bed briefly came to mind.
Three rockets included.
Still no reasonable place to use any of them.
"But this gun didn't come from there."
I turned the pistol slightly.
Scratches marked the slide. The grip was worn, and the metal carried proof of use that no freshly delivered weapon should have possessed.
"Look at it. It doesn't exactly look new."
Kenta stared at the pistol.
"I already had this before the gacha."
His gaze moved from the weapon to the torn hole in my hoodie.
Then back to my face.
"You're… crazy."
A wet cough interrupted him.
Blood spilled from his mouth and ran down his chin.
His body jerked once against the concrete barrier.
Then the tension left him.
His reaching hand dropped to the pavement.
The combat knife remained just beyond his fingers.
The timer on my phone stopped.
For a moment, nothing else happened.
Then the edge of Kenta's jacket began to break apart.
Small, glowing squares separated from the fabric and vanished into the air.
The effect spread across his shoulder.
Down his arm.
Over the blood covering his chest.
Skin, clothing, and everything beneath them divided into neat geometric fragments, as though the game had stopped recognizing him as a person and started treating him as unwanted data.
I had known this would happen.
Watching it from several meters away was still different.
Kenta vanished piece by piece.
The blood staining his clothes, face, and body disappeared with him.
So did the bullet lodged inside his chest.
What had already separated from him remained.
The thin streaks left by his fingers.
Several dark droplets near the barrier.
The blood he had coughed onto the pavement.
Within seconds, there was no corpse.
Only a dark, human-shaped pattern remained against the concrete where his body had rested.
I stepped closer and examined it.
"So that's what it looks like."
The anime had made the effect seem dramatic.
In person, it was quiet.
Clean, though not quite as clean as I had expected.
There was no body to hide.
Only a combat knife, several spots of blood, and the distorted outline of someone who no longer existed.
My phone chimed.
I pulled it from inside my jacket.
The screen displayed the results.
RESULT
COMPLETE VICTORY
The message changed.
YOU'VE GOT 32 POINTS!!
Thirty-two.
Kenta had challenged me for twenty-three.
Instead, I had taken everything he had left.
The screen returned to my profile.
HIRO TAKAHASHI
D1
55 POINTS
Apparently, crossing fifty had raised my rank.
Three days inside Darwin's Game, and I had already moved from D2 to D1.
Not bad.
Not intentional, either.
I lowered the phone and looked around.
The path remained empty.
Traffic rumbled across the elevated road above me. The sound had probably swallowed most of the gunshot, but relying on that would be stupid.
Someone could still come looking.
The blood on the pavement was a problem.
Cleaning it properly would take water, time, and equipment I did not have.
Remaining here to make the scene perfect would only increase the chance of someone seeing me.
I left it.
The combat knife remained where Kenta had dropped it.
Unlike its owner, the weapon had not disappeared.
I approached and picked it up.
The blade was thick and darkened to avoid reflecting light, with a partially serrated edge and a textured grip designed to remain secure even when wet.
Not decorative.
Not cheap.
A proper combat knife.
Kenta had come prepared to kill someone.
He had simply expected that someone to be less prepared than him.
I closed my fingers around the handle.
Mine.
The connection settled into place.
So ownership could pass after death.
That answered one of my remaining questions.
I concealed the knife inside my jacket.
Before leaving, I reached for the remaining connection at the edge of my awareness.
The ejected casing answered.
A faint metallic scrape came from farther down the path.
Something flashed across the pavement and settled neatly into my waiting hand.
I slipped the casing into my jacket.
The bullet was gone with Kenta.
The casing was mine.
No ballistic evidence remained behind.
Only the scattered blood and the mark on the pavement.
Those would have to stay.
I took one final look around.
Then I left.
I did not run.
Running attracted attention.
I followed the riverside path until the brighter lights near the station returned, then merged with the evening crowd.
Office workers stared at their phones.
Students walked in noisy groups.
A cyclist passed close enough to make me step aside.
Nobody looked twice at the man holding his jacket closed over a ruined hoodie.
Normal life continued only a few minutes away from where Darwin's Game had erased someone from existence.
I kept walking.
—
The apartment looked exactly as I had left it.
Cardboard parcels remained stacked beside the entrance.
The RPG still occupied most of the space beneath my bed.
I locked the door behind me and removed the hoodie.
The front pocket was ruined.
A blackened hole had torn through both layers of fabric, with loose threads hanging around the edges.
I held it up for inspection.
One less hoodie.
Considering the alternative, I had gotten a good deal.
I dropped it beside the laundry basket and placed the pistol on the kitchen counter.
Burnt fabric clung around the muzzle and front sight.
I opened one of the packets of tissues.
The first sheet tore almost immediately.
The second survived long enough to wipe away most of the residue.
I removed the trapped threads, cleaned the slide, and checked the pistol for damage.
Nothing serious.
The tissues had finally justified one of the seven points.
The second packet was still under review.
I placed Kenta's combat knife beside the gun.
It immediately looked more useful than the kitchen knife from the gacha.
That was not a difficult achievement.
My phone still displayed fifty-five points.
At one hundred thousand yen each, Kenta's balance alone was worth more than three million yen.
No wonder he hunted beginners.
Invite someone.
Wait for them to wake up confused.
Offer advice.
Lead them somewhere quiet.
Take their starting points.
Simple.
Profitable.
At least until the beginner already had a gun pointed at him.
I opened Kenta's chat.
The last message remained on the screen.
Kenta: Sure. No rush.
I stared at it for a moment.
Then closed the conversation.
Nothing else there mattered.
Kenta had answered the important questions in person.
Challenges did not require consent.
A complete victory transferred the loser's remaining points.
Bodies disappeared.
Blood that had already separated from them remained.
Weapons stayed behind.
Useful information.
Not information I needed to write down.
I had already recorded too much about my Sigil over the weekend.
Measurements were one thing.
A complete list of what Reclaimer could do was another.
If someone entered the apartment and found the notebook, I would be handing them instructions on how to fight me.
I looked toward the table where it rested.
That could be dealt with later.
For now, I had more immediate concerns.
The pistol had limited ammunition.
The combat knife required getting close enough for someone to use their own weapon.
And the RPG beneath the bed could solve almost any problem, provided I did not care about buildings, witnesses, or the survival of everyone nearby.
Powerful did not always mean practical.
I needed something I could actually carry.
Another handgun.
Body armor.
A compact weapon.
Anything that did not require an evacuation radius.
My eyes moved toward the phone.
The Darwin's Game icon waited on the screen.
"No."
I turned away.
I had already pulled seven times today.
That was enough.
More than enough.
I began clearing the parcels from the entrance.
The comb went into the bathroom.
The raincoat went into the closet.
The adhesive tape went into a drawer.
The kitchen knife joined the ordinary ones in the kitchen.
The two packets of tissues remained on the counter.
I lifted the final empty box and carried it toward the trash.
Then stopped.
The RPG had been Legendary.
Impressive.
Probably extremely valuable.
Also nearly useless under normal circumstances.
Which meant the original problem had not actually been solved.
I still needed a practical weapon.
And I now had thirty-two more points than I had expected to possess tonight.
Using one of them to improve my equipment was not gambling.
It was reinvestment.
I placed the box down.
"This is different."
The apartment offered no argument.
I opened the application.
Fifty-five points.
Spending one would leave me safely above fifty.
Still D1.
No meaningful risk.
One pull.
Then I would stop.
I pressed the button.
The snake appeared.
It leaned backward.
Its cheeks swelled.
A glossy egg flew from its mouth and bounced against the bottom of the screen.
The shell cracked open.
COMMON
Pocket Tissues
A cardboard parcel materialized on the counter beside the other two packets.
I stared at the growing collection.
At this point, I was not even angry.
"Should I just start selling tissues or something?"
The snake mascot continued smiling.
—
Elsewhere in the city, Rain sat slouched in front of her workstation.
Several monitors occupied the desk.
Player profiles filled one.
Location and ranking data filled another.
A third held messages from clients, including a request involving a clan near Shinjuku that had already become more troublesome than the payment justified.
Rain reached into an open packet of snacks beside the keyboard and continued reading.
A small notification appeared in the corner of another screen.
WATCHED PLAYER ENTERED ENCOUNTER BATTLE
KENTA ARAI
Rain glanced at it.
"Oh."
Kenta had found another beginner.
Nothing unusual.
He was a low-level newbie hunter who repeated the same routine whenever he found someone inexperienced enough to trust him.
Send an invitation.
Pretend to help.
Lead them somewhere quiet.
Collect their starting points.
Rain kept his profile marked because information about known hunters occasionally sold to new players, protective clans, or people searching for someone who had disappeared.
Kenta himself was not important enough to watch personally.
The program could handle that.
Rain returned to the client request.
Less than a minute later, another notification sounded.
WATCHED PLAYER DEFEATED
She stopped with a snack halfway to her mouth.
"Hm?"
Rain opened the result.
Kenta's opponent had won.
HIRO TAKAHASHI
Registered: Three Days Ago
Rank: D1
Points: 54
No clan.
One recorded victory.
Kenta had initiated the encounter.
The battle had ended almost immediately.
Rain stared at the profile for a few seconds.
Then ate the snack.
"Guess he finally picked the wrong rookie."
It was not particularly surprising.
New players defeated hunters often enough.
Some received powerful Sigils.
Some already had useful experience before entering Darwin's Game.
Others were simply luckier than the hunter expected.
Most disappeared before their information became worth anything.
Still, marking the profile cost nothing.
Rain added a small tag beside Hiro Takahashi's name.
OBSERVE
If he died during his next battle, she could remove it.
If he survived long enough, someone might eventually pay to know more.
Rain closed the result and returned to the Shinjuku request.
A few seconds later, Hiro Takahashi had already left her mind.
End of Chapter 30
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