“1”

“What a shame.”

I applied a little pressure with my right hand. A drop of blood fell onto the cold blade. The force wasn't enough to kill, but it was still deadly.

The last one left looked rattled. His breathing, which should have been steady, faltered at the sight of the blood. He kept glancing sideways, unable to make up his mind, cold sweat running down his face.

Glancing sideways?

Is there... something in the shadows?

“Tch.”

He was testing me.

I hate that feeling.

Then I’ll take a gamble, too.

“0.9~~”

“0.8~”

“Huh?”

I tilted my head back and counted aloud, swaying it from side to side like a complete idiot. It startled the man.

The awkward standoff lasted several seconds, until the distant church bells rang out six o’clock in the evening.

After the brief chime, I ran out of patience.

“All right! Do I really have to count all the way to zero before you come out? Quit hiding. I know someone’s there.”

After a while, a pair of golden eyes appeared in the darkness, with snake-like pupils that made me a little uneasy.

I won the gamble...

But who were they, exactly?

“Adventurer Ojer, Nightingale offers you its sincere greetings.”

A voice I couldn’t place as male or female drifted out of the shadows, calm and carefree, as if it didn’t care in the slightest about its companion’s life. At the sound of it, the person facing off against me hesitated for half a second, sheathed their blade, and bowed to me.

I, meanwhile, was a little dumbfounded.

Nightingale?

What kind of organization was that?

“What do you want with me? Just get to the point.”

Even so, I kept the cold blade pressed to the unconscious person’s neck, not daring to let my guard down. After all, they were my bargaining chip.

Negotiations required equal bargaining chips. Otherwise, it was just one-sided extortion.

“Quite right. Then please forgive my rudeness.”

With that, a girl in a black robe strolled out of the shadows. Her curvy figure was clear even beneath the tightly wrapped fabric. A light veil covered her alluring face, and her wheat-colored skin left me a little surprised.

But then...

[Ascertain!!]

[Ding-dong]

[No target detected]

“Huh...?”

[This system surmises that she may be using some kind of magic to conceal her identity. This system is currently unable to detect her.]

[I see... So they’re not the kind of organization that can operate in the open.]

If they were only concealing their faces and auras, I could’ve taken them for ordinary professionals. But Paper-chan couldn’t even confirm that she existed or access any information about her. This went far beyond simply hiding her identity.

Could these people be M.I.B.—Men in Black?

So what did an organization like this even do? Why had they come after me? Why had they been following me for so long?

I pushed down my many questions. A cold sneer and a sharp glint welled up from my eye sockets, where blood-red ghostly flames flickered, and I gave a soft laugh.

“Aren’t you hot, wearing a black robe in the middle of summer?”

The other woman smiled. Her voice was soft as water, with three parts respect and seven parts casual ease, as she gave me a slight bow.

“If we’re talking about being hot, you look much hotter than I do.”

“……”

Oh, right... I’m a skeleton now. I can’t feel temperature...

This armor of mine really does look pretty hot.

[This system turned off your sense of temperature. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to sweat and would go crazy from the heat. Your body temperature beneath the armor is around 39°C right now. Want to try feeling that?]

[N-no, leave it off. This is fine. This is totally fine...]

Good grief, I’m basically slow-roasting a Big Bone over a low flame...

Me: “Uh, yeah. It is hot.”

Nightingale: “Then why are you wearing so much armor?”

Me: “Because it looks cool.”

Nightingale: “……”

Damn, this is the coolest armor I’ve ever seen, apart from Uncle Sam’s $5.8-million exoskeleton!!

“You can skip the small talk. What do you want?”

[Hey, you just told them to stop wasting words, then wasted words yourself. That’s not fair.]

[Shut up, you artificial idiot...]

The girl in the black robe nodded slightly and gave her companion a look. The other person respectfully handed me a small pouch.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it.

There were 80 gold coins inside.

My voice turned sharp, edged with a hint of threat. A trace of killing intent emerged.

“What do you mean by this?”

“Please don’t misunderstand, Mr. Ojer. This is just the rest of your payment.”

I tilted my head slightly.

“The rest of my payment? I don’t remember selling anything.”

“You really don’t remember?”

“Of course not! I didn’t—”

Before I could finish, two gleaming golden objects streaked through my mind like shooting stars.

“The gold coins I exchanged at the White Night Bank...”

“You really are a clever man, Mr. Ojer.”

She smiled and held out her hand to me.

“Nightingale likes doing business with clever people.”

“I’m Night Twelve, head of Nightingale in Saileda. You can call me Night Twelve.”

I thought it over for half a second, then shook her hand.

“Just your average, passing-by Kamen Rider. Ojer.”

[You should really give up that profession by now...]

[I refuse! Mind your own business! Hmph!]

[……]

After a brief storm of thought, I checked once more that there was no one lurking in my field of vision. Then I withdrew the blade in my right hand and let the unconscious person slump to the ground beside the wall.

They wanted to talk things out properly? Fine. I’d humor her.

“I assume this isn’t because the price of gold went up. And even if it did, why have you been following me for so long?”

Night Twelve glanced at her companion. They immediately lifted their unconscious companion, nodded to me, and carried them back the way we’d come.

“It’s not because the price went up. I heard this is your first time in this country. It seems that was true.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ancient gold coins.”

“??”

Night Twelve saw how confused I was and took out a coin that gleamed brilliantly gold.

It was the same design as the gold coins I’d found in the underground ruins.

“Ancient gold coins are valuable metal materials to us. Each one is worth about 60 gold coins, and the coins you sold us that day were ancient gold coins.”

I noticed the way she’d phrased that.

“You? You mean the White Night Bank?”