IGTL Chapter 52

Chapter 52 – While Kakeru Was Raking In the Cash, the High School Assailants and Attorney Noume…

“T-The payment for the recovery potions, 11.01 billion Col, has been transferred from the Adventurers’ Guild’s account into Lord Kakeru’s account.”

“Thank you very much. That was an excellent transaction. I look forward to doing business with you again next month.”

“Y-Yes…”

The receptionist forced a stiff smile at my happy grin.

After receiving payment for the recovery potions, I left the Adventurers’ Guild in extremely high spirits.

“Still, that really surprised me. I never thought he’d start screaming, foam at the mouth, and collapse…”

The amount I’d billed in order to receive fair compensation for the recovery potions I delivered was 11.01 billion Col.

The moment the Vice Guildmaster heard that figure, he stormed into the room where the potions were being handed over, spat out a bunch of incomprehensible nonsense, screamed his head off, and in the end got carried away on a stretcher with foam bubbling from his mouth.

If you asked me, he probably had some severe chronic illness.

Being the Vice Guildmaster in charge of holding the Adventurers’ Guild together had to be rough, after all.

Offering a silent prayer in my heart that he might rest peacefully, I decided to head to the beginner dungeon “Sleeping Forest” to restock my Basic Recovery Potions.

“Still, I can’t believe they actually paid the full amount. Well, whatever… For now, I guess I’ll go restock Basic Recovery Potions.”

Standing in front of Transfer Gate “Yggdrasil,” I opened the menu bar and selected the dungeon I wanted to go to.

“Transfer. Sleeping Forest.”

The instant I shouted that in front of the Transfer Gate, blue light enveloped my body, and I was transferred to the vast forest dungeon, “Sleeping Forest.”

Using the map function, I moved to an area where no other players were around, then decided to use the paid item “Monster Respawn” to draw monsters in.

The moment I activated “Monster Respawn,” the ground around me turned red in a wide circle, and monsters began spawning one after another.

“Alright. Elementals, take down whatever comes out. I’m fighting too this time.”

Though really, all I was going to do was fire the Mob-Fenrir Bazooka or smack things around with it.

In this world, your stats rose every time your level went up.

Now that I was past level 150, it would be dangerous not to get a proper grasp on my own strength.

Just as I was thinking that over, a monster modeled after an orangutan, a “Mob-Utan,” appeared in front of me.

“Pyuui, pyuui!”

“Yeah. That cry was definitely unique… Alright, you could die now.”

“Pyuui, pyu… Gwurffeh!?”

I swung back the Mob-Fenrir Bazooka and slammed the barrel into the Mob-Utan with all my might. The Mob-Utan let out a sound no living creature ever should, spun four and a half times through the air, and turned into a dropped Basic Recovery Potion.

It felt like I’d done some honest work for the first time in a while.

Up until now, I’d basically been dead weight, relying on the Elementals for everything so much that I couldn’t even deny it if someone compared me to a useless hanger-on.

Still, beginner dungeons really were beginner dungeons.

The monsters were ridiculously weak.

They were no use at all for measuring my actual strength.

The Elementals were in the middle of an all-out monster massacre too.

Every time a heat ray or a furious gust erupted, monsters kept turning into Basic Recovery Potions.

Still, it was strange.

I’d never really thought about it back when this was just a game, but why in the world did something like an orangutan drop Basic Recovery Potions?

No matter how you looked at it, that made no sense at all, right?

What, had it been carrying the potion around from the start or something?

…No, that couldn’t be it. Right?

The moment that question turned into actual suspicion, the effect of “Monster Respawn” ran out.

While thinking it over and picking up the dropped Basic Recovery Potions, my eyes met those of a Mob-Utan holding one of the potions in its hand.

“P-Pyuui?”

After making that sound, the Mob-Utan ran off with the Basic Recovery Potion.

“H-Hey, wait!”

Why the hell had it run off with the Basic Recovery Potion just now!?

That was mine!

Even so, I was curious why the Mob-Utan had acted like that.

I marked it, then watched its movements with the map function, and before long I picked up a certain reaction.

When I peeked out from behind a tree, I found…

“Fuhahahaha! Useless, useless, useless, useless! An attack like that won’t work on me!” shouted ‘AAAA,’ even as he was getting beaten to a pulp by Mob-Utans.

Amazing. Even after all that power leveling, he was still getting the stuffing beaten out of him by Mob-Utans.

And yet, somehow, he looked happy about it.

Was he a masochist?

Beside him was Kyle, talking about love with the fully materialized yandere girl Merry.

Around them lay a heap of dead Mob-Utans with knives stuck in them.

Maybe because they’d been so brutally slaughtered, the whole area had turned into a sea of blood.

Even the Mob-Utans were too freaked out by that to go near them.

“That’s… kind of incredible…”

I didn’t really know what I was looking at, but it was an absurd scene.

More importantly, what were those idiots doing in a beginner dungeon?

What exactly were they here for??

They were both above level 50.

Now that this world had become reality and item drops had stopped for everyone except me, there shouldn’t have been much point in going into a beginner dungeon anymore.

At level 50, they’d be far better off in an intermediate dungeon.

Well, their thought processes were bizarre, so trying to understand them was probably a waste of time.

For now, I should make sure not to get involved with them.

Having already met next month’s quota for recovery potions, I decided to head back to the Drowsing Inn for the time being.

◇◆◇

While Takahashi Kakeru was in the game world, the high school assailants in the real world were in a juvenile classification home.

A juvenile classification home was a Ministry of Justice facility with fifty-two branches nationwide.

All of the high school assailants had been taken there for protective detention and observation.

As a rule, the detention period lasted two weeks.

In other words, they had to keep their heads down and behave themselves for a full two weeks.

The first day was the worst.

As soon as they arrived at the juvenile classification home, their bodies, clothes, and belongings were all inspected.

The clothing and belongings weren’t much of an issue since they didn’t have much with them to begin with, but the body inspection was another matter entirely.

It was a full-nude inspection.

They even looked at his asshole, and when they made him lift up his own balls so they could inspect underneath them, he’d nearly screamed from sheer disgust.

After the inspection ended, they changed into the classification home’s tracksuits, then went through interviews with classification officers, group and individual psychological tests, and intelligence testing.

Compared to the detention facility, it was far easier to live here, but the thought of having to keep this up for another two weeks was utterly exhausting.

“Yo, Yocchan. I’m done for…”

“Huh? What’s with you all of a sudden…”

“After having them do that human-rights-violating crap to me, there’s no way I can keep living…”

He was probably talking about the full-nude inspection.

Honestly, I felt the same way.

“…Don’t say that. Just hang in there a little longer. Let’s tough it out.”

“Yeah… You’re right. Looks like the lawyer’s moving on our behalf too, so that’s about the only hope we’ve got…”

“Seriously, that’s our only hope… My parents came to see me today, but all they did was bitch at me. Stuff like, ‘We never raised you to be like this,’ and ‘You ungrateful little bastard’… Then, right at the end of it, my old man broke down crying because he got fired from his company. I’m the one who should be crying here…”

“…Same at my place. Sounds like my mom stormed the hotel where that old guy I shook down was staying, and my dad got so furious about it the whole family’s on the verge of falling apart. Seriously, are we gonna be okay…?”

“Damn… Things are getting pretty insane, huh…”

That was the first time I’d ever actually heard someone use the phrase “the family’s falling apart.”

So it really was a thing…

“Sounds like it’s the same for the other guys too. The lawyer who came to see us had his head in his hands…”

“You serious…?”

That wasn’t even the kind of joke you could laugh off.

If the lawyer had already reached the point of clutching his head, that had to be bad.

What was seriously going to happen to us now?

“…I’m worried too, but there’s nothing we can do except leave it to him. About the only thing we can do is keep our heads down and behave.”

“Yeah, I guess so… Oh, looks like it’s almost lights-out.”

“It’s still only nine at night. That’s way too early…”

“Doesn’t matter if you complain. It is what it is.”

Since there was no help for it, they got ready for bed, changed into pajamas, and climbed under their futons.

Life in there felt like some kind of training camp.

The days when they’d been out doing whatever they wanted already felt nostalgic.

Honestly, having to keep up this regimented group life for two whole weeks was brutal.

That said, mornings came early in the classification home…

“Guess I’ll just sleep…”

In the darkened room after lights-out, he pulled the futon up over his head and escaped into sleep.

◇◆◇

While the high school assailants were sleeping in the juvenile classification home, Attorney Noume, their court-appointed lawyer, sat with his head in his hands.

“I-I’m trying to steer this toward a probationary disposition, so what on earth are those people doing…”

For the boys to receive a probationary disposition, stability in the home environment was extremely important.

If that home environment had already collapsed, there was nothing he could do.

“…What in the world are those people even thinking!?”

A probationary disposition was a system in which a juvenile remained in society, commuted from home to school or work, received guidance from the probation office, met with a volunteer probation officer at regular intervals to report on daily life, and worked toward rehabilitation while living under parental supervision.

If the parents themselves were in that state, all of my efforts would be rendered meaningless.

“If only… if only those children’s parents hadn’t gone off the rails, I could still have done something…”

And that wasn’t all.

Lately, consultations from his client company, Amazing Corporation, had also been increasing.

His stress only kept piling up.

“Damn it! What am I supposed to do? What the hell am I supposed to do!?”

At this rate, he would be ground down little by little.

But with things moving this badly against him, there was nothing he could do.

I told those boys I’d find a way…

He felt a surge of anger toward the boys’ parents, who were carefully crushing their children’s futures one piece at a time.

Even so, if he did nothing, the boys would end up in prison for robbery resulting in injury.

As a lawyer known for handling juvenile crime cases, he couldn’t afford to leave a stain like that on his record.

“Uggghhh… What in the world am I supposed to do…”

As he sat there clutching his head in anguish, a brilliant idea suddenly came to him.

“…R-Right! Takahashi Kakeru used to work at Amazing Corporation! If President Nishiki at Amazing Corporation can put me through to him…”

The instant that brainwave struck him, he shot to his feet.

“I can’t sit here wasting time! Tomorrow, I need Ishida at Amazing Corporation to put me through so I can set up a meeting with Takahashi Kakeru!”

Takahashi Kakeru had worked at Amazing Corporation.

If the call came from someone who had once been his direct superior, surely he would agree to talk.

Delighted by the idea that had suddenly dropped into his lap, he turned toward the household shrine and murmured:

“God, please… please let the negotiations with Takahashi Kakeru go well.”