Chapter 73: Endeavor and Payment.
After all the drama which happened in the morning, which was just for a cat, was complete. I continued with the day and opened the shop.
The rest of the morning was uneventful and nothing special happened. Fuyumi took Eri for shopping after lunch, leaving me alone with the cat who is now called as Sakamoto-san by Eri.
I was sitting behind the counter and Sakamoto was laying down on the counter. I looked at the black cat curiously. I wanted to know what is so special in this cat that he was being experimented on and was kept in a special cell in the most secured prison Tartarus. There must be something special right?
I continued looking at the cat for some time. The cat raised his head and looked at me. Looks like he must be feeling uncomfortable from my gaze. But I didn't stopped my gaze on him. I thought about various reasons like, this cat may have a mutation which can cure for a disease which didn't had any cure earlier or this cat is just a guinea pig for random experiments.
But I had to abandon thinking about the cat and start thinking about tonight's action. Today is the day Night Raid makes it's public debut. At this moment, Danjuro is doing heroic work by helping people and kids especially, as his personality goes along with kids. He will be the Heroic Vigilante acting mainly in Hosu City.
Justice Rider acts in Musutafu all the time and he is very popular in the city as well as outside the city. Many people tried to act like Justice Rider in other cities but failed, either because they were acting like a hero without any determination or were doing it for fame and were unable to gather popularity or simply they got arrested by the police for using quirks without license.
And this is where Danjuro is best among all of these phonies. Danjuro is experienced and can easily escape the police and heroes without any problem. And his videos will act as the medium to gather popularity for him. These videos will be successfully viral, as a new competent Heroic Vigilante popped up in Hosu City and this goes along with the trend which was started by Justice Rider.
After Danjuro's PR work, the main work of Night Raid comes under me and Knuckleduster.
When the sun sets and the darkness of light fill the streets, the villains come out of their burrows and start their heinous work. To reduce this, Knuckleduster will kill the high-level villains in Naruhata and I will kill the High-level villains in Musutafu. Along with this, if we find any small-time criminals or thugs then we will handle them in our own way, obviouslywithout killing them.
*Ching Ding*
The sound of door bell made me come out of my thoughts and focus on the shop. I looked at the door to greet the customer but what greeted me was a man covered flames coming through the door. It was none other than No.2 Hero Endeavor.... But why was he here?
Without any second thought, I greeted him like any other customer, he ignored it and sat on a chair near the counter.
"Even if you are a hero on duty, at least pull back your flames when entering any shop or something." I had to point out to Endeavor as I was just few moments away from spraying fire extinguisher on his face.
After listening to my complaint, he pulled back his flames which covered his face and suit. I put a menu in front of him, if he wanted to order something. A shopkeeper must act the same to all his customers, without any prejudice or favorability, even if the person standing in front of you is No.2 Hero of Japan.
He pushed away the menu and looked at me with his ever-serious eyes,
"Prepare anything that you would recommend to others."
I thought for a second and turned around to prepare the dishes. I will prepare Shoyu Ramen and Shio Ramen. Both of them are expensive dishes in my shop. I don't think No.2 Hero will be that stingy to refuse to pay a little more yens on his lunch.
While preparing I decided to ask Endeavor,
"So what are you doing here?"
"Can't a Hero have his lunch?"
"No. That's not what I meant. I am asking what are you doing in my shop. If you wanted to have a lunch then you could've gone to some high standard restaurant instead of coming to my medium-sized shop."
"I was passing through this area after stopping a bank robbery and I saw your shop, so I decided to give a visit and have a lunch."
'Well that is liable.' I thought and continued to prepare the dishes.
...
After the dishes were done, I served the two steaming hot dishes in front of Endeavor.
"Here is your order. First is Shoyu Ramen and Second is Shio Ramen."
"Two?"
"Yeah. You are such a hardworking hero and you just came from solving a bank robbery. You must be hungry right? Thus, I thought you would like to eat more." I said with a professional smile on my face.
He picked up the menu and looked at it for a second. He then put it back and looked at me with a slight grimace on his face.
"You do this regularly?"
"This service only for special customers. So go ahead."
He pushed Shio ramen to me and started eating Shoyu Ramen.
"Do you not like Shio ramen?"
"You eat it. I don't have the appetite to eat two dishes. I will pay for it."
So I shrugged and started eating the free meal. We ate our meals in complete silence. Some time passed and we were still eating. Endeavor raised his head,
"Do you know anything that can exist and does not exist at the same time?"
'Why ask such a weird question over lunch? Is he drunk again? or is he having an existential crisis?' I thought but didn't said it aloud as that will be disrespectful for the future father-in-law.
"Hmm.. Quite a deep question. How about.... our thoughts and ideas, they are there in our mind but are not present in reality. So they exist and does not exist at the same time."
"Not the answer I wanted." He said and continued eating.
Now there was just silence in the shop. He didn't said a word after that. I completed my meal and put the bowl in the dishwasher. I then turned to look at the old man who is eating his food slowly thinking about something.
'He must be thinking about how to reunite with his family. Pretty sad. Let's lighten the mood a bit.'
"Hey... Todoroki-san."
"Hmm?"
"You know what exist and does not exist at the same time."
"No. That's why I asked you."
"Your relationship with your family..." I said in a light tone, trying to suppress my laughter.
Silence. Complete silence. It thought it was a good joke to crack at this time but it seems the joke was a bit below the belt.
"haha.."
I heard a slightly muffled chuckle. I looked at Endeavor who has stopped eating and was chewing his food but he had a small smile on his face.
It was great to see that this strict old man can take a joke and smile like a normal person. He laughed for some time and then stopped. He then completed eating his meal and pushed the bowl towards me.
"That was a good one." He said in a semi-serious tone. Humor is the magic that made this strict Hero laugh at a tense moment like this.
"You know you should smile like this more. Who knows you may become No.1 Hero with this?"
"I will become No.1 one with my own strength. I don't need such tactics to get that spot."
He went back to his usual serious mode and stood up from his seat and went to the door.
'He hasn't paid yet.'
I looked at him like he took away my organs to sell in Black Market. He turned back and hope returned for my empty money drawer.
"My Personal Assistant will pay you later. I don't carry money around with me."
He said the most heartbreaking thing you could say to a shopkeeper, that is 'pay you later', and went outside the shop. I sighed and looked forward for his PA to pay me 2000 yen in the future.
_______________________________________
[Musutafu City, 11:30 PM]
A black streak was going through the dark skies of the Musutafu City but nobody was able to see the streak or could identify it as a person because in eyes of people, it couldn't be seen.
Yes it is me and I am currently flying to the villain hideout which was chosen for the slaughter today. Eri is with Fuyumi like yesterday as today is Sunday. From tomorrow, I will have to leave her at Danjuro's Apartment or let her go to Fuyumi's home.
The villains I am going to hunt tonight are not that known in public eyes but they do shady business under the dark shadow of night, unknown to the public. Their business includes human trafficking, mostly being children. The better the quirk the child has, the more the price. I don't know who buys these kids or for what purposes.
But the closest thing I can think of, is to get and train kids with good quirk from an early age to make them a good asset or security personnel for big families or for experimentation.
No Scientific Institutions can do human experiments legally without any permit, so these businesses thrive on the orders of various laboratories which experiment on humans behind the curtains. And there are no signs of stopping of these experiments as the huge amount of ever-increasing quirks shows great variation in quirks almost unique for each person with slight variation, even if they are in the same category.
And scientists are crazy to find the reason about this, so they go beyond normal means and obtain these children from these traffickers, for research purposes.
...
After some more minutes of flying, I landed in front of a warehouse which is situated in the middle of nowhere in the forest.
I casually walked to the door of the warehouse and knocked.
*Knock Knock*
But there was no response. So I knocked again with more strength.
*KNOCK KNOCK*
"What is the password?" This time a question came after knocking the door.
"You know.. I am new to work and this is my first day at work. Boss didn't mentioned any password to enter."
"Say the password or leave."
"Okay.. Okay.. The password is... Die."
Before the man behind the door could do anything, a blade came out of the door and went inside his head directly without any resistance. The next moment, the door blasted open, which took the man behind the door with it. He was dead the moment katana went through his head. I looked at his body which was now squashed under the metal door.
I entered the warehouse casually while white smoke came out of my fist. I now have enough base strength to knock out metal doors without Super Punch.
I took out the katana stuck in the door and raised my head to look at the grunts gathering, trying to find what caused the loud sound.
I took out an Uzi from the Inventory and held it in my free hand.
I stretched the hand with Uzi towards the grunts and took back my hand with the katana, as I took the stance. The grunts who were running towards me, now circled me around and were in great numbers.
"Go Ahead. Make my day."
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