In a crossover anime, do you believe that a machine spirit can defeat a fake human?

The customer from before was not visible in the surveillance footage; he was out of the blind spot.

Saki Kawasaki believed that the other person had never left and did not appear to be an ordinary customer.

The drone took off, circled around the supermarket entrance, and then slowly flew back.

She glanced at her phone screen and saw a figure hidden in the shadows beyond the streetlights in the brief playback footage she had just recorded.

What should I do now? Call the police?

At this hour... the ATSS should be responding, right? A patrol team came by about half an hour ago...

Kawasaki Saki shrank back, finding a position where she wouldn't be easily shot.

So many things happened on my first day at work...

Saki Kawasaki couldn't help but look up at the time and realized it was only a little past one in the morning.

......

The mechanical mouse doesn't have a recording function; all recordings are directly uploaded to the phone.

Halfway through the search, Chen Yi realized something was wrong and activated the storage and cloud upload functions to save all the evidence.

"A large number of severed limbs..."

Behind several closed doors, not all the 'goods' were fake human corpses, but the quantity of fake human corpses in stock was indeed not small.

"So, in the underworld, the corpses of fake humans are more valuable than ice?"

What's the principle behind this? Is there any need to recycle this kind of thing?

What are these green crates?

The mechanical mouse suddenly slowed down and then hid in a corner.

It was a scavenger, dragging its fat, bloated body covered in sticky secretions as it feasted on the pile of corpses in the warehouse.

The mechanical mouse didn't have a microphone, otherwise Chen Yi probably would have heard that eerie laughter.

"..."

Seeing this scene, Chen Yi felt nauseous and wanted to vomit, but he forced himself to suppress it.

Chen Yi opened his mask, popped a chili pepper lozenge into his mouth to stimulate his senses, and focused his attention on thinking.

"Why is the scavenger still alive? Or... is it not the same scavenger?"

Chen Yi glanced at the puddle near the door and frowned.

"Klukka, make sure the mechanical mouse can see clearly."

Zooming in, this angle reveals the carrion's mouth, with its irregularly arranged shovel teeth and canines chewing up flesh and bones before swallowing them whole.

The obese body, covered in pustules, seemed to be swelling, and some swelling marks could be seen gradually appearing on the skin, as if the contents ingested were approaching the size of its own body weight.

And it was completely unaware of this.

The dark red paste, under the room's light, revealed a multicolored black.

Damn, that's really disgusting.

Chen Yi dialed the police and clearly and concisely described the situation at the scene. The operator listened in silence for a moment.

"We understand. Sir, please try to find a safe place to wait for rescue, or if you are able, please evacuate the scene as soon as possible."

Chen Yi put down his phone, glanced down at the scavenger on the ground, and walked into the supermarket.

......

That strange customer is back.

As soon as he entered, he raised one hand and quickly smashed all the security cameras in his field of vision, then walked straight toward the cashier.

Kawasaki Saki instinctively raised her gun.

"calm."

Chen Yi raised his hand, signaling the other party not to fire.

Then he slowly took off the mask and breathed in fresh air again.

...It wasn't fresh; in fact, it had a fishy, ​​foul smell that permeated the air-conditioned, enclosed room.

"Couldn't you smell this before?"

It was Chen Yi's voice. Kawasaki Saki was startled, thinking she was hallucinating.

"I thought... it was the smell of the corpse by the door..."

"Let's go first, I'll take you back." Chen Yi put his mask back on because the smell in the space was a bit too unpleasant.

"Eh?"

"There's a big guy in the warehouse. Get out now if you don't want to die."

Chen Yi turned his head and glanced in the direction of the warehouse door; it was quiet.

"Chen... classmate?" Kawasaki Saki slowly opened the cashier's partition, walked out, and looked at Chen Yi, who was still standing there seemingly in a daze, and asked cautiously.

"It's okay, wait for me a moment."

Chen Yi pulled a data interface off the exoskeleton wristband, connected it to the supermarket's monitoring computer, and then pulled it off after a while.

"Let's go."

Kawasaki Saki watched this series of actions with a mixture of bewilderment and awe.

Second-year high school student: Chapter 183 Evacuation

Too late...

Just as Yukinoshita had predicted, finding Kawasaki-san's part-time job in Chiba using only her own efforts was indeed like finding a needle in a haystack.

Looking at the sky that had turned yellow, Yukinoshita gritted her teeth and had no choice but to give up the rest of her journey.

"This won't stop..."

On the train back, Yukino looked at some patterns and phenomena she had summarized in her phone's notes and tried to deduce them.

"It is known that these high-paying, somewhat informal jobs are generally not advertised online, but rather through job postings in the neighborhood, only hiring residents living nearby..."

Where does Kawasaki live? It's probably not in the affluent Mihama Ward or the city center. He likely lives in a cheap apartment near the school or somewhere a little further away that's convenient for commuting.

Is it the Green Zone or the Rice Field Zone?

Yukino used a binary method to first eliminate the districts with relatively strong average economic capabilities, and then continued to reason in the remaining districts.

"The answer derived this way is somewhat vague..."

By the way, Chen Jun mentioned last time that he ran into Kawasaki Saki's sister at the hospital. Maybe we can ask her which hospital it was and, incidentally, figure out the approximate location of the Kawasaki family home...

"...Chiba University Hospital."

Yukinoshita was deflated after receiving the answer.

Chiba University Hospital is the strongest hospital in Chiba City. In other words, if Chen Jun met Kawasaki Saki's brother here, it would only prove that their patient might have a rare disease or another difficult-to-treat type, which is why they had no choice but to go to Wakaba Ward for treatment.

In that case, the hospital lead would be almost entirely useless.

Should we use the family's resources to investigate?

That won't work either... It's not that Yukinoshita despises those powers, but while the Yukinoshita family is a leader in Chiba's real estate industry, they only deal in mid-to-high-end properties. If it were Kawasaki's family's financial situation...

It's very difficult to get in touch with them.

Is there no other way? At least not today.

If Kawasaki-san's part-time job goes smoothly tonight... I'll try following her tomorrow.

......

The indescribable stench from the pile of stench at the entrance almost made Kawasaki Saki's vision go black.

"The carrion eater, that's the one that was howling like a ghost at the door just now, and the one inside the warehouse is about the same."

As for why there were no howls or wailing inside the warehouse... Chen Yi was more inclined to believe that the other party had already had their fill and was too lazy to make a sound.

"How...did you find me?" Kawasaki Saki followed Chen Yi with small steps, watching him walk straight towards the strangely shaped motorcycle.

"Are you the Guitar Knight?"

Saki Kawasaki then remembered where that initial sense of déjà vu came from; she was extremely nervous at the time and hadn't even realized what the design meant.

"Get in the car. Your home should be around here, right?"

Chen Yi hopped on the motorcycle, and Kawasaki Saki hesitated for a moment before getting on.

"...Um, did you call the police?" Kawasaki Saki asked as if waking from a dream, seeing Chen Yi twist the accelerator and was about to drive away.

"Yes, I called the police. After I take you home, I'll have to come back here to provide evidence to the ATSS or the expert team."

"evidence?"

When did Chen take the photos of the evidence? ...Wait, how did Chen know that thing was in the warehouse? When did he find out?

"Yes, I took some photos as evidence."

“Then I’ll stay too,” Kawasaki Saki suddenly said.

"?"

"I'm an employee here. When the ATSS arrives, they'll probably ask about my whereabouts, right? I might as well stay here and wait until they've finished taking my statement and questioning me before I go back."

That's true.

Chen Yi didn't run far before he turned the handlebars and went back.

"Speaking of which, how did Chen Jun know I was here? Were you following me?"

"No, I just happened to be passing by."

Chen Yi was obviously not telling the truth, and Kawasaki Saki knew he wasn't telling the truth either.

"By the way, you probably won't get your salary anymore," Chen Yi added after thinking for a moment.

"...That's true..."

Actually, she had already regretted it while she was in the supermarket. You have to be alive to spend money, right?

However, hearing such a definitive verdict still left me somewhat disheartened.

"How about this, you work for me?" Chen Yi suddenly thought of something and asked casually.

"Huh? Working?"

Some rather unusual fantasies began to surface in my mind.

"Well, even if you save me..."

"?"

Now it was Chen Yi's turn to be confused. What on earth was this guy saying?

"What I mean is, you work for me."

So Chen Yi repeated it.

"Is it... a proper job?" Saki Kawasaki asked cautiously.

Are there any illegitimate jobs out there?

"Those drones in your bag are my own creations. I'm usually quite busy, and I'm short of someone to do the hard work of building drones." Chen Yi put himself in the other person's shoes and understood their thinking; they had misunderstood.

"Oh, I see." Kawasaki Saki breathed a sigh of relief, a slight regret flashing through her mind.

What do you mean by "a little disappointed"...?

"As for hourly wages... never mind, let's just do piecework."

Anyway, Chen Yi decided that 16LAB was just a hobby studio, and it didn't matter whether it produced in large quantities or not, since the daily output was strictly limited anyway.

"Um, when do I start work? There should be onboarding training, right?"

Kawasaki Saki asked again.

"Let me think about it and see when the renovation will be finished. If you're really bored, you can come to my house and learn from me for a couple of days."