Chapter 480: Irrelevant Answers
Evening in The Inside.
Inside Oliva's private suite.
Ring-ring— Ring-ring—
The phone rang on and off, but Oliva simply stood silently before the desk,
dressed in a formal suit, cradling a bouquet of fresh crimson roses as he
patiently waited.
Right on schedule, timed down to the exact second.
Thump-thump—— thump-thump——
Oliva could hear his own heartbeat clear as day.
More than a decade had passed since he first crossed paths with "Maria."
Yet, in this exact moment, he felt just as giddy and nervous as he had on the
very first day they met.
He still walked on eggshells around her, feeling as though any given day might
be their last together...
"..."
The call connected. Maria—the lover he had yearned for all day—appeared on the
screen, her deeply cherished face filling the display.
Fortunately, Oliva was alone in the room.
Because if any of his subordinates had been present, the conversation that
followed would have kept them awake with terror for the rest of their lives.
Oliva got chewed out.
From the other end of the line came a relentless torrent of unfiltered abuse.
"You—worthless piece of trash!"
"Useless! Coward! Glutton! Soulless monster! Narcissist! Good-for-nothing!
Sissy!! Idiot! Moron————"
The vicious insults poured out in a non-stop stream, yet Oliva simply accepted
every single word. The moment she paused to draw breath, he stepped in, offering
the bouquet of roses with an expression of profound grievance.
"I'm sorry, sweet honey. I still need to stay out here for a few more days, but
I promise I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Please try to cheer up for me."
"..."
"..."
The angry panting on the other end gradually subsided, though it concluded with
a final, muttered grumble: "——Dummy."
Oliva smiled, leaning closer to the screen. "I might be a dummy, but I'm the
happiest dummy alive, because I have you by my side."
The woman on the other end fell silent for a long stretch. "Darling————"
Before she could finish, Oliva raised a hand, frantically waving it off.
The strongest man on earth suddenly found himself writhing in delightful agony
as he stammered, "Wait, wait, wait——!"
"Darling?! That word hits me way too hard—my heart can't take it!"
Oliva gently gripped the handkerchief resting on the desk, inhaling its scent.
Even though it wasn't a gift from his lover, but merely sourced from the
neighborhood where she used to live, the fragrance was enough to intoxicate him.
"——..."
On the screen, the woman slowly raised her hand.
Oliva caught the hint instantly. "Oh? I see. Are you trying to defeat me at
rock-paper-scissors?"
"..."
"Since we're settling this with a contest, I refuse to hold back."
He slowly raised a massive, slab-like fist, maintaining a dead-serious
expression. "When it comes to rock-paper-scissors, I happen to be number one in
America!"
As he spoke, the woman on the other end urged him impatiently, "Cut the chatter
and hurry up."
"Here~~ we~~ go~~~!"
Oliva pulled his fist back, playing along with maximum theatrical flair to match
the woman on the screen. "Rock~~ paper~~~ scissors!"
Snap!
Oliva thrust his fist forward.
Curiously, however, the hand gesture he threw didn't match rock, paper, or
scissors—it looked like a bizarre fusion of all three.
His palm was half-open, his ring and pinky fingers curled inward, while his
index and middle fingers were extended at an odd angle.
Whatever that gesture was supposed to represent, Maria countered with
"scissors."
"Aha~~~ damn it! I lost————"
Oliva's face crumpled in exaggerated despair, his eyelids and lips drooping into
a picture of utter defeat. "I was so torn between rock and paper! And I picked
paper!"
"..."
Maria remained silent, merely twitching her hand back and forth.
"Alright, I'll definitely beat you next time————!"
Oliva slapped his cheeks lightly, psyching himself up. "Rock~ paper~~~
scissors!"
Snap!
He threw his hand out again, landing on the exact same weird, ambiguous hybrid
gesture.
This time, Maria threw "rock."
Oliva winced dramatically. "Ah~~ lost again! I should've thrown paper!"
"..."
"..."
The rock-paper-scissors match continued, with Oliva throwing the exact same
strange hand sign every single time while deliberately losing to Maria,
accompanied by a running commentary of comedic wailing.
"Ah-ah~! I shouldn't have thrown scissors! Wanna go again————"
Win or lose, the outcome was entirely dictated by Maria's mood, making it quite
possibly the gentlest game ever played in human history.
After playing for a while, Maria grew drowsy, her eyes fluttering shut as soft,
gentle breathing drifted through the speaker.
Gently cradling the satellite phone, Oliva carried it over to his bed, lying
down beside the device and drifting off to sleep to the sound of Maria's
breathing.
"Darling————"
Maria suddenly murmured in her sleep. "I didn't win a single round tonight...
but————next time, I'm not gonna let you win either——"
"..."
Win or lose, the outcome was entirely dictated by Maria's whims, making it
equally the softest game ever played in human history.
Meanwhile, back at the Tokita Niko District camp.
Night had fully fallen.
Ren sat cross-legged atop the roof of an abandoned van, flipping through the
firearms magazine he had borrowed from Oliva while enjoying the evening breeze.
Fusui leaned against Ren's shoulder, tilting her head up to gaze at the stars
overhead.
The neon glow of the city made the stars look scattered and faint, lacking any
real visual interest, so the young girl quickly lost interest and joined Ren in
flipping through the magazine pages.
"This is a brand-new issue! Where'd you get this?"
"Mr. Oliva's place."
"~~~! This shop's got a brand-new line of tactical knives!"
"Indeed, they look quite well-made."
"I should put in an overseas order. Let me check with my family's channels..."
The young couple chatted idly about nothing in particular—just another ordinary,
unadventurous day in their lives.
The next day.
The weather turned chilly, overcast and gray, looking as though it might snow at
any moment.
Ren woke up early as usual, heading out for his morning jog around the district.
After cleaning up and eating breakfast, he jumped straight into his daily
training regimen, throwing punches and kicks against a battered, makeshift
punching bag.
Thump-thump-thump————
The scrapes and bruises he had sustained during his epic brawl with Guevara were
practically fully healed.
Because the punching bag was a piece of junk scavenged from the black market, it
shed a fine layer of gray dust that mixed with Ren's sweat and stuck to his
skin, leaving him looking a bit grimy.
As expected, nothing beat the professional equipment back at his own dojo.
——During a break, he suddenly felt a sudden wave of homesickness.
Right as Ren was pondering this, he glanced over to see Fusui walking toward him
with a towel, smiling brightly as she reached out to wipe the sweat from his
neck.
"I heard there's a winter festival happening in the Tokyo suburbs soon!"
Fusui mentioned casually, "Arisa and her friends were talking about it.
Apparently, there's tons of fun stuff to do; I kinda wanna check it out..."
Ren arched an eyebrow with a grin. "If you wanna go, let's go."
Fusui blinked her black-sclera eyes. "So, I wanna go with Big Brother Ren!"
At that moment, a local gang member trotted over, holding up a prop. "Whoa! As
expected of our boss and lady boss! Want a rose? I got one just like Mr. Oliva's
right here."
Swish.
Ren extended his hand in a flat spear-hand, lightly jabbing the grinning thug in
the stomach.
"Oof~!"
The thug squeaked as he tumbled backward, loudly promising never to interrupt
the couple's cozy moment again.
"Still, though————"
The thug rubbed his belly, grinning broadly. "I suppose Boss Ren still has to go
settle things with that [Mr. Unchain] guy, huh?"
"————Is that so?"
Ren didn't give a direct answer, merely letting out a breezy yawn. "Whether I
feel like going or not, that's entirely up to me."
The thug looked completely lost, about to press for clarification when he
suddenly felt a massive shadow loom over him.
Turning around, he found himself face-to-face with [The Unchained] Biscuit
Oliva!
"..."
Hanging around to gossip about the big bosses was a dangerous game, so the thug
made himself scarce in record time. Fusui offered a polite wave of farewell,
leaving her sweat towel behind on the bench.
"..."
Compared to the sweat-soaked Ren, Oliva looked immaculate. His tailored
three-piece suit was razor-sharp and utterly pristine, completely devoid of dust
or wrinkles.
"Practicing, are you————?"
Oliva swept his gaze across the crude setup, offering a teasing chuckle. "What a
pathetic excuse for a gym."
"Though it's rather impolite to say so out loud, it's the absolute truth. Even
your Soul Combat Hub back in Tokyo blows this training facility out of the
water."
Oliva shifted his tone. "Me, on the other hand—"
"My exclusive training facility even comes equipped with a helipad!"
"No matter how much you preach about your 'freedom,' and no matter how much you
try to downplay what I possess, simple reality speaks for itself."
Oliva raised an eyebrow.
"Aside from my training grounds, my food, clothing, housing, and transportation
rank among the absolute pinnacle of global luxury."
"Fine dining, vintage wine, fine cigars————even my bed is a king-size
masterpiece fit for royalty."
"You should let me host you sometime, just so you can experience firsthand the
vast chasm in our living standards."
Oliva used the opening to circle back and systematically dismantle Ren's
critique from the day before.
"You claimed yesterday that my possessions were 'excessive,' but the reality is
precisely the opposite."
"Precisely because my personal capacity is sufficiently massive, what looks like
'excess' to someone of your scale fits me down to the millimeter."
"Perhaps it's beyond your comprehension, but my freedom is fully worthy of those
things————"
With that delivered, Oliva folded his arms and stared calmly down at Ren,
wearing a confident, self-satisfied smile, fully convinced he had dropped an
unanswerable checkmate.
Ren, however, sat mulling it over for a long beat before his face lit up with a
sudden flash of realization.
"Ah————oh, right, right. The two of us did talk about all that stuff yesterday,
didn't we?"
"Anyway, Oliva————"
Ren slapped his thigh, his eyelids curling up as he broke into a grin.
"I'm starting to think that you keeping hung up on this topic is actually just
your way of masking a deep, underlying insecurity."
☆☆☆
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