(The warm stream of water washed away the bloodstains and fatigue from his body, but it couldn't wash away the chill in his heart. Kuchiba Hiro lay on the overly tidy bed, forcing himself to sleep. His body desperately needed recovery, but his thoughts were like a runaway horse, racing through a dark maze.
Hunting, Gold Coins, father... fragments of images flashed by. This sleep was not peaceful, but when he opened his eyes again, the sunlight outside (projected through a simulated window) showed it was already noon.
Hunger, like a waking beast, began to gnaw at his stomach. He rolled over and sat up, about to think about how to solve the food problem, when his gaze was drawn to several conspicuous reminder cards stuck to the inside of the door.
(Important Notice: To ensure your absolute safety, it is strictly forbidden to leave this room during the shelter's validity period. Any act of going out will be regarded as an automatic waiver of your right to shelter. This hotel will not be held responsible for any accidents.)
(Dining Service: To avoid potential risks from external food, we strongly recommend that you only order meals through the internal customer service phone. We provide standard nutritional meals and custom menu services.)
The terms were cold and direct, blurring the line between "protection" and "imprisonment." But Kuchiba Hiro didn't care; it was better than being watched by wolves in the wild. He picked up the room's extension phone and pressed the only customer service button.
"Hello, sir. How may I help you?" The voice on the other end was still a processed electronic voice, devoid of emotion.
"Food. Anything, as long as it's nutritious enough," Kuchiba Hiro said succinctly.
"Understood. A standard nutritional set meal will be delivered to your door within fifteen minutes. Enjoy your meal."
In less than fifteen minutes, the doorbell rang softly. Kuchiba Hiro looked through the peephole; there was no one outside, only a stainless steel meal cart parked quietly.
He opened the door and pulled the cart into the room. The meal was sumptuous, a mix of meat and vegetables, and even included a portion of fruit, but all the utensils were specially made and could not be used as weapons. This extreme "thoughtfulness" instead revealed a non-human indifference, as if the object of service was not a living person, but a piece of "cargo" that needed to be properly stored.
As he ate mechanically, he took out his phone again and clicked on that app, which was like Pandora's box. This time, he looked at it with a calmer, more scrutinizing gaze.
A previously overlooked point of doubt surfaced in his mind: the hotel promised signal jamming, and the location marker on his kill order had indeed disappeared, but why could the app itself still connect to the internet normally?
How did The Authorities locate Transcendents?
From Tokyo to Chiba, he had nothing on him. The only possible tracking came from city surveillance. But surveillance coverage wasn't seamless; location updates would inevitably have delays or even errors. But now, by using this app from The Authorities (or closely associated with them), he was actively exposing his digital identity and real-time location (IP address, base station signals, etc.) to the system.
Yet, the red dot on the kill order had gone out here.
There was only one conclusion: the one providing the "jamming" service was The Authorities themselves—the ones who set the rules and issued the kill orders. The so-called shelter was just another "service item" within the system, a temporary safe zone that required payment to enter. The Authorities issued a kill order for you while simultaneously selling you a service to avoid being tracked by those pursuing it. This wasn't a contradiction; it was business. They never represented justice, but order itself—a cold, efficient, profit-driven machine of order.
Having figured this out, the last trace of fantasy about the "fairness of the system" in Kuchiba Hiro's heart completely shattered. He clicked on the personal center and looked at his own kill order.
(Crimes: Brutally killing 32 members of the Metropolitan Police Department's Mobile Unit; publicly violating the veil protocol by displaying transcendent abilities in a busy area, causing large-scale social panic. Threat Level: High.)
The text was concise and the charges were solid, yet it skillfully omitted all the preceding causes—the desperate, frenzied counterattack following his father's murder.
The system didn't need the truth; it only needed a label that would allow other "hunters" to strike with a clear conscience. A cold-blooded, brutal, and dangerous madman was naturally someone you could kill without any psychological burden.
A mocking curve appeared on Kuchiba Hiro's face. He didn't expect anyone to seek justice for him; his childhood experiences had long since taught him that people only wanted to believe the "facts" they were willing to believe.
He looked at the amount required to revoke the kill order: 100,000 Gold Coins. A despair-inducing figure.
So, how to earn Gold Coins?
Missions in the mission hall? High efficiency, but also high risk. To make big money, one could only look for bigger targets; the efficiency of earning small change was too low.
Bodies of Transcendents? Quite valuable. A darker, more direct thought surfaced in his mind like an instinct: rather than completing complex missions, wouldn't it be faster to directly hunt down weak Transcendents and plunder their Gold Coins and bodies?
This thought made him a bit uncomfortable, yet it revealed the system's true intention with absolute clarity: it wasn't just encouraging the hunting of "wanted criminals," it was tacitly or even explicitly encouraging Transcendents to devour each other.
Survival of the fittest—that was the underlying logic. The fact that his bounty immediately rose after he killed that Level 6 ability user was proof. The more you killed, the more "dangerous" you became, the higher your bounty, and the stronger the hunters you attracted, forcing you to either become stronger faster or die sooner.
Being on a kill order was like being thrown into a high-speed death spiral. Trying to rely on "earning money" to redeem oneself was an almost impossible paradox. The system never intended to give those on the list a way out; or rather, it only allowed the strongest, most cunning, and most cold-blooded few to climb out over countless corpses.
The idea of revoking the kill order was completely snuffed out. This path was a dead end.
Then, only one target remained: Yota Yukinoshita.
Since this system had no bottom line and only recognized Gold Coins and power, just how low could its bottom line go? A fierce light flashed in Kuchiba Hiro's eyes. He clicked on the information service section of the mall and tentatively entered keywords:
"Purchase personal information."
Instantly, a large number of shops popped up, with slogans more blatant than the last: "No secret we can't find," "Satisfying all your information needs."
He chose the one with the highest rating, clicked on the customer service chat box, and directly typed:
"Yota Yukinoshita, current precise location. His immediate relative, Yukinoshita Yukino, current precise location."
As he typed these words, he could feel his heart beating heavily in his chest. A mixture of vengeful pleasure and bone-deep coldness spread through him, and the muscles on his face uncontrollably pulled into a near-ghastly smile.
The customer service response was startlingly fast, as if the answer were already prepared:
"Query targets: Yota Yukinoshita (Mortal World official), Yukinoshita Yukino, Yukinoshita Haruno, Yukinoshita Ayano (associated targets). Information acquisition difficulty: High. Total cost: 60,000 Gold Coins."
The price was outrageously high, even higher than his own bounty. But this cold quote instead made Kuchiba Hiro feel completely at ease. As expected, as long as one could afford it, nothing in this system was not for sale, including the life coordinates of an official and his family.
"Alright..." Kuchiba Hiro whispered to himself, the last bit of hesitation in his eyes replaced by pure killing intent. "So what if the bounty increases? So what if I die?"
He turned off the phone screen, and the room fell into a dead silence. Sunlight filtered through the simulated window, casting fake spots of light on the floor. The boy sat in the shadows like a lone wolf sharpening its claws and teeth, preparing to pounce on its prey.
"Then bring it on." He issued a silent declaration of war to the empty room, and to the entire twisted transcendent world.
"No matter how many come, I'll kill them all.")
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