IGTL Chapter 30

Chapter 30 – The Parents of the Assailants Come Barging All the Way to the Hotel

“Whew. That was delicious.”

As expected of the tavern attached to the Adventurers’ Guild. It was basically a parade of dishes you couldn’t eat or drink in the real world.

My stomach was full, and the Elementals looked satisfied too after polishing off the Peroperosaurus TKG. Time to go.

“All right then, Izabel. You’re covering the bill here, okay?”

“Y-Yes…”

Izabel answered my prompt with the kind of dejected voice you’d expect. In the end, he tried to bolt three times before I even finished eating. Each time, the Elementals stopped his escape, so both his body and his clothes were in tatters.

Seriously. I went out of my way to warn him, and he still managed to ruin my goodwill.

Well, if I made an example out of him publicly, maybe fewer adventurers would try to pick fights with me.

Or rather, they’d better. If I kept buying every stupid brawl that came my way, I wasn’t going to last. Granted, the Elementals handled most of it for me.

After handing Izabel over to the Adventurers’ Guild staff, I headed straight for the inn.

The place I was going to was an inn I’d shaken down from the “Land Shark Main Office.” With the whole Refri Jilator situation, I needed to hire security sooner rather than later…

Maybe because I had alcohol in me, yawns started slipping out on their own.

For today, I’d log out and go to sleep already…

Using my Owner Privilege, I secured the best room at the “Drowsing Inn,” the inn I’d taken from the “Land Shark Main Office.” The concierge guided me in, and I lay down on the bed.

“Lord Kakeru, please enjoy a relaxing day at the ‘Drowsing Inn.’”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Once I confirmed the concierge had shut the door, I opened the menu bar and pointed my finger toward the logout button.

“Whew. Drinking in DW is pretty nice too.”

After logging out, I muttered that while sprawling on the bed. The Elementals flew around me in every direction, practically screaming their agreement.

They’d taken good care of me, after all. Next time, I’d show them the food from this side.

While I lazed around thinking about that, a pleasant wave of sleepiness rolled over me.

The clock read 9:30 p.m.

It felt a little early, but I’d sleep for today.

“Night, Elementals…”

Murmuring that, I slowly closed my eyes and let myself sink into the Simmons-branded bed.

◇◆◇

When I woke up in the morning and checked the clock, it was 8:00 a.m.

“Fwaaah…”

I yawned and stretched. I felt like I’d slept forever…

But now I was sleepy because I’d slept too much. Or maybe the alcohol from yesterday was still lingering.

Without thinking too hard, I pulled my smartphone out of Item Storage, tapped the icons for my mobile social games, and collected my login bonuses.

After launching four different social games and grabbing the login bonuses, I put the phone back into Item Storage and slowly sat up.

“For now… I’ll just take a shower…”

My head felt so foggy I couldn’t muster the motivation to do anything. With a bath towel in hand, I stepped into the shower room, washed my hair with the provided shampoo and rinse, and scrubbed the grime off my body with body soap.

Normally, I’d go soak in the open-air bath closest to the night sky, the “Sky Spa,” but I decided against it. I don’t know, my brain wasn’t working and it felt like a hassle to go that far. If all I needed was to get clean, a shower was plenty.

After rinsing off the suds, I grabbed the towel and dried myself.

“Whew. That hit the spot…”

I changed into fresh clothes, dried my hair with a blow-dryer, then pulled my smartphone out of Item Storage again.

And the moment I looked at the screen, I sighed.

“Hah… so it is that…”

I’d intentionally ignored it earlier because I was half-asleep, but now that I was awake, I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t seen it. My screen was flooded with calls from unknown numbers. Every so often, the name of Attorney Noume, who I’d set to blocked, also popped up.

“Ugh… no way… Do I seriously have to listen to these?”

This was definitely direct calls from the parents of the high schoolers who mugged me and stole my thirty-million-yen scratch-off ticket and my wallet. My voicemail showed thirty messages. More importantly, how did they even get my phone number? Did Attorney Noume leak it?

Honestly, all I wanted was for those high schoolers to get punished appropriately…

I mean, come on.

Mugging is robbery resulting in injury, isn’t it?? Five high schoolers ganged up on me, beat me up, and on top of that, they hit me with a bicycle pump they found nearby, then stole my thirty-million-yen scratch-off ticket. As the victim, I couldn’t accept anything less than a fitting punishment.

As for apologies, I’d listen after they served their sentence. Apologizing just to get a lighter sentence is putting the cart before the horse, isn’t it? I didn’t want to hear the assailants’ “sorry” when they hadn’t even been punished yet.

Why were laws built to be so kind to assailants, anyway?

I’d heard that if the assailants didn’t have a record, then, just because they “seemed remorseful,” they often got a reduced sentence, and, in the end, they didn’t even have to go to prison.

Protecting the assailants’ human rights might be important, sure, but did nobody realize the victim’s human rights, the ones belonging to someone with absolutely no fault, mattered more?

Japanese law is genuinely baffling.

“Well… thinking about it won’t change anything…”

For now, I searched the numbers online and checked them one by one.

“Yeah, this one’s probably another direct call from the parents of the kids who mugged me… Huh? This one’s… Wait, what? YABAI Detective Agency??”

Was it some kind of partner office of Attorney Noume’s firm? Either way, it reeked of trouble.

I’d ignore both Attorney Noume’s office and YABAI Detective Agency for now, and start by listening to the other voicemails…

I dialed into the voicemail service and played back the recordings.

“You! Answer your phone!! Where are you!? We’re going through hell over here! Don’t mess with us!!”

“What do you mean you won’t negotiate! Do you have any idea how many times we’ve called!?”

“Are you really going to ruin a kid’s future over one mistake!?”

“Unlike you, we’re busy! Hurry up and accept a settlement!”

“………”

My mood turned absolutely rancid.

The way they talked, it was like they wanted to be the victims.

Like parent, like child.

A kid commits a crime, the parents act like they’re the victims, and then they unleash abuse at the actual victim. That’s a phrase I just invented. Right now.

Anyway, “unbelievable” didn’t even begin to cover it. For now, I’d save the recordings.

Sure, their kid was being detained, and I, the victim, was closing off the path of settlement. If I bent over backward a hundred billion steps, I could understand why they’d want to complain at least once.

But I’d already told the police I had zero intention of accepting any settlement money, no matter the amount.

If they had a lawyer, they’d have heard it from the police… no, maybe from the prosecutors? Either way, they should have already been told I had no intention of settling. Taking settlement money would mean forgiving the crimes those high schoolers committed against me.

“…Whatever. I’ll just leave it.”

In this case, those high schoolers were minors, but they weren’t under fourteen. And the charge was robbery resulting in injury. In principle, that meant six years or more in prison, and even for a first offense, there wouldn’t be a reduced sentence. They’d do real time.

In other words, if I didn’t settle and left it alone, the system would naturally decide a punishment fitting for them. I was already reasonably satisfied that they’d been arrested. The rest was for the law to decide. Whatever the verdict ended up being afterward was none of my business.

“…For now, I’ll go get something to eat.”

Muttering that, I headed to the restaurant on the eleventh floor for breakfast.

Maybe because I drank too much yesterday, I wasn’t very hungry today. So I’d keep it simple.

I put yogurt on a plate, piled fruit punch on top, and set toasted bread, butter, and coffee on my tray. After sitting down, I took a light sip of coffee and looked out the window.

Yeah. How do I put it… This felt ridiculously luxurious.

Even the landscape architect Christopher Alexander said something along the lines of how the desire to climb to a slightly elevated place and quietly gaze over one’s world below seems like one of humanity’s basic instincts.

I agreed.

The momentary surge of superiority you got from looking down on the city from up high, coffee in hand, was irresistible.

As I basked in that mild sense of dominance and stared down at the city, a stranger spoke to me.

“Excuse me. May I have a moment?”

“Yes? What is it?”

Huh?

Did I sit in a seat I wasn’t allowed to use?

I stiffened a little at being addressed, and a few people stood up from their seats.

Then they surrounded my table and blurted out, first thing:

“…You’re Mr. Takahashi Kakeru, right?”

“Huh?”

How did they know my name?

I don’t know you people at all, though??

I stayed silent and watched how things played out, and a woman started talking impatiently.

“…Um, I’m right, aren’t I? You’re Mr. Takahashi Kakeru, correct?”

“No, you’ve got the wrong person.”

“Huh?”

At that, the one man and two women surrounding me looked at each other.

“R-Really? You’re really not Mr. Takahashi Kakeru?”

“That’s right. More importantly, who’s Takahashi Kakeru? Some celebrity or something?”

“N-No… It’s not like that… I-I see. Our apologies!”

After saying that, the three of them hurried out of the restaurant.

“W-What the hell was that?”

I’d reflexively tried the “Takahashi Kakeru? Who’s that?” move, but if they’d realized I actually was Takahashi Kakeru, what were they planning to do?

For now, I took another sip of coffee to steady myself, ate my toast, finished the yogurt, and left the restaurant. Then I took the elevator down to the first floor, and the moment I stepped out, I heard loud arguing.

Peeking from behind the elevator, I saw the same three people from the restaurant pressing a man.

“This isn’t what you told us! We came all the way here because we heard Takahashi Kakeru is staying here!?”

“Yeah! We took time off work to come here!”

“Do you have any idea why we hired a detective!? Don’t screw with us!”

“W-Wha…? N-No, but based on the results of the investigation conducted using the information you provided, we did obtain information that Mr. Takahashi Kakeru is staying here…”

I see. So that was it…

Looks like those high schoolers’ parents hired a detective and were searching for me. That’s some serious obsession. Thank god I pretended to be someone else back then.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I got back into the elevator and decided to return to my room.