The amount displayed on the mobile phone made the green-haired man break into a satisfied smile. “Oh, received, received. As expected of someone from that Explorer School, Explorers really are loaded.”
“This should be fine, right? Thank you for your help. I should get going now, I’m really going to be late for school.” Agata forced an awkward smile. She had only taken two steps when the other men blocked her path.
“I-Is there something else? I already paid…” Agata unconsciously hunched her shoulders, careful not to make any physical contact with them.
She subtly shifted toward the outer edge of the alley. In the next instant, “Huh?” A foot extended from the side struck the back of her knee, which was much lower than the men’s height. Losing her balance, Agata fell backward, her whole body collapsing against the wall.
What’s going on? Her face was a mask of confusion. She tried to push herself up from the ground, but a long shadow fell over her. Before Agata could even lift her head, her snow-white neck was grabbed roughly, and a heavy fist slammed into her abdomen.
“Guh!”
“Not fighting back? Just as I thought. Even though you’re a student of that school, it seems you’re nothing special besides being a good runner.” The green-haired man curled his lips into an ugly smile.
“…Don’t touch me.” To the men, Agata’s words were meaningless bravado. A cheerful atmosphere spread among them.
“You better apologize properly, you bitch!”
While her breathing was still ragged, another fist, driven by brute force, struck her abdomen. The green-haired man let go of her neck. Taking advantage of her dizziness, the men began kicking her. Agata could only protect her head with her hands, careful not to let it get injured. By the time the assault stopped, her clothes were filthy, and tears were streaming from her eyes.
“Why… are you doing this? If it’s about the money…”
The men exchanged glances. Four of them went out to keep watch, while the green-haired man and the other three surrounded Agata.
“It’s not about the money, little sister. It’s about our own problem.” The green-haired man began unbuckling his belt. “That Vice President really scared the shit out of us, made us all run away in disgrace. Can’t be helped. The face we lost, we’ll just have to get back from your nice body… Well, you’re a bit too skinny, not that nice.”
He grabbed Agata’s neck again, lifting her forcefully to prevent her from screaming.
“Mmph—! Let me go… Don’t touch me with your filthy hands! It’s disgusting!” Rather than the violence, Agata’s eyes showed a kind of fastidious revulsion.
“Hey, hey, hey, why are you saying such buzzkill things at this point? You can’t escape anyway. Might as well let everyone have some fun. School doesn’t offer experiences this thrilling.” The green-haired man’s gold necklace glinted with the sheen of sweat.
“Help… don’t touch me.” Agata’s voice was tearful. She was being held up by her neck, her toes barely touching the ground, but her hands kept clutching at the wall.
“Help? No way. Since you sought us out, you must have already expected something like this would happen. You’re willing, yeah, yeah.” The green-haired man produced a folding multi-tool knife and reached toward Agata’s skirt. “A fresh piece like you, at least let me have my fun first, then the brothers can—”
Agata kicked the green-haired man’s left thigh. The green-haired man initially dismissed it as a normal struggle. Until he realized his field of vision was tilting to the left, soon turning into an upward view. Besides seeing the three men beside him looking down at him with frozen expressions, he could also see the sun in the sky at the top of the alley.
“Ngah!” By the time the green-haired man regained his senses, he found himself heavily sprawled on the ground, his left leg bent backward. To be precise, his left leg had flown off to who-knows-where. The cross-section of his thigh looked like a broken sausage, revealing white bone marrow.
Only now did he understand what had happened—Agata had kicked his leg off. The moment he recognized this reality, the man’s bronze skin turned pale with terror.
“I—” The next moment, the shiny, square-toed leather shoe of a schoolgirl sheared off the green-haired man’s mouth. His oral cavity flew to the wall, leaving a concave-shaped gap in his face.
“Really, how many times do I have to say don’t touch me? Can your tiny brains not comprehend human language? Ugly men are just so filthy.” Agata had completely shed her previous pitiful, soft demeanor. Her face now held an iron-like expression of contempt, and the viciousness in her eyes was indescribable.
The remaining three men took several steps back with expressions twisted as if they’d seen a monster. Instinctively sensing danger, they turned and ran without looking back.
At that moment, Agata had just taken out and put on a pair of black gloves from her Ring Chart. In her right hand, held in a reverse grip, was a steel spike also taken from the Ring Chart. In her left hand were four stones. Glancing at the fleeing men’s backs, she threw three of the stones.
“Huh?”
“Ah?”
“?”
The three men appeared in place of where the stones had been, and the thrown stones appeared where the men had just been standing. Before they could comprehend this situation, the steel spike accurately struck the carotid arteries and cervical vertebrae of all three. Black spike in, red spike out. Three strikes total.
Tap, thud, crack. The three stones landed on the ground. The three men fell to the ground simultaneously, each with a penetrating hole in their neck. One man walked in with a lewd smile. “Oh oh, it’s started, hurry up—”
Agata was already in front of him. The man’s final words in life were a meaningless syllable. Agata pulled the steel spike downward, which had pierced through the top of the man’s skull. The man collapsed backward like a puppet with its strings cut, his head leaking fluid like a pierced coconut.
The remaining three on lookout duty were also dealt with by Agata in quick succession. Their bodies didn’t bleed much. Agata dragged them like sacks of cement and piled them up next to the green-haired man.
“So hot.”
Agata soaked paper towels in disinfectant and alcohol and wiped the blood off the steel spike. She used a fresh towel for each wipe. She took off her gloves and wiped them too, wiped her leather shoes, then stored the steel spike back into the Ring Chart. Finally, she took out a handkerchief to wipe her own sweat.
Looking at the pile of eight men stacked like a small hill before her, Agata met the terrified gaze of the green-haired man at the very bottom.
“Huh? You’re still here?” The green-haired man on the ground had bloodshot eyes. Although he had lost his jaws and one leg, he was still alive, being crushed by the weight and blood of his companions.
With a pious expression, Agata slightly closed her eyes, raised her right hand, and opened her palm in a lifting gesture. “Whatever. The outcome is liberation from this world for all. O Lord, great Izabilis, please release my shackles, allow this humble servant to offer you the fruit.”
Agata took off the uniform that had been touched by the men, threw it into the Nest, leaving only her underwear. She then took out a new summer school uniform from her Ring Chart and put it on. Using a small mirror she carried, she touched up her light makeup, applied lipstick, and used a comb to tidy her messy flaxen hair. She shook her head left and right in the mirror to confirm. A fashionable and delicate-looking high school girl was now complete.
“Ahh, you should thank me. Just thinking about sending you ugly men to the Golden Land makes me incredibly nauseous, like the Lord’s paradise would be polluted. Even so, I’m still sending you there. I’m just too good of a person.”
Agata leaned against the wall, typing rapidly on her phone with one hand.
“Sigh, the attendance record I’d maintained with such difficulty until now… gone.” She had a friend inform the teacher she’d be missing one class, using the excuse of that time of the month for girls.
In the corner, the “Nest” extended large, pitch-black branches as if alive, licking up everything—the blood, organs, the very bodies of the eight men—cleansing them meticulously down to the DNA level.