Crossover anime/manga, can you be my immortal companion for life?

The car came to an abrupt stop on the bank of the Arakawa River. Now was not the time to abandon the vehicle; it might be needed later.

"I don't know if it will be in time."

Kazuma Sato said with a sigh.

"It depends on whether his truck is empty. If they need to go somewhere to load more goods, we might end up empty-handed. And if he takes a road with many checkpoints, we basically can't follow him."

"Then why were you in such a hurry to come after me?" Kazuma looked at Kerry with some surprise.

"If we can determine the other party's movements and locate the vehicle, it's better than searching for a needle in a haystack in Songfu."

Kazuma looked at Kerry, who looked exactly like the female spy from the Moon Forest, with a troubled expression, and then shook his head.

"Sometimes I really admire your ability to take action."

As they talked, the two sat down in the shade of a slope beside the riverbank, their gaze fixed on the vehicles speeding toward the bridge in the sunlight.

"Wow, you guys got here so quickly? Honestly, I almost didn't recognize you with those masks on."

Suddenly, a joyful shout came from the riverbank, making the two of them turn around at the same time.

Kerry picked up his phone and looked warily toward the riverbank, only to see an old acquaintance he had seen that morning.

The village chief, dressed as a kappa, is waving below.

Kerry thought back and realized that this guy did say during the day that he lived next to the Arakawa Bridge. He didn't expect that this guy would be swimming around the river in the middle of the night, cosplaying as a river crab.

Kerry didn't get up; instead, he waved to him.

The village chief was taken aback for a moment, then walked up with the tortoise shell on his back and squatted down next to Kerry.

“What are you doing…?”

"We're dealing with the matter I asked you about during the day; we're waiting for a few buses to Songfu."

The village chief thought for a moment before he understood what Kerry meant with that simple answer.

"Oh, do you have a vehicle to chase us? If not, I can give you one."

After thinking for a moment, the village chief offered this suggestion.

Actually, after the village chief encountered the two people during the day, he went to investigate their situation.

The result left him even more bewildered than Kennedy: one was a wanted mental patient, and the other's big data investigation at the Metropolitan Police Department only matched him with a high school student who had already been confirmed dead.

Before he went today, he added a new murder record, killing a kid suspected of drug use and crime, and the three of them had never met before.

These two guys don't seem like bad people. The fact that they care so much about trafficking homeless people doesn't seem like a bad thing. Besides, he really needs their help.

By the way, the village chief isn't exactly a saint either. Not far from the riverbank, in a wooden church, lives a mercenary nun who looks exactly like Yujiro Hanma. She can easily produce a whole bunch of contraband weapons. I wonder if she's a retired member of the Black Reef Merchant Guild next door.

As Kerry stared at the road, the village chief skillfully ran to the RV in the distance and called over a guy wearing a starfish headgear to help him move things.

After the starfish-headed man finished cursing the village chief for being the one who woke people up in the middle of the night to work, the village chief solemnly pushed over the means of transportation he had mentioned.

"Ta-da! Kappa Technology's latest product!"

As he spoke, the village chief turned on his flashlight and shone it on the object being pushed towards him, the light flashing.

Kazuma's face darkened again after he had been looking forward to the idea of ​​getting a free vehicle.

What's this about the kappa from Touhou Gensokyo?

"Aren't these just two bicycles?"

"No! How could you say that!" The village chief became a little anxious when he heard Kazuma's slightly disgusted words. He shone the beam of his flashlight on the rear wheel bearing of the bicycle. Unlike ordinary bicycles, this bicycle had a strange little box hanging on one side.

"See that? It's the engine and the battery pack!"

Kazuma's eyes lit up.

"Ma...Masaka! Is this the kind of technology where you can charge your bike by pedaling, and then after pedaling for a while, it can be powered by electricity with minimal energy consumption?" Kazuma looked at the village chief in astonishment.

"Uh...no, this needs to be charged." The village chief scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly.

"What's the use of that!" Kazuma couldn't hold back any longer.

Upon hearing He Zhen's question, the village chief's eyes sharpened and he lowered his voice to speak.

"There are several fake license plates on the back of this car! If you want to change them, just remove the top one."

"Thank you, Kappa."

Kerry nodded, indicating that the thing was indeed very useful, and gestured for Kazuma to go and take a look.

When He Zhen went down, the village chief touched his green head again.

"It's alright to give it to you, but I hope you'll grant me one request, on this river..."

“Deal.” Kerry agreed without even turning his head.

"Uh..." The village chief was also stunned; he hadn't finished speaking yet.

Kazuma looked at Kerry with some confusion, then leaned closer and whispered something to him.

"Hey, do you think we're that free? We haven't even finished what we're doing here and we're already taking on another job."

Kerry leaned closer to Kazuma and whispered his reply.

"It's okay, just agree to it first. When he makes his demands, we'll pretend to be in a difficult position and make him raise the price. This green-skinned guy seems to be quite rich."

"What about that?" Kazuma asked, puzzled.

When faced with the real question, Kerry gave a mysterious smile.

"It's alright, I, Kerry, never keep my word."

Kazuma was speechless. After all that, you're trying to be like that black guy who just disappears when he finds out his girlfriend is pregnant?

Half an hour after Kazuma and the village chief worked together to move the bicycle onto the road, several familiar cars appeared in the distance with their high beams on.

The person in the car was on the phone.

"Master Jingxin and the richest man in Yamada have already made preparations. After you put your things in Songfu, drive directly back to Xinxiang."

By the way, how's the Inugami Group doing?

"That old bastard Inugami Manjiro has already handed over all his businesses to their association. He said he'll bring his men to Matsunari after he's dealt with the last few private territories."

"Alright, that old guy has a lot of men under his command. Let's try our best to prevent them from getting into trouble before they arrive in Songfu."

"Yes."

Chapter Fifteen: We've arrived!

Watching the other car drive away, Kerry got on his bicycle, abandoning the motorcycle for now because he didn't want to be chased by the Metropolitan Police Department.

"Hey! Are we really going to chase after them? That's a long way!"

"If you don't want to ride your bike, you can wait until I get there, and then you can commit suicide and be resurrected."

"My life matters too!"

It was just before dawn.

A cross-city chase and tracking operation has begun. They can't get too close and give the other side away, nor can they get too far away and lose sight of their target.

Logically, traveling from one city to another county would be a very long journey, requiring drivers to take turns resting even when time is tight.

But in fact, we cannot view this issue with a habitual perspective.

Because Japan is a country that consists of the main island, Hokkaido, and a few smaller islands, it's only slightly larger than a neighboring province that's famous for its mushrooms.

This time, the journey across cities didn't even take us beyond the Tokyo metropolitan area, let alone leaving the Kanto Plain.

The actual distance to Saitama is only 20 kilometers, and from Saitama to Matsufushi it's another 30 kilometers. It's basically like driving from the city center to a suburban tourist attraction. You can go there in the morning, play some games, and then go back in the evening before going to sleep.

The only problem is whether the other party will be able to ride on any sections of road where bicycles are not allowed.

Obviously not. The other party seemed to be intentionally avoiding some checkpoints, taking some side roads, and not driving very fast, as if they didn't want the goods to be too bumpy.

Kerry and Kazuma kept their distance along the way, and sometimes they even chatted while driving side by side.

Kerry felt no fatigue at all, which he attributed to his strange regenerative abilities. However, Kazuma couldn't keep up and started turning the modified handlebars on his bicycle as if it were an electric scooter after only a short while.

Kerry noticed that there seemed to be some empty places with vegetable stalls by the roadside, and asked about it with suspicion.

What was that just now?

"Those vegetable stalls? I think some farmers bring them here to sell. I saw it on a forum before, and I've also heard that some office workers ride their bikes to these cities early in the morning on weekends to exercise and buy groceries."

Kazuma seemed completely unfazed.

"But I didn't see anyone?" Kerry found it strange.

"Because they're afraid of being caught red-handed by the agricultural cooperative, no one is selling them," Kazuma continued.

Hearing Kazuma say that, Kerry remembered that agricultural products in Japan are expensive because of agricultural cooperatives. There are all sorts of such cooperatives in Japan, but even though the agricultural cooperatives have become much less influential in the last ten years, they are still one of the more influential ones.

Agricultural associations were originally established to better manage production, but they later became an awkward situation.

That is, if Japan imports a lot of foreign grains and fruits and then doesn't raise prices, while selling domestically grown grains at the same price, then all Japanese farmers will starve.

However, anyone with a basic understanding of international strategy knows how important food self-sufficiency is.

Although Japan is clearly not capable of being completely self-sufficient, having something is always better than having nothing at all.

This creates a dilemma: if I introduce grain prices and they don't rise, all farmers will switch to other jobs, rural areas will be abandoned, and everyone will go to work in big cities; if I raise prices, then the prices might become a bit too high.

However, judging from the results, just look at the price of watermelons over there to see how the Japanese government made its choice; anyway, their presence allows them to collect more taxes.

While it's true that it's not so expensive that working-class people can't afford it, it's certainly not something you can feed to black people anymore.

Of course, it's unclear how much the agricultural association ultimately received, or whether certain legislators in remote constituencies needed to protect their rural voter base.

Anyway, Kerry felt that if the farmers' association were really doing its job properly, then farmers wouldn't be acting like this.

After some thought, Kerry sighed.

"So you Tokyoites are pretty well-behaved? You trade normally even when there are no people around, and you're not afraid of being robbed."

Kazuma shook his head.

"What kind of quality is acceptable? There are quite a few thieves who take the money without paying. But even so, if just a third of them give a little out of conscience, and the money isn't taken, that's still more profitable than selling it to the farmers' association."

"..."