The moment he rushed out, shouting his title at the corner where the two groups were hiding, Sensei quickly looked toward the position he estimated Hua Ye to be in—
“No one!?”
At the alley entrance he had locked onto based on gunfire and footsteps, there were only shell casings and several magazines scattered on the ground, along with a corner of the alley wall that was riddled with bullet holes and crumbling, falling chunks of cement.
Because he had activated the Shittim Chest’s defensive function, the voice call had been automatically disconnected.
Now he had no way to confirm Hua Ye’s condition…
—Not good.
There were only two possibilities for why no one was there:
Either he had misjudged the distance between the gunfire and footsteps, or Hua Ye and the Helmet Gang captain had relocated the battlefield into the alley within the few seconds he rushed out—
And judging by the gunfire he had just heard from the Shittim Chest, Hua Ye had clearly fallen into a disadvantageous position instantly.
Feeling the tearing pain in his lower back—
Which had suddenly taken a heavy blow from Hua Ye and then been forced to start up by his own urging—
Sensei took a short breath, tugged at his slightly tight suit collar, and his sharp gaze instantly locked onto the positions of the two Helmet Gang groups he had just identified.
“Everyone, I’ll say it again: please leave quickly. This area will soon be taken over by the Defense Office and Valkyrie Police Station. I know you’re here for the desserts or your captain, but think carefully, children…”
Looking at the two groups of kids still hiding silently behind cover, he took a deep breath and spoke with a serious tone.
“Strawberry Daifuku is indeed expensive, and selling it on the black market could net you a big profit—but what then? Under the Defense Office’s investigation and crackdown based on the circulation and sales of Strawberry Daifuku, your credit point sources will be suspected. You’ll be innocently labeled as defaulters, unable to enter shops outside the black market.”
—He had to hurry.
Among the reasons he could think of right now, this was the one most likely to convince these kids to put down their guns and not be tied down by that bag of Strawberry Daifuku.
Standing calmly in the center of the street, the man loudly exposed the weakness that had always plagued the Helmet Gangs.
“No matter how much money you earn that way, you still can’t go to a cake shop openly and with a clear conscience to buy a pastry you like, can you? You still have to hide in the black market, watching helplessly as other children enjoy their youth freely and unrestrainedly in the crowds, in the wider world beyond the black market, right?”
—These kids were still children.
They didn’t have, and shouldn’t have, the kind of determination to pay any price—
Even commit mistakes—
just to survive.
If they weren’t giving up on themselves, they would understand his words.
He stood there calmly, as steadfast as a rock facing the morning light, as if he were the light itself.
His words echoed through the street like the earlier gunfire—
There were too many alleys around, and they were too deep.
The shop owners on both sides of the street listened quietly to this man who dared to show himself before the students.
Though they didn’t agree with what he said, they were secretly amazed by his courage.
—At the very least, without a Halo, and at constant risk of being shot in the head and killed, he dared to stand up and say these things to kids who would smash their shops over trivial matters, damage their goods, and even engage in zero-yuan shopping sprees.
That was enough.
Hiding behind bulletproof glass, the shop owners nodded to themselves as they watched the man standing like an iron tower in the middle of the street.
Even the beast-eared people, whose strength was close to that of weaker students, and even the robots who normally only thought about making big money and climbing the ranks in the consciousness network, felt a hidden admiration.
But the man standing in the middle of the street was unaware of all this.
His sharp eyes focused only on the Helmet Gangs still hiding on both sides, and he continued like a proclamation or a declaration.
“Look, children! I know you might have become who you are now because you longed for freedom, because the academy rejected you, or because your abilities weren’t enough!”
“But children! The crisis in front of you isn’t about needing these Strawberry Daifuku to fill your bellies, or to feed your landlords or your gun accessory dealers! It’s about you needing to look, to find, whether there’s a new path for you to walk! To find whether there’s a new way to escape this shrinking situation!”
This was a thought he had come up with after hearing the WagaWaga Helmet Gang’s story yesterday.
It might seem naive and immature because he had met too few people, but he genuinely hoped that these kids wouldn’t struggle in the black market, wouldn’t lose other possibilities due to temporary confusion.
Rustling sounds and chaotic murmurs like muttering came from the corners—
After hearing his sudden outburst, these kids seemed a bit surprised and lost.
Good, keep up the momentum!…
Finally, he added one more sentence in a deliberately provocative tone.
“Or, children! Have you never thought about whether you have the right to live the life you long for but missed out on due to some mistakes?”
The next moment, a gunshot suddenly rang out from the corner where the new Helmet Gang was hiding!
“Bang!”
A deliberately aimed-off shotgun blast hit the ground right at Sensei’s feet, shattering the pavement.
The shotgun pellets, along with flying cement fragments, shot toward his legs but were blocked by the azure barrier that instantly appeared from the Shittim Chest.
“Current battery: 63%. Remaining duration: two minutes and forty seconds. Please note the battery level!”
The mechanical voice of the Shittim Chest sounded alongside Sensei’s slightly delayed breath.
This shot interrupted his words, but the follow-up target wasn’t lethal—anyone could see it was a warning.
However, Sensei let out a relieved sigh instead, reached out, and turned off the Shittim Chest’s shield function.
“Shittim Chest deactivated. Please stay safe.”
For the next negotiation, he had to be sincere.
He couldn’t hide behind the barrier.
He had to make these kids feel his feelings.
At the very least, he had to trust them.
After the gunshot, accompanied by a flurry of rustling, under Sensei’s gaze, a large group of aggressive, chattering kids jumped out from behind a massive pile of trash cans—
They bore bruises on exposed parts of their bodies, their clothes were dirtied by cement dust, garbage, and gunpowder smoke, and their hair was messy, most of it resembling the unkempt fur of some animal.
But even so, these kids yelled at him with hostile eyes and tone.
“Who the hell are you? How dare you order us, the famous KadaKada Helmet Gang?”
“Ha! What a load of nonsense! Knock him out and drag him away first! Outsiders should just stay hidden and mind their own business!”
“Hmph, what ‘Sensei’! The Helmet Gang doesn’t need a teacher! We’re free! No one can tie us down! Even if a Trinity student drops out, she’ll never bow to anyone!”
Despite being filthy, the entire new Helmet Gang exuded a subtle arrogance and pride, lifting their heads and talking back with an unquestionable tone, as if they completely disregarded their own identity.
Several of them had wings on their backs, hung with various decorations—
Though most of those seemingly exquisite decorations were somewhat worn.
The kid at the front, holding the shotgun with the barrel still smoking, waved her hand to stop the members’ clamor.
Then, a muffled voice came from under the K6-3 ballistic helmet that covered her entire head.
“Hey, that guy called ‘Sensei,’ what did you just say? Something about missing out? We don’t get it! All we want now is to take back the Strawberry Daifuku we worked hard to get, sell it, and make enough money for this meal, the next, and several more good ones. Forget your crooked theories! If you understand, get out of our way!”
Two or three kids behind the one who clearly played the leader role also started shouting.
“Yeah, yeah! Who understands that stuff? Get out of the way! We want our stuff back! Move it, move it! Outsiders should just hide and stay out of student affairs!”
“Get out of the way! Otherwise, we’ll knock you out first, then chase after those two—same result!”
Sensei’s tone was subtle.
“No room for discussion?”
The girl in the K6-3 ballistic helmet replied firmly with a muffled voice.
“No discussion! This is our way!”
Then, Sensei smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting.
He looked warmly and persistently at the girl’s goggles, as if staring into the decisive and resolute eyes behind them.
“Even if I say I will make an agreement with you, to give you a chance to go back to being normal students—no deal?”
The girl, and the others behind her, all froze when they heard Sensei say the word “agreement.”
The earlier chattering and murmurs were cut off.
Faces etched with disbelief, they exchanged glances, as if confirming whether their hearing was normal.
The morning wind on the street was still cool, but neither the man in the white suit nor the mud-stained girls felt cold.
Finally, the leader was the first to snap out of it.
Slowly raising her shotgun, aiming it at Sensei’s feet, she spoke in a muffled, strange tone of doubt.
“Agreement? With us? You’re an adult? You… you serious? ‘Sensei,’ right? You know what an agreement means in Kivotos… Forget it, you’re an adult. Agreements probably don’t matter to you anyway.”
Sensei nodded without hesitation, his eyes calm and stubborn, yet with a hint of anxiety—he had delayed too long.
He still didn’t know how Hua Ye was doing.
Letting out another breath, he spoke as the girls vaguely surrounded or crowded him.
“Yes, I make an agreement with you. I will let you return to where you came from, or in the future, give you a decent place to go.”
As he spoke, his peripheral vision swept past the large piles of debris on the other side of the street—
Through the gaps in the debris, several indistinct Halos were faintly visible.
Those Halos flickered, as if their owners were also lost and hesitant.
“…Tsk, all big talk. Fine, we’ll call it bad luck for us, the KadaKada Helmet Gang, to run into a weirdo like you. But let me be clear: we didn’t agree to anything. We just backed off a little out of respect for you as a strange adult, got it?”
The leading girl made a retreat gesture behind her back to her companions, muttered a few words to Sensei in a half-threatening, half-complaining tone, then decisively turned around and led her companions—
Who were looking at Sensei with strange expressions—
To quickly run toward the alley they had come from.
Probably there was a secret passage inside or something.
Watching that agile, slightly helpless back, Sensei suddenly called out.
“Student! What’s your name?”
The girl in the helmet paused mid-step, throwing back a reply without turning around.
“Don’t want to say. If I do, I’m afraid your Defense Office will come after me.”
So Sensei watched regretfully as the girl followed closely behind her members, as if covering their retreat, and finally turned into the alley.
But the moment she turned the corner, her muffled voice still drifted back one sentence.
“Sensei, remember this: we’re the KadaKada Helmet Gang. I’m the captain, Kawazuka Ranbu. Remember that.”
He was stunned for a moment, then a smile tugged at his lips.
He nodded but didn’t respond.
When he turned back to look at the pile of debris, he saw only a mess—
As if someone had been hiding behind it and then hurriedly fled.
“Sigh… not enough time…”
He muttered to himself in his mind, then showed a determined expression.
Enduring the sharp pain in his lower back, he started running toward the alley where Hua Ye and the captain had disappeared.
“That alley is straight. According to Hua Ye, there’s no cover there. That means the moment I rush in, I’ll see everything happening inside!”
His hand swept across the edge of the tablet, pressing the start button.
“Shittim Chest activated. Current battery: 61%. Please note the battery level.”
Wait for me, Hua Ye! I’m coming!
But the moment he reached the alley entrance, what met his eyes wasn’t the hellish sight of Hua Ye being beaten to the ground, but rather—
“Ah, you’re way too straight, sister. This… sigh, you’ve directly approved our budget and personnel, so what can I say? Forget about Abydos—even if it were Trinity, I’d dare to fight! I’ll just give you my Helmet Gang!”
Hua Ye, covered in visible bruises from head to toe, was speaking with an unfriendly expression to the captain, who kept bowing and apologizing.
The captain gripped Hua Ye’s hand tightly while rubbing the bruise on her own forehead, looking at Hua Ye’s foul expression with glistening eyes.
The HK-416, equipped with a full-auto trigger group, auxiliary sight, and an extended magazine, was thrown on the ground like trash at Hua Ye’s feet.
Looking closely, Hua Ye’s Browning automatic pistol was also there.
“What happened?”
Sensei was confused.
And Hua Ye, attracted by the sound of Sensei’s footsteps, casually looked toward the alley entrance.
Seeing it was her advisor, she spoke coldly to him in an impatient and irritated tone.
“Hey, Advisor. I’ve found our guide to Abydos. This piece of… no, this Captain here has been to the black market there several times. Through my persuasion and her realization, she and her Helmet Gang have been unilaterally absorbed by me into your guard unit.”
…Huh?