"Some people are so unlucky, even drinking cold water makes them choke."
Hit by a car.
Transported to another world.
Captured the moment I arrived.
Why?
No idea.
Luke felt like he was tied to a cold iron chair.
A hood had been pulled over his head, plunging everything into darkness. The burlap lining clung to his cheeks, damp and greasy, and the stench of rotten blood kept creeping into his nostrils.
He heard a whip cracking nearby, followed by someone's continuous, tearful screams.
"Talk! Where is the thing?" a gruff voice demanded loudly.
The person being whipped begged desperately, "I really don't know what you're talking about.
"Please stop hitting me. Let me go... I'm just a petty thief.
"All my money is hidden in a bird's nest on a statue east of Botu Square.
"You can have all of it... Just let me go..."
The man with the gruff voice seemed to ask someone else, "He probably really doesn't know..."
A gunshot rang out!
The thief's pleas fell silent.
The gruff-voiced man said, "Now we have only one suspect left. If he didn't steal the thing either...
"We'll all be punished."
A woman replied, "No, we won't be punished. He'll tell us where it is..."
"You're sure he stole it? Why interrogate anyone else?"
The woman said, "They're the ones who won't get it through their thick skulls. If they just confess and say the thing was tossed into the Lime River, then whether it can be recovered is no longer the Secret Intelligence Bureau's concern.
"Of course, it might have been tossed somewhere else that's hard to find.
"As long as they confess... at least they won't die here.
"If they don't... we can go out and arrest someone else."
Luke knew the woman was saying all this for his benefit.
They couldn't find the thief, so they wanted to pin the blame on some random scapegoat and report back to their superiors.
Confess?
What would happen if he did?
Luke heard the man's footsteps approach. A hand grabbed the hood...
Just then, Luke suddenly recalled a few key words from their conversation.
"Botu Square," "statue," "bird's nest."
"Lime River." "Secret Intelligence Bureau."
In the single-player open-world game Era, which he'd played in his previous life, there was a square called Botu in Cape District, Raging Wave City, in the Golden Shield Empire. On the statue east of the square was a bird's nest. Search it, and you could find a bag of gold coins.
Fifteen gold was a nice little windfall for a new player.
The Lime River was the river that ran through all of Raging Wave City.
And the Secret Intelligence Bureau... was an intelligence agency directly under the Golden Shield Empire's royal authority. It wielded vast influence and had independent powers of investigation, law enforcement, and execution. Everyone throughout the Golden Shield Empire quaked at the mention of the Secret Intelligence Bureau.
There was a branch of the Secret Intelligence Bureau in Cape District, Raging Wave City...
A joke about that branch circulated in the game.
"One day, a noblewoman lost her pet rabbit and asked the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau Branch in Raging Wave City to find it.
"The next day, the Secret Intelligence Bureau delivered a bear. The bear was beaten black and blue, and lay on the ground yelling, 'I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit! I really am a rabbit!'"
That was how the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau Branch in Raging Wave City operated.
It was funny as a joke, but not so funny from the bear's point of view.
Luke was now absolutely certain.
Even if he confessed, the moment he gave his statement and signed it, he'd suddenly drop dead.
Dead men tell no tales!
It was a standard trick of the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau Branch.
Now he could only take a gamble...
The hood was being pulled up.
Luke snapped, "Pisco, get that mechanical hand that reeks of machine oil off my head!"
The hood, already lifted to Luke's chin, stopped moving.
The gruff-voiced man asked in astonishment, "Y-you... how do you know my name?"
So this really was the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau Branch.
"Pisco, I don't just know your name... I also know you have a cat named Miley, and every night you hold her while you sleep."
Pisco was even more astonished. "How do you know about Miley! I-I hid her so well."
The woman burst out laughing. "Pisco, you actually have a cat, and you named her Miley! You've really given me a whole new perspective on you..."
Then Luke said, "Shelley, born at the Imperial Institute of Extraordinary Species, is a third-generation human-Medusa hybrid. Her right eye is Medusa's Eye.
"At eighteen, she joined the Imperial Royal 469th Infantry Regiment.
"At twenty-five, she was transferred to the Royal 10th Steam Fortress as captain of the 398th Rapid Assault Team, and took part in the battle for the Fio Hills.
"At thirty-six, she became the third-in-command of the 10th Steam Fortress. During that time, she fought in the Barn Battle and personally led her team to capture three enemy Steam Fortresses.
"Later... she was sentenced to forty-five years in prison for seriously injuring the newly appointed first commander of the 10th Steam Fortress.
"But in her second year of imprisonment, she joined the Secret Intelligence Bureau under the alias Black Mamba, and has been working at the Cape District Secret Intelligence Bureau Branch ever since."
After Luke finished speaking, silence fell over the room.
Quiet!
That meant what he'd said had worked.
Now all he had to do was wait.
See who had more patience.
After a while, Pisco suddenly said, "Boss, y-you're forty-six now. H-how do you still look like you're in your twenties?"
"Shut up!" The woman was clearly growing irritable. She asked Luke, "Who are you, exactly? How do you know about me?"
Luke put on an imposing air. "Shelley, take off my hood. I don't trust Pisco's mechanical hands.
"If I lose even a single hair, you'll be facing far more than just another forty-five years in prison."
After a while, the hood over Luke's head was removed.
An uncomfortably bright incandescent bulb hung from the ceiling of the dim room. Its glare took Luke a while to adjust to, before he could make out his surroundings.
A sealed interrogation room.
Seven people had been tied to chairs. Six were dead.
Every one of them had been shot in the head. Red and white matter lay splattered across the floor.
Standing beside him was a hulking, older white man. His bare upper body was covered in lumps of muscle like tires, but both his arms were made of metal.
In front of him.
A young-looking red-haired beauty brought over a chair and sat down. A black eyepatch covered her right eye, and she spun a revolver in her hand.
The barrel was long, and golden runes were engraved on the gun. Green light radiated from the center of its grip.
Smack!
The woman crossed her right leg over Luke's chair, placing her foot between his legs.
A blade slid out from the heel of her shoe.
"Strangely dressed gentleman, now can you tell me... who exactly are you?"
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