“………”

He drove the car backwards, continuing to meaninglessly reversing along the street, and thus gaining distance from the building.

『People create stories that connect facts』

Fran’s remark crossed his mind. Right after, she had also added the aphorism, 『Those facts mustn’t necessarily adhere to reality』.

For the sake of winning Seymour over, Lumi had taken shelter at his home with the first attack as reason, and started to accompany him on his job due the second attack. In the past, Seymour had guessed it to have been like that. If you just connected the facts Seymour knew of back then, it’d seem like a very plausible conclusion.

But, nowadays Seymour knew more. For example, that a gun had been pointed at him on the day of the first attack. For example, that Lumi could actually drive a car.

Recalling all that, and if I consider things based on my current knowledge, won’t I be able to come up with another story about the chain of events?

Right. In other words…

“──────────────On that day I was supposed to be shot, wasn’t I?”

There was no need to split the attacks in two stages. All would have been fine if they had shot Seymour during the first attack. They could have injured him to an extent that wouldn’t be fatal, and let Lumi save him while getting away with her as driver. If they had done it like that, another attack wouldn’t have been needed as it would have created a reason for her to definitely get involved with Seymour’s job.

After all, it was easy to imagine that Seymour would be forced to rely on the girl close to him, if he couldn’t drive his car because of an injury while having to carry out his job to make a living.

However, in reality, things didn’t play out like that. The one shot on that day hadn’t been Seymour, but Lumi who had thrown herself in the line of fire. It also caused the assailant to become confused.

“……”

There’s no doubt about Lumi not regarding humans as people and her devouring humans without a shred of guilt. She’s basically a monster. But, have I correctly interpreted the meaning of that? The fact of her being a monster, and the fact of her being brutal mustn’t necessarily conform with each other.

Many humans eat the meat of animals in order to keep surviving, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that all those people are always cruel towards animals. It’s not unusual for humans to sympathize with animals to the extent of not being able to eat animal meat, but at the same time, it’s not unusual for humans to find pleasure in a feeling of supremacy by killing animals.

Just like it’s not said that a monster, which actually survives by eating humans as it possesses a nature requiring it to eat humans, gets its pleasure out of killing humans.

“……Did Lumi cover for me?”

No, it’s probably quite arrogant that it’s 『me』. 『I』 am nothing to her. But, she’s deemed me valuable enough to protect. Allowing me to get injured, would have made it easier for her to get on my good side. But, if she accepted a certain extent of time and hardship, she could also extract my work information without getting me injured. That’s why she intentionally diverted from their original plan, and achieved her objective without injuring the courier while taking twice as long.

Even though Seymour should have been a human without any value whatsoever at that point in time.

“No, ain’t no way I would get anything like that…”

It’s wrong on many accounts to apply the same scale on her as on other people and describe it as kindness or some such. But, at the same time it’s likewise wrong to deny that it was an innate goodness that could be owed by a monster.

He stopped the car. And bumped his forehead against the wheel.

Lumi Spike must have killed hundreds, if not thousands, humans up until now. No matter how brutally she might have slaughtered them, it might be difficult to blame her for it. Rather, I’ve got no doubt that the number of humans, who would praise her unconditionally, should be high.

However, that monster was actually kind. She was extremely gentle for a monster.

“…………I have to admit that.”

Even if everyone in this world denied this fact, only Seymour alone had been saved by her kindness.

He took a breath. Lifted his face. Retrieved the gloves out of his pocket and put them on.

Noticing his hands trembling, Seymour powerfully clenched them once, before opening them again.

And then he muttered under his breath so that no one would hear it, “Did you know? There exist statistics that half of the deadly accidents of rail cars take place during the departure.”

In an instant, Seymour stepped down on the accelerator with all his might. The car roared as it suddenly picked up speed. Accelerating in no time, the lump of iron leaped into the building it had left moments ago.

Over there, the men were about to perform the final rites for Lumi. The wolfish man was approaching her, who had been smashed into pieces by countless bullets. In his hands he held a pistol and a small, black case. Nearby, Rotton was laughing while the other men were anxiously watching with bated breaths.

Seymour’s Essex plunged into that situation.

“────Haah?” The wolfish man cried out with his eyes flying wide open.

“────Eh?” Rotton flapped his mouth open.

Several of the nearby men were knocked over all at once. No human was able to oppose a mass of metal weighing over a hundred kilogram which crashed against them at high speed.

“Giihguehh!”

Seymour didn’t know whether the sound of a crushed frog came from someone’s yelp or someone’s body. Because there was an impact which got even passed on to Seymour inside the car, he immediately stopped the car.

He tightly pressed his eyelids closed, and breathed out. He should have adjusted the speed of his car so that no one would die from being hit by it, but there existed no guarantee that it wouldn’t happen anyway. The fact that he might have killed or injured someone was about to bog down his thinking.

In order to avoid that, he briefly muttered while glossing over that his voice was somewhat crankier than usual, “Probably at some place, right?”

Once he opened the driver’s door and got out, the wolfish man and Rotton had stopped moving on the ground. Several men were groaning nearby.

Seymour averted his eyes. He didn’t have any time to stop. He’d accept answering his feelings of guilt later on. By letting his mouth freely yap as it pleased, he allowed calmness to fill his heart.

“Sorry for disturbing.”

Since it’d have been preposterous to think that he’d be able to incapacitate all of them with one charge, Seymour loosely waved a hand at the men of Murder Inc. while they were still flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events. Then he walked up to Rotton and the wolfish man, and tore the black case out of the man’s hand. Opening it, he spotted three shining bullets which appeared to be made out of silver.

I see, so they wanted to kill her with those, huh? Makes sense.

Following that, he climbed back into his car.

“Thanks for having put up with me. Please excuse me now.”

It was at that moment that the men regained their wits.

“K-Kill him!”

“Fuck!”

Seymour ducked his head in response to the manifold, overlapping, angry roars. While he forced his body around within the narrow car, several of the bullets entering the car grazed him.

In an ideal world, he’d have been able to free Lumi from here, but it didn’t look likely that he’d be able to pull that off.

“See you later,” he lip-synced to the minced meat on the ground, which used to be a girl, but he didn’t know whether it got through to her or not.

At any rate, he had to toss away these bullets somewhere and make them completely give up on the idea of killing Lumi. Seymour sped out of the building with his Essex. Immediately following, he could hear three engines following on his tail.

“Figures that they’d come after me.”

Looking through his rear mirror, he spotted three cars. In one of them ─ a red Essex ─ sat a guy with red glasses whom Seymour recalled having seen before.

“Ah, give me a fucking break, will you!?”

Seymour raced his car through the dark streets. As long as he got rid of the black case somewhere, that part would be fine, but with the cars sticking to him right behind, it was hard to say that he’d be able to toss the case away reliably and safely. It’d make little sense to toss it away randomly, just for it to get picked up later again.

Gunshots.

Apparently some of the guys in the rear cars had guns with them. Seymour didn’t expect them to hit him so easily, but if they shot the tires, it’d become fatal for his escape. He quickly dove into a complicated labyrinth of alleys.

On the bright side, those alleys were nicely frozen over. The snow, which had melted after being trampled down by people over the day, had apparently hardened again. Hearing the crunching coming from underneath his tires, Seymour laughed.

“Heeere we go!”

The instant he exited his current alley, he took a sharp turn. Even while getting the jitters over the sensation of the rear wheels sliding across the road’s surface, he somehow managed to control the car frame.

The red Essex, which was at the head of his pursuers, naturally took the turn just as skillfully. The car following behind somehow managed to take a turn as well, albeit having to draw a wide curve. But, the third car slipped splendidly.

Seymour ducked his head due to the crashing boom reaching him from behind.

“One down!”

Then he felt a hard impact from behind. His pursuer was pushing up.

“Today I’ve got no additional weight with me, you know?”

Once more.

In the meantime, the red Essex had raised its speed in order to pull up next to Seymour’s car on the right side. It’d be dangerous to allow the two Essex to ran parallel to each other as the glasses guy could have a gun on him. And even without that, Seymour would have little room to maneuver if got surrounded by cars on either side.

“Hmm, what should I do?”

Seymour’s eyes caught onto the T-junction ahead and the railway track running beyond that. At the same time a faint vibration reached his ears. He opened the window while keeping one hand on the wheel. While turning left at the end of the street, he thrust his hand out of the window.

That hand threw the black case. It drew a parabola, flying over a high fence and landing on top of the railway tracks.

The one reacting to that was the car behind him which had been pushing up against his Essex. While destroying the fence next to the railway, they drove their car on the tracks, chasing after the black case. Then they suddenly stopped, and a man, who got out of the car, picked up the case.

Now then, I wonder whether he’s going to have the time to figure out that the case is empty.

Seymour couldn’t make a final call on that, but the man immediately realized what Seymour had perceived earlier. In short, a subway, which was running late at night, rapidly approaching his current position.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Seymour perceived how the man escaped in a hurry, leaving his car behind, just to have it sent flying by the subway in the next moment. Seymour limited it to mumbling a 『Sorry』 under his breath as a loud explosion roared behind him.

“Two down!”

And thus only the red Essex driving next to him was left.

“………You’re the last one, huh?” Seymour muttered.

Seymour and the glasses guy. Both simultaneously let their eyes wander across the road. The subway’s surface segment separated from this street, vanishing in-between multi-story buildings. The two-lane road got immediately sandwiched by towering buildings on either side. The road itself was mostly one straight line, abruptly ending several blocks ahead ─ at the boundary of the city district ─ as the road got cut off by a huge river.

“────”

“────”

Both pondered at the same time. And both reached the same conclusion at the same moment. Seymour turned the wheel to the right. The glasses guy turned his wheel to the left. Resulting in both cars bumping against each other at full force.

It was an unavoidable situation. For the glasses guy it was indispensable to stop Seymour’s care here by forcing it off the road, seeing how the number of pursuers had dropped to his car alone. As for Seymour: he wanted to quickly get rid of his pursuers, but there was still some way to go until the next crossing, and thus he wouldn’t be able to cope with his opponent unless he hit the other car back.

As a result, both cars vied for dominating the road’s middle. The two sideview mirrors stuck in-between this contest got crushed and fell off, vanishing out of sight in no time.

“……Shit!”

And even despite doing all that, a solution to the situation was far off for Seymour. After all, a dead end awaited further down the road, and if went beyond that, he’d be headed straight for the river.

I wonder just how the chance for survival might be when dropping off the wharf into the river while stuck in a car during this season. But I’m pretty sure it’s so low that I wouldn’t ever feel on betting on it. But, having said that, I see no means to avoid it.

Neither Essex can leave the middle of the road while we’re duking it out with all the power our cars can muster. But, even assuming that either side were to relax on the attacks, the other side would immediately run their car into the other’s, most likely causing their opponent’s car to crash. That’s why I can’t ease up on this.

He exploited his hands to the limits while putting as much strength as possible into the foot stomping down on the accelerator. His opponent invested similarly frantic efforts, continuously bumping his car into Seymour’s Essex to hinder him from escaping.

At this rate, both Essex would fall into the river. With death awaiting both drivers with a probability of almost 100%.

But, if either eased up on the attacks, their car would turn into a wrack. With defeat awaiting the one to have given up first.

Both were fully aware that neither side could back down from this.

“………Hah.” A short laugh escaped Seymour’s lips. Though it was unclear to him what kind of emotions it carried.

He kept his car going. Distance until the end: 300 meters.

“Haha!”

Next Seymour realized that the voice filling his car’s interior was his own laughter. Distance until the end: 200 meters.

“Ahaha, hahahahahaha!”

Death was approaching at the same speed as the car was running. His hands had become slippery, trembling as they clasped the wheel. Distance until the end: 100 meters.

“Ahahahahahaha! Hahahahahaha!”

He couldn’t help being happy. Even though he was aware that he was about to die, he didn’t have any intention to fear death whatsoever. Seymour felt like he could drive on like this for eternity. Distance until the end: 50 meters.

“──────────!”

Seymour shouted to something in his head, which felt murky due to lack of oxygen. His eyes didn’t register the red Essex anymore, but glared at something in front of him that didn’t exist. Distance until the end──────

“…………gh!?”

When the strain on his hands suddenly disappeared, Seymour piously believed that his car had fallen into the river with him having died. But, contrary to his own consciousness, his hands and feet were properly operating the car, delivering a heavy, violent blow against the car running next to him.

The sound of glass shattering could be heard.

The glasses guy had eased his hold on the wheel. And that was the reason for him crashing.

Seymour realizing all of this was owed to his limbs having stepped on the brake and thrown the wheel around, resulting in the Essex stopping with the car frame halfway sticking out over the wharf.

The red Essex had run into a building located several meters further away from the river than Seymour. The car itself was in a terrible state, looking as if it had been squashed flat between the palms of a giant, but no fire or smoke could be seen rising from it, allowing Seymour to guess that he didn’t need to worry about it exploding.

“………”

Seymour remained still for a few moments. There was no indication of someone leaving the red Essex. He thought that the glasses guy had likely died in there, but a part of him also believed that he might still be alive.

Unsteadily leaving his car after a while, he faced the river. He had gotten rid of the black case, but the content ─ the three silver bullets ─ were scattered on the passenger’s seat. He picked them up and tossed them into the river. Three faint flashes as the starlight got reflected by the bullets got silently swallowed by the blackness of the river.

“I made it out alive, huh?”

Those were the words pressing out of his mouth. But, without a doubt, those were also Seymour’s true feelings.

He was well aware of the reason why he firmly gripping the wheel to the very end, even with death approaching in the shape of the river in front of his eyes.

While comprehending that the glasses guy wouldn’t hear it anyway, he muttered, “My mind was fully preoccupied with how that girl must have felt.”

Even as undying vampire, she might have faintly experienced that kind of feeling back when she threw herself towards the pitch-black gun muzzle. Maybe she might have felt a chill run down her spine despite her emotions being different of humans.

In the end, I still don’t get how she ticks, but at least we’re even with this.

His courage ─ limited to this one manifestation ─ had already run out of stock, and his fear, which finally caught up with him at full force, made him feel freezing cold. Seymour swiftly stuffed a cigarette into his mouth as if to cling onto its tiny flame.

✦ ──『✙』── ✦

————- End of Part 2 ————-