2. The Old Alley
"It is precisely because of human desperation."
Pringle, the know-it-all of Strauss Street, was raising his voice, the veins on his neck bulging with intensity. As he always did when reaching the climax of his speech, he slammed his beer mug down onto the table, widened his eyes, and prepared to spray spittle in all directions like a machine gun.
"For a baseball traveling at 160 km/h to plug exactly into a catcher's chest protector from a distance of 18.44 meters is practically a miracle. Even in that split second, things like stealing bases or the audience's booing torment the pitcher. But do you know what the biggest danger is?
It's the human body. What do you think the odds are that a person can repeat a throw with the exact same angle and force? It's close to impossible. If you apply just a little more force, or if your elbow slips even slightly, the ball arrives at a completely different location. Yet, pitchers repeat that magnificent gesture every single throw as if it were nothing.
That is something no physics or neurology can explain. In a way... it is a kind of miracle."
Pringle could have continued, but his colleague Bracket poured beer into his empty glass, causing him to retract his bulging eyes and regain his composure for a moment. There wasn't a single person in the bar who agreed with him or listened intently, but neither was there anyone who tried to stop or disturb him out of discomfort. Like the radio noise flowing from cars on a jammed road home, his speech was just tedious background chatter to them.
"Ultimately, every pitch is the result of a moment's desperation. That desperate will creates a miraculous streak of strikes. We call this the Law of Attraction. The more vividly you picture a strike in your mind, the closer it gets to reality. The more specific and repetitive it is, the stronger the pull becomes. This is something every human knows but finds hard to practice... like, say, an open secret!"
Seeming to conclude his speech, Pringle completely emptied the glass in his right hand, wiped the beer flowing through his rough beard with the back of his hand, and felt a sense of pride. Just then, a solitary, unpleasant sound of clapping erupted from somewhere.
"A truly magnificent speech. It's not much different from what my 8-year-old nephew read in a book the other day. Hey, old man. But somehow, you seem to lack that desperation in your own work. The bullets you shoot strangely always miss the Madman's head and head for the body. Ah! No, wait! Maybe there's a different kind of desperation you're hoping for? Bwahahaha!"
Herman, who had been watching Pringle from the back table, mocked him as soon as the speech ended, as if he had been targeting him all along. The surrounding area burst into a sea of laughter. Pringle's face turned bright red at the remark, and he gulped down his beer to suppress his rising anger.
'The Old Alley,' located on corner 127 of Strauss Street, was a sanctuary for hunters on their way home from work. Run by the retired Mr. Banner, it was a place where hunters gathered to drink and exchange information. If there was anything different about this place compared to surrounding bars, it was that it operated 24 hours a day, year-round, and a 'Super Hero List' that looked like a menu was hung high up for everyone to see. Above all, it was a shop that received the roughest customers in the world, yet not a single fight had ever broken out.
"Hey, Pringle. Shake it off and have a drink. Is Herman's trash talk anything new? Don't let it get to you, let's just enjoy our booze."
Bracket, a teammate five years his junior, poured a beer with wrinkles crinkling around his eyes. They were white-haired veterans who had lived the hunter life longer than anyone else here.
"Rude punks. Thinking they can act up just because they have the vigor of youth. In my heyday, guys like that wouldn't have even been contenders. Tsk. Age is the enemy."
"Sure enough. When you're young, you think you can do anything. Just because they have more time than us. But you know what the characteristic of those guys is? Even if you gave them more time, they'd invariably come find this bar and fill my pockets."
Banner, the owner who was tending bar for the first time in a while, handed a freshly opened beer to Pringle as he spoke. Pringle's expression, which had been heated just moments ago, softened slightly at the free drink. Moreover, perhaps because it was colder and tastier than the previous one, his anger seemed to wash away quickly.
"Hey, Anderson. You must never get involved with a crowd like that. Old timers like us have enjoyed life enough that we wouldn't have any regrets dying anytime, even if we aren't legendary figures like 'Warlord'. Just surviving in this line of work until this age is a tremendous thing in itself. Guys like Herman would be too busy running away before they could even properly fight if they met a real match. I've seen countless guys like that. The important thing isn't how many you kill. It's how you survive."
Pringle, his mood improved, pushed his philosophy again, striking up a conversation with a young mercenary in a long coat sitting next to him. The young man raised his eyebrows high, looking surprised at being singled out out of the blue. He then smiled sheepishly and raised the beer glass in his right hand toward Pringle.
"Hey, don't worry about that friend. He's probably the most skilled out of everyone gathered here. His name has been on the Super Hero List for months now. Plus, the jobs he takes are all 'Burbking' cases (incidents where the grade is raised due to multiple hunter casualties)."
"A humble fellow. Yeah, I saw a guy like that once. A guy who quietly handled only the big, heavy jobs alone... Hmm... Carl... Yes! Carl Breaker! That's right. It was him. He was another guy who liked to gloomily travel alone. Everyone thought he would follow in Warlord's footsteps and enter the 'Hall of Fame'. Then one day, he disappeared without a trace... Well... that's an old story from over 20 years ago now. Banner! Great drinks today!"
Pringle gathered his gear and left the bar. His face flushed red in the chilly, windy weather.
About a beer's worth of time after Pringle's exit, a strong gust of wind blew through, and a massive man entered the entrance. He stood well over 2 meters tall, his head nearly touching the ceiling, with hair cropped short like a soldier. Herman's group, drinking in the corner, kept a wary eye on the man's figure. He strode over to where the bartender was, gave a light greeting to Banner, and held up one finger as if ordering his usual. Revealed by the lighting, a deep scar ran across the man's face from his left eyebrow to his right cheek. When Banner placed a 500cc glass of beer in front of him, he downed it cleanly in one second as if he had been waiting for it.
"I think some son of a bitch keeps snatching up the jobs I've targeted. I did all the seasoning, but strangely, the last bullet is never mine. Damn it. Hey. Isn't this yours?"
The man slammed the table hard with his right hand. Where his hand had passed lay three silver bullets stained with blood and an empty casing. Anderson glanced at the casing and went back to drinking his beer. The man frowned and glared at Anderson, then picked up one of the casings on the table to examine it closely. On the bottom of the gold-colored copper casing, the words 'Nuckle Bomb' were engraved along the outer circle around the primer.
"But you know. I think the spare rifle I bought recently is defective. I fired the gun, but I can't see the bullets at all. Where the hell are these bullets leaking to!"
A 20-centimeter long silver gun pulled from his right flank shone brightly under the lights. The words 'Nuckle Bomb' were clearly engraved on the barrel. He tilted the gun slightly and popped the cylinder; three of the six chambers were empty.
"Huh? Exactly three bullets are missing. Then did I shoot these bullets? What? Then I was the one who caught it! No wonder the bullets looked familiar. Bwahahaha!!!"
Mac, the 'Fist Fighter of Bilben', slapped his forehead as if asking when he had ever frowned, and laughed boisterously. He had come to Framo from Bilben, Germany, two years ago on the recommendation of Friedman from the Campbell Corporation. The sight of him engaging in hand-to-hand combat against a Nephilim (a physically developed Madman) on his first mission left a huge impression on people, much like his massive physique. Leading hunters invited him to join them, but he continued to travel alone, feeling no need for an assistant.
"Hey, Anderson. Aren't you getting too slack these days? Your name's going to drop off the Super Hero List at this rate. Even if you can't beat me, you shouldn't drag me down, right partner?"
When Mac slapped Anderson's back with his huge hand, beer splashed out of the glass he was holding and wet his shirt. Anderson silently took the tissues Banner handed him and brushed off his shirt. The only hunter the drifting Mac considered a partner was Anderson; a year ago on Pyotr Street, during a brawl with a Madman, Anderson's bullet pierced the Madman's head just as things got dangerous, barely saving Mac. He grumbled about the incident, claiming Anderson stole the prey he had practically caught, but he didn't hate Anderson, who stayed silent even though he knew the truth.
Time pointed to 10 PM. The people who had been drinking since early evening left one by one. Herman's gang had long since vacated their seats. Mac was thoroughly drunk. He was already emptying his 24th glass. At the bar, the night bartender had replaced Banner and was taking out liquor bottles one by one to wipe off the dust.
"The term 'end of the century' seems really appropriate. Killing things that were people just a few hours ago without a second thought, and taking money per head. Feeling euphoria from receiving fair pay for people killing people isn't much different from the gladiators of the Roman era. I suppose if that was just for entertainment, this looks a bit better since there's the good justification of safety for the survivors.
But the Madman was a person, too. Would his remaining friends and family truly feel safe in his death? Humans should have the right to die with dignity. Is hiring people to dispose of them like hunting rabid dogs really a dignified act? Why is it that they have advanced medicine over dozens of centuries and cured countless incurable diseases, yet conclude they can find no answer for the Madmen? Perhaps they are neglecting it because there are more people who need to die than people needed in the world. Maybe they already have the answer..."
The words of a person drinking quietly while watching TV in the corner of the shop rang out clearly in everyone's ears, riding the silence of the quiet shop. Mac emptied his 25th glass and fell asleep with his head on the table right there.
"If you do not doubt, lies become the truth! Only the few who know the truth monopolize the majority's happiness. That is human nature, unchanged in the past or now. And doubting to avoid having that happiness stolen is also a human right. But standing up to power is not easy. Moreover, the majority of fools don't even know their happiness is being stolen, and they despise doubting, thinking of it as merely causing a disturbance. So lies use indifference as a shield to brutally murder the truth. And all that remains in that spot is mockery and ridicule..."
Anderson, too, was in a state where his thoughts had paused after a few drinks. He didn't mind the time flowing quietly like this. It was just that the thought of eventually having to leave his seat and return home through the cold wind like everyone else felt quite bothersome.
What broke the silent time and poured lubricant onto the gears of consciousness was the small vibration sound from the phone in his pocket. The vibration cried out from tables everywhere as if announcing a disaster text.
[Case]
Location: Paul Street Intersection
Target: Male in his 30s
Anderson left money for the drinks on the table and stood up. Mac didn't budge, as if he had completely passed out. Following behind the group of hunters heading for the incident area, Anderson opened the shop door and went outside.