Beating the Shit out of an Annoying Employee

[The Devil System is currently idle]

[Waiting for conditions to fully activate...]

[Calculating...]

[...]

[Progress Towards Activation: 39%]

...

In the large car park, I was fighting one of the perpetrators.

From the looks of things, it was going to be a sword fight. Luckily, that was my strong suit.

He instantly charged at me, holding a fizzling yellow blade in his hand.

I quickly swung my sword, knocking him off balance. I heard a slight sizzling noise as our two weapons made contact. He quickly turned and tried to slash at my neck. It was quite easy to evade his obvious attack. I simply took a step back as his blade swung past my neck. I could taste a weird electrical sensation in my mouth; it fizzled on my tongue.

Planting my right foot into the ground, I jabbed at his stomach. As fast as he could, he jumped back to dodge the attack. I wasn't really trying that hard since it was clear that this boy was just an amateur. A slight breeze brushed against me as he tried to position himself. I couldn't even be bothered using my Interceptor against him.

I closed the distance between the two of us and swung my blade at him again. Desperately, he reacted to block my attacks. However, it was easy to see that he was struggling. He was an F or E-ranked esper at best, from what I could tell.

With one big swing, I knocked him to the side. As he tried to regain his balance, I raised my leg and kicked him. He fell to the ground, rolling in the dust that lathered the floor of this car park. A little cloud of dirt and other debris covered the air as his body smashed into the hard concrete floor.

I slowly made my way over and stomped on his leg. There was a sharp crackling sound as my foot fell upon his ankle.

"Agh! Stop it... who on earth are you?!"

"I should be asking you that question."

He huddled into a little ball and tucked his face into his legs. With a thump, I kicked his stomach, causing him to flop around like a fish. A few moments later, he gripped his stomach in pain, wincing as he rolled around the ground.

"Stop! Please stop it!"

I made my way over as he looked at me with a face filled with fear.

That's a better look~

I crouched down and pulled him up by his hair. He winced again as he tried to grab at my arms. Forming my left hand into a fist, I punched him in the face. The top of my knuckles was covered by a splatter of red liquid from his nose. His face was completely scrunched up, tears ran from his eyes, and blood ran from his fractured nose.

"...s-stop... I'm sorry... just let me go."

"You know, I'm not too happy that you guys kidnapped my date."

"...y-y-you don't look very... sad..."

Ah.

Whoops, maybe I went a bit overboard.

I let go of his hair, and his face smashed onto the ground again.

Oops.

Very slowly, he pulled himself into a seated position.

"Now, I want you to tell me what you're doing."

"N-no... I c-can't..."

I glared at him.

"Are you really in a position to say that?"

I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him up until I could see his pitiful, crying face looking down at me. His entire body was limp, like it had been sapped of all of its energy. As he looked into my eyes, his pupils dilated—his entire body was frozen in fear.

"Come on, spit it out."

"U-um... w-well... the boss... he..."

"Speak clearly, please."

"O-oh... sorry, uh... the boss told us to get the girl..."

"You're not making a lot of sense. I told you to speak clearly, did I not?"

His body was quivering.

Ugh, what a pain.

Somewhat gently, I set him down on the ground.

"Tell me, what is your group's goal."

He took some deep breaths.

"The boss... he said t-that he needed the girl for some reason..."

"I can see that. However, there's something that's confusing me."

He stayed silent as he waited for me to continue.

"How did you guys manage to kidnap her so easily."

"U-uh... well... we h-have a h-hostage..."

I see now.

That made a little more sense.

Aiko was definitely someone who cared about her friends—at least as far as I could tell. It wasn't all that surprising that she'd be easily swayed if one of her friends were kidnapped.

"So, where are you taking her."

"U-um... I-I don't know... I was just hired as a m-mercenary... I don't know anything!"

Hmm, this seemed a little more complicated than I expected.

"Now, tell me everything else you know."

"I-I honestly don't know a-anything... I'm just a hired peon..."

I raised my leg and kicked him in the head. With a thump, his body slammed into the ground, and he lethargically grabbed at the concrete floor. Blood had stained quite a large bit of the car park floor, mixed with some tears and snot as well.

Annoying.

Based on what I could deduce, if they hired such a weak-seeming mercenary, they likely didn't have any strong espers on their team. They must have just hired him to deal with any pursuers, but he wasn't in any position to fight against an actually skilled esper or against Spectrum-Judgement.

I assumed that they had quite a bit of confidence in their hostage. They must have captured someone who they knew Aiko would care about. To be completely honest, I wasn't all that interested in the specifics.

The main difficulty now would be searching for them.

My power would only be effective if they were actively using esper abilities or using their Disrupter. If Aiko wasn't engaging in combat with them, then I would have no way to locate where they were.

I guess I'd try, at least.

I got up and walked to a nearby concrete pillar.

Concentrating on my thoughts, I extended my search range.

I was looking for EM-waves that were being converted into d-waves.