Kitty Killer Wasn't So Cold

The little girl with a Backpack chattered away, demanding that the chef add toppings to her pizza. It was nothing worth paying attention to, and the Liberi seated by the window soon turned back, yawning as he looked outside.

But after the Liberi continued his shift for a while longer and refilled his coffee again, his stomach suddenly let out a terrifying roar.

"...I don't think this has anything to do with me... Um, should I call an ambulance for you?"

The owner's innocent tone left the surrounding diners half-convinced and half-skeptical, but the Liberi merely waved his hand painfully, telling him not to make trouble, then hurried into the restroom with his legs clamped together.

The creaking old wooden door was slammed shut. The man who went straight to the toilet to vomit failed to notice someone who had emerged from the last stall after finishing her pizza and waiting for a long time.

The black-haired girl watched the scene impassively. In the trash can beside her was rat poison stolen from the kitchen, containing emetics to prevent children from accidentally ingesting it... After confirming the discipline outside the window, she slid the bolt into place, flicked her wrist, and a cord appeared in her hand.

The leather gloves made a scalp-tingling sound as they rubbed against the rope, followed by a faint impact and drowning cries for help that never made it beyond the stall door...

By the time the diners had resumed their lively atmosphere, a black-haired girl was wiping her gloves with toilet paper as she slipped out through the front entrance without attracting the slightest attention.

[The first, and only, sentry~ Next comes the main course. The target is in the apartment building to your right... It looks much nicer than the one you rented, even though you make far more than that guy...]

Weren't you the one who introduced me to that place?

Though she was not in the habit of speaking during assignments, Nana still rolled her eyes internally.

[Look around... One at the front door, one at the elevator... Oh~? The one by the door actually dares to sleep. Is that because the pizza shop next door is his real post?]

Ignoring the sleeping man before her, Nana continued inside... The target's apartment was unexpectedly on the fifth floor, just like hers. But this building was not only larger and more luxurious in layout—even its manager was different from Mrs. Jackson.

He was an old man in a tailcoat and monocle. The moment he greeted her, she heard a heavy Victorian accent... Unlike Cole's, this old man's accent was so thick that Nana felt it had to be deliberate.

As for her target... This tall, dark-skinned Perro was reading... a pornographic magazine?

Seeing the bulge in his crotch right out in public, Nana's eye twitched slightly, but she quickly found what was probably the method with the highest success rate and the fastest resolution.

The location was once again the restroom a few steps from the elevator. At a nearly inaudible whistle, the Perro, who had been flipping through the magazine with little snickering noises, immediately looked up alertly. But his wary expression quickly turned into delight.

At that moment, a shy-looking girl with a Backpack stood at the restroom entrance, one hand tugging at her skirt while the other beckoned to him with a tiny gesture... Judging by her neat uniform and Backpack, she was probably another student who had seen him reading magazines and wanted him to be her "sugar daddy." Her bashful expression was almost identical to the student theme in the magazine he had just been reading!

The tall man coughed twice, adjusted his collar, and quickly followed the girl into the restroom.

The manager behind the counter in the distance watched the entire thing. However, he only saw the tall man enter the restroom after leaning sideways... A potted plant had deliberately blocked his view of the restroom entrance.

Besides, no one liked watching people come and go from a restroom, so there was a reason for arranging it that way.

Inside the restroom, the tall man locked the door behind him—and immediately regretted it.

When he turned around, the shy girl he had seen before seemed like nothing more than an illusion. Standing several steps away was an indifferent girl holding a silver handgun and gesturing for him to enter a toilet stall.

Anyone involved with gangs in the city... or rather, in the mercenary trade, was hardly unfamiliar with handguns. In fact, because the country did not prohibit civilians from carrying Originium weapons, the man even had a long blade enhanced with Originium Arts hanging from his waist.

But... he had no intention of betting the speed of drawing his blade against the milliseconds it would take for her finger to pull the trigger.

"Um... what? Please calm down..."

"See that public phone over there? It has an internal line. Pick it up now and call your boss. Tell him someone wants to see him."

Following the girl's emotionless instructions, the tall thug slowly dialed the internal number. Soon, he nodded at her. The call had connected.

"It's me from downstairs... Boss... Someone here wants to see you."

"Someone? What does she... look like?"

The sweating Perro met the icy blue eyes of the girl. As the black muzzle lifted slightly and pressed against the corner of his mouth, he finally said in a mournful voice:

"Very... serious..."

Hearing what sounded like clothes being put on over the phone, Number Seventy-Seven said coolly to prevent the other party from fleeing directly:

"Tell him I'm coming up."

"She says... she's coming up..."

Before the words had even faded, the sound of a skull cracking and a shrill gunshot passing through the receiver made the Cautus listening intently leap in fright, his fur standing on end.

While the target upstairs frantically shouted for his men to gather, the girl strolled out of the restroom and casually tore off some toilet paper to wipe the blood of others from her gloves.

She also glanced at the sleeping guard by the door. Since the radio from his chest was now in Nana's hands, he still had not woken up, enjoying his final... perhaps eternal, sleep.

[Heh~ It has been a long time since I saw you really get your hands dirty, Seventy-Seven. You actually seem pretty happy.]

"...This is only required by the contract... I do not feel happy about taking other people's lives."

[Mm-hm, mm-hm, that's what I like about you... But notifying him means it will turn into a siege. Do you need me to have someone deliver some heavy firearms?]

"There's no need. I only wanted them gathered around the target."

She entered the elevator directly, pressed the button for the fourth floor, and pulled out a smoke grenade. After confirming that the smoke would temporarily render the elevator unusable... unless someone wanted to suffocate to death... while also driving out any residents who might be on the other floors.

When the elevator stopped on the fourth floor, Nana climbed through the maintenance hatch and into the ventilation shaft above the elevator... The information broker relayed the details of these passages clearly to Number Seventy-Seven through the Bluetooth earpiece hanging from Nana's cat ears.

Just as the girl crawled out of the vent, gunfire suddenly erupted on a nearby floor...

[Was that really necessary? You're firing wildly over a little smoke? If the other residents call the police, are you still going to find your Originium Prime? By the way, Number Seventy-Seven, do you need me to time the 911 call for you?]

"It's fine. I'll finish this soon."

Using the Master Key to open the anti-theft door to the control room containing the security CCTV hard drives, she then shot dead the mercenaries who were definitely on the list through the wooden door. She did not know exactly who they were, but as long as the final count matched, it was fine.

She then opened the door to confirm the kills in the control room, before tossing the bodies beneath their own cameras to show that she had already reached the top floor...

Listening to the target's frantic shouting, Nana found a window and climbed outside, following the protrusions on the exterior wall up to the rooftop garden... These mercenaries, gangsters, even foreign warlords, all seemed to like this sort of private rooftop garden design.

At that moment, the deliberate click of the girl's leather shoes was already clearly audible. Nana could hear the target shouting, "She's in the sky garden!" with a voice so desperate it was practically heart-rending.

But that saved her time. Number Seventy-Seven turned out of their sightline, left a remote-controlled bomb in place, then circled around once more. When the timing sounded right, she pressed the detonator... Such a violent explosion naturally triggered the building's security system.

The anti-theft isolation doors dropped with a crash, but because the portable miniature explosive had limited power, Number Seventy-Seven still had to step forward and finish off the multiple targets one by one.

These mercenaries were also unexpectedly equipped with firearms... Another round of gunfire erupted while she went to finish them off.

Since they had all been badly injured by the bomb, the young killer did not make things especially difficult for them... She simply waited until they ran out of ammunition, shot them one by one, then detoured back to the control room to enter the target's residence.

She unlocked the building security system from the control room, then returned the normal way to the target's residence and opened the front door... There was not much distance between the two paths, only a corner a few steps away... In other words, the group had just been frantically circling a square-shaped building. Who knew how they would feel after death if they realized Number Seventy-Seven had merely used the exterior "passage" and ventilation ducts to run them in circles until they were dizzy.

After counting the bodies, it seemed she was still one short of the number on the list. Nana entered the target's residence, and the silent, high-quality door hinges earned a five-star review from the young killer.

As for the Cautus who had turned the isolation door into a sieve with a submachine gun... The Ghost that had slaughtered his men like a demon outside that door had now silently arrived behind him.

While he was still crying into his phone that "someone wants to kill me," a patterned steel fruit knife that looked familiar to him—one that had likely been a decoration in the living room—extended from the shadow of the hallway behind him and rested against the cheek of the fat Cautus man, who was either sweating or literally oozing grease...

"Very well, then I will transfer you to the local police officer. Please do not hang up—"

At roughly the moment those words came from his phone, the man stopped moving his hands and the rest of his body, which had been fidgeting like he had ADHD. Aside from the icy blade against his cheek reminding him that death was imminent, he could also feel the hard touch of a gun muzzle against the back of his head.

Nana tilted her head as she looked at the target with both hands raised, one of them still holding a phone displaying the 911 hotline... So even if the other residents did not call the police, you were going to call them yourself? Where had the pride of an underworld broker gone?

Naturally, while Nana was thinking about such irrelevant things, the Cautus man calmly hung up the emergency call and greeted Number Seventy-Seven in as steady a voice as he could manage.

"Hey... Relax, girl... How about we talk calmly? Do you see the suitcase on the coffee table in front of me? The black one contains cash, old bills—two hundred thousand Columbian Dollars and one hundred thousand Lungmen Dollars... The silver case beside it is a container specially designed to shield against Originium radiation... There are two pieces of Originium Prime inside, enough to buy half the city beneath our feet... Go on, take it. It's all yours."

Ignoring the man whose tone was steady even as the smell of his sweat filled the room, Nana held the tip of the fruit knife against his neck with her left hand. She put away her handgun with the other, then took out another Bluetooth earpiece she did not normally wear from her pocket... After hesitating in distaste for a second, she stuffed it into the target's ear.

[Hello... Mr. Broker...]

"H-Hello..."

[I think you know why someone came knocking, sir... A large company's money is not so easy to take. Sometimes, the job you think is simple may cost you your life... So here is the question: did you finish the work Loken gave you?]

"N-No, not yet. We're a legitimate logistics company, ma'am. There are many procedures for delivering goods. Everyone else has already resigned, and I won't do it anymore either..."

[Ah, I see... So you mean you want to leave the mess you created unattended, vanish from my sight without a word, and make those of us native to this city deal with the mercenaries and bounty hunters you gathered one by one?]

"Yes, n-no, no, that's not it... Although some of the goods have already been handed over to people in hiding according to the clients' requirements, I promise I'll issue an explanation, revoke the commissions, and then disappear without leaving a trace."

[...Mm... Hmph... Then give the earpiece back to our little friend. Of course, you should wipe it clean before returning it to her. That child is rather germophobic.]

He hurriedly returned the Bluetooth earpiece to Nana. Then, in a voice loud enough for the fat man beside her to hear, the broker threatened over the line:

[Make sure he understands the situation before letting him leave.]

Hearing the broker's request, which seemed genuinely gritted with anger, Nana calculated the time in her head. Outside, the distant wail of sirens could faintly be heard.

But the earpiece had a built-in combat recorder, and simply leaving like this would be too disrespectful to the broker... So Nana wiped the now probably clean spare earpiece again, then asked flatly:

"Do you understand?"

The fat man nodded frantically.

"Good."

Just as suddenly as she had appeared in the fat man's perception, the girl vanished without a sound.

Because she had used smoke grenades earlier, many people assumed there was a fire and ran out of the apartment building in confusion. Nana blended into the crowd and quickly reached the entrance before a perimeter had been established.

Naturally, before leaving, Nana did not forget to reach into her Backpack.

After secretly shooting the last mercenary guard who was still asleep amid the scene about to descend into chaos, the young killer disappeared into the sea of people beneath the brightening police sirens.

The broker, who had remained silent the entire way back, suddenly spoke again when Nana was nearing the street where she lived:

[Um... Number Seventy-Seven...]

"Yes?"

[There are some things... I've thought it over, and I still think you may need to know.]

Rosemary's Embrace: Andy Bruce

"Something I should know?"

The broker's hesitant tone surprised Nana. After all, the woman on the other end of the line had been an indifferent person capable of deciding countless lives and deaths with just a few words from the moment they met. To the young killer, the cold indifference she had shown the fat broker on the phone earlier was the broker Nana knew.

What was with this weak tone now?

"If you don't know whether you should tell me, then don't... It's probably just work-related anyway..."

[No, this time it's personal...]

The words in her earpiece made Nana halt in the middle of walking home. After giving an apologetic customer-service smile to the person behind her who complained because she had stopped so abruptly, Nana hurried into a shop on her apartment street.

As the owner greeted her with, "Just two cartons of milk again?" Nana absentmindedly continued listening to the broker's explanation.

[...It seems Andy Bruce has been deemed by Loken Williams to be the best recipient for the Originium Organ Project.]

"That information... is indeed rather delicate."

She pressed down the tail that had nearly flipped up her skirt, immediately understanding why the broker had sounded so hesitant.

Although Number Seventy-Seven did not have a favorable impression of Mr. Andy, for the sake of Mrs. Cole, Kate, and little Matilda, the young killer would probably try her best to stop this family from stepping into the abyss under the identity of "saleswoman Nana."

But it would be futile, because neither the "organization" nor the "killer" had the standing to stop this through the rules of the underworld. Still, this information would indeed change the young killer's current operational logic... No one could say whether it would affect the missions to come, so it was no wonder the broker had hesitated so much.

After paying for the milk and putting it into her Backpack, Nana pushed open the shop door and continued home...

By a killer's logic, Nana should not care in the slightest whether Mr. Andy lived or died. The girl only needed to continue living her plant-like life. But an "impulse from the heart" was not something that could settle itself simply by being ignored. The memory of that family laughing together not long ago kept urging Nana to do something.

"So... why? Andy is only an ordinary Infected, isn't he... Can't Loken find someone more willing?"

[The specific reason seems connected to the Originium Arts possessed by the Bruce family. Also, based on the information we have, he is not an ordinary Infected... Ordinary Infected cannot work at high intensity for ten years while their Originium Crystals remain in the internal stage...]

"Cole said before that he was very strong."

[Indeed... Even Patient Zero, who helped Loken organize his systemic theory, only reached a maximum of thirty percent Originium conversion in a single organ. But according to Mr. Bruce's medical examination report from three weeks ago, the crystallization of his medulla oblongata has already exceeded forty-eight percent... Number Seventy-Seven, you know what Loken seeks, so you know what that means.]

"...Natural organ Originium conversion... But Mr. Andy has symptoms of Oripathy..."

[That involves detailed Oripathy pathology and the specific clinical procedures of the modification. In the end, why Bruce was chosen is not important... What I want to know is, what are you going to do, Number Seventy-Seven?]

"I... I don't know."

Even through the combat recorder attached to the earhook headset, the broker could see the dim yellow sky gradually rising on the screen and sense the young killer's confusion. At that moment, the ordinary saleswoman called Nana and the killer called Number Seventy-Seven stood in stark conflict over what action to take.

The "killer" had long known that such situations were common across this land... Just as Mrs. Cole had said, one never knew whether tomorrow or an accident would arrive first... So, as a killer, she was a rootless plant, an emotionless machine.

But the broker did not want Number Seventy-Seven to be that way, and the machine had indeed responded to its user's expectations.

Now, the "killer" within the girl was beginning to be influenced by the outer "disguise." Setting aside the unresolved decision of what to do about the Bruce family—a matter neither she nor the broker had reached a consensus on—Nana was also deeply confused by the logic underlying her own reaction... Was this what the broker had wanted?

Was this the urge from the heart that she had hoped for?

Was this... this so-called "love," this so-called... power capable of changing everything?

The young killer did not know, just as she did not know why Matilda froze completely when Nana greeted Mrs. Jackson and returned home.

"Sister Nana?"

"Ah... yes. Hello, Matilda."

The stiff Nana rarely reached up to fiddle with the ends of her shoulder-length hair. She had killed cleanly and decisively earlier, yet seeing someone from the Bruce family had left her with an inappropriate sense of shock... Then, the girl's killer instincts poured every effort into restoring Nana to the appearance her "disguise" ought to have.

You are only a saleswoman. You know nothing about organ Originium conversion. The girl before you is only a neighbor, and you have known each other for less than a week...