“Director, the Second Gate’s response is weakening.”
Just as they were waiting for the results.
The Second Gate’s response began to grow weaker and weaker.
“Did that scrap-metal doll do something?”
“Yes. There’s no other explanation.”
They caught sight of something forcing its way out through the gate.
When they zoomed in on the screen, what appeared was the scrap-metal doll.
Once it slipped out, the gate could no longer maintain its form and collapsed.
Could it be? Had it killed that monster?
“One troublesome bastard is gone, so I suppose we should be happy?”
“For now, yes.”
The situation seemed to have been settled for the moment.
I had been wondering which side’s disappearance would be more beneficial.
Well, I suppose I should be satisfied.
Let’s go retrieve it.
+++
“Uuugh, this is so unfair.”
Rustle.
“I could’ve tasted my ridiculously awesome happy life, but that damn bear!”
Rustle.
“You’re tiny, so you don’t even have ambitions. I’m jealous.”
Rustle, rustle.
“Hey, hey, it was a joke! You’ll kill me if I make one more joke?”
Yeah, well, things like this happen in life.
No, wait a second.
I don’t think misfortunes like this are supposed to happen?
Phew. Please, just let me meet one more similar entity.
I don’t care if it’s more dangerous than that bear.
I just hope it’s much friendlier.
I still had regrets, but it seemed about time to go.
I could hear the door to the isolation room opening.
I just want to go into the isolation room myself.
But then the whole concept of being ferocious toward humans would kind of fall apart, wouldn’t it?
Hmm, this is quite the annoying problem.
Whatever. If I stay like this, they’ll restrain me on their own.
When the agents came in and fastened the restraints, I stood up as if I had been waiting.
‘What should I do today for people to say I spent the day well?’
Ahh, the familiar isolation room.
It was still an isolation room that looked like it would break if I hit it once.
But it was decent enough.
Probably?
+++
“What do you think? It looks dead, right?”
“Yes. I took the kids and checked. It seems definitely dead.”
Just in case, I had ordered them to investigate the remains of the Second Gate.
As expected, it became certain that the Second Gate was dead.
“I’d hoped at least one side would be badly injured.”
“We should be grateful they didn’t form an alliance, I guess.”
“Don’t say that, even as a joke.”
Even as a joke, if he went around saying things like that, he’d be beaten until dust flew.
So far, no entities had been discovered fighting while allied with one another.
It would be one thing if identical entities gathered together.
But if completely different entities banded together, it would obviously become quite troublesome.
Thankfully, no such incident had been reported so far.
Even in this place, which was supposedly fairly secretive, there had been no such cases.
“What should we do about the Second Gate matter? Should we report it right away?”
“No, don’t report it.”
“Understood. Then around when should—”
“I said don’t report it.”
The adjutant looked at my face and frowned.
“Don’t tell me you don’t mean to delay the report, but to not report it at all?”
“That’s right. Don’t report it.”
“Will that be all right? If this becomes known, there’ll be an uproar.”
“What do you think will happen if you submit this report as is?”
“Well, the entity that killed an Unknown entity will become known.”
“Do you think Headquarters will just sit still?”
“Ah.”
Central Headquarters, responsible for the management and supervision of all facilities.
In effect, it had every facility under its authority and was the place where most information on Unknown entities gathered.
I hadn’t visited since I was appointed director.
If this report went up to Headquarters, it was obvious things would become extremely troublesome.
Because there was no doubt they would take this entity away.
“But wouldn’t things be easier for us without the scrap-metal doll?”
“Then are you going to kill all the remaining entities here?”
“Ahem.”
The adjutant answered with a dry cough.
There were still many entities here that could not be eliminated by our agents alone.
Even if all of them would be difficult, what if we could reduce their numbers even a little?
The difficult work our sector was responsible for would decrease compared to before.
That would also lessen the burden on the agents.
Of course, if this were discovered, it was not something Headquarters would simply overlook.
“What are you going to do if we get caught?”
“We can say we were investigating whether the entity was definitely dead.”
“Mm. Do you think that will work?”
“What if we assumed the entity was roughly dead, left it alone, and it came back to life?”
“Hmmm.”
The adjutant looked deeply unconvinced.
“To begin with, isn’t what Headquarters emphasizes the definite disposal of entities? Am I wrong?”
“If we insist on that, it might work somehow.”
“We can say we delayed the report to conduct a more conclusive experiment.”
“Well, understood. As for me.”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
“Are you going to shoulder everything alone again?”
“What did the kids do wrong? If anyone’s at fault, it’s me.”
“Haa. That doesn’t make you look cool, you know?”
“I don’t care. If not me, who’s going to protect our kids?”
“For now, understood.”
There was no way the adjutant would like this place getting noisy for no reason.
Even if we reported it gradually, they probably wouldn’t make a big issue of it.
To begin with, just considering the round trip, it was dreadful to come here.
Even more so unless it was a considerably major incident.
“Still, I really didn’t think it would succeed.”
With this, one could say hope had appeared.
If I had my way, I would use it to kill the next entity immediately.
But for now, even if we rushed like that, it would be hard to expect good results.
Let’s take our time.
For now, we were the ones with leeway.
+++
“Mm.”
At the time, everything had been too hectic, so I hadn’t been able to check properly.
But I simply couldn’t figure out this guy’s true identity.
Had it originally possessed it?
No, it was true that there wasn’t much information on the scrap-metal doll.
But the scrap-metal doll had been in storage with only its frame remaining.
In other words, there was a high chance it had taken it during the process of escaping the storage room.
Of course, unless it was an entity that could not be confirmed while the scrap-metal doll was inactive.
‘I did leave several possibilities open, but it still feels deeply suspicious.’
There was a strong sense of incongruity.
It felt as though it had been artificially fitted into my body.
Then the remaining hypothesis was that it had brought this along when it escaped.
But there was one point that was hard to accept.
If it were an entity kept in another sector, perhaps.
But I had definitely memorized all the entity names stored in Sector 09.
And yet I had never seen an entity like this before.
Even now, I could smoothly recite the unusual entities or those with insufficient information.
There was no way someone like me wouldn’t remember an entity like this.
‘So even when dumping work on someone, there are things you should and shouldn’t make them do.’
That’s right. Sector 09 was supposedly a place with fairly tight security.
Of course, I still didn’t acknowledge it.
Why would a first-year be put in charge of handling Class-1 security documents?
“Phew, I don’t know.”
But this guy.
Surely it doesn’t understand what I’m saying, right?
That would be a bit troublesome in its own way.
Still, I should at least give it a name.
If it hadn’t been there, it would have been hard to come out of the Second Gate with my body intact.
“All right! Your new name is Hook.”
Phew. As expected, it doesn’t seem to be highly intelligent.
If it were a normal guy, it probably would have protested.
Asking where the hell I came up with such a lousy name.
Tsk, but maybe Hook was a bit too much.
“What do you think, Gochi?”
Rustle.
“You don’t care as long as it’s not Hook? Then, Strong Hook!”
Rustle, rustle.
“Ohh, it’s really fortunate our Gochi doesn’t know human curses.”
They weren’t human curses, sure.
But it seemed like it had strung together every bad word that existed in the world.
Our Gochi’s personality did fall a bit on the nasty side.
Sob, sob. I have no choice but to work harder to fix it.
Of course, I meant Gochi’s personality.
Just as I was about to lie down and laze around.
I heard a sound like someone whispering.
‘Huh?’
The source of the sound came from the agents.
They were stamping their feet, not knowing what to do, as if they had done something wrong.
“Damn it, that’s why I told you to check!”
“No, you always make me do that stuff. I want to stop doing it too.”
“Is this really the time for us to be like this? If the director catches us, we’ll get scolded again!”
“Yeah, let’s clean up first.”
Ohh.
The time that had only been boring was finally about to become a little interesting.
I’m pretty sure they said they’d get in trouble with the director if they were caught.
Just what had they done?
Ah, wait a second.
If they’re caught, they’ll just get scolded a bit and that’ll be it, right?
Surely another entity hasn’t been released while they’re acting so relaxed.
At the very least, it probably wasn’t a threatening entity.
Because even thinking back to when the Iron Insect escaped, their reactions were completely different.
If that thing hadn’t killed even the humans running away, there would have been an uproar long ago.
‘It probably isn’t anything serious, so I’ll just watch.’
Hehe, how exciting.
It would’ve been nice if I had some popcorn.
Well, it doesn’t matter.
As long as something fun happens without me suffering, that’s enough.
I lay down while pretending to be as uninterested as possible and began listening closely to their situation.
+++
“Again? Again?”
“Yes. It seems the kids couldn’t hold back again and let it out.”
“Haa, those bastards again.”
With a displeased expression, the director stopped working and stood up.
“Wouldn’t it be fine if I went?”
“Didn’t I catch you once last time?”
“Damn, so close.”
“If you get caught again, I’ll kill you.”
“You mean it?”
“Ahh, cancel that. If you get caught again, you’ll be director for life.”
“No, fuck. What kind of bullshit is that?”
“Phew, thank you. I almost killed someone with lifelong potential to be director.”
Leaving behind the adjutant, who had truly looked excited, I stepped out of the director’s office.
It wasn’t that playing with toys was wrong.
The problem was that the toy in question was an Unknown entity.
The other problem was that after playing with it, they didn’t clean up.