Minoh Waterfall.
A car pulled up in front of a small wooden cabin.
In the loft beneath the cabin's ceiling, Numabuchi Kiichiro sat leaning against the wall, his left hand cuffed to a pillar. He showed no reaction to the sound of the car.
A moment later, rustling noises came from below.
Immediately after, a wooden panel in the ceiling was opened. A coil of rope was tossed up, and a figure deftly flipped into the loft.
Once his eyes adjusted to the dim light, Chi Feichi stood up with the rope. By the light filtering through the cracks in the window, he saw Numabuchi Kiichiro leaning against the wall.
"Found you."
Numabuchi Kiichiro tilted his head back. His gaunt, skeletal face held no expression, his constricted pupils reflecting the man before him—dressed entirely in black, with a baseball cap pulled low.
From his angle, he could see a pair of pale purple eyes under the brim, staring down at him indifferently...
F-Found...
They... they must have sent someone!
The hunger in his belly suddenly vanished.
I feel it... I can feel it...
His body, which had been weak from starvation, was once again filled with strength.
Numabuchi Kiichiro's hands trembled. He lowered his head, his expression gradually turning ferocious. Suddenly, he lunged at Chi Feichi. "Die!"
Chi Feichi didn't move. He calmly watched the figure lunging at him—that skull-like face, that ruthless yet subtly terrified expression...
He also watched as Numabuchi Kiichiro, because his left hand was cuffed, was yanked back the moment he pounced, crashing to the floor.
Hmm... staying back was indeed the correct choice.
Despite Numabuchi Kiichiro looking like he was about to starve to death, the heavy thud of his fall was enough to tell how astonishing his explosive power had been in that instant.
Although Chi Feichi had been methodically exercising whenever he was in control of the body over the past month since transmigration, the time had been too short.
Even though this body had a decent foundation and potential, and despite his efficient training plan, he wasn't confident in facing an explosive monster like Numabuchi Kiichiro head-on right now.
"Ah—!"
After falling, Numabuchi Kiichiro struggled and roared, scrambling up to lunge again. He fell, lunged, fell, lunged...
"Don't think you can hurt me! I'll kill you!"
"Go away!"
"Kill you! I'll kill you!"
Seeing that Numabuchi Kiichiro had clearly entered a frenzied state, Chi Feichi looked down at his own clothes and fell silent.
Is wearing black clothes a crime?
Black was understated, stable, and easy to match. In his past life, he wore black for years, and his male friends also liked wearing black... so what was wrong with wearing black!
Just because members of a certain Organization wore black, did that mean no one else was allowed to?
As for his cold face...
Can't you just get used to it?
After tossing and turning repeatedly for three minutes, Numabuchi Kiichiro fell once more and didn't get up, lying on the ground panting heavily.
Chi Feichi spoke up. "Stop torturing yourself. I'm taking you to prison. Prison is safe."
"Prison..." Numabuchi Kiichiro murmured.
Chi Feichi stood his ground and didn't advance.
Sure enough, after catching his breath, Numabuchi Kiichiro jumped up again and continued his lunge-and-fall combo.
"Impossible!"
"You wouldn't be kind enough to send me to prison!"
"You never intended to let me go, did you?!"
A minute later, Numabuchi Kiichiro collapsed again, completely exhausted.
"That should be enough."
Only then did Chi Feichi fish a metal pick from his pocket. He walked over, squatted down, set the rope aside, and started fiddling with the handcuffs on Numabuchi's left hand.
Having practiced martial arts for over a decade in his past life, he had the ability to distinguish whether someone was truly exhausted and to what degree.
Numabuchi Kiichiro stared fixedly at Chi Feichi, gasping for air. The moment the left handcuff was unlocked, he sprang up again to pounce.
Almost simultaneously, Chi Feichi grabbed the rope and stood up. He sidestepped to dodge, then extended a leg to trip him. As Numabuchi pitched forward toward the ground, Chi Feichi seized his wrist, twisting his arm behind his back and pinning him to the floor.
This time, Numabuchi Kiichiro didn't struggle, allowing Chi Feichi to tie him up with the rope and take him down.
Of course, he didn't have the strength to struggle anymore anyway.
Chi Feichi threw the man into the passenger seat and secured him with another loop of the seatbelt. He took a photo with his phone and sent an email to the address provided in the bounty mission data:
[Numabuchi Kiichiro successfully apprehended. Location: Osaka.—July]
[Deliver to the nearest Police Headquarters. Bounty will be paid upon verification.]
[OK.]
In the car, Numabuchi Kiichiro stared at a box sitting on the dashboard.
Chi Feichi put away his phone, picked up the box, opened it, and handed it to Numabuchi, whose hands were tied in front of him.
Numabuchi took the box firmly. He glanced at Chi Feichi's gloved hands, seemingly just realizing that Chi Feichi had been wearing gloves the entire time. However, he didn't ask questions, burying his head to eat voraciously without a word.
Chi Feichi walked around to the driver's side and got in. He didn't dare untie the rope, so he had to let the guy eat like that. However, worried that Numabuchi might choke from eating so frantically, he didn't start the car immediately. He waited until Numabuchi finished the takoyaki in the box, took the box back, and handed him a tissue.
Numabuchi Kiichiro silently wiped his mouth.
Chi Feichi took the tissue, opened a bottle of mineral water, and passed it over.
Numabuchi chugged it down in one go.
Only after Numabuchi had drunk his fill did Chi Feichi start the car. "In return for treating you to a meal, when the police ask about my appearance later, could you keep it a secret?"
Numabuchi Kiichiro held the water bottle with both hands, his face wooden. He remained silent.
Chi Feichi didn't expect him to agree anyway. He drove away from Mount Minoh.
The reason he didn't want his identity discovered so quickly was that he worried his 'history of mental illness' would lead to his right to bounty hunt being revoked.
But as long as he demonstrated sufficient capability, making them feel that compared to his assistance with their work, such a 'minor issue' was acceptable, that would be enough.
Although bounty hunting was a free, individual action—he could do it even if they didn't allow him—the government was the biggest client...
Afternoon, 2:36 PM.
Osaka Prefectural Police Headquarters.
The operator received a strange call.
On the other end, a male voice was low and rasping. "Hello, your delivery has arrived at the police station entrance. Please come out to receive it."
"What?" The operator was confused.
But the other party had already hung up.
"What happened?"
"I got a weird call saying my delivery arrived at the station entrance..."
"Did you order a delivery to the station?"
"No, I didn't order anything... and I'm on the emergency line, not my personal mobile!"
"Could it be a wrong number? But they said the station entrance..."
"Anyway, let's go out and check!"
A colleague accompanied the operator downstairs. At a glance, they noticed a large cardboard box, half the height of a person, sitting under a tree by the roadside outside the building.
The reason they noticed it immediately was that a piece of paper was taped to the box, with large printed characters:
[LIVE CARGO DELIVERY. HANDLE WITH CARE. DO NOT OPEN VIOLENTLY.]
On the road not far away, Chi Feichi watched quietly from his car. Seeing the police come out to receive the 'express package,' he felt satisfied.
It was good they didn't treat it as a prank call, otherwise, he would have had to call again in a few minutes.
However, there was still a tiny hiccup...
The two officers looked at the big box and, with tacit understanding, refrained from opening it rashly. Instead, they called the Bomb Disposal Unit.
After the squad carefully opened the box, they saw Numabuchi Kiichiro sitting inside, wooden-faced and tied up like a dumpling.
There was another printed paper taped to Numabuchi's chest: [I, Wanted Criminal, Numabuchi Kiichiro.]
The group of officers fell silent for a second before immediately springing into action to extract Numabuchi and take him inside.
Watching Numabuchi Kiichiro enter the police station gates, Chi Feichi withdrew his gaze and drove away.
Fortunately, Numabuchi and the officers were smart enough not to trigger a 'second escape' plotline.
Twenty minutes after the delivery... no, after Numabuchi Kiichiro was delivered, the transfer was completed.
3.5 million yen.
That was about 220,000 RMB.
In his previous life, the domestic reward cap for wanted criminals was 100,000 yuan, and that was a reward for providing information leading to an arrest, not a bounty.
Considering Numabuchi Kiichiro's danger level, the price was fair. In terms of Japanese incomes, it was roughly equivalent to a year's salary for an average office worker.
Chi Feichi went to return the car first. After paying the 5,000 yen rental fee, the owner saw him out with a smile.
A chubby tabby cat in the shop lazily meowed, immediately causing the owner to turn around and smile while petting its head.
Chi Feichi took a look. "Do you usually feed your cat dried fish?"
"Ah?" The owner was surprised. "How could you tell?"
"I study veterinary medicine. This cat's coat is well-maintained, so I guessed you feed it an appropriate amount of dried fish every day."
Chi Feichi brushed it off with a vague explanation, chatted with the owner for a moment, then used the excuse of having things to do to end the conversation and leave.
He was indeed a student in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at Toto University—his enrollment had been preserved even after his hospitalization—but claiming to tell from the fur color was complete nonsense.
That chubby tabby seemed to be acting cute, but what it had actually said was roughly—
'Stingy, fish-lipped fatty! You make so much money every day but won't buy me a live fish? Dried fish every day, dried fish every day...!'
Yes... the 'auditory hallucinations' had appeared again.
However, based on his verification over the past month, Chi Feichi was certain these weren't hallucinations.
The words spoken by these animals and plants were facts.
For example, the big tree in the hospital courtyard had spoken about the hospital's history, a certain doctor's personality, and someone's little secrets. He had secretly verified them, and they were all true.
It was during this verification process that Fukuyama Tomoaki discovered him and had a chat. Initially, Chi Feichi tried to solve the problem through communication, but Fukuyama's judgment was—Delusion. Auditory Hallucinations.
Since you knew nothing about this hospital before, how could you hallucinate things you shouldn't know?
To this, Fukuyama's explanation was—'Actually, these are things you subconsciously knew or observed. It's just that in a normal state, you don't remember or recognize them. During the hallucinations, your subconscious reflects what you perceived...'
Blah blah blah...
In summary: Superpowers are impossible. It's not animals or plants talking, it's your delusion! You are seriously ill, and I must make you realize and accept this!