Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Item2 Chapter2 (section)

===Part 5===

“Despite what spy movies may have led you to believe, the trick to an infiltration job isn’t earning everyone’s trust. For one, that’s simply not possible. If you’re going to infiltrate enemy territory, don’t try to make friends with the enemy – try to make it so they have no choice but to shake your hand even if they hate your guts.”



“If you want to get close to the enemy fast, create some trouble you can work with your target to solve. In the end, nothing brings two people together faster than a shared success.”



“If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t give a yes or no answer. Instead, smile and change the subject. Always stay in control of the conversation. If you wait for their reaction, they’ll wear you down with the conversation.”



Frenda gave more and more advice like a mother giving the shopping lift to her child. Kinuhata listened to it all while putting a tiny earphone in her ear and attaching a miniature microphone to the back of her back tooth with the knife of a pliers-style multitool.

“I’ll be monitoring all of your conversations and I’ll search up anything information you need and give it to you through your earphone. You’ll be cheating because your life depends on it. But unlike with an entrance exam, there is no official textbook, so I can’t know everything about the criminal organization’s rules. You’ll be found out in no time if you can’t follow our carefully-worked-out plan and also come up with some quick adlibs, so be careful.”

“Super yeah, yeah.”

“Listen, newbie. In the end, the worst thing you can do is have nothing to say. Avoid that at all costs. A pause of more than 0.6 seconds will be seen as unusual. But as long as you answer faster than that…”

“I get it. You super see me as a clueless newbie, don’t you? How disappointing.”

Kinuhata rebelliously pouted her lips, but for some reason Frenda hugged her tight around the shoulders.

Kinuhata’s eyes widened as Frenda spoke to her.

“Ugh. In the end, I’m just so worried. I really wish I was going instead.”

“I super told you not to, ''Senpai''. Honestly.”

Kinuhata hugged her “Senpai” back with her little hands and then relaxed her shoulders.

But then Frenda’s dark side persona emerged.

“In the end, I have this too.”

“?”

Frenda lifted a gold-glinting metal tube measuring about a meter long. It resembled a stretched out version of a 2L water bottle. It looked pretty heavy.

“Um, super what is that?”

“Oh, just ''the world’s smallest antimatter cannon'' with a caliber of only 155mm. It’ll cleanly annihilate everything within a diameter of 1000m. Oh, and it isn’t just the chip and detonator this time – this has got everything in there.”

Kinuhata wasn’t sure how to react to that.

“To be clear, the theory behind this has been around for decades, so it’s a piece of cake to build one with Academy City tech. In the end, if you fail, it’s my responsibility for sending you in. So if you screw up and get yourself killed, I’ll fire this and wipe the casino from the face of the Earth. I promise you I won’t let a single one of them escape. I’ll make sure to collect your bones afterwards, so you can rest easy about that.”

“…”

“(But in all seriousness, Mugino would start firing Meltdowner beams into the building the instant she heard you scream if I didn’t have this ready, so this is really just a Mugino deterrent. I really hope I won’t have to use it☆)”

“Super um…”

When she was mad, that electron beam demon queen really was more dangerous than that miniaturized antimatter weapon.

Takitsubo had been listening to all this in silence, but now she expressionlessly held her index finger up to her lips and spoke.

“Kinuhata, Mugino won’t obey the law, but she’s a kindhearted person who cares deeply about her teammates. But don’t let her hear you say so. That won’t end well.”

“Um, if this could turn out that super bad, I’d really rather you hadn’t told me…”

“I could totally see Mugino tearing one of us in half just to hide that she’s embarrassed. In the end, you have our support, so don’t worry about a thing as you go complete this ''errand''!”

It was written plain on Kinuhata’s face that she had no idea what to say in response to any of this as she set out on her own.

At midday, Kinuhata Saiai boarded a bus and rode it to District 22. She worked up a sweat on the way due to the poor air conditioning. She wasn’t wearing the hoodie dress that grew see-through far too easily, so she was better off than the girls in short-sleeve blouses on the same bus.

The typhoon hadn’t made landfall yet, but wind and rain were pounding on the bus’s windows. It wasn’t too bad at this point, but there was a chance bus service would be canceled before she made her return trip.

(District 22. The entire district is a massive multilevel underground facility, right?)

The bus descended a giant spiraling slope until a silent space spread out before it. Needless to say, there was no wind or rain here. There was a forest of skyscrapers down and a dark cloudy sky was displayed on the screen overhead. The only thing that felt off was the lack of three-bladed wind turbines. Down here, it was hard to believe there was a large and powerful typhoon coming.

This one vast underground space was not the entirety of District 22.

Several of them were stacked vertically, like a tiered bento box.

(Of course, it’ll all flood if there’s any trouble with the water pumps, so I super don’t want to be here on a day like this.)

That thought led Kinuhata to groan and freeze in place.

Offense Armor gathered nitrogen from the air around her to guard her. Did that mean she was susceptible to drowning? First electricity and now water – she was finding a lot of weaknesses in her power now that she was working in the field.

(For better or for worse, the world outside the lab is super full of possibilities.)

After disembarking at the bus stop, she found the underground space had recreated the same sweltering heat of the outdoors. That felt like a waste of energy. Annoyed by that, she walked the short distance to the former bowling alley.

She passed by a drum-shaped cleaning robot on the way. It was moving smoothly since the stormy winds were absent down here. Its camera concerned her, but she didn’t let it show on her face. She hadn’t gone undercover or done anything wrong ''yet''.

“Kinuhata, we’re on the same level as you. We won’t tell you which car we’re in because it would look unusual if you turned to look for us.”

“Super yeah, yeah.”

“In the end, you looked. From here on, be careful when you speak. Don’t move your lips and don’t glance toward the ear with the earphone whenever you hear one of us speak.”

She found an abandoned building about the size of a school.

There were no people or cars at the front entrance where the parking lot was located, but when she circled around back, she found a few delinquent boys gathered together. At first glance, they looked like idle delinquents hanging out behind the abandoned building using an empty coffee can as an ashtray, but they had their eyes on their surroundings, not the center of their circle. To be blunt, it was unnatural and conspicuous. They were likely the ''doormen'' for the illegal casino and they appeared to have noticed Kinuhata.

“In the end, this is your first challenge.”

“Is that super advice supposed to be helpful?”

Kinuhata exhaled softly before nervously approaching the boys. There was no correct expression or way to behave. Whether she smiled, looked nervous, or looked terrified, they would suspect her all the same.

“Whaddya want?”

“Excuse me, I super came here for a job interview…”

One of the delinquents viewed Kinuhata’s small body from head to toe, but she knew the real threat was the boy a step behind him who nonchalantly stuck his right hand in his pocket. The dark side was not like the people who made fools of themselves on video sites in the pursuit of clicks. Here, the plain and forgettable ones were the most dangerous.

“Who told you about this job? One of our employees?”

“''Kinoshita-san☆''”

She lied with a smile. She didn’t actually have a recommendation, so she just had to trust in the fact that you could find a Kinoshita-san or two anywhere you want in Japan.

However…

“Never heard of a Kinoshita-san.”

“He said he was a regular here. You really don’t know him?”

“Tch,” the delinquent clicked his tongue.

Maybe because he didn’t trust this girl who had shown up out of the blue and maybe because some loose-lipped customer was telling people about their casino.

That aside, no customer would want to go by their real name at an illegal casino, so there was no way to verify her story. The doormen had run into a problem they couldn’t answer.

And eventually…

The delinquent pulled out a radio instead of a phone. Because that wouldn’t go through an external server.

“We have an interview candidate. Tag her with Visitor Kinoshita-san, for all the good that’ll do.”

Apparently he didn’t want to risk upsetting a source of cash by turning Kinuhata away. The narrow back door unlocked with a deep metallic clunk.

“Frenda, you’re the expert, so you need to give Kinuhata some advice.”

“In the end, shut up. Remember what I said about a lag of more than 0.6 seconds sounding suspicious? Once she’s in a conversation, our newbie doesn’t have time to listen to me.”

“She came for a job interview on the advice of Kinoshita-san. Kinoshita-san is a regular customer.”

Mugino was speaking quietly, seemingly to herself, so she was probably jotting down some notes and pasting them to the car’s ceiling. If Kinuhata forgot the scenario she had adlibbed, it would rouse suspicion and get her killed, so they needed to keep track of all the details and immediately update it all. The more information, the more important that was for her to survive.

Kinuhata stepped inside while hearing the other girls sound so carefree since it wasn’t their lives at risk.

The atmosphere immediately changed.

She couldn’t let it show on her face.

It was hard to believe this was inside the rundown abandoned building she had seen from the outside. She saw fluffy carpet, two symmetrical flights of stairs, and a giant crystal chandelier at the ceiling. It was all designed to look like a classical mansion, but this was only the entranceway and cloakroom where she was searched and had to leave her possessions. The actual casino appeared to be beyond the large doors directly ahead.

Instead of the delinquent, a man dressed in a black party suit pulled out a 60cm rod.

Kinuhata’s heart leaped into her throat after Frenda’s talk of electric weapons, but…

“Place your phone in this box.”

“Um?”

“Do it now. As well as any trackable keychains, game systems capable of online play, or anything else that emits any kind of signal. Only a limited number of employees are authorized to carry communication devices.”

While Kinuhata obeyed, the man in black held the rod out horizontally and ran it across Kinuhata’s body only a few centimeters out from her clothing. It appeared to be some kind of scanner, so he had to be searching for EM signals.

Kinuhata was a little worried about her earphone, but…

“And done. You’re clean. Sorry, I know this is a hassle.”

“It’s super not a problem.”

“Hm? What happened there, Mugino?” asked Takitsubo in Kinuhata’s earphone.

“Unlike in dramas and movies, the real world won’t let you enter that kind of dangerous area while wearing a communication device constantly emitting an EM signal. It doesn’t matter how small or well-hidden it is. Even a toy radio sold at a discount store for 800 yen can detect those signals. But if you use something other than EM, then that coil scanner won’t detect a thing. For example, you could use ultrasonic communications based on the chirping of insects, or you could use synthetic pheromone communications that use chemical compounds.”

Kinuhata knew it was true, but she really wished they wouldn’t dis movies right in her ear. What if it showed on her face?

“This way. Don’t let the visitors see you. The staff uses the side door. You can ask Kawazakana-san about the rest.”

“Kawazakana-san? Wait, should you really be telling me that? I super don’t have the job yet.”

“It’s a fake name. Everyone uses a floor name – a surname for the guys and a given name for the girls. That’s standard in a business where discretion is key, so don’t forget it.”

After the man in black knocked on a small door off to the side and opened it, Kinuhata found herself in small room of plain concrete that didn’t mesh with what she had seen before. Apparently the luxurious interior decoration was only in the areas the customers would see. A lot of small windows were displayed on a large LCD screen and they all displayed footage from different parts of the casino. She guessed this rundown room was the security room. The main difference from a convenience store was how the cameras tended to be aimed at the tables and people’s hands.

Two young men in their mid-20s were waiting inside.

She had been invited into a room where a single mistake would mean her death.

“Super are you Kawazakana-san?”

“Welcome. I’m Consultant Kawazakana and this guy standing next to me is Manager Kubota-kun.”

Kinuhata wasn’t sure what the exact difference between a manager and a consultant was, but from the look of things, Kawazakana was the one in charge. He was seated in a folding chair while Kubota stood by his side. The discrepancy between their titles and the actual power balance confused Kinuhata a little.

“Ha hah. Is this your first time working at a place like this? Oh, right. Have a seat there. I don’t have a drink for you, but you don’t mind, do you? We really only serve alcohol here.”

“Eh heh heh. Do I look old enough to have had a job before?”

“Is that why you came to the dark side? We do tend to ignore those pesky labor laws and business laws.”

“I ran away from my dorm during summer break. It turns out I can’t get out of the city because of that stupid wall, but I refuse to let them drag me back to my dorm. So now I super need money to super survive here in the city.”

“I see.”

Kawazakana then hit her with a question unique to Academy City.

Namely…

“''What’s your power''?”

“I’m a Level 0☆ If I had some great power, I’d super automatically get scholarship money and I wouldn’t be here asking for a job, would I? Academy City would be paying me to assist with their research.”

“Good point.”

Kinuhata smiled and gave her answer while realizing she wasn’t entirely sure what bank account was receiving the scholarship money she received for being a Level 4.

(The term Level 0 is really convenient. There’s super no way to continue the conversation from there. I don’t know where she got off to, but I can see why that ''cosplay lover'' used that story.)

That memory nearly produced a reaction on her face.

Kawazakana smiled thinly and pulled a deck of cards seemingly out of nowhere.

That was probably a pro’s card trick.

“I’m going to perform a few tricks, so can you tell me what I did?”

“Eh? But I was hoping to be a super bunny girl, not a dealer.”

“Just do it.”

Kawazakana fanned the cards out on the table and then returned them to an orderly stack. He set down set down the cards one at a time, slowly forming groups of five.

This was apparently meant to mimic dealing a poker hand, but…



“There. You palmed a card. That is, you super hid a card in your palm like it was just sucked in there.”



“There. The deck looks like an orderly stack, but you super intentionally left one sticking out a bit so you can pull out the card you want. A lot like a bookmark, I guess?”



“Super there. One of those cards is the same on both sides.”



“Good, good,” said Kawazakana, amused.

He seemed to be observing Kinuhata’s face more than what was happening on the table.

“Next: in the end, the entire deck is formed from odd numbered cards. Next: this one’s simple. He ordered the cards how he wanted and then pretended to cut the deck without actually cutting it. Grab his wrist before he deals himself a royal flush.”

“You know so much about this, Frenda. You’re so mature.”

Kinuhata appreciated the advice in her ear, but had Takitsubo become nothing more than a cheerleader?

“A bunny girl is more than a waitress who brings the visitors their drinks and food.”

“Oh?”

“You need to keep an eye on the entire casino floor to spot and prevent cheating. That’s actually your most important job. The visitors – that’s what we call our customers – will only be wary of the dealers and guards. They tend to be so smitten with the bunny girls they see them as on their side, so a lot of those morons let their guard down. There are even some sad men who ask a bunny girl to elope with him – that isn’t just a thing in dramas. Even though everyone who works here are accomplices who share the profits.”

Was that how it worked?

You couldn’t eliminate all risk even with the most logical and mechanical security system. In the end, it all came down to interactions between people driven by raw greed. In that sense, a psychological approach may have been sensible.

“Hm? Kinuhata, is he saying the point of bunny suits is to distract perverts?”

Kinuhata’s facial muscles trembled from the effort it took to avoid laughing and getting herself killed for it. Meanwhile, Kawazakana gathered the cards back into a single deck and placed his index finger atop them.

“One last thing. Suppose someone has a card trick where they pull a single card from a deck a hundred times in a row and it’s the ace of spades each and every time. How did they do it?”

“They would practice over and over with a single company’s cards, super learning how the cards feel between their fingers. Due to how the cards are lined up, the aces tend to be on the top when shipped from the factory, so even if a new deck is used each time, the aces are more likely to have slight damage or fading from the sun. The jokers tend to be at the very bottom so they can easily be thrown away since they aren’t used in every game. The best form of cheating is one based on hard work, not a trick. Right?”

That was all advice from Frenda.

Kawazakana clapped his hands in hollow applause.

“Congratulations. You have a good eye. Baccarat, roulette, craps, slots – each game has its own forms of cheating. That can include analog sleight of hand and that can include digital devices or programming skills. We’ll have you study up on them all so you can spot them, but you should do fine since you have the observation skills and you know how to read a room. I think you’re exactly the kind of person we want working here.”

“Super really?”

“Ha hah. To be honest, you had more or less passed the test from the moment you didn’t hesitate to give up your phone back at the door. Judgment and online news investigative reporters tend to trigger the first warning there. We’ll tag them but let them continue a while longer while we work out who they’re working for and what they’re doing here, but 90% of the time, it’s already over for them by that point. Humans can’t bear feeling alone or seeing that ‘no signal’ display. Especially when their lives are at risk.”

“Ha hah☆”

Kinuhata mimicked how her boss laughed.

She was currently wearing an earphone, but she ignored that here.

“You said you want to be a bunny girl, right? As a runaway, I assume you want to be paid in cash. How many days a week can you work? Not how much you can physically work, but how often you can head out here without the adults getting suspicious. Well, we can work out all those details later.”

Kawazakana leaned toward her.

He moved his head right in front of her.

“''Now that you work here, you belong to me. Don’t you dare betray me and go work for one of our competitors''.”

Kinuhata felt the temperature drop around her.

But she kept her smile.

Then Kawazakana held a hand to his mouth.

“Just kidding. Ha hah!! This really is your first time at a place like this, huh? You’re so innocent! Word of an illegal casino always gets out sooner or later and then comes the Anti-Skill raid. Just like you heard about us from your Kinoshita-san. So just relax and work hard like a freelancer who can move to another place at any time. In our business, you can’t get too comfortable with the everyday routine and fail to pull out in time. Leave all the worries for the guy in charge who’ll be stuck as the last one standing after everyone else jumps ship.”

Kubota, who hadn’t said a word this entire time, jumped at that.

It sounded like Consultant Kawazakana was the effective leader and Manager Kubota had been given the top position as a breakwater in case of trouble. That explained the strange balance of power. Was he a former visitor who cheated or brought fake chips to this dangerous dark side casino, or had he gotten too drunk and tried to get a little too chummy with a bunny girl?

“What’s the first letter of the alphabet that comes to mind? In 3 seconds!”

“H.”

“Then your floor name is Haruka-chan. A name that starts with a letter that comes to mind quick tends to be a popular one that won’t stick in anyone’s memory. Welcome aboard.”

He told Kinuhata where the locker room was, so she walked there alone and found an array of simple mannequin torsos wearing plastic packaged bunny suits. She wondered why they didn’t just use hangers before she realized those suits had no shoulders to hang on a hanger. There were some in Kinuhata’s small size, suggesting they hired middle school and even elementary school bunny girls here.

The only ones in her size were pink. She picked up the entire mannequin torso, opened a locker without a nametag on it, and then looked to the ceiling.

“Are you still super monitoring me?”

“Don’t worry, Kinuhata. We won’t lose sight of you.”

“Not my point. If you can see me, it means there’s a security camera in here. Do those pervert criminals watch the girls change!?”

“In the end, I think it’s a business decision, not a voyeurism fetish. The customers won’t use credit cards or e-money since they want to keep their identities hidden, so the casino needs to keep a lot of cash stored in their safe to make all the necessary payments, right? If there’s any kind of blind spot in the building, their own workers can swipe the money or a dealer and visitor can meet in secret to discuss how to cheat, so they have to install cameras and mics everywhere to prevent any secret conversations from taking place.”

Kinuhata didn’t care how logical it was.

She blushed, shut her eyes, and mumbled a request.

“Please super fake some trouble.”

“Sure, sure. In the end, this will increase their alert level, though?”

“Just super do it!!”

Kinuhata used the 20 or 30 seconds of static in all the casino’s security cameras to quickly strip off her clothes and put on the bunny suit. She had never worn one before, but it felt a lot like a stiffer version of a swimsuit.

She heard a commotion outside the door, so she cracked it open and suck her head out. As cutely as she could manage.

“Super what is it, Kawazakana-san?”

“Nothing. Just some technical difficulties. God, was it a power surge? Is the typhoon effecting things this deep underground?”

Was he referring to the static in the security cameras?

Then Kawazakana stuck a hand in his pocket.

“''Haruka-chan,'' did you manage to change on your own? Then take this. It’s standard issue here.”

“Wow.”

He handed her a real handgun.

A piece of plastic was attached below the barrel like a bayonet.

“In the end, that’s a 9mm handgun and an 800,000-volt stun gun. The slide has a different texture, so I’m guessing they used a conversion kit to upgrade the handgun to full-auto. If he’s giving that to you, newbie, it means that’s the minimum standard here. The guards in black are meant to deal with fights, so they’ll have much bigger guns.”

Not even Kinuhata would survive if she was incapacitated with a stun gun and then shot with a gun on full auto.

That possible death flashed through Kinuhata’s mind.

(Esper powers are a lot harder to use than I super thought. It’s more about compatibility than strength.)

“The bunny girls are meant to look weak and sweet so the visitors will let their guard down, so it would be best if you didn’t let them see that,” said Kawazakana. “You pick it up when you show up for work and turn it in before you leave. Make sure you don’t leave the premises with it.”

“What should I super start with today?”

“Eager to work, huh?” He smiled thinly. “But I can’t send you out onto the floor with all the visitors right away. For today, you can take a look around the place, learn the layout and the equipment, and then learn the names of all the food and drinks we offer. There’s actually a lot bunny girls have to learn. As much as a convenience store worker. You need to know the most effective way of earning the visitors’ affections, but you also need to know how to keep an eye on the entire casino floor to watch for cheating and for unnatural increases or decreases in chip amounts that would suggest someone is stealing chips or adding in fake chips. You also need to learn how to resuscitate drunks.”

“How to…resuscitate them?”

“If we called an ambulance every time a drunk collapsed, we couldn’t stay in business even with a hundred Kubota-kuns. Plus, visitors love it when a cute bunny girl helps them. I don’t know if it’s the suspension bridge effect or what, but you need to force your kindness onto them if you want some dedicated customers.”

“Huh? But couldn’t I end up super earning some girl’s ire if I rescue her boyfriend in front of her?”

“Ha hah. In those cases, the trick is to slip a perfume-scented business card in the boyfriend’s breast pocket when she isn’t looking. With a note asking him to come alone next time.”

Kinuhata was beginning to think her job was to ruin people’s lives.

Wrecking homes and relationships with debt and dependence was the name of the game. An illegal casino did not exist to let the customers win money – it existed to make them comfortable while they had their wallet drained of every last yen.

“You won’t actually start your job until next time, so you can relax for today. But do you need money right away?”

“Super yes.”

She actually wanted to investigate every part of the casino as soon as possible, but being too insistent wouldn’t help her here. He was the guy in charge and she was a part-timer on her first day.

She had envisioned the casino as mostly slot machines and roulette tables, but it appeared to have a lot more equipment than that. There was an industrial kitchen like you would find in a restaurant, a broadcast room that controlled the music, and a small room with stacks of cases containing plastic chips. There was even a room with a heavy-looking combination safe in one corner.

“That’s Sawaki-kun, the safe keeper.”

The indicated young man had a rugged crewcut and intellectual glasses that didn’t suit him at all. That STEM criminal looked like the perfect example of how scoring high on tests did not guarantee you would grow up to be a decent adult.

“He’s in charge of all the finances. If the casino atmosphere gets to you and you absolutely have to try gambling, you’re better off skipping the cards and asking Sawaki-kun for some stock and futures recommendations. Trying your hand at any of our toys is a great way to ruin your life, so be careful.”

After walking down the hallway some, they passed by some tough-looking men.

Unlike the normal(?) guards, these were wearing blast-resistant suits like a bomb squad might use. Their guns were humongous revolvers with an additional stock attached, forcing them to be wielded with two hands, and they wore firefighting axes on their backs.

“They’re our Murder Team,” casually explained Kawazakana. “I don’t have to explain what their job is, do I?”

“Yikes.”

“Ha hah! Don’t worry, don’t worry. They won’t have any business with you as long as you follow the rules. And to be honest, they’re real job is to look scary enough that no one tries anything in the first place. If you’re on break at the same time as them, they make great company while you eat.”

Of course, the dark side casino had to create a comfortable space for the customers or no one would gamble away small fortunes there. They couldn’t afford to suspect people without cause, so they normally only used the guards and only sent in the Murder Team in for emergencies. That way they could avoid intimidating the people on the casino floor.

From the look of things, there were usually between 20 and 30 people working in the illegal casino. If there were three shifts, that was a total of around 90. Of course, the 60 not in the casino were not all enjoying time off. There would be a team that moved on to their primary(?) job of assisting Honey Queen.

(Hm. They have more people than our support organization. Maybe that’s because Honey Queen doesn’t have to super think about the cost of supporting so many.)

These were non-disposable subordinates. If they each received a monthly wage of 300 thousand yen and there were 90 of them, the total personnel costs would be 2.7 million yen. Replenishing their stock of food, drinks, and other consumables would be between 5 and 10 million. They had illegally reformed an abandoned building, so they wouldn’t have to consider rent or taxes on the land or building. This was the bare minimum line, but their income goal had to be around 50 million a month. In a single month.

(Wow, looking at the numbers, keeping those delinquents fed is super expensive. And knowing it’s all invested in dimwitted delinquents is real mood killer.)

Kawazakana stopped in front of a small metal door in the very, very back.

“This here is our last stop. In a way, this room is more important to remember than the safe room.”

“?”

“''This is the cell for anyone stupid enough to cross us.''”

It was a small concrete room with no windows.

A middle school girl lay inside with her arms and legs bound by thick zip ties.

She had wavy black hair, her red, puffy eyes made it clear she had been crying for quite some time now, and the handkerchief being used as a gag was soaked with saliva. The fear of death had formed unusually large beads of sweat on her skin, soaking her dress (which looked out of place on her regardless) enough to see her underwear through it.

“We sometimes get people like this. She’s apparently a Judgment member who was pretending to be a visitor to sneak in. It’s no big deal if the manager on paper is arrested, but we can’t have someone photographing the interior and getting us all arrested. So in cases like this, this is our only option.”

Kinuhata Saiai was not a hero.

But she still felt her heart skip a beat.

Hadn’t he said during the interview that the initial request to hand over your phone could trigger a warning?

“While the dealers are specialists, the bunny girls have to know how to do everything, so you should probably learn how we ‘dispose of’ people like this. Oh, I know. For today, can you assist our throwaway Manager Kubota-kun with his work? You’ll be reducing 55kg of meat to ashes with an electric furnace designed to reach 3500 degrees to incinerate lab animals, so be careful you don’t burn yourself. A bunny girl’s value is in her body, after all.”