[Funno Otome] Is your boss sick today?

21

After successfully fooling your wayward boss with a cup of inferior instant coffee whose ingredients are all from convenience stores, you happily walk out.Just when you were one step away from leaving the office and thought you could escape, Osamu Dazai stopped you.

You answer blankly.

He tapped his finger on the rim of the mug and asked you, "What do you most want to do right now?"

22

You won't be surprised if he asks that.

He probably guessed the negative effects of your abilities from your first encounter.At that time, your strong attachment to the game console would be strange to anyone who saw it, let alone a person like Osamu Dazai.

Both bomb defusing and resurrection require file loading.Even if it's not a lot, it's enough to build up a craving that's hard to ignore.

"Eat," you say truthfully, "I'm starving to death after a day's work."

Osamu Dazai asked in disbelief, "What else?"

Seeing his eagerness to know, you hesitated: "After dinner, I still want to go to the card shop, does that count?"

23

When Osamu Dazai finally let you go, there was a hint of hatred in his eyes.

You thought he would look down on you, a fake mafia who only knows how to play cards, so he would find trouble for you on purpose.Unexpectedly, you spent the whole afternoon in the card shop in peace, without being disturbed at all, and had a good time.

You just felt a little bit of gratitude towards Osamu Dazai, and it disappeared immediately when you returned to the Hong Kong=Black Building the next day.

Your neurotic boss, who usually grows wildly with you, left you a task on a whim.

Along with the password, there was a new gun and three rounds of ammunition.

The next thing to do is self-evident.

24

You kill someone for the first time in your life.

Perhaps considering that you are a former high school student who knows nothing about firearms, and this is the first time you have touched a real gun, the task that Dazai Osamu arranged for you is as simple as the side task of "where to kill a few" in online games, no need to track Goals, you don't even need to worry about the aftermath.

It was a defector who was dealt with.

You know the process.Let the opponent bite the steps, kick to break the jaw, and then shoot three times in the chest.

Among them, all you need to do is pull the trigger.

Even if there is only one thing left to do, you do it with great hesitation.

Aiming slowly, the fingers shaking the gun.

You are a failed executioner.

If the bystander was Ryunosuke Akutagawa, he must have taken the lead because he couldn't bear your indecision at this time.

You have no way of knowing what orders the Hong Kong=Black members who acted with you received; they did not urge them, but waited patiently, as if the focus of today was not the execution of traitors or the deterrence of defectors. It's just teaching you to shoot and kill.

25

You fire three shots.

I have never received firearms training, and the posture of holding a gun is also learned, so when I shoot, the first thing I feel is the impact of the recoil, which makes my wrist numb.

——Then, it's untimely empathy.

Seeing the blood bleed from the bullet hole you shot brings you back to that moment again.

Hearing the sound of gunshots close at hand again, feeling his shoulders being pierced by bullets, and his muscles being torn apart by the burst of energy.

You know how much that hurts.

You are inflicting on others the same - no, greater pain.

26

The feeling of the gun being held in the hand and the feeling of the trigger being pressed were repeatedly played back in the mind like masochism.

The more I think about it, the clearer everything is like a movie being shown.

There is an invisible glass barrier that cracks with a gunshot and shatters before your eyes.

There were shards of glass at my feet.You are scratched, exposed to a new and strange world, breathing hard, as if you are in a vacuum.

You rush to the sink and start retching.

——That is, a belated, strong...rejection reaction to the dark side of the world that I have never touched.

27

"Game theory" can only read and restore the state of the body at that time, and has no meaning for memory or mental state.Using it at such a time will actually increase the emotional burden.You know it all too well.

You nervously backtrack and backtrack.No matter how many times I repeat it, the pain never lessens.

You don't know how long you stood in front of the sink before you left, you managed to get yourself together and went back to report.

Osamu Dazai was flipping through the documents one by one.Next to his desk is the mug you brought yesterday.It looked clean, and must have been ordered to be washed.

Hearing the knock on the door, he raised his eyes.

You don't know what Osamu Dazai saw on your face, but with just one glance, he frowned.

You and he speak at the same time.

"I didn't quite get used to killing people for the first time, but I won't be like this afterwards—"

"If you don't feel well, you can come back tomorrow—"

You stared at him in astonishment.

... Is Osamu Dazai being taken away?Soul wear?Soul swap?

28

Osamu Dazai launched "Disqualification in the World" on you without warning.

The inertial backtracking stops at this moment.

The lost time in you finally begins to flow again.

As if being burned, he quickly let go of your hand.

"That man is a traitor to the organization, and he is full of evil, not an innocent citizen. His death is a foregone conclusion. You didn't destroy anything, so you shouldn't feel guilty," he stared at somewhere on your face, suddenly For a long time, as if his mind was so confused that he couldn't meditate, he couldn't help but analyze, "Then, why?"

He asked a little restlessly: "...Is it because you saw the gunshot wound?"

29

There was a slight coolness on his cheeks.

You touch it hesitantly, only to realize that it is tears.

With inorganic iris-colored eyes, just looking at them makes people creepy. It is said that he was born for the mafia and has extreme black in his veins.Even if the light hit him, he would be swallowed by the bottomless abyss.

Osamu Dazai like this is flustered by your tears.

The neurotic boss is actually a pretty good person. You think about it bitterly, and you know how to pay attention to the mental health of tool people.

30

When you walked out of the office, the same question as yesterday came from the door: "What do you want to do most now?"

"I want to sleep," you murmured, "I want to sleep until tomorrow."

I don't know what kind of answer he wants to get so persistently.

In fact, you should guess what your boss thinks before answering, but you are too tired to think about anything.

Osamu Dazai seemed to have finally accepted some incomprehensible strange thing in a foreign land, he suddenly relaxed, collapsed on the office chair, and let out a long breath.The action was so exaggerated that it seemed to be shouting "I lost to you".Only then did he conform to the behavior that a teenager should have.

"I see," he said.