After Returning to Yokohama, I Rely on a Mishmash of Secret Identities to Save the World - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Labyrinth (Part I)

“If I am not misunderstanding this.” Oda Hoshimi’s expression was deep, “This ‘piecemeal’ … means that each individual attribute of the Vest also has to be random?”

Little Seven said guiltily, “That is how it is…”

‘Is’? You’re still saying ‘is’?!

It would be fine if the Vests themselves were random, but the personalities and abilities had to be random too. With Oda Hoshimi’s experience, he could already foresee how outrageous the final synthesized Vests would be.

—The future is devoid of light!

Little Seven said aggrievedly, “Good plugins are just very hard to snatch, you know. At least there are quite a few combat-type skills in the card pool, our luck can’t be that bad… right?…”

Oda Hoshimi recalled those outrageous plugins he had snatched back when he was doing savior missions, and was not optimistic about this.

However, things had already come to this, and there was no other way: “Let’s continue…”

He shook his head, continuing to click and draw on the character details.

And then…

“Little Seven…” Oda Hoshimi’s voice was weak, “Please help me ask the Lord God—what benefit does the world’s destruction bring to Him?”

“Uh… there is no need to speculate about Lord Lord God with such malice…”

“Then explain to me, what on earth is this piece of trash?!!!” As calm as Oda Hoshimi was, seeing the brand-new character panel, his inner thoughts couldn’t help but experience a shred of collapse.

“Arbitrary and arrogant Nakahara Chuuya? Do you see this as human speech?!!!”

Although Chuuya-san was free, easy, and uninhibited, he hadn’t reached the point of being arbitrary!

On the system panel, the character details regarding “Nakahara Chuuya” were finally updated after the drawing ended—

Character Name: Nakahara Chuuya

Personality: Arbitrary and Arrogant [Data Source: Gojo Satoru (16 years old)]

Skill: Intelligence Enhancement 200% [Data Source: Dazai Osamu (22 years old)]

Character Story: ??? [Please refer to character personality to fill in independently]

Gojo Satoru was a fellow Oda Hoshimi got acquainted with in a certain small world… barely counted as a friend. There was nothing to say about his strength, but as for his personality…

Oda Hoshimi pointed at the panel repeatedly: “Please tell me, a person who possesses Gojo Satoru’s personality but does not possess Gojo Satoru’s strength, how exactly did he live to be this old?”

Right now, it wasn’t even a question of whether the Vest could assist him anymore. The question right now was, with this kind of character design, how was he going to make the world acknowledge it!!!

As Yokohama’s largest port, Yokohama Port’s daily cargo throughput was quite considerable, making it an important local economic pillar. Of course, the uncrowned king of Yokohama’s underworld—the Port Mafia—also shared a lot of profits from it.

In just such a place where both the black and white paths were paying attention, bizarre missing-person cases began to occur one after another, and remained unresolved for a long time. People value their lives. Especially those businessmen who understood this place of simple and honest customs but were still willing to come do business. After learning that Yokohama had started having incidents again and again, they naturally reduced their cargo volume.

The matter concerned money. Even the Yokohama government, which didn’t manage much, wanted to crack the case as quickly as possible. From the police to the Special Operations Division, both scientific and unscientific methods were deployed, yet they still gained absolutely nothing, causing countless stakeholders to worry until they went bald.

The handsome ochre-haired youth currently patrolling the skies above Yokohama Port was precisely an executive dispatched by a certain (crossed out) bald (crossed out) stakeholder leader to investigate.

“Have you discovered anything?”

“Tsk.” Nakahara Chuuya pressed down his hat, “Can’t see anything at all… looks like we can only come back at dusk.” Most of those people’s disappearance times were during the dusk to night periods; perhaps he could see more things then.

Hirotsu Ryuro let out a soft sigh: “Then it’s hard on you, Nakahara-san.”

In order to resolve this incident, the Boss had given a strict order, and their Black Lizard was also under a lot of pressure.

“Just within the scope of duty, the old gentleman doesn’t need to be overly anxious.” Nakahara Chuuya waved his hand, the sea breeze lifting the hem of his coat.

“Enemies who provoke the Port Mafia will all be crushed by gravity.”

“This is already the fifty-third missing-person case this month.”

At the same time, another great force in Yokohama—the Armed Detective Agency—was also paying attention to this case.

Inside the meeting room, Kunikida Doppo pushed up his glasses, his tone heavy: “According to intelligence, the last appearing locations for most of the missing personnel were near Yokohama Port…”

“Not only that, you know.”

Everyone looked in unison toward the Agency’s sole detective gentleman.

“Not just fifty-three.” Edogawa Ranpo opened his green eyes that were as calm as water, his fingertips lightly tapping the documents on the table: “This is merely the data on the bright surface; the actual number should be over a hundred people already.” These missing-person cases all occurred during the dusk or night periods. It was normal for people haunting the vicinity of the coastline during this time period—for example, the Mafia or whatnot—to not be counted among the missing population.

“Over a hundred people?!” Tanizaki Naomi exclaimed. She did not question the detective’s judgment, but was merely surprised by the severity of the situation, “How come such a big case is only handed to us now?”

Kunikida Doppo’s brow furrowed so deeply it looked like it could clamp a fly to death: “Perhaps the government has its own considerations… discussing this now holds no meaning either, we must find a breakthrough point as quickly as possible.”

“The Special Operations Division sent people to investigate the crime scenes, but failed to find any clues, and the surveillance didn’t capture anything either…”

He paused, his line of sight locking onto a certain empty seat: “Where is Dazai?”

The white-haired youth beside him weakly raised his hand: “Dazai-san said… there’s a crab meat promotion, he has to go buy a batch of canned food first…”

“That fellow!” Kunikida Doppo slammed the table forcefully with his fist, “Every single time it’s like this, the moment an important matter arrives, his person cannot be found!”

“Achoo—”

At this moment, a certain criticized Dazai suddenly sneezed.

“It must be Kunikida muttering about me again…” He rubbed his nose, continuing to saunter slowly beside the coastline.

As he walked, a familiar pitch-black chibi ahead entered his sight.

Dazai Osamu’s eyes lit up: He knew Mori-sensei definitely couldn’t sit still!

Adhering to the excellent habit that the Port Mafia’s intelligence was his intelligence, he walked two steps faster to catch up, intending to reminisce with the person.

“Chuu~ya——”

The bandage-wrapped hand precisely patted the shoulder of the person ahead, a rippling voice echoing along with it.

‘Holy shit!!’

Far away inside the apartment room manipulating the Vest, Oda Hoshimi was startled: ‘Someone approached you, why didn’t you warn me!’

‘Ah ah ah sorry! I was scanning the rift’s data just now and didn’t see it!’

“Nakahara Chuuya” glanced at the hand on his shoulder with disgust, taking two steps to the side to avoid it, asking in a vague manner: “Why did you come?”

‘This is troublesome now…’

‘It shouldn’t be to that extent… I remember the Dazai Osamu of this world of yours is much gentler than that fellow who acts as the Boss.’

Oda Hoshimi wasn’t as naive as Little Seven: ‘How could Dazai-gaa be easy to fool.’

No matter which world’s Dazai-gaa it was, it was all hell-level difficulty, alright.

Dazai Osamu did not know the inner complaints of the person before his eyes. After being shrugged off by Nakahara Chuuya, his movements paused subtly, and immediately following that, his smile expanded: “Of course it’s to investigate the case!”

Nakahara Chuuya also appeared to fail to perceive his abnormality, naturally inserting both hands into his pockets as he continued to walk along the coastline: “The Special Operations Division transferred the case over to you guys?”

“Uh-huh.”

Nakahara Chuuya raised his head to look at the azure sky, his tone laden with deep meaning: “Right now it’s broad daylight.”

—Those people all began to disappear at dusk; clues couldn’t be investigated at this hour.

Dazai Osamu replied with a similar tone: “That’s not a certainty. Haven’t I encountered you right here~”

—Your existence itself is the biggest clue, you know.

He maintained his cynical smile, his right hand already quietly reaching into his clothing pocket.

—This is absolutely not Chuuya!

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