Leave Behind the Killing Intent Before You Go

After washing the ashtray, Jiang Xia was drying his hands when his phone rang.

He picked it up and checked the caller ID. It was the blond underling.

Delinquents were not delinquents every day.

Normally, they skipped class like ordinary people, drifted through their days like ordinary people, and worked part-time jobs for spending money like ordinary people...

The difference was that delinquents also gathered regularly for meetups, confirming that they were still themselves—those uniquely rebellious youths.

Jiang Xia actually felt these gatherings were rather performative.

But his underlings were decent people, and at critical moments, they were very easy to fool... Ahem, very useful.

So necessary socializing still had to be done.

For instance, today was the weekend.

By custom, they were going to the game arcade that afternoon to beat some records.

Then they would have a meal together.

Finally, once the night had grown quiet, they would ride their motorcycles down sparsely populated roads, tearing through the streets like a biker gang that came and went with the wind.

For the past few days, Jiang Xia had been focused on "how to make Ghost Fetus stop randomly pairing people up" and "how to trick Ghost Fetus into willingly signing a contract."

Together with his usual class-skipping, he had lost track of what day it was.

He had nearly stood up his weekly routine...

Jiang Xia answered the call from his underling.

At this hour, the blond and the others had already settled into the game arcade.

Jiang Xia said he would be there soon, then headed out to meet his rowdy friends.

He had originally thought this would be another uneventful day.

Who knew that when he reached the area near the game arcade and was about to go in, Ghost Infant suddenly poked him excitedly.

Jiang Xia paused and looked in the direction it pointed.

Under the shade of a tree across the street, a Black Porsche sat quietly parked.

Jiang Xia: "..." This car looked awfully familiar.

...Well, the pair of eyes brimming with killing intent behind the cracked window looked even more familiar.

Jiang Xia accidentally met his boss's gaze inside the car, and his foot froze midway toward the game arcade.

With Ghost Fetus, Jiang Xia was no longer afraid of Gin.

But no matter what, Gin was still a boss who had paid him, on and off, for an entire year.

Playing arcade games right in front of a boss who was busy spinning like a top...

It gave him the same feeling as sitting nearby with his legs crossed and playing games while the teacher grunted and strained over cleaning the classroom with a bucket and mop.

...His professional ambition stung a little.

Jiang Xia hesitated and stopped.

But then he reconsidered. Since Gin had not come looking for him, it meant there was nothing for him to do. Going over on his own did not seem appropriate either.

Thinking like this, Jiang Xia took another step toward the game arcade.

After taking it, he turned back for another look. Gin exhaled a puff of smoke and silently rolled up the window.

...Perhaps he found this "wasting time at a game arcade" behavior worthy of condemnation and wanted it out of sight.

Or perhaps he envied Jiang Xia for getting to play on the weekend.

Or maybe he simply wanted to pretend they did not know each other...

Once the window was shut, Gin vanished behind the pitch-black sun film, and Jiang Xia immediately felt much more at ease.

He continued toward the game arcade while secretly dropping Ghost Infant onto the ground.

Ghost Infant knew very well what its master was thinking.

While it was still in midair, it flapped its little arms and drifted desperately toward Gin. Once it landed, it pumped its short legs and ran straight for the Porsche.

The driver's seat of the Porsche was empty.

Jiang Xia guessed that Vodka was handling some business nearby. Before he returned, Gin probably would not leave.

As he thought about it, Jiang Xia could not help feeling a little expectant.

After so many days without seeing him, Gin must have produced some fresh killing intent to harvest...

Since he had run into him by chance, how could he leave without taking some?

Though the effect was negligible, it still counted as helping his hardworking boss relieve some stress.

Perfectly reasonable. Extremely reasonable. And very conscientious.

Still thinking, Jiang Xia entered the game arcade and sat down at an arcade machine by the window.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the clever Ghost Infant run across the street, climb up the Porsche along its tire, then press against the car door and squeeze inside with a gurgle.

Jiang Xia distractedly waggled the arcade machine's joystick, pretending to play while watching intently.

At that moment, the sound effect for a game over rang out beside him.

At the next seat, the blond stared at the "Game Over" filling his screen and sighed unhappily.

As he returned to the main menu, he glanced at Jiang Xia beside him.

Then he was shocked to discover that his boss was actually wearing a faint smile as he looked at the screen.

The blond paused, then grew excited. "Did you break a record? What's the new record?"

As he spoke, he eagerly leaned over to take a look.

He saw that his all-capable boss's screen also displayed the same "Game Over."

Unlike his own, however, the score in the upper-right corner was marked by a conspicuous zero.

The blond: "...?"

He thought about it for a while, then understood.

—If someone else scored zero, they surely did not know how to play and had crashed right at the start.

But his boss was different.

...This had to be a new way of playing that his boss had discovered!

—He had to control the plane, avoid every scoring point and get zero points, while also avoiding traps and reaching the finish line.

That meant there were twice as many things to dodge.

This was an incredibly challenging technique!

With that thought, the blond rolled up his sleeves, returned to his own seat, and with great experimental spirit inserted another coin and pressed restart.

This time, he did not steer his plane toward the scoring balls. Instead, he avoided every ball along the way while also dodging the bombs so the game would not end immediately.

Scoring balls and bombs flew everywhere across the screen, leaving the blond scrambling.

Just over ten seconds later, his plane accidentally hit a glittering golden ball, and the zero in the upper-right corner became "1."

The blond: "!"

It... it really was hard.

As expected of a playstyle invented by the boss!

Jiang Xia continued watching the car outside.

A minute or two later, he caught sight of Ghost Infant dragging a ribbon-like strand of killing intent through the car door and pattering toward the game arcade.

When Ghost Infant ran to his feet, Jiang Xia bent down and scooped it up. He put away the killing intent, feeling deeply pleased.

Then he withdrew the attention he had been keeping outside, looked at the arcade machine, and pulled out two game coins to restart.

Just as he was about to insert them, he suddenly felt that something was off.

Jiang Xia turned around warily.

At some point, a circle of underlings had gathered around him, every one of them looking at him with worship all over their faces. Who knew what they had imagined on their own while he had been distracted.

Jiang Xia: "...?"

He thought for a moment and did not insert the coins.

Instead, he skillfully grabbed the nearest underling, stood up, and pressed him into his seat.

Putting on the air of a coach, Jiang Xia stood behind him and patted his shoulder. "Did you learn it? You play a round. I'll see how it goes."

First, he needed to properly observe what these chuunibyou youths had been thinking...