Kobayashi began searching the enemies' equipment. In the end, aside from short-range radios used for internal communication, he found nothing that could connect to the outside world.
"Tch—useless bunch…" Kobayashi muttered irritably, pacing in place.
Earlier, when he'd been facing a hail of gunfire, his nerves had been stretched so tight that he hadn't bothered holding back. As a result, the enemies he'd taken down were in a truly miserable state.
To incapacitate them in a single blow and prevent any chance of retaliation, Kobayashi had used his psychic power to perform "throwing techniques," smashing their heads into hard surfaces like the pavement or the edge of the flowerbed. One after another, they'd ended up with cracked skulls and bleeding heads—the scene was brutally grim.
And as if that weren't enough, there was still the unlucky bastard by the flowerbed whose head had been blown apart by the sniper, instantly pushing the level of bloodshed at the scene up another notch.
Having witnessed the horrific headshot firsthand, Kobayashi couldn't shake the strange feeling that these enemies with smashed skulls looked as if they'd all been "headshot" too.
And worse—
He was the one who had done this.
That unsettling association, combined with the intensely bloody spectacle from moments ago, made Kobayashi feel waves of nausea and revulsion as the adrenaline ebbed away.
But with the possibility of more enemies still lurking in the shadows, he didn't dare relax—much less bend over and vomit right here. He could only grit his teeth and endure the all-encompassing discomfort, both physical and psychological, while staying on guard.
Under that mounting pressure and stimulation, fear and disgust gradually fermented into anger.
The enemies' continued lack of movement only made the strain worse.
As the saying went, there was no such thing as guarding against thieves forever.
Kobayashi was just about at his limit.
From the moment he'd been attacked by those street thugs, his nerves had been stretched taut—and now, at last, they snapped.
Anger surged up from his chest, malice rising with it. In for a penny, in for a pound.
"Fine," Kobayashi snarled. "If you won't come to me, don't blame me for going to you!"
Scanning his surroundings, he dragged two enemies who seemed to be in relatively better condition off to the side. After waking them up, he began an "interrogation."
Though calling it an interrogation was generous, it was mostly for show.
Despite his fury, Kobayashi hadn't completely lost his head. He knew full well that the greatest threat to him right now was the sniper hidden in the shadows. The other enemies were all "close-range fighters" who needed to enter his line of sight to attack; they were far less dangerous by comparison.
He also remembered clearly that the poor bastard who'd been shot in the head earlier had only met that fate because he'd leaked information to Kobayashi. The sniper had silenced him without hesitation. Clearly, the enemy cared deeply about information leaks—so much so that after relocating to a better firing position, the sniper's first shot hadn't been aimed at Kobayashi at all, but at the "traitor."
In that case, Kobayashi decided to reuse the same trick—to bait the sniper into attacking again.
—Because he needed to lock down the sniper's exact position, then rush over and take him out as fast as possible.
He repeatedly beat the two unfortunate captives with blocks of psychic force, even lifting them and slamming them back into the ground.
But these field operatives really didn't know much of value. Under repeated torment, they'd already spilled everything they could—and it was no different in essence from the information Kobayashi already had.
What he hadn't expected was that the anticipated bullet never came.
No one arrived to rescue them. No one came to silence them either. The dozen-plus enemies before him were treated as if their organization had simply abandoned them.
"Not 'as if'…" Kobayashi suddenly realized. "They probably really have abandoned them."
Thinking about it carefully, he'd taken down more than a dozen fully armed soldiers wielding submachine guns—single-handedly. In his previous life, that kind of combat power would've existed only in movies.
Faced with such a terrifying display of strength, even a ruthless Dark Side organization would consider cutting its losses and retreating.
"No. I'm not letting you get away that easily," Kobayashi growled.
The same logic applied—there was no guarding against thieves forever. He couldn't be sure whether the enemy had truly abandoned the mission for good, or if they were merely retreating temporarily, planning to regroup, upgrade their gear, and come back stronger.
This was about his life—and about whether he could safely lie low and enjoy his new life going forward. How could he afford to relax at a time like this?
—Besides, he'd gone through all this trouble just to come out shopping, and every bit of food he'd bought was ruined…
Looking at the meat, vegetables, eggs, milk, and assorted seasonings scattered across the ground—now coated in dust and even blood—Kobayashi had no intention of salvaging any of it.
"After paying such a high price…" He raised a hand, summoned the overturned wheelchair with psychic force, and settled into it.
"I have to eliminate future troubles once and for all."
The wheelchair launched forward in an instant, accelerating like a bullet.
"That sniper who's ambushed me again and again—I'm not letting him off!"
After bursting out of the street where the fighting had taken place, a flood of noise suddenly filled Kobayashi's ears. Cars and pedestrians came into view—this was what a normal street was supposed to look like.
He had no idea what methods the enemy had used, but the street just one block away had been so quiet it felt like another world entirely.
A wheelchair racing out at over 100 kilometers per hour caused an uproar among the cars and pedestrians.
But this was Academy City. Even a speeding wheelchair was something people could accept with surprising calm.
Besides, Kobayashi was moving far too fast. Before anyone could properly react, he'd already vanished from their sight.
In a city's complex layout, two points that were only one or two hundred meters apart in a straight line could require a long detour on foot, four or five times the distance.
Add in Kobayashi's unfamiliarity with the area, and after weaving through multiple turns, it took him over four minutes to reach the base of the building.
—Based on the bullet trajectory from the sniper's final shot, this was the office building.
Seeing the building's entrance, Kobayashi finally slowed down.
Truthfully, he didn't have much hope left. Including the initial "interrogation," more than ten minutes had passed since the sniper's last shot.
Given that much time, the enemy had probably already withdrawn and escaped. After all, that sniper had relocated with impressive speed before.
In fact, once he'd returned to a normal street, Kobayashi's immediate danger had effectively passed. If he took out his phone now, he'd find full signal bars and could contact Yomikawa Aiho at any time.
But that thought never crossed his mind.
What had carried him this far—what had driven him to stage this absurd "wheelchair drag race"—was sheer obsession and hot-blooded resolve.
In other words, it was the human stress response: the extreme reaction born from sudden danger, prolonged tension, and violently fluctuating emotions.
(End of Chapter)
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