Kazuki Hanatsubame flinched, jerking backward with eyes full of terror.
“I… I’ll pay you back! Just give me a few more days! Please don’t tell the manager…”
Looks like she’s been terrified by debt collectors.
“No, no, no! It’s not about debt collection!”
Scale quickly waved his hand, pulling a crumpled recruitment notice from his pocket.
“Our boss wants to hire you.”
“Hire me?”
Kazuki Hanatsubame froze, cautiously peeking out.
“What kind of job?”
“Uh… an image ambassador.”
Scale forced himself to read the lines Gluttony had given him.
“We’re Fukuzawa Special Environment Cleaning Company, dedicated to maintaining urban hygiene and environmental protection… We think your image perfectly matches the temperament we need.”
“Monthly salary of 100,000 yen, free room and board, plus social insurance and housing fund.”
Kazuki Hanatsubame stared blankly at the recruitment notice, then at the terrifying but surprisingly “innocent”-looking weirdo in front of her.
100,000…
She worked part-time at a convenience store for only 20,000 new yen a month, and she still had to pay off the high-interest loans she’d taken out to buy calming medicine.
“I don’t have to be a hostess, do I?” she asked in a small, cautious voice.
“No! Absolutely not!” Scale patted his chest. “Our boss is a woman! And… even though she looks fierce, she’s actually pretty nice.”
……
When Kazuki Hanatsubame came nervously to the cleaning company, Gluttony was sitting in the boss’s chair, playing with a black envelope in her hand.
It was a small task just sent by Toudou Daigo.
Seeing the once-radiant girl now reduced to this state, Jiang Jian Yue sighed softly beneath her mask.
“Sit.”
Gluttony pointed to the chair across from her.
“From now on, you’re the receptionist and image ambassador here.”
Gluttony didn’t waste words and directly tossed a contract over.
“You don’t have to do heavy work. Just dress up nice every day, sit at the entrance, and smile.”
“And give me all your high-interest loan bills. The company will clear them and deduct the amount from your salary over time.”
Kazuki Hanatsubame held the contract, her hands trembling the whole time.
“Why…” She looked up, tears brimming in her eyes. “Why are you helping me? I… I’m already a waste. I can’t even sing anymore.”
“Because I think your face is still presentable.”
Gluttony’s tone remained icy.
“And I need someone to offset the ugliness of these monsters, so we don’t scare off the customers.”
As she spoke, she gestured toward the group of Semi-Devourers peeking in from the doorway.
Those terrifying-looking creatures were now scratching their heads awkwardly, some even trying to cover their fangs with their hands.
Kazuki Hanatsubame watched the scene, and her originally fearful heart strangely calmed down.
This place might also be a monster’s den.
But it seemed… a little warmer than the society outside.
“Th… thank you, boss.”
She bowed deeply and left the office, but still couldn’t hide the sting in her eyes, wiping tears at the closed door.
The monsters that had scattered when she came out now circled back, exchanging glances.
Hei Chuan thought for a moment, pulled a pack of paper towels from his pocket, and handed a few sheets to Kazuki Hanatsubame.
“…Thank you, thank you all.”
……
After settling Kazuki Hanatsubame, Gluttony picked up the black envelope again.
She tore open the seal. Inside was only a photo and a set of coordinates.
The photo showed an abandoned unfinished building area, cordoned off with yellow warning tape.
[Task: Clean up the rat nest near Kanda River, Chiyoda Ward]
[Note: This area is involved in a certain parliamentarian’s real estate development plan, but has been occupied by a group of unregistered illegal superhumans. The police cannot intervene easily. Thorough cleanup is required.]
This was Toudou Daigo’s token of submission to her.
If she did a good job, she could get in touch with the so-called LDP liaison and obtain the ticket to legitimate power.
……
Ten minutes later, near Kanda River, Chiyoda Ward’s rat nest.
Everyone who could still stand was kneeling in a row obediently.
Through a not-so-gentle “exchange,” Gluttony roughly understood where these people came from.
This wasn’t just a group of illegal superhumans.
It was a mutual aid society—or rather, a refugee camp—made up of border crossers who had sneaked across.
Most of them came from Southeast Asia, India, Afghanistan, and other Pacific island nations.
“Serys… we couldn’t get in.”
La Ji, originally from India, explained tremblingly in broken Japanese.
“Serys has been providing blood transfusions to us treaty nations, building railways, power stations… But even so, life couldn’t return to what it was before the Euro-African War.”
The economic winter brought by the global collapse was devastating.
Although Serys, as a behemoth, was supporting the economic cycle in East Asia and surrounding areas, resource scarcity and the deteriorating external environment had spawned extreme high-pressure management.
“Serys’ control over superhumans is too strict. Whether it’s illegal immigration or regular immigration, the screening is so harsh it’s despairing. If you’re found to have tendencies toward illegal entry, you’re directly deported, and in serious cases, you might even be…”
La Ji shuddered, not daring to continue. “We just wanted to live a little better. New Japan was one of the few choices left.”
So they chose to sneak across borders.
Crossing blockade lines, risking their lives at sea, and finally sneaking into Tokyo like rats.
Gluttony listened to this intel, her expression beneath the mask unchanging.
But Jiang Jian Yue’s soul stirred at that moment, with an indescribable complex emotion.
The Euro-African War.
This war had completely reshaped the world and destroyed the normal lives of this generation.
In the outside world’s perception, one of the war’s triggers—the geopolitical conflict between the so-called DRG and the European Union—seemed as cold as words in a history book.
But she had personally seen DRG’s construction in Africa. The feeling of having personal contact was different.
Jiang Jian Yue closed her eyes, her mind conjuring that red land.
DRG wasn’t looting—or rather, the looting was far less than the construction.
In the dozen countries they controlled in Central Africa, they were pushing forward genuine modernization.
She had watched those dark, skinny children drink clean water for the first time, watched muddy dirt roads turn into wide asphalt highways, watched the locals hold DRG flags, cheering and loving her from the bottom of their hearts.
At that time, she genuinely believed that DRG—whether it was the life-and-death Board of Directors, her father’s Honke Faction, or the locally trained talent in Central Africa—was at least doing the right thing.
The order and prosperity DRG brought were far more righteous than those Western politicians who preached human rights while dropping bombs.
If it weren’t for those damn Worm Hearts…
The abuse of superhuman technology and the loss of control over monsters turned conventional warfare into an irreversible supernatural meat grinder.
That war would never have been fought so brutally.
The world wouldn’t be this riddled with holes either.
All the root of suffering is the Mind Worm.
This high-dimensional parasitic curse is the culprit that twisted this world.
Gluttony’s gaze gradually turned cold and resolute.
She hadn’t done wrong. It was this world polluted by the Mind Worm that was wrong.
As long as the “Bug Extermination Plan” was completed and the source of this power was completely eradicated, humanity could return to the right track.
Even if she had to bear more infamy, it was worth it.
……
Sato Ai snapped back to her senses at her workstation and picked up her phone.
On the screen was a short message from Yinggu Ju.
【We’re going to Australia with Predecessor Yuki! Sato-sister, don’t go to that scammer group these days!】
Jiang Jian Yue’s heart jolted.
‘Wait, they’re going to Australia… Dark Crows?’
‘Why didn’t “Chan Tui Z” update this part of the plot! Shouldn’t this kind of location-switching plot be placed at the end of an episode?’
Jiang Jian Yue realized she had relied too much on the Chan Tui animation’s intel.
She quickly reminded Koizumi Shunsuke to contact the Dark Crows in Australia and warn them to be careful of Yuki Asahi.
After pondering for a moment, Jiang Jian Yue decided to mobilize the forces in Madagascar.
Just like the historical factions that had retreated to the south, they had brought some assets to the Southeast Asian islands.
Sen Tian Baba still had some DRG legacy and personnel that could be deployed.
The Shock Core was very important to her plan and could not afford to be lost.
After having Koizumi Shunsuke notify Sen Tian Baba, Jiang Jian Yue still felt it wasn’t safe enough.
She needed SAAC to shift their focus away from Australia, at least to trick some forces away.
So what did the Pacific Treaty consider important?
Jiang Jian Yue grabbed her messy long hair and began searching for the latest status of the Crimson Plan on the notebook in front of her.
The newest news online was only from a few months ago—a report about the Dark Crows attacking the Crimson Plan site.
It seemed to have fallen silent?
……
At the Crimson Plan site south of Kandahar, the pit remained heavily guarded.
Yellow warning tape fluttered noisily in the sandstorm, and SAAC soldiers’ guns were always aimed at the pit entrance.
But now, the bottom of the pit was no longer dead silent—Li Yue, sent by the home country as a Guardian, had arrived three days ago.
He wore a simple gray uniform, his figure tall and straight like a pine, with deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
His presence slightly eased the tense atmosphere.
Li Yue personally directed three explorations.
The first time, he walked alone into the depths of the pit, his palm gently touching the rock wall—no anomalies appeared.
The second time, he led a team to scan the area around the giant egg with a scanning device—no anomalies appeared.
The third time, SAAC engineers inserted sensors around the giant egg—still no anomalies.
All three explorations found nothing unusual, but the SAAC personnel didn’t dare relax.
After all, that’s how it works in horror movies—nothing goes wrong the first few times, but something always breaks at the critical moment.
Today was the critical moment.
The excavation team, clad in heavy protective suits, manipulated a robotic arm that slowly extended toward the egg.
Li Yue and a squad of Concept-type ability users retreated to the edge of the pit wall, waiting.
The SAAC excavation team had held multiple meetings to formulate risk assessments and prevention measures—fortunately, Serys had a large population, giving them enough Concept-type ability users to cope with emergencies.
The alloy clamp of the robotic arm carefully gripped the egg.
Crackle—
A faint static sound arose, making everyone’s hearts leap into their throats.
But the eggshell only gave off a faint glow, which then faded.
The robotic arm rose steadily, transferring the giant egg into a special refrigeration container—a lead-alloy box covered with condensation pipes.
The moment the container door closed, the temperature plummeted, and the egg’s pulsation grew weaker.
“Sealing complete!”
Cheers erupted from the command center far outside the site. The first step had finally been taken!