Battle Plans and Statues

"Look, if we're gonna do this, we need to go all out."

After we had left the guild, we walked around the time for a bit before we sat down in a quiet place of the park. This was so that we wouldn't easily be heard whilst discussing this potentially life-threatening plan.

The Girl was the first one to ask a question and she said

"What does that entail?"

I answered

"Basically, we need to defeat the leader and end the mafia."

Hiruma's jaw, understandably, dropped a bit as she asked

"Ehh? Why do we have to do that!?"

I answered

"We don't HAVE to. But that's the best and maybe even the easiest option in this situation. Remember that a big mafia gang is our target here. If we managed to get in and somehow escape with this 'Lillie' girl, do you know how much the mafia would search for us? We would never be able to do something in this town, perhaps even the country, again. The mafia simply doesn't let things like these go. Therefore, we have to destroy the gang in order to stay safe.

There's just no probability of us being able to sneak in there and escaping without being noticed. And EVEN if we managed to do that, the mafia would use their information network to find out where the girl went and who was connected to her. So destruction is our best bet."

Hiruma swallowed a big lump of anxiety as she reviewed the situation in her head. The casual and happy grin that she'd had on her face faded slowly and turned into a nervous frown. She said

"This whole thing turned into quite a big thing. Shouldn't we get the government involved or something?"

I shook my head, signaling that it wasn't possible, but with an agreeing undertone to the action. I started talking once again

"That's not really possible. If the government could solve issues like this so easily, mafias wouldn't even exist. Especially when it comes to a single person. And with that, I want to direct some critique to The Girl here. Do you really want us to get involved in a project this big just to save one person we don't even know? There's also the previously named possibility of this all being a ploy by the mafia to recruit intelligent encrypters. Basically, there's no benefit on our part."

The Girl pouted a bit before saying

"I don't care what the probability is! As long as there's a chance of someone needing help, I'm ready to put my life on the line."

I sighed and tried putting some real-life facts into the situation

"I don't really want to be pessimistic realist now, but that's pretty irrational. You have to consider that this isn't a rare occurrence. A lot of people are exploited by the mafia daily and become victims of human trafficking and such. As much as I don't like to admit, this isn't a special case and it's not really worth risking your life for it. It's not in our place to take the law into our own hands and disrupt this thing."

The Girl pouted even more and said

"I don't care! Besides, wouldn't that be a bigger reason to do it? That means that we're not actually saving just one life, but many more as well. Let's do it!"

I sighed in utter defeat and turned to Hiruma. I said

"And that's how it is. I 100% understand if you want to leave now, the choice is yours. I probably have to follow through with this plan due to external factors."

But Hiruma was looking at The Girl with an entranced look, like she was the white knight of a medieval age legend.

- I suppose that when someone is exerting such confidence and kindness for other people, people tend to admire that person. That certainly was the same in my former world, when you look at stuff like Superheroes from western comics and the protagonists from Manga and such they are conventionally righteous, kindhearted and firm in their beliefs. Perhaps people look up to people like that because it symbolizes what they desire to become as people, or maybe they just think it's cool. But the decisions and analytical processes those characters go through are sometimes very idealistic and therefore unrealistic. Like when it comes to normal robberies and such, your average Shonen protagonist would just beat the crap out of the robber and that would be that. But that's a very dangerous thing to try out in the real world.

I suppose The Girl sees this reincarnation as a way of living out those outlandish fantasies of heroism. But that could have some devastating consequences, even though she has some OP powers. But I can't even complain, since I have on multiple occasions done similar things in this world.

On one side I really want to do such acts of heroism and improve as a person. But on the other side, I don't want to risk this second chance at life that I've been given. Just because we're in another world doesn't mean that the danger of everything is gone.

I'll have to find a balance between the desire to exist and the desire to improve as a person. Something that'll be difficult, indeed.

But I suppose that's what The Girl is also aiming for, to become a better person.-

Hiruma jumped into the air and screamed

"Okay, Let's do this!"

…

We were now walking down the streets of Koraen. After Hiruma for the second time declared her interest in this project, we decided to march down to the city hall in order to potentially gather some information on the mafia of this town. I took this as an opportunity to check out the culture of this city. At the sides of the street were street vendors trying to dispose of their products in order to earn some money, your average half-assed market. The products they were selling though were something else. A lot of them had fruits I had never seen before and materials never witnessed by other-worlders like us. The next thing I focused on was the people roaming around the town, since the heart of any nation lies in the people residing in it. The fashion sense of the people around us was bizarre. It seemed to be a crossing between stereotypical medieval "I don't have any money so I'm going to wear some rags" and high fashion. This made me reconsider life quickly, since it truly was weird seeing a teenage girl wearing potato skin as earrings and thin sewing thread that just pointed outward for some reason. I honestly couldn't tell if this was the poor version of London fashion week or just a casual outfit one put on before meeting up with your friends. Nonetheless, I was surprisingly pleased with the sight of all of these people walking around with weird clothes having a good time. I suppose that it didn't really matter if it looked weird, as long as they enjoyed the experience they had with those clothes. It didn't seem like other people were judging each other for their styles, so perhaps it was a friendly neighborhood we were walking through. After looking around the street for a moment, I turned my attention forward. The moment I do that, I notice a menacing man walking towards my direction. The man has a casual but confident walking pattern and has stern facial expression.

- I wasn't aware that someone drugged my drink, because I'm pretty sure I'm seeing "Go Go Go Go" characters behind this man right now. This guy has a really scary aura around him. Wait… What if this guy is connected to the mafia? That gives me an even scarier thought, how many of the people on this street have ties to the mafia? I may be acting like a schizophrenic, paranoid conspiracy theorist now, but there is a possibility that multiple people on this street is related to the mafia, blending in with the normal people. To think that danger could lurk so close to one is a scary thought. Even though my heart rate probably went to unhealthy levels right now, I should probably not think about such paranoid stuff right now. But it is very possible that the frightening that just passed me has destroyed several lives. -

With that thought still lingering deep within myself, I continued to walk towards the city hall that I was seeking. The other two didn't seem to have pondered the same question as they walked through this what-seemed-to-be nice street.

…

The ancient-looking building that was in front of us must have been the city hall that we were seeking. The building was at the top side of the plaza that was in front of us. The plaza had dozens of people standing around minding their own business. The majority seemed to be some sort of adventurers just lounging around and waiting for their next international calling, like they were meant for something greater than themselves. Oops, a bit of cynicism slipped out there.

Right in the middle of the plaza stood a beautiful, but questionable, statue that depicted a large potato followed by a couple of swords and shields. The statue itself was incredibly well-sculpted, but the thing they chose to depict is bizarre beyond belief. I turned to Hiruma and asked

"May I ask what the hell that statue is?"

As I pointed at the statue, Hiruma turned around and looked at me in horror. Upon receiving a look that could kill, I looked around and noticed a couple of other people looking at me the same way. Hiruma then started running at me with full speed and jump-kicked my hand into the air, so that I pointed at the sky before I retracted my hand in horror. When the horror-looking was over between all of us, I asked

"What're you doing!?"

Hiruma said

"You can't do that, not at 'The Spring of Anger'"

I immediately said back

"What's 'That'!? You mean pointing!? That doesn't make sense, I thought this was a country of freedom! Also, 'Spring'? There's no damn water here, right!?"

Hiruma grabbed my shoulder and said

"Are you dumb? 'Spring' as in the season! Are you actually implying that you don't know what 'The Spring Of Anger' is?"

The Girl shook her head slowly with a strangely big amount of shame amounting within her. I laughed a bit and said

"How naive you are, The Girl, and you call yourself a resident of this great country called Es-- I mean Ouest Hekia?"

The Girl shouted

"Shut up, you literally just said it wrong! Like you know what it is! We weren't even taught that in our small village school. You even pointed at it before and asked 'what the hell is that'!"

I shook my head and said

"How naive, The Girl. I was obviously pointing at the azure-colored sky, duh."

The Girl got even angrier and said

"Don't call me naive! Call me 'The Unnaive Girl', Right now!"

I continued

"Okay, The Un-UnNaive Girl.

You must have skipped school like you usually did, you damn delinquent. Because I can still remember the day clearly, like it had happened yesterday, when our dedicated and wonderful teacher XueSheng Hao went through Hekian, excuse me I mean Heskian, history."

The Girl suddenly got a tired expression and made a simple but infinitely terrifying demand

"Explain what it is then? If you remember it so clearly."

I cleared my throat whilst making awkward and threatening eye contact with The Un-unnaive Girl.

- Why do you have to hang me out like that, The Girl? We were crying an hour ago, and now you're back to bullying me and assessing your weird Sadist needs. But fret not, Current Markus/Kasoha/thinker. When discussing history, the reasoning behind statues and symbols are usually quite straight-forward and sometimes even generic. I'm sure it's the same in this country, and this time I will succeed. So my battle-plan is to just create a generic situation.-

I smiled smugly and said

"It's you know… that. That demi-human who threw the potato at a politician in protest for how The Chosen Empire treated their species. This was when people started to realize the tyranny that had been displayed by the Emperor. This event took place in spring, thus the fitting name of the statue"

When Hiruma looked at me disapprovingly, I looked back at her in horror like she and the other bullies at this plaza had done before.

Hiruma said

"I think you're the damn delinquent here, because I've never even heard of a story like that relating to the Spring of Anger"

-That hurts! That hurts more than you think, Hiruma! Just because The Girl usually bullies me to a pulp doesn't mean that you need to jump on the bandwagon. If this continues, I might actually go and buy a pack of cheese. Yes, that's how insane I will become.-

Hiruma continued and explained the actual story

"The statue is actually about a demi-human raccoon girl who got executed for eating a potato that she had bought from a vendor in town. She was executed by some extreme anti demi-human government officials who used a sword and a shield. Most of the local government was against demi-humans, but these officials were really insane This caused an uproar among the population, who had realized that demi-humans weren't that different from regular humans thanks to a historical period known as 'The Demi-lightenment', and the noble in charge of this province, along with the most extreme anti demi-human officials, in the empire were executed by having them eat a potato whilst getting killed with a sword and a shield. The raccoon girl got execute here in Koraen, that's why the statue's here."

My eyes were wide-open after hearing that story, I did not expect anything like that.

The Girl looked at the statue with sympathetic eyes, looking like she really felt bad for that raccoon girl.

-Damn, I did not expect that at all. Now I'm shocked and shocked. Oops, looks like I'm shocked to the shoc--- Crap! I can't think pro—shock.-